For the First Time in Forever by quillingmesoftly

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Walking the Tightrope

In which I indulge in world building, Neniel gets a reunion, and Maglor is puzzled.

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 Maglor awoke, blinking in the moonlight, and breathing hard, as though he’d run very fast, rivers of fire still pouring through his mind. He sat up and leaned against the base of the oak, running his fingers over the bark, and forced his breathing into an even pattern. Twelve, twenty-four, thirty-fix, forty-eight, sixty, seventy-two, eighty-four, ninety-six… 

On the branch of the beech tree where she had fallen asleep, Neniel shifted, and sat up, looking down at him. Her hair had turned very pale in the moonlight. She leapt from the tree and landed in a crouch, coming over to sit beside him. 

“Are you here now?” she asked, in Sindarin.

He nodded. Probably, he ought to smile, but he was too tired for that. 

“Yes,” he croaked, reaching for the water skin. He drank a mouthful, trying to wash sour fear and pain and memories away. 

“Good.” 

When he set the skin down, she wrapped an arm around his shoulder, setting her head against his arm. She smelled like sunlight on water, the cool forest, and lightning, so different from the sulphurous fumes of Dagor Bragollach, and Maglor’s arm slid around her waist. 

In the two weeks since they had left the Men…well, Maglor had two hypotheses. The first was that she knew about his little dilemma, and was deliberately trying to drive him insane. It was possible.

 The second was that Neniel had decided that Maglor required several affectionate touches a day, and that it was her job to work to make up the deficit that his self-imposed exile had created. Given the immediate, unhesitating way she had healed the girl at the river settlement, and spoken for the saplings, and argued him into accepting the pelts for a new cloak, it was considerably more likely than the first. She had begun subtly, at first. Brushing her fingers against his when he handed her something. Insisting on teaching him how to weave crowns of flowers as they walked, and occasionally correcting his motions by placing her fingers on his. Nudging him playfully when he said something that she deemed terribly obvious. Then, a week or so ago, she’d reached over and squeezed his hand as they walked, and despite that being nothing new, Maglor’s heart had pounded as he waited for her to pull away. 

And she hadn’t. She had simply continued to hold his hand as they walked, as though there were nothing more reasonable or natural in the world, and begun to tell him stories of her cousins how to fish with otters, and call breezes, and how her attempt to teach them camp-fire songs had resulted in her and Ráca and Tuilo nearly setting her Uncle’s cup of nanëni on fire. Then when moon-rise had hit, she had wrapped her arms around him in a hug, leaning into his shoulder, before she stepped back, climbed into the branches of the tree and settled down to sleep. She’d done the same thing every night since, when they stopped to catch a few hours of sleep.

It shouldn’t have surprised him. On reflection, the horror in her voice, from the second he had said how long it had been since someone hugged him, had made this all but a certainty. Neniel could no sooner stop herself than the tide could stop rolling, than the rivers could run backwards. He didn’t know why it had taken him so long to see it, but Neniel had that same instinct that Elrond had always had. To soothe, to fix, to heal, to aid. Especially to people that she…

No.

Best not to go there. It wasn’t true, and he’d lost the right to comforting illusions a long time ago.  

“Still here?” Her fingers drummed against his shoulder. 

“Yes.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” He shook his head. She nodded, and shifted; he withdrew his arm, and she patted the bedroll again. “Lie back down, Maglor. I’ll sing you to sleep.” 

“I’m not sure I want to sleep again,” Maglor said. That nightmare had been of Dagor Bragollach. It might get worse from there. It might be the Havens next. Or Menegroth. Or Alqualondë, for that matter. 

She shot him a worried look, and her teeth sank into her lower lip. “Alright. Shall we walk again?” 

Maglor shook his head. “Just because I can’t sleep is no reason for you to not sleep, Neniel.” He couldn’t keep the fondness from his voice, but that was alright. It was reasonable to be fond of someone, after you’d spent three months in their company. They’d grown on you, by then, as the Sindar of the north used to say. And being cold would just arouse even more concern from her. “I’ll go for a walk. Back by dawn. I’ll be fine.” 

“Will you?” 

“Yes,” Maglor told her, firmly. She didn’t look terribly convinced, but she made no motion to stop him, as he got to his feet. “You worry too much, you know.”

“You’re of the House of Finwë,” she said, a note of amusement in her voice. “And you're going to say that I worry too much?” 

“We did manage a few centuries in Valinor, you know, without finding trouble.” The House of Fëanor had once had a good record of avoiding major troubles. It was their record of creating and compounding trouble that was a bigger problem. 

“If you say so,” she said, walking back to her beech tree. “Wake me if you need me.” 

Not even if Dagor Dagorath begins, Neniel. 

“Sleep well,” Maglor said instead, making sure he had both sword and belt-knife. After a moment, he picked up the harp as well. Focussing on music, getting lost in melodies and rhythms, instead of things that couldn’t and probably shouldn’t be, sounded like a wonderful idea.

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The forest thinned out as they walked the next day, and Neniel’s step had been quick, full of excitement as she walked. Maglor probed to make sure that he had all the relevant names, but she did not reply, and her eyes kept flitting over the trees with something that looked like wariness. 

“What is it?” he asked, at last.

She did not look at him, or reply aloud, but reached out to him in thought instead. Regen is trying to sneak up on us. 

Maglor blinked. Trying? He hadn’t been able to hear anyone.  

Trying, she confirmed, with a rush of amusement. And you wouldn’t. You’re very loud, after all. 

He pulled a face at her. Not all of us can flit through the woods like a shadow! 

She winked at him, and slung her pack off her shoulders, pressing it into his hands. If you keep walking and talking…

I’ll likely get lost, Maglor replied. 

Follow the flowers until you hit the river. But this shouldn’t take that long. And with that, Neniel reached up and gripped a low-lying branch of an oak, swinging herself up and then letting go of the branch. Her leap carried her a few feet further up, and she landed on the strong, sturdy branch of a rowan. Maglor started humming, slowing his pace, and studied the forest as he walked. 

Golden buttercups and bluebells pushed up through the soil in patches where spears of sunlight had run through the canopy. Follow the flowers. Where the wood had been cut and coppiced, Maglor realised, the sunlight had been able to reach down and bring up these patches of flowers. The clumps of bluebells and buttercups ran on, marking a kind of zig-zag path through the trees. So. The forest had been thinned, but not cleared, as the Elves living here struck a balance between the beauty of the flowers, the practicality of marking the way, and the simple need for wood. 

Well, that explained Neniel’s indignation about the saplings.

Maglor tilted his head, and heard a snatch of a startled cry. He pivoted, and saw Neniel laughing, pulling someone out into a patch of sunlight. Regen. Her skin was paler than Neniel’s, almost as pale as Maglor’s, and her nose was straight, instead of hooked. Her features were still soft like a child’s, even though she was clearly not far off her full height. She was rubbing at the lobe of her ear, her expression both disappointed and sheepish. She wore a long, loose dark green tunic, over grey leggings, brown deerskin shoes, and silver-streaked black hair was braided into a crown on her head, but tendrils of hair were coming loose from it. So going barefoot was not a universal custom among their people…perhaps it was simply personal preference, on Neniel’s part?

“Oh, come on! If you’re going to sneak up on us, you can hardly back out of meeting him now,” Neniel was saying, a teasing note in her voice. 

“I’m not backing out, Neniellë,” Regen said, but there was a flush to her cheeks that suggested that wasn’t entirely true. Maglor wondered if he was supposed to switch from using the Sindarin name. 

“Wonderful!” Neniel said, pulling her forward. “Regen, you remember my friend Maglor, don’t you?” 

Regen waved, and frowned, as though something had just occurred to her. Maglor waved back. “Hello! It’s nice to meet you, Regen.”

Regen looked at Neniel with wide, startled eyes. Neniel shrugged. “He’s very good at languages. I can’t tell you how annoying it is,” she continued, drawing her right arm around Regen and falling into step with Maglor, taking her pack from him and swinging it onto her free shoulder. “There I am, taking weeks to learn enough Sindarin to get by–”

Maglor snorted. 

“And there he is, picking up Kindi in days! It’s very unfair!” 

“You can do more than ‘get by’,” Maglor said, laughing. She was also omitting the fact that she had switched to speaking Kindi two weeks ago, using Sindarin only in the two nights where Maglor had woken up with nightmares, until Maglor had made the point that learning a new language was, if nothing else, very distracting. Then she’d redoubled the lessons.  “And of course I picked it up! Your sister’s a very merciless teacher, Regen.” 

“She is,” Regen agreed, with considerable feeling, and Neniel laughed.

“You can’t explore all the way to the Great-Lake-that-was if you refuse to skin your prey, Regen.” 

Regen’s nose wrinkled, and suddenly, despite the very different features, the resemblance between her and her much older sister was fully apparent. “Perhaps not. But still. The blood makes me feel sick.” 

Maglor glanced down at the bluebells, and tried to make himself take notice of the way their petals shone blue in the sunlight, rather than respond to that remark. Neniel made an exasperated noise in her throat, but didn’t respond either. 

“So what’s your solution, nettá?” 

“Simple,” Regen said. “I and the dogs will hunt the prey, and Arafen can skin them.”

Maglor smiled. “She’s got you there,” he told Neniel. 

“You are not being helpful,” she replied, mock-sternly, before she smiled down at her sister. “Alright, Regen. Tell me more about these pups you’re rearing.” 

Regen and Neniel chattered about the puppies for a good long while, and Maglor contented himself with listening to the teasing notes in their voices, and the way Regen leaned into her sister’s arm around her shoulder. There was a pause in the conversation for a while, with no sound but that of Maglor’s boots hitting the soil, until Regen asked: “Whose son are you?” 

Maglor blinked. “Pardon?”

The word slipped out, before his thoughts caught up. Of course, Regen, born among the Avari a mere thirty-five years ago, would have no reason to know the web of other names signified by Maglor. It was still a little startling, after finding himself one of the more notorious figures of the past age, for this inquiry to be raised. Even in Aman, only the very remotest communities of the Vanyar and the Noldor had not immediately recognised the names of Finwë’s grandchildren.

“Son of Nerdanel,” Neniel supplied.

Maglor blinked again. Well, it was true, but really… Was she attempting to cover for him? He didn’t deserve that.

“Son of Nerdanel,” he agreed. “And Fëanor of the Noldor.”  

“Nerdanelion,” Regen repeated, thoughtfully. “That’s a good name. Even for a deserter.” Neniel flicked Regen’s ear with a forefinger. “Ai!” 

“They came back,” Neniel told her. “And we can’t judge. We left the Lake too.” 

Maglor interrupted with, “I’m more commonly known as Fëanorion. Why…?” 

Regen shrugged at him. “Are you? We introduce our mothers first.” 

“They gave birth to us, after all,” Neniel chimed in. 

“But your fathers sired you,” Maglor said, his head swimming a little as he tried to take that in. Matrilineal. They identify according to the mother’s line, not the father’s. 

“And seeing as that’s the least painful part of the process, it’s right that our mother’s work should be honoured first,” Neniel said.

Well. Nearly impossible for a son of Fëanor – of Therindë’s line, Maglor thought, his mouth quirking up in a smile as he caught himself – to argue with that logic. Although whether Amil would want him to go around calling himself Nerdanelion after everything he'd done...

No. Best not to go there, either.

Although, if their tribe was organised according to matrilineal principles, perhaps that was why Neniel was not her father’s heir? Because Dînen was a Maia? 

“Fair point,” was all that Maglor said aloud, making a sheepish face, as they passed through the tree-line.

The banks of the Baranduin stood before them, and on this bank of the river and the other, Maglor could see long, low halls dotting the banks. There were dogs barking, nightingales trilling, and downstream, the sound of singing from the Elves on their boats, as they leaned out over the water. The banks were bare of cattails, unlike in the vision. How odd.  Had they harvested them? Whatever for? 

Neniel pointed to the other bank, and then turned to face the north. “Our house is that way.”  

Maglor eyed the wide waters warily, and then handed her the harp, before sitting down and stripping his boots and socks off. No need to repeat the mistakes that he’d made at the delta. And at least the waters were calm. Assuming that Dînen didn’t decide to drown him.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Regen said, casually removing her own shoes.

“I’m afraid I can’t walk on water,” Maglor pointed out.

“We know.” She jerked her thumb at the tree-line they had just passed, and Maglor glanced back, frowning. He didn’t see how thathelped…

Neniel coughed, and pointed upwards. Maglor lifted his head, and oh. 

From high up the trunk of an oak tree, ropes ran across the river, until it met another oak, as like to the first as to be a twin there. The oak on the west bank stood between two of the long halls, and had clearly been planted there for exactly this purpose, long ago. Although, the longer Maglor looked, the more he realised that the ropes were deliberately spaced out so that multiple people could cross, one on the higher rope and one on the lower. The lowest rope was wrapped around the tree trunk at about four feet off the ground; the middle rope was at ten feet; the tallest rope soared above the other two at what must have been twenty feet off the ground.

“Just to be clear,” he said, keeping his voice neutral. “You’re saying that we’re going to walk across that rope?” 

Regen nodded, smiling brightly as she shoved her shoes into Neniel’s pack. 

“You could take the lowest one, if you wanted,” Neniel offered. “Although I think doing it in bare feet would be best, so don’t put your boots back on.” 

“I’m too tall to stand on the lowest rope,” Maglor said, shaking his head. “I’ll take the middle one. I suppose the lowest one is the one the elflings run across?” 

Neniel nodded, and held out her hand for his pack. Maglor frowned at her, and she rolled her eyes. “Oh, fine. Have it your way.” Regen had already walked up to the oak, and begun scrambling into the trees, until she balanced on a branch, and leapt down from it onto the highest rope. The rope swayed beneath the leap, and Regen stayed crouched on it, until it returned to its full tautness. Then she ran across, joyfully leaping up in the air and somersaulting, before landing crouched again, and then running across to the western oak. Neniel laughed at her sister’s antics, a delighted spark in her eye. 

“Showoff!” she shouted. 

Regen’s only response was sticking out her tongue. Maglor, after a long moment, took the harp back from her hands, and carefully stowed it in her pack, checking to make sure the flap was securely fastened. Neniel shook her head, her eyes crinkling at him, but she made no comment. 

“It won’t go in the river,” she promised, before she leapt up onto the lowest branch of the oak. “I can outdo Regen’s flip when I don’t have a pack on my back.” 

“I’m very relieved to hear it,” Maglor said, pushing away thoughts of unwise leaps, and broken bones. They were daughters of the river, for pity’s sake. It was hardly likely that falling into the water could harm them. Certainly not from that height. 

Neniel climbed into the oak tree with a liquid grace to her movement, and Maglor couldn’t quite suppress a sigh as she leapt onto the middle rope, rather than the tallest one. She sauntered across the river from there without seemingly the slightest visible effort, her eyes straight ahead, a joyful smile on her lips. It seemed unlikely that Maglor would manage his crossing with similar grace or dignity. But the harp was the only real thing of value he owned, and that was now safely in Neniel’s pack, as she leapt down to join her sister on the tree bough. That was something. He liked that harp. The preservation charms on it would not make it last beyond another century, and he intended to make good use of it before it finally crumpled and he had to resort to playing the flute. 

Caranthir would have hated this, and Ambarussa would have adored it. Maglor hauled himself into the oak tree’s branches and climbed, feeling very clumsy by comparison to the picture of lithe grace that Neniel had made minutes before. 

He landed on the middle rope in a crouch, as Neniel and Regen had done. The cord reverberated against his feet, vibrating; Maglor waited until it stilled, and then gingerly, cautiously rose to his feet. It didn’t take more than a few steps before he realised this was a terrible idea, and he fell into an awkward not-quite-crawl, wrapping his hands around the rope and carefully, gingerly moving forward across the rope. Neniel and Regen were exchanging frowning glances, and murmuring to each other, but he couldn’t make it out. That was just as well, actually, because he wasn’t more than halfway across the river, and falling into the next rope down would hurt quite a lot. 

After an eternity of careful concentration, he jumped off the rope and onto the tree-branch beside the sisters, his pack thumping against his back as he did. 

“I think part of it may have been the sword,” Neniel said, very casually. “Throwing off your balance.” 

Maglor tilted his head back, and studied her for a long moment. Was that supposed to be a hint? “Do you require me to disarm?” 

She shook her head, her braid swinging with the motion. “No. Ataro might, or maybe Aunt Salyë, but let’s face it. It’s not like you’re going to repeat all the events of – of the First Age in the next few days, is it?” 

“No,” he conceded. “But it would be understandable.”

“As she said, it’s a question for my husband and his sister.” 

The voice was a low, rich alto beneath them, every syllable of it like water flowing over stones. Neniel’s eyes went wide.

“Mam!” she said, and she leapt from the branch to the forest floor, flinging her arms around her mother. Dînen’s arms wrapped around her daughter, and when Neniel drew back from the embrace, she rested her forehead against Neniel’s for a long moment. Dînen’s low voice rang out again, speaking in the storm-syllables of Valarin, the tone of her voice impossible to decipher, and Regen sucked in her breath beside Maglor. Neniel stilled for a long moment, before she flung her arms around Dînen even tighter, and replied in the same language, her reply muffled against Dînen’s shoulder. Some dispute had been forgiven, perhaps? Whatever had been said, it made Regen relax visibly, the tension flowing out of her shoulders. She leapt down to join them, flinging herself into the hug. Neniel gave a laugh – was it more watery than normal? – and after a while, she wriggled out of the embrace, and glanced up at him, gesturing for him to join them with one hand. The other was brushing tears away from her eyes. 

“Mam, you remember Maglor,” she said, and her voice was very nearly even. 

“Yes, I do,” Dînen said. Her eyes were thoughtful as they scrutinised him, with none of the wariness that had been in them when they’d first met. “It comes to me that I was not entirely courteous to you, when we met, son of Fëanor and Nerdanel. I would apologise for that. It was badly done of me.” 

…That had not been on the list of expected possibilities. 

“There is nothing to apologise for,” Maglor said.

Her head tilted up. “Ah? You question my judgement regarding my own actions?” 

Maglor opened his mouth to object, before catching sight of the glint in Dînen’s eye. Slowly, he looked at Neniel. “I think I see where you get it from.” 

Neniel and Dînen both laughed, and Neniel threw an arm around him. “Come on, then!” 

The women spoke in Kindi as they walked back to the settlement, with Neniel pressing her mother for news of the settlement, and Dînen pressing her daughter for news of what she and Maglor had been doing. 

“Oh, this and that,” Neniel said casually. “Talked to Uncle Ossë and Aunt Uinen a bit, hunted a lot, learned a lot of songs. Apparently my Sindarin is now reasonable enough that I won’t be thrown out of Mithlond on my ear for some horrible mis-step.” 

Dînen’s glance was keen as she regarded her daughter. “So. That ripple a few weeks ago, with Ossë and Uinen. You had nothing to do with it, I take it?” 

Neniel smiled, her eyes wide and innocent, and all Maglor could think of was Irissë at the age of twenty-two, protesting that she had no idea at all how her circlet had ended up in the pond, how could her Amil even suggest that she'd thrown it in? “I spoke to Aunt Uinen about a few things. But surely her actions are her own?” 

Dînen laughed. “You can’t fool me with that face, daughter! But how on earth did you work it out? Their song had sounded like that since we descended.” 

Neniel jerked her thumb at Maglor, mask discarded in a moment. “As it turns out, what Ataro says is right. Nothing like a fresh pair of eyes.” 

Dînen smiled at him. “Well, then! It seems I owe you my thanks, for my kin’s happiness. And you have them.” She spoke out in Valarin again, and a breeze rustled around them, though Maglor did not think that she had called it. The water rippled, and Dînen held up a hand: be still. On the breeze, Maglor smelled molten metal. They forge things?

“What was that?” he asked, when at last the syllables stopped. Regen had already taken Neniel’s hand and pulled her over to the longhouse, and given a piercing whistle; several dogs and a dozen puppies were racing out of the house and snuffling at Neniel’s legs, barking and yipping joyfully. Their tails curled in on the back, like a curling, cresting wave, and their coats were brindle, red and brown.  Neniel laughed, and knelt, rubbing them behind their ears, and letting them shove their short, narrow muzzles into her hands. 

“Roughly translated…” Dînen paused, frowning, before she found the words. “May you always have a plentiful supply of fish, know which way the current flows, the waters aid you and never harm you, and may the next verse of your Song be happier than the last.”  

That was…oddly practical, for one of the Ainur. Perhaps living for thousands of years among the Elves was what made the difference?  

“Oh, we’re all practical, really,” Dînen said, and at least the question of where Neniel got her skill in osanwë was answered. “For by ‘practical’, you mean that we are concerned with the tangible stuff of Eä, yes? But we are more than concerned with it, we are bound to it and within it.  Our difficulty is learning of necessity. The Ainur are not very good at necessity. And then there’s the difficulty of how you Children measure necessity differently.” She shook her head. “But I’m getting carried away, and my daughters will scold me for listening to the Music instead of the events before us.”

That…had not occurred to Maglor before. But then…

The Ainur had sung the Music that created the world. They were immensely powerful. 

They are not very good at necessity.

What is need, to someone who has always been sufficient? Who has never known lack, of any kind?

There was a joyful cry from the hall, and two Elves running towards them; behind the running Elves, a couple paced, rather more sedately, hand in hand. The first Elf Maglor recognised was Nurwë, with his distinctive black-and-silver hair, and the dangling bone earrings. He waded into the crush of dogs, and picked Neniel up in a hug, spinning her around, as though she wasn’t at least as tall as he was. The second Elf was shorter than Nurwë, and dressed like Neniel; she carefully set her bow and her quiver aside, before she flung her arms around Neniel as well. Maglor thought that might be Ráca, given Neniel’s description of her. But she had two sisters, didn’t she? Where was the middle sister? 

The couple stepped forward, when Ráca eventually let go, and enfolded her in a brief embrace. The ellon had black hair that came to his shoulder-blades; the woman’s hung only a little further, and was a shining white colour, the same colour that many of the Teleri had. Tuilo and Sílena, then, Maglor thought. Had to be.  

Neniel looked around, and her voice carried very clearly to them, as Maglor and Dînen walked forward to join the knot of Elves and dogs. “Where’s Tauren? And Helado?” 

“In their work-shops,” Nurwë supplied, over the barking. “Regen! For pity’s sake, calm them.” Regen pulled a stubborn face, but knelt and began soothing the dogs to wagging, thumping tails and whines and yips, rather than more barking. “Helado is up to his elbows in dye, I’m afraid, and swearing at it. Tauren’s still unhappy with you.” 

Neniel sighed. “I’d best go talk to her, then.” She shrugged her pack off, and came back to Maglor, handing it to him. “Maglor, I’m leaving you in my father’s hands. Ataro, don’t break him. I’m going to go find Tauren.” 

“Don’t you break anything, either,” Nurwë told her. Neniel sighed. 

“I’m not promising anything,” she said, before she jogged up the river-bank. Maglor watched the play of light on her hair for a moment, before he felt Nurwë’s hand clap on his shoulder. 

“Come on! If you’ve inherited any of your grandfather’s skill, you can help Tuilo and I with the meal, and tell us everything.” His tone was not quite friendly, but he didn’t sound hostile, either.

Well, it’s a start. 

“I’d be delighted to,” Maglor told him, and he meant it. “Lead the way.” 

 

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Chapter End Notes

Great-Lake-that-was: Cuiviénen dried up at some point, which in this canon, precipitated the Kindi leaving it and embarking on their own journey. 

The shoes among the Kindi are based on moccasins. I think some of the older Elves don’t wear them, because they think it’s somewhat pointless. Some of the younger Elves like them, though. 

Nettá: little one, Kindi, adapted from Sindarin ‘nethben.’ 

Mam: Gnomish, 'mother', still my best candidate. Subject to change, as soon as I figure out a better alternative.

The Kindi are more or less a matrilineal society. This is fairly vital for this plot to actually work, as it turns out, but inspired by the fact that in canon, it is Goldberry's /mother/ who forms the identifying part of her lineage. This is my explanation for that. =D 

The dogs that Regen has been working with are based off Akita Inus; I think she’s been training them to retrieve prey shot with bows. 

The banks of the Baranduin here are indeed the same ones that Maglor saw in his visions. But the cattails have been harvested for various food and clothing purposes. =-D Like making nanëni (vodka) from the roots. Thank you, bunn!

And everybody, throw some confetti, because we are OFFICIALLY CAUGHT UP ON CROSS-POSTING.