Release from Bondage by heget

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"He had to remember that. Serve and obey and remember who you are, and no more harm will come to you."

A captain of Morgoth was the one to bring Faelindis news of Túrin's death. Faron watched it happen. The elven thrall was alert to the presence of Morgoth’s captains, wary of those dark spirits who walked in bodies of orc and cruel men but held the twisted aura of commanding majesty that no mere orc, however mighty and cruel, could exude. Even though the shapes they wandered about in Angband were less burning tall, they were far more dangerous than the Balrogs. Those captains were the ones who taught the orcs their cruelty by example. Despite their inherent danger, Faron watched them for the rare updates they dropped in bragging taunts. News of the world outside Angband came from the carefree mouths of its leaders, deciphered through the distortions natural to those creatures. Silence and deflection masked defeat while victory was boasted beyond proportion. Such was the manner in which the tale of the last day of Húrin’s children retold, in short mocking sentences gloating of Doom unescaped and self-destruction and anguish. The captain of Morgoth desired the princess’s pain, so he had the elven maiden dragged from her holding cell to hear his tale. Faron slunked behind the crowd of gathering orcs, watching as the captain recounted all the rumors of how Túrin Turambar met his end. Faelindis was too afraid to reply. Only when the captain of Morgoth hit her face, the iron glove drawing blood, did she begin to weep. Finduilas’s companion until the fall, the seneschal’s daughter could have gaged the depth of Princess Finduilas’s feelings for the mortal better than any in Nargothrond. Yet her loyal heart respected the hidden pain of her princess and still aspired to hide the depth of the princess’s unrequited love. “I greatly esteemed the Adanedhel,” Faelindis whispered, speaking of her own feelings.

 

The orcs wished for the princess’s anguish, and Faron wished he could tell the maid to give them what they wanted if she was to have any hope of surviving this place. If their toy did not cry as often and loudly as they wished, it would be made to. You are Finduilas Faelivrin, he wanted to scream at her. I told them you were Faelivrin; you must be Faelivrin. Faelindis is nothing but a body to breed more orcs or feed the wargs. Faron knew the relief he felt when the brown-eyed elven maid began to fold in on herself and sob, her small body shaking in loud grief, was a twisted creation of Morgoth, as ugly a perversion on the soul as the creation of orcs.

 

“Has Húrin Thalion been told of his children’s death?” Faelindis asked, after some tears. She did not look the captain in the eye, only held her fingers against the bleeding of her face and tilted so it flowed away from her mouth and eyes. As deflection the choice was inspired. That Húrin Thalion was enthroned in a stone chair high in Angband, silent prisoner to be taunted by Morgoth, was an open secret. Too cold and stubborn for any display of grief, her open display when compared to his had provided more satisfactory sport.

 

The orcs gathered around to watch her tears as if she was some fine statute or a performing minstrel, a jeering crowd that shouted foul taunts of Túrin’s death and the fate of his sister-wife. Faelindis wept, but there was an odd current that Faron could not place to the stillness of her mouth. A strange gratefulness it was, the thrall decided, that loyal Faelindis was relieved that she could take her friend’s place and that Princess Finduilas did not learn of what happened to brave Adanedhel, at least not in this cruel manner.

 

Faron thought it also curious that the captain of Morgoth did not state how injured the dragon Glaurung was. As a former ranger of Nargothrond, he nursed a keen hatred of the golden beast that befouled his beautiful home. The mortal had perished after hunting the beast, but the tale was unclear if it was only by his own grief-stricken hand or dragon-inflicted wound. In the disjointed threads of the story, ignoring the barbs against Húrin Thalion and his kin, it sounded as if Glaurung the Golden had been seriously injured. Faron hoped. It would be fortunate indeed if the Father of Dragons sulked off to some far region of despoiled Beleriand and hid there to lick its wounds and trouble not the greater war, as Sauron pouted up in Taur-nu-Fuin. Better than to have the monster slithering through Angband’s halls, and best of all it seemed Glaurung had abandoned the ruins of fair Nargothrond.

 

Eventually Faelindis was escorted back to the holding cell. Faron returned to the kennels, carrying his own strange gratefulness that the girl was still alive, that the ruse he gave her to be the Princess Finduilas to save her from harsher tortures was intact, and that all the minions of Morgoth wanted from her today was to listen to a sad tale and pay with tears and only a little anguish and blood.

 

 

After the death of Türin Turambar, the orcs began to let Faelindis wander between the galleries like other thralls of Angband, ignoring her if she slept in the pens of the slaves that counted and repaired the stockpiles of armor and camp bedding. Now and then the overseers remembered she was a valuable prisoner and sent her back to the coffin-like cells at the end of the shifts, but the pressing attention of the matronly orc disappeared and her chaperones cared less what the elven maid did as long as she never wandered beyond the main tunnels. Faron feared the deception of Faelindis’s true identity had been discovered, until he realised it was because the orcs no longer expected Túrin to come to Angband and thus needed Finduilas Faelivrin to display before him.

 

Rumors had reached Angband of Finduilas's death in the Forest of Brethil, but Angband was loathe to admit if it errored, and until another captured noble of the Noldor disputed the claim, Faelindis was Faelivrin. If not Túrin, then eventually another might need the princess as bait. Not only useful, to believe the deception gratified the egos in Angband, as Faron had hoped.

 

The overseer with the ruby earring was the only one to stalk the elven maid with leering and anticipatory eyes, to grab her arms and pull at her face so she faced him as he questioned where she had been, smiling as he ran claws through her hair and demanding she be cleaned and her rags replaced. The elven maid was still counted a valuable prisoner, but it was clear what the overseer intended once the rulers of Angband no longer had any need for the princess.

 

As the orcs doled out the daily cup of their thick dark brew, syrupy and bitter, Faron shouldered his way through the line until he stood near the maid, close enough to see the sharp lines of her clavicle and a small and faded bruise at the juncture of her neck. Under the cover of the noise of the press for nourishment and emboldened by proximity, Faron mumbled, “Are you well, m’lady?”

 

Faelindis jolted a little, turning around to face him, but Faron ducked his head and repeated his question, afraid of the scene she might create and the attention they would draw.

 

“Faron?” she whispered.

 

“Osp, just Osp,” he hastily corrected. “M’lady Finduilas. Faelivrin,” he added, hoping she understood the reminder. He was only the reeking warg keeper now, as she must be the captive princess, and he lambasted his foolishness in daring to speak to her.

 

Cup in hand he scurried back to the warg kennel, cursing how his missing toes made his gait lurch. The cocky ranger Faron may have spoken to Lady Finduilas’s friend Faelindis during a banquet in Nargothrond, which he did not remember but likely happened numerous times, and it would have been inconsequential. There were always dining rooms set with food and drink in Nargothrond, and one needed only to know the chefs’ schedule to know which wings of the underground city served food. Faron and the other rangers would make a circuit of the city, following the cycle of banquets and viewing parties, listening in on recitals and performances to grab the free fruit and wine. Aglar’s cousin, the steward of Nargothrond under King Finrod, reprimanded them for the behavior, demanding that they should at least offer themselves as dancing partners or provide entertainment if they were to continue crashing parties. Faron’s singing voice, even before the torment of Angband broke his voice, had been middling poor, Aglar could only sing flat notes, and of the rest, only Galuven, his brother Gadwar, and the young ranger Ethir had truly pleasant voices. But Faron remembered dancing during a banquet party hosted by Princess Finduilas, and one of his partners might have been Faelindis. Handsome Galuven or noble Aglar with his red hair, even the other rangers like the energetically friendly Bân, were the targets of maidens’ affection and desire, but Faron had flirted with most of the unattached female population of Nargothrond and won his own admirers. None of the courting had been serious, unlike Gwindor and the princess or Bân and his handmaiden back in Menegroth. Also, Faron had the sense to do nothing more than smile to Lady Finduilas’s ladies-in-waiting, and he only ever treated the niece of King Finrod and daughter of King Orodreth with the courtesy. Whether this had been enough as to make him memorable to Faelindis he knew not.

 

Faron swallowed the last of the orc drink and went to count the wargs, checking the more docile ones for ticks and sores, petting the animals that let him touch them behind the ears as he would a well-behaved dog. When the beasts were resting, he could ignore the red eyes and misshaped muzzles and pretend they were but ugly hunting hounds. Some were nearly as large as Huan, without his intelligence or grace. His back to the rest of the cavern, he meant to be intent only on his job, but the temptation overpowered him. Turning around, Faron saw Faelindis standing on the other side of the iron grate separating the warg kennel from the rest of the large cavern.

 

“Are you well?” she asked in a soft voice. Her dark eyes flashed to his as she spoke, and once more Faron could see recognition of his old face in how the maid from Nargothrond stared at him. How she knew was a mystery, for his dark hair had gone white and brittle as a mortal’s, his once strong and tall body now skeletal and hunched, and the orcs never addressed him by his old name.

 

“Best go before they notice,” Faron hissed. The orcs were still busy watching the rest of the slave crews get their daily cup, but disaster needed only one overseer to notice Faelindis talking to him. The elven maid nodded and walked away from the pen, but for the rest of the shift she glanced to his end of the cavern, and Faron realised as often as he had been watching her work on sewing armor or wander the gallery, she had observed him.

 

With little fanfare old Húrin Thalion was released from Angband, sent to create mischief or because Morgoth had tired of the old mortal man. Faelindis was the one to tell Faron, whispering the news to him as she walked pass the warg pen once more. “We won’t be released like that,” she murmured, “but my heart is glad for him.”

 

Faron did not turn as she spoke. Mortals were to be envied, too frail for Angband, their suffering so short and swiftly ended. But the father of Túrin had suffered more than most, so he was not surprised, nor would he begrudge Faelindis’s sympathy. He thought her very kind and wondered how soon it would be when that heart withered away in grief, when would the elven maid lose all light to her eyes. If the captains of Angband continued to ignore her, she might survive.

 

Later, when Faelindis was confined to her cell for the shift, Faron debated going over and pressing his hand through the vent at the bottom of the cell, perhaps giving her a piece of cave root to eat, but he decided against it as too risky. As he fell asleep in the farthest corner of the warg pen, he curled his remaining fingers against his palm and imagined another hand holding his. In his dreams, once more wishing he was shackled in the pits of Tol-in-Gaurhoth alongside the friends he desired to have died beside, the manacled hand that reached for his before the teeth descended was pale and small. When he woke, he forgot why.

Chapter End Notes

Osp = Reek

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