++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Day 5++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Grima & Delwyn

Grima Wormtongue was not quite sure, but he sensed that though the other members of Lord Deorwine's household were shattered by the loss of his eldest daughter, the other daughter, the missing girl's twin, was not so unhappy. The golden-haired child with the glacial emerald eyes sat at the window of the Royal Library, staring out into the night. She held a cloth and wooden doll tight to her chest. A princess in a white tower, safe behind her stone walls.

"Little one… Lady Delwyn, you should not be alone. You should remain with your mother, helping to mind your brother," he murmured gently. The child cast him a dismissive glance, but did not answer. "Surely the Lady Gwynaeth is needful of you. Or perhaps your grandfather, the King's Minstrel. Perhaps he would enjoy your company." Again she cast him a glance, this one irritated, before returning to stare out the window. Her knuckles whitened as her grip tightened on the doll identical to Beornulf. Struggling so hard not to notice the monster under the bed. But was he the monster… or the light that banished it?

"Ah, I see." Grima pulled a chair up and sat down to face her. "You do not wish their company. They upset you. They are afraid for your sister. They are afraid for Eothain. They are afraid for Gleowine, and the nightmares and terrors that have struck him silent. Is that not so?" This time, the child nodded, a mere jerk of her chin towards her chest, but Grima saw it, saw the anger in it. "But… but, they are not afraid for you. What happened to you, my lady? What did the orcs do to you?"

Little girl, little girl, let the big, bad wolf come in….

The child turned to him, then, and held out her hand, pulling back her sleeve, revealing a long cut, from the middle of her upper arm to her wrist. The flesh around it was fish pale, threaded with fat, green veins and razor thin, jagged red lines. When he touched it, ever so gently, she flinched. He did, too, jerking his hand back from the hot, swollen flesh.

"Why did you tell no one about this?" He asked curiously. He was shocked that the child hadn't succumbed to blood poisoning or fever. The sheer stubbornness of Deorwine's brood, perhaps. The same stubbornness that kept Eothain still among the living, despite the fever ravaging his body; the same stubbornness that made Gleowine shove his tiny fist in his mouth to muffle his screams so he wouldn't wake his mother from her troubled dreams. That stubbornness that made Delwyn refuse to ask her broken-hearted mother or her distracted, worried father for help, when Gwynaeth was so focused on the missing Deorwyn and Deorwine so focused on the feverish Eothain. He admired that stubbornness, especially in one so young.

She shrugged, and let her sleeve fall back down to her wrist. "Mama was busy. Papa was with Eothain. Gleowine is too little to help." He tasted bitterness in those words, a bitterness she was far too young to have. Perhaps she had lost a friend or a playmate in the attack. Perhaps she, too, was hurting the way Lord Deorwine was hurting for the loss of some of his comrades.

"Will you let me see to your wound, my lady?" He held out a hand to her. This was it. Up until this point, she had kept a solid stone wall around her, and he had been slowly wedging a chisel beneath it, breaking the wall from its foundations. Only a little space, but it was all he would need to get inside. And here, this was the final tap to the chisel to break the stone. Would it work?

She took his hand. The wall slowly began to crumble.

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