Pain Knows No Boundaries

Nymhriel leaned against the bedroom door, clutching her heart. She raised a shaking hand to rub her eyes with the heel of her palm. Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly. In the quiet of the cottage's main room, she could almost hear the beating of her heart.

The sound of a horse's hooves outside signaled the arrival of another patient, coming from who knows where, wanting her help with who knows what. The healer stood and smoothed the front of her dress. Her hands trembled, so she clenched her fists to steady them.

The morning passed in a fog. More than once, a patient asked if she was all right. Offered assistance. Steadied her when she faltered.

She could not bring herself to enter the bedroom to feed the orc at noontime. His ignorant words, his ridiculous assumptions... Just thinking about it made her blood boil. Reducing the tender intimacies of husband and wife to such base and vile description! And the audacity of asking if she wanted a child! When she would have done anything, anything to fulfill her duty as a wife...

The filthy thing was in her bed. The bed she might still be sharing with her husband, had he not marched to war and never returned. Dead by the hand of a beast like Gundshau.

Nymhriel took a moment to steady herself, sinking into a chair at her table. Angwedhon's absence seemed to fill the room like a presence. She could almost smell him.

She didn't even realize she was weeping.

Patients came and went, and by evening, Nymhriel was unable to cross the room without stumbling. Her hands could barely hold the knife as she prepared a simple meal for herself and the... him. It. That thing. With his deformed body. Ugly face. A mockery of a man's form.

With a start, she held up her hand where the knife had cut through the web of skin between thumb and forefinger. The crimson liquid welling from the wound transfixed her. It ran down her palm. A trickle slid over her wrist. She could almost see the pulsing below the skin. Closing her fist, she watched as the blood pooled in the curl of her finger and thumb, fascinated. Opening her hand again, the accumulated fluid poured like a waterfall onto the floor.

Followed swiftly by Nymhriel herself.

A dull thud from beyond the door startled Gundshau from his slumber. He was hungry and thirsty, and hadn't seen his captor for hours. A glance out the window told him the sun was beginning its descent.

He debated calling for her. She didn't come to feed him at noon, either. It was worrisome. He supposed, perhaps, he had said something wrong. Sighing, he settled himself in to wait, letting his mind wander.

It was actually nice being clean, he mused. He hadn't cared much about it after he joined the Dark Lord's army. Once he'd crawled through every stinking swamp and mud pit outside of Mordor with no hope of bathing for weeks, filth became a tolerable second skin. He even stopped wrinkling his nose at other orcs' smells. It had been years since he smelled anything pleasant.

Nymhriel's hair smelled good. He smiled at the memory of pressing his face into the long tresses, breathing in the scent of flowers. It reminded him of home, a pasture of alfalfa swaying in the wind like tumbling waves. His da teaching him and his brothers how to stalk their prey through the grasses, how to shoot straight, how to skin and cure the hide. He taught them to fletch their own arrows, and to waste nothing of the kill. Gundshau had been looking forward to his coming of age, when his da would take him aside and lift the veil from the mysteries of life, including those which Nymhriel evidently felt he should have already known about.

There was much he no longer remembered of the home he'd once known. A great deal he chose not to remember, yet came to him now in spite of his wishes.

A shadow passed over his face as memories of his da inevitably led to the orc's death, Gundshau forced to run ahead of the tarks riding through the settlement on their tall horses, the sun glinting off silver mail and steel swords. His ma roaring a challenge, clutching his newest sibling to her breast as the axe descended, silencing her. The Men purposefully riding back and forth, back and forth, trampling his baby sister into an unrecognizable mass of flesh and bones. His da rallying a force of archers, only to be ridden down and put to the sword himself. Gundshau running, running, nearly blinded by panic and fear, stumbling over bodies, some of them family, staring wide-eyed at the cloudless sky, shock and pain on their faces.

A sob tore from his throat, and tears fell down his face to wet the crisp, white pillow beneath his head.