For the First Time in Forever by quillingmesoftly

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Fenlands

We have a change of scene, and our heroine reveals some unexpected talents.

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Things had shifted after that, Maglor noticed, as the summer slowly waxed to its fullness. Neniel was slower to speak, and often watched him through half-lidded eyes, as though she were in the middle of working out some torturous puzzle, or would spend hours in silent contemplation.

“You’re doing it again,” he told her, feeling the hair on his arms prickle, as they walked east through the forest. According to her, fifteen days walking would take them to the fenlands, and they could trade some of the pelts strapped to his back and the salt in her pack for needles and thread with the Men who lived there. As they walked, thrushes sang merrily in the trees as though to cheer her, and the rowan trees hung heavy with their berries.

“Hmm.”

He tried again. “What are you thinking about?”

“Lúthien.”

…Alright, he hadn’t expected that.

He glanced at her. She was staring into the forest without really looking at it, weaving and dodging around tree roots by some sixth sense, rather than needing to look where she was going; the way of a huntress born from the river and rock and root itself.

“Anything in particular?” he prompted.

“I’m wondering what that’s like. For her to love so strongly that she’d leave her kin.”

Maglor shrugged. “According to most songs? She was going after Beren to stop him from going to his death.” He sighed. “And for all that her choices helped set her and her line against mine – they call Eärendil’s light Gil-Estel, you know. The star of hope. And without her choices, and the choices of her children, the Host of the Valar would never have come.”

“Do you think she knew? Of the legacy she’d leave?”

“Most songs say that Thingol and Melian were both wise and foresighted. It’s possible.”

Her eyebrows drew together into a frown. “Wise and foresighted? He set a Silmaril as a bride-price! How was that w–” she stopped mid-sentence, and horrified comprehension dawned on her face, in the slightly parted lips and widening eyes. “He never meant for Beren to succeed.”

“That’s what I thought,” Maglor said, staring up into the tree canopy. The sun was shining down on them, and they both stood in it without flinching. It was important to remember that. Remember that he was here, and not in the Thousand Caves. “Finrod thought it might have been meant as a joke. Only my cousin Artanis was there to witness it, and for obvious reasons, she was not inclined to tell me.”

She frowned. “Artanis?”

Ah.

“The youngest of my uncle Finarfin’s house, his daughter. She and her brothers crossed the Ice with Fingolfin and his House. She goes by Galadriel these days. Her mother was Eärwen of Alqualondë, Thingol’s niece by Olwë. So she and the other Arafinwions were counted by Thingol as his kin, and trusted in Doriath. Galadriel married Celeborn of Doriath, who gave her that name.”

"Oh!" Neniel said. "Yes, I met her. She and her husband's people came to us to negotiate for territory around the lake, a couple of centuries ago. She's very warm. Very kind." 

Maglor nodded. Everyone in the House of Finarfin had been kind, even Aegnor with his flash-fire temper, or Angrod, with his formidable ability to hold a grudge. "She is," Maglor admitted. "Kind and formidable. I knew her as a child. Quick to laugh, but also very serious at times. Restless, too, but then, we all were." 

"The whole House of Finwë?" 

Maglor nodded, and then reconsidered. "Well, perhaps not little Arakáno. He was one of the youngest ones of us at the time of the Darkening, barely past his majority. I think he was unsettled by the unrest – not an easy time to be born a prince, those years, with Melkor whispering in our ears – but I don't think he felt stifled in Aman, as many of us did." 

Neniel's head tilted to the side, as though she were listening intently to something. The birdsong, perhaps. 

"Hm. I wonder if Lúthien felt stifled in Menegroth." 

Maglor arched his eyebrows at her. “Possibly,” he said. “Why are you thinking about Lúthien? What brought her to mind?”

Neniel was silent, but out of the corner of his eye, Maglor saw her balance shift minutely away from him, as though trying to physically evade the question. Almost like flinching away from a blow.

He winced. “It’ll be alright,” he said. She remained silent, but her eyes met his, and they were almost cloudy with doubts. “It’ll be alright,” he repeated, threading his voice with the mixture of power and comfort and hope he’d used for his people and little brothers time and time again. She wasn’t cursed; for her, it could even be true.

She smiled at him. On anyone else, he would have called that smile shy, but that thought didn’t belong anywhere near Neniel. “Gi hannon.”

“Glassen,” he said, smiling back at her. “You don’t have to explain. But whatever it is that is troubling you – chances are good that you’ll figure it out.” She snorted, her smile widening, and she started humming a hunt-song. Maglor joined her after a few seconds, weaving a harmony around her voice, her soprano and his baritone twining around each other and making the world shimmer at the edges.

---

 After two weeks, they crested a small hillock, and beyond it, saw the fenland. The pools shimmered in the light of the morning sun, the green rushes of the marsh glowing with health and life; little islets stood in the middle of the wetland. White water lilies bloomed in profusion along the islets, and so did blazing purple irises with their sombre, drooping petals bending towards the water, as though to drink ever deeper of it. On the pools and streams themselves, reed-crafts skimmed up and down, and everywhere lines were cast into the water. Maglor tilted his head to the side, as he saw the reed-boats drift from islet to islet and between the banks. About half a league down the delta at a point where the delta narrowed somewhat, there were little houses sunk into the river-banks, standing on stilts. It was an odd design, but he could see the applicability for a flood-prone area.

Neniel, meanwhile, was frowning, and sighing. “Good. Just the thing I wanted to deal with.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The forest is not happy with them,” Neniel said. “They’ve been clearing the poplar saplings.” This last was said in a tone of utter disbelief. "Who clears a sapling?" 

“Edain tend to both grow and die much more quickly than forests do,” Maglor reminded her, although he did rather agree with her. Not distinguishing a sapling from a full-grown tree was a terrible oversight. “It makes it harder for them to see clearly. When did your people last speak with them?”

Neniel looked up at the sky as she combed back through memory. Briefly, Maglor imagined what Elros, who had thought that most Noldorin Elves had a very strange notion of time, would have said if he’d met Neniel.

“Maybe fifty star cycles, or so?” Neniel said. “I don't like to visit too often. It holds…sad memories, for me.”

Maglor blinked, pushing old grief aside. “I’m sorry.”

Neniel shook her head, mustering a quick smile. “It’s alright. It was a long time ago.”

“That doesn’t always make it any easier,” Maglor pointed out softly.

She shook her head again, and there it was again, that minute flinching away. He swallowed.

“We should go and meet with them. Cover your ears.” She adjusted the packs on her back, and called out to the Men, her voice shimmering with power so that it travelled easily over the water. Maglor braced himself for the volume, and listened with interest. He could pick out a few words he thought might be cognates of Taliska: ‘greeting’ and ‘speak.’ The rest was a mystery.

There was a very faint reply from the Men, and one of the larger reed crafts veered in their direction. “Those things can actually support people’s weight?” Maglor asked her quietly. They didn’t look particularly sturdy, but then he never had been all that good at engineering.

She smiled thinly. “Noldo. What do you think we made the first crafts of at Cuiviénen?”

He blinked. “I didn’t think. My Telerin friends and I talked music more than we spoke of the crafting of ships. We made them from reeds?”

She nodded. “And we later passed it onto the Men. Relax. The boat will not capsize, nor will you drown.”

“I’m not worried. Well, not about that,” he said.

“Aren’t you?”

“Of course not,” Maglor replied, wondering how someone so very gifted in osanwë could also be so very obtuse.

“Oh. What are you worried about?”

He gave her his very best exasperated look, the one that had usually won a blush from Elros and a muttered apology from Elrond, on the rare occasion that the twins had done something truly foolish.

“What?” she asked, frowning.

He reached out, and poked her in the forehead.

“Ai! What was that for?” she asked, her hand catching his. The calluses on her fingertips rubbed against his knuckles.

“Sad memories, you said? We don’t have to do this,” Maglor said, concentrating on that pertinent fact, rather than the warmth of her fingers. 

“Well, we do now,” she said, gesturing at the forest with her free hand. “Clearly, they’re in need of another reminder on how to tend to the forest.”

“Still,” Maglor said. He squeezed the hand he was still holding.

Her eyes softened. “I’ll be fine, Maglor. Really. Besides, you really do need a new cloak.”

Maglor rolled his eyes. “Two centuries this cloak has lasted me, I’ll have you know,” he said.

“And after a long and happy life, it can move onto a better fate. Like being torn into cleaning rags, or bandages.”

It would not be a particularly clever or insightful retort to stick his tongue out at her, Maglor reflected, but it was tempting.

The Men were drawing close now. They were small; the head of the tallest of the two came to Neniel’s chest and no further. Their hair was light brown and blond, and on the shorter Man, it was shot through with silvery-grey. The Man who had poled the craft towards them was tallest and youngest of all, from the lack of wrinkles on his face and the assessing stare on his face, in contrast to the welcoming smile of the elder. Maglor took a step back, but Neniel's hand did not release his.

This is your negotiation, Maglor told her, reaching out in thought to her for the first time in almost a week. He swallowed at the sound of lapping waters. The casual touch of their minds felt like water after days without drinking, or food after days without eating.

…Oh, no.

He hastily raised a shield around that thought, and locked it away.

If you step back, it can be considered as an insult, she replied. If she had noticed the thought, she didn’t mention it.

She spoke again, touching her free hand to her lips, her sternum and then extending the hand out, palm up, gaze on the eldest Man. The entire motion was done gracefully and without pause, as she gestured to Maglor and introduced him. The eldest Man smiled up at her, as he performed the same gesture much more rapidly, and seized Neniel’s free hand, gesturing towards the craft. Neniel smiled, and stepped into the boat, letting go of Maglor's hand. Maglor gripped the straps of his pack carefully as he stepped onto the boat and found his balance. It had been a long time, and if there was anything further removed from the ships of Alqualondë, he couldn’t name it.

The Men leapt back into the boat, very at ease; the young man walked to one of the large paddles at the rear, and Neniel made to walk to the other, only to be shooed into a seat by the Man. Maglor carefully hid his smile behind his hand, at the outraged expression on the Man’s face, and the carefully-hidden exasperation that he could sense from her.

I take it that guests don’t paddle?

The young Man, once the elder’s back was turned, rolled his eyes before beginning to stroke through the water. The eldest sat across from them, beaming widely at them both, his voice warm. Maglor thought that he might have caught something that sounded like Taliska for ‘happy’ and ‘well done.’

Neniel’s eyes widened and she shook her head, withdrawing her hand from his, making a gesture of a flat line from right to left, something almost dismissive in it, her spirit blazing with a sudden spike of…not distress, precisely. But she seemed somewhat startled. Her response drew a skeptical look from the elder.

Is everything alright? Maglor asked her.

He is busy congratulating me on a happy marriage.

Ah.

“I’m honoured. But I’m also far too old for you,” Maglor said, making sure to keep his voice light and careless. It was better than the other objections which could have been raised. It might even be true, if they ever bothered to sit down and do the torturous calculations that would be required.

Neniel translated, and the Man threw back his head laughing, poking at his own face and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

“He says that you look a quarter of his age, if even that,” Neniel said.

She smiled at the Man, and slipped back into the other language. Maglor settled in to watch.

The reed craft drew up to the left bank of the delta. On the bank was another stilt-house, somewhat larger than the others. The stairs creaked as the Men climbed up them, and Maglor eyed them warily. Neniel raised an eyebrow at him, her lips twitching, before she turned to go up the stairs.

The door opened, and the room beyond it was large and low, forcing both of the Elves to stoop somewhat. A finely engraved table was set low to the ground over an intricately braided rush mat; without hesitating, Neniel walked to the far side of the table, and knelt at it. Maglor followed her, unloading the packs of furs from his back as he knelt at her left. At the opposite end of the room, just before a second door, was a pile of furs over a sleeping mat, more akin to a bedroll than anything Maglor associated with a bed.

There was a cluttering from beyond the door, and the eldest Man drew the door open. A woman stepped through; there were dark circles under her eyes, but her smile was wide and joyful. She was short; Maglor guessed that she would come to about Neniel’s ribs, if Neniel were standing. She bore a pitcher in her left hand, and was balancing a ceramic tray on her right hand, with cups and a bowl of fried fish on it. She set it down on the table, and performed the gesture of fingers to lips, and heart, and then palm extending out; Neniel reciprocated with a smile, not rising, and the woman looked at him expectantly.

Do I- he reached out to her mind.

-Yes–

Maglor bowed his head, and performed the gesture as well. The woman laughed, reaching out and patting his cheek gently, saying something to Neniel in a very teasing tone, before giving Maglor a knowing wink.

She thinks we’re married too, I take it, Maglor said.

She’s certain of it, Neniel replied. He could sense the rush of embarrassment that gave her brown cheeks a reddish tint. Maglor bit back a smile at the sight, as Neniel shook her head, gold braid swinging with the motion, and said something that sounded distinctly like a denial.

The eldest Man, sitting across from them back, chimed in at this point, and the woman walked around the table to kneel at his left, and the younger man – Maglor thought he spotted a family resemblance looking closer, the same cheekbones and snub nose – sat at his right. Husband and wife and son, then? The young man cleared his throat, clearly embarrassed, even as his glances darted between Maglor and Neniel.

He asked something, and Maglor heard something that sounded like Taliska for ‘bring.’ Neniel’s smile was warm and cheerful, much more so than he would have expected her to sound if she was talking about an over-harvested forest or pelts. Her words drew fierce head-shakes from the Men, and some polite, firm words from the Man’s wife; Neniel hesitated, and then nodded gravely.

The silence hung in the air awkwardly for a moment, and then Maglor heard a small, rapid patter-patter from beyond the open door; Neniel looked to the door and broke into a grin. Looking back at them, sucking on his thumb, was a small blond-haired child, with a weary-looking red-haired woman who appeared behind him and scooped him up onto her hip, crying out an apology. Maglor swallowed. Husband, wife, son, law-daughter and grandson, then.

Neniel laughed, and shook her head, and opened her arms in welcome, which drew indulgent smiles from the eldest Man and his wife. The child scrambled out of his mother’s arms, but did not run towards them; instead, he toddled forward hesitantly. Neniel opened her arms, nodding encouragingly at the boy, until he stood a few feet from her. She pulled him into her arms and lifted him, up and down, cooing at him in the Mannish tongue, and Maglor smiled again at the sight. She looked utterly at ease, as she hadn't since he'd spilled his guts.

Maglor caught ‘stay’, ‘if’ and ‘time’ from her, and that was about it, but it made the smiles on the elder couple’s face broaden to the point where they were as wide as the mouth of the Baranduin. Neniel spoke again, in a slightly more hesitant tone, and that won an effusive, almost dismissively so, response from the man, prompting her to speak again. Maglor caught ‘wood’ and ‘speak’ and it was only years of similar meetings that kept his smile in place, through the sudden realisation of you cold-blooded snake, you planned it so that they’d give us almost anything!

The young Man said something which made Neniel go very still, before she nodded, and set the child on her thighs, pulling the little boy into a hug. He wriggled in the hold, and she laughed softly, loosening her grip and smiling as he set a course for his mother again.

“Maglor,” she said.

“Yes?” Maglor asked.

“How good are you at healing songs?” she asked in Sindarin.

Maglor shrugged. “I think you’d be the more powerful of us two, but I have some skill at it. Why?”

“A little girl with a fever, for the past six days. Their healer isn’t holding out much hope,” Neniel said with a sigh. “You stay here, I’ll go.”

Maglor shook his head. “I’ll come with you,” he said. “Lead the way.”

Neniel slipped into the other tongue, nodding gravely at the young Man and his wife, and on his face, hope slowly flowered.

---

 The healers lived in their own encampment, with the serious cases of illnesses, on a large islet in the centre of the fenland. Herbs burned around the reed huts, rosemary, thyme, and fresh mint. Neniel and Maglor and the young Man walked to the central hut, where Maglor could hear a peculiar rattling sound.

Neniel cried out: “Hail, healer!” At least, Maglor was fairly sure that’s what she’d said.

The curtain of the hut was pulled back, and a stern-faced healer strode forward. He was short too, barely coming up to the top of Neniel’s ribs, but that did not deter him from glaring up at her with a frown like a thunderstorm, and beginning what Maglor could only assume was a dressing-down. Neniel’s lips pursed, and the young Man stepped in between them, speaking in soothing, mollifying tones; Neniel bowed her head as the healer’s gaze swung to her.

Maglor stifled the urge to sigh. Really. He was sure that Elrond would never be this territorial about his infirmary.

The healer gave a short nod and stepped aside, and Neniel ducked into the hut, Maglor following soon after her. It was dimly lit by oil lamps that smelt strange and fishy, but curtained entrances on the east and west drawn back created a cross-draft that kept the room from becoming smoky.

Maglor nearly stopped in his tracks at the sight of the child. She was tossing and turning on the low bed, her teeth making a peculiar chattering noise that he had never heard before, and her red hair was plastered against her temples with sweat. She was incredibly tiny; standing, she would have come halfway up his thigh, at the most, he thought.

Neniel set her hand on the girl’s forehead, took a deep breath, and began to sing. Maglor’s vision shimmered, with pools of water-lilies emerging before his eyes, and the scent of lightning that always hung around Neniel thickened in the air as she sang. She sang on, and he heard the trickling of the river outside flow louder and stronger; her spirit pulsed with power, and Maglor heard the chattering noise stop.

He opened his eyes, and as Neniel sang on, the girl was stirring, her eyes opening, until they were clear and lucid. Neniel drew the song to its conclusion, weaving comfort and reassurance and strength into the song, reaching out and squeezing the girl’s hands with a warm smile, before asking her something.

How she felt, presumably. The girl thought about it for a moment, and then said something that made Neniel burst into peals of laughter and the young Man into tears. Given similar episodes with Elros and Elrond in the past – although neither Elros nor Elrond had ever gotten this sick – Maglor would guess that she had said something  like ‘I’m hungry.’

Maglor shook his head, unable to suppress a snort of laughter. Children.

Neniel’s head turned towards him, something almost concerned in her face. But that was quickly overtaken by laughter and joy as she glanced at the girl again, and met his eyes, so Maglor smiled back.

 

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Chapter End Notes

Gi hannon: thank you, Sindarin.
Glassen: ‘my pleasure’.

In which we get to meet the Men of the Minhiriath! If these guys get much love in fanfiction, I have yet to see it, so I’m glad we get to meet them now. I’m imagining that they came as far as the Minhiriath, but they decided after the journey from Hildoren after the Misty Mountains that “you know what? This forest is actually pretty cool. Y’all can go on ahead, we’re going to chill here. Oh, hey, look! Elves!” 

The fenlands in question are the Swanfleet; all I can find about them on Encyclopaedia of Arda is that they look like the Gladden Fields, and “the Swanfleet was effectively an inland delta, with uncertain streams and a very uncertain difference between land and water.” Hurrah for ambiguity!

The house design is based on Queenslander-style stilt-houses. I'll admit, since my slowly developing headcanon is that Hobbits are descended from Minhiriath Men, I was tempted to have them tunnelling, but I just couldn't figure out how that'd work on a floodplain. 

I’ll also admit that I was not expecting to do so much research on lamps and possible fuel sources, and nearly drove myself crazy figuring out what they’d be using instead of olive oil – until ‘fish’ sprang up as a possible source, and I was like, oh my god, I’m an idiot. 

As for Neniel having to pull the “we are not together” card – I regret nothing.
 
An explanation for the negotiation thing: okay, here’s how I see this going down. The Men ask Neniel how long they’re going to stay, because hospitality when the Elves come is super important – it’s not the people last seen in your grandfather’s lifetime rocks up on your boat, after all! Neniel says that they won’t stay long and they’re just passing through, they won’t take up much time, really. This meets with a round of fierce protests, and insistences that they absolutely must stay and at least eat and sleep there tonight; enter the toddler, stage right, and Neniel laughingly conceding that they certainly will, so long as she and Maglor are allowed to play with the children. The Men are not surprised, seeing as the eldest ones present remember the last visit, and all the legends are firmly agreed on Elves adoring children. She relies on them being so effusive at having Elf guests that the leader and his wife will grant just about anything – of course you can talk to us about the forests! Why not?
 
Like Maglor said. Neniel is a little snake sometimes xD. But hey, you don’t spend thousands of star cycles as the eldest daughter of a chief without learning something about tactics. Neniel’s just really good at hiding it.

Also, Maglor, honey? You’re a mess.