Of Mithrellas by Urloth

---

The River of Sighs.

---

The River of Sighs was almost as disturbing as the tree blooming in winter. Mithrellas could hear it whispering to itself, chuckling gleefully over something only it knew.

It was a lovely river through, clean and untainted water with healthy water plants and fish.

It just gave an observer the unnerving feeling that they were being watched back, and the sound of it seemed sometimes to be a physical sensation, like a finger running up and down your spine.

The new House was… well… new.

It felt cavernous and empty despite the servants gathering in it. There were no furnishings, which was part of the problem. Given the massive covered carts arranged outside though, waiting for the winches to be used to lift the contents up into the massive structure growing on a foundation of several giant trees, they did have furnishings, they simply needed to move them into the house.

Mithrellas sucked in a giant breath and straightened her spine.

She had arrived, and as the Mistress had said, her service began immediately.

Half of the servants were already in the House when they arrived. They were gifts of service from other Lords and Ladies, and there to ensure that the House did not flounder with only those taken straight from the Servants' House staffing it.

It meant that Mithrellas, new to her position, utterly unsure of her position, suddenly found herself facing servants who were far older than her, and who had actually served.

If you fail me, I will ensure that your discomfort at my Power for the Lunatic Rites will be like resting on goose down pillows compared to what I will put you through.

Mithrellas swallowed. The soft but firm tone she had learnt to take when in the mending room seemed to have worked best for her.

“Hello,” she said, and tried to ignore how some of her… her staff leaned inwards to hear her, “I am Mithrellas, the Housekeeper. For the next weeks, chores shall continue as you have been taking care of them whilst I review your service. Those arriving from the Servants' House will be assisting,” she hesitated then bowed to them politely, “I am glad to work for the new Lady of the River of Sighs, and to work with you.”

There was a pause as her measure was taken. Then nods. Some of the servants drifted away to return to what they had been doing. Some others came to ask if they could be given duties.

Furniture was moved in. Tapestries, two of them gifts from the Servants' House, were hung up.

It still seemed empty, though, to Mithrellas. It lacked a certain… uniqueness to it. Still it was grand.

Mithrellas was not at all sure though she liked sleeping by herself in the Housekeeper’s room. After thirteen years living in a dormitory, and before that a single room with her siblings and parents, the solitary sleeping room was an alarming transition.

She did not mind at all when after the third night, little Tauriel came creeping into her bedroom and set herself up near her.

The little girl always left right before rising time, so Mithrellas let her continue to think that she was sneaking in and out without Mithrellas waking up.

She made sure the little girl was under the supervision of servants she knew would not treat the child as Mithrellas had been treated. Mainly Tauriel was in the garden, as Mithrellas had first met her, planting, checking the trees for rot, and ensuring the head of the gardens maintained his peak level of fitness as he kept a nervous eye on her escapades high up amongst the branches.

“Too young to be a servant, she’s but a babe,” he said to Mithrellas when she came out one morning to observe the flash of auburn hair she had been seeing amongst the branches near the office she kept the accounts in.

“I thought so as well,” Mithrellas agreed with a sigh.

“She’s energetic and wilful, ma’am, and if you don’t mind my saying so, she’s got just the wrong sort of personality to be a servant. She’s independent already, stubborn, and she doesn’t take well to being told to do something if she is not given a good reason for it.”

“I do not know what to do,” Mithrellas answered with a shake of her head, “she is a tithe. I do not have the authority to retire her, and where would she go? Her family would not want her back.”

He licked his lips as he thought, fingers tapping together.

“The Lady will have those who care for her territory, keeping an eye out for the yrch and other creatures of the Malformed or the like. Perhaps the wee one could be put into their service instead? When she is older. Not now. She’s still a babe.”

“That is an idea.” The household was still a fledgling; they were awaiting the Lady herself, and those who would protect her and her lands, who would live in the House and they would serve. The barracks were cleaned out and ready, linens already on the bunk.

“Sirrrr!” Tauriel called from the tree above.

“Yes, Tauriel?” he called back.

“I found a wasp’s nest!”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he paled, and went flying up the tree

-

“THE LADY IS ARRIVING!”

“THE LADY IS HERE!”

Watchers came running. They were waiting and ready. The household as one sucked in a great breath of excitement.

Mithrellas found her hands were shaking. She squeezed them into her wrap and checked that her braid wasn’t frayed as she descended from the House, heart slamming into her rib cage.

She had to struggle not to run down the stairs around the main foundation tree, and her eyes strained to see the Lady riding in the centre of her guards, all of them upon the shaggy-maned, swift, and small horses that the Lady of the Silver Ferns was known for breeding.

They drew to a halt in the clearing beneath the House as Mithrellas’ feet hit the last step and she stopped to look up at her new Lady.

“Hello.”

Mithrellas blinked.

Nimrodel was beaming at her.

Nimrodel was beaming at her, her arm in a sling, and several great slashes across her face stitched closed with dark sinew.

Mithrellas’ mouth opened, and then closed.

Nimrodel’s hair was piled up in intricately woven braids, and there was a beaten gold circlet set with rounded green stones, holding her hair, far more luminous then the metal, away from her face.

Her clothing was far beyond the quality of a servant's.

Mithrellas felt like she’d just swallowed a rock and it had hit the bottom of her stomach.

“M-my Lady, W-welcome,” she bowed, hands clasped over her heart as was proper, thankful for the social necessity because it gave her a chance to rearrange her facial expression.

 “Thank you, my Housekeeper. Is my House ready for habitation?”

“It is, my Lady,” Mithrellas felt like her cheeks had turned into stone as she kept her expression from twitching.

“Good,” Nimrodel swung down from her horse, and with two strides that were strong and free of any sort of pain, had reached the steps. Mithrellas bowed hurriedly as she passed her by, then straightened, watching her ascend the steps.

Nimrodel flicked a glance over her shoulder, and Mithrellas realised she was meant to follow. She hurried after Nimrodel, and with her own glance back, saw that most of the guards were watching her with narrowed, thoughtful eyes.

The household was assembled. Mithrellas noticed Tauriel bouncing on her feet next to the head of the gardeners.

Nimrodel inclined her head to their bows.

“Thank you for your patience for my arrival,” Nimrodel’s entire bearing wasn’t anything like what Mithrellas remembered, nor the tone and ease of her voice.

“My Lady, we are at your service,” Mithrellas said behind her, bowing with the rest of the household again.

Nimrodel’s smile was triumphant. Yes, that was the word that suited the strange fierceness of the expression.

“I will meet each of you come the morning,” Nimrodel inclined her head at Mithrellas, “the Housekeeper shall organise it. But for now I am in need of rest. Thank you again for your patience.”

She swept through the crowd, which formed a pathway for her immediately.

Another glance flicked over her shoulder summoned Mithrellas after her to lead her to her rooms.

The rooms were empty of personality, but the bed was large, the new linens upon it a gift from the Lord of the Quarry and very fine, and the duvet a brilliant green and yellow depiction of trees and sunlight which the Lady of the Red Oak Ridge had sent with her blessings for the new Lady of the River of Sighs.

The correspondence already received for the new Lady was waiting on her desk in her office. Mithrelllas had cleaned all of the personal rooms of the Lady herself and they were spotless beyond reproach.

“Lovely. Look at all this space,” Nimrodel turned a circle in the middle of the room with a beaming smile then looked at Mithrellas.

“Those are lovely hair tags.”

Mithrellas’ hand rose up to the cherry wood tags that Aellolel had given her, carved from one of the trees which had fallen in the gardens of the Servants' House. Most of the wood had been rotten, but Aellolel had salvaged enough for twelve circular tags with stars and flowers carved carefully into the wood before it had been polished with oil.

“Thank you, my Lady,” she replied, averting her eyes from Nimrodel’s.

She sensed the frown.

“Are you angry at me?” Nimrodel asked.

“No, my Lady,” she denied, and lied.

“I think you are. Why are you angry at me, Mithrellas? You have not seen me for two years.”

“I’m not angry,” Mithrellas’ voice, unlike their first meeting, did not break this time. She was angry. Angry and betrayed, and she did not know why.

“I think you are,” Nimrodel’s hand found her chin, warm as Mithrellas remembered, and tilted it up.

“You are. You are angry at me. You think I’ve hurt you,” Nimrodel’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment then relaxed, “it’s because I did not tell you I was not a servant.”

“I thought you a servant of the Lady of the Silver Ferns,” Mithrellas admitted, keeping a tight grip on her smoothness of voice.

“She certainly keeps me working like a servant,” Nimrodel snorted, “for she says one cannot be expected to own a House without knowing the work that goes into maintaining it.”

Mithrellas’ eyes flicked down and away.

“The Lady of the Silver Ferns is my mother,” Nimrodel said in a calm, careful way, each syllable enunciated so that Mithrellas could not mistake her words.

“I understand,” Mithrellas nodded, and wanted to add in a snap that she was not stupid.

“You are a Lady,” she said again stiffly, with a hurt like betrayal in her, and she bobbed a curtsey, “I wish you had told me. I would have been polite.”

“And you are my Housekeeper. It was a battle to get the Mistress to agree to choose you. Especially because my victory wasn’t assured at the time. But the moment I met you I knew I wanted you to be the head of my future House.”

“Why would she listen to you?” Mithrellas could not help but ask. Hurt could not stop curiosity. Nimrodel’s victory had been a surprise, and the Mistress was a sensible, if terrifying, woman who would not put her faith in an underaged girl winning against the experienced fighters Nimrodel had gone up against.

“She is my aunt,” Nimrodel’s voice held a smug smile, “the Lord that fathered my mother with the Lady that is my grandmother fathered the Mistress on his Housekeeper.”

Mithrellas nodded. Well that made sense.

Galion’s words came back to her; ‘nepotism at its finest,’

Nimrodel touched her cheek, trying to guide Mithrellas' gaze back to her, “don’t be upset at me. Would you have been my friend if I had told you I was going to be a Lady when I had picked my servants?”

Mithrellas, sensing a trap, said nothing.

Nimrodel frowned at her.

“I missed you,” Nimrodel’s voice went soft and Mithrellas felt warmth curl in her stomach unwittingly as soft lips pressed to her own, “didn’t you miss me?”

The sinews that stitched the gashes on Nimrodel’s face closed were rough and scratched Mithrellas’ cheeks but she was too caught up in the deepening kiss, her tongue shyly returning the playful flicker of Nimrodel’s.

“I did miss you,” Mithrellas agreed, slightly breathless before she bit her tongue in order to strengthen her tone and rid herself of the silly, happy feeling running through her nerves. “My friend. Do not worry that I will be lazy or undevoted to your House.”

“I have no doubt about it,” Nimrodel’s tone was unsatisfied, “though if anyone gives you troubles, you will of course tell me. I will have no one upsetting you or making your life hard.”

A Housekeeper who relied on her Lady’s wrath to keep the other servants in check was not really a Housekeeper.

Mithrellas had already, before Nimrodel’s arrival, had troubles. She was a young, inexperienced servant, and there was resentment, as Galion had thought there would be. She had no comma had to use the threat of dismissal when the Lady arrived with two maids who routinely ignored her instructions.

She was sad that she had had to use such methods.

And she very much wished to see Aellolel.

She had felt adrift before, but now with Nimrodel here she felt as though she had stepped out onto a land made of drifting sand banks and deep drowning water. Aellolel’s calmness would have been a lifeline.

“I will keep that in mind,” she murmured, but knew the only time she would be coming to Nimrodel about the behaviour of her servants would be when their misbehaviour required dismissal, or they deserved praise and reward.

-

Mithrellas was clearly awake that night when Tauriel arrived with the little pillow and blanket she always brought with her so she could spend the night at the foot of Mithrellas’ bed.

The girl squeaked in surprise.

“It’s alright,” Mithrellas sighed, “I know you’ve been sneaking into my room since we arrived. You might as well tuck yourself beneath the blankets, that one does not look warm enough.”

Tauriel paused… then wriggled beneath the blankets, peering at Mithrellas.

“The Lady is beautiful,” Tauriel said admiringly.

“She is,” Mithrellas agreed.

“Do you think she is nice?”

“She is,” Mithrellas reassured her.

“Good.” Tauriel, in a feat of cunning, managed to get Mithrellas’ pillow over enough to rest her chin on it.

This was very bizarre, Mithrellas thought.

But what was this compared to the day she’d had?

She lay in the quiet, heard Tauriel’s breathing settle into a rest rhythm, then joined her.

“A bit young for you, isn’t she?”

Mithrellas’ eyes popped open again. It could not have been more than a few hours.

Nimrodel’s skin was luminous and her hair almost glowed in the tiny amount of starlight making its way through the curtains of Mithrellas’ room.

“My Lady?” Mithrellas asked, skin prickling all over.

Nimrodel leaned in, kissing her, “well then, Housekeeper, explain why there is a little girl in your bed? She can’t be yours.”

“She is your youngest servant. She tends to come sneaking into my room to sleep at the end of my bed,” Mithrellas’ heart was pounding in her chest, and her skin warmed like she’d been lying in sunlight.

“Send her away,” Nimrodel ordered, stroking her shoulder and easing away the thin shift Mithrellas wore. Her fingers brushed over the bare skin of Mithrellas’ collar, then down, beneath the loosened shift to cup a breast.

“She is sleeping, and I said she could sleep here tonight,” Mithrellas denied, voice hitching as a thumb teased her nipple into a peak. “Stop,” she begged, pushing away the hand, feeling it was wrong to engage in anything of this with a young child in the room.

Nimrodel withdrew her hand, but cast an annoyed look at Tauriel.

“Tomorrow you will send her back to her room,” Nimrodel ordered in a firm voice and stood up. The barely-there light played off the long, strong lengths of her arms and lit shadows beneath her nightshift that Mithrellas suspected were more stitched wounds.

Mithrellas nodded, and the door shut behind Nimrodel who left with the same silence as she had arrived.

She lay back in her bed and stared at the barely visible ceiling of her room. That she managed to fall back asleep was amazing.

-

Her suspicions were correct. There were further stitched wounds beneath Nimrodel’s clothing. Mithrellas’ hands shook as she explored around them, pressed to Nimrodel’s body. The skin was still so soft, though beneath the firm muscle made Mithrellas wonder why she’d not realised Nimrodel was not what she’d claimed before. What servant had this strength in them? The sleek feline grace Mithrellas had noted was from training, and Nimrodel could pin her easily, holding her still and at her mercy.

Nimrodel locked their legs together, pushing Mithrellas back against the bed with a hand resting on Mithrellas’ breast, toying with the peaked nipple as she moved her hips and rode them both together.

Tauriel had looked upset when Mithrellas had gently told her she could not sleep in her room that night. Mithrellas tried to feel guilty, but as the pleasure began to build into a unappeasable ache inside her, she couldn’t think of anything much more than Nimrodel.

-

Life settled as the House established itself properly now they had their Lady.

Routines were established, mealtimes became set in stone rather than fluctuating day to day. The Guards established their patrol routes, and there was a flurry of communication between the surrounding territories to ensure that the Guards could work around one another and with one another.

Long ago it had been learnt that territorial independence was fine, right up until you began to compromise the danger of your territory… or so Nimrodel told Mithrellas as she signed off on an agreement that those guards patrolling the borders of her territory to the west of her should join patrol with the guards in the adjoining territory.

Nimrodel accepted the suggestion of Tauriel’s eventual apprenticeship to a Guard, especially when she observed the young girl up the trees, moving across the thinnest branches with her nimble ease that a squirrel would be jealous of.

But dominating their new lives was the River of Sighs.

It sang, constantly, in voices some claimed to recognise, and some that were clearly not human Sometimes the songs were innocuous. Maltheneth was sure that she had heard Aellolel singing the soft tunes she had slipped into when at her chores, usually in the morning hours.

The noise of the river penetrated most rooms of the house, and seemed to follow to follow, even moving away away from it.'

Some were worse affected by it than others. By the end of her first year in the House, Mithrellas had sent three servants to the Servants' House with Nimrodel’s blessing to find new employment because the voice of the river had followed them so closely that they had ceased to be able to function normally.

“Can you not make it stop?” she asked Nimrodel.

“No, this has always been the hardest territory amongst those who live here. But to endure living here is to be greatly rewarded. The people here are tithed less and the other territories subsidise us for what news and prophecy the river brings.” Nimrodel stroked Mithrellas hair back from her face, and Mithrellas leaned into the touch.

The river had been whispering faded lullabies in Mithrellas’ ear all afternoon in the voice of her mother, which Mithrellas had realised she’d forgotten until the river had murmured “here upon this rotted bough, I rest my baby gently now” in perfect mimicry.

Mithrellas nodded tiredly. It was true, the tithe was less upon the people who lived and had grown up near the river, and who seemed in some way to either have an immunity to its noise, or whom the river simply left alone. In exchange Nimrodel almost daily went to the deepest parts of it, or where the water ran the roughest over the stones and laid herself down, fully submerging her body and taking away more than the idle songs the water could bring.

Prophecy flowed from Nimrodel’s lips; divinations where metal deposits might be easily dug up, where the best places to plant would be that year, and where blight would strike in the trees. She rose often from the water warning of a calamity from the West, and she sent more than one message urging a reaffirming of their language, and an elevation of it to something sacred so it might never be lost.

The maids who would wait attendance on Nimrodel, waiting sometimes for hours for her to emerge from the water, brought word of this back to Mithrellas, reciting what Nimrodel had often been chanting with her mouth still full of river water. And often they returned with hickies and bite marks upon their necks and breasts, flushed high with colour in their cheeks, and averting their eyes from Mithrellas’.

It seemed Nimrodel had not changed her ways at all.

She was discrete about Mithrellas; two years had been enough to mature her, and she knew that she couldn’t be seen goosing her Housekeeper and expect her household to run smoothly.

She was not so discrete about her liaisons with many of the maids, and a few of the serving lads to Mithrellas’ chagrin. The girls who waited for her when she was in the river Mithrellas almost understood. She had stood attendance as well when she had the time, and Nimrodel was often washed out when she emerged from the water, skin paler then bleached bone and blue about the lips. She would be chilled right the way through, and grasp at the first warm body, clinging until the cold had been displaced from her skin.

Mithrellas could understand that, though it hurt. But there were other maids and the occasional lad, late at night or in the mornings, intercepted in their duties or prearranged meetings. Tauriel, still aggrieved but not understanding why she could not sleep in Mithrellas’ room some nights, was often the one who innocently brought this news to her, for no one seemed to watch their tongues about her. Or perhaps they did not notice her. She only came up to Mithrellas’ mid-thigh.

Come the winter of her fourth year, Mithrellas, searching for the girl whom she had put in charge of ensuring all of the quilts in the house had been distributed, found herself hovering outside the mending room. The conversation inside was of Nimrodel and her conquests, a fair few of who were within the room at that moment, and eagerly sharing the salacious details of their encounters.

Mithrellas didn’t mean to eavesdrop. It was a bad habit, and unsightly, and rude. She had no business knowing other people’s personal affairs.

Except that you do, a voice that was a strange hybrid of Galion and the Mistress’s voice said, for the Housekeeper knows everything that happens within her domain.

And talk of Nimrodel could root her in place, even when the talk hurt Mithrellas to listen to.

“Aye, she’s a generous lover,” someone sighed, “though I’ve noticed; don’t you think she likes the dark haired girls more than the light?”

“Aye, though that might be availability,” someone replied and there was raucous laughter.

“I’m surprised we’ve not heard of her with her hand up the Little Mistress’ skirt,” Mithrellas recognised this voice as the girl whom she had put to work cleaning out the fireplaces in the summer as a punishment for skiving off laundry duties. The maid sounded sourly pleased.

“True enough that; the Little Mistress is just her sort, you’d think.”

“Hah,” this was one of the servants who had come with Mithrellas from the Servant’s House, “the Little Mouse? She’s probably pining away for her tendresse who went away to serve the Lord of the Quarry. She’s a dullard romantic sort like that.”

“I don’t think the Lady cares about whether someone is a romantic,” someone else said, “if the Lady wants someone enough.”

“Then perhaps she does not want Mistress Mithrellas.”

“But why not Mithrellas?” one asked curiously.

“Mayhaps our Lady does not find her lovely enough,” another laughed, scorn in her voice.

“Ah but she is lovely enough, I think,” another mused.

“Not to our Lady’s tastes though, a little too meek it seems, a little too dark at heart,” the one who laughed with scorn added.

Mithrellas crept away from the door, her heart stinging with anger, and her eyes burning with tears.

A Lady or a Lord could take as many lovers as they wished.

Mithrellas wished to protest this. Mithrellas wished to howl at Nimrodel how unfair it was, and how she wished Nimrodel would choose her or let her be.

But it was not Mithrellas’ place. She knew she should be grateful, and she knew with deep certainty that Nimrodel did not share the same ease and… friendship with the other maids as with Mithrellas. Certainly she did appreciate the discretion that bordered on secrecy, for if this was how the maids talked of her and they thought her not a visitor of Nimrodel’s bed, how would they think of her if they did know?

There was some luck that apparently no one who knew of Nimrodel’s brief fling with her in the Servant’s House had come to the House. Or that it had not been thought worth gossiping about there.

One day Nimrodel might grow tired of Mithrellas as a lover. If she was a good servant she would keep her job, she was sure. She did not want to nag, or place in Nimrodel’s mind a distaste for her, or a need to be rid of her for being too close and too demanding.

She bit her tongue.

But she did pray secretly from time to time, sometimes when she was alone, or saw evidence of Nimrodel’s mouth and hands on another, or sometimes as she lay, stunned and warmed by her pleasure, beside Nimrodel.

“Do you care for me?” she asked just the once, feeling far too fragile after Nimrodel had come to her in the dead of night, a warm weight on her back that would be gone come the dawn.

Nimrodel was a solid presence, her breath humid as a summer day with no breeze on the nape of Mithrellas’ neck. Mithrellas was aching pleasingly from Nimrodel’s attention, and her mouth was a tad sore from worshipping between the shapely thighs her Lady had. Yet in that moment, when they were done with something a little more than simple rutting, yet not deserving the title of love making, Mithrellas felt like her body had been turned into sticks of glass covered in thin bark paper, and the ache beneath her rib cage might burrow its way out if Nimrodel answered in the wrong way.

“Of course I do,” Nimrodel’s fingers pushed hair back from Mithrellas’ ears, and stroked the fresh water pearls in Mithrellas’ earlobes which had been that year’s yule present “I care for you the most of all.”

Then with that uncanny sense she had shown the first time they had met, Nimrodel suddenly flipped her around, cupping her face.

“Why are you unhappy?” the Lady demanded but Mithrellas could not tell her for Mithrellas’ throat suddenly felt as though it had been filled with a thousand sharp, unyielding river pebbles. All she could do was shake her head and cry silently, pushing at Nimrodel until with a grief stricken sigh the Lady took up her clothing and left Mithrellas alone in her room.

Out of spite Mithrellas stopped telling Tauriel she could not sleep in her rooms, and it was with some glee she watched Nimrodel sometimes have to about face and leave her rooms, knowing Mithrellas would not be available to her.

Though Tauriel was not always there as a shield. The little girl had her own life, and she was adapting well to her new House and home, and becoming used the little sleeping room she had to herself. Ironically being forced to sleep there the nights Mithrellas had sent her away had helped Tauriel adjust and become comfortable sleeping there.

-

In the twelfth and auspicious year of her service to Nimrodel, nearly seventeen in total since Mithrellas had met her Lady, Nimrodel’s mood suddenly plummeted.

Her demeanour changed.

She cried fitfully at night for no reason, or would begin to weep during the day without any apparent provocation. She would become quiet, sullen and snappish abruptly, or would take her divinations for hours longer than usual.

And the one bearing the brunt of Nimrodel’s most unusual behaviour was Mithrellas, who endured Nimrodel’s sad yet angry stares, and suddenly a wish for Mithrellas to attend to her like a Handmaiden, all the time until Mithrellas had to divide her own duties to appease their Lady, in pure confusion, but obedience.

Eight months of this behaviour though wore her down to a pebble and at last she finally asked her Lady what was wrong. Or confronted her, rather, in her rooms as the sun shone unhindered with mid-morning brilliance.

Nimrodel denied that anything was wrong.

“You cry often.”

“My eyes have been sensitive of late.”

“You have been sulking!”

“I do not sulk!”

“Yes you do!”

“I do not!”

“You also glare at me!”

“I don’t!”

“And then you look like you are going to cry! Why do you stare at me with such sadness? Am I going to die?”

“NO.”

“Why do you stare at me so angrily as well?”

“I’m angry because I asked the river if you would ever love anyone else than me and it said yes, and that they’d break your heart worse than I ever could,” Nimrodel snarled, kicking one of the carefully arranged stones on the flooring between the many rich rugs, to give the effect of water flowing.

At last, Mithrellas thought, at last I have an answer. It was an insufficient relief.

“Surely not,” Mithrellas protested with a dagger of betrayal between her ribs. How could Nimrodel even for a moment consider she would stray? Her Lady of the White Grotto, her Lady of the River of Sighs.

“Such divinings do not lie!” Nimrodel snapped and then she shivered, “Oh, I am sorry. I am sorry. I did not mean that tone of voice. But the river will not lie to me. I wish I had not asked. I do not want to lose you. I do not want another to take you away from me.”

And there was nothing Mithrellas could argue against.

“If it must be that way, then let it be that way, but not this day,” Mithrellas heard herself crying, reaching for Nimrodel even as her lady was upon her, hands usually so graceful tearing at her wrap and dragging her naked body against Nimrodel’s possessively.

“Let it never be that day,” Nimrodel said, clutching her tight with fingers sliding ever downwards.

Nimrodel was as a person starved for an entire winter, with spring’s bounty before her. Mithrellas cried out as a hot mouth was cruel to her, then soft and gentle. There was no caring that anyone might know (would know) what was happening with the noises that neither of them bothered to muffle.

There was nothing but Nimrodel in Mithrellas’ world at that moment; glorious and golden Nimrodel who pressed her against the floor as though she could merge their two bodies. Mithrellas’ fingers slipped easily into the hot, slick sheath, thrusting and trying to match the pace that Nimrodel set. It was hard though, hard when Nimrodel was all she could see, all she could breathe, all that she could feel; three fingers rocking determinedly inside Mithrellas while a knowing thumb stroked up and directly against the apex of her pleasure.

Mithrellas screamed, world unmade and the hot sheath about her fingers bore down, Nimrodel’s teeth sunk into Mithrellas’ throat like a wolf’s. Mithrellas’ life danced for a moment on a knife edge, she didn’t realise it until she saw the bite, but had Nimrodel sunk in her teeth just a little more, the artery would have been severed.

Nimrodel was not some blunt-toothed Man. Her teeth were sharp, and her strength far beyond what a Mortal Warrior might possess.

Yes, in that moment Nimrodel could have bitten deep and Mithrellas would not have had much time to contemplate the price of love.

As it was she lived, and the price of love was something she would meditate on for many millennia more.

-

After that day Nimrodel ceased her dalliances with the other maids.  Mithrellas became her Lady’s Lover exclusively, and found that her delight in Nimrodel’s presence grew stronger. That her affection was deeper then she had ever known for a person.

And that there were… many… many more delights that Nimrodel had promised her, and which Nimrodel so eagerly shared with her.

There was a phallus made of stone that Nimrodel liked especially. One end was thick and shorter, and she would have Mithrellas lick her and caress her till Nimrodel could take it, and then securing it in place with a clever harness, the other end would rise from Mithrellas’ Lady’s quim like a proper cock might.

Then with a ‘on your knees, you gorgeous maiden,” Mithrellas’ world would become nothing but that fulfilling pressure as Nimrodel teased her, commenting about how simply preparing Nimrodel could make Mithrellas so wet and … “ai, beauty, look at how you part around me,” Nimrodel would breathe. Sometimes she would flip Mithrellas around, so Mithrellas could watch how her Lady’s cock sank into her.  The fullness would inch into her, or sometimes fill her in a single thrust depending on Nimrodel’s mood, and she would be taken, taken for hours sometimes with nothing but the phallus and her Lady’s body against hers to bring her to her climax.

And yet this was never a drawback. Mithrellas never came away unsatisfied or wanting for pleasure.

Nimrodel’s tale of the river’s words though. It haunted her.

Her, love someone more than Nimrodel?

Her, leave Nimrodel for another?

Impossible, she thought. Nimrodel was quiet beside her, asleep after a night spent curled against one another and lazily taking their time to find their release.

Impossible she would never leave her Lady. Never her Nimrodel.

Perhaps…

No, it was not her place.

Mithrellas stirred from the bed despite the thought.

The river was close enough. She could go and return by the time the night was done, easily. It was unlikely it would talk to her anyway. She was merely a Housekeeper, after all.

To the river, she thought, heart high in her throat in shock at her own presumption, even as she slipped from the House and followed the path with barely a need for sight, the sound of the water seemed so deafeningly loud with a rhythm like her own heartbeat to its constant noise.

She could not seek out the deepest or roughest part of the river (and she was not a good swimmer anyway. She would not risk it.)

Instead she followed the ancient steps that had been made from rocks taken from further north, and which endured despite the water’s erosion. The water rose to her knees, icy cold, and it was a human desire to remain warm that had Mithrellas hesitating before she simply let her body fall back into the flow.

There was the brief silence that was the result of a deafening noise, in this case the splash of her immersion, and then voices filled her ears.

Ah, you come, you come at last. Thrice-beloved, ever-abandoned one.

I apologise, her voice whispered out of her, precious air escaping her mouth as silver bubbles, I apologise for my impudence. But if you would, please tell me what you told my Lady Nimrodel?

So polite! So polite! Listen to her, so meek and unsure. Listen to how her faith in herself is a thing not even half the size it should be! Listen to her! Oh, little girl. Oh thrice-beloved Mithrellas. You of all people should walk with your head high.

You call me thrice-beloved, but I know not what you mean, Mithrellas said, feeling apologetic, but also frustrated. The voices came from everywhere, and from the water rushing into her mouth, and from the river bottom she gripped tightly in her hands.

You are Mithrellas. Three times you will find love and love will find you; not even the Lords and Ladies of the West can claim such a thing. Twice maybe, but such calamities befell them! Such calamities! You, Mithrellas, are thrice-beloved, and three times love shall find you, and calamity is not what your love shall bring, though calamity you shall suffer.

I love no one but Nimrodel, Mithrellas struggled against the current, gripping river weed. Her lungs hurt, and she surfaced, gasped air, then sunk back into the water.

But you shall, just as she shall love another.

NO!

Mithrellas’ voice did not emerge from her mouth in that instance. It was a scream, torn straight out of her chest; a visceral howl of pain that her whole body shouted into the uncaring water.

Oh, listen to you! Listen to you! Just as Nimrodel screamed, now you scream as well. You cannot change the path of a river, and you cannot stop the erosion of a mountain. Nimrodel shall love another, though love for you will forever be a lantern in her heart, even when the sea takes her and takes her far away.

West she shall go one day, our Nimrodel, but this we do not wish to speak of now. It is you, Mithrellas, our supplicant. You ask us what she heard of you, but of you we shall tell you more, much more, than that.

Suddenly there was a presence beside her, arms around her waist and lips against her ear, though the words continued within her head. 

Thrice-beloved you shall be; the dawn of autumn, bright and glorious, but fading quickly from the memory of all who witness it, shall love you and you shall love her. But fickle-hearted dawn lasts only a moment of your life, and there is always someone else whom the dawn shines light upon. 

She saw Nimrodel, shining like the sun within the shadows of the forest. But lurking somewhere amongst the trees there was another, a man perhaps? Mithrellas struggled forward to try and catch a glimpse of the foreign clothing he wore, or the planes of his face, but the water acted like a anchor. She stood in place, and watched as Nimrodel walked away, the ringing tones of her voice raised in song the only thing left.   

Then the afternoon of a bright summer day, lasting forever in the time of it, but all too brief, shall take you and honour you above all others. And like him your children with him will be too bright, too warm, and too brief.

 

Mithrellas squeezed her eyes shut, heartbroken at Nimrodel’s loss, and despairing. There were no visions, only the blackness behind her eyelids, but there were voices laced behind the river’s; children’s voices laughing and at play, chanting in a language she did not speak yet. There was a presence behind her, warm and sure. Strong arms were around her waist and she leant back against a broad chest. The panic of Nimrodel’s disappearance into the trees soothed itself, only for a chill like grief to pierce her bones and drag her back to reality, where the shale of the river’s bottom was scraping her skin raw. 

And when the afternoon is passed, the twilight of spring, where the trees are fresh with life, and flowers dare to bloom after huddling away from the cruel winter, shall come for you, and in this you shall stay, bearing a child who is the whole day, from dawn until twilight. The sun of your life until, like the sun, he shall go West and you shall never see him again.

The phantom male presence was back, but different, sleeker lines which were more like that of a hunting cat compared to the wolf of before. The height was different, and the warmth, though no less comforting. She heard the murmuring of voices familiar and not, and was sure she heard Aellolel’s joyous voice calling Mithrellas ‘dearest and most beloved friend’. The arms around her were just as strong as the last; they held her waist securely, and she felt safe enough to open her eyes into the blur of the river. She saw a fine-boned young man standing amongst ancient trees that were unfamiliar to her. He was a tall as the young trees amongst the old, and she could see the strength in him, enough to draw the great bow upon his back.

He smiled, bright as Nimrodel, and he was… hers, her boy. Her little boy. Her son. He was her son. She struggled forward, away from the water and away from the man at her back, but like Nimrodel her boy smiled and walked away, disappeared into the trees and into the deafening roar of water.

Mithrellas felt as though something had taken hold of her. Her hands had slackened and all she could do was listen to the river, though the scream of NO never ended as she listened and refused to believe.

Pretty girl! Lonely girl! Stubborn child at heart still weeping for your mother’s embrace and your father’s love. You should hate the West. Hate it with your heart and hate it with your fae, and hate with your rhaw. Put every ounce of your hatred westward, for the West shall devour everything that you have salvaged and built out of the misery of your childhood.

The West will take everything you have; your family, your lovers, and your children.

Even when the end comes.

Yes even in the end when you have your final child, such a child.  He shall have Nimloth’s warmth and Nimloth’s eyes, and his laugh shall be as hers, and you will feel as though you have gone from withered corpse-tree to suddenly budding and alive, crowned like a sapling with new and bright green leaves.

The West shall steal that child from you as well.

Love wisely, oh thrice-beloved Mithrellas, and memorise what you can before it is taken from you.

-

It was barely the full light of morning when she returned to the House, shivering and wet, but Nimrodel was awake, her bedclothes tossed away from her bed as though in anger. The Lady was sitting in a chair near her armoire, looking out the window, but the moment Mithrellas looked into the room, just barely cracking the door open, her head whipped around and her gaze pierced Mithrellas, holding her in place.

One, two, three, four steps to the door and it yanked open, drowning Mithrellas in the light of the room beyond the still, shadowed corridor. Nimrodel’s hands burned on her arm as she dragged her within the room and shut the door behind them both with a great crash.

“I’m sorry!” Mithrellas was gasping before her Lady could say a word, falling to her knees before Nimrodel without a care for the pain that shot through the scrapped and bruised flesh. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I overstepped my place. I simply wanted to ask the river if it was certain,” she wept, hiding her face in her hands so she would not meet Nimrodel’s stare, which likely was betrayed and angry.

“Oh, beautiful woman,” Nimrodel’s hands caught her and dragged her forward into Nimrodel’s arms, and a mouth was upon hers like a small consuming firestorm, burning away her coherent thought.

“You have every right to know what the river could tell you. It is your life after all. I think it stupid that only Lords and Ladies should be given the right to consult the rivers and the streams, not when so much of what they say is not about the Lords and Ladies at all.”

Mithrellas shook her head violently. “No,” she said, and all that she had been thinking of. Her origins, and how the lowly unwanted daughter of those too idiotic to control their own family size, “I should not have. I am a weak-willed, worthless creature who forgot her place in a moment of hubris, and I will accept any punishment, accept being sent from your service. Please do not send me away.”

“Sometimes,” Nimrodel replied, holding onto her harder, “it is as though what I say to you goes in one of your pretty ears and out the other without engaging with the brilliant mind I know is between them. You are worthy of consulting the river, any in my opinion is worthy of consulting the river. But you especially, my Mithrellas. You are worthy of so much; you are worthy of being my lover and worthy of being my Housekeeper, in fact sometimes I feel as though it is I who is not worth you. That I should be the one apologising.”

Mithrellas laughed sourly at Nimrodel’s joke, and the Lady frowned at her in a manner that had Mithrellas realising that Nimrodel meant no joke.

 “I will teach you that you are worthy of being a Lady of the Forests and Rivers,” Nimrodel clasped her passionately, backing her towards the yet-to-be-made bed, “or as the Westerners call it, a Queen.”

The jingling of the silver hair tags, woven into her hair as she’d slept by her lady’s deft hands, and the soft pressure of Nimrodel’s lips that morning, would always be the sweetest thing to her. The humidity between their bare bodies, and the slide of skin. Mithrellas’ thighs were the silkiest skin on her body, Nimloth liked to claim, blanketing her while her hands stroked the coveted skin, and her mouth lingered against Mithrellas’ breasts, or her teeth left bright red marks on Mithrellas’ collarbones.

Ah, but she could not tell her daughter this.

Though, Mithrellas realised, blinking sluggishly into a room where only the embers remained in the fire, and she was not sitting, but lying in her bed covered in blankets, that would not be possible at that moment.

She made a confused noise and her husband’s arm came around her waist and dragged her back against his body.

“You fell asleep while you were talking to Gilmith last night. She was worried,”  Imrazôr rumbled against her shoulder. “As was I. Are you well?”

“I am well,” Mithrellas felt slight unsettled, though, and displaced. Had she not been in the house near the river? “Sometimes…” she thought about something soothing to tell him, a little white lie, “Sometimes with elvish kin, reminiscing can blur the lines between interacting with the waking world, and travelling your memories in reverie.”

She heard the silence as Imrazôr digested that, then his gentle snort which meant he didn’t actually believe her. She wriggled over beneath her arm and peered up at him, pressing a light kiss to his lips.

Her hair slid across her arms and his chest, unbound of its braids, and with her hair tags of ancient cherry wood, antique silver, and brightly polished nacre, carved till it resembled lace in its complexity, carefully removed.

“Well, you shall have to continue your retelling to Gilmith tomorrow,” Imrazôr’s warm, large hand smoothed down her hair, and she leaned into the touch, “I put your hair trinkets in the little box you like to keep them in. It was certainly an effort to remove them all, but you were well away in your dreams. You did not stir once.”

He gathered her closer to his chest and kissed her lips. She moaned softly at the touch of his lips, and at the gentle rasp of the stubble upon his chin and cheeks.

“But now you stir,” Imrazôr purred and pulled her up so she straddled his hips.

“And so do you,” she gasped back, trembling as she rocked against him and his hands slid up her sides. The look in his eyes was devoted to a degree that continued to startle her.

-

Hours later it was the timewhen night became morning again and Imrazôr was dozing, a hand stroking through her hair. Mithrellas rested on his chest, and as his breathing evened out, hers did also.

She might have clung a little tighter to him, though, in her sleep. She could hear the river laughing in her ears.

Bright afternoon, immortal in the moment it is experienced, but all too brief.

Her hand found its way over his heart as she slept, seeking its guiding and steady pulse in her dreams to call her away from the roar of water trying to deafen her.

-

The next day she once more found herself with her daughter in a parlour, embarrassed as Gilmith told her of how she’d simply stopped talking all at once, and abruptly dropped into a deep sleep.

“I’m sorry, darling, I meant to answer; my mind wanders sometimes, and I have been very tired of late. What was it that we were talking of?”

“Your Lady!” Gilmith reminded her, eyebrows peaking to her hairline in a moment very reminiscent of her father, “you were telling me how you met her pretending to be a servant.”

“Ah, yes,” Mithrellas remembered where they had left off. But had she told Gilmith about…

“Did you really?”

“Did I really what?” Mithrellas asked in alarm.

“You said you loved her like a sister. Did you?”

Mithrellas thought of the strange and hypocritical ways of men, and their bizarre and contradictory views on sex and the sexes.

“Like a sister,” she agreed with a gentle inclination of her head that Nimrodel would have been proud of. She kept her eyes lowered, just in case her daughter had at least inherited from her the elven ability to tell a mistruth when it was spoken.

She looked at her daughter, who had a hoop of embroidery in her lap and who was still too small to reach the floor with her feet when she sat. She thought of Gilmith grown in just a few years, until she was old enough to be a mother by the reckoning of Imrazôr and his people.

As immortal and as brief as a summer’s afternoon. Her throat clogged, and she wanted to reach out and drag her daughter into her arms, to hunt down her son as well, and hold them tightly in her arms, begging them not to leave her. 

But even if they were not mortal, would that have kept them by her? She thought of the young man amongst the trees, bright as the stars, with pride in his eyes and that great bow upon his back. 

Another son. A brother that her children would not know.  

And one that would in time go westward also, though not to any place where they might all one day be reunited.

She thought of Nimrodel and Imrazôr, and of her friend Aellolel whom she had loved as well. She thought of the lover in her future who would be the father of her elven son. 

Her future suddenly seemed full of strange hope and joy, constantly followed by crushing grief.  

Think of the present, she told herself firmly, giving herself a shake. There is no use thinking of the past, or the future yet to come. Gather what joy you can right now in your children and in Imrazôr. Nimrodel is behind you. The path before you is so shadowed it is invisible. 

Gilmith suddenly looked up. 

“Mother,” she said, holding out her hoop imperatively, “I’ve knotted the ribbon again.” 

Mithrellas leaned forward and took the hoop. Her daughter was trying to sew ribbons into flowers upon the fine silk. The delicate white interior of the flowers was well done, but yes, the golden ribbon meant to be the edges of the petals had become knotted with the thread that was supposed to sew them into place.

“There’s no picking it,” she concluded at last, “you shall have to cut it free.”