I remember the noise… people screaming, calling out to gods in voices made sharp and ugly with fear. I remember the smell of the burning city; dark sour smoke curled around us and sank deep into our skin. The smell of fear I remember too: sweat, vomit and sweet clinging blood.
My father stayed to fight; my mother was torn from me in a swirling, surging flood of people. Buffeted and tossed by the running crowd, my cries were lost in the confusion.
'Nana!’ I wailed - but in that panicked, fleeing city there was none to hear or care.
AN: The fall of Gondolin.