Kizár Elená Durin · @SilmarilNaro
7th Feb 2015 from TwitLonger
Quest-verse: Kizár's Thoughts.
Kizár lay back on the grass and stared up at the star that, until a few short months ago, she and everyone else in Middle Earth had believed was her sister. She knew the truth now, that it wasn't Lossanárë, but instead a lantern crafted by Aulë to light Eärendil's way. Lossanárë had even had a part in the crafting, donating her White Fire to light it.
A far better fate than could have happened - than *did* happen in another life, in that life briefly sent to them while Kíli was completing the two shapeshifting rings for herself and her sister.
That pour soul, her other self, she was still so very raw from the Deep Fire, still hurting and damaged and so very fragile. Even before she had met Kíli in that swamp, a little over sixty years ago, Kizár had been out of the Deep Fire for some time. She had no way of measuring how long she had wandered through caves under the Misty Mountains, dodging orcs and trying to find a way out, but she suspected it spanned a number of years. Certainly the time it took her to descend from the mountain slope she surfaced on, down onto the Eriador plains was somewhere over a year - it was a pity it seemed she had missed the spring thaw as she might have done it quicker if she had caught meltwater streams.
Maybe that time compared to the time her Other, Elennárë, had taken to make her way across Gorgoroth and over the Mountains of Shadow, but after that was the simple fact that Elennárë had only lived twelve years so far, while Kizár had over five times that length to heal and rebuild herself.
And Kizár had Elenaria in her background. Elennárë had not. Elennárë was a life where they had decided not to take that course, decided to brave it out in Angband. Kizár could see the effects.
Living in Thedas had made the Elennárë Fëanoriel who became Kizár stronger. She had to learn how to cope with mortality and with losing people she cared for to death. First Neria, the elvhen girl who first found her, then a long line of Neria's descendants. It made Elenaria not fear losing people, even though she mourned each of them as they passed. That live had even given her the name "Elenaria", as it was a mispronunciation of Elennárë that quickly became a fond nickname and later again became her name when she took her body.
For a long time Elenaria had resisted the idea of using the theory she and Lossanárë had debated and she had objected to as being graceless and disconcerting in an immortal society. She had eventually accepted that in Thedas, where even the Elves were mortal and as short-lived as the humans, having a body for the short period of sixty to eighty years was not quite so unsettling to her, but it still took her a long time to get to the point where she offered it as an option to Ethiliel, as a solution to her child-bearing problems.
Elenaria Surana had a hard life, and had to learn how to face down very human greed and nastiness on a face-to-face level unlike her protected existence as the Surana family's great secret. The Tower was a life of ill-concealed constant fear, being a Grey Warden was a life constant fighting and hunting down darkspawn, and serving as Warden-Commander put her in a place where she had to also deal with politics and nobles trying to get their way through persuasion or outright assassination. If she had not had Kélan...
But Elennárë had none of that.
Kizár said that the life she had in Thedas hurt her, and she still believed it, that seeing just how terrible humans could be hurt her to her soul, but with Elennárë's life to compare them to, she could she that even when she was repressing those memories the effects of them snuck through in her behaviour. She was stronger, more able to face the selfishness of life, more willing to face down trouble and fight it.
Elennárë had none of that, but Kizár had to hope giving her the memories of her life would give her something she could draw some strength from.
The link Lossanárë had created would also help Elennárë.
It was a simple matter of like attracted like - Lossanárë was able to draw her Other across the distance because they were two aspects of the same person, and in doing so gave Elennárë a living link to her sister.
The memories of the other Lossanárë that Elennárë had been given told them a lot of the problems Kizár's world had happened there as well, but the Other Lossanárë had been less equipped to deal with it. The obvious issue of Maferath notwithstanding, the other Lossanárë did not have a truly good concept of addiction and had not recognised it in the Doriath Lords when they became so entranced by her light. Her falling to Thingol's persuasion made her unable to fully accept how badly his refusal to send Lossanárë to her brothers had betrayed Lúthien, though she had tried to mitigate the effects after Beren brought her to Tol Galen. That promise had the power of an oath behind it and it had destroyed Lúthien's health not being able to fulfill it.
The other Lossanárë had not realised that Elwing's elders had so indoctrinated her against the Sons of Fëanor that it had twisted something inside her. Twisted her far enough to jump into the sea to keep Lossanárë from them, twisted her so much that hearing the Valar speak of bring the last of them home to Valinor to rehabilitate had driven her into a hysterical fit of screaming.
Elwing had been placed in the care of Irmo and Estë while Lossanárë agreed to the partnership with Eärendil.
What happened to Kizár's sister was similar, but it ultimately ended up with her back in Middle Earth, now in the form of an Elven Lady with an undeniable resemblance to Maitimo, while Kizár was the dwarf she had lived thinking herself as ever since becoming Kíli's sister.
Still, her mind swung back to Elennárë, and her life. To the lives of those she knew as well. Elennárë's Kíli had lost his family and driven out by someone naming him as an orc plaything. That worried Kizár, it was one of his companions, one of the Company who had aired it. Could one of them in this life accuse him? The incidents that gave rise to it had happened here as well - the time in Gundabad, the goblins torturing him. Thorin stood against casting out orc victims as there had been far too many in the wandering years and doing so would gut the Exiles of many of their people. There were still traditionalists, even amongst the Exiles, who grumbled about the "defiled" and it had been an ongoing issue to keep them from harming those unfortunates.
Kizár deliberately tore her line of thinking away from that. She and Kíli were not planning to return to Erebor for quite some time, and even then they were likely not to stay for long when they did.
One thing Kizár did have was a face and name of Kíli's One. Boromir II, son of Denethor II, Steward of Gondor. Kizár also knew from Elennárë's knowledge that Boromir was a long way off being born - at least another forty years, and his father would still only be a boy right now, the current Steward's grandson. She remembered Turgon from when he had commissioned swords from Thorin.
That was a long way away though, she and Kíli would likely find adventures to fill the years between now and the time when Boromir was a mature man, though she did wonder about what happened to him in Minas Morgul. Could they be there to help him? To heal that horrendous soul wound Elennárë found? Save him from the darkness hidden in it? She would have to discuss that with Kíli at some point.
She heard the quiet crunch of grass under booted feet, and turned to see her sister come to sit down beside her. "Thinking about what we learned from your Other again, Sister?" She asked. She knew how it had not left Kizár in peace.
"I keep thinking, despite how hard it was for me, how hard I refused to remember it, Thedas made me stronger than I could have been." She sighed.
"I think she will find her own strength, eventually." Lossanárë spoke while looking up at the same star Kizár had been looking at. "She has started to gather a trusted family around her, and I was able to give her her sister. She also has your memories which can give her thoughts on how to go."
"I hardly see her becoming the sort of warrior I was in Thedas." Kizár scoffed softly.
"Maybe not, but she can take your knowledge and learn to defend herself. I would think that brother of hers would utterly support her doing something like that, so she can be safe." Lossanárë said. "I doubt we will ever know though, but I hope she does find something that gives her strength, in our memories, in her family, wherever it comes from."
"I hope so too. She could have been me, I could have been her. She *is* me." Kizár murmured. "Maker the Maker - Ilúvatar - guide her."
"May the One care for her until time's end brings all your lives together."