Forth Again, to Behold the Stars by feanorusrex

Chapter 3

The days passed and growing child made her sick every morning. Niënor grew to know the feeling of twice tasted food in her throat, a rancid, slimy taste as her body pushed it back up. How counterproductive: she must continue eating so the baby could grow and so that she could stay healthy to nourish it, and yet the growing weight pressed down on her stomach, driving her appetite away. And all this discomfort to created another life. She retched again, spitting out the last bitterness and wiping her mouth in a practiced motion, wondering if Morwen went through the same trials when she had carried her.

Finally, finally, she and Brandir were departing Brethil. The month since that night at the top at Cabed-en-Aras had dragged on seemingly forever. While waiting for his leg to fully heal, Niënor had spent much time with her memories, too much time sometimes. There was a whole other life packed into her head, more knowledge, but also more places, people, things to mourn for. Like her mother, the strong woman who was with her until they were torn apart in the woods. And her father, once an unknown figure now a man with a name, whom her mother had insisted was not dead. When the memories became too much, overwhelming her with a dead past, she went to visit Brandir.

He was doubly impaired with his usual disabled leg, and his fresh injury, and did not have many visitors as word had gotten around that he had renounced his leadership. Now that Túrin was gone some wanted Brandir back, and resented him for abandoning them, and others like Hilda, Dorlas’ widowed wife wished him already gone so that the people could get on with choosing a leader, preferably her. At least the new leader whoever it was will not have to worry about a dragon and Orcs, as Túrin had seem to that.

At Brandir’s, she asked him to teach her all that he knew about healing and medicine, thinking that it was time she, Niënor, could do something for herself not just to live off of his charity in Linreth. She dutifully absorbed what he taught: poultices, herbs, stitching skin, knitting bones back together, and easing pain. They spoke only of these things, physical pains and how to fix them, not of her hurt. The only indication that anything had changed, was that Brandir now called her Niënor, which pleased her even as it reminded her of all that she now knew.

Besides Brandir, she did not see many other people. Niënor had avoided others. She had an irrational fear that if she spoke with anyone, they would find out who she was, and her first relationship with Túrin. The truth was vile, messy, and it frightened Niënor that it could burst forth at any moment, unwanted, like vomit or seed, begetting the children Pity and Disgust. Niënor had felt enough of the first when she had come to Brethil, as a ignorant women with a child’s mind, and enough of the second with herself in the time that followed Turin’s death.

Niënor also asked Brandir a great deal about her pregnancy. She wanted to learn the most she could about what was and would happen to her. Niníel had not known that she was with child for almost two months after having misread the various signs.

The sickness usually improved the closer one got to the birth, he told her and he gave her various tonics to help. But they did not have much effect. It seemed that her own body view the child as something that must be purged. No. She must stop viewing this baby is dirty. She tried, but every so often these thoughts correct into her mind. What would Túrin have said about this child and he lived after Cabed-en-Aras? He had not cared for it much before, and at any rate he was dead. Nienor should stop asking herself for his counsel. She was its mother, and she was going to love this child fiercely, just as Morwen had her.

Túrin had had a funeral atop that hill. She had thrown her handful of earth on top of the coffin, and turned, eager to leave and escape the too warm sun. Spring was bleeding into summer. She had felt nothing.

Today was the day that she would depart Brethil with Brandir. His one leg had healed well, and he could ride again. Despite the fact that they had planned their departure from the time they had returned from Nan Girith, it did not seem as if she was truly leaving. Her mind remained in Brethil, stuck.

Packing had not taken long. Most furniture was too heavy for the one small cart they would take, and Niníel’s personal items were very few.

Besides clothes, the only things in the house it was really hers was the slate that Brandir given to her to practice her letters on as she was taught to read, and her wedding ring, which she kept, for it could be sold later. The other items in her house were Túrin's. Niënor piled what she could not take neatly on the kitchen table. Brander had sold both their houses to Sigren, a kinswomen of his and Hunthor's. The coin from this sale would help them as they established their new life in Linreth, and Niënor did not begrudge Sigren any of her unneeded things. She was one of the few that had been constantly loyal to Brandir and she too mourned for Hunthor. She left the slate. Niënor could read and write very well, and in several languages.

She walked through the rooms of this place that she felt no connection to. She had cleaned it thoroughly a day before so that Sigren would not have to scrub away her left over dirt. Niënor was practical, and it astonished her how much of herself she had lost, not just memories, but her entire being when she became Niníel.

A knock of the door, and Brandir’s voice. It was still early, the morning light was not yet bright or hot, but he must be as eager to leave as she was. Not that Linreth held so much promise, but that Brethil emphatically did not. Brandir had said his scant goodbyes already and she had none.

After lifting her bag, exiting, mounting her horse, the one which was pulling the cart, placing her bag on top of necessary objects, they went. An uneventful leave taking. If any watched them go, Niënor did not see. They ride out of Brethil and the landscape turns unfamiliar. She had not left town in the years that she had lived as Niníel. Now, to be riding freely, not fleeing from anything, with Brandir at her side, she felt better than she had in the past months. Leave taking. Taking leave. She grabbed her leave out of the hands of Brethil and took it, forcefully. She had left. 

In Linreth, they planned to work in exchange for housing. Hopefully they will have need of a healer, but if not they can do other work. Morwen would have been horrified at Húrin’s daughter hiring herself out to do others' work, and Niníel had possessed no necessarily skills, but Niënor now thought that there was dignity it work, in supporting herself. She had never really needed to in Brethil. 

As they rode, the trees thinned out, and then disappeared all together. They would reach Linreth at nightfall; it was not so far from Brethil, only far removed from the minds of its in inhabitants. Something entered her mind, and Niënor slowed her horse’s pace to match Brandir’s. In her relief upon leaving, she had increased the animal’s speed, even though hers was the one that pulled their small cart.

“If we live together in Linreth, we will have to present ourselves as something else than unrelated friends.” It was true. People will talk. She did not want to have people talking about her.

“Shall we be betrothed then? And then get, ‘married,’ soon after?” Brandir tactfully did not suggest that they be brother and sister. It would not work anyway. They nothing alike, he dark and she pale. 

“A bit late to be betrothed, with my condition.” Niënor said, gesturing to her stomach, large enough now to be noticeable now, after four months. 

“Oh yes- right, of course,” he said. She half smiled. Niníel would never have said something of this sort. “Married then, if you want?” She nodded. Niënor would not mind having Brandir as a false husband, for  this fiction was more convenient than the truth, more acceptable. Túrin’s wedding ring had been buried with him, and she no longer wore here, but if asked, they can say that rings were not the custom in Brethil, or that  they were forced to sell them. They could present themselves as a poor couple, having left Brethil, because...because the new lord of that place thought very ill of Brandir. Niënor mentioned these details to Brandir, including him in her fiction. 

“Somewhat true,” he replied. “If Hilda does become their leader, she certainly will.” Niënor wondered how the people of Brethil would pick their new leader. Túrin had not been elected, he had just arrived, and begun directing the villiage’s activity, and none had restrained him. If the people has accepted Túrin as their leader, then perhaps they deserved Hilda or whoever else stepped forward to claim this vacant title. 

As they rode on, Niënor told Brandir what happy things she remembered from her other life. There were not many. When she was growing up in Hithlum,it always seemed to be cold, eternally gray and winter, and hunger never seemed far away. Once Niënor had taken in a cat, feeding it scraps smuggled of her meals, but Morwen had found out and had it drowned, saying that Niënor was wasting food, that cats carried diseases, and that it would be better for it to go this way, than killed by a larger cat or starving. 

Young Niënor had been livid, not speaking to her mother for several days, relenting only when she saw that her silence seemed not to affect Morwen at all. She did not share memories like this with Brandir, but held onto them tightly, for they gave her glimpses of who she had been. Instead, she spoke of living in Doriath, of its riches, and majesty, and magic. There she had been happy, with only the shadow of a lost father and brother, both of which she had never known. 

Her grief for Túrin was an odd thing, part of her, but not painful, like an old scar, or a hole left by a lost tooth. There, but not noticeable unless she prodded it. She grieved for Turin in the same way that she grieved for her father, dutifully, but not as for someone she had truly known. For she had not really known him, even his true name and lineage had come to her as a warning from Brandir, though she had not grasped its full meaning. She could not rightly say whether Túrin was at peace in death, for though he had slain Glaurung, it seemed that he always must strain after something that he could not possess- like to wed her, when she would not, or to go to war after they were wed, and he had given Nienor his promise that he would not. Had he come victoriously home, to live as chieftain with an innocent wife and a new baby, he would not have been content and would have searched after some other goal, not resting, even had he slain Morgoth himself. 

Niënor’s new mind was clear and judged people more sharply than previously. She was grateful for these new insights into the nature of people, but did not always like their harsh, truthful conclusions. 

The sun moved across the sky, and they moved across the landscape, both moving towards the west. Almost there, she thought, almost there. Another destination, another arrival.

Lights and buildings came into view. They were tidy looking. This place would be her home, until, until? She had no goal after coming here, only to find a place away from everything that had happen. She was not like Turin, she thought, unsure if her mind could judge herself as truly as it could others. Nienor only wanted to find a place to live safely, to raise her child free from the want, fear, and oppression that had marked her own childhood. She had brought her horse to a complete halt, waiting to go forth into this new place. Brandir came up beside her, stopping as well. 

“Shall we go, Niënor?” 

This place would be her new home, her fourth. “Yes, husband,” she said, trying out the new word in her mouth. She would have to get used to calling Brandir that. “We shall.”