Tales of Fear and Woe by lightofthetrees

Chapter 5: Beauty is terror

A short drabble about the Helcaraxe.

At first, the ice was beautiful. It glittered in the starlight as if the ground and the high cliffs were covered with a thousand diamond stars. We were filled with our dreams and our defiance, and we did not fear the great expanse of ice and snow. The chill of the air was fresh and crisp, a clean start.

By the time we realized we should have been afraid, it was too late to turn back. Expecting a sea-voyage, we had not brought nearly enough food to see us through the long journey Fëanor’s betrayal had forced upon us. We rationed our supplies as best we could, but the portions each of us received were meager.

We began to hate the ice, but we marched on, our flesh chapped from the howling wind, our bellies empty and pinching. Our children wailed with starvation and shivered in the night when they should have been sleeping. The Helcaraxë seemed to go on forever, the great floes and plains stretching out in every direction, but where we might have once felt awe at the sight, we only felt revulsion.

When we lost our Lady, our hope disappeared with her. We all felt Lord Turukáno’s despair as he cradled her frozen body in his arms, weeping. She was all our wives, our husbands, our parents, our children, who were gone and who would be stolen from us by this foul place.

The ice was our enemy, then. It cracked and shifted beneath our feet, threatening to steal more of our loved ones. It punished us with blinding storms and piercing gales. Some of our people wasted away, their fëar fleeing their bodies. Others were taken more quickly, stolen by the frigid waters that lurked beneath the surface of the ice. What we once thought so wondrous now brought only death.

Even the first sunlight did not redeem it. The songs and stories have made our host seem glorious in the dawn, but we know better. When we reached Beleriand, we had escaped death by a narrow margin. Our eyes were round and hollow with the horrors we had seen, and it was with more ferocity than valor that we fought to the gates of Angband. 

At first, the ice was beautiful. It glittered in the starlight as if the ground and the high cliffs were covered with a thousand diamond stars. We were filled with our dreams and our defiance, and we did not fear the great expanse of ice and snow. The chill of the air was fresh and crisp, a clean start.

By the time we realized we should have been afraid, it was too late to turn back. Expecting a sea-voyage, we had not brought nearly enough food to see us through the long journey Fëanor’s betrayal had forced upon us. We rationed our supplies as best we could, but the portions each of us received were meager.

We began to hate the ice, but we marched on, our flesh chapped from the howling wind, our bellies empty and pinching. Our children wailed with starvation and shivered in the night when they should have been sleeping. The Helcaraxë seemed to go on forever, the great floes and plains stretching out in every direction, but where we might have once felt awe at the sight, we only felt revulsion.

When we lost our Lady, our hope disappeared with her. We all felt Lord Turukáno’s despair as he cradled her frozen body in his arms, weeping. She was all our wives, our husbands, our parents, our children, who were gone and who would be stolen from us by this foul place.

The ice was our enemy, then. It cracked and shifted beneath our feet, threatening to steal more of our loved ones. It punished us with blinding storms and piercing gales. Some of our people wasted away, their fëar fleeing their bodies. Others were taken more quickly, stolen by the frigid waters that lurked beneath the surface of the ice. What we once thought so wondrous now brought only death.

Even the first sunlight did not redeem it. The songs and stories have made our host seem glorious in the dawn, but we know better. When we reached Beleriand, we had escaped death by a narrow margin. Our eyes were round and hollow with the horrors we had seen, and it was with more ferocity than valor that we fought to the gates of Angband.