For the First Time in Forever by quillingmesoftly

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Sunset

In which we learn a little more about the state of the world and Goldberry, and Maglor is not even a little bit charmed. Really. 

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She came back over an hour later, with three rabbits slung over her shoulder, the legs tied together, and an armload of driftwood in her arms. He stood, a remnant of Makalaurë surfacing in the manners that Nerdanel had hammered into them, and scooped half of the logs out of her arms. We might be murderers, but we’re polite, Caranthir had grimly joked as he performed a similar task after Alqualondë.

“Are you sure about using driftwood?” he couldn’t help but ask. From experience, he knew the stuff was considerably more difficult to light than a forest wood, often as it was still water-logged. And the wood in his arms did feel somewhat damp.

She nodded, setting them down in a neat horizontal row. His brows rose. “I did not want to have to walk back to the forest,” she said, gesturing to the groves of the Eryn Vorn in the distance behind her. “The beach is much closer.”

Well, very understandable, but still. “It’s hard to get it to catch alight,” he reminded her. And you are not of Fëanáro’s bloodline. It would be harder for you, would it not?

Neniellë grinned, and gestured for him to set the logs down. He obeyed, setting them down beside hers.

She hummed a few notes, and then began another melody that built to a crescendo. He did not understand the language that it was in, but it was in a language, unlike the one she had sung earlier, which was pure power and melody. He felt the air around them become more humid as she sang, until the smell of water hung heavy in the air. She frowned with concentration, and then sang again, playful and witty, and a sea breeze blew through their site, scattering the humidity to the winds.

She knelt, touched the logs, and nodded in satisfaction, smiling at him, unmistakeable pride in her glance. He didn’t have the heart to do anything other than smile at the look.

“Impressive,” he said, offering the affirmation she sought. And impressive it was. Maglor could think of very few Elves who could have done such a thing, let alone with such ease and skill and so little visible effort.

Neniellë’s smile turned almost impish. “Thank you. Sadly, I lack a flint and steel. I have to ask you to start the fire.”

Maglor smiled. “Why don’t you hand me those rabbits, as well? I’m not sure I trust one so young with the cooking,” he teased. Though that was hardly the truth of it. Still, he wasn’t sure whether she’d understand that out of the two of them, it was simply his job to do the cooking.

Her hazel eyes widened in indignation. It was a rather pretty sight, framed by her gold hair, and her bronze skin set alight by the setting sun on the estuary behind her.

“I am not young!” she protested.

“Oh?” he arched his eyebrows again. If not, you certainly act like it. Not that he was complaining. Cheerfulness, joy, wonder…those were precious gifts indeed, and he would be the last person to scorn them. Not after so long without them. Not since raising the twins. “Do you remember the years before the Sun and Moon?” he prodded.

She scowled. “Yes! I was born years before Tilion rose!”

So actually, reasonably old. And wasn’t that interesting, that she referred to the Moon as Tilion?

His suspicion grew. “Who is your mother? And your father? You know mine, after all.”

A slightly misleading ploy, considering that everyone knew who his mother and father were. But nonetheless, he didn’t feel all that guilty about it. Considering all the sins he’d committed, this could barely register on any scale.

She shrugged. “My mother is right there,” she said, jerking her thumb back at the river. “Although this is not the seat of her power. She is at her weakest here.”

He blinked. Both at the new information, and the trust was the foundation of telling him that. “Your mother is the Baranduin.”

She nodded. “She is of the waters. My father is a Child, though. Firstborn. His name is Nurwë.”

An Elf, and one with a name that had a vaguely familiar feel to it. That made her Neniellë Nurweniel. Assuming that her father’s culture took patrilineal customs. But then, judging by the way she had named her mother first, perhaps not.

“So why do you come to the sea?” he asked. His hand was still extended for the rabbits. He was good at waiting out indignant youngsters. He’d had a lot of practice, after all, and he’d learned from Nelyo, who had been a master of the art.

She smiled again, finally handing the rabbits over. “I am visiting my kin of the sea. Why are you here?”

Maglor shrugged. “I’ve been wandering this shore for quite some time now.” To be precise, over a century. Since Elros’ death, when Elrond had somehow, unbelievably, found him. After those few weeks, he’d headed far, far south from the centres of Lindon. “Who are your kin?” She was quite a long way from Mithlond, but then with a colouring like that – assuming she took after her father in looks, rather than her mother – he doubted that she counted her kin amongst the Falathrim, who tended to be pale from the millennia under the stars, and dark-haired. If anything, she looked more like a Vanya. 

She smiled at him. “Ossë and Uinen. Would you like to come with me?”

Ah. “I believe that would be unwise,” he said. “The last time I spoke to a Maia, it–”

Maedhros’ desperate, determined, tired eyes, as they bored into his. “We have to do this, Lauro. We have to–”

The quenching of Tree-light in the eyes of the guards they slew, Eru, it still hurt, centuries on–

The horror in Eonwë’s face as he sentenced them to mercy more damning than death itself–

Her hand took his and squeezed. An incredibly reckless thing to do while he was trapped in memory, he would have said. And yet, the press of memories abated. Just a little.

“It was not a happy occasion,” he said simply.

She nodded. “I know.”

He frowned. “If your mother is the Baranduin, there is no way you witnessed the destruction of Beleriand.”

She shook her head, relinquishing her grip on his hand. He fought down the longing for more of the contact. “My mother is the Song. She knows – when something shakes the world, she knows. And the winds speak to her, often as not, as they do to me. Word passes on Manwë’s breezes. So I know some of your tale.”

He snorted, as he knelt to kindle the fire. The flames sparked to life easily, as they always had for the Fëanorioni. “So it seems. And yet, I know so little of yours. Why are you far from home, river-daughter?”

“I’m visiting my kin. I told you.” Her eyes were steady on his, as he began skinning the rabbits.

“You have not told me the reason for your visit,” he said, the urge to smile tugging at his lips. Valar, it had been a long time. And ingrained habit was already whispering to go back to the beach, let the enchanting woman continue her merry way.

However, it was the selfish part of him – the part that had raised Elrond and Elros as his own and treasured each smile and laugh and tear-drop as if they’d come from the sons of his own blood – that was in charge at the moment. So, he finished skinning the first rabbit, and cast around for a suitable stick by the fire.

Her smile was unrestrained. “If you come with me, you will surely find out the reason.”

He snorted. “A tempting bargain. And yet, I still do not find it enticement enough to go near my death.” He very much doubted that any Maia liked the thought of him still alive.

“You said you’d been wandering the shore,” Neniellë pointed out, as he threaded the rabbit on the stick he'd found. “If Ossë wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now.”

…that had not occurred to him. And if Finrod were here, his golden cousin would be paralysed with laughter.

He sighed. “Where do we go, then?”

Neniellë smiled. “We can go to your cove tomorrow.”

 

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Chapter End Notes

I headcanon the Vanyar as being blonde, but with darker skin from living so far to the light of the trees; meanwhile, Neniel's the daughter of the Baranduin, which literally means the Brown River. I like to think of it as convergent evolution, Middle-Earth style. =D