At the River's Edge by Elisif

Chapter 1

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“Neniel?”

The white-marble floor was icy against Finduilas’ bare and unaccustomed feet as she stepped into the chamber, limping slightly as she always did now, holding out a small chipped teacup to the figure sitting demurely on the furthest edge of the bed, twisting and untwisting the frayed pilled edging of one of the coverlets with her fingers.

Gil must have leant the girl one of his own cloaks, Finduilas noted as she moved closer. The vast garment in which Neniel was quietly huddled was of magnificent quilted royal blue, embroidered star strewn and lined with ermine. Neniel was slight, and in the richness of those royal folds she looked profoundly lost, down lining edging her thin wrists and narrow shoulder, pale cheeks with tufts of white to match her own pale blonde, duck-fluff curls, cut short owing to a head injury she had sustained against the rocks of the river.

Finduilas paused and passed the teacup over into Neniel’s clasped hands, emerging from a fold of the blue against her thigh. Neniel calmly accepted the cup, but did not drink, stared down at her hands as she always did. Her left hand returned to toying with the blanket edging.

Finduilas sat down: her leg had commenced throbbing, a painful ever-present reminder of the months past. She had survived, somehow; been cut free of her leather fetters and dragged to the thresh-strewn floor of a crofter’s hut, cried out her name in fever, been bundled burning and shivering into a blanket and hoisted onto a saddle in front of one of her brother’s scouts, awoken to kind hands and her brother’s face in a chamber that had stars painted upon the ceiling and that smelled of the sea.

Having been pulled lifeless and blood-soaked from a riverside, Neniel had arrived not long afterwards, and despite her unknown identity received the finest care the court could offer by nature of her own story’s resemblance to that of the Prince’s unlikely-to-survive sister.

Finduilas sighed. She had recovered with a fierce vengeance in the six months since, but Neniel... the girl, her sister in fate it seemed with whom she felt such an affinity had yet to reveal any of her past, spoke only rarely, and briefly at that.

Finduilas decided that she might as well be direct.

“Neniel, I’m going down to the river and I would like you to come with me. Breathe some fresh air, get out of this chamber...”

Neniel was not looking at her; her fingers were still toying with the strands of the blanket edging.

“Neniel, look at me.”

Neniel turned: her eyes were like blue-painted glass, clear and deep both.

Finduilas cleared her throat.

“I want you to come with me to the river,” she said.

She held out her hand; to her surprise, she took it, Neniel’s cold fingers entwining with her own warmer ones against Neniel’s leg.

“I’ll come with you,” she said.

...

Finduilas drew her arm back, swung it forward and hurled the small polished stone in her fingers into the depths of the lapping river. Rain trickled from the leaves overhead in fat, thick droplets, struck her eyelashes; the forest was as green an unrelenting, rich, wet green, green as far as the eyes could see, thick with the smell of cold water and earth.

Finduilas grit her teeth as she scrabbled in the stone-flecked earth below her toes for another stone. The rain made the spear-wound in her thigh ache even more acutely than it always did; by now it was positively throbbing, the swear-words under her breath enough to catch the attention of Neniel, huddled beside her on the riverbank, still encased in Ereinion’s cloak.

“I remember the day my grandfather taught me to skip stones,” Finduilas said firmly as she hurled another piece of flint to skim across the water in six steps, eager to break the silence but for the roaring of a waterfall far further upstream. “He used to take me out in the woods for lessons, up in the marches above the Anfauglith...”

Neniel gasped, audibly.

“You have been to the Anfauglith?” she asked.

“Well, it wasn’t the Anfauglith then. It was green and open, and we only thought of Angband when Gil and climbed up the towers to secretly use Uncle Aegnor’s spy-glass to see if we could see Thangorodrim. Gwindor would come too, so he could study fighting with my grandfather...”

She flung another stone across the shallows.

“My mother decided it was too dangerous and we stopped going when I was sixteen. I left a doll behind in my grandmother’s bed and wept buckets. After that, we went to the sea instead.”

Neniel nodded.

“I have never seen the ocean,” she said quietly, drawing her cloak tighter about herself, her hands primly in her lap. The falls roared even louder.

Finduilas discarded an unsuitable stone; then sighing in frustration, she hitched up her dress and waded into the shallows, breathed a sigh of relief at the cold water against her ankles.

Emerging from the river a few feet from where she stood was a narrow stone wall, the remains of a long-abandoned bridge or dam perhaps. Her old sense of adventure returning to her, Finduilas hitched up her gown still further and scrambled onto it, rose unsteadily from knees to full height to balance precariously on the line of misshapen balls of flint, polished to smoothness by centuries of running water that lapped just over them.

It was a foolish decision, her still-injured leg considered, but the childish sense of delight was overpowering. Arms outstretched, she began to follow the line of the wall, out into the deeper portions of the river, throwing back her head to let the raindrops fall into her open mouth.

She wasn’t certain if it was a sharp edge of stone digging unexpectedly into her foot or a sudden pain in her thigh, but without warning, she slipped and plunged over facefirst off of the slippery walls into the shallows, the world spinning into greens and browns and clear droplets as she fell and swallowed riverwater. Her gown clinging to her skin and half-dragging her down, she emerged to the surface shocked and spluttering, spitting her braids from her mouth, sunk to her shoulders in the icy running river, her pained leg trapped beneath her.

“Princess Finduilas!”

Though she quickly realised Finduilas was uninjured, Neniel’s scream was genuine. She leapt to her feet and walked straight for the river.

“Neniel, no— don’t do that—“

Neniel had plunged straight into the river, striding shivering straight through the rapidly dropping shallows until the water rose to her chest. She had not bothered to remove Ereinion’s cloak; the vast sea of blue spilled out behind her in a vast train, enormously heavy as it took on icy river water, dragging lily pads and floating leaves into its folds as its weight nearly dragged Neniel down with it.

“I’m coming for you, Finduilas!” she cried, her teeth chattering.

Neniel carried on valiantly; when she reached Finduilas, her dress clinging utterly to her skin, she knelt down and swept her up into her arms, held her straddled across them as one might carry a bride across a threshold, her feet dangling in the water.

“Neniel—“

Neniel cradled her against her chest.

“It’s alright, I’ve got you—“

As Finduilas fell back against her chest, Neniel carried back to the riverbank in slow, laboured strides, at last set her down gently on the earth. Finduilas breathed heavily as she sat with her legs first outstretched in front of her, shivering, breathing heavily and spitting silt from between her teeth, her unravelled braids clinging to her damp neck. After standing still for a moment, Neniel fell forwards onto the sand, utterly bedraggled, lying on her stomach with the vast soaked cloak spilled and bunched over her.

They were silent for some moments; at last, Neniel dragged herself into a sitting position, hugging her knees to her chest.

It took Finduilas some moments to notice the tears running down her cheeks.

“Neniel? Oh, Neniel, don’t cry—“

Softly she swept her into a soaked, trembling hug; Neniel’s lips were pressed tight. Finduilas paused, her Arms around Neniel’s chest.

Finduilas stopped, the realisation dawning.

“You remembered something, didn’t you?”

It was raining harder; the droplets melded with the soft tears on Neniel’s damp cheeks. At last, clutching her hands together, she quietly said:

“My name is Niënor.”

Finduilas let in a slow intake of breath. Pained and overjoyed both, she softly wrapped her arms around Neniel’s soaked, heaving breast. With Niënor’s hot breath warming the cold water running down her cheek, she held her close, embraced her and was embraced in turn in the rain by a rushing river, while they waited together for the storm to pass and for the sky to clear.