The Lucky One by grey_gazania

| | |

Chapter 4

Amras looked down at the two sheets of parchment that Istonion had laid on his desk. Each bore a chart of the alphabet, but on one the tengwar were out of order, and he looked quizzically at the man seated across from him. Istonion looked unhappy, almost defeated, and Amras wondered what had happened to exhaust his usually indefatigable supply of patience.

 

“What am I supposed to be seeing here?” he asked.

 

Istonion tapped the chart on the left, the correct one, and said, “When Galwen uses this, she can form words. It takes her a long time, and her spelling isn’t always correct, but she’s intelligible. I thought that meant that she was beginning to recognize the tengwar.”

 

“I sense a ‘but’ coming,” Amras said with a frown.

 

Istonion nodded. “Yesterday, I brought “Tinfang Warble” with me. I thought it would be a good text to start with -- it’s fairly simple and it has a lot of repetition. But it was clear that she couldn’t make out a word of it. So today, I devised a little test.” He pointed to the altered chart. “I gave her this, and asked her to spell her name. I got gibberish; she pointed to where the letters should have been instead of where they were.”

 

Leaning his elbows on the desk, he grimaced and said, “I don’t think she can actually recognize a single tengwa. I think she’s memorized the order of the sounds. But I don’t understand why. With the amount of time she’s spent studying, she should have figured the alphabet out by now.”

 

“So you think what, exactly?” Amras asked, turning Istonion’s words over in his mind. “That she’s slow-witted?”

 

“No,” Istonion said, his voice firm. “I don’t think that at all. She plainly understands everything I say to her. It’s reading that gives her trouble. I think…” He broke off with a sigh and ran a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes. “I think there’s something wrong,” he said, “but not with her mind. With her eyes, maybe -- I don’t know. It’s as if she looks at the words and sees something completely different from what I see. And that’s going to be a problem. Spelling things out sound by sound is slow, Lord Amras, and it’s obvious that she finds it frustrating. If you’re going to offer to let her stay here like you and Lord Amrod have discussed, we need a better method.”

 

“Do you have a suggestion?”

 

Istonion hesitated, and then nodded. “I do,” he said. “Your father was a brilliant linguist. I know I didn’t get to study with him for very long before-- before he was slain, but I still learned quite a lot. It’ll take me some time, but I think I might be able to take the Nandor’s hand signals and construct a sign language around them.”

 

“Then do it, by all means,” Amras said, sitting back in his chair. “Ask Amrod to show you the signs he knows.”

 

The idea was intriguing, and it could prove to be useful for the Noldor at large, not simply for Galwen. Silence was always valuable when hunting, and here in Beleriand they had more to hunt than simple game. Anything that could give them an advantage over Morgoth’s servants was worth looking into.

 

 

The next afternoon, Galwen waited for Istonion to come so that they could return to her lessons, but when he arrived, he held no parchment. “Lords Amras and Amrod would like to talk to us,” he said, offering her a hand to help her to her feet.

 

She accepted his assistance, but she was filled with foreboding. This had to be related to what had happened yesterday, and that meant nothing good could becoming. She did her best to hide her apprehension as she approached the door to Amras’ office, shaking a wrinkle from her tunic and squaring her shoulders, but inside she was awash in a sea of dread.

 

Amras and Amrod were not alone. An unfamiliar man and woman also sat inside the room, resting in high-backed wooden chairs. Two identical seats stood empty beside the them, and Istonion led a Galwen to one before seating himself in the other.

 

“Thank you for coming, Galwen,” Amras said. “We want to speak to you about-- well, about several things, actually. But the most important, I think, is that we’ve been unable to find your people. I’m sorry. Amrod and his men have been looking ever since we brought you here, but they’ve had no success.”

 

Of course they hadn’t. They were asking about Galwen, not Linn. But Galwen wasn’t about to correct them. She did not want to go back to her village, not if her brothers were no longer there.

 

“Amrod tells me your family is dead,” Amras continued, his voice quiet and full of sympathy.

 

Galwen nodded, biting her lower lip to stop it from trembling. Her body was healed, mostly, her stitches removed and her fever gone, but thinking of her brothers pained her immensely. Her memories of her mother’s death, too, still stung, and though she couldn’t recall her father at all, she knew what happened to men and women who vanished in the forests. They were taken north to be tortured and corrupted, forced to serve the dark power that dwelt there. Her father might still live, but it would not be in a form anyone who knew him would recognize.

 

“Our own father was slain only a few decades ago,” Amrod revealed. Galwen snapped her gaze over to him in surprise, and he said, “We know how difficult it is to lose the people you love and find yourself far from home.”

 

“We’d like to offer you a home here,” Amras said. He gestured to the strangers who sat beside Istonion. “This is Heledir and his wife Faeldis. They would adopt you, if you agree.”

 

“We would be glad to take you in,” Faeldis said. She was lithe and long-fingered, with high cheekbones, and Galwen had expected her voice to be clear and musical, like Thíniel’s. But it was low and smoky. “Our own children are grown and live far away, and our house feels empty without them. Heledir and I would care for you and help you find a trade or craft to study.”

 

“You needn’t decide right now,” Heledir said. “Take some time to think it over. But know that if you accept, you will be more than welcome in our home.”

 

Think it over. She did not need to think it over, though this was not at all what she had expected to hear today. She owed Amras her life. If she could stay here, she would.

 

“This brings us to our next issue,” Amras said. “If you stay with us, we need a better way to communicate with you. Istonion, would you explain your idea to Galwen?”

 

“Yes, my lord.” Istonion turned to face Galwen, and she saw that he looked a little nervous. “Your reading lessons,” he said. “They aren’t going very well, are they?”

 

He wasn’t wrong, but Galwen wasn’t certain if it would be better to agree or disagree, so she simply stared at him.

 

“I saw how much trouble you were having with the poem,” he said, “so I made a small test for you yesterday.”

 

He lifted two pieces of parchment from Amras’ desk, and Galwen saw that they were the two tengwar charts. Her eyes narrowed. She knew that something had been wrong during her lesson yesterday. She could tell from his voice alone.

 

When he spoke next, he sounded apologetic. “When I made the new chart, I put the letters in the incorrect order,” he confessed. “You didn’t notice. And when I asked you to spell your name, you selected the wrong tengwar. You’re having a very difficult time with this, aren't you?”

 

Galwen didn’t answer. Angry tears had welled up in her eyes, and she snatched the old chart out of his grasp. Her hand shook as she pointed to the sounds she wanted. Trick, she spelled. Liar.

 

Istonion winced, but he didn’t dispute her words. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you or humiliate you,” he said. “I just needed to know how many of the tengwar you actually could recognize.”


Ask, Galwen spelled, jabbing her finger emphatically at the letters.

 

Amrod lifted one hand to cover his mouth, but he wasn’t quite fast enough to muffle his laugh. “She has a point,” he said to Istonion. “That would have been easier.”

 

Galwen wasn't amused. She continued to blink back tears as she glared at Istonion, trembling in her seat with anger at having been deceived, and when Faeldis reached over and rested one delicate hand on her arm, it took all of her self-control not to pull away.

 

“I was worried that you would be afraid to tell me the truth,” Istonion said. “But you and Lord Amrod are right; I shouldn’t have tricked you. I’m sorry.”

 

“The good news is that Istonion has thought of a solution,” Amras said, his voice calm and level. “He’s going to create a sign language, and we’re all going to learn it together. Not just you -- everyone.”

 

Her eyes widened, and she stared at Amras, distracted from her anger by sheer shock. She’d never heard of anyone making a language, and she’d certainly never imagined that someone would do something so incredible specifically for her.

 

Amras smiled at her. “My people are here to stand against Morgoth,” he said. “Having a silent language won’t just allow you to speak. It will give us an advantage against his servants, too.”

 

Morgoth. Black foe. Galwen looked at Amrod, raised her eyebrows, and signed, North?

 

Amrod nodded. “Yes,” he said. “The evil being who lives in the north. The master of the orcs. He murdered our grandfather, his servants slew our father, and he robbed our family. We are here to fight against him, until he returns what is ours and pays for his crimes.”

 

His voice was grave, his jaw was set, and his bright eyes were hard. For the first time, Galwen found herself feeling frightened of him. She, too, hated the orcs and their master, but Amrod looked murderous.

 

“Amrod.” Amras nudged his brother in the ribs, and Amrod seemed to come back to himself, the anger melting from his face.

 

“I’m sorry,” Amrod said, seeing Galwen’s disturbed expression. “What happened upsets me deeply, but I don’t mean to scare you.”

 

“Think about our offer,” Amras said. “Let us know what you would like to do.”

 

Galwen didn’t need to think about it. She looked Amrod square in the eye and signed, Stay.

 

“You would like to stay here, with Heledir and Faeldis?” he said.

 

She nodded emphatically and repeated the sign.

 

Faeldis beamed. “Wonderful!” she said, as Heledir got to his feet and held out his hands to Galwen. Galwen gripped them firmly, feeling his calluses beneath her own, and stood. Faeldis moved to stand beside her, and Amras and Amrod smiled.

 

“You have my brother’s and my blessing,” Amras said. “Istonion will keep you informed on the progress of his sign language. Heledir, Faeldis, why don’t you show your new daughter her home?”

 

At the word daughter, Galwen stiffened. She was grateful that Heledir and Faeldis wanted to help her, but she was not their child. She may not have been Linn anymore, but she was still the daughter of Kissith and Amar. She would not forget that.

 

“You don’t have to think of us as your parents,” Heledir said as Faeldis wrapped her arm around Galwen’s shoulders. “We know we can’t replace your mother and father. But we will consider you our kin, at the very least, for we are all children of Ilúvatar.”

 

Galwen didn’t know what Ilúvatar was, and she didn’t bother trying to ask. She was just relieved that she wouldn’t offend Heledir and Faeldis if she didn’t call them her parents. She went with them willingly as they left Amras’ office, and her heart lifted when they led her out of the fortress entirely.

 

“We live in the town,” Faeldis said. “I’m a potter. Heledir trains horses, when he isn’t hunting or scouting for our lords.”

 

Galwen still didn’t entirely understand the concept of a lord. She knew that Amras and Amrod were the leaders of the Noldor here in Ossiriand, like the council of elders were the leaders of Galwen’s old village. But the elders were just that -- old, with great wisdom and experience. Amras and Amrod were very young, yet the other elves seemed to obey them without question. Perhaps it was because they were brave.

 

The town wasn’t far. Galwen had seen it from the walls of the fortress. It stood on the open land to the south, and from above it seemed to be an orderly grid of buildings laid out along paths that were covered by smooth stones. But up close, the buildings seemed more like the deepest part of the forest, where the trees grew close together, wild and tangled. And it was noisy. Everywhere she looked, there were people talking -- some in the speech she knew, and others in a lilting tongue that she couldn’t understand. She thought it might be the same language that Istonion sometimes muttered to himself in.

 

A few people stared as they walked past, and Faeldis tightened her arm around Galwen’s shoulders. “Don’t be afraid,” she said softly. “We Noldor are still new to this land, and you and your people are unfamiliar to many of us, but no one here means you any harm.”

 

Galwen nodded. She knew Faeldis was trying to comfort her, but she wished she would let her go. Her hold was starting to feel suffocating.

 

They turned down one side street and then another, past building after building, until Heledir and Faeldis came to a halt. “This is where we live,” Faeldis said, gesturing to the house in front of them.

 

Wood. Thank every star in the sky -- the walls were made of smooth, familiar wood, and Galwen paused for a moment to press her palms and cheek against the sun-warmed planks before following her hosts through the door.

 

Inside, Heledir spread his arms wide. “Welcome home,” he said.

 

Galwen smiled.

 

Chapter End Notes

Kissith - 'feather woman'

In the standard Sindarin of the books, this name would be rendered as Pesseth, but as Kissith was one of the Avari, I've taken the sound shifts shown in the change from Quendi to Kinn-lai and applied them to the Quenya word for 'feather' (quessë) to get a speculative approximation of what the name would be in Kissith's Avarin dialect.

Table of Contents | Leave a Comment