The Nights Your Heart Shivers by StarSpray

---

Chapter 1

---

for the nights your heart shivers
apart with loneliness:

you are strong, you are light

all the world is contained in you.

micro poetry 005 - a.s.w. (avolitorial on tumblr)

.

Summer in Imladris was always lovely. The whole valley smelled of pine and wildflowers, and there was always singing beneath the stars and down by the water, and the mountains and many streams kept the summer heat from growing too oppressive.

Eluréd lay beside one of the streams with his eyes closed, listening to some bees busy at some nearby flowers, and someone attempting to wrangle a couple of goats a little farther off. It was not going well, judging by the cursing. But even that poor person's frustration could not mar the peace of the day; overhead a lark sang, and a bluebird answered. He sighed and stretched, before letting all his muscles go slack; he was not particularly tired, but there was nothing like a nap on a lazy summer afternoon…

"Oh, there you are!" Eluréd opened his eyes to find Nellas smiling down at him. "Where is Elurín?" she asked, sinking down beside him and crossing her legs. A breeze picked up, sending dappled sunlight dancing across her face and catching her eyes so they flashed like green-gold gems.

"I have no idea," Eluréd said. "There was some talk of blackberries I think, earlier, but I wasn't really listening. When did you arrive?"

"This morning," Nellas said. "I came with Lady Celebrían."

"Oh, she's here?" Eluréd stretched again and folded his arms behind his head. "She'll be disappointed. Elrond left three days ago."

"That's what Erestor said. Off to Lindon for some business with Gil-galad, or Círdan, or someone. Celebrían said that's quite all right, as she has plans to redesign one of the gardens and intends to surprise him with it." Nellas plucked a few flowers to begin weaving together. "I feel as though I haven't seen you in a thousand years, Eluréd. What have you been up to, since returning from sea?"

"Since then we've been here, mostly," Eluréd said after a moment's thought. They had sailed up and down the coast a while, after exploring Himling and Tol Fuin. They'd looked for Tol Morwen, but hadn't found it, which was disappointing but not terribly surprising—navigation at sea was rather different than on land, and Eluréd honestly counted them lucky to have made it back to Lindon without capsizing. He had a vague idea of going out again someday to try to find Tol Morwen again, or to explore Himling more thoroughly, but there wasn't much hurry. After returning to the mainland, they had seen Nellas briefly before she departed Lindon carrying messages to Elrond and then to Galadriel and Celeborn, and visited with Círdan for a while and been introduced to Gil-galad, who had unfortunately been warned beforehand who they were, and so they had missed whatever surprised reacting he had had. And then they'd come back to Imladris, after a quick stop to say hello to old Iarwain, and here they had stayed—it had been a century or so, but the wandering itch seemed to have left them, and they hadn't felt any particular desire to leave, aside from a few jaunts into the mountains to hunt.

"Really?" Nellas looked surprised. "I don't think you've ever stayed in one place so long!"

"Then I suppose we were overdue for a long rest," Eluréd said. "And if one had to choose one place in Middle-earth to stay put—well, Imladris is the best, I think. But I'm sure this won't last. Elurín mentioned the Long Lake last week; we might go see what's changed up there once Elrond gets back." He rolled onto his stomach to look at Nellas properly. "Would you like to come with us?"

"Actually," she said, plucking another flower to add to her growing garland, "I've been thinking, since you told me about finding Maglor Fëanorion on that island…"
"What about him?"

"Oh, not about him, exactly. But I was thinking about the song you told me about, that he sang for you about Valinor."

Eluréd sat up. "You aren't going to sail West, are you?"

"No!" Nellas shoved at his arm. "Let me finish, will you? They say that Maglor's the greatest singer of the Noldor, and that's all very well—but there is another singer even greater."

"Daeron, you mean," Eluréd said. He lay back down on the grass. "That's from the Lay of Leithian, I know. And Daeron, mightiest of the three. Though no one ever talks about Tinfang Gelion, whoever he is."

"Oh, he was one of the Vanyar, born just before the Great Journey. Círdan told me. I imagine he's piping away somewhere in Valinor as we speak; perhaps he's related to that Elemmírë that Maglor told you about." Nellas waved a hand. "But Daeron never went West!"

"The rumors all say he's found some dark hollow in an ancient forest somewhere to sing laments for Lúthien for the rest of time," Eluréd said.

"Yes, and the officially recorded histories imply you are very dead."

"That's true. All right, hunting down Daeron the Minstrel: that sounds like fun. But where would we even begin to look for him?"

"I haven't the faintest idea!" Nellas said cheerfully. "We can start by looking at maps, I suppose." She sobered. "I was very fond of Daeron," she said. "Everyone was. He gave me a wooden flute for my begetting day one year when I was a child, and taught me to play; I wish I still had it. He wasn't only the singer who followed Lúthien around like a lovesick puppy—and really he didn't even do much of that. He was a loremaster, he invented the Cirth—he was very friendly with Dwarves; sometimes I think that if he had been there, Thingol would not have been killed."

"I'm not sure Daeron would have made much difference, with the Silmaril," Eluréd said.

"Maybe." Nellas finished her flower garland and set it on Eluréd's head. "Shall we go raid the library for maps?"

"Oh, no." Eluréd laughed as he sat up again, adjusting the garland so it would not fall off. "We can use Elrond's study. There's a map on the wall that we needn't go digging for."

"Excellent! But first we should find your brother."

They found Elurín playing hide-and-seek with some children up in the fir trees; the game had just come to an end with the lot of them tackling him to the ground, all of them shouting with laughter. The children scattered when someone—presumably one of their mothers—called for them, and Elurín sat up, pine-needles sticking out of his hair. "You look like a hedgehog," Eluréd informed him, bending down to pluck a tiny pine cone from one of the snarls.

"I lost," Elurín said. He held out his hands, and Eluréd hauled him to his feet. "Hullo, Nellas! When did you get here?"

"This morning," Nellas replied.

"Oh—I thought I saw Lady Celebrían. Too bad Elrond's off hunting for Maglor."

Eluréd raised his eyebrows. "I thought he had business with Gil-galad."

"Don't you remember, he went off to sail to Himling the moment we told him who we saw there? Apparently he found the place empty, and he's been going back to hunt along the coast every few years since. I think he might make liars of us, by the time he finds him."

"Liars?" Nellas asked.

"We told him Elrond would probably not punch him," Eluréd explained.

"But if Maglor keeps dodging him," Elurín said, "I think he'll come to see the end of Elrond's patience."

"I can't imagine Elrond punching anyone," Nellas said after a moment of consideration.

"You haven't seen him in wartime," Eluréd said. He turned to Elurín, "Anyway, you should go wash the sap out of your hair. Nellas wants to go hunting for more long-lost minstrels."

Nellas rolled her eyes. "Only for Daeron. You make it sound as though there are hordes of famous singers out there."

"Oh!" Elurín's eyes lit up. "Excellent! When do we leave?"

"When we have a good idea of where to start looking," Nellas said. "We're going to look at Elrond's maps; you'd best try to avoid tracking pine needles into his study."

"Elrond wouldn't mind a few pine needles."

"He might object to sap all over the upholstery. And we wouldn't want him to punch you."

Eluréd and Nellas went to Elrond's study while Elurín went to wash and change his clothes. The map hung on the wall, all the lines sharp and clear as though it was freshly painted. Eluréd sank into a chair to look up at it. He was fond of maps, though he preferred the real things. This map still had Eregion and Ost-in-Edhil marked on it, a little eight-pointed star where the city had once stood. Eluréd and Elurín had given the place a wide berth since the war. He supposed it would be nearly overgrown by now…

"Well, where will we begin our search?" he asked Nellas, who stood looking at the map with her head tilted to one side. She had left her hair loose that day, falling in a cascade of chestnut-colored curls down her back. "Not the Greenwood, not Lórinand. I doubt he's anywhere in Eriador; we've all three of us been all over it. And Iarwain would have mentioned him."

"No," Nellas agreed, "we'll have to go further east. I can't imagine Daeron wandering past the Misty Mountains, but if he still lives, I suppose he must have. And of course, if he is dead we shall never know until we past into the West ourselves." She crossed her arms. "We could ask the Ents!" she said. "Or the Entwives!"

"Where's old Fangorn these days?" Eluréd asked.

"I have no idea. I haven't seen him since before the war; he was visiting Fimbrethil at the same time I passed by."

Elurín joined them before long, and it was decided easily: they would go to see Fimbrethil and the Entwives, and then perhaps they would go looking for Fangorn. There was a tangled stretch of ancient forest near the southern end of the Misty Mountains that none of them had explored yet, and if Daeron were anywhere in the western world, he was as likely to be there as anywhere else. Either way, the Ents would know.

When they left a week later, wanderlust overtaking all three of them so that they decided not to wait for Elrond to return; Celebrían saw them off. "Good luck!" she called, standing on her toes to wave at them. "I hope you find him!"

They took the High Pass over the Mountains, dodging a couple of stone giants playing catch with boulders, and found a party of Green Elves out of the Greenwood by the Anduin with boats and fishing nets. Nellas explained to them their errand, but no one had heard of any wandering singers, although they had of course heard of Daeron of Doriath, and were excited by the idea that he might possibly be found. There was room on their boats for a few passengers, and so Eluréd, Elurín, and Nellas went with them back down the river, though they declined an invitation to visit Amon Lanc. Instead they left the river and continued south and east, toward the Entwives' gardens.

As they passed through the Woodman's settlements just south of the forest, however, Eluréd started to feel unsettled. The people were nervous, and everyone shut and locked their doors tightly at night—not unusual, in this part of the world, but there was something about the extra care that spoke of some change, some new danger; there were reports of some strange illness as well, that had killed several people, though whether it was related to the new fear none would say. "Something is not right," Elurín murmured as they stepped into an inn, ducking beneath the swinging sign of a cat with its back arched and tail sticking up, yellow paint peeling.

But no one could tell them what the trouble was. Something lurking in the darkness, they said. Something cold. Something terrible. But Eluréd felt nothing outside when he peered out of the window of the room he and Elurín shared that night. He sensed no danger in the shadows cast by the pale half-moon hanging in the sky. Whatever had frightened the people was gone. "Not orcs," Eluréd said. "Not wargs." Those were frightening, but at least there were words to describe them. And the Elves would have heard something, surely. Though…surely they should have heard about whatever this was.

"Perhaps we should have gone to Amon Lanc," Elurín said after a little while. "Oropher might have known something."

"We still could," Eluréd said. "We could leave in the morning. It would take a few days…"

"I don't know…" Elurín sat on his bed, chewing at a thumbnail. "Whatever it is, it seems to have come from the south. Do you think it would affect the Entwives the same way?"

"They may at the very least have more of an idea of what it is." Trees and Ents and Entwives saw the world differently—saw more, sometimes, than Men or Elves.

They left the town the next morning, moving swiftly south and angling east. The lands were lush and green, and grew more and more orderly as they went. It took several more days to reach the Entwives' homes at the heart of their fruit-laden orchards. A slender enting with apple blossoms in her leafy hair greeted them joyfully, swaying in the breeze by a small stream. She sang out her hellos, and the sound brought a pair of Entwives striding through the orchards and fields to see them. One of them was old Fimbrethil, with hair bleached white-gold by the sun. She was bent like a tree in strong wind, but her cheeks were rosy as cherries, and her eyes deep and cool and green, wells of memory and knowledge. "Ah, young Nellas, and the twins," she said. "It has been a long time since you wandered to our gardens."

"It is good to see you, Fimbrethil," Nellas said, as Eluréd and Elurín bowed. "But we have heard troubling things in our travels. Can you tell us what has the woodmen to the north so afraid?"

"Ahh…" Fimbrethil exchanged a look with her companion, who shook her head slowly. The enting ceased her singing and swaying and shrank into Fimbrethil's side. "Evil things are coming out of the Black Land. Worse than orcs, though they do not hack and burn bough and field. We heard their cries on the wind. Freezes the sap, it does."

"What sort of cries?" Elurín asked. "Are they beast, or…?"

"Something worse, we fear," said Fimbrethil's companion, but the Entwives either could not or would not say more.

"We need to send word to the Greenwood, and to Lórinand," Nellas said later, as they wandered through rows of strawberries, the fruit fat and red. The Entwives delighted to have visitors partake of the fruits of their labor, so they had woven a simple basket from reeds by one of the many streams, though Eluréd was eating more than he put into it, each bite a burst of crisp, sweet flavor on his tongue.

"Eluréd and I have been thinking about that," Elurín said. "But what can Oropher do? Or even Galadriel? You cannot prepare for something if you do not know what it is."

"You can avoid being taken by surprise," Nellas said. "I'm going to see if I can find a lark or a thrush or something, to take a message north." She handed the basket to Elurín and slipped away through some flowering bushes.

They spent several weeks with the Entwives, with no sign of anything amiss. No word came back to them from the north after Nellas found a couple of birds willing to take messages. It was so pleasant there in the wide orchards and flowering gardens that Eluréd nearly forgot that cold sense of fear they had encountered before. The sun shone brightly by day, the breezes blowing fresh and clean; by night the stars burned brightly, and the moon was waxing full, silver-bright. They sang silly songs for the entings, and laughed when the Entwives shook their heads and smiled. They asked also if the Entwives had ever encountered Daeron of Doriath, out here in the east, a sad minstrel singing songs of lost princesses or drowned kingdoms.

They had not, but Fimbrethil said perhaps the Ents had. Daeron was one for woven trees and shadowy dells, not neat orchards and orderly gardens. There were many Ents wandering the woods south of the Celebrant, beside the mountains. Some wandered up into Lórinand or the Greenwood, but the woods were Elves dwelt were less wild in many ways, less in need of shepherding. Already the forest was being called Fangorn by Elves and Men, for the eldest of Ents that had come to call it home. Perhaps old Fangorn himself could tell them more.

So, having rested and refreshed themselves, they accepted gifts of fruit to take with them, and departed from the Entwives' gardens, heading back east to the Ents' wild forests. They had to go north again to find a good ford across the Anduin, and then they had to decide whether to follow the Limlight's northern shore or to cross it also and enter the woods farther south. "Let's cross," said Eluréd, after several minutes of debate. "It isn't wide; we can shoot an arrow across and use a rope bridge."

"It isn't wide," Nellas agreed, "but it is deep here, and the current is strong."

"Oh, it could be worse," Elurín said, exchanging a grin with Eluréd. "It could be a flash flood in a rainy canyon. We'll be all right."

Nellas frowned at them, but agreed to the rope bridge. It was easy enough, and they had done it hundreds of times before. "Hurry up, then," she said as Elurín strung his bow. "It will be dark soon, and it's a cloudy evening."

Even in the growing darkness Elurín's aim was true, and his arrow stuck deep into the stump of an old dead tree across the water. He tugged hard on the rope to be sure, and then tied it off. "After you, Nellas," he said, with an extravagant bow, sweeping out his hand. Nellas rolled her eyes, but smiled as she jumped onto the makeshift bridge and darted across, as light footed as though she were running through the boughs of trees. Elurín looked at Eluréd, who gestured at him to go first, and so he followed her.

As soon as Elurín's feet hit solid ground, Eluréd jumped onto the rope to make his own way across. But as he neared the middle of the river a loud cry echoed up the river. There were words in it that he did not understand, but they hit him like a physical blow, and his foot missed the rope. For one tiny part of a second he hung suspended in the air, before time seemed to speed up again and he was scrambling for the rope and missing. Elurín shouted something, but his words were drowned by the river that filled Eluréd's ears as he hit the surface and sank, yanked under by the current as though it had hands to grasp his ankles. His lungs burned with too much water and not enough air, and as he tumbled head over heels he could not tell which way was up. And it was dark—so dark, beneath the water, where the dim evening light could not reach.

He had not fallen from a rope bridge since he had been a child just learning, on the banks of the shallow and lazy Withywindle. Goldberry had been there to catch him, then, or else the River-woman had been kind enough not to drag him under and away, and Iarwain had laughed away all frustrations and called tiny silver fish to tickle his toes. But the Limlight did not know him, and did not care.

Somehow he managed to get his head above water once or twice to take a gulp of air before being dragged back under, until the current eased as the Limlight widened, drawing closer to its joining with the Anduin. Then Eluréd was able to claw his way to the surface and stay there, coughing and gasping, as he tried once again to get his bearings. He did not know if it was the northern or southern shore that was closest, nor did he care; he kicked his way towards it until his knees hit the ground and he was able to crawl the rest of the way onto the muddy bank. He retched up water and coughed up more, feeling as though his whole body were one giant bruise. Once he was out of the water he collapsed, rolling with a groan onto his back to stare up at the starless sky. At least it was summer, and the night was warm…yet he still felt cold, a chill that had sunk into him like a barbed arrow, and Eluréd found himself trembling.

After what felt like hours, but was more likely only a few minutes, he rolled over again and got to his hands and knees. He took up his pack and dragged it farther up the bank, out of the mud and onto clean grass. He needed to find Elurín. He needed to build a fire. There was a copse of trees nearby, a darker shadow against the sky in the gloom, but he was shaking too badly to cut wood, and anyway his tinderbox was soaked. So was his blanket, and probably his extra clothes. Eluréd gave up on reaching the copse, and flopped onto the grass. It tickled his cheek and caught on his hair.

The longer he lay there, the worse he felt. The cold only got worse, even as he started to dry off, and it took much longer than it should have to Eluréd to realize that he wasn't just cold and tired: he was afraid. Once he realized what it was, he knew why it felt familiar, though it had been a very long time since he known fear such as this—not since Menegroth had burned and he and Elurín had been carried by rough hands out of the caves and dumped into the snow, where they had been in real danger of succumbing to cold and despair before Nellas had found them.

And now he was utterly alone, and he did not even know what it was he was afraid of. Eluréd sat up, balling his hands into fists to try to stop their shaking as he looked around. There was movement near the tree copse. Something darker than the tree-shadows, something that sent a chill down his spine. It was a something that was there and yet not there, alive and yet not alive, with a power he did not know or understand. He squinted at it, shifting his senses, and for a moment he saw the thing as it truly was—and he could see that there was more than one. Two were moving forward from the trees, slowly, only a single step every few minutes. They had the form of old men, with crowns upon shrunken heads, clad in tattered robes of faded grey, but with a fell light in their eyes; one reached toward him with a skeletal hand. He blinked again, and saw nothing but darkness.

There was something of Sauron here. He recognized the feel of it now, remembered it from those long years of war in Eriador. But neither of them were Sauron himself—thank all the Valar—only his servants. Eluréd got to his feet, swallowing past a suddenly dry mouth. He had never faced anything like these wraiths before—he had never faced anything alone. Elurín had always been there at his side, but he was somewhere upstream, perhaps not even on the same side of the river. The wraiths were still advancing, still pressing fear upon him like a heavy weight. He took a step backwards, and tripped over his pack so he sprawled again on the grass. He fumbled for his bow, but couldn't make his fingers stop shaking long enough to string it. He had his knives, but they would do no good against wraiths. He would do no good against them—how did you fight an enemy you couldn't touch? How—

For just a moment, the clouds overhead parted, and looking up he could see the stars, and among them the brightest of all, Gil-Estel, the Silmaril that Lúthien and Beren had won. Lúthien…she had faced worse than this and had needed neither sword nor bow. Eluréd got to his feet again, and summoning fury to overtake the fear. How dare these wraiths try to use the darkness against him, a scion of Lúthien who had worn shadows as a cloak? How dare they try to sap his will, he a child of Elu Thingol Lord of Beleriand, and Melian the Maia whose Girdle had kept even Morgoth at bay, a child of Beren whose name had put fear into the hearts of Morgoth's servants? He knew how to counter the Shadow, though they had nearly made him forget, and it was with words of Light.

A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
silivren penna míriel
o menel aglar elenath!

His voice rang out in the gloaming as he put into it all of the power that lay within him—of Elves and Men and Maiar—and the clouds overhead parted again, breaking into tatters, the stars blazing down upon the river and the grass and the trees, gilding them with silver in the evening, as though Elbereth herself had heard and was answering his cry. The breeze turned from east to west, and the wraiths fled, crying out with cold voices, but powerless against the name of Elbereth.

When they were gone, Eluréd fell to his knees. He was spent, and he was cold and wet, still, and though the wind had broken up the clouds it also cut right through him. He looked up to the stars, and fancied that Gil-Estel winked at him. "Thank you," he murmured.

He sat for quite a long time there in the grass by the river, watching the starlight on the water, and shivering. He was too tired to do anything about it, and he did not fancy moving into the shelter of the trees even now that the wraiths were gone. Elurín and Nellas found him there at last, both of them out of breath from their race down the river.

"Eluréd!" Elurín fell to his knees, skidding forward as he threw his arms around Eluréd. "Thank Elbereth!"

Eluréd leaned into his brother, relief making him feel light-headed. "What took you so long?" he asked, trying to speak lightly. It didn't work.

"The current was stronger and faster than we thought." Nellas crouched beside him, stroking a hand over his hair. "What happened?"

"I found out what's scaring the woodmen," Eluréd said. "Wraiths. Out of Mordor. There's something—I wish we knew their number…"

"How many attacked you?" Elurín asked, his grip around Eluréd's shoulders tightening.

"Two. They're gone now."

"And they won't be coming back, after that," Nellas said. "We could hear you over a mile upstream. We'll camp in these trees. I'll get the fire started." She picked up Eluréd's sodden pack and made her way over to the little copse.

"Come on." Elurín hauled Eluréd to his feet. "Are you all right?" he asked. "Truly."

"I think so," Eluréd said. "I'm—very cold."

"That will be from falling in the river," Elurín said, and grinned. "We'll cross on a rope bridge, you said, a wonderful idea to be sure."

"It would have been, were it not for those wraiths," Eluréd said, too cold and too tired for banter; he had started to shiver again. "It was their cries that—it felt like something struck me."

Elurín sobered. "I know," he said. "I felt it too."

The tree-shadows did not seem quite so sinister once Nellas had the fire going. She built it up high, so it blazed bright and hot against the night, as she spread out all of Eluréd's things to dry. Elurín loaned him his extra set of clothes and his blanket for the night. But he could not seem to get warm. Elurín wrapped him up in his cloak, and Nellas contributed her blanket, but a chill seemed to have wormed its way into Eluréd's core. He felt as though he were drifting away, caught up in another current that was dragging him away again, this time to darker places. The fire dimmed, the shadows grew longer. The stars grew pale and wan.

Perhaps he had fallen asleep, and was dreaming. Everything was very dark, all around him, and he was alone again. "Elurín!" he called, but he could hardly hear his own voice. "Elurín, where are you?" There was a dark path stretched before him, and he was being tugged by cold fingers farther into the darkness. Almost he thought he could hear someone calling for him at the end of it, someone whose voice he did not know, that sounded like Doom.

Then another, louder voice called to him. "Eluréd! Dior's son, return to us!" And there was music, and other words not spoken but sung, of light and warmth and starlight on sweetly enchanted waters, and he could hear Elurín calling to him also, Power threaded through his voice. In the dream, if it was a dream, the words wove together to form a bright golden rope that fell down into Eluréd's hands. He grasped it, and let it pull him up and out of the dark, away from that other voice calling him away over the Sea.

He opened his eyes to sunlight through green leaves; he lay on a bed of fragrant ferns beneath a large old oak tree. A breeze whispered through the boughs overhead, making the sunlight dance across his face. Birds called to one another in the trees. And beside him knelt Elurín, looking pale and with dark circles beneath his eyes, and on his other side was the other singer, more powerful than Elurín, with Eluréd's own small harp in his hands, and with old old starlight in his eyes. Eluréd frowned at him; it all still felt very dreamlike. "Where is your ferny crown, Daeron?" he asked.