Forth Again, to Behold the Stars by feanorusrex

Chapter 2

The woman cleaning Niënor’s wounded hands did so with quick strokes, her efficiency trying to wipe away the pain as the water made contact with the Niënor’s scraped skin. These ministrations did not hurt badly, not really, and despite all the events of the night she was in no physical pain and had sustained no great injuries. Even her mind was not damaged, broken, and although she felt the eyes of many upon her when they thought she was not looking, Niënor did not feel as though she were in shock.

The sun was out and everything seemed more garish, more bright. She and Brandir had not waited very long after daybreak before they were found. A band of the more courageous from Nan Girith had followed after them and transported Brandir and she home, bearing Túrin’s body behind them. The dragons they had left for now and it still sat at Cabed-en-Aras undisturbed. There was talk of burning it on the coming night. Dragon bodies could not be left to rot out in the open, nor could they be buried inside the earth, for it would be a great work to dig such a grave, and as it rotted, it would poison the dirt around it and its foulness would leach into the nearby water.

She had lost track of Brandir, although there seem to be fewer people than the number that had followed her last night, either because they had deserted upon hearing the sounds of battle or because she had misjudged the size of the group. The healing woman was speaking of nothing and Nienor knew that she must feel profoundly uncomfortable. Niënor. was newly a widow, having come upon her husband's body only hours ago, and her grief was indecently raw, out in the open, bleeding like fresh meat.

Or at least it should be. She did not know what to feel and wondered whether Nienor had a lessened ability to feel sorrow, after she had dealt with so much of it. It would be tricky to get used to the memories of two very different women inside of her head.

Once they had been found, Niënor. had simply told them that she had come upon her husband's body laying beside the dragon. Both had been dead already and there she had remained until Brandir had to come upon on her. Niënor. said that she had been so stricken with grief that she had been unable to go back to Nan Girith to summon the others and thus they had waited, as Brandir could not go back with his good leg now injured.

This had not been a lie so much as it had been the truth but cleverly arranged, like a piece of cloth, to hide the stained bits. It was for the people's own good anyway. Ordinary grief was one thing but to have lost a husband and a brother in one person would be unthinkable to them and she would become utterly alien.

The day passed uneventfully. At nightfall the people would ride out from Nan Girith all together, the collective mass of them shielding the members from their individual the fear of the dark and wild place that the surrounding lands had been only a night before. After reaching the dragon's body, they would build a great fire and set it alight. It would be more efficient- and safer, for who knew if other evil forced were still neigh?- to have done this during the day but of course, some the fire was for effect. A funeral pyre looked better at night and was more visible to those watching. A beacon that yes, their enemy was really dead, signalled by its transformation into a glowing, burning thing that smoked and distorted the night air around it with heat.

Turin’s body has been cleaned and prepared for burial somewhere else, Niënor did not know where and she did not want to.She had not yet beheld his face with her new understanding of who he had been.

She took stock of herself. Her hands were bandaged and she had no other injuries. Her child has been calm all day and she did not feel the need for sleep or food and she wondered how long it must be before she felt the need for either of those two things again. To speak also seemed unnecessary to her now, her throat closing up and she fancied that it would knit itself shut all together and she could speak only with herself in her mind. There was quite a lot to think on. Her memories previously having only extended a few years into the past, now stretched on and on and on, back several decades Niënor. was twenty six. She felt very old.

Dorlas' body was found and recovered, as well as Hunthor’s and these two men, along with Túrin would be buried soon too, after the charred bits of Glaurung’s death had been cleared away. Although they would not be buried together, for Dorlas had been an enemy of Túrin in life, even Niníel had noticed that much, and his wife would not let their bodies share a grave. Hunthor had been one of the people of Haleth, and his body would have to be taken farther, back to Brethil, where his wife and children could properly grieve for him, unlike Niënor over Túrin.

She had not even cried, not once. Her new name did not involve tears, only sorrow and tears did not always accompany sorrow, as now, nor sorrow tears. Túrin had called her Maid of Tears, Niníel because she had cried so copiously and often when they first found her as a dumb child. To recall that time now she had only wept so much because she had been unable to express herself any other way like a baby was. Why Túrin had chosen to bequeath her such a name based only on her actions when they first met, a name seemed to marker as one to wail and mourn and carry on for the rest of her life, was unclear. Túrin himself had had many names, shedding them like a snake changing skins. Well, she was back to her first one now, and with it came dry eyes apparently.

Niënor was not the only one who had lied this morning, for Brandir had simply said that Dorlas had not been with Túrin, Glaurung and Nienor when he had found their sad party upon Cabed-en-Arath. He had reported that he had heard Orcs moving nearby as he had searched after Niníel and since none else had been brave enough to venture out into the woods, no one could contradict him on this point. Dorlas’ death was thus accounted for, and no one would have suspected Brandie anyway. He had never been thought to be of bravery or fierceness and now he could get away with murder because of it.

Night fell and the people began making their way back towards the dragons corpse, carrying with them bundles of wood and grass which they had collected. More people seem to have arrived now, perhaps a messenger had been sent back to Brethil and told them everything and now they came to witness the dragon's pyre. She went too. This would not be the last funeral that she attends, there will be Túrin’s as well and she hoped that it would be soon, for once the bodies were buried, she could put this entire affair behind her.

Although of course she could not, and it was a fanciful thought to think such. The past would follow her around forever, and leaving it behind, would be more of a decision of refusing to look back. After this night, what? Nienor thought as she stood alone in the crowd, as people moved past her piling fuel among Glaurung’s body. Her soul felt dull and throbbing and she feels isolated from herself and from the outside world. She did not know how she could go back to Brethil, back to the same house where she and Túrin had lived and there bear her child, raising it in the shadow of its hidden identity.

Niënor had lived in two places, Doriath, and before that in Hithlum. She could not go back to Doriath, for her mother and she had gone forth from it so proudly, and to crawl back to the protection of the elves, and Thingol and Melian- Melian with her piercing gaze- she could not lie to her about the identity of the child's father and the Maia would know, and pity Niënor. And Doriath was protected by Melian’s magic and Niënor had had enough of wandering through hostile forests.

Hithlum had been terrible enough that she and her mother had fled and her new memories gave her no reason to think that it had improved since. It had been her home, her home, she had thought of it even after years in Doriath, but she could not return to that place either.

The wood around it burned, but the dragon’s body seemed resistant to flame, even in death it had not lost its magical protections against fire. The orangey yellow light reflected in the corpse’s glossy black eye that no one had bothered to close. It seemed to stare at Niënor. Where parts of the body had caught fire, there was a terrible smell of scorched flesh. It would be hours before the entire body has been reduced to cool ash. Were the observers supposed to stay that long? Standing over the dead body of your enemy had its satisfactions yes but everything grew dull with time.

Niënor wanted to return to Nan Girith and sleep- of course the poor grieving widow would not be denied someone's cot- because it would block out everything, allowing her to rest for a time not knowing or caring who she was. But she could not leave yet. She did not want to go back alone, she was finished with this landscape in the dark, so instead her eyes sought out Brandir on the other side of the fire. She wove her way around the burning and towards him.

He was sitting on the ground, and he must have been transported up here for his leg, though it had been visibly tended to was still twisted in an incorrect position. She sat next to him, for she did not want to converse with him while standing over him and looking down.

“Where is a place that is friendly to strangers, that is not Brethil and and inhabited by people who do not know- anyone from it?” She asked without preamble. Conversation, ordinary talking, even with him seemed hard as if her words are shouted from very far away. As if she was removing herself body, mind, and voice from the company of everyone here. Niënor could not remember speaking all day.

“Linreth,” said Brandir, and he seemed to have thought about this question previously, for he replied instantly. “It is a small village, to the southwest of here. Those who dwell there keep to themselves mostly, and leave well enough alone. But they will let honest folk live among them, if they do not make trouble.”

Linreth. That name meant nothing to either of her set of memories. “That is where I shall go, after this leg heals. I can ride well enough if slowly,” he added.

“What, you are leaving? But your people... and why?” She turned her head from the conflagration in front of them, the firelight leaving a reddish smear across her vision as she stared at him in the darkness.

“No longer my people,” Brandir responded and his tone was flat and bitter. “There has not been a time where they did not begrudge me leadership, for you saw when Túrin came they would disregard blood so that they could have an able-bodied leader. And after yesterday when none would lend aid to Túrin, Dorlas, and Hunthor, I cursed them and denounced them completely. I would have had to renounce my right to leadership soon anyway, or be ousted, if Túrin had lived after slaying Glaurung, for they would not have suffered me, with a dragon slayer in their midst.”

His words were true, for even those with minds twisted to wickedness were preferred over those whose bodies were twisted. Such was the case with herself. If Glaurung had viciously attacked her, slashing her face and torso into a twisted mass of ropey scars, Túrin would never have taken such an interest in her. But as it had been, with only her mind broken, and her pale skin and long blonde hair still very much intact, Túrin had cared.

Niníel had never considered how Brandir must feel, to have all but his title taken from him by a foreign man, not even of the House of Haleth. Túrin had commanded men as he willed, and they had obeyed, just as she had. “I will go with you.”

“Niënor-”

“What is there for me here anymore either? And it will be safer to travel with a companion.” He did not object to this, and she was glad. Túrin would have told her to stay behind. Stay behind, he would have said and brought up her child and her overall weakness but there was no such protestation from Brandir. Linreth. It did not sound like a bad place, and there she could go by the name Niënor with no suspicion. She could have a new life for her and her child.

She must only wait for one funeral to pass, and a broken bone to heal and then Niënor will begin another journey, again seeking safety. The great coiled body in the fire blazed, it scales beginning to melt off of the corpse and drop on to the blackened wood below. She must only wait a little while.

Chapter End Notes

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