Triptych by Narya

Long ago in the West I gave him his name – the one he would be known by, when the loremasters told our tales. He bested Tyelkormo in the summer tourney, dancing out of the prince's reach, darting and spinning and swerving, seeming to hang in the air as he leapt.

“Like a swallow in flight,” I laughed to my friend Cirincë. “Who is he?”

She gave me a sharp, amused look. “Whoever he is, Netiliel, he's practically a child.”

I blushed and said no more – but we were overheard, and the name took hold.

He became Tuilindo.

He came to me the next day. I'd half expected it; tourney winners often marked triumphs with metal and ink.

He wanted a ring through his left nipple. “Like my brother's,” he explained.

“A bar will hurt less, and heal more quickly,” I told him as he removed his shirt.

He shook his head. It had to be a ring.

When the needle went in, his colour drained and his eyes fluttered closed. It took my best apple brandy to bring him round.

“Don't tell,” he begged me, face still pale.

I squeezed his hand. “I never do.”

At Sirion they gave me an arrow, and a helm with a feathered fan. I could not tell if they were his.

I knew if I burned them, the metal would twist and char. I placed them in a basket – a rough, homespun thing; I should not have taken it – and set them afloat. No doubt they lie rotting under the waves.

Now the Secondborn's ships bring stories, telling of heroes reborn in the West. Perhaps his eyes are open once more; perhaps he runs and leaps again.

Perhaps, at last, I am ready to go and see.

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