Perchance to Dream by Grundy

Chapter 1

She didn’t mean to be a problem.

At least she lives up to her family in this if nothing else– for they say Lord Namo is thoroughly exasperated with pretty much every descendant of Finwë in his halls. (And possibly a few outside of them as well.)

But Finduilas was in no way ready to face the world.

It didn’t matter how many people tried to tell her she had done nothing wrong. They have. Both her parents are here, after all, and three of her four grandparents. They all assured her it wasn’t her fault. She nodded whenever they did, and quietly declined to believe them.

Because it was, really.

If her great-uncle could contend with Sauron in a battle of song and wrestle a werewolf with his bare hands, if her grandfather could battle until being utterly overwhelmed by flames, if her great-aunt could somehow still be standing despite the Doom, Morgoth, Sauron, and everything…

If they could do that much, she should have been able to do something, anything, better. Something that would have made things turn out differently. It’s not dying that bothers her so much as the thought that she’d been instrumental in the destruction of her people. Her father wouldn’t have trusted Agarwaen so if she hadn’t. Wouldn’t have built that bridge. Wouldn’t have died in a battle he was never going to win.

If only she’d been able to overlook how damaged poor Gwindor had been. Or not been so taken by Agarwaen. (Her grandmother seems to think Morgoth might have had a hand in that. But that’s little consolation.) Had the bloody mental fortitude to break through the shadows cast over his mind. Actually died fighting like a princess of the Sindar and the Noldor should have, instead of being captured.

At least she had died, not been taken alive to Angband as her captors had promised she would be. It’s a bit odd, to be grateful that she’d been speared to a tree. But given what else the orcs had used their ‘spears’ for, and how the only reason she’d been spared that was that the lord of Angband had apparently had something special in mind for her, she was grateful. (She was still more grateful when her grandmother had explained just a few of the things Belegurth might have planned for her. Her grandmother spoke from experience.)

And while Namo may regard it as a problem, the anesthetic calmness of the Halls is another thing Finduilas was grateful for. Maybe the day will come when she’s finally ready to walk among the living again. But it won’t be any time soon.