The Cloak by Himring

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Chapter 1

In the hour before dawn, the skies opened and rain fell in torrents, without stopping or lessening as the morning went on. Elrond usually preferred the camp in the Taur-im-Duinath to any of the other arrangements, but there was no denying its shelters were not built to withstand quite such a heavy downpour as this. Cooped together in too little space, with seeping damp pervading everything as well as the random drops that found their way through the roof and dripped and dripped, tempers began to fray, even among those who were usually calm and level-headed.

After a while, Elrond crept out into the rain and escaped, preferring to get thoroughly wet to failing to remain dry in such moody company. He decided to go looking for Maedhros. Others might have had a bit of difficulty finding him, but not Elrond, who unerringly made his way among the trees and through the underbrush to where Maedhros silently watched in his long grey cloak, wet russet hair snaking out from under his hood.

‘You should not be here,’ said Maedhros, when he saw him. But there was no reproof or severity in it and Elrond was not put off. What that meant to him was that Maedhros was being his usual cautious self, rather than concerned about any particular signs of danger he might have spotted—thus, no reason to beat a quick retreat. Although the cloud cover was thick, it was not dark, and all that water, thought Elrond, was surely enough to give even an orc pause if any were tempted to take advantage of the reduced visibility.

Of course, Maedhros also meant, always, that Elrond ought to be somewhere completely safe, but since Maedhros’s notions of complete safety seemed to relate to a distant unimaginable past, that part could be ignored entirely.

‘They are getting annoyed about the damp and the rain, back there,’ he explained. ‘I felt I had to get away.’

The corner of Maedhros’s mouth twitched. Maybe, after all, like Elrond, he wasn’t just out here because he was obsessively keeping watch? He did not comment, but undid the fastening of his cloak and crouched down closer to Elrond’s level, holding the cloak invitingly open.

‘Come under here,’ he said, and explained, perhaps mistaking Elrond’s surprise for reluctance: ‘It’s drier.’

‘I am quite wet already,’ Elrond warned him, because he felt he ought to, but he quickly slipped in under the cloak before Maedhros could change his mind.

Maedhros drew him close, regardless, and tucked the cloak in around them both.

‘Yes, it is drier,’ Elrond noted, ‘and warm.’

He had not really expected that, considering how long Maedhros had been out in the rain, even if the beech overhead might have provided some shelter. The warmth was welcome; although it was not cold as such, there was a chill to all that moisture.

He studied the grey fabric now draped around his shoulders with interest.

‘Is it Noldorin, the cloak?’ he asked.

‘Yes, it was woven by my grandmother’s cousin,’ answered Maedhros, and slipping into teaching mode: ‘Can you tell how it is different from Sindarin weaves?’

‘It is a little heavier?’

‘A little heavier, but very durable. Less adaptable, too, perhaps.’

The dense weave had been patched and darned here and there, sometimes very skilfully, sometimes less so, and Elrond could feel that at the patches its virtue was lessened.

‘Curutane wove this cloak with Himring and its environs in mind. It does not blend in so well with the colours of this forest.’

Curutane was yet another dead relative, supposed Elrond. That would explain the less skilful darns. He hoped Curutane had not died in Doriath or Sirion; it would make feeling things about her more complicated. But the cloak, in any case, was clearly older than that, older than it looked, even patched as it was.

Maedhros laid a finger on a patch, over Elrond’s chest.

‘We have been through things, the cloak and I.’

He fell silent.

Elrond would have liked to ask about the things the cloak had been through, but knew he would get no answers. It was unusual for Maedhros to say even as much as this. Maybe he would try asking Maglor. He would ask him about Curutane, at least. Maedhros’s words had made a shape in his mind, but with hardly any facts to go on. Maglor would tell him some of those; he might even have a song for her.

They stood silently together, and all about them the rain came down. It ran down their cheeks like tears. Puddles grew among the leaves.

‘The rain is clean,’ said Maedhros, after a while. ‘Can you feel it?’

Elrond concentrated harder, considering the question.

‘It washes the Shadow away?’

‘In part. The wind has swept those clouds up from the Sea, from beyond the Enemy’s power. His creeping poison is watered down and weakened by the downpour; some of it will be flushed out and be drained downriver.’

‘Ah, a good thing then, that there is so much of it!’

‘Indeed. A respite.’

Maedhros was wondering how long the respite would last. Maedhros was wondering whether, if the Valar’s rain had been strong enough to wash the shadows away entirely, it would have washed him away with them, too, all of him, like a lump of salt dissolving in water, leaving nothing.

He caught Elrond listening and whipped those thoughts away, tidying them out of sight and hearing.

‘Let us watch together, for a while,’ said Maedhros.

He wrapped his tattered thought warmly around Elrond, like another cloak, and Elrond stood in the crook of his arm, as the rain pattered and splashed and gurgled all about them.

It was one of the things that Elrond found so hard to explain, later—one of the things that he never even tried to explain until a very long time later, because he believed at first that anybody who needed an explanation could never understand anyway, with or without one—to explain that, yes, as a child he had had to learn, earlier than many, that there was a crack in the world, that there was no telling at all how long any of the good times would last, that it was too late for any promises to be made—but that nevertheless there had also been occasions such as this, when he stood, wrapped and held for an hour, listening to the rain.

Chapter End Notes

Curutane is an OFC that has featured in "Maryame crosses the Marches to see Vanimo";  another work of textile art by her is described in "A Length of Ribbon". As Elrond guesses, she was already dead before the Sons of Feanor attacked Doriath.

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