Release from Bondage by heget

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"...can never die, but rises again harder and stronger."

Faron’s sleep was dreamless. When he woke in the Gardens of Lorien, he felt as if bathed in light, as if his body had soaked in a vat of morning sunlight and that gentle warmth had refilled all the hollows beneath his skin, replacing the poison of Angband that had fossilized in the shell of his flesh and organs. His joints and muscles, lax and supple, no longer screamed at him, and that absence of pain bewildered him. Restoration was too simple a term for what Faron felt upon awakening. His body no longer imprisoned him, and that alone would have been cause enough for his joy. He wondered how sunlight did not escape through his parted lips, since he felt so full of its warmth.

Mist clung in a thin flim across his skin, beading on his eyelashes as he blinked. At first Faron could not see, but then a gentle hand pressed against his shoulder and another hand wiped his brow. “Peace,” a voice commanded. Faron stilled. His eyes adjusted to the soft bright gray of his surroundings, breathing in air that was pure and heavily scented of myrtle and mint. The combination of smells irritated his nose as he sat up, causing him to sneeze. The voice laughed, and Faron turned his head to see the man that held his shoulder and braced his back to offer him support as he rose to a seated position.

Aglar’s brother, dead since the Dagor Bragollach, knelt beside Faron. Soft cotton gray robes wrapped around his body, and a thin wire crown of silver leaves and tiny flowers made of crystals no larger than grains of rice sat across his brow. His blue eyes were exactly as Faron remembered. His hair, once the same russet red-brown of Aglar and Sarnor, was not. Dark brown hair, almost black, feathered the contours of his cheeks, cupping his face like smooth wings. The elf laughed, shaking his head with all its changed locks. “I know. A strange side-effect of my re-embodiment, when I was restored. We are not changed, unless it is to decide to keep or lose some scars, or ask for a different body to more closely reflect our fëar or for a younger age at which to be reborn- though that delays a return of some memories. Most do not change, aside from wishing to remove all scars, but we cannot alter our hröar to the whims of our fëar as easily as the Ainur. And yet here I am, dark-haired as to finally match my mother-name. The color does not bother me, though I do miss the texture of my curls. Tease me if you wish on this strange but fortunious mishap, Faron.”

“Craban,” Faron exclaimed in the softest of exhales, the name hanging like mist in the air between them. Wetness gathered around his eyes. The other elf pulled off the gray mantle around his head and shoulders and wiped at Faron’s face, then gave the length of cloth for Faron to wrap around his own shoulders, assisting him as he stood. Faron’s balance was wobbly, but no longer was this balance issue caused by the dismemberment of his toes. A newborn fawn was Faron’s unsteadiness, not the scrambling of a spider without a full set of limbs. Craban kept his hand against Faron’s lower back to steady him, chuckling softly. The sound was kind.

“Aye, it’s good to stand again. Worry not. The grass is gentle.” Craban made no remark on Faron’s weeping, and he allowed Faron to set the pace, patient as together they tottered away from the soft bed upon which Faron had awaken, a bed that the elf now saw had been placed within the exposed roots of an impossibly large willow. This tree, with bark whiter than any living willow, formed a tent with its hanging branches to shelter him. The trunk had been his headboard while he slept, the mattress upon which the white sheets spread was netting filled with dark moss, and the groundcover was a spongy plant that Craban called grass but felt like velvet against his toes and provided the aroma of mint that had so aggravated his nose. It was a bower that any Laegrim would envy, one that felt as if designed by the Tree Shepherds. Strange that Craban felt natural in this place. The Noldo had ever been one for the cold pines and stark stone towers of the north.

“I trust you,” Faron said.

“The possibility remains that you may fall. You trained yourself to walk on crippled feet and must relearn to walk on ones restored. I faced difficulties in my remastery, and wish you not feel disheartened even if I cannot keep you upright, dear friend.”

Faron fumbled for words for his question. “Was - who was with you, when you came to the Gardens?”

“The Gray Lady of Healing and Rest, Estë,” Craban said. “As she is present with us now,” he added and pointed with a toe towards the edge of a shallow pool, no more than a wagon wheel across and no deeper than an apple basket. Resting half-submerged at the water’s edge was a small salamander with a frizzled comb of gills sticking out like honeysuckle on either side of its head. The animal was pale and iridescent like a pearl carving, and its eyes were smokey quartz. Those eyes blinked at Faron slow and deliberate as cats would when surrounded by people that they trusted. Faron, used to the toxic stench of Balrogs and Morgoth’s dark Maiar, felt nothing from this tiny axolotl. Perhaps a faint scent of some sweet-smelling herb that was not mint, overpowered by the more aggressive herb.

“For one of the fifteen greatest powers, she seems a bit small to be Îdh,” Faron said.

“A token of herself,” Craban explained, guiding Faron’s steps away from the shallow pool and the tiny creature observing them. He led them towards the canopy of willow branches that curtained the soft bed upon which Faron had awoken, lifting an arm to push aside the willow leaves and expose the rest of the Gardens of Lorien to Faron’s sight. “A small aspect of Herself monitors all patients and stays at their side when they awake, though never Her alone. You are not the first healing that I have attended, and there were other elves beside me when I woke and when I left the Gardens. When I was steady on my feet and prepared for the emotions, my mother came for me. And Amanië, my eldest sister. Angell sat with me through the healing, and Lady Elenwë. Angell still works with the recently re-embodied, serving the Valië Nienna, as I do. But I prefer the Gardens of Lorien and Valië Estë. I will be present for my brother, and Lord Angrod and Lady Edhellos. Lord Aegnor will not leave Mandos. Some chose thus.” Craban parted the willow curtain and guided Faron through. “You may stay here as long as you need and desire to.”

Faron thought that the Gardens would be gray. Even with the touch of cool mist against his skin, nothing was gray except the thin robes of his companion and the shawl draped around his shoulders. The grass of the Gardens of Lórien glowed green, so pure was the color, but without overwhelming the senses in garishness of hue. It was the green of a shaft of sunlight on the floor having passed through one of the colored windows of Nargothrond, a light that one could hold. The blue of the lake was equally rich, as bright and luscious as the lapis stones that artists ground to make blue paint. Faron knew of the blue painter’s stone because Fân complained of the cost, as lapis lazuli were rare in Beleriand. Dark purplish-blue lupine carpeted islands and the opposite shore, and large lotus flowers dotted the lake. Other flowers that Faron could not name mixed in among the tall blue lupine and encircled other willow trees with their full blankets of pale green. Faron wondered how many had healing beds in the shade of their canopies, those living tents, and if even now Faelindis was emerging from behind the screen of her own boughs to behold this beautiful vista. Smaller ponds, no doubt with a tiny white amphibian residing in each, reflected light like gemstones scattered across a carpet. Moss thick and soft disguised any stone. There was a wall around the garden and lake covered in solid ivy, but tall and wide arcs showed that the walls were but divisors for the Garden to partition it into multiple sections. Faron could not see from the angle at which he stood to know if the other areas of the Garden of Lorien had lakes, but he could see the crowns of flowering trees over the wall of ivy. No spot in the garden was untouched by either water or growing plants.

“I am pleased that you find my efforts pleasing,” a piping voice said. Faron turned back to see that the axolotl had transformed to a snake with the same pearlescent scales and gray eyes. “A challenge it is, to receive long injured instead of fresh from my brother’s keeping, but more welcome to me. To mend flesh instead of recreate it. I kept the scars from your time as a Ranger of Nargothrond - any that were cosmetic and did not adversely affect muscle or joint. Mornaew Craban assured me that you would share that inclination with your fellows.”

“My?” Faron trailed off, for the smiling Craban answered his question.

“Veterans of Beleriand. Your companions. They have been restored to life, most of them. If you come sit by that moss-covered stone, I shall point to you those that remain in the Gardens to complete their recovery and tell you all whom have left the Gardens of Healing and await you outside.”

Faron stumbled through his reply. “I would be pleased.”

Estë and Craban said that any difference he felt from his new-grown fingers was in his head. The skin did not feel softer or look even under closest inspection to be discernibly different from his original fingers. Only because he remembered the thin knives of the orcs taking his fingers did he know some had been restored. He counted them in the childhood song: little father, little mother, little brother, little sister, little baby. Both families reunited.

As he marveled at his hands, Aglar’s brother pointed to people in light robes resting or playing in the Garden. Most wore white or pale blue, but a few were garbed in gray with heavier mantles and hoods. Faron’s shift, beneath his borrowed gray cape, was pale blue, of a soft thin textile unfamiliar to him. Craban called it cotton. The style was archaic, sleeveless and untailored, but the Garden was warm. Far warmer than Beleriand, and Faron remembered how often his Noldor companions spoke of missing balmy weather.

“I came in the company of a maiden named Faelindis,” Faron said. “The only child of Rimdir, steward of Minas Tirith when the island of Tol Sirion was held by Orodreth. She had been a prisoner of Angband, come for healing. Where is she?” Faron strove to keep worry from his voice, but it colored his tone like black ink.

What Craban read into Faron’s face and words amused him to peaks of great laughter. Such amusement only drove Faron’s ire.

When his peals of laughter ceased, Craban spoke, “Your Princess has recovered, all whip scars removed; the light of her spirit reassured.”

“It was but a ploy, my subterfuge by aiding in her misidentification as the Princess Finduilas.” Faron’s anxious words were spoken in a rush. “I recognized Faelindis from the moment I saw her. Only the Enemy was fooled, and how great of fools they were! Faelindis is dark of eye and hair - did never word reach Morgoth that the youngest scion of the House of Finarfin shared in that famous golden hair?”

Craban pursed his lips. “Faelindis Rimdriel is here, and you will know her by the blue gown. Gelril, sister of Gadwar and Galuven, attends her. Lady Gelril has apprenticed to the Aulendil, eager to enrich her studies of invention, but as her brothers are still both within the keeping of the Valar, she volunteers hours in the Gardens. Your presence and verity of your rescue from Angband shall greatly assist in cheering the spirits of Galuven. His guilt over your fate has long plagued him. And what befell Gwindor as well.”

“Has Gwindor been restored?”

“No,” Craban answered. “How long a spirit needs the quiet and peace of the Halls of Mandos is to the decision of each spirit. But of your many companions of Nargothrond, the ten that oath-sworn went with Beren, son of Barahir, and died in the dungeons of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, they have almost all been restored to life, and many are in this area of the Garden. We chose this location for that reason. I will try to find them for you. Of their number, I know for certain that Fân you shall not meet today. His memories were most disoriented by his captivity, and even in Mandos they have not recovered. My Ladies Vairë and Estë have hope that re-embodiment and companionship shall restore him to himself, but the process is delicate.”

“I have a message for him, from a woman named Indolen.”

Craban smiled and bowed his head. “It shall be done.”

 While Craban delivered news of Dondwen’s words for her childhood friend -and with the certainty of foresight did Craban proclaim that it would only be when the woman herself came to the Garden’s gate to seek out the blond-haired boy of her cherished memories that Costawë Fân would be fully restored to himself- Faron took to wandering the shoreline of the lake, searching for those he knew. Before he left, Craban gave Faron some fruit. Faron knotted the pieces of dried apricot in his borrowed gray cape, more interested in finding friends than eating.

Most of the Gardens’ patients were injured veterans from the Army of the Valar, the newly re-embodied from the Halls of Mandos lounging in another lawn of the Gardens. Among the various tall blondes stretching their newly regrown arms and legs or soothing nerves damaged by war, Faron found Tacholdir’s dark hair. The former soldier of Nargothrond sat beside a blond man, holding the stranger’s hands in his lap. Faron refrained from the temptation of interrupting the pair to greet Tacholdir as he wished. Reunions would come, and Tacholdir looked uncharacteristically happy. Faron has never seen the older man intimate with anyone. With a fond smirk, Faron searched for more familiar faces.

The next one that he found was by quite literally tripping over them.

A man lay prone, hands folded behind his head, feet stretched out and ankles crossed, taking a nap on the ground in the very exemplar of repose. Only the steady rise and fall of his chest, and the faint sonorous sound of his snoring, distinguished him from a log of driftwood half-submerged on the shore of the lake. Faron did not espy him until his feet fumbled against the man’s torso, causing Faron to trip and fall onto the sleeping man. He rather violently woke the man from his nap by slamming on top of the man’s center, expelling air from his chest and punching his elbows into the man’s gut, his left knee hiking up into an extremely painful bodily location in which to have solid bone ram into. The pair both recoiled and curled in reflex, cursing in pain and surprise. Faron was the first to unfurl from his fetal position, unfurling his head and limbs like a turtle relaxing from its shell. The expletives and the voice in which they were addressed struck Faron as familiar. “Captain?”

“May Vairë make bobbins of your nuts! Stars above, Spiders!-spiders’ eggs in your testicles, curse thee, stars! - oh, it’s you. Faron. Of course it’s you. Edrahil would have just kicked me, and Finrod would have tapped my shoulder. Or splashed me with water. Ethir is the only kind and considerate soul among you lot. What do you want, Ranger, to so vigorously wake me?”

Faron stuttered, and Heledir huffed and sat up, his shoulders still hunched together in pain, but his face open and bright with mirth. “I know it was an accident, Faron. I tease you. And, aie, it is good to see you! I heard you were taken in the Nirnaeth; have they finally released you? But no- your robes are blue.”

“I was prisoner in Angband, for one hundred and eighteen years. I escaped in the chaos of the final assault.”

That confession gave their conversation an awkward long pause, before Heledir with his natural charm and aplomb pretended the subject of captivities never occurred. As a topic it was too large to gracefully maneuver around, since Heledir himself had died a prisoner in Tol-in-Gaurhoth, and their shared yet separate experiences loomed as shadow above them like the peaks of Thangorodrim. But Heledir’s willingness to ignore that dark pain was the metaphoric corpse of Ancalagon to smash the discomfort into rubble. “So, who have you re-acquainted yourself with, Faron?”

“Craban. And I saw Tacholdir sitting with another man -a Vanyar veteran of the Army of the Valar. I did not know that he had a Vanyar companion back in the West.”

“He didn’t,” Heledir said with a familiar gleam in his eyes, and Faron belatedly remembered that his former captain was a glutton for gossip and loved nothing more than to keep running tabs on the romantic entanglements of all his subordinates and superiors. “And don’t say ‘back West’. You are in Valinor now. Now it is ‘back East’. Fret not, we still haven’t adjusted. It pained the King to hear the King call Beleriand ‘back home’. Aie, too many kings. That will be another habit hard to break.”

Heledir straightened his back, the pain having dissipated, and gave Faron a tooth-filled smile. “Finrod is with his mother, Queen Eärwen, in Alqualondë. Edrahil is with them - his family is still based there. Odd for an Aulendil family, but there is a long-standing business relation between Lord Enedir and Alqualondë, only strengthened after the calamities that occurred after the Darkening. Edrahil has gone to see his family, and gain permission to court his Teleri maid. Oh, the situation is more complicated than that, and the reunion and hashing out of issues and past history and assumptions and hurt feelings and surviving affections created a veritable tempest in the Halls of Mandos, one I found myself subject to as a skiff tossed about in the middle of one of Ossë’s great storms. But Edrahil is my oldest friend, and I had to stand beside him as he tossed his heart once more to the seagull and tried to convince her that he would no longer pluck all her feathers. However, I draw the line at family visits and dowry negotiations. And, ah, no shame in telling you, the first time outside of the Gardens’ gates, I was overwhelmed. So I have retreated to regroup in its calmness, as is sensible.”

Faron scooted until he sat side by side next to Heledir, leaning shoulder to shoulder to the older elf, and pressed his head against the other elf’s shoulder in an armless side hug, a gesture he fuzzily remembered doing with his older siblings, back when he was too young to understand the great siege that was about to take his older brothers away from him. Faron still felt no remorse over his absence of sorrow for the loss of Duinethor or Cófon, but Heledir was closest to an eldest brother of his heart. His captain had been the one to mold the boy that arrived in Nargothrond as unwilling ward into a young man whom the city proudly claimed and who could claim the city as his home, a ranger whose skills Heledir could extol and knew his commands would be obeyed, but also a man Faron could sit beside as equals and receive and return comfort.

Faron spoke. “This place seems best to find calmness. You have always been wise, Captain.” Heledir accepted the proffered absolution. The defensiveness that tensed his back relaxed, and Faron could feel this shift beneath his head resting on Heledir’s shoulder.

Encouraged, Faron made his own confession. “I broke. In Angband, during the torture, they took my fingers, toes, skin. I lost my senses, became insensate.”

“As did I,” Heledir whispered. “The dungeon broke me, Faron. I was not your captain, not anyone’s. Edrahil has to bespell my mind to stop my madness, and I begged for death because I could not face the losses.”

“I gave into despair. I ceased to hope. It was only the last day, when the Army of the Valar sang their trumpets and were about to breach the walls of Angband, that I regained my heart, and only because I sought to free Faelindis.”

“Then you did not lose, Ranger,” Heledir said, pitching his statement as if they were foundation stones upon which to build a fortress. His hand rested atop Faron’s head, the comforting warmth soaking through Faron’s freshly shorn hair. Faron closed his eyes and rested against his former commander, soothed and relieved.

The two leaned against one another, content to remain motionless and listen to their surroundings. Lorien’s lake did not sound like the Narog or its tributaries that flowed through Nargothrond or Lake Aeliun, no gentle sloshing of wavelets or echoes through the canyon. The water’s song was muted so that the presence was noticeable only by the scent, which was not exactly the same. A good scent, though, comforting, as all clean water was. The ground beneath Faron was muddy, especially where his feet were stretched out to where the moss thinned, and Faron once again marvelled at Captain Heledir’s ease at lounging in mud wallows along the banks of any available water source. He should have been named for a swan or beaver, Faron thought with a spat of mirth, and remembered how Heledir’s prefered napping hobby earned him the permanent displeasure of Nargothrond’s laundresses. That line of thought pulled another name to the forefront. “Has Arodreth been released from Mandos? And has Lady Alphen hunted him down yet?”

Heledir laughed. “The Old Bull was released a little before Eärendil arrived, and immediately pursued the new residence of Old Mother Swan. He has hired himself out as her man, from what I hear, claiming his expertise is needed to build gardens in her new manor. Ardoreth was enamoured of the new flowers to be found in these Gardens, and all the flowers of Aman that are free for him to discover shall likely occupy and delight him for the coming Age.”

Splashing startled them, and they opened their eyes and looked out at the lake, over in the shallowest area around one of the central islands where a pair of figures played, a man with black hair that fell to his shoulders and a woman with brown hair and a pink sheath dress that clung to her body. With the fabric waterlogged and made nigh transparent, the color was difficult to discern. But when Faron recognized the shades of brown and pink, he realized who the woman was, and thus also knew the man.

“Is that Bân? And the woman in pink, I know her. A healer named Aereth, of Menegroth, the one whom he sent all those love missives. She was our healer, the one to tend to us when they first took us to the army camp.”

Heledir snorted. “Aye, the puppy and his flower girl. And while romance rekindled or starting new is not uncommon to either the Halls of Mandos or these Gardens, those two behave as if within the stanzas of the High King’s poetry.”

Faron was interrupted before he could interrogate Heledir on the contents of the High King’s erotic poetry.

“The shortest stint in the Halls of Mandos was she.” Heledir and Faron turned at the sound of a new speaker behind them, the words spoken by a grave female voice. Though the voice was low and throaty, an imperceptible quality recalled to mind the high-pitched tiny voice of Estë’s salamander form. A column of shimmering air stood behind them. Had Faron experience with desert climes, he would have compared it to heat shimmers. The air folded in and out between two translucent forms, like mirages called forth by a singer’s highest art. One was a small gray songbird, but the second form was of an elven woman, tall and exceptionally buxom, clad in numerous heavy fine silver jewelry and a few lengths of black fabric that matched her long black hair. The woman’s face revealed a sorrow so heart-wrenching and profound as to make the joyously bright atmosphere of the Garden as bleak and colorless as the northern foothills of Thangorodrim, and Faron could taste once more that biting cold. “Little Aereth would not assent to a separation from her beloved, nor heal without the physical earth beneath her,” the sorrowful voice said. “Long has she waited for this joy; begrudge her not this enthusiasm in finally attaining it.” The distortion of air disappeared, taking with it the scent of sweet roses and crushed pine needles.

Overwhelmed with awe, Faron asked, “Was that an aspect of the Lady of Mourning, a partial manifestation or Maia of Nienna?”

“You did not recognize- ah, of course you would not, having never met her. She was once a servant of Estë and Yavanna, very long ago. She taught the nightingales here to sing, long before any elves came her for healing.”

The answered dawned on Faron. “That was the Queen?”

Chuckling as he pulled away and stood up, Heldir answered, “Yes, I believe that was Queen Melian. And ‘tis rare for she to show herself, deep in her grief doth she be. The honor of her presence must be for her former handmaiden’s sake, not to lowly rangers such as we two. Now, you have your not-blonde princess to find, and I have a pair of amorous victims to tease. Thankfully, they make it easy.

“Most of the lake is shallow,” Heledir said, knotting the ends of his white robe above his knees. “The fountains in Tirion are deeper, and have a greater risk of accidental drowning. Don’t mention that fact around some of the Gondolindrim. They will perceive it as a joke in poor taste.”

Confused and uncomfortably reminded of some orcish jests made after the sack of Gondolin, Faron watched as his former captain pulled away. Heledir waded out into the lake, lifting his mud-encaked feet like a heron in and out of the water. He flapped his arms in a wave back towards Faron and the shore, then waded away towards where Bân held aloft a giggling Aereth above the water. Her arms encircled his head, blocking Bân from noticing the mischievous captain Heledir approaching and whistling off-key.

 “Faron!”

The call came in Faelindis’s voice, brighter and louder than he ever remembered her, and in joy he turned around to find her. Perched on a moss-covered rock like a sunbathing siren, Faelindis waved down at him, then scrambled off her perch, the thin blue of her gown riding up to her knees as she slid down the moss and her dark hair tangling in her limbs because she needed to awkwardly half-turn to place her feet steady on the grass. Faelindis straightened and reordered her hair and garment by the time Faron ran up to her - he was laughing as he ran at the ease of his feet, how he no longer stumbled and shuffled on missing toes. He stopped before embracing her, suddenly self conscious. Faelindis restored to full health and happiness was an unfamiliar but beautiful sight. Colors infused the undertones of her skin, transforming the darkness of her eyes and hair into the richness of wood and earth instead of the dullness in Angband. Her eyes still lacked the strange light of Elves who grew up in the radiance of the Two Trees, but star-like was the only appropriate description for how they shone. The blue fabric of her sleeveless gown was semi transparent, making the outline of her waist and thighs visible. Folds in the fabric as it draped blurred and made opaque the contours of her chest, but Faron was more aware of their existence. The tips of her hair curled around the tops of her thighs and cupping her buttocks, longer than the tresses had ever been in captivity, and she had tucked it behind her ears, no longer hiding her face. Her neck was unadorned by either a broken necklace pilfered of gems or the ring of bruises and cuts that had so long marred her.

Love poetry spoke of necks like a white swan, and Faron finally understood why attention was lavished on that feature.

This time the blow to his chest could not be ignored. Faelindis stood before him, and to his sight she was the comeliest of maidens. The overwhelming pressure of Morgoth’s vile essence must be to blame to have hidden this fact from his senses, that he dared ever not think her beautiful, that he had ever not desired her. Faron attributed this flood of arousal as an effect of encountering almost all of his friends entangled in romantic pursuits. He was especially thankful for Heledir’s absence. Also earning his thanksgiving was the looseness of his robes. He ran his tongue across his restored teeth. His mouth was unpleasantly dry.

Faron breathed in and wished for the coldness of the lake to calm the heat that broke out across his flesh. Warring thoughts battled like the maddened wargs in the pens of his mind, whether or not to reach out for Faelindis and what he dared say to her. What action he dared might make, and if she would reciprocate.

“Are you well?” Faelindis asked.

In answer Faron held up his hands, fingers splayed to display all ten digits.

Faelindis squealed. “Delightful! And your hair is growing back dark as it once was!” There was a dimple on her cheek. She had not dimples before, not even in Minas Tirith or Nargothrond. She thought herself merely pretty , he remembered her words. Gentle, brave, compassionate, gorgeous - any of those words but merely pretty, once. He gathered his rambling thoughts and refocused on her latest words.

Faron laughed. “Have you seen Craban - Aglar’s brother? His hair is now a near-black instead of the red curls like his brother.” A nervous lick of his teeth. “Do you like it? It is far too short, and I cannot tell if all the white patches are gone.”

“You are no piebald horse, fear not, Faron. And it is good to see your smile once more!”

His smile. His prayers overflowed with gratitude to all the Powers than none of his companions could observe his giddiness.

Faelindis’s smile was as sweet as candied fruit. Faron’s memory of sweet and lovely things had returned during his dreamless sleep. Clearly now could he recall the intricate stonework of Nargothrond, the lotus flowers along its cornices, the carved owls and squirrels in the branches of its tree-imitation columns, the designs and scenes in the stained glass windows. The colors of the rugs that his mother and Iessel gifted for his room, the taste of fresh bread and good food. The songs that Princess Finduilas played on her harp and Faelindis accompanying her with a voice that was not talented but not unpleasant. He forgot that Faelindis sang. He wondered if she remembered herself, if anyone had yet asked her to sing.

“Are you well, Faelindis?”

“Now that I’ve found you,” she said, her breathless honesty stunning Faron. Hope rose in his throat, hope for what he could not yet name. His desires, freshly aroused, spoke of something he had not contemplated for more than a century. Faron settled on companionship. That thought was safest, staring at Faelindis and the thin blue robe that only highlighted the lines of her body.

“Faron?” Worry furrowed her brow, adding a quaver to her voice, and Faron reached a hand out to cup Faelindis’s cheek. Warmth undampened by the lake mist beneath his palm, Faelindis’s fingers covering his arms soft as a songbird landing on the folds of a petal, memories of standing face to face like this in the caverns of Angband now remade with new gentleness and the sense that nothing could rip this peace from them, all this prompted Faron’s answer.

“You are with me once more, and we have freedom. I am well, Faelindis. We are well.”

Chapter End Notes

More than most, this chapter heavily references the rest of the Band of the Red Hand series.

As Aglar's story established, Craban is very loosely based on Bran Stark, so the hair change is a joke about the difference between the book description and the actor's hair in the show.

Sindarin vocabulary exists for "Elvish play-names" for each finger of the hand: atheg, emig, honeg, nethig, gwinig

 

Edrahil's Teleri beloved, Maiwë, is another direct import from "The Leithian Script".

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