To Save Family by wind rider

To Save Family

To Save Family

It was strange as strange went, Makalaurë would later conclude to himself. He would say nothing to his brothers about it, even, until they were reunited again in the other side of the sea.

He and his people had just settled down in their new encampment when it happened. A sentry whom he had tasked to watch over the high-pass reported the presence of a strange intruder down on the pass, someone who looked like an Elf and yet not an Elf. The man’s ears seemed to be rounded and his eyes less sharp, the sentry said, and his grace was not that of an Elf – even the clumsiest or bulkiest of them. A great unease stifled Makalaurë then, but he would rather see the intruder for himself before making any rash decision. (He had long prided himself in being one of the most level-headed of all his father’s sons, and he did not wish to kill a potential ally needlessly anyway.)

He snuck down to the pass with and without guards; but whatever he did and whomever he brought with him, his land’s mysterious, uninvited guest staid elusive. He tried leaving bits of food he could spare and small necessities at various points of the path then. They always vanished when the current sentry was not looking – and sometimes even when the sentry was in fact vigilant. However, the intruder refused to take the little gifts when there were wards around it, or when Makalaurë was near. The nameless stranger showed an alarming level of power and awareness, if in fact he was not of their own kind, and Makalaurë grew more and more concerned by the passing days.

Then, one day when the weather began to chill and more often cloudy than not, a large band of orcs was spotted in the distance. This time Makalaurë had no spare thought for hesitation. He divided his troops into the attackers and defenders, and led the attackers themselves down onto the pass to ambush the orcs. It was unexpected, since Morgoth had been silent for too long.

What he had not expected was the appearance of the stranger that had eluded him and his company for nearly just as long. He stood in relatively open view also, for once, staring right at Makalaurë from among the cluster of trees within the easy range of Elven sight, although Makalaurë himself was mostly concealed under the deep shade of an overhang. The orcs might cover the intervening distance in the next few hours, and the stranger seemed to use the waiting time to scrutinise Makalaurë, so Makalaurë chose to give him the same treatment.

The first spotter had been true in his description. The stranger looked like an adult of the Firstborn, despite his rounded ears and duller eyes. (The light in them only reminded Makalaurë of the Sun instead of the stars, but he could see how anyone else would perceive it as “less sharp.”) His physical proportions were like those of any average Firstborn despite his smaller stature, but Makalaurë was more fascinated with his attire than his form. It seemed to be designed with camouflage in the wilderness in mind, blending nearly seamlessly with the surrounding trees, bushes and shadows. (It would explain why it was hard to spot him when he had wanted to be concealed.)

But at length, Makalaurë found that his gaze was drawn back towards the stranger’s eyes framed by pale golden locks, wondering about their colouring – a shade of blue that he had only found among the Vanyar and some of the Maiar. Who was the man? What did he intend by loitering so long in the mountain gap – his mountain gap? Would he mean harm on the Noldor in the near or far future?

Alas that Makalaurë had no chance to establish a mental conversation with the stranger then, as the band of orcs that he and his troops had waited for had approached their ambush point at last. With a vengeful battle-cry, the Noldor under his command surged around the filthy creatures and began to decimate them slowly but surely. The clouds overhead had thickened considerably, reducing the range of their vision, but it did not deter them any. The gap must be protected by all means.

And if it also took the help of orcs suddenly and silently falling down without an apparent cause, each preceeded by the brief appearance of the pale-eyed stranger, then Makalaurë would be willing to overlook the anomaly.

Twice more the orcs came in larger and larger bands, and twice more they met in a similar battle. However, the oddly-attired stranger with pale hair and pale eyes never took the gifts Makalaurë left for him in the intervening times. In fact, aside from the battles, he seemed to have disappeared from the gap – without leaving it through any way visible. Oddly enough, Makalaurë missed his elusive presence then.

Thus, when they met again for the third time on the eve of yet another battle with the orcs, he did not waste time observing the man. As soon as he got comfortable in his hiding spot and established an eye contact with the stranger, he nodded to him and reached out with his mind, touching the stranger’s own alien awareness. In that way he knew that his on-and-off guest was versed in no language that he knew, for he only answered when asked with concepts and images instead of words. Still, despite how easily they established some form of mental conversation, Makalaurë noted that the man – George? Of which language was that name? – evaded some of his questions skilfully without outrightly refusing to answer. A true diplomat, like Maitimo and Curufinwë his brothers. Then again, he chose to avoid George’s inquiries on the landmarks of the land and what lay beyond the mountain gap. When he asked why the man wanted to know so much information he considered vital, George replied simply with an emotion-ridden concept of family bond and missing family members.

Alas, but Makalaurë withheld the information for almost the same reason. He did not know much of the stranger, and he did not want to let a possible threat to his own family and people loose with information of their dwellings.

He never saw George again after the battle ended, not even when he and his people were finally driven out of the mountain gap, pursued by orcs and dogged by clouds as thick and looming as those that had heralded the first open appearance of the elusive intruder. Makalaurë turned his back on his land for the last time with a heavy heart, a set of sky-blue eyes haunting him along the way to Himring.

He wanted to save his family, and George had wanted the same to his own. But now Makalaurë wondered if he had done the right thing, if the man would still have staid in the gap and fighting alongside him if he had given him what he had wanted.

Probably not. But then again, two of his closely-held beliefs staid true so far: that nothing was perfect in Arda Marred, and that one’s family was above all else.