For the First Time in Forever by quillingmesoftly

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A Good Day

Long conversations, little movement, and Maglor and Neniel have a good day. 

That's it. That's the chapter.

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“Are you coming home?”

Her Ataro looked up at her through Maglor’s cooking pot, his head cocked to the side, birdlike. She sat at the base of an alder, the pot balanced on her lap, as Maglor knelt on the river-bank and filled the water-skins from the Snowgrey. The river-bed ran over pale, gleaming stones, turning the water a silvery-blue colour; it was cool as the mountains, even in heat of waxing summer. And with the smell of lightning hanging in the warm, humid air, the thickening before a summer storm, the cool water would be welcome.

“For a visit. We need to head west to go to Mithlond anyway. We’ve just crossed the Snowgrey right now.”

“Ah. Visiting the Men and Alado?”

“Yes, we needed to trade for some things. It went very well. And Alado gave me surprisingly good advice about something that was bothering me.”

 Her Ataro’s smile had a shade of concern to it. “Is it still bothering you?”

“No, it’s water flowed to the sea now,” she said, smiling back at him. I’m fine, Ataro. Really. She paused, and then reached through the water for her father’s mind. It was harder at this distance, even through the water, but not impossible. Does Maglor’s invitation still hold? 

Her Ataro nodded, and spoke aloud in reply. “If you wish to bring him. If I can call Ossë a brother, then I can have a Fëanorion as your guest.” He paused. “I’ll leave it to you to explain it to your aunt, though.”

Neniel thought of her Aunt’s likely reaction if she heard about burning the ships at Losgar, and winced. That…could be interesting. 

“Alright. We should be there by the time the Fading starts. We definitely won’t be there by Midsummer, though. There’s not enough time.”

Ataro’s smile blossomed across his face, before he gave a little hum of thought. “I’ll tell your mother. Do you want to talk to your sisters? They have missed you, Goldberry.”

Neniel took a deep breath, and nodded. “Are they angry?” 

“Tauren is. Regen is more confused, than anything, both at the fact that you left, and that you didn’t take her with you. Ráca and Tuilo understand, though. So does your Aunt.” 

Neniel frowned. “Regen’s thirty-five. She’s a little young to leave, isn’t she?”

“Thirty-five is the same age as when you snuck into the distilleries,” her Ataro reminded her. 

Neniel pulled a face. “Are you ever going to let me forget that?” It had not been one of her finer moments, put it bluntly.

“Certainly not. Nor the ‘my existence is a cage’ speech you gave me the next morning.” 

“I was hungover!” 

“And how it showed!” But there was a laugh in his voice, and his eyes were smiling. “I’ll go tell them.” 

Neniel nodded and took a deep breath, as her father walked out of the view of the basin, leaving the hangings of the house shining green and grey and blue in the sunlight. Regen was confused. Well, that wasn’t surprising, really. She’d been born after Neniel’s last trip away. And Tauren had known her to leave, but never as abruptly as she had that spring, never without saying goodbye. And she had never stayed away for seasons at a time, either. This trip would be the longest time she had spent away from home. She hadn’t even sent messages back, she’d been so preoccupied. 

“Is all well?” Maglor’s voice, rippling across the silence, speaking in Sindarin. She’d have to start teaching him Kindi, if he wanted to survive meeting her sisters and cousins with his mind intact. He wouldn’t be comfortable using osanwë with all of them, judging by the way that he had raised his defences again, wide doors that barred her from anything beyond amusement at how she had crossed the river that morning. She kept an eye out, but there weren’t circles under his eyes, and his sleep had not been disturbed by nightmares. Perhaps it was his grief for his lost brothers that he was hiding. 

His eyebrows were drawn into that familiar worried frown as he looked at her. But his cheekbones no longer protruded, and his hair was shining and silken, instead of limp, brittle and so tangled as to be matted, even if it only fell to his shoulders. He really has gotten a lot better. 

She sighed. “My sisters aren’t happy with me.”

Maglor raised his eyebrows. He capped the skins and walked up to her, sitting down beside her and pressing one of them into the skins into the crook of her arm. “Because you left?” 

She nodded.  Maglor’s lips pursed as he thought. 

“It’s good that they’ve been able to rely on you for so long,” he said. “But you are not just their sister. You have a life to live beyond being there for them, you know.”

“I know. I still feel guilty.” 

“Don’t,” Maglor advised. “I carry enough guilt for the both of us.” 

She rolled her eyes, turning to face him. “Your mistakes don’t erase mine, Maglor.”

“Well, perhaps they don’t,” Maglor conceded. She nudged him at that, because of course they didn’t, and because… 

Over a century without being touched by someone. How is he still sane?  

Maglor rolled his eyes, as he admitted: “It would be a strange world where they did. But you certainly shouldn’t feel guilty about wanting to explore the world and see new things! We’re Elves. It’s what we were made to do, Neniel.” 

“I’m not all an Elf,” she reminded him. Although admittedly, Maiar did move, even if most of the Maiar who hallowed the waters did not bother to do so much. And Dînen had worn the form of an Elf for so long that she had been altered by it, even as her love for her family had altered her.  

Maglor raised his eyebrows. “No, you’re the daughter of the river. And from where I’m standing, rivers do nothing but move.”

“Ha! Not all of the time!” she said, thinking about winters where the river iced over, where no matter how much she slept, she awoke exhausted, every inch of her body aching, and with tears trickling down her cheeks. “But I take your point.” 

“Neniellë!” 

Neniel turned back to the cooking pot, and smiled down at Regen’s wide, eager brown eyes, hoping that her smile wasn’t too obviously strained. Maglor leaned over to look down into the pot, his expression curious. “Hello, Regen,” she said. “How has the summer been?” 

“More boring without you! I’ve been working with the new strain of dogs, the ones for hunting that Arafen has been breeding. There was a new litter born last week,” Regen said, in one breath, and Neniel laughed. If nothing else had stayed the same, Regen still spoke at the same helter-skelter pace of a fearless child. She continued, speaking of the hounds, of the puppies, of how Mam had taught her the song for calling a breeze and strengthening moonlight the other night. “Wait, who is that with you? You didn’t say you were with someone! Is he your mate?”

Neniel shook her head, feeling a surge of exasperation. Why is everyone asking me that? 

Well, that wasn’t entirely fair. Neither Eldest’s husband nor Regen hadn’t even been born, when her relationship with Eilian had collapsed.  But still. That was not on her list of experiences to repeat anytime soon. 

“Regen, may I introduce you to my friend Maglor,” she said, in Kindi. Then, switching to Sindarin: “Maglor, this is my youngest sister, Regen.” 

Regen’s head tilted to the side, and she twirled a black-and-silver curl around her finger. “What’s wrong with your eyes?” she asked him. Neniel raised her eyebrows, and decided that she might as well translate the remark in its entirety. Prickly woman, indeed. 

Maglor’s smile was very bright, his mirth crinkling the corners of his eyes a little. “I am an Elf from over the sea, little one,” he said. “Most of us have eyes like this.” 

Oh, this would be fun. Neniel translated , and bit the inside of her lips when Regen’s brows crashed together in a frown. “I’m not that little!” 

Maglor glanced at Neniel, eyes still dancing. “I think I’m beginning to see the family resemblance.” 

Neniel wrinkled her nose at him, and Maglor laughed. Regen’s giggles chimed in too, as she caught the tone, if not the words, and Neniel smiled at her little sister. 

“Regen, is Tauren around?” Neniel asked. 

“Oh.” Regen looked away, chewing on her lip. She continued to play with her hair, but it was a nervous tugging on the ends now. “Um…she’s a little busy at the moment.” 

Busy. That meant that she was working on something that could easily be procrastinated, and was refusing to come to the mirror and speak.

“I see,” Neniel said, because it wasn’t fair for Regen to be in the middle of an argument between her two elder sisters. “Ráca?” 

“She went with Tuilo upstream to harvest the nettles. They said they’d be back by nightfall.” 

“How are they both?”

Regen shrugged. “Fine. Ráca’s been directing the hunts. That’s strange. She takes longer to do it, and we’re eating more fish. I don’t think she likes it.” 

“No,” Neniel agreed, her stomach twingeing with guilt. “I suppose she doesn’t.” Ráca was not able to sense the whereabouts of the prey in the forest by listening to the trees; she was skilled in sensing spirits, in hearing the faelinn of the animals, but it took more out of her, and she had less energy to burn than Neniel had to begin with. 

“Are you coming back soon?” Regen’s eyes were hopeful. “I missed you.” 

Neniel swallowed. “Soon,” she promised. “We’re on our way to come and see you now, you and the rest of the family. But I don’t know how long we’ll stay.” 

Regen flinched like she’d been struck. “You’re leaving again.” 

Neniel sighed. “Yes.” Had Ataro not mentioned it? Unless he’d taken the view that it was Neniel’s responsibility to explain her absence to her siblings. That…well, that would fit. 

“You’re leaving again.” Regen crossed her arms, and looked away, black-and-silver curls spilling over her shoulder. 

“Yes,” Neniel said. “I’ll stay in the village for a while. And then I’m going to go to Mithlond. It’s a city by the coast.” The location of which she wasn’t entirely certain about, but best not to mention that to Regen. And that was a problem that would need solving. 

The river burbled and sang on, of carp and dace schools, of the chill of the mountains and the sunlight on the surface. It would join the Greylady, and the Loudsinger, and their songs would mingle, the songs of the smaller rivers harmonising with and caught within the song of the greater Greylady, as they flowed out to the sea. Neniel sat a little straighter as a sudden thought struck her.

If it’s by the coast, Ossë will know it! Stars, I’m an idiot!

Later. For now, Regen was still staring up at her, with over-bright eyes. 

“Why?” 

Neniel sighed. “Because there is so much more than our river and our people, Regen. And I want to see it! I – for what, almost two thousand years? I’ve been at Ataro’s side, I’ve been–”

How could she even explain it? Hearing snatches of news on the breeze, of Denethor’s death, of the Battle of Beleriand. Of the songs of the currents and the oceans increasing in depth and volume, of the songs of the rivers changing and falling silent as Beleriand sunk, and not knowing, because none of them knew. Because it was not safe to go and find out. An imposed diet of half-knowledge, gained in snatches and gleans. She might not be a Tatya, but nobody could fail to be that curious. 

Her mother’s exasperation with her distraction that final day at the settlement had not been the reason why she left. It had simply made an already bubbling pot boil over, made her restlessness and her hurt mingle into something that had sent her running through the forest, south towards the coast, south towards her kinsmen whose domain touched every border of the earth. Who knew. 

“I’ve been in one place for so long,” Neniel said. “I’m…restless.” Regen’s eyes narrowed, and Neniel remembered the faraway, regretful look that Maglor’s eyes often took on. “I love you. Always. Nothing will ever change that! But…well, would you keep a tothû shut up in the house without exercise?” 

Regen shook her head. “You’re not a tothû, though.” 

“No, I’m not. But there is something inside of me that needs to see this new place, Regen. I need to do this.”

“Why?” 

Why? 

Curiosity. That simple, and that complicated, burning in her, the same impulse that had led to her sneaking up on Maglor by the estuary. She could have dived into the river and swam past him. She would not have even needed to come up for air. She could have disappeared into the forest, and walked out of the beach earlier. She had chosen to approach him, hearing the grief in his song, sensing a familiar darkness coiling around his spirit. The same numb emptiness that seemed as though it would never have an end. So she had paused, and sung a charm or two, and spoken with him, and when his identity had shone out as clear as a star in his mind…well, she’d wanted to hear the story, and his name had travelled on the breeze often enough.  

And then she had learned, in detail as vivid as that in the finest songs, that it was not one Elf who was so pained, but an entire world that had been shattered, like a child knocking over a pot and sending ceramic shards everywhere. 

How can I not go? How can I not see? If there is even a small way that I can be helpful…

The fact that Maglor had become a friend was part of it too, of course. She was curious to meet those he had called his friends, and those he had called his family. But also…

There would be an endless stream of questions, nagging at her, spilling past her lips the second she had a bottle of nanëni. Oh, she would be able to still smile at her friends, and dance with her sisters, and fish and hunt with her cousins. But the curiosity would always be a prickling presence at the edge of her mind, phrases like I wonder if and but how did that and why didn’t all rippling out into disparate streams of thought like a delta, each question begging for pursuit, for answers. As they had been begging for all these years. 

“Because if I do not go,” Neniel said, “then I’ll never know.” 

Regen looked away, biting on her lip as she thought. Neniel couldn’t quite suppress a smile at that; it seemed that that bad habit had stayed the same as well. 

“Fine,” Regen said. “But you’re taking me with you.” 

Neniel’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh? You’ve forgotten that that’s a decision for our parents, darling.” 

Maglor snorted abruptly, hiding his laugh behind one long-fingered hand. It was a wasted gesture, though. Mirth sparkled in storm-grey eyes, as though he was reminded of some secret joke. She’d have to get it out of him later. 

“I’m going with you,” Regen said, confidently, imperiously. 

“We’ll talk about it when I get home,” Neniel said. “And if I’m to see you by autumn, I should keep moving.” 

Regen smiled. “Alright. I love you.” 

“I love you too,” Neniel said. “We’ll see you soon.” 

She leaned forward and dashed her hand through the water, and the image of Regen’s face splintered, leaving nothing but the dark grey of the bottom of the cooking pot. Maglor’s eyes were still shining with laughter as he looked at her, although it had turned a little sad.

“What is it?” she asked. 

“For just a minute there…you sounded exactly like Maitimo, when one of us was about to do something stupid,” Maglor said. “The tone of your voice, the expression on your face. Káno, Findekáno, he learned do it as well, as the eldest of Fingolfin’s children.” 

She smiled, getting to her feet. “I’ve wondered if we would have gotten along, if we’d met. Elros, too.” 

Maglor smiled back. “You and Elros! Now that would have been a sight to see.” He held out his hands for the cooking pot, and she handed it over. For the first time, when he spoke of his lost son, there was joy amid the grief.

No winter lasts forever. Thank Ilúvatar, for wise old women, she thought, as Maglor emptied the cooking pot of water. 

“We would have gotten along well?” 

“Oh, I think so,” Maglor said, packing the pot away. His smile had softened. “I think so.” 

“Tell me about him,” she said. “Tell me about your family, and I’ll tell you about mine.” 

Maglor went silent and still for a moment, and Neniel wondered if she had made a mistake. He had told her about them, briefly, when he was telling her about the Noldolantë, but barely enough facts to make the names distinct, one from the other. 

“Well, there was one time,” Maglor began. The doors of his mind swung open, and she saw the memory shining there. Two beautiful faces, dark-haired and grey-eyed like Maglor, eyes alight with curiosity, cheeks still childishly round. “I was teaching them how to bake. They’re Noldorin, after all, through their grandmother, my cousin Idril. Did I tell you about Idril?” 

Neniel shook her head. “I’m not sure. You have a lot of cousins.”

“True,” Maglor accepted. “Idril was the daughter of my cousin Turgon, son of Fingolfin – why are you pulling that face?” 

“Were you related to half your city?” 

Maglor’s only response was in the skin around his eyes crinkling. “In Gondolin before its fall, Idril wed Tuor of the House of Hador, and they had a child, Eärendil. Eärendil later married Elwing when they fled Gondolin to the Havens of Sirion. That’s where Elrond and Elros were born.” 

“Elwing left,” Neniel said, frowning as they began walking west. The birds were singing, bright and cheerful, of good hunting and tasty grasshoppers and lizards and hatchlings growing swift and strong. The sunlight filtered weakly through the forest canopy, and the air of the forest was cooler.

 Why had she done it?

Eärendil’s logic of leaving to plead for help before the Valar, that made sense, although he’d have to have been very stubborn to try. Little good being there for your children when the death creeping forward was only a matter of time. But Elwing…why?

Maglor must have sensed her confusion, because he looked at her sadly. “She thought to draw our pursuit away from her people, I think. A brave plan.” 

Oh.

Oh.

Oh, what an unholy, nightmarish mess. 

“Alright,” Neniel said, deciding that the best thing to do was draw him back to the original starting point of the story. Spring comes after winter. It always does. “So, Elros and Elrond are Edain, and Sindarin and Noldorin.” And she’d thought her family tree was odd. “I’m half-expecting you to say they’re related to Denethor next!” 

Maglor shook his head, smiling. “No, to the best of my knowledge, there’s no Nandorin in them. But Elrond is, and Elros was, partially Noldorin through their grandmother Idril. And all Noldorin men learn to cook, and the women learn to bake. It’s a holdover from the days of the Journey. But my parents had seven sons, so Amil taught us how to bake as well.” 

Neniel tilted her head to the side in silent inquiry, raising her eyebrows. Maglor’s smile widened. “Atar did not believe in barring knowledge of any sort from anyone, no matter how arcane. Let alone something so practical as kitchen lessons. Anyway, Maedhros and I took the boys to Belegost, a few years after Sirion. A city of the Dwarves. They were about ten or so, old enough that it was time for many of their lessons to begin, and…it was something that I could give them. I thought we’d start with something simple, just with how to bake bread. But it had been a long time, so I had a tricky time remembering the exact measurements of what would be needed from the store-rooms, and revising the recipe. I came back to the kitchen to find Elrond and Elros both covered in flour,” and in his mind, she saw those two childish faces smeared with flour, cheeks turning pink with embarrassment, white streaks in their black hair, flour streaked all down the sleeves of their blue linen tunics. She felt the laughter bubble up in her throat as he continued: “covered in flour, and very reluctant to explain how any of it had happened. Cleaning that up took a while. Getting the story out of them took even longer.” 

“Oh, it could have been worse,” Neniel said, grinning back at him. “They could have gotten into the alcohol.” 

“Is that what you did, when your parents were teaching you? Get into the cooking wines?” 

“I don’t bake. But…well, I was thirty-five, thought myself very grown-up– yes, yes, go ahead,” she said, as Maglor tried to hide another smile behind his hand. “And the adults had been talking about the new mead. It was made of these yellow berries that grow in my forest, and honey. It’s much sweeter than the other kind of drink we make, and it had just finished fermenting. I was having a very bad night, and I wanted something, anything to make me feel better.” She paused, as Maglor’s look turned a little concerned. “And that’s how I ended up drinking two flasks of mead in about three hours,” she said, gesturing with her hands to indicate the size of the flasks. 

“Oh, no.” Despite his words, Maglor’s eyes were sparkling, and the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkling. If she kept this up, she might even be able to make him laugh. 

“Yes. I ended up talking to my fifteen-year old cousins about the impossibility of defining the word ‘impossible’, and almost sang up a fresh snowfall. Ataro and Aunt Salyë stopped me before there could be more than an inch or so of it, but…well, if you hear one of my family calling me ‘Goldberry’? That’s why.” 

That did it; Maglor’s chuckles burst out from behind his hands, like water spilling over a bowl. “Oh, stars. That’s a terrible nickname.” 

She grinned at him. “I’ve grown used to it from family. Did you never go and do something like that?” 

Maglor shook his head. “The closest I got to behaving like that was going off wandering around Valinor and singing for my supper. That was…well, considered mildly unconventional, for a prince, but Atar and Ammë said ‘go’, when I raised the idea with them.”

“Unconventional?” 

Maglor smiled. “Not the way something is usually done. As I was saying, I was considered mildly unconventional. My parents made a habit of twisting conventions, both minor and major, into abstract pieces of art.” 

Neniel eyed him dubiously. “You realise that raises many more questions than it answers, don’t you?” 

The explanation of abstract art took up the rest of the day as they walked, west and north towards her mother's river and her father's village, until the storm broke. The rain swept down through the branches, pounding on the leaves like drums, and Neniel laughed, turning her face up to catch the rain in her mouth. Thank you, Grandfather. Maglor had flicked the hood of his cloak up, but she felt a flicker of amusement from him, mixed with something softer, almost fond, and a tendril of worry and fear coiling about it.

She reached over and squeezed his hand – hush. I'm here, all is well – and his hand was stiff in hers for a moment, before he squeezed back.

“Neniel?” he said, eventually.

“Mm?”

“Thank you.”

He did not say what he was thanking her for, and she didn’t ask.

Instead, she looked over at him, and smiled. “I think that’s my line, actually.”

 

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Chapter End Notes

We finally learn how Goldberry was called that! In Sindarin, it would sound like something like ‘glorpuig’, which is not the most elegant sounding name to my ear. And I can’t help but think that Maglor Fëanorion would definitely be noting the inherent musicality of a word. And we also got a glimpse into some of Goldberry’s motivations as a character. Sorry about the lack of action and movement otherwise in this chapter, but hey! Both of them actually seem pretty happy. So there’s something. 

Tothû: the dogs used by the Kindi when shifting from one place to another. Like a husky, really, but used to haul travois, instead of sleds. 

Nanëni: Kindi, burning water. Aka, vodka.