Left Behind by Himring

Chapter 1

Ulrica, assumed dead, awakes in a changed situation.

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Ulrica had lain in a stupor for so long that it was a miracle she even perceived the uproar. But a stubborn hope must have been lurking inside her; it alerted her that both the tent and her guard had somehow disappeared. Without questioning the source of the commotion around her, she began to crawl, painfully. She was badly overdue for a stroke of luck: she crawled in the right direction and, unnoticed, reached a small clump of thorny bushes. There was just enough space underneath to conceal her as she passed out again. When she awoke, they were gone.

They were gone. She rose, staring uncomprehendingly at the deserted campsite. Smouldering ashes, half-dismantled structures, a shoe dropped in haste—no long-planned departure this! And apparently no living creature left to tell...
Suddenly, they were there, those two, twenty paces away, as if they had sprung right out of the ground. Lorren had her sling ready. Ulrica's stomach clenched. She had lived under a suspended sentence too long. But the girl was not about to try stoning her for adultery. She was frightened almost out of her wits; so was the boy clinging to her other hand.

'Lorren. What happened?'

Ulrica knelt on the bank, dipping her face into cold water. She had been drugged on top of a severe concussion, but her head, though painful, was clearing.

'Morgoth's troops, you say? How? Didn't our men resist? Where were the Elves that they didn't defend us?'

There was silence.

Then Lorren said: 'You don't know.'

She explained: 'There was a big battle. We fought against the Elves, for Morgoth.'

The explanation made no sense.

The boy spoke up, for the first time.

'There would be a great reward, Ulfang said. But when they came, we were driven off like cattle.'

---

Chapter End Notes

These are three true drabbles according to MS Word, written for Tolkien Weekly on LJ, for the prompts: (Not a) River: source, spring, bank.

Chapter 2

One Easterling woman--barely escaped from a death sentence, two Easterling children--abandoned in the chaos after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.
What to do next and how to survive?

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'Follow them? West?'

Ulrica considered. Of course, the children would want to follow, to try and rejoin their families. And maybe, just maybe she would be allowed to live, if her tribe decided she had saved the children and brought them back. Also, maybe her chief tormentors were dead, fallen in battle.

Maybe her chief tormentors were dead. The people had not been offered explanations, Polfast had said, but from the various remarks and jeers it was clear the battle had not gone altogether well for the tribe and none of the war leaders, nobody from the Ul family, had been in evidence. None of them! So maybe Ulwarth and Ulfast were dead. But maybe Uldor was dead, too...

She would not think about him. She had thought about him too much already. The battle was the important thing. 

It had been a big battle, a really big one, and Morgoth had won. Her tribe, whichever side they had fought on, were clearly not in control. Morgoth was--which meant that orcs and trolls--and who knew what else--were freely roaming across Anfauglith all the way into Lothlann. If they tried to follow, they would be heading right into all that, and she doubted that shaky new allegiance of theirs would protect three vulnerable stragglers.

They had lost so much time already, too. If Lorren had just grabbed little Polfast and run straight after, maybe they would have caught up, provided they had managed not to run straight into an orc band. But they had waited for her--and she had recovered enough to walk, but not very fast nor very far. The pain in her head came and went, her bones ached with the strain--and as for her bruises, oh, best not even think about them.

'I think we should go south,' she said.

And maybe she was entirely wrong about that. South, into Thargelion, had been the safest  direction before all this happened. It might no longer be now, when no direction was safe anymore. Maybe they should attempt to climb the mountains instead but the mountains were a danger in themselves, for the three of them.

'South', she said again, trying to sound confident.

She was a no-name nobody, under suspended sentence of death. It should have been Lorren who was in charge. Even little Polfast had more status than her. But in this upheaval that had overthrown the order of all established things in less than a day, they were children clinging to her authority simpy because she was older.

She had expected protest. There was none. She had not actually seen the servants of Morgoth as they drove off the rest of the tribe, but they had terrified Polfast; that was very palpable. There was that.

They went south.

 

***

'Orcs!' shouted Caranthir, very loudly. 'Green Elves! Easterlings! You would think I could at least be spared any more Easterlings!'

It was really rather interesting, mused Ulrica, that those who feared and distrusted the elves among her tribe tended to call them the "whitefiends", but this particular elf, the one they had called the worst of the whitefiends, actually turned bright red when he was angry--which he reputedly was very often.  He certainly was so now.

Things had been going so well, too, or so she had believed. She had been congratulating herself on having made it so far,  herself and the two children, without being spitted by an arrow or eaten by wolf or orc. Moving slowly and cautiously farther south in order to escape the threat of oncoming  winter, they had with some difficulty managed to ford another river--when the Green Elves, who probably had known where they were for some time, apparently decided that this was a river too far. The Green Elves had scooped them up from the river bank  and unceremoniously deposited them in Amon Ereb, quite literally  on Caranthir's doorstep.

Caranthir did not seem to appreciate the gift at all. He was glaring at them ferociously. Lorren was doing her best to stand straight and not huddle against her, but Ulrica could feel her flinch. Polfast was unashamedly hiding behind Ulrica's skirts.

'So,' asked one of Caranthir's retainers, a tired-looking man with half-healed burn marks on his face and neck, 'do you want us to execute the traitors?'

He sounded nonplussed as if he felt overtaxed by the situation rather than as if he was thirsting for vengeance, but  Ulrica thought he would do precisely that, if ordered. Lorren clearly thought so, too. Ulrica felt her tremble.

'Traitors?!' yelled Caranthir, turning even redder, if possible. 'Three children?!'

Ulrica inadvertently frowned a little, even knowing it was most unwise. Caranthir caught her eye.

'One woman, two children,' he corrected himself, in calmer tones. "We are not executing anybody.'

 Somehow,  Ulrica wasn't even surprised when afterwards, in the dark winding corridor, Caranthir abruptly picked up Polfast as he stumbled with weariness and carried him the rest of the way.

The room in which they were locked for safe-keeping was clean, the bedstraw fresh, a chamber-pot provided. The three of them clung close together for comfort nevertheless.

Chapter 3

Ulrica encounters another Son of Feanor--and it is a surprise for both of them.

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'You're Ulrica? But you were dead!', said Maedhros, startled.

'Not quite,' answered Ulrica, bewildered.

How did this lord of the elves...?

She had tried to explain to Caranthir's people, when they got around to asking,  that she had no name. The horrified reaction that explanation evoked had made her so uneasy--as if she were being somehow pushed into defending her people's laws and customs, against her own interest--that it had seemed simpler to fall back on an old name she no longer had a right to. She had not expected anyone to recognize it.

Oh.

'Uldor told you about me. He mentioned my name to you?'

'He did.'

A moment of tense silence. She thought of Uldor talking, talking in the twilight, about the Eldar and their wondrous powers and talents, about Lord Maedhros and his kindness, about his own love for her. He had been speaking frantically, trying to convince himself, and she had heard, known even then it was not for real, and never believed more than half of it, even though in her hopelessness she had allowed herself to be briefly seduced by the dream.

'It is he who is dead, isn't he?' she asked, facing up to it.

She thought she had pieced it together already from what Caranthir's people had said or not said, but none had informed her outright, none guessed it might be a personal concern of hers. And it was not permitted to be a personal concern of hers, so she had not asked, until now.

'Yes.'

'Did you kill him?'

'I did not do it myself.'

All dreamed out; the dreamer dead on the battlefield and his name accursed. It had never been real, she had known it. Except that since then what she had believed to be reality and solid had crumbled about her as well...

'Ulrica?'

Her head was swimming. Her hands were clenched. The tall elven lord, the stranger, the enemy, was looking at her in concern, offering her a beaker full of water.

It was difficult to get her head around that. It had not been real, of course, any of it. But here, now, Maedhros, son of Feanor, called her by her name, the name Uldor had used. He was looking at her as if she had lost somebody, as if she had a right to mourn. Uldor had spoken of her to him, as he had spoken of Maedhros to her.

She accepted the beaker. It was well made, solid in her uncertain hand. The water was clean and cold.

---

Chapter End Notes

In this 'verse, Uldor was an outsider in his tribe. He was made ambassador to the Eldar and for a long time believed in his mission, ignoring his increasing doubts about both sides. He confided in Maedhros about his adulterous love for Ulrica, but was disappointed in Maedhros's reaction, as Maedhros warned him it was politically unwise. But Maedhros spoke even more truly than he knew, for when Uldor's brothers found out, they mistreated Ulrica and blackmailed Uldor. Uldor told Maedhros that Ulrica was dead and concealed successfully that he was being blackmailed.

Chapter 4

Decisions: Maedhros's decisions, that is, and Ulrica's.

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Maedhros had sent for her again. She assumed he meant to inform her about his decision with regard to their future, hers and the children's. But when she arrived, he was busy. There was intense discussion in several languages, note-taking on wax tablets, people coming and going.

Maedhros saw her standing by the door and waved her apologetically over to a chair. So she was to wait. She sat down gingerly. The chair was throne-like, with arm rests, padded. Maedhros's wave seemed to have included, comprehensively,  an invitation to the bowl of apples sitting on the table beside her. She wondered whether Maedhros had decided after their earlier encounter that she was sickly and like to faint without support and sustenance or whether these were just elven standards of hospitality.

The discussion was continuing. She had realized by now that Maedhros had not merely been absent when they arrived, but did not in fact reside in Amon Ereb. It seemed that after the loss of Himring he moved about with his remaining people, staying nowhere for long. There was catching up to do, when he returned, apparently--this seemed to be some kind of stock-taking.

She was no whit less anxious about what he might have to say, but she had become used to postponing such thoughts. Gradually she relaxed back into the embrace of the chair and, feeling herself unwatched, she even yielded to the temptation of an apple. It tasted unexpectedly good. By the time there was a lull,  Maedhros had half-shooed his last interlocutor out of the room, and it was her turn, she had finished one apple and had started on the next.

 

'I need to send you to a safe place,' said Maedhros. 'But I cannot think of one.'

He looked sincere, very serious. Ulrica was wishing she had left the apples alone. She felt at a disadvantage in a conversation like this, with a half-eaten apple in her hand.

'I could just stay here?' she suggested uncertainly.

'This,' Maedhros informed her, 'doesn't count as safe.'

She supposed she hadn't exactly thought it did, but she was a little shaken to hear him say so.

'There is food,' said Ulrica, lifting her apple core in evidence. 'And nobody has been beating me up, recently.'

There had been some dark looks, of course. There had been hurtful remarks, some intentionally so, some unintentionally. But when Polfast forgot himself and dashed across the courtyard, making the horses shy and one of the elves lifted an arm to strike at him, several of his companions had stopped him at once and hauled him away. She had not been sure whether it was that elves never beat the children of others or whether they were afraid he would not be able to stop beating Polfast once he had started.

But that might not even be what Maedhros meant. The walls of Amon Ereb seemed strong and Maedhros clearly had his people well in hand. But despite their discipline and air of toughness and experience, looking at them now, not even Uldor would have believed the Sons of Feanor still had any chance of winning against Morgoth. Their last, final defeat might still be put off for a while, perhaps even, by her standards, for a long time, but their ranks had thinned. Theirs was very evidently the losing side, now.

 

'You could kill one of the Sons of Feanor,' suggested Lorren desperately, when she returned and spoke to them. 'They don't seem to be at all careful around you, do they? You would be  a hero! Our people would welcome you back with open arms!'

Ulrica did not believe for a moment she would survive the attempt, even if she happened to succeed, but for a moment she was genuinely tempted by this preposterous plan. To become somebody again in the eyes of her people, a real person, even if she had to kill and die to achieve it--kill red-faced, shouting Caranthir or I-didn't-do-it-myself Maedhros or remote Maglor, who, she had learned, had actually done the deed and slain Uldor on the battle-field...

She let out her breath sharply and reined in her wild imaginings. In the eyes of her people? Whose opinion did she care about, really? Who would she return to if she could?

Not her family. They had sold her to Lorgan out of need more than greed but, once done, they had never stopped pretending  that, merely because, nominally, she was honourably married, she was entirely all right. She had not had a word of comfort or encouragement from them, much less help, at a time when even the smallest show of support might have prevented her from foolishly throwing self-preservation to the winds with Uldor. 

Not Lorgan, if he still lived, nor his heirs, either. Rather than killing her himself, as he had every right to do by law and custom, Lorgan had sold all his rights in her to Ulfast and Ulwarth for three goats, two kids, and a hunting-knife. She did not know exactly how she had been used against Uldor--that part was all a blur and Ulfast and Ulwarth had never done her the courtesy of discussing with her why they were beating her to a pulp--but she could guess that she had been used and that Lorgan had knowingly connived in it--and that part was neither lawful nor customary.

No, there could be nobody for her in Dor-lomin. It was Lorren she really cared about, and little Polfast--Lorren who had looked to her for guidance in the wilds of East Beleriand and had at the same time been so quietly proud to be contributing to their survival with her skills with the sling and on the hunting trail, who clung to her now among all these strangers whose behaviour and customs she could not entirely fathom--Lorren who had occasionally called her 'mother', half by accident, who was now desperate for a return to a normality that had never existed in quite that form, a kind of reality that would somehow allow Lorren both to hang on to this newly formed family of hers that she had become close to so quickly and return to her true parents that she missed and longed for....

Ulrica would do Lorren no favours at all by dying a bloody death--or by confirming the Sons of Feanor and their followers in the idea that all members of the tribe of Ulfang were inherently and ineradicably treacherous.

She shook her head.

'I will do well enough,' she told Lorren, firmly.  'But Lord Maedhros has promised me that he will try to get you two safely back to your families, if he can. It may just take him quite some time. He gets very litte news out of the west at present, he told me, but he has heard that it is virtually impossible to get either into Dor-lomin or out of it, right now.'

Chapter 5

Caranthir gives Ulrica a short break.

Lorren has time enough to change her mind about one important matter.

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Her duties in Amon Ereb were lighter, for the most part, than they had been as Lorgan's youngest wife and de facto household slave. That did not mean life was easy for an Easterling woman among elves, after the Nirnaeth. It was hard.

It was not Caranthir in particular who  made it difficult, despite his famous temper. Experience had taught Ulrica to appreciate a dog who barked a lot before he bit, if he ever did. Unlike others she had known, Caranthir never lashed out without warning. Of course, Ulrica had a lot less face to save than any of the proud Easterling clan chiefs and warriors; such pride as she had left mostly lay elsewhere. Also, a couple of past remarks of Uldor's helped, although she had not understood them at the time.

Caranthir stopped in front of her, where she stood cutting up greens, silently losing her tether.

'You. Yes, you, woman! Take that gutful of misery of yours out of here! Take a walk! Take a nap!  Have a bite to eat...'

He turned around, grabbed a quarter loaf of bread off the counter, and thrust it at her. In the background, the head cook quickly stifled a protest.

'Whatever it takes,' barked Caranthir. 'Stay away until you've got a grip. Don't come back to work before you're sure you can cope! Someone else can do it!'

It could be mortifying, yes, to be perceived too clearly by someone who was himself too prickly to easily become a friend. But the abrasiveness did not blind her to the concern underneath.

 

Years passed, for elves and Men, always more quickly for Men. By the time, Maedhros, patiently sending out messages when he could, obtained the response of a Sinda who might be willing to run the additional risk, during his next dangerous journey into Dor-lomin, of taking two young Easterlings along and handing them over to someone who could deliver them to their parents, Lorren had falled in love with a young man of the Edain, a descendant of refugees from Ladros, and Polfast, no longer little, spoke Sindarin rather better than Easterling.

'It seems, by all accounts,' said Ulrica cautiously to Lorren, 'that your clan has been very successful in Dor-lomin, you know.'

Lorren gave a snort and shook strands of unruly black hair out of her eyes.

'Quit trying to spare me, Ulrica, will you?'

'Spare you?'

'Or trying to be scrupulously fair--or whatever it is that you're doing! I was only a slip of a girl and I didn't understand or believe what I was seeing, but I do remember what I observed well enough and I know better now! Lorgan mistreated you, Ulrica! So did his older wives. You did not love them for it. Why should you? And as for Lorgan the Younger--who is so successful in Dor-lomin, as we hear--you feared and disliked him. And with reason!'

Lorren's voice dropped. Painfully, she asked: 'Mother Ulrica, speak the truth, do you think, yourself, that I should leave and go to Dor-lomin?'

Ulrica caught her breath. Lorren was, by the custom of the Easterlings, an adult now, a very young one, typically headstrong and occasionally rebellious. Ulrica had felt obliged to put forward the other side of the argument, however tentatively. She had not expected to be put on her mettle like this.

Ulrica stood and thought carefully what she should say. Lorren waited, not fidgeting, although slowly her left fist clenched against her skirt. Around them the life of Amon Ereb went on, but nobody was within hearing, nobody interrupted. Polfast had wept last night. Today he was refusing to talk about it and had gone off somewhere, without telling anybody where.

'No,' said Ulrica, finally. 'I do not think either of you should go to Dor-lomin, Lorren mine, and it is not only because I myself feared and disliked Lorgan--although I admit that what you observed is true. I do not like what I hear about Dor-lomin, how things are there.'

She had not put it into words, before. It shamed her, to speak so disloyally, but for the sake of Lorren she must, now.

'I know that the reports that we hear come from sources unfriendly to our people. I am sure they make more of the bad than the good. They probably exaggerate the bad. Also, our people may have little choice, in many of the things they have done. It was Morgoth who sent them to Dor-lomin and Morgoth who keeps them there. I doubt it was with the intention that the Edain of Dor-lomin should be treated kindly!'

Lorren gave a small, jerky nod.

'But despite all that,' Ulrica continued, 'even though I think that our people cannot rightly be blamed for all the ills of Dor-lomin, I do not want you to go to Dor-lomin, Lorren, because, unlike them, you have been given a choice, even if it is not an easy one. And, also, my dear, although it may speak only of my own prejudice--little as we have heard of the dealings of our people with each other, after the death of Sons of Ulfang, I also do not trust a situation which allowed one like Lorgan to climb right to the top...'

'Yes, Mother Ulrica,' said Lorren. 'I have felt all that for some time and I think Polfast has, too. But we could not say it aloud before you did.'

And she reached out and hugged Ulrica.

 

The Sinda carried a carefully worded message--but no children.

Chapter 6

Ulrica's foster-daughter marries--and Maglor is there.

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When eventually Lorren married her young man from Ladros, Caranthir donated a small cask of dwarven ale for the wedding celebrations and stayed long enough to see it broached, although soon the party, such as it was, seemed to become too noisy for him and he withdrew.

Maglor came to the wedding to play, as he did on all such occasions when he happened to be in Amon Ereb, and also to honour Lorren's young man, who had fought under him. Ulrica, who had avoided him all these years--not that it had taken much effort on her part--made sure to keep her distance, at the beginning of the evening. She was also very careful with the dwarven ale--or so she thought--but she had no experience of the stuff, which, like wine, was in very short supply and the name of "ale" and even more its smoothness on the tongue misled her.

The evening grew late. The dances grew livelier within their crowded space. Ulrica was one of the few who did not dance. She edged out of the way, and before she knew it, dodging quick steps and flying skirts, she was standing right next to the musicians. She resisted the temptation to back away again hurriedly and stood quietly, watching Lorren being whirled around by the bridegroom in the centre of the room--so happy today, whatever the future might bring.

That dance ended and there was a short break, as some of the musicians needed to switch instruments and others needed to re-tune their strings. As the music fell silent and the hubbub of voices rose in the room, against all her intentions, Ulrica glanced aside and straight into Maglor's eyes.

They stared at each other. She had not thought she could be so bold; she had not imagined Maglor looking disconcerted by her gaze. Maedhros, she thought, must have said something to him--but even so, he could hardly regret killing a traitor...

'Perhaps,' said Maglor, 'I owe you a song...'

'One of your elvish laments?' asked Ulrica. This dwarvish ale was wicked stuff. She could not believe how it was loosening her tongue!

She turned to confront Maglor fully.

'If you make a song for Ulrica, son of Feanor--no laments for me! If you make a song, let it say that Ulrica lived! Lived, although she was given up and left for dead! No matter that the marks of the blow still show after all this time and my broken bones ache in bad weather, I live, and those who would have killed me are dead! I lost my family, my home, my name--I lost the love of my life and I can no longer bear a child--and yet here there are those who call me mother and, if this day keeps its promises, I may be called grandmother, too, one day. Put that in your song, son of Feanor!'

Of course, she never imagined he would actually make that song, but he did. Astonishingly, it was not even as embarrassing as it ought to have been. That was what they meant, she thought, when they said of him that he was a true artist.

Chapter 7

A last conversation with Maedhros.

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'You are still looking at me like that,' she said abruptly to Maedhros one day.

'Looking?' he asked, although by the expression on his face she guessed he had at least an inkling of what she meant.

'As if I had the answers and could give them to you--why my people betrayed you. But I don't. Yes, they are my people--I knew them or thought I did--I understand some things--some reasons--but not the reason. I don't have that answer. As far as I can tell, it could have gone the other way...'

'Don't say that!' he said quickly, as harshly as he ever spoke.

She looked at him, wide-eyed.

'It means I could have prevented it,' he explained, tensely.

'I didn't mean that!' she said. 'I didn't say that! Maybe the outcome would have been the same, even if you had acted quite differently. Or maybe you could have done exactly the same, and the outcome could still have been different. Maybe...'

She saw the acute pain, suppressed, in his mouth and eyes.

'I don't even remember some of it all that well,' she confessed. Her hair was white by then. 'But you do, don't you?'

He was an elf, after all, and elvish memory not always a blessing.

'I do,' he said.

---

Chapter End Notes

This sequence ends well before the Second Kinslaying.
I think Ulrica probably did not live to see that time and, if I decide she did, after all, I think I would tackle that in a different story.