A Trail of Things Lost by Nitheliniel

Chapter 5: Grace

The wind is gruesome. They are used to gentle summer winds, brisk autumn winds, fierce winter winds, and fresh winds of spring. They are not used to winds piercing their bodies with sharper thrusts than their blades are capable of.

This wind makes her eyes water and then rips the tears away even before they freeze on her cheeks. Artanis wonders at times how many of the minuscule icicles in the air are not the frozen fog drawing in from either sea, but rather the tears of the people she walks among.

And there are times, when it is even too cold to cry.

The sobs can be heard though. They are so numerous, not even the heart-breaking cries piercing through the cacophony of sounds made by ice, weather, and sorrow are able to drown them out. When they rest, determined to call their times of rest evenings and nights without means to establish whether they are, Findaráto always listens to these sounds. His face has long been sculpted in an expression of anguish and compassion and only melts into the softness she misses during his short breaks of reverie. But even then the tears pool in the corners of his glazed eyes and Artanis bows down and kisses them away, only able to give her love, when there is no risk of reciprocation. 

For what their deeds have done to her brother’s soul she finds herself unable to forgive those they follow. He has always been honourable and kind to a fault, but the easiness with which he once shouldered the burden of others’ pain is lost. Before her eyes, she sees it dwindle and die, crushed beneath the inability to ease the misery around him. Without speaking, she knows this to be the root to his shame: not action, but passiveness. He had not supported their uncle’s words, but he had shared into their sentiment. He had not killed his kin, but he had been too late to stop it. He had not abandoned his people to an uncertain fate, but he is incapable of saving them all. Artanis’ shame lies in not feeling ashamed about her inability to help and in being unforgiving were others still empathise.

"Could we have stopped this?"

Exhausted heads rise slowly at Arakáno’s doubtful question, almost inaudible over the mocking of the wind. It has been a long time since any of them has spoken and their ears struggle to remember how to hear sound other than the screeching and howling of nature. Their minds hardly remember how to comprehend words.

They sit huddled together closely in their little heap of family, which they form without thinking whenever they stop to rest. At first they have followed Nolofinwë’s instructions to rest widely spread among their people, in order to lessen the risk of losing all of the royal family at once. But none of them cares any longer. They can only go on, because if one of them stumbles, someone is there instantly to pull them back to their feet, but most of all to provide support no stranger can give. Still young, though feeling old, they can no longer delude themselves about being able to brave all dangers this forbidding part of Arda may throw at them. Arda Marred indeed – they are walking through the term’s embodiment.  

"We are all turning to ice," Artanis realises, when she recognizes her brother only, when Aikanáro begins his fiery response. Beneath the rime covering their cloaked forms, they all look like a part of the landscape.

Other voices join into what has become an argument, their unity shattered in their assessment of how much guilt they share. Findaráto and Eldaloté only do not partake in the fight, which is really about the last defence of their broken dreams. Irissë is amongst the loudest, her clear voice desperately holding on to her idea of friendship, unable to let a belief go that keeps her on her feet. In this she is supported by Findekáno. Artanis wonders at these friendships between cousins whose fathers’ relationship went so far beyond the rivalry of siblings. Her father’s estrangement to his eldest brother had not been fiery but cold, their relationship rather one of apathy than of enmity. It showed in the fact that none of Arafinwë’s children had been close to any of Fëanáro’s sons.

While the others fight, Artanis tries to remember her relationship with her cousins, even tries to assess what she felt towards them.

She had looked up at Maitimo – and who would not have to? – comparing the beauty of men to that of women, envying him, that his was constituted by strength and determination and not by softness and a gentle heart.

She had listened rapturously to Makalaurë’s songs and dreamed herself away on the notes transgressing the borders of the physical world.

She had hunted alongside Tyelkormo, mostly as company to Irissë, and shared his longing for the wind as a token-freedom.

She had looked at Carnistir and found her dark thoughts reflected openly in his face, as well as the anger she struggled to contain. He would not withhold his and when it flared she envied and feared him alike.

She had watched Curufinwë craft things of unsurpassed beauty. He wished to shape the things before him as she wished to shape her world.

And she had seen the Ambarussa fight and tussle and reconcile with an easiness inexcusable in women and had dreamed herself as carefree as them.

The oath and the deeds in Alqualondë had swept her own bright wishes – her ideas of finding her own home in windswept lands, where she could breathe freely and go whither she pleased – away in darkness and blood, had made them look petty and self-centred. Her dreams had felt pure and now they were tainted, forever connected with words that must not be repeated and with unspeakable deeds. Like her idea of fire, they had lost all their innocence and are now of a consequence she had never intended. She had dreamed of adventures centred on a strong and intelligent heroine, nameless, but still very much herself. Neither in waking nor dreaming had she considered departure to be forced through banishment, nor the heroine to be caught up in the nightmare someone else created.

Just as her quarrelling relatives before her, she is torn between hurt pride and hurt feelings, but unable to discern which affects her most. Hurt pride, she decides, when eventually she realises she leans towards her relentless brothers. She feels nothing for her uncle’s seven sons. It is difficult to feel anything at all.

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The day Artanis fails to make Findaráto smile, her apathy finally turns to hate. He is among the few people who smile not at her, but with her – shared smiles of joy, knowing smiles, crooked and mischievous smiles, and even sad smiles. She loves him for these shared moments of intimacy – so much that she will only choose a mate showing her the same level of appreciation with only an upturn of his lips. Now she smiles at her brother with the intention to comfort and he nods, closes in, and embraces her, but his lips remain a taught line.

In irrational anger she pushes him away and for a brief moment this anger fuels a heat within her that defies the cold. Hands curled to fists she waits to simply melt through the ice – almost wishes for it so that the deadly waves of the two seas beneath will cool the hatred welling up within her. Her wrath airs in a furious scream. Movement around her slows, stills, expressionless faces startled into shock and surprise, but she cannot stop screaming until her throat is sore and hoarse, and a cruel gush of wind steals her last breath.

She does not cry when the scream stops, nor does she crumble. She defies such clichés born from ballads of times yet to come and stands still, her eyes glaring into the wide expanse of white and grey, her mind willing the perpetrators of her pain to share in her anguish and shatter beneath it.