Safety Net by Fernstrike

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Safety Net

From the balcony of his home, Oropher watched the lamplighters of Menegroth ignite the myriad lanterns of the caverns in the pale, bright hues of dawn. He breathed deeply, inhaling the cool, clean air of the caves, listening to the soft burbling of the underground river several levels below. It was the only sound to break the peaceful stillness of the faded night; almost all other life was still ensconced within their homes, the bright day not yet begun. Behind him, Caladwen ran gentle fingers through his hair, braiding the strands tenderly back from his face, as he had just finished doing for her. From the clay bowl in his hand, he popped a small bunch of forest berries into his mouth, relishing the tang on his tongue. This was their morning ritual - balcony, braiding, berries.

Today was special, however - and he marked it with the light touch of the ceremonial circlet Caladwen placed upon his head. He turned to face her, sharing one of his rare smiles - most of which were reserved for her, in any case. She returned it, broad and beaming, her eyes bright with excitement.

"Today is a day to be remembered, meleth-nin," she said

He took her hand in his kissed it. “Then let us go forth and revel in it."

Without another word, she took the bowl of berries from his hand and placed it upon the corner table. He looped his arm though hers and they departed their chambers, passing their son’s empty room on the way to the main door. Yes, today was special; balcony, braiding, berries - barracks.

As they passed through the arching halls, the lanterns grew brighter, following the rising sun outside. Birds twittered their morning songs from the great columns, carven into birches and boughs, strung with delicate garlands of dried flowers, and footed by blankets of moss that ran down to the gently singing fountains with their spouts in the likenesses of swans and bears. Now, low murmurs of speech began to be heard in the caverns as more ellyn rose to greet the morning. In the past century, Doriath's numbers had bloomed, sheltering their Sindar kin that had fled from the north. Mornings were not so quiet now as they once had been. 

And not so invulnerable either, whispered a voice in Oropher’s mind; one that he wished would only show itself in council meetings. He felt the weight of the small knife that he always wore, strapped to his back behind his robes. It was little more than ceremony, but a comfort nonetheless. When Caladwen had first seen it, she’d frowned, almost affronted by what she saw as paranoia. She’d demanded he go at least a day without wearing it, and as a result, had seen the full extent of his anxiousness, looking over his shoulder and losing focus over meals and in the middle of conversations, consumed by worries and thoughts. She hadn’t questioned the weapon’s presence since.

"Do try not to worry and enjoy the morning a little, meleth-nin,” said Caladwen abruptly.

He glanced at her, frowning. “Worry? Hardly. I'm listening to the bird song."

"I wasn't aware birdsong made you so tense,” she replied, with a gentle but knowing smile. She wiggled her fingers, and he realised he had them clutched tight in his hand. 

“Goheno nin,” he said softly, releasing her and letting his shoulders relax.

She shook her head and pressed closer to him as they reached the ornately carved pillars before the great centre of Doriath's defence, a small network of halls that lay close to the gates. Here lay the armoury, the barracks, and the workplaces of all who managed the realm's marchwardens and standing army. Some way behind lay the treasury – and the dwarves that had been busy smithing in it since yesterday morning. Smithing away at that cursed little gem, the first lure that had drawn a trespasser beyond the Girdle, snapping jaws and frothing at the mouth with a Silmaril in its belly.

He shuddered at the thought and pushed it away, as he had done many times before.

The residents of this network of halls had long since been awake, soldiers and guards all. Where Oropher and Caladwen were bound was the central assembly area, where a host of the realm's marchwardens were gathered in neat rows before a low dais. 

They made their way to the back, where other non-marchwardens were awaiting the commencement of the ceremony. Caladwen tugged on Oropher's arm, drawing him to a spot near the centre, where a familiar silver-haired figure was watching the assemblage intently. 

“Celeborn,” she greeted, extending a hand from her heart, which the ellon graciously kissed. "I'm so pleased that you're joining us."

Oropher nodded to the kin of his kin, clasping his shoulder. "I did not look to see you here. I thought you'd have accepted the King's invitation, to join him in assessing the dwarf-smiths' work."

"And miss my nephew bestowing a great honour upon your son?” he smiled. “You could not keep me from here if you had an army!"

Before Oropher could respond – forgive me, but he is both your nephew and my nephew – Caladwen patted his hand gently, and excused the two of them, on pretense of finding a better place to watch.

“That was the best place to watch,” he murmured in her ear as they slid behind a group of onlookers and onto a low step.

“It was also the best place to get you aggravated,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “For a councillor you are remarkably transparent.”

He opened his mouth in protest, and then closed it, admitting the truth in her words. "And you are just a mite too observant," he admitted. 

"It's good practice for you," she said, eyes twinkling. She gently pressed down on his shoulders and he lowered them, not having realized how much he had tensed them.

“You know he meant nothing by it at all,” she continued softly. “He’s very fond of both Thranduil and Thandir.”

“It’s just the manner in which he said it.”

“And we all know you lords of the court concern yourself far too deeply with the manner in which anyone says anything,” Caladwen pointed out

“It was as if our son was lesser than his cousin,” he went on, choosing not to acknowledge how cowed he felt by her incisiveness. “Not just that, but as if Thandir wasn’t also of our blood.”

“You examine too much.”

“He thinks too little.”

“Please,” she sighed. “Don’t you two fight over Thandir now. All the ellyth do already.”

A low, mellow horn drew their attention to the dais. Caladwen leaned forward, straining through the crowd to watch the group of elves walking through the central causeway dividing the host. They strode onto the platform, and Oropher could not suppress the surge of pride within him as Thranduil snapped to attention beside two other wardens. No, not just pride – surprise. Shock, even. His son was full-grown now, standing tall and bright eyed and strong beside his compatriots. Oropher blinked. Surely time had not passed so quickly.

Thandir stepped forward. A fine russet cloak, edged in gold, was draped over his right shoulder and secured with a circular golden brooch. Carved into the metal were an arrow and a pair of crossed knives, ringed by a thick circle of woven branches. The insignia of the chief of all Doriath’s marchwardens. 

The reality of his recently appointed title rested heavy on Oropher’s heart. Thandir should not have had to bear it yet, but danger had come to the Girdle. Many dangers, and too soon after one another. Death and sorrow had come tugging at the branches of the great beech tries, seeping into their roots with insidious need, drawn to the light of a supposedly sacred gem.

Oropher feared for Doriath. He could never quite lose sight of the dread behind their ceremony and the shadow behind their celebration. It was through tragedy that his nephew had gained his position, and necessity that his son would now be appointed his. The day was bright, but he marked its passage with knowledge of the coming night. 

Thandir's voice cut through the air, addressing and welcoming the host, and Oropher let his mind pass out of despairing thought and cling to the anticipation he had felt moments before.

“These three warriors stand before you as defenders of this kingdom and wardens of its peace," Thandir said, his voice carrying clear and steady through the hall. "They have demonstrated their valour and courage many times, and have shown themselves worthy of greater responsibility. Thus, as the last stars of night give way to the day, I bestow upon each of them a captaincy, in my first act as your new chief. These soldiers shall swear to uphold the honour and traditions of Doriath’s Guard, and continue to defend our realm.”

He retrieved three badges and three capelets, all hued in green and bronze, and began presenting them to the three young wardens standing ramrod straight before him. One by one, he presented the title and the affects, and Oropher waited - whether excitedly or fearfully, he could not tell - for his son to receive his. At last, the moment came. Thandir stopped before his cousin, and Oropher took in the sight - the elder taller than the other, both with hair pale gold as the dawn. An almost imperceptible smile graced Thandir's lips, and Oropher felt it tugging at his own, and he saw it lifting Caladwen's face until she was shining like a star.

“And to Thranduil Oropherion," said Thandir, "I present the captaincy of the Northern Guard.”

He stepped forward, and draped a green capelet over Thranduil’s right shoulder, securing it on the left with a small square brooch. 

That was it, then. In that moment, however, Oropher felt it again - the worry overtaking the pride, the fear overtaking the joy. For better or worse, two of the family closest to him were at the front lines of a long-brewing war that was bursting at its seams. 

 He clutched Caladwen's hand tightly, and this time, she did not chide him.

Before long, the ceremony was over, and the crowd began to disperse. Oropher hung back, though Caladwen charged forward through the swiftly moving soldiers. She stopped just before coming within sight of her family, and Oropher stopped beside her. After a moment of keen listening over the din, he understood why.  

"You’ve done admirably, cousin," Thandir was saying, a bittersweet smile on his face. "Would that Beleg had been here to bestow all this upon you.”

Thranduil clasped his cousin's shoulder sympathetically. “He'd be proud of all you've done for us, Thandir. He could not have asked for anyone better as a successor."

“And I could not have asked for two better marchwardens in my family,” Caladwen said, rushing forward to embrace them. He knew how important this was to her – to see them both succeed, to give all her love and energy to supporting them and praising them. It kept away the fear. 

Oropher could not contain the soft laugh that bubbled up inside him, hearing Thandir’s surprised cry of Aunty! as she took his arm, and watching Thranduil blush as she reached up to kiss his cheek. He stepped forward himself then, clapping them both on the shoulder, sharing words of encouragement and pride. He knew he’d made many mistakes during his son’s youth. Seeing the happiness on his face now nearly made up for it. 

“Let me see this,” Caladwen said, delicately lifting the brooch on Thranduil’s shoulder. Embossed on the square were three mountains wreathed by beech leaves. 

“You know those marches well by now,” Oropher said.

Thranduil nodded. “And I’ll defend them better than I ever have.” 

There was such conviction in his voice, his words, his demeanour – and once again, the sensation hitting him out of nowhere, Oropher felt afraid. His son was young – younger than many other wardens, much younger than Thandir. Of course he was best suited for this duty – attentive, well-versed in the territory, lethal with his knives, and with an impeccable record of service over the short time he’d been on the watch. None of that assuaged the doubt that gnawed at the back of Oropher’s mind, gnawed away like a serpent chewing at a root, its venom seeping upward and a severance soon to come. He could sense it like a trembling in the air – and he feared that the venom would puncture the Thousand Halls, and take him and his family with it.

After a moment, he noticed his son staring at him, and internally cursed that he’d given way to the silent paralysis of fear. In one ear he could hear Thandir speaking to Caladwen

"And tonight,” he was saying, “There shall be tournaments and feasting and rich wine to be had. Nearly everyone is upstairs now to ready the banquet hall. Please tell me you’ll both be there. Uncle, you’d better not have any council meetings.”

“I wouldn’t dream of attending even if I did,” he said quickly, giving a wry smile, and pushing aside the anxiousness in his heart.

Thandir’s eyes twinkled. “I never took you for a truant, uncle.”

“Thank goodness it’s merely for the sake of tournaments and not troublemaking.”

“Regardless, I’m sure you boys will make plenty of trouble,” Caladwen laughed.  

Doubt sat mutinously in his gut like a heavy stone. It was a good day. Today was good. His family was gathered together and they were joking and poking fun at one another. Why could he not be at peace, for once?

That same doubt told him he should go see the king – see him now. Whether Thingol could assuage his concerns or sit down and work through them with him, it did not matter. Deliberating here was doing nothing for himself or for Doriath, and he was certain he would not be able to pass a merry evening among family and kin with this bewilderment resting on his brow.

“I am going to speak to the king briefly,” he said at once.

“Oh?” Caladwen raised an eyebrow, and he knew instantly that she saw right through him

“Merely a small issue I’d liked cleared up,” he sniffed.

“Mm. Don’t be long, my dear,” she said, and he heard the concern and caution in her tone. It was gone as soon as it came, as she linked arms with Thranduil and Thandir and brought them over to see Celeborn and the rest of the small group that remained in the hall. Oropher rolled his eyes as he turned away. He held no ill will against his kinsman – not really, anyway – but he was far better to Oropher as a trusted fellow councilman than a familial confidant.

The treasury lay behind the armoury, which itself lay behind the barracks. Thingol had surely been down even earlier than they had; the last time they’d visited the dwarves, they’d projected they would be finished setting the Silmaril before noon today. A strangely long time to set a jewel, he had thought, but they had assured Thingol that it would take precise skill and careful handiwork to adapt the Nauglamir for the new piece, and create a finished necklace of perfect make. Thingol accepted it; and so Oropher, though always thinking with that stone of fear in his gut, had accepted it also.

As he approached the armoury now though, the hairs stood up on the back of his neck.

Something was not right. Down the hallway, he could hear something echoing along the wide corridor, a sharp sound like a bark or a bellow. An argument? His steps quickened. He paused before the great stone doors. It was growing louder with every passing minute.  There was a definite, deafening clamour coming from inside. He heard Thingol shouting – he heard a brash answer from a grating voice. Where were the guards?

Then he heard the sound of metal on metal. Not the heavy metal of a hammer on malleable gold – no, it was the shearing sound of swords drawn from scabbards. A thrill of panic raced up his spine, and immediate clarity came upon him, as it did in the moments before a fight. Though he had not used it for many years, the knife strapped to his back came to his hand with practiced ease.

The dwarves. It had to be the dwarves. He heard them now, cursing Thingol’s name, the name of his house and his realm, and he heard the King bark back insult upon insult. Then swords met swords. The clash was unmistakable.

“Adar?”

Oropher froze. Slowly he turned, horror filling him from head to foot. Thranduil stood at the end of the hall, the light from the barracks at his back. His eyes widened at the sight of the knife in Oropher’s hand and he started down the corridor. Panic raced into Oropher’s heart. 

“Get back to the others!” he called.

“I heard raised voices –”

“Thranduil, get back to the others and sound the alarm! The King is in danger!”

His son stared at him, utterly shocked. Then his resolve showed, his jaw tensed, and he gave a quick nod before running back to the barracks.

Oropher could wait no longer. He threw open the door, in time to watch King Thingol's rage turn to horror as his heart was pierced by a dwarven blade.

The stunted creature wielding it howled in triumph, his silver-streaked beard glinting in the blazing torches. He turned to the open door, his unscarred eye glinting green and beady with envy. Oropher met his King’s eyes, wide and blank with shock and pain and pleading, prone beside the bodies of two slain guards. There was nothing for it. Oropher lunged forward as the clamour of footsteps sounded behind him and the arrows of marchwardens whistled by his ears.

"Thank you for joining me for this visit, Oropher," Thingol said, sweeping down the hallway like a fair breeze.

"Certainly, my lord," he nodded, following close beside his king. "I am pleased to inspect their work as well."

The king hummed quietly. "'Inspect'. It seems you know my intentions no matter the words I choose."

The corner of his mouth quirked up. "It is my duty to discern the truth behind all words and deeds."

“Not just your duty.”

“My lord?”

“In truth, Oropher, there are but a few hands in which I trust Doriath’s safety. Yours are among them.”

The words took him totally by surprise, and instantly humbled him. For a brief second his steps slowed beside his king, before he regained his composure. He’d dedicated his service to the realm, as any other prince. He did not see anything special behind what he did, so why should the king? As he deliberated whether or not to ask Thingol to elaborate on his words, the king turned cool grey eyes and a bittersweet smile on him, sensing the brief silence and filling it the next moment with an answer. 

“Not one of your actions over the years has ever been for your own sake,” he explained. “There are others – and you know who they are, I’m sure – wh o are impeccable in their duty or inescapable in their presence at the council, and yet who fill their time with politicking and temper their decision-making with questions of ambition. Ambition is not evil, of course – do not mistake me – and politics are a necessary evil. When such things put Doriath’s readiness in jeopardy, however, it is a beast to contend with.”

“As you say, my lord,” he acquiesced, as graciously and carefully as he hoped he could.

“And now,” Thingol said, stopping before the stone doors of the treasury. “To see what has become of my Nauglamir.”

Even as Thingol dismissed the guards’ offers of accompaniment, his turn of phrase sat uncomfortably in Oropher’s mind. His Nauglamir? Thingol had often been prone to a certain arrogance when it came to possession, but never had he stated it so blatantly, for all the world to know his intent and his claim in an instant.

It is the gem, he thought to himself, as he passed through the doors behind his king. What else had ever drawn the darkness out of him?

Inside, the air was more still, and the left of the main hall, it drifted hot from a set of open wooden doors. It was a mending room, designed to be used for the maintenance of artefacts or the crafting of small pieces. The dwarves had made use of it, their number large as each individual made careful, specialized work of his duty in the chain of creation. Thingol drew himself up in the doorway, and instantly work ceased.

A dwarf came forward then – their leader, by all accounts. His dark hair was streaked with glinting silver, but whether it was age or metal strands finer than thread, he could not say. His eyes shone an unsettling green from under bushy brows, and the left one bore two scars.

“I am amazed you can work at such pace when half-blind,” Thingol called, and Oropher credited his long years of councilwork for preventing his mouth from dropping open straightaway.

Yet the king’s seemingly brash insult was met with a laugh by the dwarf – a laugh Oropher could not place. He was not trained in deciphering dwarves. Was the creature truly amused? Or just pretending to be?

“It is not the eye that sees,” the dwarf explained, wiping his hands on a cloth at his belt. “But the hand that feels. I can speak the tongue of metal through many other means, and my workers are even more fluent than I.”

“Indeed,” Thingol said, with the hint of a smile

It was like they were friends, teasing with insults and half-truths. Oropher could make neither head nor tail of what he was witnessing here. He tried not to let it show, as Thingol gestured to him.

“This is my councilman, Oropher of the House of Arasson.”

“Telchar,” the dwarf bowed. “At your service.”

Oropher nodded respectfully, knowing he was disobeying the custom, but refusing to comply here in Doriath. Thingol was still smiling – but Oropher had learned that expression already. His king wore it in court. It was a pristine mask that betrayed nothing

Not friends, then? 

“His master,” Thingol began, and then paused. “How do I best say his name? Gamil Zirak?”

“Precisely, my lord,” Telchar replied, eyes glittering. Oropher raised his eyebrows a mite. Surely everyone in the room knew the King had just deliberately exaggerated his pronunciation. And if they were not friends, how could the dwarf let such an insult slide? Thingol was testing dangerous waters

“Yes,” the King went on, unheeding either of them. “I hadn’t heard from him for so long. He made many of the treasures held here. Does he yet live?”

“My master is old now,” Telchar nodded. “His hands are knobbed and weak, but his mind remains sharp as a sword.”

“You wear those silver strands in honour of him?”

“I do, my lord," the dwarf said, raising one bushy eyebrow. "You remember your Khuzdul well.”

“’Tis but a little that I know of it, and his name is famous. You are all so well versed in Sindarin, after all. It's better we use it to converse.”

The dwarf seemed to lean forward almost imperceptibly. “Indeed.”

“And now,” Thingol commenced at last, clapping his hands together. “What of the Nauglamir? Is it cooperating to house the Silmaril?”

“We are close to setting it at last,” the dwarf began. “We have nearly completed relocating a spare few gems, and Flói here has crafted a perfect setting. We will be melding it to the necklace soon…”

He spoke with an almost frenzied excitement seeping into his voice as he led Thingol and Oropher into the mending room, his green eyes glinting dark and beady as they glanced across his workers, who bent over their crafting as though hounded by time and possessed by their glimmering creations.

He had tried. Erú save him, he had tried. He’d given the warning. He’d fought tooth and nail, the few wardens that had remained moving in a flurry about him; he’d had the bones in his arm smashed by a dwarven warhammer as they broke through the defense and fled up and out, the entryway far from the heart of the kingdom but so painfully close as their exit; and they’d fled, and he’d watched his son leap on a horse beside his unit and his cousin and chase after them, riding in revenge of a crime committed against king and kingdom over the fate of a gem – and Oropher knew he’d failed.

“We think two may have escaped us,” his nephew had said, blood streaking his face, body swaying from the wounds dealt by heavy dwarvish weapons.

“And…” His son had said a week later, having ridden out to check their borders, “It appears the Girdle has departed along with the Queen.”

And so in the council room headed by an empty throne, surrounded by princes bent over in worry, their politicking and ambition lost to the shock, Oropher waited. He waited for the next plunge, the next retaliation. The Girdle was gone. All that stood between them and the Darkness was a sprawling forest and his family, one too vulnerable to fire and woe, the other too young to be a part of this.

And when the dwarves came at last, with rattling spears and warcries and numbers beyond any the elves could ever hope to counter, they brought his greatest fears with them, and he knew that he had failed once again.

Oropher watched, a bitter taste on his tongue, as Dior took his seat on the throne of Doriath. The Nauglamir glinted bright around his neck. With his chin held high and his brow set in sternness, he almost looked like his grandfather.

Dior was a good king. Or he had been, until this point.

When he’d come, in the end, after the Thousand Caves had been stripped of their glory and treasure and joyful populace, after his father had eradicated the offending host, he had made things better, for a time. The nightingales no longer sang in Menegroth, but the river still flowed sweet, and the trampled grasses grew lush again, and the cracked lanterns were remade and restrung and relit, the tapestries mended, the carvings redone. Oropher had dared to hope that they might live to see their days renewed.

Then Beren and Lúthien had died, and the Nauglamir had come bearing its Silmaril in a bed of rose gold, and he knew that it was all over.

Now Dior wore it with the same pride with which he wore his crown, and acted with its light illuminating his path, whether he knew it or no. That thing would bring ruin upon them, as it had done again, and again, and again, each time with greater severity, a harsh teacher against a student that refused to learn, holed away in their glittering caves and arrogant enough to believe they would endure. Anger held him, and sorrow also.

“Let them come,” Dior said at last.

Oropher’s heart sank, and this time, he could not raise it up again. His words would be half-hearted, always, until the moment he could bear the crushing despair no longer. Still – he was a councillor. He had to counsel.

“For the sake of the realm,” he tried, “Send it away if there is no hope of a parley.”

But Dior shook his head, his eyes grey and sharp as flint.

“I’ll wait for them to try and kill us here,” he snarled, crushing the letter from the Sons of Fëanor in his hand.

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