She kneels before the Vala, all her rage and fear and despair boiling over. “They are lost to me, forever!” she cries. “It has been a hundred years. Why can I not move on? Why must I yet suffer, when I know they live, and live well? May I not now spend my life as I will? Must I dwell always in the past, and never in the present?”
Nienna, shrouded and masked, reaches an insubstantial hand down to her cheek, caressing her. The very touch eases something in Elwing’s heart, and she sobs with the release, her whole body trembling.
Dear child, the Valië whispers. You hurt because you love them. To let go of your past, you must let go of your love.
“I cannot,” Elwing gasps between the waves of tears, mingling with the rain upon her skin. “I am their mother. I cannot! Is there nothing else I can do?”
You can learn, Elwing Dioriel. Learn to live with your pain, rather than warring against it.
“Teach me, then,” Elwing begs. “Teach me to—to forgive. To find peace. To become something other than myself.”
Nienna wipes a tear from Elwing’s eye mournfully. I cannot change you.
“Then teach me to change myself! I cannot live like this any longer!” She would rather cast herself into the sea, like the Kinslayer did with that damned jewel, than breathe another second in this agony.
(She does not tell the Valië this, but Nienna is within her and without her. She knows.)
Dear Elwing, she murmurs, and another wave of catharsis shudders through her body. I will teach you what I can.
I chose to have Nienna's robe crossed right-over-left to symbolize her work with the dead/spirits. Her under-robe of darkness fades into the background, as she is both present and not present in the physical world.
Nienna's appearance is intentionally unearthly; she is a Great Power, after all. I was loosely inspired by No-Face from Spirited Away in her design. She is wearing an alabaster mask over her true face, which is always weeping and rather off-putting to the Children. Her mask has three blue gems symbolizing her tears beneath an "eye" of total blackness and a "mouth" perpetually open in lament.
Like Luthien, Elwing has flowers that grow about her feet, despite her great sorrow. Heightened emotions loosen her control over this ability.
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