Sirion by Grundy

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Its Glory Is All Moonshine

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Galadriel had known fury at the sons of Feänor before. This time, though, she felt no fury, only a hollow emptiness. She was so very tired of viewing their handiwork.

It is the third Kinslaying, and the most grievous, for the folk of Sirion were little better than refugees, survivors of previously fallen elven strongholds. They had scarce had time to rebuild before all had been destroyed again.

Unlike the last two Kinslayings, she had not been at Sirion to take up arms in its defense. It was perhaps for the best, for she and Maedhros had mutually promised each other no quarter if ever they should cross swords again. While she knew herself able enough with a blade, her eldest cousin had her advantage in both height and mass. And he has certainly proved more adept at killing...

The corpses by the gate have been left where they fell, and are not the better for having lain out in the storm that turned most roads in the town to mud. But further in, and closer to Elwing’s house – they do not usually call it a palace, though it is the grandest building outside of Balar – there has been an effort to treat the dead with some honor.

The fires they had seen lighting the horizon last night do not appear to have been deliberate, but accidental- or perhaps the mass pyre got out of hand. In any case, the buildings closest to Elwing’s house had been torn down to create a firebreak, so it at least remained unburnt.

In the courtyard, there were two individual pyres, but the storm had snuffed their flames too soon. She could still recognize the faces of her aunt and her cousin. Amras looked as though death came as a welcome surprise, but Lalwen’s expression suggested she was not pleased.

It is the most unhappy she can ever remember seeing her lovely, laughing aunt since the Helcaraxë.

Surely you did not kill her yourselves, she silently addressed her cousins, living and dead. It was as well that Maedhros and Maglor had already retreated. In that moment, she felt quite capable of drawing her own sword, and to the everlasting Darkness with consequences.

Lalwen had followed Nolofinwë to Ennor, and her son had followed her. All three are dead now, her uncle in his foolish duel, her cousin defending Idril’s escape from Gondolin, and now her aunt defending Idril’s law-daughter and grandchildren.

There are times when Galadriel wonders if it is her fate to be the last of the Noldor in Middle Earth, standing alone on the western shore weeping for all she has lost.

The brief flame of her anger flickered before blowing out, leaving only bone-deep weariness in its wake.

Celeborn had disregarded all else in his haste to reach Elwing’s house, to see what had become of his grandniece and her sons. By the time she entered, he was coming back to meet her, looking haggard.

“There is no sign of them,” he said worriedly. “Though it is clear that many fell within.”

Gil-galad’s boots sounded unnaturally loud, crunching over the broken glass of the brightly colored picture windows the children had been so charmed by when he sent them as a gift for their last begetting day.

“Aunt Galadriel,” he greeted her, his subdued tone matching the bleakness in his eyes.

He has long since foregone calling her ‘great-aunt’. Orodreth’s son has so little kin left to him that he is happy to have the relationship sound less distant.

She can hear the question in his voice.

She shook her head.

“What of Elwing’s secret door?” she asked.

It had been Idril’s idea, one she had shared with Elwing when the young queen felt ready to govern in her own name. The princess of Gondolin knew well the value of a concealed escape route, and had felt strongly that not only her own house, but also the compound built expressly for the queen should have one.

The three of them proceed silently to the corridor described in the sealed letter Elwing had sent, written in the dialect of the Iathrim and coded so that only one who knew both that tongue and the royal family of Menegroth well– in practice, really only Celeborn or Oropher - could decipher its full meaning.

To their dismay, they found the corridor sanded to cover a bloody floor. Someone had died here, or several someones, judging by the quantity of drying sand. The secret door was secret no longer, and had been smashed to bits. Pulleys remained where they had been discarded in the corridor, but whether they had been used to lower things or raise things was impossible to say. Bloodstains and scraps of torn cloth on the lip suggest that corpses may have gone this way, but the storm the previous evening had scoured away any signs they might have gleaned from the beach below.

“The children’s rooms?” Gil-Galad suggested, desperation in his tone.

Galadriel was certain well before they reached the bedroom and sitting room the twins shared that they will find no boys there.

“They are not here,” she warned Celeborn softly before he pushed the door open.

The rooms have been stripped. Much of the furniture is gone, and all the children’s possessions, as if someone had hoped to conceal that there had ever been children there in the first place.

“What could they have hoped to achieve wasting time on this?” Gil-galad murmured. “Maedhros and Maglor knew Elwing and Eärendil had twin sons. What purpose would it serve to erase their presence?”

“Perhaps the plan was to send the children away to safety, but in the end they had not time enough,” Celeborn suggested.

“Then why would Queen Elwing not have said so in her letter?” Gil-galad demanded. “Surely she could trust us with that information if she meant to eventually trust us with the children!”

“You overlook another possibility,” Galadriel said, gazing out the eastern window, stretching her senses. Yes, there. She found two familiar minds - and with them, two much younger, less familiar but still known to her.

Her husband and her royal grandnephew both turn to her.

“They are with Maedhros and Maglor,” she told them.

The maelstrom of rage that hit her through her bond with Celeborn startled her before he ruthlessly clamped down on it, controlling his feelings and protecting her from taking the brunt of his anger. It should not surprise her so, for the boys are his kin as well as hers – and if their mother is dead, Elros is now his king.

The fury on Gil-galad’s face was no less chilling for all that she did not experience it as intensely.

“What good do they think taking six year olds hostage will do them?” he snapped. “It is not even certain that Eärendil still lives, and if they have killed Elwing…”

“Had they killed Elwing, surely she would have merited a pyre,” Galadriel pointed out.

“Are you so certain of that?” Celeborn asked quietly.

“Yes,” she replied sharply.

The cousins that had fallen at Menegroth might not have respected the Sindar, but whatever Maedhros and Maglor had done before the host of Fingolfin arrived, they have treated the Sindar with all due courtesy since Maedhros passed the crown to her uncle.

“They have fallen far, but not so far as that, husband,” she said, quieter but still with a reproof in her tone.

“What can we do?” Gil-galad asked plaintively, before belatedly remembering that he was king and should not sound so at a loss. “We have little hope of catching up with them.”

They have only two ships in the harbor – the majority of their fleet had stopped further west to take on board the folk of Sirion they had spotted fleeing at sunset the previous evening. The pitiful convoy would scarce have been able to defend itself from wild animals, let alone orcs if any were about.

“Even if we could catch them, how would we rescue the boys?” Celeborn replied. “We are too few to prevail in a fight, and they have but to kill the children if it looks like we stand any chance of success.”

“They will not kill children,” Galadriel exclaimed in exasperation. “It is possible they have what they have so long desired, the Silmaril, in which case, they have no reason to harm the twins.”

“Perhaps the Silmaril evaded them and they took the children in the hopes of striking a bargain – exchanging the boys for the stone,” Celeborn pointed out.

She was not sure if he was suggesting his fear or his hope when he spoke of Fëanor’s jewel.

“Or they were simply unwilling to abandon elflings so young to fend for themselves, not knowing how long it might be before help would arrive,” Galadriel shot back.

They have long disagreed about her eldest cousins – indeed, about the majority of her kin, though she had come to agree with him wholeheartedly about Celegorm and Curufin after hearing the full tale of their doings in Nargothrond and Finrod’s death. Seeing their corpses had not mellowed her towards them.

But she found it difficult to believe that Maitimo, who had always had a kind word and a patient ear for his younger cousins, who had been the favorite of all the little ones in turn, who she and Irissë had all but worshipped, could be cruel to children.

“Enough!”

It is as well Cirdan had accompanied what began as a rescue mission. He was perhaps the only elf left in Middle Earth that the other three in the room would all obey.

“You gain nothing by quarreling amongst yourselves,” Cirdan continued, eying them all sternly. “And you waste time.”

Galadriel bowed her head, accepting the rebuke. It was foolish. She and Celeborn should be able to control themselves better, particularly in front of her young kinsman, who they are meant to guide and advise. Gil-Galad is scarce more than a youth, and not only burdened with the crown, but now with cleaning up after the Fëanorion cousins he has never met.

“Are there any survivors left in the town?” she asked.

Cirdan shook his head.

“Any who surrendered were disarmed and sent across the river. We already found them, and they are being taken aboard as we speak. They report that any who ignored the offer to lay down arms were warned to expect no further quarter.”

Celeborn’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

“No survivors have been found in Elwing’s house,” Gil-galad said. “Any who died here were moved to the pyres by the Feänorions. My men are gathering the dead that were left in the town.”

He paused.

“I know you will not wish to hear it, but at least one person was killed in the throne room.”

“Enough,” Galadriel said. “Who was killed where no longer matters. The dead are in Mandos, we can do no more for them.”

“And the living?” Celeborn asked pointedly.

“If you wish to run after Maglor and Maedhros and ask them nicely to return the boys, by all means, husband,” she replied drily. “I had in mind seeing what if anything can be saved from Elwing’s house and those buildings not ruined by fire that would be of use to those who must now build new lives for themselves on Balar.”

His anger was still smoldering, but she could tell from the slight lessening of tension in his shoulders that Celeborn had reluctantly accepted that the boys were not the priority at the moment.

Maglor and Maedhros had at least half a day’s lead in their favor if not more, and their force was mounted. If they meant to kill the children, they would have done so at once, during the sack of Sirion. They did not.

If the two have any sense left to them at all, the twins will be well looked after and carefully guarded. The Sindar have neither forgiven nor forgotten the fate of Eluréd and Elurín. If their nephews perish in the care of Fëanor’s last remaining sons, there will be nowhere in Middle Earth safe for them.

“We cannot leave them in the care of Kinslayers!” Gil-galad protested.

“No, but we need not chase them today,” she pointed out. “We know they return to Amon Ereb. We have time to plan how to approach them.”

Cirdan nodded.

“There is no advantage in provoking a confrontation while they are in retreat. Even should we overtake them, our force is not large enough if it came to open conflict. And if we wish to retrieve the boys safely, open conflict would be a great risk.”

Gil-gilad gritted his teeth.

“Very well. Salvage what we can from Sirion. When we have finished, I will send a messenger under flag of truce to Amon Ereb.”

“I will go,” Galadriel said.

“Aunt!”

She could see Gil-galad debating how best to phrase his protest, and considering whether he might make it a command. She is his elder kinswoman, but he is her king, and he does not wish her anywhere near her deadly cousins.

She preempted him.

“Who else can be trusted with such an errand?” she asked simply.

Then she left to salvage what she could from the wreckage.