[AW] The Unconquered Maid

[Judal]

The past was a living, breathing monster, a thief in the night, bedding with the horrors that consumed the mind, the mad desires that ruined the soul, and the phantom pains that warred against the body. How long had the past clung on, long after the trials it had given him faded like dust in a fading field, life taken, and given, with the ease of an uncaring custodian? He could still remember the agony of the leather whip searing like a hot rod against his flesh, could still taste the iron in his mouth, blood pooling against his tongue when he dared not cry out. Could still feel the cold of his body, laying there in the rain drenched earth, its humid, sweltering touch seeping against his sides, a slug in his nose that threatened to suffocate him right there where he was fated to perish. That night, that moment in time when he had finally given up, finally broke down, repeated itself like a never ending mockery, a memory to last a lifetime, whispering that he had failed. It was those monsters that never went away; self-doubt, self-disgust, self-fear. To possibility that the damage that lingered just beneath the surface was to great an endeavor to take on, and the truth of the matter was that at times, he didn't even want to try.  Some may call him weak, and perhaps they were right, but the trauma of the past was a sickly wound that had been left to fester, and with the promise of treatment, there was no end in sight as to whether it would ever look anew. Perhaps that was to be his fate, to lay consumed in the memories until they were all he ever was, fixated and vengeful in the hate that ruled his very mind. How true that thought was, his expression bitter as iron cold eyes gazed out over the vistas, the mists rising like a living sea in the valleys of stone. Whenever he remembered the past, it made him sad, made his strength falter, only to bleed into a rage that festered on the ugly taint of self-hatred. He neither loved nor forgave himself, ruled by the memories, fractured as they were, of grand warriors that was meant to be his fate. An Arnor who had knelt where none had done so before. He could not bare to return to them, couldn't even if he had wanted to, and perhaps that was the most bitter thing that lived in his uncertainty. He could not remember the way. It both broke his heart and gave relief to his being to know he would never walk those fantasy halls, those places made of gilded starlight and silver glass that lived on immortal in his very being. The Arnor plains were a simple place, free of the complexities of the world beyond, remained untarnished as the memories fell away like water escaping his grasp. Judal had accepted this new reality he led, even as he attempted to give up on the past. She had pleaded him to do so, had raged and struck against him even when his mind was black with the ghouls of the past. He could not move on, could not live if he didn't let it go. And so he tried, he tried so hard, and failed every time. Incapable of looking upon her, for surely she would know, he came to these steep cliffs every time, gazing out across the realm of Night, watching as the color was leeched from this beautiful, blessedly ignorant place. Watched at the moon rose and set white fire into everything. Even the most simple of forest realm made a dream in the light of her radiance, and his darkness. It was never enough, but it was enough to soothe the most persisting of thoughts. As all Arnor did, he gravitated to the mountain holds, feeling the sharp stone beneath his hooves, the strain in his legs as he dared to climb higher, higher still, cloven hooves cutting into the rocky soil. The exersion was exhilarating, as the air thinned and his mind calmed, taken away from the sounds and scents of the masses gathered in the court of night. They were not his kin; this was not his home, and yet, there were times he wished it was, that he could be a product of this easy life they lived, with simple conflicts and harsh politics. And that was perhaps the reason why he hated them the most. "Speech."

AW thread for the lil damaged babe of the Night