This Fresh Morning in the Broken World by StarSpray

Chapter 1

it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.

- Mary Oliver, "Invitation"

.

It was a warm morning near the end of summer, when the leaves were only just starting to hint at gold or red around the edges, and what birds had not been forever driven from Dor-lómin started to gather together in preparation for their autumn flights. Nienor stood on her doorstep and watched a great flock of starlings in flight just overhead, moving together to create various marvelous shapes in the sky, before settling into the trees to continue whatever raucous conversations they had with one another at this time of year.

Behind her, inside, her mother was working quietly and diligently, mending clothes and tearing up old rags to make patchwork new ones. It would be a long winter this year, if only because there was at last something to look forward to come spring. Nienor looked south and west, toward the mountains. She had seen an old map that her mother had kept, that had once been her father's. It still had his handwriting on it, little scribbles and notes that made no sense anymore. But it showed clearly the borders of Dor-lómin, and beyond the Ered Wethrin the Teiglin, and the River Narog, and farther east lay Brethil—and the Esgalduin, and Neldoreth where Menegroth stood. Where Túrin was. Come next summer, perhaps, they would be there in safety and at last Nienor would meet the brother she knew only as the occasional small story her mother shared in the evenings.

She left the doorstep and made her way into the wood, startling the starlings into flight again, though they settled down again not far away. Beneath their noise it was cool and quiet beneath the trees. Nienor made her way to the little stream that flowed clear and fresh over a stony bed. As she stood at the edge a leaf floated by, like a tiny boat on its way from its birthplace to the unknown. When she knelt to drink, the water was cool and sweet.

Just on the other side of the stream grew a large oak tree, whose roots had risen up out of the earth, or the earth had been worn away by many years of rain and snow melt, to leave a little hollow at its base. Over the last few years things had, on occasion, appeared there. Nienor had discovered fresh game, a few roughly-carved wooden figures, once a bundle of clothes that looked like it had been stolen off of someone's washing line, and on another occasion a bag of apples.

The appearance of gifts beneath the tree almost always coincided with stories Aerin whispered to them of Tuor, Nienor's cousin, who had been caught and made a thrall of Lorgan but then escaped—and now he was a thorn in the Easterlings' side, killing their men and stealing from them and then and slipping away back to his caves in the north, where Elves had once lived and where none of the Easterlings dared to go, no matter how high the price Lorgan set on Tuor's head.

Nienor had never seen her cousin, though she had tried, coming to the tree as soon as she heard of trouble among the Easterlings. But more often than not nothing appeared there, and when something did it was always left either just before she arrived or sometime afterward.

But today, when she looked up from the water she froze, and found herself staring at a ragged figure who had just come around the side of the tree. He was dressed in a patchwork of worn cloth and animal skins, his hair was long and dirty, and his beard patchy and uneven. His eyes were very blue—and very wide, wide as Nienor's own she was sure. For several minutes neither of them moved. The only noise in the wood was the water flowing along between them; even the starlings had flown away. But at last, Nienor found her voice. "Tuor…?" They both started at the break in the silence, and both of them glanced around, like a horde of Easterlings or orcs was going to leap out at them. But of course there were neither orcs nor Easterlings; they were alone.

Tuor came to kneel at the stream, just across from Nienor. It was a very small stream, easy to jump over. Their hands could meet in the middle if they both reached out—which Tuor did. He held out a small bulging sack. Nienor took it and peered inside to find it full of chestnuts. She looked back up at Tuor. "Thank you," she said.

"You—" His voice cracked, and he coughed. "You're welcome."

How long had it been since he had spoken to another person? For another moment they stared at each other, and Nienor wondered if he was also thinking of what should have been but wasn't. In a brighter world, where Midsummer was a time to celebrate victory and not to remember disaster, where Nienor's name was not mourning, they would have grown up together. Tuor might have had other brothers and sisters. Their families would have been big and loud and happy and safe.

But this was not a brighter world. "Will you come meet my mother?" Nienor asked.

Tuor hesitated. "I shouldn't. If I'm seen—"

"No one will see you. They leave us alone for the most part—Mother scares them." Nienor rose and held out her hand. Tuor also stood, and he towered over her. After a few more seconds' hesitation he smiled, and took her hand, stepping lightly over the stream and allowing himself to be led back down the path to Nienor and Morwen's little house.

But as they neared the edge of the wood they heard horses and dogs, and Tuor pulled Nienor quickly back into the tree-shadows and out of sight. It was Brodda, riding by with a large hunting party. He sometimes came by their house to show that he wasn't afraid of Morwen Eledhwen and her elf-magic. Nienor knew he would not linger, especially if Morwen came out to watch him go by, but Tuor stepped back even farther into the forest. "I should go," he said. "It is too dangerous."

"Wait!" Nienor stopped him as he turned. Heart in her throat, she told him of the Black Sword in the south, and how the passes through the Ered Wethrin were open again. Even hidden as they were it felt dangerous to say all of it aloud. "Mother and I are leaving Dor-lómin," she whispered. "In the spring. Come back then when the snow first melts—come with us to Doriath!"

Tuor looked down at her, his expression hard to read. "I can't," he said. "That isn't where I'm supposed to go." He pulled Nienor into a sudden, swift, tight embrace, and dropped a kiss onto her temple. "Take care of yourself, Cousin," he said, and as he pulled away he took a knife from his belt and handed it to her. "Maybe someday we will meet again." And he turned away, leaving Nienor standing with a knife in one hand and a bag of chestnuts in the other, watching as her cousin melted into the trees, gone as quickly and suddenly as he had come.