Thaw by swampdiamonds

Chapter 1

“You are too big to be carried,” said Grithnir, setting him on his feet.

He could feel the frost leaching in through the soles of his boots. Where was the path? He could not remember.

He felt Grithnir’s hand in his, tugging him forward, bones and calluses beneath his fingers. A horn sounded far away.

“Ivrin never freezes,” said the elf, "not completely, not even in the winter.”

He had a stick wedged into the sand and steadied between his knees. He was sharpening one end with a small dagger.

“The Feast of Reuniting was here,” he said, testing the point of his makeshift spear. He did not seem to be addressing Túrin in particular, nor to expect any particular answer. He went on: “they laid tables over there, with—with every kind of meat and bread, and…fish, probably…”

He trailed off, uncertain. “I think…I don’t know; I wasn’t there. It was long before I was born.”

Túrin considered this information. He watched the elf’s hand as it took up the blade again. He could see bones and veins beneath calluses. The skin was waxy, almost translucent in the sunlight. An old man’s hand.

“Gwindor,” Túrin began. The elf looked startled at the sound of his name. “How old are you?”

The hand slowed. A curl of wood rose slowly from the blade.

“I don’t know,” said Gwindor.

Túrin watched as he ran a finger along the point and, finding it satisfactory, got to his feet. He weighed the spear in his hand, finding the balance, swinging his arm in stabbing motions. “What are you doing?” asked Túrin.

Gwindor turned to look at the water lapping against the sand. “I am going to catch some fish,” he said.

Túrin set himself to gathering firewood. He still felt light, enervated, unmoored from the present. Gethron and Grithnir. Beleg. A tangle of thorn trees; a long, dark path through the wood. Now he was here.

Gwindor prowled the margin of the pool like a ragged-feathered heron. Túrin watched as he froze, straightened, and came hurrying back to the campsite. “The battle!” Gwindor said. “How long since the battle?”

“I was eight when my father went away,” said Túrin. “That would be…seventeen years ago.”

“Seventeen years…,” muttered Gwindor.

He scratched some marks into the sand and stared at them, counting under his breath. “I have lived,” he announced, “One hundred and twenty-six years by the reckoning of the sun. And I am going to catch some fish.”

The fish were puny things smaller than Túrin’s hand, more bone than meat. But Gwindor had caught them, and so Túrin had gutted them and set them to cook.

Gwindor spat a bone onto the sand. “I have not eaten a fish in seventeen years,” he said, a note of awe in his voice.

Túrin said nothing. Speaking still felt like a great effort. But to sit with Gwindor, to be here and now on the shores of Ivrin? This he could do.

Chapter End Notes

Gwindor’s age given here is a complete fabrication. I wanted him old enough to be an adult before the Dagor Bragollach (using 50 as an approximate baseline for adulthood) but still quite young. Feel free to mentally substitute another number of your choosing.

Gethron & Grithnir are the names given in CoH to the two men of Dor-Lomin who escort Túrin to Doriath.