Changes by Calliopes Stylus

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

These woods are freezing; even my layers of clothing hardly protect me against the wind. How long have I been searching? A month, maybe. I press on, asking the few people I find if they have seen two small children. "Twins. They would be perhaps seven, eight. Dark-haired."

The man at the door shakes his head. "I have seen a few animals. Nothing else. Besides," he adds, "if they've been wandering too long, in this weather, I don't think you'll be finding anything but a pair of corpses. If the animals haven't eaten them." The door slams shut, showering me with snow from the roof.

Such has been the answer everywhere-no children; probably dead (and probably true-no child, unless impossibly lucky and brilliant, could survive this). Anybody as inept as you doesn't deserve children in the first place, is the wordless reproach from the few that don't recognize me. I have become rather notorious, after all; we all have. All three of us.

Three. In Aman, Atar had been known as much for us as for his works-to this day, I know of no other house with seven children. But we had barely reached Endor when Atyo was lost, and his absence was keenly felt until last month, when only three of us regrouped after the battle. Will any of us even survive to reclaim the Silmarils? Sometimes I doubt it.

And I don't even know if we have survived. All of us have changed so much-Minyo has almost become accustomed to being without his twin, something that none of us would ever have thought possible. Macalaurë still plays his music, but he often talks of the music of clashing blades ("If I must kill, I shall do it with style." Oh, Atar would be proud). And Tyelco...he was not soft and gentle, exactly, but he had a great respect for life; he hunted, but not so much that any animal would die needlessly, and with the least amount of pain. Tyelco was always the one bringing in injured birds and feeding the mice in the kitchens; he fed table scraps to the dogs and left his bedroom window open to any creature that wanted to come in. There was a time, back in Aman, when he almost knocked out Carnistir's teeth over spiders:

It had been one of those perfect days to just sit outside and enjoy the world. I was reading, and Carnistir was sitting on a bench near the house, doing something that I could not see and humming tunelessly. I was on the verge of telling him to shut up when Tyelco rounded the corner, a couple of dogs at his heel. He glanced down, his face went red, and he cuffed Carnistir's jaw so hard that Carnistir tumbled into the grass.

I jumped up and ran to investigate—responsibility has always come naturally to me, a boon for someone who always seems to be in the position to take care of his brothers. When I reached them, Carnistir was just getting up, and Tyelco was lifting a glass bowl off the bench.

"Look!" he said. "Look at what he was doing!" He waves his hand to show two piles-one of long, spindly objects, and another of misshapen little balls. And inside the bowl, scrambling desperately, was a little group of spiders. "He was pulling their legs off!"

Carnistir, who says, "So? They're just spiders," thereby causing Tyelco to punch him again.

Carnistir massaged his jaw. "What was that one for?"

"Still the spiders," he said, crushing the legless ones under his boot, and taking away the bowl. "They're living things."

"I'm a living thing!"

"Yes, one with no respect for other living things. You were torturing those spiders. You caused them pain; you count yourself lucky that I won't cause you any more than I already have. Or maybe I will."

It was then that I decided to intervene. "Tyelco, I think Carnistir understands now." I glance at the black smear on the bench. "Besides, you just killed them."

"They were in pain, and they had no way to move. It was mercy killing, because they would have died in a worse fashion had they been left to lie here."

That was Tyelco, pitying a few spiders. He followed Oromë while Atar acquainted the rest of us with Aulë, and came away talking to the horses (the day of the Darkening, after the shadow had passed over us, he tried to ask the birds for information, but they were too terrified. Or so he said).

But times changed as they did, and the brother who was laughing as Telperinquar (who for all we know is dead as well) rode Huan like a horse was ordering the attack on Menegroth, and his servants abandoned two innocent children to their deaths; now I ride through Doriath on what is likely a pointless quest, with the only signs of life being these taciturn people in their scattered cottages.

Arriving at another one, I pull my hood tight-with my hair covered, and with my right arm deep in my pocket, I am less likely to be recognized-and knock on the door. A moment later it is answered by a sour-faced woman-likely I have pulled her away from a warm fire. "Yes?"

"Do you know of the whereabouts of two young boys? Twins, about seven or eight."

She gives me the Inept Father Look. "I have seen nothing."

Truly, I am starting to give up hope. Even my horse is reluctant. "But if you do-if you hear anything, even if you find remains-send word to Himring."

"I will be sure to," she says, clearly not meaning it. "Now, I've better things to do."

"I will pay handsomely!" I call through the door, but there is no answer.

Perhaps some of these people are lying. Perhaps Dior's sons have been adopted, or at least buried. Likely I will never know. Still, I have already proven, to disastrous ends, that I can take on hopeless tasks. This story of the Silmarils of Fëanáro will doubtless be the source for many a tale and song (if only those songs could be based on nothing but an author's thought!). With a sigh, I mount my horse again. Onward, and when the songs are written perhaps there will be at least one that does not end in woe.

-Finis-