Something Stronger by Tehta

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Chapter 3

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The landscape was changing, again.

Back in Valinor, Laurefindil had always pictured the Grinding Ice as flat and greyish, like a frozen mountain pond, but larger. Now, he knew that it was as varied as the whole wide world.

They had walked through dull, flat areas, yes; but also areas that looked dull and flat, but were full of secret holes; and areas where ice columns reached towards the sky like fantastic trees, or even towers. His favourite areas, though, were the ones covered in gentle snowy hills, which seemed to resemble either sugar or a warm down coverlet -- depending on whether one was currently hungrier, or colder. He found both metaphors cheering.

The most recent stage had taken them through drifts of sugar-like crystals that sparkled gaily in the light of their lamps, but those were petering out now, to reveal a harder surface with an odd blueish tinge.

“I do not trust that colour,” he told his companion. “I have never seen its like, out here. What does it mean?”

“Eh.” Aikanáro’s shrug was barely detectable beneath his layered furs. “The scouts will have tested the ground, and found the best path.”

But best did not mean safe, after all, and-- Laurefindil glanced over to their left, where the main column trudged on, with that trusting apathy he found so puzzling. To see Aikanáro equally passive disturbed him even more.

“Is your leg all right?” he asked.

“What?”

“Your leg -- is it bothering you? You have been so withdrawn all morning.”

“My leg is fine,” said Aikanáro. “Has been for months.”

Which meant that, while the mystery of Aikanáro’s mood remained unsolved, at least Laurefindil felt free to pick up the pace. The sooner they could reach their next shelter, the sooner they could cook something warm, and that never failed to help.

They were well into the flat blue landscape, walking carefully to avoid slippery patches, when Aikanáro spoke again.

“Little Itarillë came and talked to me, back at Turukáno’s camp,” he said. “While you were out filling the kettle.”

“Did she?” Laurefindil had been outside for quite a while, looking for good, dense snow. “What did you two discuss?”

“She…” Aikanáro coughed. “She came to ask me what had made me stop killing people.”

Laurefindil stared at him. Unfortunately, this involved taking his eyes off his feet, so he failed to notice a particularly slick piece of ice; his right leg shot forward, and he flailed his arms, unbalanced. Fortunately, Aikanáro caught his elbow, and hauled him upright.

Laurefindil kept his hand where it had settled, on Aikanáro’s bicep, and turned to face him. “Sorry… But, what?”

“She turned out to have a very rational explanation for her question.” Aikanáro’s eyes looked oddly dull -- but still bluer than the treacherous ground. “She wants the ice to stop killing people, too. She thought that whatever worked on me might also work here.”

Laurefindil sought for something to say, but in vain. He could only raise his other hand to touch his friend’s shoulder, in sympathy.

“I started to tell her,” Aikanáro eventually continued, “that I have never killed the way the Ice does, and therefore whoever said this was using ‘kill’ in a different sense, a bit like in the phrase ‘killing time.’ But then I felt dishonest, so I said that it was true I had been in a fight, and had hurt some people, but that those people are probably all better now, sitting in their warm houses, eating delicious food.”

“Well... they might be.”

“Possibly, but I regretted my reply at once. I feared she might ask about those killed by the Ice. About how they were so different from my victims, or whether they are all better now… And then, I would have had to explain that nobody gets better outside Valinor, from where we are now banned, and that I suspect our dead are doomed to a disembodied, powerless existence until the end of time. Which sounds so, so--”

“Tragic?”

“Worse: tedious! At any event, she did not ask, but the question might still occur to her. She is very bright for her age.”

“Yes, she is. Bright enough to know that the answer would be bad, surely?”

Aikanáro showed no sign of having heard the question. “I suspect that it would have been kinder to lie outright, from the start. But somehow I spoke before I could stop myself. I do think about it, all the deaths, you know, and then nobody ever brings up the topic. Not with me.”

His eyes were averted now, troubled. Laurefindil suppressed his first thought -- that people might be unwilling to discuss angry violence with a man who had a history of it, for fear of making him, well, violently angry -- and went with the second.

“Am I nobody, then? We two have certainly spoken of Alqualondë. You told me that horse metaphor… how did it go, again?”

“The horse meta--? Oh, right.” Aikanáro’s gaze moved even further, towards the horizon. “I think I told you that Olwë had been acting like a man who refuses to lend his brother a horse, even though the brother needs it to chase a villain who has kidnapped his children. And that few people would blame the brother for getting the horse-hoarder dead drunk so he could steal the animal.”

“Right. And I did say--”

“You were very sympathetic, as usual. But later, when I shared my parable with Findaráto, he said the metaphysical inaccuracies were too glaringly obvious to admit rational opposition.”

“Of course he did… I mean, that is how he always talks, about everything. Just last week, he called my comments about the weather epistemologically unsound.” Laurefindil tried to smile encouragingly, but it felt forced -- until he was struck by a brilliant idea. “But, wait! Why not ask him to talk to Itarillë? I suspect he would end up confusing her so deeply that she will never be able to phrase an uncomfortable question again.”

“Yes, I might well ask him, at that.” Aikanáro seemed to collect himself; his gaze met Laurefindil’s, at last. “Thank you. For the suggestion, and… everything. You are a good companion, far better than I deserve.”

“Nonsense.” Laurefindil might have blushed, had his cheeks not been half-frozen. “Anyway… I suppose we should get moving, before we lose all body heat--”

“True.” Aikanáro shuffled his feet and stepped a little closer. “Although--”

“But first, let me just say one last thing.” Laurefindil inhaled, but not too deeply, not in this freezing air. “I know some people treat you differently now, after the… Well, the kinslaying. But this has little to do with you. They are wondering about themselves -- about what they would have done, in your place -- and deciding that you are intrinsically flawed, while they are not, is one way they can convince themselves they would have held back. But, of course,” he spoke on, even as Aikanáro opened his own mouth to respond, “they cannot know what it was like. None of us can; we were not there, facing an impossible choice. We were the lucky ones. And, well, thank you for making my luck for me. If it had not been for your stupid letter, I--”

And then, just before he could finish his speech, Aikanáro laid a hand against his cheek. Laurefindil’s mind went blank; words deserted him. The gesture was intimate, far beyond friendship -- he had only seen it, envied it, with others -- but, actually, the gesture was nothing compared to the light in Aikanáro’s eyes. Where earlier they had been dull, their gaze turned inward, now they looked straight at Laurefindil, and saw him, and shone.

“Yes, my stupid letter,” said Aikanáro. “Stupid letter, stupid choices. Eru, but I have been blind, blinkered, looking everywhere but right beside me. You understand me so well, and I… I know now that it has been you, all along.”

Laurefindil felt too tongue-tied, still, to do much more than nod, as Aikanáro’s thumb slid along his cheekbone. But what was there to say? His own feelings were clear; must have been clear to anyone who cared to look, for quite some time.

They kissed then, in the icy cold, while the unseeing host shuffled past on the left. It was not much of a union of bodies: their lips were numb, and their limbs awkward in their many wrappings. But Laurefindil’s spirit, at least, rejoiced in every second.

Aikanáro broke away first.

“Come on,” he said. “Let us go. And warm up properly.”