"Good morning!" Sanewen said brightly, attempting to cheer the elfling up. It had no effect on said elfling. Sanewen brought the breakfast tray that she carried with her over to the elfling. "Would you like some breakfast?" she asked.
"No thank you." Tauriel said. It wasn't that she wasn't hungry, it was that she didn't want to eat. She missed her family.
"Are you sure? You need to keep your strength up so you can heal." Sanewen said. She knew Tauriel probably hadn't eaten for a few days. If she had been unconscious on the way here, then she wouldn't have eaten for three days. The elfling would eat when she was hungry enough, but in the meantime, Sanewen needed to look at her wound.
"I'm sure." Tauriel said.
"I need to look at your wound." Sanewen said. Tauriel nodded, and pushed the blankets away from her. Sanewen lifted up Tauriel's shirt to expose her abdomen. She carefully unwrapped the bandages, and found that blood had spotted the fabric almost immediately. It seemed that the herbs that Sanewen had applied to the wound had not done their job. The wound was still tender when Sanewen probed it, and Tauriel winced in pain. Sanewen applied more herbs, rebandaged the wound, and left Tauriel alone. Tauriel hated being alone. That only left her to her own thoughts, and that was dangerous. Tauriel could not help but think of her family, and how they were dead. She wished that they were alive with her or she dead with them. She missed them so much, and she couldn't keep the tears back. Tauriel curled up in a small ball and wept.
"Lunchtime!" Sanewen said as she entered into the room. At first, she thought that Tauriel had somehow left until she saw a small lump under the covers in Tauriel's bed. Sanewen put the tray she was carrying down on a table and approached the bed. She lifted up the blankets, to reveal Tauriel, curled into a ball on her side, her body shaking with the force of her sobs. Tauriel lifted her head to reveal a tear stained face when she felt the blankets lift from her body.
"Tauriel?" Sanewen asked, hoping that she would be able to comfort the elfling as she moved to embrace the elfling. The elfling did not respond, only curled back up tighter, and sobbed again.
"It's all right." Sanewen said soothingly as she smoothed the hair of the small elfling in her arms, hoping to comfort Tauriel.
Tauriel was sleeping once more. Sanewen eased the elfling out of her arms and covered her with a blanket. Sanewen made up her mind. Tauriel had to be around people more often. Tauriel had only been in the Hall for a few days, but Sanewen could tell the loneliness was getting to her. Elven family bonds functioned in such a way that an elf could always feel that their family was there. As such, elves never felt true loneliness, as they always felt the presence of their family. Bonds were only broken when a family member died. When the bonds were broken, the loss could quite literally kill. Sanewen was afraid that the elfling might die because of the broken bonds, her would, or the loneliness, unless Sanewen could find her some friends. Going to school might help. Being around other elflings might help Tauriel feel less lonely. It might also help in the healing of the wound. Grief sometimes impeded healing a wound, and no matter how many herbs were put on it, the wound would refuse to heal if the elf was too lost in grief. Sanewen was afraid that that might happen to Tauriel.
Tauriel dreamed the dream again. It was just as scary, or worse. The dream made her want to disappear, curl into a ball and fade away. Every time she saw her family it was followed by death, almost like a curse in a fairy story. Maybe she was cursed to die. Maybe she was cursed to live. Living without her family was like living without half of her body. It hurt, and she couldn't even remember her family without remembering their deaths. Tauriel almost didn't want to live anymore, wanted to join them in death so she wouldn't be alone anymore. It felt like no one cared about her like her family did, like no one ever would. She was lonely, terrified, and sad.
The problem with school, it seemed, was that Tauriel could not yet get out of bed. Her wound seemed to prohibit most movement. Tauriel couldn't even raise her arms to braid her own hair without her wound hurting. Sanewen tried her best to get the elfling to move as much as she could, so her muscles would not become weak. Two weeks later, Tauriel had managed to walk enough to be able to go to school.
"Everyone, this is Tauriel. She is a new student from Aneron and will be joining us for the rest of the year." the teacher said. Tauriel walked, albeit slowly, to her desk at the back of the room. Everyone stared at her. Tauriel knew why. It was because she was different. Her hair was red, she couldn't move quickly and with grace like most Elves because of her wound, and she was a bit thicker around the waist then most elves, but that was because of the bandage. Her wound had still not healed, and might have gotten worse. Sanewen didn't know why, but it might have been from moving too much. Tauriel took her seat and the teacher started the lesson on the history of the Eldar. Today's lesson happened to be on the Fëanorians and the Kinslayings. The thing that the teacher said that resonated most strongly with the elflings was that most of the Fëanorians had red hair. When that particular fact was mentioned, all of the elflings turned to stare at Tauriel and her waist length red hair. She shrunk back into her seat and looked at the ground, trying to ignore the whispers of "kinslayer" and "traitor" that came from the mouths of her classmates. She hadn't been alive then, it was an entirely different Age! She was a Sylvian Elf, not one of the Noldor, Tauriel thought to herself as she bit her lip to keep from crying. There were plenty of other Elves in Mirkwood that had red hair, and not all of the were descended from Fëanor, and she certainly wasn't! She wasn't a kinslayer, and she wanted to tell the other elflings that, but the teacher had said at the beginning of class that interruptions were not tolorated. Tauriel didn't want to get in trouble on the first day of class, so she suffered the whispers of the other elflings in silence.
Lunch. Tauriel sat with a few of her new classmates. They ignored her. They didn't even acknowledge her presence with a nod or a greeting when she sat down, and instead talked about her as though she did not sit next to them. At recess, Tauriel was left alone. None of the other elflings even approached her, and she couldn't join in any of their games, as that would require running, which she couldn't do. Tauriel felt more lonely then ever. She was surrounded by Elves, but she couldn't be more isolated. She was the only one who had lost any family members in the attack on her village, and she had lost everyone. Even her friends from Aneron ignored her. They had made other friends while she was in the Halls of Healing and had forgotten about her. Some asked if she wanted to play with them, but she told them that she couldn't. They didn't ask why, and she didn't offer an explanation. They all knew that she was badly hurt after the attack, but they didn't know the details. Their parents had not told them how dire Tauriel's situation was for fear of scaring them. So Tauriel sat alone in the shadows, while she watched the other elflings play and wished she was one of them. Wished she still had a family. Wished someone loved her. Wished someone cared about her.
The afternoon lessons passed without note. Tauriel slowly made her way to the Halls of Healing once more, tiny shoulders slumped with defeat. She had made no friends. No one had talked to her, and she had been too afraid to talk to them. She was feeling more lonely then ever. Sanewen saw her small charge walking dejectedly down the hallway. Immediately she knew something was wrong. Something had happened while the elfling was at school. Sanewen was puzzled. Usually, letting elflings go to school helped them to feel better, at least a bit, since they were around Elves their own age.
"Tauriel?" Sanewen asked. She needed to find out what happened. Tauriel ignored her and went strait to the children's ward, and laid down in her bed. She took shaky breaths as she remembered the events of the past day. The stares, people ignoring her, and her old friends abandoning her had all taken a heavy toll on the elfling. She thought she couldn't be more alone after she found out her parents died, but now this social isolation just added to it. The tears started to fall. She didn't know what she was even going to do. With no Nana and Ada it seemed like she would never have a true home again. Nana would never bake her another birthday cake again, and Ada would never teach her how to shoot when she was twenty five, like he promised he would. The tears fell faster. No more Saturday afternoon picnics at the clearing, no more trying to stay up all night at the winter solstice with Benion to try and see who brought the gifts. Nothing.
Sanewen found Tauriel drenched in her own tears, but sleeping, a few hours later. Sanewen supposed that she would find out what happened when the elfling woke. Sanewen had noted that Tauriel hadn't been sleeping very much, and would often wake with puffy eyes, as though she had been crying in the night. Sanewen felt awful that the elfling was going through so much grief, but there was nothing she could do to help her. Tauriel had not yet faded, but seemed to grieve more as time went on. Nothing really helped the elfling. It seemed like every day was another day without her parents, and without love. Each day that passed Tauriel grew more and more withdrawn. She barely talked now, and when she did, her voice sounded hollow, as though she were broken inside. She sometimes simply refused to eat for days at a time. A month later, Tauriel could barely get out of bed. All she wanted was her parents, and they were dead. It seemed as though she had made up her mind to join them in death. Sanewen tried her best to prevent this, but the elfling's gaze eventually became blank and uncaring. All she did was sit in her bed, not even crying any more. It was as though she had given up on life, love, and hope.
Hi! So I said I wouldn't be posting, but I had some time to write and this happened. There'll be about another chapter of sadness, then things will start to get better. If you're curious (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), the Kinslayings were a series of wars between the Noldor Elves and the rest of the Elves and they basically were caused by Fëanor and/or his descendants, most of which had red hair. I thought I'd put that in there because why not. Let me know if I have any information about the whole Kinslaying thing wrong, I learned about it from the Wikipedia page, so I'm not entirely sure if what I have is correct or if I understood it properly. Remember to follow, favorite, and review! Starship T.A.R.D.I.S. out!