I Choose... by wind rider

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I Choose...

I Choose . . .

 

“You look so gloomsome, brother. Why?” – A feminine voice.

 

“Elu is mean! It is not as if we killed Amil’s people!” – Indignant outrage, definitely male in nature.

 

“Their language is unpleasant to the ears. Why ought we speak it? It is not as if Quenya itself did harm to Amil’s people. What is wrong with Quenya name at least, anyway? Changing our names is like changing our identities – and without our consent, too.” – Quieter, calmer, but still ranting and still male – another’s voice.

 

“Well, nothing wrong with it, I say. I do like ‘Galadriel’.” – The feminine voice again, defencive and a little baffled.

 

“Yes, you would I suppose, since that twerp gave you that.” – The brazen voice, sarcastic.

 

“Celeborn is not a twerp!” The feminine voice: indignant, definitely.

 

“He is unsuitable for you, I say, little sister.” Yet another male voice, with grudging tone but less brazen than the first – less calm than the latter, though.

 

“Well, it is my life and my spirit, so I have the final say of who is suitable for me and who is not, do I not?” – The female, hurt.

 

“Anyway, Ingo—“ – The three male voices, at once, hastily and rather uncomfortable – frightened, actually…

 

“Do not change the subject!” The female voice again, torn between anger and laughter, followed by some rustling sound farthering away from her.

 

“Can you not see that he is off in his own world again?” The brazen voice, defencive in return. “I do not want to argue philosophies with him right now, and he is always doing that after times like this. Someone is actually worse than you, I suppose.”

 

“Aikanáro!” Snapping, definitely hurt; the female voice wobbles slightly with unshed tears.

 

“Sorry, Nissë.” The brazen voice, hastily and a little apologetically. “But anyway Ingo, what do you think of this? Do you agree with it? What name would you choose then?”

 

Someone is shaking my shoulders a little roughly, but I can sense his humorous exasperation in the gesture. Judging from the repeated “Ingo! Ingo! Ingo!” insisted near my left ear when I do not answer him quickly, the culprit is definitely Aikanáro – my second brother, third of us all and the most brazen.

 

He should have known. It always takes a moment for me to return from one of my musings, and it is not any different now. I only kept a part of my attention on their recent squabble, only to make sure none of them hurt the other too much, and now I am paying the price. What have they really talked about? The words have slipped through my mind like water through one’s hand. What do they want from me now?

 

I look away from the partly-fogged lake before me and turn around slightly, looking at my four younger siblings – whom I see have banded together again now.

 

They are glaring warily at me, too. What have I done now? I cannot focus my mind on them still…

 

I turn back around and gaze over the thick mists on the water.

 

The land, as dreary as it is, has gained a new meaning for me. While I privately complained much about the quality of this makeshift settlement alongside my siblings and others recently from the *(1)Crossing, now it suddenly feels so precious. I no longer see how eeriely it is similar to the weather on the Grinding Ice, but how grateful I am to be on firm land instead of the ever-shifting sheets of ice.

 

Because I know that Elu – whom Anatar Olwë calls Elwë – may have kicked us out of this land and back into that hell after the revelation of the Kinslaying, if not for sufferance of kin-blood.

 

But how to tell my siblings and our people that? I held the same opinion on this land – or any land – being our right to explore if not to dwell in, and the mental journey to reach this new conclusion was hard and long and painful. I do not wish such a burden upon anyone else, and yet…

 

“INGO!”

 

I jump, startled, and automatically whirl around with sword half-drawn. But before I can do anything, four sets of arms capture me, free me of my weapons and armour, and toss me ahead and overhead.

 

Into the fortunately – or unfortunately – deeper and colder part of the lake, with a good-sized splash.

 

“Hey!” I squawk, protesting, even as I try my best to ignore the deep chill so akin to the Helkaraxë seeping into my bones.

 

“You were insufferable, Ingo!” Aikanáro shouts back, but I can see – through the light mist that has quickly blanketed me – that he is grinning.

 

“Incorrigible too,” Angaráto pipes up, approaching the edge of the water with obvious wariness, perhaps thinking of the possible revenge I can claim on him by dragging him with me into the water.

 

I open my mouth, about to retort, but then he crouches down and sticks a hand into one of the many wavelets lapping at the muddy shore. “ Grinding Ice! It is so cold!” he exclaims, looking at me with horror-stricken eyes.

 

Unexpectedly, it gives me the opening I sought for. “It is not so different from the Grinding Ice,” I say, forcing a calm and level tone into my voice although it has taken all of my energy and will-power just to stay afloat. “It makes me more grateful to what I have now, too.”

 

“What do you mean?” Artaresto hedges, coming closer and imitating Angaráto’s motions. He whimpers slightly when his hand touches the water, and quickly retracts the appendage to the safety of the less-chilly air. “How can you stand it, Ingo? It is so cold!”

 

I try not to smile coolly at him; but judging from Angaráto’s reproachful stare at me, I have failed. So instead I try to soften my words. “I can endure it, yes,” I say. “I can step onto firm land whenever I would, unless you would throw me back in here again afterwards.” Artanis chuckles half-heartedly at that, and I give her a mock glare.

 

“It is all thanks to Elu that we are still here and not back there again,” I continue. “If the price is speaking the native tongue and adopting the native customs, I will be more than glad to pay it. It is part of exploring a new land, is it not? And even if one came here in hope of ruling a land, one must know and adhere to the local customs in some measure.” I try my very best not to look at – even peek – at Artanis on that, but she seems to have caught sense of it, because then a small pebble sails away from her hand, striking my temple.

 

”Ow!” I mock-whine, glaring with crossed eyes at her. She giggles more fully now, and I give her a cheeky smile, privately relieved that she does not take offence on my jibe. (She can be scary sometimes. Ironic, really, when she is the youngest in the family and one of the youngest in both bloodlines.)

 

The tension seems to melt after that, and I cannot be more grateful. It is so easy for tempers to rise and gloom to settle in this land of mists and chilly winds – and chilly waters, it turned out. It is good that my siblings choose another subject to talk about too, as Angaráto reaches out a hand to me and drags me back to dry land.

 

“What name would you choose to bear now, then?” Artaresto asks when Artanis wraps me in her cloak. “You have three already…”

 

The jealousy in his tone is not at all new to me. He and Artanis have Noldorin names instead of Telerin, and I know he always feels left out because of that – unlike our sister. I am the only one from the five of us to have three names even when I was still a small child, also: a father-name, a mother-name, and an after-name from Anatar Ossë. The rest of us have only one each, thought up by Amil and Anatar Ossë and somewhat-grudgingly approved by Atar, except for Artanis who has both a father-name and a mother-name. (She would exact a painful revenge on almost anyone who would call her Nerwendë though, back in our happy days. Amil, Anatar Ossë, our maternal grandparents and Uncle Lindarion were the only exceptions, I think.) But what can I say to that? I did not choose to have three names so early in my life.

 

But I get to choose now.

 

“I think I will take something resembling ‘Findaráto’,” I say. And when I look at my siblings to gauge their reactions to the announcement, I catch Aikanáro in the process of lowering his hands. He must have been ready to shake my shoulders again. Glaring sulkily at him, I add, “’Finrod’ sounds nice – and shorter, too.” I stop at that, not wanting to reveal the reason why, not wanting to be more vulnerable than I am now, under the burden of grief that I did not even try to stop Atar’s kin from slaughtering Amil’s, that Aman now lays unreachable, hence also Amil and Atar.

 

But I cannot hide from myself. Using Ingalaurë would remind me of the Kinslaying and how Atar abandoned us before the Crossing. Using Ingoldo would similarly remind me of how “wise” I was to ignore the slaughtered Teleri, and how surprised and disbelieving Uncle Lindarion was when the maddened Makalaurë ran his blood-bathed sword through his chest. But nobody save Anatar Ossë in his rare visits called me Findaráto, and thus it held no particular meaning to me. (Or at least, I try not to relate it to the Kinslaying and how Anatar Ossë loves my mother’s people so.) Using the name he gave me will remind me that I still have a reachable sencient piece of my past somewhere nearby other than my siblings and relatives – that is, if he is not too mad with me and would still deign to visit me from time to time.

 

Artanis is gazing at me knowingly, all the same, so perhaps she does realise why I chose the name above all others. But to my lasting relief, she keeps quiet about it. I give her a grateful glance through the corner of my eye as our brothers bicker about the Sindarin names they are going to use from now on, yet she only shrugs and look away. So I sneak a hand out of the folds of my borrowed cloak and grasp hers, squeezing it warmly.

 

“Finrod,” I say softly to her with meaning, rolling the word in my tongue as if savouring a new cuisine. “I like it.”

 

She gives me a wan smile and another shrug, and now I catch the sense that she may be regretting not having another name unrelated to our parents to choose. She is proud though, and refuse to talk to me when I try to catch her gaze. Instead, she busies herself giving some – unwelcome, apparently – input on what Sindarised variant of the respective names should be chosen by our brothers.

 

Instead of her, Artaresto catches my own gaze and says in an aggrieved tone, “Why did you not hold her back longer? Until we had chosen our names, at least?”

 

But before I can muster any reply, Artanis whips around and, glaring at him, snaps, “I heard that, you know.”

 

We are back to our age-old familiarities, the light squabbles and protesting whinging, and somehow I feel that a lot of burden has been lifted from me. Keeping long grudges and deep, weighty ruminations is not any of our expertise, anyway.

 

I like it. I, Finrod, like it.

 

Chapter End Notes

*(1) The Crossing: the journey across the Grinding Ice

 

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