Stand Against The Storm by Elwin Fortuna

Chapter 1

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It was cold at the top of the Tower, the highest in Gondolin. Huor shivered, even underneath his warmest cloak, as he climbed the last of the steps, emerging into bright daylight and bitter wind. It was yet some days until Spring would be seen, and the last end of Winter oft had a sting in it.

He had thought to be alone, but there was someone already at the top of the tower, leaning eagerly out into the biting wind, peering up at the dark storm clouds in the North that threatened them. In all the valley of Tumladen, light spilled as if from a cup, the whole plain full of bright sunlight from the Southerly sun of winter, but above and to the North, there lay blackness only, dark and stormy skies.

It was but weather, and yet to Huor it seemed more than that. Idril turned to him as he approached, and said the very thoughts in his mind. "Do you not think this is even as we are?" She gestured around them to the sky and the plain. "We the light, defying darkness to the North?"

"I hope not, lady," he said, raising his voice a little to be heard above the sound of the wind. "For if I mistake not, we shall have a storm later that sunlight only cannot defy forever."

Idril's head dropped a little; she looked thoughtful, wary. "You mistake not," she said at last. "There will always be a storm later." She held out her hand to him, and he took it, following her out to the very edge, where the wind was keenest. She lifted her head in a gesture of defiance at the North. "What matters, Huor, is that we stand in the light, and when the light is taken from us, that we ride out the storm and preserve whatever we may, so that the light can dawn once more."

Her fingers were like ice in his hand. He turned again to look at her, small and golden, a very light herself, outshining Gondolin's white walls. She was barefoot as always, the ancient silver scars on her feet shining brightly.

"Are you not cold, my lady?" he said at last. She looked confused for a moment at the question.

"I have been colder," she said after a moment's thought, looking up at him, dark memories in her eyes.

He unfastened his cloak and cast it round her. "There is no need to be cold now," he said softly, but immediately began to feel the effects of the chill himself. She shook her head, laughing.

"But now you are cold," she said, removing his cloak from herself. "Yet you are right, there is no need to be cold." She drew close to him, and cast the cloak around them both.

He could feel himself flush brightly. Among his own people, to share a cloak was something only family would do; it betokened a very close relationship, such as that of siblings, or lovers, or parent and child. The Princess of Gondolin, so far above him, could not be thought of in such intimate terms, and yet, somehow she was family, in some strange unknown way. Young as he was, and old as she was, he felt a sense of protectiveness toward her, unclouded by any sense of romance, her tiny frame, warmer now against his side, somehow to be guarded against the darkness at all costs.

They stood together for some while in a comfortable silence, watching the dark clouds slowly rolling in across the landscape, eating up the sunlight on the plain. The wind grew colder, and some splatters of rain splashed against their faces, and yet still they stood, defiant, until the storm had almost reached the city.

"We must go in," Idril said at last. "This storm will be very great, and we cannot weather it here."

Huor turned and smiled at her. "Then lead on, lady, that we may preserve the light while we still can!"

She laughed, and taking the cloak from around them, she gave it back to him. Together they made their way down the long spiralling steps, back to warm hearthfires far below.