Dancing In The Dark by Grundy

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The Spaces Between

This chapter checks 'ethnocentrism and prejudice', 'culture shock', and  'cannibalism' (discussion only - no actual eating of elves).

Also, warning: there is a brief discussion of orcs which mentions implied sexual violence/forced reproduction against elves. (Again, I would rather over-warn than under-warn.)

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Going downhill was a pleasant change after picking their way through the mountain passes. It also seemed to lighten Artanis’ mood, and for that, Curufinwë was thankful. His cousin laughed less and frowned more than he remembered even when he compared her to his memories from Mithrim when the host of Nolofinwë had first arrived, hollow cheeked and grim from their years on the Helcaraxë.

He will be severely tempted to test the limits of the maia queen’s enchantments if this is what finally breaks Artanis. His baby cousin had not shrunk from standing up to Fëanaro at his worst, and for failing to do what the Valar themselves hadn’t, failing to stop him, the grey king thinks to punish her?

He had tried several times to speak of inconsequential matters, even gone so far as to warble some of his brother’s more ridiculous ditties (songs he will scarce acknowledge knowing in public, let alone admit to having ever actually sung) but it has not helped that he can see.

Nor, if he is honest, did he really expect it to.

He may be kin, but he was not her beloved Celeborn, and that was who Artanis truly needed, even if her pride would not allow her to admit to it. Not that he did not understand it – he has seen enough to understand that she has been freer in Sindarin society than she was in their own, where daughters were all too often held lesser than sons. Now that she must stand once more as a Noldo – and one too many of her own people still may not fully trust at that – she will not allow herself to show weakness.

Even if it would not be weakness, but honesty. And a heartache that many of their people should understand all too well, for thousands of pairs had been sundered with the Flight and the Exile. Fully a third of their host know the same pain if not worse, for there are now also widows and widowers among them – words they had not even known in Aman, concepts unneeded in a land where only Miriel Þerindë had ever died.

He sighed. It was not right.

Ever the idealist, a voice inside him that sounded suspiciously like Silmë whispered.

I deserve this, he told that inner voice sternly. I did everything Thingol accused her of and more. She dared stand up and defy Atar. And she lived.

Because she’s Artanis, the voice sighed. It did not work so well for Pityo, did it? But I suppose he deserved it as well?

He had no answer to that, because Pityo hadn’t deserved his fate.  But it was also foolish to think that ‘deserve’ mattered anymore. It had ceased to matter after the Doom.

He trudged along, mulling the Doom, and the Ice, and Pityo and Aryo and Ambarussa and Artanis, not speaking, until they stopped for the night.

Artanis did not try to jolly him into talking when it was plain he didn’t want to be bothered. She simply set about preparing camp, setting up her bedroll and making up the fire.

Though they each carried one, they did not bother with tents unless the weather was bad. The blasted things were more bother to put up than they were worth on warm summer nights, and he had discovered that they both preferred the stars to staring at canvas while they waited for sleep to claim them.

Curufinwë found the stars more soothing and likely to inspire him. He suspected that after the Ice, the memories Artë associated with tents were not particularly pleasant.

He was trying to put himself in a less depressing frame of mind when Artanis looked up and frowned at him.

“You should just ask and be done with it,” she said flatly, poking the fire as if it had offended her.

“It’s nothing,” he muttered, loath to mention the Ice to her.

“Your nothing is nails on a slate in my head,” she sighed. “Ask.”

Manwë’s non-existent balls. She had all but ordered him to…

Worse, she looked ready to wait him out and he did not fancy spending a journey of what promised to be several weeks more in a battle of wills – particularly not when Artë was perfectly capable of not saying another word to him for as long as it took.

“Will you tell me about the Helcaraxë?” he asked finally.

 “That is quite the nothing,” she said slowly, looking startled.

“Good to know I can still surprise you occasionally,” he said wryly.

“Why now?” she asked cautiously. “It was years ago.”

He shrugged.

“We’ve never spoken of it.”

Mostly because he’d been worried, and probably rightly so, that her brothers and their cousins might decide that skinning him alive would be the proper response to any such question.

She frowned, eying him pensively.

“Were you anyone else I would call this masochism, or perhaps self-flagellation. But I’ve never known you to wallow in guilt.”

“I’m not wallowing,” he told her, aware that he sounded less than convincing to his own ears. “But you know as well as I do that we will never defeat Morgoth so long as we remain a house divided against itself, and I do not think the breach can be healed so long as we are in ignorance of each other’s experiences.”

“No one else has asked,” she pointed out.

“No one else was in a hurry to risk another bout of kinslaying,” he replied acidly. “It was plain enough what Uncle Nolo thought of us when he arrived – and that no penance would ever be enough. All Nelyo suffered, and he still frowned at him as if Finno took an unnecessary risk.”

“Maybe he did,” came the reply, so quiet he wasn’t entirely sure he’d heard it rightly.

He stared at her in shock.

“You – you of all people, Artanis – can say that about Maitimo?” he demanded.

“It’s not about Maitimo,” she replied, looking miserable. “I- forget it.”

“No, I’m not going to forget it” he snapped. “This papering over all the cracks between us like they’re just cracks and not gaping chasmshas to stop somewhere, and if you can’t manage it, I doubt anyone else will!”

She sighed, looking more wretched than ever, and he felt a pang of guilt. He was supposed to be helping, not making it worse.

“It’s just that I’ve learned a lot from the Sindar – don’t wrinkle your nose!”

She glared at him, but it’s her usual glare, the exasperated ‘stop acting like you know more than I do when we both know you’re as full of shit as the stable midden’ that she’s been turning on him since she was in her late teens, not the ‘so help me, I am going to feed you to the nearest gaur one very small piece at a time’ she reserved for moments of true anger.

“Morgoth is cunning, and he has been toying with the eldar for a very long time – longer than your father had any notion of when he came sailing righteously across Belegaer.”

He raised an eyebrow at the Sindarin word that crept in, but she was too involved in her explanation to notice.

“Orcs were made from elves, did you know that?”

He’s heard rumors to that effect, but he’d never credited them. His jaw must be gaping in a very unusual fashion, judging by the look on her face.

“Curvo,” she said reprovingly. “I know you’ve heard about the Great Hunter.”

He snorted. No way not to when Tyelko had been fond of frightening all the little ones with the tale in turn. He’d given up by the time the babies came along – Ambarussa and the girls had been the only ones to escape unscathed, mostly because Finwë had some rather stern words for his eldest son over Tyelko scaring Lauro silly as a youngster, and Fëanaro had put his foot so firmly down even Tyelko couldn’t ignore it.

“Not just the campfire stories your brother liked to tell,” Artë added wryly.

Or perhaps not unscathed, he realized with a sigh. Tyelko must have told Irissë at some point, and what Irissë knew, Artanis did too. Hopefully not until they were older. Forty at least. Now that he was a parent himself, he felt rather differently about quite a bit of his older brother’s behavior.

“The Sindar found out what happened to the ones taken,” she continued. “I say found out, but it was more like they were shown. He wanted them to know. Sometimes he sent his creations back partially finished. Sometimes he sent the nissi back bearing litters.”

He hadn’t understood her rightly, surely. She had used a word only ever applied to animals, for pups and kittens, never for elflings. Twins were unusual among their kind, and he has never heard of a nis bearing more than two children at once. And certainly not... orcs.

“He tricked them many times,” Artanis continued, her eyes bleak. “Always to their cost, losing much more than what they thought they had regained. So when I think of Finno finding Maitimo chained to that rock with no guards around, somehow able to escape unhindered, after all I’ve been warned of about Morgoth’s tricks… I think maybe it was an unnecessary risk. Not because I wasn’t glad to have Maitimo back, but because I’ve heard too many tales since of elves betrayed or slaughtered by the thing that used to be their mate or child, too many rescues that were only a cruel joke. And I can’t help but think – if this is another trick, what is he using Maitimo to do? What will it cost us?”

She looked miserable at the thought, almost as miserable as he felt, because while he may not have heard all the tales, she has clearly heard enough from people she found reliable. Artanis was no credulous child to believe all she is told, and these were no campfire fright tales. She would ask until she was satisfied that she had the truth.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it,” she said after a few moments of silence lay thick between them.

“Like Angband you shouldn’t have,” he growled, suddenly angry, but not at her. She’s not the only one who hadn’t shared this information until now. “You should have said it a long time ago, Artanis! Our not knowing didn’t help anything.”

To his own surprise, he caught the thought she hadn’t meant to share – that it didn’t help, not really, because all it did was leave him in the same position as her, knowing there was rotten ice all around, that one false step would be their undoing, and still not knowing what could be trusted.

“I will tell you about the Ice if you truly wish to hear about it,” she offered penitently, though plainly still not convinced.

“Truly, I probably don’t, but I think I ought to, don’t you?” he sighed. “You see now what I mean? The spaces between us have grown wide enough for the ocean to rush in and drown us all, yet most of the family acts as if they haven’t noticed. We behave as though it’s normal that Turukano disappears and takes not only his daughter and sister, but tens of thousands of his father’s host with him, like he’s playing a particularly difficult game of hide and seek! My brothers and yours pretend it’s nothing unusual that we have to plan family gatherings like battles to keep fights from breaking out. And all of it runs straight back to him in the end.”

She nodded, as though what he’s saying is nothing she has not thought of before.

“Very well. What do you wish to know?”

He paused for a second. He knew only the barest of facts about the crossing of the Ice.

“Everything,” he said. “But for a start, how did you come to dare the Ice in the first place? How long did it take? And what was it really like, and don’t say something fatuous like ‘cold’ as Irissë did before she slapped me that first year in Mithrim.”

Artanis’ mirror image had damn near broken his cheekbone, though he’s not sure if it was for the question or for trying to detain her long enough that Tyelko could attempt to speak to her. Possibly both.

“Cold was the defining word for it,” Artanis pointed out. “It was cold beyond anything you’ve ever imagined. Take the bitterest night you were ever out doing something stupid with your brothers in Formenos in the dead of winter, multiply it by as much as you can conceive of, and then think of that forever, and you will have some idea of how cold it was. But there was no fire there. After a while, you were simply so cold, you started to imagine you might be warm, because you could no longer feel the cold properly. It was so cold the cold burned. But I imagine the full explanation of what she meant by ‘cold’ took too many words for Irissë’s patience at the time.”

It was a warm night, but Curufinwë found himself shivering all the same.

“To expose any inch of skin was to risk frostbite or worse,” Artanis continued. “Relieving ourselves was a challenge, never mind if you were unfortunate enough to have a runny nose or a sour stomach. The heavy robes the Sindar mock us for weren’t so frivolous on the Ice, because the more layers, the better. All those clothes Moryo laughed about and asked how I brought, as if I’d had a trail of porters carrying my trunks? They were worn every step of the way. I put them on anyone they remotely fit to try to keep them warm, and on some they didn’t. There were boys Tyelpë’s age with their heads wrapped in my court gowns, and my stockings served as mittens for my brothers and their retainers. Irissë did the same. All those trunks we had in Araman and it still wasn’t enough, not nearly enough for all the people who began the march with us.”

She paused, looking bitter.

“But even if it kept the heat of our bodies in, kept us from freezing to death, those layers could also be a danger. Too much cloth would muffle sound, and the sound of the ice under your feet and around you was the only warning you would get before it gave way. If you missed the warning, you might fall through and drown or freeze, or perhaps a tower of ice that looked solid a moment before would topple on you and no one would ever know if you were crushed, bled to death slowly, or froze, because with so much ice, it could not be moved in time to matter, so it would be your tomb all the same. There was no conversation, no singing, no laughter. Even if we’d had the energy to waste on such things, it would have been dangerous. So it was just the wind, and the creak of the ice. And occasionally, the screams.”

Whether she meant to or not, Artanis was giving him more than just words. He could see the featureless darkness, and feel the teeth of the cold.

“We would march until a sufficient number of us were tired enough to justify stopping. Normal food was gone within the first year, not that we were entirely sure how well we were keeping time with nothing but the stars to judge by. After that, there was only whatever we could find – fish, seals, sea birds and their eggs, seaweed, occasionally an ice bear if luck was with us. There was also another animal like a seal that we had no name for, but was good eating when we could get it – the Sindar say the Avarin tribes that used to live in the north called them walrus. But hunting and fishing were not without their own hazards, and it was even odds whether the foragers would return with food or merely with the loss of another of their number to report.”

She held up a hand before he could ask, knowing the question before he could bring himself to say the words.

“If any ate the dead, they never spoke of it. I didn’t see it. I doubt many did. It was not kinslaying, but all the same, it was a level none wished to sink to. And you would have had to eat it raw, for there was no fire. Not so much for lack of things to burn, for I know a few who carried books or wooden trinkets all the way from Tirion to Mithrim, but because fire melts ice, and we feared weak spots too much by then.”

“No one will watch a child starve,” Curufinwë muttered. If it came to eating the flesh of the dead, or watching his son die of hunger, he knew what he would do.

“There were few children left,” Artanis replied grimly. “The lucky ones had been sent back with my father, and when we first started on the Ice, we had not yet learned enough to know what not to do, or that the cold would kill the young ones more swiftly and with less warning. Or had you not noticed how singular Itarillë was?”

He started, because he ought to have noticed. Turvo’s girl was younger than Tyelpë, little more than a babe in arms at the time of the darkening. As a parent himself, he should have spotted the lack of like-aged children running around the lakeside camp with her.  Instead, he had noticed only that she did not run as a girl her age should, and that she was never allowed out of sight of her father, aunt, or uncle.

“And Elenwë?” he asked quietly.

He had not dared approach Turvo, or even Finno, to ask how it had happened. All he knew was that she had died on the journey, but he gathered from Artanis’ words that ‘the Ice took her’ covered a whole world of unpleasant possibilities.

“She froze,” Artanis said grimly. “Or perhaps she drowned. It’s hard to say, the rest of us were not close enough to tell if she was dead before she went under the water. Turvo is the only one who would know.”

He supposed he should have expected such an answer, given how vague everything about the Ice seemed to be, but he had hoped for better from Artanis.

But she was not done. He had asked, and she would answer in full.

“A group of us had ventured near enough to the edge of the ice to fish without boring holes,” she continued, her voice distant, as if she were repeating something she had once read in a book in their grandfather’s archives, and not something she had lived.

“A huge chunk broke off and fell into the sea, with Elenwë and her daughter on it. They were not thrown into the water, but Itarillë hurt her leg in the fall. The current was carrying them away toward the open sea. Elenwë had no choice but to try to swim to get back, for to stay where she was meant to accept her own death and her daughter’s.”

He knew what she would say next. Elenwë would have grasped any chance, however slim, to save her only child.

“She went into the water first, and did her best to keep the little one dry. She managed to get close enough to throw Itarillë to where we could pull her out and warm her, but the water was so cold... Elenwë stopped moving, and then she went under. We had to drag Turvo back, with Findekano screaming at him the entire time he better not dare undo the rope we’d tied around him. I doubt Finno truly believed until we had him back on the ice with us that he wouldn’t – though now I think it may have been because his hands were too cold to work the knots. We almost lost Itarillë as well, for her clothing was wet and small as she was, the cold had gone right through her.”

“You said you managed to warm her,” Curufinwë said, keeping his voice level, though he felt sick. If he were Turvo, he wouldn’t have ignored him. He’d have murdered him with his bare hands the next time they came face to face.

“Irissë and I pulled her into a tent and cut the wet things off her, then we held her between us with as many blankets as we had wrapping us to keep what little heat there was in. Aunt Irimë had us rub her limbs until we could feel life in them again. We kept her with us until Turvo was… better.”

Better. Not recovered, or well, because it was clear their cousin was neither and likely never would be again.

“And then we marched on.”