Hour of Departure by StarSpray

Chapter 1

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They met almost by accident, Minyelmë’s vision blurred by tears, the bitter taste of bile still on her tongue after she had to stop to be sick by the side of the road. The Unlight spewed forth by Ungoliant was bad enough, clinging to her skin like rancid oil, but the fresh, clean scent of the sea around Alqualondë was now mixed with the bitter smell of blood and death. For one wild, terror-filled second Minyelmë had thought that the monsters of Melkor had crossed the Sea, somehow, and attacked the Teleri there in the harbor, but then she’d seen the swan ships moving slowly and clumsily northward up the coast, and she’d seen the chaotic host of the Noldor fleeing Alqualondë on foot, their once-shining armor now marred, the first blood tasted by their blades that of their own friends and kin.

“Minyelmë!” Lalwen found her as she stumbled away from the bushes. There was blood on her hands, though her sword was sheathed, and Minyelmë recoiled. Írimë withdrew, but the look in her eyes was one of fearful defiance. “You came,” she said, “I didn’t think you would—”

“What have you done?” Minyelmë asked, finally finding her voice. The words scraped against her raw throat. Lalwen, what did you do—”

“I haven’t—but they sought to waylay us, to keep us from leaving—”

“With what? Fishing bows?” Minyelmë would have laughed, if it weren’t all so horrible, if the world wasn’t falling apart about her. The idea of the fisher folk of Alqualondë taking up arms against the steel-clad Noldor with their bright swords and spears was absurd. She almost started to laugh anyway—awfully, hysterical laughter that came with unstoppable tears. She swallowed hard, to keep it down.

“What would you have had us do?” Lalwen demanded, setting her jaw. “You were not here—”

“I would have had you turn back!” Minyelmë cried. “I would have had you abandon this madness—”

“Then you—I thought you were coming to join us.”

She’d thought about it—the entire ride from her sister’s house in Valmar, Minyelmë had thought about it, unsure what she would say to Lalwen when she finally found her. But now? She shook her head. “You cannot expect me to join the people who have slaughtered my kin. Even before—Lalwen, there was a reason our people undertook the Great Journey!”

“And half of your kin didn’t even finish it! You didn’t make the Journey at all!”

“Because I died,” Minyelmë snapped. She didn’t really remember her death, only that she’d been out hunting with her mother when an orc had appeared suddenly out of the trees. But she had seen others die, and could easily imagine what her own had been like. How her mother must have screamed upon finding her body, how her father must have wailed and torn at his hair when he heard the news, like he had done when her sister had disappeared. They had not known about Mandos, then; they’d thought those who died were lost forever. And Lalwen knew this.

Lalwen stepped back, balling her hands into fists. “I would rather die out there than live a prisoner in a gilded cage for eternity,” she said finally, voice shaking, and pressed on when Minyelmë opened her mouth to argue, “You can say I sound like Fëanáro, but he’s right. I will be in the vanguard when we come against Moringotto—I will go with my brothers to avenge our father, and when we are victorious, we will carve out new kingdoms for ourselves out there beneath the stars, and then you will wish you had come, instead of cowering here like a child at the feet of the Valar!”

“And woe to anyone who stands in your way,” Minyelmë said, the words bitter as bile on her lips. The wind picked up, carrying the wailing voice of a woman on it. Uinen was crying out on behalf of the Teleri, though Ossë and Ulmo remained silent. “You will not find victory at the end of this road, only death. And I will not wait for you at the gates of Mandos.”

“Írimë!” someone called. The Noldor were retreating, fleeing the scene of their crime, leaving naught but a trail of blood behind to be washed away by the storm of Uinen’s grief. Lalwen stared at Minyelmë, her face sickly pale in the darkness. For a moment Minyelmë thought she would change her mind, that she would repent of this madness and stay with her, in Valinor, where it was safe—but then, without another word, Lalwen turned and vanished into the crowd, following Nolofinwë’s standard north toward the wastes of Ara man, while he, in turn, followed the ships his brother had stolen.

Minyelmë turned away from the sight, and continued to Alqualondë, where there were wounded who needed tending, and dead who needed burying.