First Impressions by Grundy

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Long Sundered Kin

This chapter meets the Middle Earth Museum challenge - Angarato's fancy belt is the enamelled & gilded wedding belt.

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In the deepening gloom, Merilin saw her brother frown, and felt more than saw Celeborn’s answering look of concern.  

Small white flakes were beginning to drift down from the sky, though snow was unusual in echuir, with the last storms usually in the waning days of rhîw. They were already far enough beyond the Girdle now that Melian could not blunt the weather for them at need – even if the weather were natural.

She had not been out often enough to feel the difference, but the reactions of her brother and cousin suggested this might be the work of the enemy in the North.

If that were the case, it meant he wished to hinder this meeting of long-sundered kin.

She was not quite sure what to make of that idea. What she had learned of the Icewalkers and ship golodhrim suggested that they were not enough to storm Angband, even if they united their full strength with that of Doriath. But perhaps they held some knowledge that would be Belegurth’s undoing? Or maybe the hopeful whispers spoke true, and they carried a message from the Belain, a reassurance that the elves who had not completed the Journey or even refused it altogether had not been forsaken by the West?

A small knot of elves drew close enough for hushed conversation.

“I think we are close,” Celeborn murmured.

He was not only the eldest of their party, he had the most experience beyond the Girdle, and was the best at sensing both people and danger at a distance. He could also silent-speak further than any of them save Luthien.

“How close?” Oropher asked sharply. “If the snow gets any thicker…”

He did not need to finish the thought. Everyone in this party knew what to do if caught out in heavy snow, though Merilin herself had never had cause to put it into practice before, but it was doubtful the newcomers would. Icewalkers or no, they could still be killed if caught out in a storm – especially if the snow was not the only thing descending upon them from the North. And it would be all too easy to miss a group of unfamiliar elves in a whiteout.

“An hour or two, perhaps less if they quicken their pace as well,” Celeborn replied after a moment of thought.

“Not close enough,” Araseth frowned.

Melian had said they might explain the companion chosen for her by the king as a ‘handmaiden’ to the golodhrim, but all in this party knew that Araseth was in truth a bodyguard whose place at Merilin’s side was a royal command. At the time, Merilin had been slightly resentful at the thought that she was still being treated as a child. She was of age, even if only just. But now, out here, beyond the safety of her aunt’s absolute protection, Merilin found the older woman’s unobtrusive presence reassuring.

“What does it matter?” Heledir asked sensibly. “We are too far from the border to reach it in less than a day from where we are now, even at our best pace in clear weather. Another hour or two can make no difference either way.”

“Heledir has the right of it,” Oropher said, probably as much for his sister’s benefit as to quell any disagreement among the rest of the party. “We will need to weather the storm beyond the border in any case. But it would be better to reach our guests first. They were assured of the protection of Doriath before they set out – and they are certainly close enough to us that it is unreasonable to expect them to fend for themselves in unfamiliar terrain.”

Celeborn nodded his agreement, and looked to Heledir, who had charge of the rest of the guard.

“We press on with all haste. The snow already begins to cover the path. We must reach them before the full might of the storm is on them, and preferably before the path is covered, lest they wander off and make themselves easy prey for any other delights the master of Angband has planned.”

Heledir acknowledged the command and swung back up into the trees to pass on instructions to the guards.

Oropher gave her a look that combined brotherly concern with a touch of challenge.

“I will be fine,” Merilin said, perhaps a bit more sharply than she’d intended. “I can keep pace with any of you, and it’s not as if this is the first time I’ve seen snow.”

His smile was proud, but he looked to Araseth all the same.

“Worry not, my prince,” she said drily. “Your sister is made of sterner stuff than you think. Even songbirds are not defenseless.”

So it is not just me that thinks he fusses too much? Merilin asked as they moved on, their pace closer to a jog than a walk.

It is the nature of an older brother to worry about his younger sister, Araseth shrugged, her eyes scanning the forest ahead. But it is a fact that you are both better prepared and better guarded than he was the first time he went beyond the Girdle. I do not wish him to undermine your confidence with his nervousness.

Merilin smiled. It was good to know that someone other than her uncle had some confidence in her.

Every fledgling must take its first flight sooner or later, Araseth added. Older brothers cannot do it for them. You are doing well so far. But keep your head and stay alert – I mistrust this late snow as much as the princes do.

Merilin was not one to ignore a warning from someone with far more experience than herself, so she did as Araseth suggested.

It was somewhat more than an hour before they heard the sounds that told them their guests were at hand.

Their sundered kin must have suspected the snow as well, for they were on their guard when they finally came in sight.

The most striking thing about them was the hair of their leaders, sparkling golden even in the dim light the storm allowed through. There were darker heads among their followers – their guards, perhaps? – but the four in the front, clearly the leaders, shared the same singular hair.

I thought they were to be Lindar like us, but their hair is that of the Minyar, not the Nelyar or Tatyar, Araseth murmured in confusion.

I don’t know either, Merilin shot back, trying not to gawk at the hair of the lone woman among the newcomers, whose hair was like the light of the sun and moon mingled.

The woman with the remarkable hair was like enough in face that she must be sister to the three males, or perhaps daughter to one of them. She was not the youngest of the party, though – one of the golden haired males was younger, perhaps her own age, Merilin guessed. She wondered if they were brother and sister, or aunt and nephew.

The man who stood at the front of the small party was clearly the leader, both his age and his dress marking him as such.

Merilin was fascinated by the ornate golden belt at his waist, the metal intricately worked and interspersed with jewels set amidst golden flowers and leaves, all against a background of brilliant blues and greens. It would have seemed gaudy even at a time of festival among her people, yet he wore it on a journey!

But then again, the clothing of all the golodhrim was similarly out of place. Where she and her people were dressed in more natural tones that blended with the surrounding forest, the golodhrim were arrayed in brighter colors that put Merilin in mind of laer or the songbirds Luthien kept in her private garden, brilliantly plumed curiosities found nowhere else in Beleriand. That they golodhrim dared travel in such clothing was not nearly as astonishing as the fact that they’d not paid for making such obvious targets of themselves.

Merilin forced her attention back to the leader, trying to focus on his words rather than his clothes as he began to speak, but found she might have just as profitably continued assessing their sartorial differences for all the good it did her – though she had already seen their letters were different, it had not occurred to her that their tongues would be as well.

The only word of the golodhrim prince’s greeting Merilin understood was ‘ai’ – at least, she thought that’s what it was, for he seemed to add an extra vowel to the word. There were several words that were almost ones she knew, or at least, she thought they were but couldn’t be sure as she hadn’t understood the ones around them.

The golden leader and Oropher – who Celeborn had designated as their speaker, being the best at languages – stepped forward to converse with one another directly, or more accurately, to try to converse. From the looks of suppressed frustration on both sides, they couldn’t be making much progress.

Merilin dared a glance at her own party, deciding that perhaps it might be of interest to her uncle to gauge the reactions of their own people, and found Celeborn seemed just as intrigued by the lone woman as she had been, if not more so.

You’re gawking like a youngling who’s never seen a girl before, she chided him. Turn your eyes elsewhere before she takes offense!

I am assessing them, he shot back tetchily. All of them, not just her. And I am most certainly not ‘gawking’.

If you say so, Merilin sniffed, far from convinced. It’s too late anyway, she’s noticed, and I doubt she’s flattered. Being stared at is not pleasant, and I doubt ladies of the golodhrim enjoy it any more than ladies of the Iathrim do.

Celeborn’s jaw tightened, but he did manage to turn his attention to others among the newcomers.

Merilin caught the gesture only because she was watching, but she saw the flick of the golden lady’s eyes toward the male standing closest to her, both of them ostensibly watching their leader conferring with Oropher. The man at her side was also closest in age to the woman, Merilin decided, and from the amused turn of his mouth, he had noticed Celeborn’s overlong look also.

Those two were brother and sister, she felt sure. She’s given her own older brother that same look when he said something he thought was funny often enough to recognize it on someone else.  They were most likely also siblings of the leader, and unmarried. So that made the youngest one the lady’s nephew.

But how she’s supposed to learn much more than that when they can’t even speak to each other properly and it’s imperative to communicate that now is not a good time to stand around for language lessons, she didn’t know.

That was when the other woman stepped forward, her frank gaze fixed on Merilin. To her own surprise, Merilin understood that the look of exasperation in the other woman’s eyes was for the males making a hash of the situation.

“Artanis,” the other woman said, pointing emphatically to herself.

It had to be her name – why else make such a show of pointing to herself?

“Merilin,” she replied at once, mirroring the gesture.

She didn’t fully understand what Artanis said in return, but she thought it was ‘well met’.

“May I?” Artanis asked, offering an ungloved hand.

That, at least, was intelligible, probably because it was such a basic question.

Merilin hastily pulled her own glove off to offer her own hand, evading Celeborn’s half-hearted attempt to stop her. She understood what her opposite intended. Silent-speaking was much easier with someone unfamiliar if there was contact. And that would neatly sidestep the language issue.

Artanis clasped her hand, and Merilin abruptly knew much more.

Artanis Eärweniel, granddaughter of Olwë, was the youngest of her siblings. Finderato remained in Mithrim with the rest of their kin, but Angarato her next eldest brother led, and their brother Aikanaro and Angarato’s son Artaresto are the other princely Lindar of the party. Their guards are all children of marriages between Lindar and Noldor, as they themselves are. It is the closest they could manage to full compliance with her uncle’s will that only his kin should come, for they were too wary of the Enemy’s creatures to travel with only four of them.

Merilin approved that caution, and shared in turn that she was the grandniece of Elu, her older brother Oropher spoke with Artanis’ brother, and their cousin Celeborn was the other kinsman of Thingol in the party. But all else must wait, for at the moment, they were in a particularly exposed area, and must make haste to somewhere that offered better shelter from the worsening storm – even as they spoke the snow grew heavier.

Artanis understood and would relay the need to her brother.

Merilin also caught that Celeborn had indeed made a less than good first impression with his staring, but there was no time to worry about that right now. (She did want to remedy it if she could – any woman should be proud to have her cousin’s attention, even if too many probably considered him a catch because he was a prince rather than because he was a kind man with a generous nature and a warm heart.)

“Oropher,” she called, drawing an irritated look from him at her interruption – and trying not to laugh at the identical look on Angarato’s face as Artanis got his attention more directly by grabbing his arm to make him face her.

What, little sister? He asked in exasperation.

“I have told Artanis what must be done. She will explain to Angarato her brother. We should head for the grottos without further delay.”

Oropher blinked at his younger sister in surprise, but did not question her words.

“I assume the rest of you heard as well,” Celeborn added sharply to their guards in the trees. “Move out!”