In Need of a Cold Shower by heget

Chapter 1

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Dear Elros, 

I hear that Bortë is pregnant once more. Congratulations on fatherhood for the third time. I share in your joy. Ask your wife if she wishes my presence with the other healers and I shall be on the first boat to Andúndië when I return. 

I may have made a mistake in volunteering myself for this mission. The hardships of the journey are as I expected them to be. Your warnings were unnecessary. Glad am I that we did not make this trek during the winter months, for the cold is terrible but not as bad as you feared. You are pampered in that palace, Brother, for all you complain about constant construction. But my confession of contrition pertains to my two companions. They drive me mad, Elros. Seregeithon and Helcerían have gotten worse, and I thought that feat impossible. Send an Eagle to rescue me from them.

 

---

 

Seregeithon did not relinquish his spear when the First Age ended and a new one began, nor did he sail away and leave behind Middle-earth as so many of his acquaintances chose to. Weary of war, of slaughter, of the anger that made him short-tempered and unfit for anything else but the spear, still he could not abandon it as he had his bloodstained armor. He had been a shepherd as a child, before the orcs came, before the moon rose in the sky, but the vast northern fields of Beleriand were beneath the waves and his family long dead. His hand knew how to curve around the shaft of a spear and not a tool of peacetime. Reaching out to the shepherd’s crook or farmer’s scythe, his limbs jittered. War had not left his dreams nor his bones, and until it did he could not sail to the Far Shore. But he shook at the thought of placing himself once more under a general’s command. Seregeithon, northern child, had tolerated the cold better than most, so he worked for decades with the men of Hador as a scout upon the permafrost and spoke their tongue as fluently as his native Sindarin. This skill was desired by Seregeithon’s newest liege-lord above his deftness with pole-arms; a pity however that Seregeithon’s temperament was ill-suited for diplomacy. Even mortals balked at his brand of curtness. But the bluntness was an advantage at the docks. Lindon traded most with the newly established island kingdom of men, after all, so knowledge of their tongue was a government necessity. The posting to assist the harbormaster was a temporary one, until Lord Círdan found a better fit, which suited everyone. Seregeithon was restless but knew not where to wander to. He liked his new king, young Gil-galad. A good mix of optimism and pragmatism, and for all his blue banners and physical appearance recalled that of High King Fingolfin, who Seregeithon admired, Gil-galad was Lord Círdan’s son, if not by blood but in all other ways, and thus the young king had Seregeithon’s trust and fealty. Pity that the spear-man was ambivalent about the sea. The fishy scent was almost as bad as dragon’s blood.

Seregeithon huffed and approached the newest petitioner that the customs official had demanded that he must personally deal with - and froze in his steps because the woman standing beside the shipyard’s warehouse was no mortal. Elven she was, tall and thin with long white hair falling loose beyond her waist like a waterfall of snow, arms crooked at her sides waiting to scold her next unfortunate victim. A complete stranger, and yet Seregeithon recognized that hooded eyes and flat mouth for a stubborn temper equal to his own. A woman impossible to win arguments against, that stance proclaimed. The giant swan hissing at her feet, neck reaching well above her elbows, jet black eyes glaring with almost wrym-like malice at everyone who was not its companion, had also scared away everyone else. No honks, just the continuous hiss like a boiling kettle. Swans were territorial terrors even at a normal size, and Seregeithon had no desire to approach this monster without his spear and arrayed in all his armor. The woman made eye-contact with him. Seregeithon sighed, committed. Pale and moon-like those eyes, they would be pretty on another woman - he held that thought for a fleeting moment before releasing it, fearing the danger of facing that personality and that swan distracted.Those were the eyes of a woman who could win a knife fight with a cutting word. Her dress was odd- the outline and fabric were old-fashioned Sindarin, like something that Queen Melian’s handmaidens would wear, the fabric shimmery grays and deep blues of unadorned silk, but the cut and how the woman wore the garments made it obvious that she was not a native of Beleriand. Her few pieces of jewelry were white coral where a woman of Lindon and the Havens would wear pearls. A daring Sindarin lady would uncover her arms or wear her short jacket cut low without a lace kerchief or cuff to expose the top of her bosoms - not so abbreviated as to expose the hint of the underside curve of her breasts. Peculiar fashion choice, that. Intriguing. Also that giant swan. Seregeithon hastily moved his eyes back to her face. A Falmari Teler, he deduced, and wondered what could possibly bring one of Olwë’s people, alone but for that giant swan, to Lindon’s dock.

The woman bowed. It was perfunctory; Seregeithon countered with his smoothest courtly bow. The swan quieted and tucked its head behind a wing, satisfied. “Thank the Belain,” Seregeithon muttered under his breath. Give him death by orc instead of attack by irate waterfowl; it would be less painful.

“I greet you and ask that the stars shine brightly upon your path,” the woman said, and her accent was almost perfect and voice low and pleasant. A voice meant to be listened to without ever tiring of the sound, he thought in that quick, warm, and reassuring way as one does when petting a stray cat that has approached. “My name is Helcerían. I was informed that you, Ser Seregeithon, have experience with the far north and how to hunt upon the ice, and more importantly that you do not fear it. Ever since the Noldor departed across the Helecaraxë from Amaran, the northernmost sea has been disturbed. It recovered, but now something has once more disturbed the whales and seals and the rich fisheries- cod and capelin, crab and squid. The whales sang to me, warning of some foul presence recently arrived, and entreated me to find aid. Whatever it is, it lurks to the north on this shore, and will be a danger to your people as well. Help me scout for it, so that we may save everyone.”

Well, not how he thought that his morning would develop. “I accept, Milady,” Seregeithon said, wondering what official notice one would write to one’s superiors to explain such a leave of duty. The words exited his mouth without thinking that his refusal was a possibility to be entertained, and that unquestioning certainty needed to be included in his letter. “First, though, if we are to travel to the Icebay of Forochel and beyond, we’ll need to outfit you with some warmer furs.”

The swan honked and buffeted its wings.

The woman glared as if his statement was ludicrous, but he was not the one with the lower half of their top garment missing. “Yes, I was told I would need your expertise and experience with travel to the northernmost reaches of this land. I am no naif to such journeys, but I do not know the merchants here. Thus I was told to commandeer you.”

Seregeithon had stern words lined up for whomever this strange woman had spoken to. Commandeer, as if he was a horse that a stray soldier needed to return to the battlefield? However, he did just volunteer himself for her quest upon being given the barest of details. He supposed that he was that desperate for a change of routine.

The swan was eyeing him in a most unsettling manner. Maybe he should remove the armor from storage, the sabatons and other leg coverings. The cuirass and helmet needed not come out. Maybe.

“Come, show me who I must next speak to so I may continue my quest,” the woman snapped. 

Seregeithon dropped his jaw.

“Take me quickly to your superior officer or whichever court official is in charge. With the gravity of my task and the peril that the disruption of the far north shall trickle down to these waters- you do know that the bounty of the sea depends on the northernmost waters, yes?- we shall need to speak with Lord Cirdan eventually, though I would rather avoid the royal court if I can. Now which direction? We will be fortunate to have permission settled before the end of the day if we stop wasting time. Standing there letting the net slip out. They assured me that you were a hearty warrior and man of action.” The strange woman marched in the direction that he, bemused and helplessly, had pointed. The swan followed her, and Seregeithon, cautiously, followed it. His bafflement shielded what would have been the deep wound to his pride. Only a sheltered young woman could be so self-righteous. A princess, if not for the lack of title when she introduced herself and that she wore no jewels, only the string of white coral beads and a few silver brooches. At the first turn he quickened his stride to be abreast with her and lead them towards the street that they needed. The swan did not shove itself between them, which surprised him.

The Falmari woman swayed her hips when she walked, though not as deeply as the sailors that Seregeithon worked with, just enough to swish her skirts around her long boot-clad legs. The horse archers had a walk distinct to them, much as sailors did. Seregeithon’s Nandorin friends walked peculiarly to themselves, too, high on the balls of their feet. Best to memorize her walk now, so that he could recognize the woman at a distance or in a crowd. Just a precaution in case they separated, Seregeithon lied to himself. Her gait was particularly jaunty, and it made certain parts of her bounce. Silently fascinated, Seregeithon watched areas around her exposed midriff bob but never to the point of exposing their points, though the front ties were gathered so and the article of clothing so abbreviated that the bottom hem crossed right below the areolae. Hypnotic, that bouncing. Seregeithon fantasized about placing a hand, cupped ever so gently, to feel her breast flutter against his fingers. Alas that the wind was not strong today, that it might wreak havoc against those precariously positioned and pinned garments.

“What was your name again, Milady?”

“Helcerían.” Her voice sharpened further, a tone shift that Seregeithon thought impossible. “Your care for my words was that slight?”

“Inquiring if you had a Sindarin version, as so many Noldor do,” he soothed.

“I am not Noldor,” Helcerían snapped, her cheeks colored with anger.

“But this is not your native tongue. I meant not to imply such a mistake. Only that it is common to adjust a name to fit the mode of tongue. Lord Celeborn’s wife uses the Sindarin name that he gifted her, Lady Galadriel, but is known to switch it to Alatáriel when the situation warrants.”

“Unless Helcerían is too cumbersome and inelegant to rest upon your lips, I prefer you keep it,” the woman said, removing the razors from her voice and making it once more a soothing delight to listen to. Just like the cats that prowled the wharfs, eager to crawl into a lap and rub their soft heads against a friendly hand where once before, unintentionally startled, they had hissed and swatted at. Seregeithon had patience for few men, but he liked cats.

“How do you find it so far, your exposure to the land that is not fair Valinor? You were born there, yes?” Mortal men were familiar to him, but this woman was the first of his own tribe that had completed the Great March that he had interacted with. The family swallowed by the sea, his kin called them, until the final days of Beleriand showed them what it truly was to be swallowed up by the seas. He thought that she would look more alien, instead of a scatterbrained Falas lass with a strange wardrobe and the most exquisite voluminous hair. Helcerían nodded but offered no further details or opinions. Her pale eyes darted up and down his body instead of watching where she was marching, almost colliding with the dockhands and merchants thronging Lindon’s streets. Seregiethon snorted. “Daring for a Falmari to step foot on Middle-earth; I am surprised that you were allowed off your ship.”

“There was no commandment from our king forbidding it,” Helcerían countered, “And my quest here is with approval; I did not sneak away in the night. Hiswalagawen would not be beside me if this was an act of rebellion,” she said, sweeping a hand to the giant swan waddling in her shadow. “I booked passage on one of the Grey Ships. Skilled sailor that I am, I still am not so talented as to sail on my lonesome across the breadth of the Great Sea.”

“Was that when you learned to speak Sindarin, or soon before?” Seregeithon asked, genuinely curious because her accent was so subtle.

“Lady Elwing taught me,” Helcerían said.

“Elwing herself?!”

The Falmari woman nodded. “Before she moved to her tower. During her stay in Alqualondë before Eärendil’s petition, and during the War of Wrath. I was one of the many companions assigned to keep her company and help her adjust. Queen Hwindië’s ladies mostly, but I was also one, as I was not allowed to go back to Amaran to continue my work of monitoring the northern ice and liaising with the Maiar of Ulmo that watch over the pods and schools.”

“Monitoring fish?”

Helcerían almost smiled. “Watching for icebergs. And tracking the whales. Any good fishing fleet sends scouts to know when the seasons change and the schools migrate. My family fished herring and cod, so it was important for us to track the capelin, and I learned the whale songs as a little girl. You do not have them on this side of the ocean, but north of Amaran are horned whales with long beautiful lances; they were my favorite.”

Despite his recent years working for the harbormaster of Lindon, Seregeithon was no sailor, nor even much of a longshoreman with more than a passing familiarity with either ships or the creatures of the sea. He could not name the different species of fish or whale, but he doubted that a Falmari native could tell a deer and sheep apart. Still, this was the opportunity to delicately ask, since she had mentioned both her family and Alqualondë. If he hesitated any longer, they would reach the customs office.

“Did you lose anyone that night?” Seregeithon asked.

“All Falmari lost someone that night,” Helcerían said. “Everyone had at least one family member slain, when our hearts were stolen from us. I watched Prince Fingon stab my mother clean through her chest, held her as she bled out in my arms, as he murdered next my father. My aunts, all my cousins.”

“Orcs razed my village,” Seregeithon offered in return. “Wasn’t much of a village, just a camp for that pasture season. Found my younger brother, half of him, and my parents stretched out almost as if they could be sleeping, if not... Well, after that, there was nothing for me, but to mature to a man, learn war, get my revenge. Now,” Seregeithon sighed, thinking of Orothaiben, “to find something to replace it.”

Helcerían paused, the half-lidded pale eyes now wide with a new thought. “Ah, that is why they sent me to you,” she murmured. “I ...understand. Afterwards, after the funerals, the many funerals, when I returned to the north, to the ice-walled bays above Amaran, I would find the frozen bodies. So many that they became unremarkable. Pity cools the hatred, eventually. I understand you, Seregeithon.” She smiled, but it was cold and gentle, the smile that the old mortal refugees made.

“You have a soft heart, Milady,” Seregeithon said. “I am glad that you knew not Beleriand and its centuries of war.”

The woman leaned up to his face, and Seregeithon was struck by both her boldness and the white of her hair. Would every conversation with her be a walk along avalanche-prone slope, he wondered as he fought the impulse to back away and regain personal space. At this distance he could see the faint dusting of freckles on her skin. Helcerían studied his eyes; Seregeithon needed several moments of uncomfortable confrontational eye contact to parse that her direct stare was not to challenge him but to observe. “Aye,” he scoffed, “they have no Tree Light. Centuries it has been since the difference has been worthy of notice or confusion.” His impression of this Falmari woman as a rube solidified.

Her lips parted slightly, eyes unfocusing as she too took the necessary pause to process and decipher his words and realize that a mistake in motivation had occurred. “You are not the first without the Light in their eyes, the first Úmanyar, that I have met, nor do I find it strange anymore. You are as surly and rude as one who goes back would be, so that I am not surprised.”

Offended, Seregeithon broke her stare. “Rudeness, Milady? Naming me unresolved? The dockmaster sent me to deal with you because your rude attitude would frighten away any but I.”

“I do not mistake you for Moripedi. I asked for the man with the most fitting of skills for the journey I must undertake, and the master of the docks gave me your name and a short account of your history. Did you not fight during the War of Wrath with fellow Nandor, one of the few natives of this shore to never drop the spear?”

“Orothaiben,” Seregeithon answered, thinking of his last commander, a man warped close to madness and bloodlust by the unending losses of the First Age. “Aye, I fought with his band of hunters before the new age started. He and his fellows count me still as a dear companion, and we will reunite at the tavern when their travels take them to the Havens. But my parents were never followers of Dan; Thingol was ever our king. Our direct allegiance was to Lord Eredhon and then to his granddaughter, Lady Meril of Mithrim, who married the Noldor prince when they built their kingdom in my homeland. High King Gil-galad is her son.”

Seregeithon’s explanation of the course of his fealties bothered the Falmari woman; her expression made this clear. He assumed the oblique reference to the prince that murdered her entire family was the cause, but something in how the muscles around her ice-pale eyes twitched spoke of another reason. The Tree-light in those eyes was hypnotically beautiful, but between it and her white lashes, there was very little color to her face except for the spot of pink anger on her cheeks.

Helcerían grunted in frustration and fumbled for a start for her sentence, starting with a denial and working her way through vowels until she blurted out, “My fingers are free!” She glared at Seregeithon, eyes locking into his, and when he did not immediately reply, she tossed up her hands in disgust and stomped off towards the door of the government building. From how she spoke, Seregeithon could tell that the sentence was a well-worn saying, but something lost in the translation or the cultural gap of the ocean obscured her meaning to him. The frustration translated clearly, however.

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Chapter End Notes

Welcome to a Romantic Comedy and a Second Age fic staring OCs with a major canon character as supporting cast that isn't (directly) tied to "Beren's Band of the Red Hand". However it does contain all my various headcanons like who the first queen of Númenor was, what happened to Elrond and Elros, and Gil-galad's paternal and maternal family. Right now the rating is Teen, though I can make no guarantees that it stays there - but for once it's not violence and gore pushing the envelope.

Moripendi is the Telerin Quenya spelling of the term. The same with Alatáriel, for though I reject that later "History of Galadriel of Celeborn", it still makes sense for her to have a Quenya version while dealing with the envoys from either the Army of the Valar or the Falmari fleet.

Once more I'm adherring to LaCE, more or less.

Chapter 2

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The Falmari woman sat in Lord Círdan’s secretary’s office -the room for visitors and show, not the real working chamber piled with books and scrolls and calcified bread rolls that Seregeithon knew was the office where the majority of written tasks occurred, a den into which he vowed that he will not dare venture again. The secretary shared the hoarding and organizational sensibilities of a troll. No surprise then that informing the lords of this mission was taking more than one meeting to process. Somewhere in-between these meetings Helcerían acquired a new piece of clothing to add to her ensemble- one of the Númenorean female vests, a sleeveless jacket that covered her midriff finally, if nothing else. Helcerían lacked the endowments of a mortal woman to fill out the loose shirt that would pair with the vest, if she wore one, but her skimpy silk jacket covered almost all the remaining skin. Still, Seregeithon calculated angles- if she were but to raise her arms then-

The secretary coughed. Helcerían shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Seregeithon would have warned her that the carpenter purposefully made the legs uneven, sloping the sitter down and keeping them off balance. He knew better and chose to lean against the wall.

Stationary, he could finally get a detailed look at the large silver brooch that gathered her skirt up and to the side. What he first thought was just a simple penannular brooch and large pin was a stylized horned whale. The long pin was the size- and sharpness, Seregeithon suspected- of a good dagger. A smaller whale brooch decorated the gray ribbon at her neck.

He wondered if she had ever stabbed someone with the sharp end of that whale brooch. She seemed the personality to possess the resolve to, but Seregeithon could not decide which option appealed more to him, that this woman have bloodless hands or carry the same stains that drenched his own. 

A foolish question.

Seregeithon thought of her during the night of the First Kinslaying, her mother bleeding out in her lap, young arms and hands drenched in red blood, crying as she knelt on the docks of her home, frightened and lost in the chaotic darkness. A helpless maiden, and in the sympathetic rage and desire to protect this phantasm, he clenched his jaw and fist, feeling the tension braid like steel cables around his spine. His slouch against the office wall transformed, against his conscious will, to the taunt attention of a soldier awaiting a counter-ambush. His empty fingers felt the absence of his spear. His memories were back in Ossiriand, hunting with Orothaiben, hearing for the first time what had happened to Lady Elwing’s people at the Mouth of the Sirion.

“I think that there might be something wrong with this chair,” Helcerían said, wrenching Seregeithon out of his tension.

“It’s supposed to be,” the secretary snapped, opening a small jar of colored ink and dipping the pen. With a flourish the last document was signed. “Lord Círdan will be informed of this task and all shipping from the direction of Forochel will be alerted to watch for anomalies.” 

“Thank you,” Helcerian replied. The prim little smirk on her lips was mesmerizing. Delicious in victory. Her eyes narrowed to allow only a sliver of her eyes to gaze through her lashes, like a crescent moon on a cloudy night gracing the world with just enough light to neither block out the stars nor forfeit the land to darkness. 

Queenly, that smug little smirk, and kingly a man that could bestow it.

Desire for her and for acts that would induce from her such a self-satisfied, sated smile seeped into his thoughts, coloring them with lust. Seregeithon had not realized that this was the emotion, not just idle curiosity, that drove him to study Helcerian, contemplating what she might look like fully-unclothed and if her laugh was high-pitched and quick or deep and broad. 

To go straight from childhood to a soldier in training, giving no thought to friendship or even the learning of companions’ names, to have no joys beyond that of slaying monsters - that Seregeithon was restlessly adrift in peace could surprise none, and that he had never contemplated courtship, be it serious or frivolous, was equally self-evident. When the loremasters wrote that the elves who married or suddenly found another in which desire blossomed long after their first century were rare and under some unique fate, cases like that of Seregeithon’s arrested development were among what they described. Nor had Seregeithon listened with interest to his mortal acquaintances and companions extolling deeds of lust. Never had he considered the potential applicability.

That night Seregeithon had to practice the art of masturbation, a skill he was not previously handy with.

The door opened. A new person entered, and surprise scrabbled Seregeithon’s reactional awareness so that he only recognized the person after they finished their first sentence.

“I’m joining this quest. The King knows and approves, and he does not need his herald for a few weeks. Thank you for holding them here while the skiff ferried me across the bay. This adventure sounds exciting, and the matter grave.” The speaker bowed to Helcerían still seated in the secretary’s pernicious chair and then to Seregeithon. 

Seregeithon groaned.

The new arrival was a young man with black hair tied back in a ponytail, face bright with excitement. Seregeithon mistrusted that excitement and especially doubted its endurance. The former spearman knew this arrival, though their paths had rarely crossed in recent decades. Seregeithon had first met him as a young child, and the grown man was no stranger, but still not someone that Seregeithon would have picked to join a long excursion. The third member of their party -and with the King’s approval nothing could be done to curtail this addition- wore clothing that was suited for a romp outside the city, but not for a long trip deep into the frozen north. Deceptively expensive clothing: the long loose white shirt with large panels of bright embroidery on the neck, shoulders, and neck paired with a small vest and loose pants was no different than the clothing of the Edain settlers in Númenor but of a quality few possessed. Seregeithon’s familiarity with the various Edain groups booking passage to the new island and the sailors ferrying goods to and from the new port city of Rómenna allowed him to pinpoint exactly what style and economic cost the garments were and which elements - the boots, belt, and lack of hat, plus the shortness of the vest - were not Númenorean. In fairness, although the young man was the twin brother of Númenor’s king, he was not mortal nor a subject of that land.

“Greetings, Elrond,” Seregeithon said, making no attempt to mask the displeasure in his tone of voice.

Elrond Eärendilion, the half-elven herald of High King Gil-galad, barred his white teeth in an expression that was supposed to be jovial and inviting - but one which Seregeithon read as a threat. 

“Master Seregeithon, it is good to see you! And off to a mighty task worthy of your skills. I feared you would be too restless at the docks with nothing to do but argue with the sailors,” Elrond said, laughing.

“I do not argue with sailors, Boy,” Seregeithon defended. Now Helcerían was laughing.

Círdan’s secretary tutted and instructed Elrond to handle payments for expedition supply purchases to be billed to the king and to send frequent reports back. “And how will we do that? It’s the northern wilderness,” Seregeithon interjected.

“Hiswalagawen will handle that,” Helcerían said. “She is strong enough for letters.”

The swan was larger than an adult ram and could probably carry off a full-grown sheep if it had the proper feet for it, Seregiethon thought. It did strike him as a trivial use of a swan of Ossë as a messenger pigeon.

“I believe I heard a dismissal in those words,” Elrond said brightly, then bowed with sincerity to the secretary and flashed another cheeky smile to Seregeithon. As he practically skipped out the door, the older elf muttered under his breath that the boy had mistaken which of them had grown restless in Lindon.

“Lady Elwing’s son?” Helcerían asked.

Seregeithon nodded. “He’s the younger twin. Less headstrong than his brother, but less cautious. Kind hearts, the both of them, and sensible companions most of the time. Wise for his years. I would not trust him with money, but evidently I am not in command of this adventure.”

“No, I am,” Helcerían countered with that smug little twist of her lips that flooded Seregeithon with uncomfortable heat. “How are you familiar with Lady Elwing’s sons?”

This history he was glad to share with her. “You were not told when you gathered your gossip on my deeds, Milady? The Nandorin whom I joined after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Orothaiben, hunted orcs in Ossiriand when most of our kin retreated to the Isle of Balar, the mouth of the Sirion, or out of Beleriand - and having lost his surviving kin and lord when Menegroth fell and King Dior and Queen Nimloth were slain, he had no kindness for the Kinslayers. We were trailing their camp after the Third Kin-slaying. Did not have the numbers to counter-attack even after their forces were greatly reduced and the youngest lord killed. Desertions and the like, they could no longer hold Amon Ereb. But outlaws and the most ardent of their soldiers stayed with them. The worst and most hardened of Beleriand, aside from Orothaiben himself. The Green Elves disliked having the remaining sons of Fëanor and their followers in their forests just as much as they had not appreciated the incursion of mortal men when they first entered Beleriand. Was, hmm, more than half a year after the destruction of the refugee settlement at the rivermouth, almost a year, I think, we found the boys in the forest. Elros and Elrond had run away from the Kinslayers.” Seregeithon closed his eyes. “Orothaiben and his men mistook them for the two princes- the other two. Lady Elwing’s older brothers, the lost princes. The two were like an illusion brought to life by song. Well, we rescued them and brought the boys to their closest surviving kin on this side of the shore, the mortals and elves living on the Isle of Balar, the few that had escaped the Third Kinslaying. Everyone was overjoyed to learn of their survival and to be reunited. And,” Seregeithon shrugged, “I have been in Lord Círdan’s employ since.”

“A noble deed,” Helcerían said, tilting her head.

Seregeithon grunted, uncomfortable with praise from her.

Elrond stood waiting outside the door, a large russack at his feet and a dark blue coat lined with brown fur in his arms. “I will need to buy provisions and some additional cold-weather clothing. Do you think we shall need snowshoes?”

“Unlikely, unless this maleficence that Lady Helcerían believes to exist is deep into the Grinding Ice.” 

“It is.”

Seregeithon sighed. “Snowshoes then. And ice goggles. I will have to return to my house to pull out the long-stored gear, but first let us purchase clothing and travel supplies. Tents, rope, spare flint. Soft boots for when we reach the snow plains; the hard leather ones will freeze overnight.” Seregeithon had learned the lesson about proper footwear a long time ago, when the man that took in an orphan boy began to train him how to survive. Thinking about boots made him look down at everyone's feet. Helcerían’s gathered skirt, pinned up to allow for a greater stride, showed off the curve of her calves inside her boots and that the tight black leather reached above her knees. A fantasy of her only wearing those tall tight leather boots and the brief cloth bands that the Falathrim wore for swimming in the summer flashed and disappeared in his thoughts, and Seregeithon wanted to chase after that fantasy like a hound after a hare.

“Which merchant?” Elrond asked, pulling open a hefty green purse.

“Thoronchen. The other mercers do not deal in the garments we shall need, and he is honest. Wait ‘til I return to purchase foodstuffs.”

“Fain I shall reckon that I have more experience with merchants than you,” Helcerían said.

The giant swan, having returned to the side of her master, hissed at Seregeithon. Yep. Those teeth inside the beak and along the edge of the tongue still creeped him out. And the nearly black bill struck him as strange, for the swans of his native Mithrim had reddish yellow beaks, giving this Amanyar swan a slightly sinister mood. 

“Lady Helcerían is, by her own admission of her regular occupation, well-accustomed to travelling to the Grinding Ice, and I am not completely ignorant,” Elrond said, waving Seregeithon away. “My brother and I did travel for a time with the Army of the Valar when they marched north, or did you forget my good-sister, Queen Bortë? Hurry back to inspect our choices; we shall wait for you. Now which street to Thorochen?”

The older man accepted defeat and outlined the location of two bakeries, a dwarven imports shop run most of the year by a mortal man with dark skin, and the clothing merchant whose shopfront was across the street from them. As he walked to his house, Seregeithon turned back to see the Falmari woman and Elrond enter the busy crowd of Lindon’s streets. Helcerían’s long white hair and blue skirt swayed as she walked, calling like sweet birdsong.

Seregeithon returned with his full campaigning pack, the deerhide repaired and replaced over the years so that nothing of the original object but one bone button clasp remained. The flintstones were from a nameless corpse from the War of Wrath, the drinking cup a gift from some long dead Hadorin man, a bedroll copied off one he initially bought in Hithlum, spare shirts tightly folded that he forgot that he still owned tucked next to a leather roll of climbing hooks and other tools, a dwarven-made comb, old pollen from Ossiriand clinging to the bottom of the bag lending to the musty odor, and knives of various sizes and shapes, including a bronze one with a cherrywood handle that he would be most loath to lose. He also brought his spear. Only in his imagination was the nearly black steel the bright red of fresh blood. The spear comforted him, thinking of the mystery that so frightened and convinced a Falmari maiden to cross the sea to undercover the possible horrors, but a comfort like strong wine for a blind-drunk man.

Thoronchen was busy helping Elrond find a hat to match the dark blue coat, so Seregeithon dropped his ancient pack on the store counter next to three pairs of soft leather boots with bands of bright embroidery and waited. After ransacking his rooms, he could not find suitable gloves and needed to purchase new pairs, both mittens and fingered leather. He debated going next door to buy a new set of dwarven-made chainmail hauberk, if he could stretch the possible mandate to enrich himself off the king's coffers.

“Lady Helcerían is over there,” Elrond said, “with a proper Forodwaith coat.”

Helcerían cooed over the softness of the fur around the hood of her new coat, pulling it up to frame her face like the petals of a flower. Girlish and sweet, her face became, and Seregeithon would have savored this but for one problem. To wear her hood she must tuck away all that glorious long white hair, and to watch that beautiful hair disappear from view made Seregeithon want to weep. It was like the loss of Ossiriand’s beautiful forest - green leaves and singing birds submerged into the ocean. Helcerían’s hair did not shine like precious metals, but it did sway as she walked like the white cresting wave surf, and it looked so soft and alive. Dancing like branches and waves. So thick, that it would fill his arms as he embraced her, like hugging the bundles of harvested wool. That thought placed a new fantasy in Seregeithon’s mind. Helcerían, naked but for her long glorious hair covering her like a blanket, stretched atop a wool rug- no, better, the soft cloud of unspun fibers stacked high after the shearing season, propping her chin on her hands, smiling, sandwiched between the two white softness that was the fleece and her long unbound hair, the smooth skin and noth-

“Do you need to buy a coat?” Helcerían asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Seregeithon inclined his head. “No, Milady.”

“I do remember asking you during our first conversation to address me by my name,” Helcerían said.

“I will address you as I see fit.”

“You are rude.”

“Nonsense, Milady.”

Elrond turned to look at the pair of elves, his grey eyes wide with surprise. The realization of what he would have to deal with on this adventure had not dawned upon him, but the night of ignorance was nearing its end and the rays of illumination were rising in the east like the Morning Star.

---

Chapter End Notes

A "deleted scene" for the end of Chapter One. Let us pretend that Seregeithon asked his old companions about the saying before he left, making the sensible choice that would shorten our story - though most unfortunately for the weavers in the Halls of Vairë, he will not.

This probably makes more sense if one is familiar with LaCE, but I won't spoil the punchline.

---

 

Seregeithion, recounting the morning’s conversation to Orothaiben and his fellow Nandor friends as they sat around the table of their favorite tavern, copied Helcerían’s hand gestures as he quoted her words. “And then she said, ‘My fingers are free’.”

Orothaiben blinked, mouth opened in shock. “Are you serious?”

Behind them, one of their companions whispered to another, “He…doesn’t know.”

Orothaiben, known in certain circles among fellow veterans of the wars of Beleriand for his bloodthirsty propensity towards violence as much as the pink flowers which he wore in his hair, asked a question that those fellow retired soldiers might think hypocritical or odd. “Seregeithon, truly did you focus on anything but the arts of war? Did you miss out on all other socialization?”

Another retired member of their crew behind Orothaiben muttered, “Nienna is weeping for you.”

Orothaiben with uncharacteristic gentleness, grasping Seregiethon’s hands, enunciated his words slowly and with great emphasis. “The woman was blatantly, I cannot stress this enough, blatantly, declaring her availability and willingness to entertain a courtship, Seregeithon. That’s why she was checking your eyes first.”

Their audience around the tavern table offered commentary: “This moron.”

Other companions made a more detailed assessment. “These poor idiots. She would ask him to show him his prick to see if it pleased her, and he would misconstrue her meaning and brandish his actual spear.”

Seregeithon, surly, pulled his hands out of Orothaiben’s grip. “Lady Helcerían has no interest in my prick.”

A far distance away, Helcerían was addressing her giant avian companion. Wheedling, she begged the swan. “Look, just fly or waddle over when he’s bathing and give me a general size estimate. I know you won’t be able to tell me the erect shape, but give me a place to start with.”

Chapter 3

I credit berthelien for a particular worldbuilding headcanon of which I am delighted to finally include in a story.

Read Chapter 3

The meetings and shopping consumed the greater allotment of sunlit hours, prompting the reasonable conclusion to postpone their departure until the following morning. Guest lodgings on behalf of the royal court were offered for Helcerían. Seregeithon returned to his home and sheepishly tidied his place and polished off the last perishable food in his pantry, straightening the mess of his discarded belongings and finding one of his missing gloves wedged behind fireplace pokers. He rechecked maps of the northern lands, wrote a short letter to be delivered only on the occasion that by some unfortunate fate he did not return from this adventure, then stretched out on his feather-mattress bed to enjoy the soft comfort that he would soon miss when he had only a bedroll on the cold earth. Seregeithon’s distracted mind began to weave fantasies. Helcerian starred in all of them. A few strokes taught him the importance of spit, and the fantasies soon grew improbable and swift, fragments of ideas hampered by ignorance and need. 

His night started as restless, frustrated, and then experimenting until exhaustion and the knowledge of a long journey by foot the next day forced him to sleep.

The last fantasy before sleep, after his limbs were too worn out and heavy to move, was the most pleasant and calming. Oddly prosaic compared to the previous imaginings. In the dream as in actuality Seregeithon was stretched prone on his back on his bed, head propped up by pillows, but Helcerían was on the bed beside him. Unlike multiple variations of this scenario that Seregeithon played for his mind, this time Helcerían was clothed -a modest white nightshift with full sleeves further covered by her loose glorious long white hair- and she was sitting up on her side of his bed eating food. She was biting into one of the Silvan honey cakes, crumbs falling into her lap, and remarking about the hint of rosewater. Seregeithon regularly bought the pastries as they were cheap street food and not overwhelmingly sweet, but in this dream Helcerían delighted over the novelty. She was not turned to face him, he could not see her eyes, only the puff of her cheeks as she chewed, and the crumbs were spilling onto his bedsheets - and yet this fantasy soothed him to sleep. Perhaps it was the happy little coo of Helcerían’s delight, or the elusive domesticity. 

Seregeithon woke the next morning eager for their mission.

He told his neighbor -a short conversation hampered by the fact that Seregeithon did not know their name and it was doubtful that he had ever learned it or shared more than a single conversation or two before now- that he would be away for several weeks. He also apparently scandalized said neighbor by having no potted plants in need of watering and tending in his absence. Seregeithon locked everything and left the key with the dockmaster. 

Their trio planned to meet near the northeastern-most docks, and that was precisely where he found his two companions.

Elrond was showing Helcerían the details on an elaborately embroidered bag that held his scribing tools: the various pens, penknives, wax, and specially enspelled ink that would not freeze. The surface was covered in a flock of different birds done in metallic and brightly dyed threads, and Elrond pointed to each, explaining their significance. “My good-sister Queen Bortë commissioned it, so here is her people’s vulture- a symbol of the Valar to Bór, in particular Vairë, Mandos, and Varda- next to the eagle of Manwë. Then a nightingale for Lúthien and Doriath, swans for Grandfather Tuor and I suppose the Teleri even if we are only kin through Thingol. The black-winged albatross-”

“Lady Elwing,” Helcerían interjected. Elrond smiled, fulfilling his motive for pulling out the item in the first place as Helcerían took the opportunity to further describe for Elrond her time spent in Elwing’s company. 

This recalled to Seregeithon of how Elros and Elrond had pressed him with questions when he helped Orothaiben and the other Nandor escort the twins back to the Isle of Balar. The boys, having learned of his origins, had been heartily disappointed that he had not stayed long with Annael’s men, instead leaving for Ossiriand after the Fifth Battle, and thus had only met Tuor a few times when the mortal hero was a young babe. Helcerían was proving to be a fount of less disappointment. Helcerían relayed the simple day-to-day tasks of listening to musicians while working on weaving or showing Elwing the wings of the palace, be it courtyards for games, libraries and ballrooms, or the workshops for crafting of tinctures or paintings. As another guest of Alqualondë’s palace instead of a regular attendee she had been as lost to the proceedings and activities as Lady Elwing, without the background of ruling a large and diverse population in which to follow the many conversations that Elwing had with the queen and her advisers. Helcerían could discuss swans. She had, the Falmari woman admitted with a contrite sigh, pestered Elwing about her involuntary transformation into a sea bird and her long and arduous flight, until Queen Hwindië pulled Helcerían aside and told her to cease. Not that this was the only act of badgering, for Helcerían faithfully related how Elwing had been restless in Alqualondë despite her joy to be surrounded by long-sundered cousins and to enjoy the most beautiful port city in all of Arda. As delightful as the Swanhaven was, Elwing wished to camp outside the Halls of Mandos for her immediate family to return. Helcerían stressed how Elwing was overcome with both relief and fear when the Valar confirmed that her sons were not within its Halls but still alive back in Beleriand, and how she pressed both King Olwë and King Finarfin to ready their people to rescue the people of Middle-earth, her boys most of all, when she learned this. That she had to be held back from marching up the slopes of Taniquetil to petition High King Ingwë himself, a deed unnecessary for he had already descended to Valmar after Eärendil’s speech. 

Seregeithon had watched High Admiral Ilsë relay nearly identical statements to Elrond and Elros when the Teleri fleet first reached the Isle of Balar, but he knew the repeat confirmation heartened Elrond to hear of his mother’s determination and devotion.

“Continue your talking while we walk,” Seregeithon interrupted, hoisting his pack and the tent bundle onto his shoulders. Elrond squawked and reached for the heavy bag, but Sereigeithon waved him off. “You carry the second one, but leave the tent and provisions to me.”

“I am stronger than you t-”

“No, you’re not,” Seregeithon cut off the boy’s outburst. “The captain is ready for us. Hurry and board so the sooner we may depart and sooner disembark.” He pointed to a man waving at them from the deck of a large skiff. Thoronchen’s brother had agreed to ferry them out of the Gulf of Lune and up the coast of Forlindon to one of the inlets. Both the north and south regions of Lindon were incompletely charted, the layout and depths of new coastlines patchy in knowledge, and still a hundred years into the Second Age the land was not yet stable. Rather than hire a ship to sail out the Gulf of Lune and up the rocky coast of Forlindon all the way to the Icebay of Forochel, the skiff would drop them off west of Forlond where the three would then trek overland along the coast until they reached the great tundra and then beyond. Their journey ended when they discovered whatever evil on the ice shelf was plaguing Helcerían’s whales and fish. The alternative route of following the River Lhûn up to the foothills of Emyn Uial where Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel were establishing a new home, then crossing north until they reached the Icebay of Forochel had been rejected. Nominally easier by rowing upriver, the route was longer and inland. It was imperative that they stayed within flying distance of the sea for the swan, Hiswalagawen. Seregeithon held his objections. The last act of folly that he was willing to commit would be to harass a giant swan about its needs or preferences. Helcerían also stressed the need to monitor the ocean waters. The tales that she recounted of dead whales and porpoises beached along the shoreline rotting away and water slick with the stench of dead fish frightened Lord Círdan and his people. All throughout the wars of Beleriand, Morgoth had not corrupted the sea, and to think some strange and unknown evil was seeping into it now deeply concerned all. A panicking populace was part of that worry, so Elrond was short on the details of their purpose as he opened the green purse once more to pay their captain. The two other crew members helped to lift them and their cargo onboard, then with untying of ropes, hoisting of sails, and some dogged paddling of oars to maneuver out of the docks and into the clear lanes of the harbor and out into the bay, they were off.

The Gulf of Lune wore her green skirt today. Seregeithon preferred those days when the waters had color instead of the gray-blue, but he could not care less for detailed conversations about the quality of waves or whatever else concerned sailors. It looked choppy, but not dangerously choppy, and the sailors wore relaxed expressions, so the seas were not rough and the journey should be tolerable.

The sea longing that stricken his compatriots confounded Seregeithon. He did not hate the sea, except for the smell. But it was powerless to enthrall him.

“Throw a rope out to my swan, Hiswalagawen, when she returns from fishing for her breakfast, and she shall tow us for a part of the journey,” Helcerían offered to the sailors, who reacted with delight at the assistance. They had heard the tales of how the swans of Ossë pulled the first ships across the Great Sea and were excited to try out the method.

Seregeithon rolled his shirtsleeves above his elbows and leaned against the side of the boat, focusing on the feeling of the breeze against his face and not the rocking motion playing havoc with his stomach. A sense of vague unease had settled onto him.

Helcerían stared at him. It was for the betterment of all that he remained ignorant of her intense thoughts involving him, the swaying surfaces of a skiff out in the open privacy of a wide gulf, and herself.

Behind her, Elrond was helping the captain and other two crewmembers with the angling of the sails to catch the breeze. His ease with watercraft and familiarity displayed his childhood at the Mouth of Sirion and years with Lord Círdan before and after. “I may not be my father,” the peredhel joked, “but I can pilot us out of the gulf.”

“Are the currents an issue?” Helcerían asked.

“There are some tricky reefs,” Elrond explained, “owing to the sunken land. Some areas are dangerous for even the most experienced swimmers due to rip currents and the uneven seabed.” As his two companions shared their wealth of nautical knowledge, Seregeithon attempted to track what they were saying. He arrived at Balar at the start of the War of Wrath utterly ignorant of shipcraft. His day job required passing knowledge, but only as much as working with mortal men for any length of time required knowledge of mortal ailments and afflictions and how and what speed they aged. His understanding of their discussion remained vague - something about keels and then woodworking techniques, then fishing nets. Boring to be truthful, but the topic animated Helcerían and Elrond. And at no point did they ask him to join in.

Elrond and Helcerían’s conversation meandered back to birds and into the topic of falconry. Thanks to Bortë, Elrond was well-versed in the discipline to which Helcerían was ignorant, as to pair with raptors for hunting was not traditional for the Falmari of Valinor. Falconry was considered a Noldorin method. Elrond began a lecture on the Vanyarin origins, and Seregeithon decided to stop listening.

Helcerían’s shout as Hiswalagawen shot out of the water with a loud splash and tumult of flapping, honking as the giant swan circled over to their boat and landed with another splash into the water beside their wake roused his attention. He helped to tie a rope around the skiff’s prow and watched the swan catch the loop of rope tossed down to it. With more fast flapping of wings, the swan of Ossë launched back into the air, and a second later the ship lurched. The ship’s prow reared into the air like a horse and began to slice through the waves instead of bob up and down, giant white waves arching up on either side of the ship as it plowed across the surface of the gulf at incredible speed. Seregeithon refused to scream as he clutched at the ship railing. Elrond hollered in excitement.

The sheets of white foam of the ship’s wake hindered the view for sightseeing the coast, so Seregeithon decided to move to the center of the ship. His new chosen angle allowed him to look upon Helcerían. She wore her brand new coat with the hood lowered, her white hair bunched up around her ears half-caught in the collar. Some locks had freed themselves completely. As Seregeithon had moved to his new seat, he had furtively reached out to brush against the tips of her hair. Last night’s fantasies returned to warm his thoughts.

In his imagination he was kissing those lips, hands cupping her head to pull her close, fingers threaded in her hair. Hmm, where were her hands? Seregeithon pondered the options. He wanted to place her hands on the back of his head to mirror the gesture, or maybe an embrace, or splayed across the muscles of his chest. Huh, in this fantasy he was suddenly lacking a shirt, Helcerían having yanked it off him. He decided that he liked that.

After some initial quiet awe over the swan propulsion, Elrond and Helcerían gossiped about Alqualondë and Valinor in general. Elrond did try to ask her questions about governance policies to which Helcerían pleaded that she could not begin to detail Olwë’s tax policies. Seregeithon’s recent years working for the harbormaster meant he could answer similar questions about Lindon, but it was a field of study in which he was no eager student. Helcerían could answer that the price of pearls was higher than they had been before the Darkening, as many of the specialist divers that had tended to the unique oyster beds had been slain in the First Kinslaying, and by the time that they had been restored from Mandos, the beds could not be recovered despite the best efforts of those trying to keep them. Seregeithon had not thought that pearls were like sheep and how the loss of shepherds would kill the industry as much as a bad coldsnap or wolves devouring the flock. The sailors chimed in with knowledge about freshwater pearls, in particular the ones being fished out of Lake Evendim.

 After the initial excitement, the rest of the boat trip was boring, requiring only that he stay out of the sailors’ way. At noon they ate, the giant swan resting and padding along beside their skiff, serenely untroubled by curious porpoises swimming up them. Elrond tried to fish, tossing a line with a bit of jerky as bait off the bow of the ship, but caught nothing. Afterwards the rope was looped around the swan’s lower neck once more and the ship tugged across the water with its own giant pair of white wings. “Almost feels like we’re cheating!” Elrond said, laughing.

“Come the day after tomorrow, it won’t be so easy,” Seregeithon grumbled. Helcerían chided his pessimism. He got into an argument with her about the difficulties of travel through tundra. 

At nightfall they chose corners of the cramped ship to sleep, though the captain and sailors would each pick a shift to work through the night. Their three passengers, facing a long trek, grabbed the rest that they could. Seregeithon chose a pile of fishing nets to lie against as a makeshift bed. In the darkness he could not see Helcerían’s bemused smile. The poem about a fish caught in a net that she mouthed a few select lines into the curled hand pressed against her lips to hide that smile he would not have recognized if recited to him either - nor would he have harkened onto the true imagery of the song of something bound by ropes as having little to do with a caught fish.

He woke to the early morning gray hours when the sun had left the gates of Valinor but not yet visible over the horizon. The sailor pointed to where Elrond was snoring stretched out like a sunbathing squirrel atop the boom, using the reefed sail as padding. Helcerían was sensibly curled up near the prow of the ship, the giant swan huddled beside her and covering the woman with its wings like a blanket.

“We’ve rounded the Gulf,” the captain said, pointing to the choppy dark waters around them.

“Good,” Seregeithon grunted.

“Master Elrond, he is…” the captain hesitated, watching how the boom swayed.

“Fools you into thinking that he’s a sensible elf that sticks to libraries and court functions?” Seregeithon answered. “Want to hear the story of how my commander had to make him spit out mushrooms and berries that he mistook as edible? Or the river crossing that nearly drowned us all, except for the boys? Carnambos of Sornion has some great stories about ravines, orc patrols, and ‘dare me to make this jump’ to quote directly.”

The captain clucked his tongue. “A true sailor’s sense of balance.”

“That too,” Seregeithon concurred. “Could just be the forest in him. I never liked sleeping high up like the Nandor.”

This day at sea was like the first, after Hiswalagawen stretched its wings and ate a full meal. This time the swan pulled them northeast instead of west. Elrond successfully caught fish, Seregeithon daydreamed about kissing Helcerían, Helcerían asked for more details about falconers, and the sailors sang praises to Ossë. 

When Seregeithon woke the next morning, the captain’s proclamation was more exciting. “The swan took us past Tol Himling, if our charts are right. Master Elrond is making us a copy of the court sea charts to update our maps. The inlet you want is a few miles away. May the stars guide you for the rest of your journey.”

Seregeithon thanked him and stretched to limber his muscles in the narrow confines of the ship. The inactivity of the last two days had stressed him more than marching. Uncomfortably familiar to the buildup before battle. He unwrapped his spear as he gathered up their packs, the ingrained smell of old blood in his nostrils as his fingers encircled the familiar shaft. 

“Our inlet?” Helcerían asked behind him.

“Coming up to it soon,” Elrond said. He blew against the lines of ink on his paper. “Chart’s finished. Writing a note to Lord Círdan. Speed estimates. He’ll pull out his beard when he reads this.”

That delighted the captain and his sailors and paid for the lost fishing days as much as the contents of Elrond’s green purse.

The dark tall pine forest that stretched to the western slopes of the Blue Mountains greeted them like a fence line along the shore. The skiff could not beach itself high on the pebbly beach and thus the three had to wade a few feet through the surf, then light a fire to dry out their boots. They waved the crew off and then readied for the long journey ahead. Elrond pointed to a trail from the shore into the forest, wondering aloud if there were any Forodwaith settlements. The sparse mortal inhabitants of the region were migratory and illusive. Seregeithon doubted that they would encounter any.

The forests of Forlindon were towering pine trees, other species having died off during the shift in land and weather. Less rain each year, or so the experts said. The Maiar focused on the new island raised for the Edain, but a few of Yavanna and Oromë’s servants had inspected the remnants of Beleriand’s land and given estimates on how the climate shifted. 

Survivors, these giants, with their boughs of dark evergreen. A quiet forest as they began to navigate through it. Red deer wandered through the trees in the distance, but no other large animals made their presence known. Bears prowled these trees, it was known, and the trio wished to avoid an encounter with one if possible.

The trees were distracting. Seregeithon weaved a detailed fantasy of sneaking away from Elrond with an equally eager Helcerían, of pressing her up against the trunk of one of those towering pine trees, the dark branches covering them from view. Coats and other articles of clothing hastily pulled down or pushed up, her legs wrapped around his waist. Fast, deep shoving, her hand twisting the front fringe of his hair as she yanked his head to her shoulder so she could pant into his ear that he must go faster, please her further, and stay quiet so as to not alert Elrond.

A heady fantasy.

Elrond returned to questioning Helcerían to pass the time and had found a new topic.

“Ice-crowned- it is a prophetic name.”

Helcerían sighed. “The name that my parents chose for me at birth was Isilwen, to honor Princess Ilsë, the Grand Admiral of Alqualondë. I did not care for it. For a time, after my family’s death, others called me Helceórë, the Ice-heart. In my grief, that epessë did not bother me, but when I healed, as cilmessë the name Helcerían felt more hopeful and true.”

“Your choice was lovely,” Elrond said. With a twinge of mischievousness, he turned back to ask Seregeithon’s option. “Don’t you agree?”

The older man grunted.

“We need not question how the Bloody Spear got his name,” Helcerían sniped. As Elrond was the only one facing behind to see Seregeithon’s face, he was the only witness to the flash of hurt.

That night as they made camp and set up the tents, Seregeithon interrupted Elrond as he was describing a dish native to Beleriand that Helcerían had heard Elwing mention but had not understood, as the name for the fruit was unrelated in Sindarin as opposed to Quenya, the root name borrowed from the dwarves.

“It was a flower that grew in the northernmost plains. The same color as the flowers that grew atop Amon Rûdh, but a different shape. Only bloomed in the brief summer months. Never returned after the dragonfire scorched the land into the Gasping Dust, Anfauglith. That was how my name was chosen, Milady.”

Helcerían’s pale eyes turned sorrowfully upon Seregeithon. He ducked his head to avoid her gaze, uncomfortable with the keenness of the emotion, and did not see the moisture bead up like the long-lost pearls of the Falmari sea-farmers.

---

Chapter End Notes

epessë and cilmessë are the terms for acquired names, bestowed by others or self-bestowed.

Chapter 4

Read Chapter 4

The treeless expanse of scrubby brown grasses, short bushes, and bright yellow flowers and lichen spread out before them. “Mud,” Seregeithon intoned with the deepest despair of a losing general’s proclamation to his surviving troops. Helcerían and Elrond, fellow veterans, sighed in agreement. 

“Mud.”

Their trek through the northern pines led to where the mountains lowered themselves to the shore’s level. Far enough north that forests were no longer viable, what stretched out along the southern coast of the ocean was plant-life no taller than their knees. They had bypassed the Ered Luin and were now north and east of the Emyn Uial hills but a long walk awaited them to reach the icebay proper, and the solid glaciers of the Grinding Ice were further still. The tundra greeted them. Yellow, brown, and more brown. And some patches of white, like a ptarmigan changing its feathers to the brown molt.

To most eyes it was an ugly landscape, but to Seregeithon, born to the remote reaches of Mithrim and spending most of his life until the war finally pushed him deep into Ossiraind’s trees on the wide plains of the Ard Galen, the tundra had a comforting homey feel.

Summer was still far enough away that not all of the ice had melted, but with the majority of the once frozen water transformed into the thick sludge of spring mud, Seregeithon would have preferred snow. Out of the trees, the wind had no barrier, and Helcerían pulled up the hood of her coat and Seregeithon and Elrond fiddled with hats until only their faces were uncovered. The bite of the cold winds would fluctuate, Seregeithon knew by a lifetime of experience, with some days worse than others, and the weather stayed warmer near the coast. Today, however, was cold.

And muddy.

Hiswalagawen laboriously launched itself into the air, honking its complaints about a lack of waterway to ease the acceleration, and flew off, scouting ahead for them. The giant swan returned every few days to tell Helcerían their general location relative to the bay - and a tally of foraging bears seen from the air.

In the flat and treeless expanse, bears and other dangerous animals would be less likely to come across them unawares. Still, Seregeithon worried especially to trigger a bear with cubs. Nor would he welcome the attention of a pack of wolves. His greatest fear was orcs.

There was a concentration trick to walking on mud and other surfaces to lighten the body’s downward pull. It made traversing deep snow swift, to avoid breaking the surface tension and sinking in, but it could not be used on water nor for very long, as it required energy. The mortal men that Seregeithon had patrolled with before the Nirnaeth Arnoediad could not learn the skill, a shortfall shared by the peredhel boy.

To save their snowshoes and stay out of mud, they angled their path to the rocky ground closer to the coast, where every step was along uneven round stones, like the worst possibly constructed cobblestone streets. White-coated reindeer watched them curse nonchalantly from their buffet of lichen. Helcerían cooed over the cuteness of the calves following their mothers.

Seregeithon, one-time shepherd child, enjoyed her delight but then had to -smarmily- correct her on the superiority of lambs as the cuter ruminant infant. Elrond’s expression turned dead-eyed as he listened to the two. Foresight could have not saved his predictions for this journey.

Rather than listen to them bicker, Elrond went and gathered plants, inspecting each to see if they matched medicinal ones that he was studying. His calling as a great healer was centuries from now, but his curiosity, inspired by the story of Lúthien and Huan saving Beren, had been kindled from the youngest of age. 

Seregeithon called to him to rejoin their trail. “Fool, don’t get lost. And the great bears are as interested in those plants as you. I will not explain to both Lord Círdan, High King Gil-galad, and your twin, King Elros, how some winter-starved bear aiming to fatten itself for the next year decided that a skinny half-elf was the perfect addition to its gut.”

Elrond pouted and got his revenge soon, though the younger man did not think of it as such. He only thought that he was offering friendly advice a few days later as they hiked over a small icy remnant of a large glacier that had once sheared the rocks and topsoil of this plain. Helcerían was insisting that they move out of the valley that they were currently in to return to the wider tundra.

Elrond slowed down until he was abreast with Seregeithon, their snowshoes crunching with every wide step. “I am skilled in ósanwë,” the young half-elf whispered to the older man. “I doubt it is intentional, nor do I think our companion can sense it as keenly as I. Yet you emit a ...feeling, is the term that I must use, whenever you stare at Lady Helcerían.” Elrond hesitated, and Seregeithon thought back fondly of the child that he and his commander rescued from the Kinslayers. “Like a bull elk in rut. It’s distracting.”

Oh. Damn.

So it turned out that trying to not think about Helcerían and how alluring she was was more distracting than the alluring fantasies. His short temper frayed like an unraveling ribbon. The rest of the day and following one was miserable. Elrond and Helcerían found the more abrasive side of his tongue not to their liking. After an argument that devolved into accusations about the War of Wrath and pacifism, Seregeithon stalked off with his spear to hunt the nearby herd of reindeer and fell a supply of fresh meat. Elrond stayed with Helcerían, providing a sympathetic audience to her complaints.

“Infuriating man. Makes me want to choke him. He’d probably like it. Wants me to do that.” She paused, confused, her voice turning quiet and lost as she questioned herself. “Why did I think that and know it for the truth?”

Elrond did not answer her, though he could have with a single word: ósanwë.

Abstaining from imagining Helcerían unclothed and committing various acts involving his similarly unclothed body were impossible for Seregeithon. He stopped caring.

Elrond took to pinching his nose and mentally reciting poetry and the names to distract himself from the stray thoughts and mental impressions of his companions. Elrond had attempted to recite both the Lay of Leithian and the Narn i Chîn Húrin, but some passages were dangerous in the current atmosphere.

Helcerían had returned to wearing that large silver brooch of a horned whale, now on the outside of her coat holding a thick silk sash belt. The sash was a pretty pale color between silver, lavender, and blue, chosen to befit her icy name. The long tails of the sash, capped with large silver pendants in the shape of snowflakes, swayed as she walked. Seregeithon could tell that the both items were something that she considered precious, and he agreed that it suited her. She should wear that sash- but paired with garments that could only be described as brief. One of those mortal tunics that ended well above the knees with a gathered neckline and flounces and lace. Seregeithon re-evaluated his last thought. No, Helcerían’s tastes would not lean to lace. But soft fur and velvet trim? She should be indulged in those fabrics.

What did she look like while at the royal court of Alqualondë? Had her garments been so strange and disorderly- or were the fashions of their kin across the sea more revealing?

Now he found a motive to entertain interest in the land beyond Middle-earth. 

The idea of wandering Alqualondë in Helcerían’s company entertained him for a little while, but soon Seregeithon returned to his favorite fantasy: where he was naked atop soft wool, the fibers almost entrapping his limbs in their plush texture, and Helcerían sat naked astride him, hands on his stomach to prop herself up, riding him, her head thrown back and her long white hair fanned down around her.

Truthfully these fantasies embarrassed him, for he had never entertained thoughts of another person, man or woman, elf or mortal, as he did now with Helcerían. She had not asked for his feelings or encouraged them- except by every move that she made, the haughty expression of her pale eyes, the way that the wind played with her hair, the smooth song of her voice- and he was mortified at the prospect of his one-sided desire becoming known to her, for surely she would be disgusted at his presumption.

Especially that she had called him a stubborn Moripedi, then insinuated that she thought him overly violent and consumed by the desire to kill enemies. Which, in fairness, Seregeithon had heard those statements before, when instead of retreating to the Isle of Balar like so many of his compatriots, be they Sindar or Noldor, he had seeked out Orothaiben’s crew. Orothaiben had sang over every slain orcs, insatiable in vengeance, finding more beauty in spilled blood than the blooming of flowers. Seregeithon found kinship with the mad Nandor instead of the peaceful, weary refugees. Helcerían named him true.

A night of unfathomable loss and terror had frozen her, but she had found her way out of that ice-heart. What was left of him, the ash outline of a man coating the inside of a suit of armor and a spear that could not be discarded?

Why had the boy mentioned ósanwë?

 

That evening a light dusting of spring snow fell, thickening the crust of frost on the ground and glazing the outsides of their tents. Helcerían brewed hot tea and passed cups to Elrond and Seregeithon. The smell, strange yet heavenly, matched the golden color, and when Seregeithon drank it, he felt warmth instantly fill his core. “Vása berries,” Helcerían explained, returning the small vessel holding the tea powder to her pack. 

“Could have used that during the Siege,” Seregeithon said, thinking back to too many cold patrols with hardy men of the Hadorians as they tried to encircle the gap in their line around Angband. 

Helcerían refilled his cup with the last of tea and listened to the description of distilled beers popular among the People of Hador. Elrond helped her pack up the camp, but when he tried to help Seregeithon undo and roll up the tent, he snapped one the poles by accident and Seregeithon banished Elrond from that chore. Helcerían shook her head.

“Which spirits do you like best?” she asked to soothe Elrond’s ego, which prompted the young man to describe various wines, which led to a discussion of food that the two had been having for weeks, along with their ongoing talk of birds and falconry.

Helcerían pulled up the mass of pouches dangling from her belt and retrieved a beautifully modeled silver fish on a chain. Fiddling with the fish-shaped metal container, she snapped it open to reveal the scent of dried spices. “Cooking herbs,” Helcerían explained. “I have made this soup many times. When we have fresh meat instead of the dried jerky- fish with white flesh, not salmon or dark red. We should have some when we reach the Icebay.”

Seregeithon bowed his head politely. “As you command, Milady.”

“Tell me more of the Edain,” Helcerían said, “the Hadorians when they still lived far to the north. It is strange to me to think of an entire people who have never seen the sea.”

“Let Elrond tell you; they are his kin and his brother’s subjects.”

“But I cannot describe Dor-lómin or the campaigns against Angband in the farthest north.”

Seregeithon grumbled and frowned. “We froze. We fought orcs, then dragons. Dragons stink like no other fell beast in all of Arda. Men around me died. Ugly story.”

“Charming,” Helcerían snarked.

That night Seregeithon’s fantasy of himself entwined with Helcerían entailed no speaking from either one, only rough panting, her hands around his neck, in his hair, tugging and pulling and squeezing. Rough, but then tender after they were both finished. She curled up against him, and in his dream he stroked her softly, too afraid to voice his feelings, the overwhelming calm and happiness.

Rather than travel through the nights they made camp, judging the stars to guess at the distance that they made each day. The three conversed and worked on small tasks, the small animosities forgiven. Seregeithon repaired gear or worked on carving antlers for spearheads and fishing hooks. After Helcerían requested, he made a set of square tablet cards for weaving ribbon and trim, though she did not have yarn for any spare projects. There was not enough loose snow or ice to make shelters, but a storm was incoming if the wind was any indication, so that particular evening when Hiswalagawen rejoined them Seregeithon searched for a break in the flat terrain to find some form of shelter. Helcerían spelled heat into the fabric of their tents- a song that the Ainur taught to Elves. Melian has instructed the people of Mithrim how to hold heat or cold in a piece of woven cloth, but Helcerían’s version was closer to the lyrics used by the Army of the Valar. It was a handy piece of craft that the Noldor crossing the Helcaraxë could have benefited from.

Mention of the Helcaraxë led to Helcerían going into graphic detail of what she saw in the years following the rise of the sun. She had returned to the ice desert to find the frozen bodies of dead Noldor. After first she had been uncertain what to do with them, if to leave them or attempt a burial. The Teleri had buried the Noldor slain during the First Kinslaying as they had their own, stripping the weapons and armor off the corpses and then consigning the bodies to the sea, giving them over to Ossë and Uinen as Mandos took their souls. The Vanyar came down from their mountains to help with the funerals, singing the dirges as bodies were wrapped in white sailcloth shrouds. Stroking the feathers of Hiswalagawen’s neck to soothe herself, Helcerían recounted the finding of pieces of the sunken swan-ships and bodies washed ashore, the followers of Fëanor drowned by Ossë and Uinen’s wrath in the days after. “Thieves and murderers rejected by our sea,” Helcerían said. “We did not know what to do with those bodies. Olwë asked. In the end we burned them.”

Helcerían dragged what frozen corpses that she could off the glaciers and into the water, those that she could wrestle from the ice and that she found close to the water, bringing an icepick and spare sailcloth for that purpose on her subsequent return journeys. She could not estimate how many corpses remained dotting the Helcaraxë and forever trapped by the freezing cold, most exposed to the open air because precipitation rarely fell that far north even as snow.  “I tried to save identifying items like jewelry to send back to Tirion. To let King Arafinwë contact the surviving family or keep them until the owners return from Mandos. It was the decent act to do.”

“The Queen of Mercy has in you a most devoted and wise discipline,” Seregeithon said.

His words made Helcerían blush. “Nienna is not my patron, despite the name,” Helcerían said, alluding to Nienna’s association with the winter months. “I think, if there is any of the Ainur that I most admire and wish to emulate, it is Lady Uinen. And not just for her creations, the animals of the shore.”

“Is so?” Elrond asked, prompting her.

Helcerían’s blush deepened, the pink darkening to rosy red. “Her taming of Ossë. That the Storm Terror had joined the Great Foe and caused death and destruction, many acts of evil, but that Uinen did not turn her heart from him. That she was able to reach out to him and call him back, that he repented of his deeds and evil allegiance. And he does not stop all his storms, but that when she asks he will calm the seas for her. Uinen does not control him, but his love for her does.” Helcerían paused. “Neither of you have been in a storm at sea. When the waves are as tall as mountains. The terror.”

“Yet Ossë is our friend,” Elrond said, and the Falmari woman smiled.

“Our truest, most loyal, the one who taught us, the one to avenge our grief.”

Seregeithon refrained from adding to their comments, instead cursing as he finished drilling the fourth hole into the tablet card with an awl and accidentally gouged his finger. As Elrond fussed over the injury and hastily mixed a salve and wrapped a bandage around it, Helecerían hushed her hissing swan. She reached for Seregeithon’s injured hand as she tried to thank him for the gift and express sympathy for his pain, but he batted her hands away. 

Elrond’s eyes darted rapidly between his two companions, weaving suspicions together.

The following morning he decided to add a postscript to his letter.

The letters started before they left the pine forests for the tundra. In fact, the first night that they landed in Forlindon, the herald on sabbatical made writing his priority after gathering firewood and starting the campfire. Elrond had two sheets of paper on the foldable hard surface of his portable scribe’s desk, and Helcerían asked why he was writing two letters. Elrond answered, “The first is for Gil-galad, but the second is for my brother. I wrote to Elros before we left so he knew about my quest, and I’ll send updates so he does not worry for me. Once the two reach Mithlond, the second letter for Elros will be sent with the rest of the mail and goods from the Grey Havens to Númenor. The quest may be concluded by the time that I get Elros’s reply, but that I make the effort to write to him will reassure my brother. He is a worrywort.”

Seregeithon grunted and bit back his comment on how both of the twins had clung to each other, the result of their months of trauma.

Helcerían conferred with her giant swan. “Hiswalagawen will handle Númenor as well.”

Elrond waved a dismissal with his offhand. “She is flying the missives to Mithlond. That is a mighty task itself.”

“She can decide where she flies,” Helcerían countered.

No one would argue with that.

 

Mindful of the fear that had driven Helcerían across the sea, the group was alert to signs of blight or foulness on the wind. Whale bones in massive white piles could be found dotting the landscape in small hills, but most deaths were not recent. No Forodrim yet, which did worry Seregeithon that he had not encountered any of the nomadic mortal tribesmen who should have been following the reindeer herds.

“Oh,” Helcerían exclaimed, her wonder puffing out like the cloud of condensed air in the cold dry air to hang in the stillness, “look! A northern oliphaunt.” She pointed to the slowly grazing beasts in the far distance, their thick brown fur making them seem like rocks if not for their movement. “The Farshore still has them.” Seregeithon and Elrond wanted to interrupt the Falmari woman to explain that to them, Middle-earth was the Hither Shores, and that few things could sound more bizarre to their ears than to hear a woman of the Haerast speak such, but then Helcerían continued in a mix of wonder and sadness. “We lost our northern oliphaunts. The Earth Queen, Yavanna, needed to reintroduce them to the land, after the Sun and Moon settled into their paths across the firmament. We lost many living beings after the death of the Two Trees - but the great wooly-coated oliphaunts we lost because of the Noldor that crossed the Helcaraxë, slaughtering the herds to survive the journey across the ice desert, too many for the animals to recover. I thought, I thought they would not have survived on this shore too, what with the war.”

Standing behind her, Helcerían could not see Seregeithon smile at her joy.

There was neither privacy nor room to be found in the tent Seregeithon shared with Elrond, for the younger man slept on his stomach with limbs splayed. Elrond neither snored nor kicked in his sleep, thankfully, but the sprawl invaded Seregeithon’s space for his own bedroll - and some acts did not want an audience. It was more convenient to swap shifts and in the darkness facing away from camp, steal a few private moments to use a hand to ease a desire. Ridiculous, the strength of this longing. He did not remember urges this strong when his voice cracked and his bones ached as the growth spurt kicked in.

Seregeithon thought his sneaking away for short indulgences was unnoticed until another evening discussion around the campfire.

“He wanders off,” Helcerían said, and a teasing element entered her tone of voice. “Perhaps we need to treat him like the hunting hawks. Tie a jess around his ankle, some leather straps and a pretty bell. And put a hood on him to calm him down when he grows too cranky and fidgety.”

As Seregeithon growled at her jest, Elrond wordlessly dragged his fingers down his face, pulling at his lower eyelids.

---

Chapter End Notes

Tablet card weaving was used in Europe up through the medieval period to make decorative woven bands, using squares of bone or wood with holes in each corner to mimic a loom.
Vása is a name for the sun.
Haerast is as you probably guessed the Sindarin word for the Farshore, aka Valinor. And if there are oliphaunts in Middle-earth during the Third Age, then there can be wooly mammoths during the Second.
 

And the return of another “deleted scene”, this time taking place many years prior to events so far detailed, in which two characters trapped in similar roles during a fic of this author commiserate:

Elros, as eldest son of Eärendil and Elwing - the remaining heir to all three lineages of the Edain Houses through his father’s sire Tuor and his mother’s grandfather Beren- and with his chosen bride Bortë, princess of the faithful Easterlings, attended the councils of Ingwion and Finarfin as the representative of mortal men. Elrond bothered to attend only to take notes for his brother and people, lacking the perfect elven memory. After one such meeting, struck by foresight that was not usually his gift, Prince Ingwion pulled the younger twin aside. “Here,” he said, shoving items into Elrond’s hands. “I don’t know why, but I feel a kinship with you that has nothing to do with family ties. But I am reminded of the embarrassing trial that is my parents and their exihibitionism and overwhelming randiness. The horniness, and my role as a straight man to their antics. Take this pair of wax earplugs and this bottle of very strong liquor to knock yourself out. Some things you neither want to hear nor see.”
Elrond, alarmed and confused, replied, “My brother and his fiancee are not that indiscrete.”
Hollow, dead eyes answered him. “Not them. Oh Valar, I’m so sorry for you. I can see it coming. The bondage and submission kinks.”

Chapter 5

Read Chapter 5

Seregeithon was rappelling down the sheer sides of a ravine, his rope stapled into the ground via clever pieces of iron, ice pick in hand. Elrond and Helcerían waited at the top of the cliff. At the bottom of the ravine they could see the ribbon of unmelted snow. A frozen river, possibly, Seregeithon declared, or the dry gully that could host one when the snow to the north finally melted when summer came to its full strength. Maybe a river had once flowed, creating the ravine, but lost its course when the land shifted. They were on the eastern side of the Ered Luin, and this land had never been a part of Beleriand. Seregeithon lacked the knowledge of what it had been before to know if this terrain was affected as the western side was and if the smaller rivers had rerouted or disappeared entirely. But the gully was a good path to follow to find the Icebay, though Seregeithon cautioned against staying within it. From Hiswalagawen’s scouting and the star  charts, they were nearly to the Icebay of Forochel and another step closer to their quarry.

As Seregeithon skittered down the rocks, head bent down and back to search for places for his feet, threading the rope via a pulley system to give himself the leeway for the descent, Helcerían described her opinions of him to a captive -if unwilling-  audience in Elrond.

“His voice is deeper than one would imagine, for he is not particularly tall, and while finely muscled,” Helcerían paused to once again appreciate a pair of arms, “not broad across the chest and torso. But his voice is like an Ainur, how deeply it resonates. How,” a curl of lower lip under her teeth, “powerful.”

Elrond made a quick mental calculation, now that he could safely confirm that both of his traveling companions shared this mad affliction. Yep. Worse than Elros’s initial fumbling courtship of his sister-by-marriage, Bortë. His twin had been instantly smitten and then quite the fool, making Elrond absolutely miserable. But Elrond had not been trapped as a mediator between the two would-be lovers. Bortë, the half-Easterling young woman, had seen and shared upon first sight a mutual infatuation with Elros just as Grandmother Idril with Grandfather Tuor or great-grandparents Lúthien and Beren, and she had taken her observations and flirtatious comments to her Vanyar friends and adopted uncles instead of sharing her feelings and seeking reassurance from the twin brother of her swain. The Vanyar soldiers, Elrond later learned, greatly teased Bortë for her shy blushing over how comely she thought Elros’s face. Not that Elrond had been spared Elros’s romantic sighing and pining, forced to bolster his twin’s courage to declare his intentions to his potential love. Thankfully, Elros had acted quickly on his strong feelings for Bortë instead of standing back and composing lyrical poetry for months. The second that either Helcerían or Seregeithon started to sing about how beautiful the other was, Elrond resolved to run to the coast and dive into the bay. He would swim to Númenor or drown in the crossing, for he drew a line at lust-fueled poetry. His objection came not from a dislike of song but that he already knew the poor quality of Seregeithon’s singing voice, and whether or not Helcerían was similarly ill-blessed, Elrond’s desire ran deeply negative -somewhere around the deepest fissures of the earth- to hear a composition on Seregeithon’s physical features, be it arms or any other body part. It would be as embarrassing as to hear a love song written in Lord Círdan’s honor. Or Celebrimbor drunk and extolling Lady Galadriel’s beauty.

“It’s safe!” Seregeithon shouted from the bottom of the cliff.

Helcerían looked to Elrond, but he flinched his eyes, inviting her to go first.

The mean little voice in Elrond’s head whispered a suggestion to refuse to climb down after her. Just leave those two together at the bottom of the cliff. Wait however long it took, minutes or hours or days, for the two elves to stop making eyes at each other or get into another argument that had that fraught possibility to turn into loud screaming and physical attacks.

Elrond shook himself. Stray comments made it apparent that hair pulling, slaps, and choking might only excite and arouse them.

When the update about a Falmari woman arriving on the docks to request an investigative journey north crossed his desk more than three weeks ago, beckoning him with the chance to join an adventure, this was not what Elrond imagined that he would contend with.

Another little voice in his head that sounded like his brother, Elros, whispered, “But you did ask for this.”

“Tracks!” Seregeithon shouted from the bottom of the ravine. “A few days old- a reindeer herd. There looks to be a herdsman’s print in the mix. We have not seen any of the Forodrim, but they could still be within these leagues.”

“Let us follow,” Helcerían called in response. “I wish to speak with one, if we can, to ask if they have noticed any foulness to the north.”

Elrond sighed. “Their language is unknown. Men to the south speak a language similar to that of the Haladim of old, and I have been ambassador on behalf of my brother to many groups of Men hoping to entreat them to emigrate to Númenor, but the men of the Forodwaith I cannot speak to.”

Seregeithon rolled his eyes, though at their respective angles it was impossible for Elrond to see this facial expression. “Pantomime and your cleverness will help us, or drawing pictures in the dirt. If we find any of them, which I cannot guarantee. The tracks are old, and herdsmen travel great distances. And even if we find the Forodrim, that does not guarantee that they shall be friendly to us.”

“They would attack others?” Helcerían asked.

Elrond wondered if she was appalled at violence in general or if the misunderstanding was more localized. “They would see us as strangers. There are no ties of old friendships or kinship, and trust is a dangerous gift. The Dark King ruled these lands not long ago.”

“The Forodrim were not loyal to him,” Seregeithon explained, “but they did not fight against him or his armies. Not a populous or strong people, no weapons or great leaders, so they could not. Not all mortals are warriors. They hid with their herds of reindeer up on the ice. In this they were like the true Morben, the Evair, who would avoid the war and the fight against Morgoth by clinging to the security of their caves and ignorance of their presence. They prefer that state of affairs. These lands hold not herdsmen willing to trade with outsiders, as is so to the South. They might not be foes, but they are no ally.”

Helcerían paused in her descent down the cliff face. “I dislike your implication of rebuke against the Teleri, Sir. No, we did not raise arms and become like the Noldor, so willing to join in a hasty war, to throw away all the good of our ways of life. But we did not shun out neighbors even after our neighbors betrayed us most heinously. And we hid not from the great task of rebuilding. Others were paralyzed by grief, but not me- not us. We chose our course and with conviction strayed not from it.”

Elrond winced, knowing exactly what argument this was about to lead to: yet one more rehashing of the Separation of the Lindar, the shifting of blame of who betrayed who by staying or leaving, coupled with the debate on the merits of actions taken or not taken during the War of Wrath. Helcerían and Seregeithon adore that fight. This time added subtext by including debates that occurred in Valinor after the Darkening that Elrond had the experienced ear to pick up on but to which Seregeithon remained ignorant- debates to which the content Elrond was unable to quote but that he could parse their existence and roughly their themes of action versus inaction, what qualified as valid excuse brought on by grief, and obligation to one’s community dependent on the narrowness of what one defined as one’s community. Topics that Helcerían, with her defensive tone, had argued with her kinsmen over. Elrond was reading between the lines of Helcerían’s history of actions, but he felt his guesses were solid and accurate. She alone returned to the lands north of Araman, jumping immediately back into rebuilding her life under a new -and harsh- name, then alone chose to travel over the ocean to Lindon. Actions that had not universal approval of her people, that she had to defend both to herself and others. This rerouted defensiveness fueled her spats with Seregeithon.

The mean little voice was back, pointing out that as long as Elrond’s two companions continued to misjudge and debate each other, they would remain ignorant of their mutual carnal desire. Thus Elrond had to decide which was more insufferable. 

Surely the arguments were louder than their possible lovemaking. 

Oh, stars. He needed to stop speculating.

“Elrond, your turn!”

 

---

 

While most regular post to the new island of Númenor and Lindon was sent in the mail courier ship back and forth between the two nations, and the letters that were addressed to the king were kept in a small chest in the captain’s quarters which was unloaded first, the last few letters to arrive in perpetually-under-construction Armenelos came not by fast courier ship but by a more novel means. The king of Númenor was used to various eagles of Manwë and other birds landing on his windowsill or in the large atrium of his new palace. Some birds visited for their own amusement but some were to transfer messages from Eönwë and the other Maiar and Amanyar elves helping his people to transform the island newly risen from the seabed into a prosperous home for his people. As king, Elros was kept abreast of all efforts to make untouched earth into fertile and sustainable ecosystems. Eönwë’s letters had a blue wax seal whereas the Maiar and devotees of Yavanna used green, and their birds were usually eagles and pigeons respectively. King Elros read these reports of newly tilled fields and allotments of pasturage for new herds of cattle, sheep, and horses along with his morning meals, offering grain payment to the pigeons of Yavanna. The eagles usually refused treats. Ossë’s swan was a new addition to the flock, and it carried another letter from his twin brother. 

Eyebrows preemptively raised in anticipation, the king of Númenor unfolded the paper to read what addition to his brother’s harebrained adventure had occurred. It was a nice change of pace from the reports about fertilizer efficiency. Opening the letter and reciting aloud the contents as he walked back from the atrium to the private quarters that he ate breakfast with his wife, son, and daughter while dodging the crew of servants carrying a load of fresh tiles for the new floor mosaic in the east wing, Elros had to stop and choke on hysterical laughter on the second paragraph. “I may have made a mistake in volunteering myself for this mission.” Here is where Elros first started smiling, but as he read on and reached his complaints about his travelling companions -”They drive me mad, Elros. Seregeithon and Helcerían have gotten worse, and I thought that feat impossible. Send an Eagle to rescue me from them,” the King of Númenor lost it. Bortë found her husband howling with laughter outside the door, a letter held limply in his fingers. He was trying to wipe tears from his eyes on the sleeve of his other arm but could not pause his laughter to complete this act of simple coordination. Still wheezing, he waved the parchment up to his pregnant wife, prompting her to take it and read for herself.

“He overreacts,” Bortë stated. 

 

---

 

The wind along the shoreline blew strongly today, tugging the ties of Seregeithon’s hat. The incessant pulling reminded him of a toddler entertaining itself by playing with whatever loose items that it could grasp and then stick in their mouths. Strange that his thoughts landed on children, for he did not desire them - or until now he had not. Seregeithon admitted to himself that imagining himself holding a child was not the most unlikely impossibility for his mind to conjure when said mind was so willingly focused on the acts that would produce a child. A traitorous mind that continued its siege on all his spare thoughts, having betrayed his better judgment to the seditious rival of his loins. And faced with this coup d'etat he was helplessly outmatched. 

Did Helcerían want children? Did he?

With a futile shake to clear his head, Seregeithon turned to the ocean, watching the waves retreat and advance against the rocks at the bottom of the slope. Helcerían loved that ocean at the bottom of the gentle slope. He did not. Fantasies were all he and she would be.

He was cold and his feet and lower legs ached from the days of walking. That his mood turned maudlin was no surprise.

“Rough skies on the horizon,” Helcerían called, pointing to the wall of gray clouds. “We should move inland for a few days, to make our camps safer from tide surge.”

“I agree with your wisdom,” Seregeithon shouted back to her, then promptly ignored the sarcastic reply that she was surprised that he was willing to forgo his pigheadedness to acknowledge wisdom from her. Her luminous smile was more important.

Three days of rain, with mud caked to his shins, cratered his mood. Seregeithon felt cold. He felt damp and unclean. His feet still hurt. The wound on his hand itched with the strain of new skin. His old scars ached in the cold. He felt like this mission was a colossal waste of time and that he should be back in his warm, dry, clean bed. And Helcerían should be in it too.

Elrond whined about the foul weather and the damper that it put on their progress. The first day the rain turned to small hailstones, trapping them in their tents. The howling wind hinted at the roughness closer to the shore, but the battering against the walks of their tents, even sheltered by rocks, frayed their nerves. The hail only lasted for a few hours before turning into drizzle, but that overcast weather lingered. Helcerían sang odes to Uinen and Ossë against the persistent drizzle that the hail slouched into. When Elrond translated the lyrics from Telerin to Sindarin her odes were revealed to be harsh complaints and petitions to cease the storms and return clear skies laced with insults towards the Maiar that struck Seregeithon as sacrilegious. The name calling of the Storm Terror’s intelligence and appearance when compared to the vitriol composed against Morgoth and his lieutenants was mild, but nothing that Seregeithon would be willing to speak into the air. Helcerían retorted that these were songs composed by friends -and to be sung miles inland. Seregeithon hoped that neither Uinen nor Ossë were listening in. Elrond chimed in with a new complaint, that their stock of tea was depleted. And that everyone stank, but that was to be expected after weeks of travelling.

Four days after turning from the shore, with the sky returned to being clear and pale, the three were keen for something to lighten their journey.

Seregeithon was distracted by a reoccurring fantasy constantly interrupting his thoughts that involved his hands tied above his head or behind his back, restraining him while the rest of his body knelt unclothed and aroused. He could not discern the meaning or frequency of this imagery, except that his bonds were the pale lavender-blue sash that graced Helcerían’s hips and thus she had been the one to tie his wrists. That part he readily approved of. He would have continued to ponder this if not for a new interruption: the return of the giant swan, Hiswalagawen. Lowering their packs to wait for Hiswalagen to land, Elrond rubbed at his shoulders and questioned Seregeithon about the hand, but Seregeithon ignored the younger man. Instead he watched the swan descend. The swan circled to the ground and landed with hissing anger at a lack of convenient pond, though the hissing contained a message that pleased Helcerían. “Hiswalagawen has found one of the warm pools,” she translated as the giant swan hopped over to its companion, white wings outstretched.

This proclamation halted and rerouted all movement. “Warm pool?” Elrond asked.

Helcerían opened the satchel around Hiswalagawen’s neck, retrieving the items that the swan had graciously deemed to carry: letters for Elrond, a restock of vása berry tea, and a lumpy package that Helcerían unwrapped to reveal skeins of wool yarn brightly dyed. As she delightfully inspected the thread and counted out the shades of blue, green, yellow, and brown that the queen of Númenor had sent, Seregeithon explained. “Underground vents, the fiery veins of the earth, perpetually melting the groundwater and creating ponds that never freeze.”

“I know what they are,” Elrond said testily.

“The spas in Valmar have them,” Helcerían said, but her attention remained on the loops of yarn, recoiling the lengths to keep them from tangling and then slipping them carefully into her pack to join the tablet cards that Seregeithon had carved for her. “But I did not see any on the maps for this region.”

“On the Cape of Forochel,” Seregeithon grunted. “The traders carried stories of  several valleys of them, and geysers. The Forodrim camp there during the winter months, most of them, with the herds of reindeer. I’m not surprised that we could find one on this side.”

Hiswalagawen honked. 

Helcerían nodded. “She says you are correct. And the pond nearby is small and the water merely warm instead of boiling.”

“We go?” Elrond asked, his grey eyes incandescent with excitement, and Seregeithon sighed in face of that child-like pleading.

“Yes.”

“Good,” Helcerían said in that firm tone that denied even the fool’s possibility of disagreement. “I need a bath. And so do both of you.”

Blood drained out of Seregeithon’s face, and it only took the faint tendril of thought leaking out via unintentional oswarë for Elrond’s beaming smile to fade into equal pallor. Bathing was dangerous. Bathing could give the two ideas.

Hiswalagawen honked happily to return to the hot spring. The swan’s impatience with the slowness of landbound companions had been conveyed in never ending hisses and calls. Bushes and broken rock lined the pool, and despite tracks of herds and other animals leading towards it, the pool was currently deserted. Steam rose invitingly. After some arguing, Elrond and Seregeithon convinced Helcerían that she could bathe first - and that they would retreat some distance and keep their backs turned to give her privacy, which the Teleri woman could not understand. The two men pleaded that standards for modesty and nudity were different on the Farshore, especially for mortals, and thus that strictness the two would adhere to, for Elrond was half-mortal even though he had chosen the fate of his elven ancestry and Seregeithon had also adopted those foibles after many decades among the Hadorians.

“Just hurry,” Seregeithon said, back turned so that Helcerían could not see the red flush on his cheeks. “We need to keep a lookout. I saw signs of mammoths in the area, the herd of reindeer could be the Forodrim, and this pool would attract predators as well. Better we go one at a time.” Behind his back he could hear Helcerían removing and folding her clothing and the gentle splash as she slid into the warm water. She only stood near the end, scooping the water around her knees, then waded a little further into the pool. Seregeithon warred with himself over listening to every fine detail, every splash that signified that she was scrubbing at the layers of dirt and dead skin and oils, her satisfied hum as she ducked her head beneath the water and rose up with a laugh of relief.

“I have missed this!” Helcerían exclaimed, running fingers through her wet hair. “Alas that it is not deep enough for a good soak!” Seregiethon closed his eyes to focus on that sound and to ignore the glare that Elrond was pinning him with. Carefully he walked out and looked onto the empty plain, ignoring the splashes and humming.

Even if Seregeithon dared not to peek upon her bathing, he dared to imagine her in all her naked glory. Glory was the only appropriate word for the vision. She bathed in the center of the warm pool with the presence of a performance instead of a merely utilitarian act, and scented soaps now graced her skin instead of the piece of soaproot. She stood like the main adornment of a fountain, inviting him to observe her. In this fantasy he watched her willingly. Helcerían held her arm across her breasts, covering them but only as effectively as the jacket that she wore when Seregeithon first met her, meaning that the underside curves of her breasts were exposed. That perfect degree of coyness. In this dream she lifted an elbow, then removed a hand, and there they were, uncovered and inviting him. Her arms reached for him. Touch me, those soft breasts demanded. Her smile was luminous as she beckoned him to forgo his paltry sop to modesty and restraint.

The scene of his dream changed as they were wont to, as swift as a song leaving its chorus for a new stanza, and now he was in the water with her. They stood naked, only inches apart, with the water submerged to their hips. She was no longer looking at him, but facing away. Not in dislike; their proximity and relaxed limbs spoke of eager invitation. The curve of her back like a bow, her hair the string begging for an arrow to be notched. Helcerían had him exactly where she wanted. Steam hung thick around them like curtains of a bower. Her long wet hair plastered to her skin, clinging to her face, down her back. His hair, wet, clinging to his face, water beading down his lips and cheeks as he leaned above her. His hand brushing the water-logged hair out of her face. Her eyes closed. Mouth open in anticipation. He was behind her, entering her, hands on her hips, guiding, out then in again, his chest against her back, sensitive nipples rubbing against that wet hair and warm skin. She was leaning back into him. Water rippled out as they swayed against each other.

“My turn,” Elrond said, interrupting Seregeithon’s carnal fantasy. The peredhel’s glare of disgust was not for the smell.

Seregeithon rushed through his bath when it was his turn, scrubbing quickly, then tried to not shiver as he rung the excess water off his shirt, clad only in his pants and boots as Helcerían, wearing her spare outfit and still-damp hair knotted atop her head, smoothed out the laundry on the rocks between the pool and the fire. Only a few of the garments had been safe to soak in the pool, and the fire worked to speed the drying time. Elrond, wearing Seregeithon’s other spare clean shirt, was inspecting the water to refill their waterskins. “No sulfur stench or other minerals. Should be safe to drink, and running water is hard to find out here.” Seregeithon handed Helcerían the last shirt, and she checked the cuffs and patches on the elbows. “Our good fortune to have a warm, dry day,” Elrond said, watching as Hiswalagawen decided that it was her turn to bathe in the warm pool. Seregeithon smiled as the swan paddled across the surface of the pond, neck arched in what could only be happiness. “We should make our camp here for the rest of the day,” Elrond continued but realized that his companions were no longer listening to him, if they ever were. Eventually Seregeithon turned around to detect that Helcerían was staring openly at his uncovered chest. He blushed.

“I was looking at your skin,” Helcerían admitted without a hint of embarrassment. “It is covered in battle scars. Layered atop one another. Scars are not unknown of in Valinor, despite what you may think, not even those from weapons of war,” Helcerían added and that sober addition was undoubtedly a reference to the survivors of the First Kinslaying, “but to have so many, healed atop each other, you are a man of Beleriand. It’s,” she hesitated for a compliment, “interestingly textured.” 

Oh no, Elrond thought. He could almost hear that desire to run fingers across Seregeithon’s naked body, and he did not want to have that particular thought anywhere near his head.

“I think you might have more scars than several old sharks that I know,” Helcerían said brightly.

New troubling question. What woman willing befriended sharks?

To Elrond’s enlightenment, there were long-lived sharks under the sea ice north of Araman, long and speckled like seals who preferred the darkest depths but sometimes came up to the brackish river mouths and whom she fully expected to find in the Icebay of Forochel. Seregeithon quickly covered himself with one of the blankets and refused to look either Helcerían or Elrond in the eyes, waiting for everything to finish drying and for Hiswalagawen to leave the water. As they waited and Elrond mixed the porridge for their next meal, Helcerían waxed poetically about the sweet nature of old northern sharks and then began to weave a flat ribbon with the yarn sent by Queen Bortë. “I can’t weave cloth or embroider well, but ribbon and cord are simple enough for me,” Helcerían explained, turning the antler squares to build the pattern as she wove. “In a few hours I’ll have a replacement cord for those boots.”

“You don’t need-” Seregeithon began to say, but Helcerían hushed him.

“I’ll write to my good-sister of how her gift pleases you,” Elrond interrupted. “And we thank you,” he stressed, trying to will some sense into his companion. Did Seregeithon purposefully want Helcerían annoyed and angry at him? A strange defensive behavior to ward off the lust? Malformed courtship ritual?

 

---

 

Reading Elrond’s next letter, Bortë joined her husband in helpless laughter.

Chapter 6

D/S no longer just undertones, and can't be FFXIV without a nod to the "Step on Me" memes.

Read Chapter 6

Arriving at the Icebay itself - though the shoreline was indistinguishable to Seregeithon and the only difference compared to the northern Belegaer coast was that instead of intermittent seabirds a colony of oversized seals claimed the beach - solved none of their problems. It certainly changed nothing for Elrond. The peredhel grumbled under his breath about sleepless nights and the overactive imaginations of his companions. The weather was once again harsh but not severe enough to convince them to leave the shoreline to travel inland, though Helcerían bade them give the seal colony a wide berth. Once more she led the way, and once more Seregeithon walked several feet behind them. Elrond knew that the older man was either staring at Helcerían’s ass or enthralled in yet another daydream. He was amazed that Seregeithon took breaks from that hobby to hunt for fresh meat or scout for camping locations. Elrond wondered if this lovestruck behavior was universal. It added character context to the epics.

Helcerían waved at the seals. “They say the waters are clear, but the fish are fewer this season. Not good for pups. And they heard bad tidings further north, from the little ringed seals. Some evil is on ice floes. Something worse than the white bears or the wolf whales, but they are ignorant of what it is.”

“In the water itself?” Seregeithion questioned.

Helcerían gnawed at her lower lip. Her answer flowed out unevenly in hesitation, words like climbers scaling a cliff. “They are unsure.” After a long pause, she continued, “the seals on the other side -my side, Araman- thought that there was some poison in the water, but this group does not concur with that theory. They have smelt corpses, too many for what predators hunt in these waters, that carry not the stench of illness or a poison like a red bloom or miasma. But…. Rumors and distant smells are only what the seals on this beach can give me.” 

“And when did you learn the language of seals?” Seregeithon asked.

“Hiswalagawen is translating,” Helcerían said. “Lo,” she laughed, “no, I cannot speak it. Their minds are opaque to me.”

Elrond’s attention snapped at those words. “You are skilled in ósanwë , Lady Helcerían?”

“No,” Helcerían answered, befuddled at the blood-drained faces of her companions and why it could deeply concern them. She did not miss that Elrond muttered and glared over at Seregeithon. “Is the skill uncommon here?”

“Not particularly,” Elrond answered, “for it is not found among mortals. And Oromë does not roam among us teaching students how to speak to animals.”

Happily assured of the privacy of his thoughts from the one he feared most to behold them, Seregeithon pointed to a distant rocky outcrop. “Let us aim for that point before sundown.”

 

A new fantasy, and one whose mix of emotions confused Seregeithon, for he did not understand how the potent mix aroused him, though he knew the seed of the thought could be blamed on how often he incited Helcerían’s ire. He was kneeling before her, the pose such as he had when making oaths of fealty, though his hands were weaponless, and she was in that outfit he loved to envision her in: the tight leather boots that reached above her knees, the pale blue sash low around her hips cinched by her favorite large whale broach, and some narrow bands of fabric barely covering parts of her breasts and the smallest of loincloths. Just enough fabric to give plausible deniability of modesty. Copious bare skin on display, but he was not allowed to touch. He was wearing … ah, in this unfamiliar fantasy: nothing but a leather band around his ankle. Helcerían’s face was stern, angry almost, watching him kneel before her. Already Seregeithon’s muscles felt the strain of holding this pose. “Lower,” she commanded, and he shifted to bow prostrate before her on both hands and knees, forehead touching the earth before tilting his head up to see if he gained her approval. The angle was not ideal to see her face. Helcerían, obviously still displeased, reached out a foot and placed it on his head, the heel carefully positioned to not hurt his ear, but still applying enough light downward pressure to force his head back down and hold him in that position. His face pressed against the earth. He counted seconds. Seregeithon’s emotions in that moment confused him with the mix of shame and smug delight. The indignity of the pose, that she was stepping on him, that he had not knelt enough on his own to soothe her- but that she was focused utterly on him, that choosing to submit in the first place was his choice to please her and that it was working. The exquisite tension. Above he could hear her moan - not the adorable coo that Helcerían made for soft things but a full and throaty sound, long and involuntary. The boot-clad foot shifted, stroked his face along the curve of his cheek, found the point of his chin and lifted his face up. His chin balanced on the tip of her leather-clad boot. Now she was bending over him with no trace of her original anger, her pupils wide and her lips parted. The pale irises were almost devoured by those wide pupils. One of them was panting - no, both. The invitation in her eyes was giving him a carte blanche to do what he pleased, sate appetites, to-

Elrond fake-coughed loudly behind Seregeithon, disrupting his concentration and banishing the detailed fantasy. Low enough not to carry over to where Helcerían trudged but with as much force as Elrond could pack into one word, he spoke. “Stop. Stop it, whatever it is you are thinking. I don’t want to know; I don’t care. But I don’t want to sense even the echoes of whatever it is. Sweet Elbereth! Confess your feelings or go head-butt a tree like any other rutting deer.” Elrond continued to mutter to himself as he abandoned Seregeithon to poleaxed blinking. “One would think Lady Helcerían as beautiful as Lúthien the way he carries on, or that he never met a woman before.”

As Elrond pulled abreast of Helcerian, he could hear that she too was muttering under her breath, preoccupied with her own thoughts and barely noticing him. To Elrond’s dismay, while the bulk of her words remained indecipherable, the gist he could deduce with ease. So Helcerían wanted to rip all of Seregeithon’s clothing off, shove him onto the muddy earth, and conduct the marriage act. No surprise any more. And if neither of them made an effort to admit these desires to one another instead of pretending that their tension was professional animosity, then Elrond might knock them both out and leave their unconscious bodies to freeze overnight on the permafrost.

No, he would not. He had decided years ago to follow the healer’s path.

But as a guilty fantasy, it felt good.

Elros’s imaginary smarmy voice piped in, “I don’t have to deal with shit like this.”

In the distance one of the bull seals called out to his harem. Elrond almost screamed in reply.

 

---

 

The bay, when they woke the next morning, was as smooth as glass, the waves small and the surf against the rocky beach barely jostling the pebbles and slushy remains of last week’s snow. The water was eerily quiet, but instead of unsettling Helcerían, she smirked. “Lady Uinen took her husband last night, and she has worn him out with her love, and he will have no energy or wish to create even the mildest of storms for a fortnight yet. The Storm Terror rests limp in her arms. When the shore is this calm, we Falmari know what has come to pass.”

Elrond stared at her, silent and incredulous. She had to know what she was doing. That she would say that, bring up that imagery, her back was to Seregeithon but there was the faintest smug lift to her lips, she must know what thoughts were flooding his head, why was she teasing him so, did either of them remember that Elrond was here, maybe he should hike back down to the Havens, did Ulmo put up with this - he couldn’t breathe and the stupidly cold air was not the reason, this trip was a mistake.

Elrond hyperventilated through breakfast and the dismantling of the tents and dousing of the fire, though he had calmed by the time they were ready to continue walking. It was an effort he made under duress and resentment

Elrond made a silent declaration. 

Helcerían and Seregeithon would not survive a traditional year. Just jump straight to the vows.

Then they would pull muscles that should not be stretched after rushing through the short verbal declaration element of the vows, most likely. Exhaust themselves needlessly. Decide to create more offspring than they could raise.

Elrond ran a hand down his face. Elbereth, no. Children of those two. The Valië of Mercy protect him. 

 

---

 

“You have been irritable for a few days now,” Seregeithon said, attempting to start a dialogue with the young man. Elrond winced and willed himself to remember his courtly manners instead of answering Seregeithon with rudeness more accustomed to resting upon the old spear-weilder’s tongue.

“Mayhap I am tired from the walking.” Elrond said, though he wished to reply otherwise and repeat his complaints unconstrained. Seregeithon guessed anyway, if his loud grunt was clue, and Elrond rolled his eyes. High road abandoned. “You are far too old -both of you- for infatuations.”

“And how old was Princess Lúthien when Beren stumbled into her glen? Or, if you need an example of a non-mortal, Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn?”

Elrond’s spiky gray anger fled from his face, banished by the brightness of his eyes and glaring white teeth. “So you do wish to marry Lady Helcerían!”

“Hush, Boy!” Seregeithon snapped, lunging for Elond and shoving a hand over his mouth- an impressive act of coordination in snowshoes. Elrond, giggling, tried to shove the taller man away, well-versed in the grappling moves of brothers. Elrond forgot, as Seregeithon pinned his head between an elbow and armpit and laughed, that Seregeithon had once had a younger brother to tease and roughhouse with and knew the tricks. Elrond was too old -and kept enough presence of mind to remember that he tussled not with Elros- to avoid biting Seregeithon. Elbows did end up in unfortunate places, and jaws were lightly bruised. Their bulky coats protected them from tickling - but not from the unbalancing that came as a natural consequence of trying to weasel free of grappling moves. Feet gave out. Down the two fell, comedy in motion, still wrestling.

Their switch to horizontal alignment shocked sense back into the pair, and they stretched out prone and still side by side on the permafrost, each a little ashamed at their ridiculousness.

“You admit then,” Elrond said between pants to refill his lungs, “that you love Helcerían.”

Seregeithon groaned. The comparison was a snap decision to which he knew that he would long regret. He had given Elrond ammunition, a fool mistake with younger brothers, blood-kin or not. His reply was timid. “I desire her. I desire to be her husband. I want ...peace with her. A soft life, this new era, and she would fill it. To follow her. I want...many things from her. Too many- and she does not desire me,” Seregeithon hurried the final words, prompting Elrond to snort.

“She wants you, my friend.” Elrond started to shake with laughter. “She wants to drain you like a wineskin left in a barrack.”

Face as red as a cooked lobster, Seregiethon hollered, “Boy!”

Elrond shrugged his shoulders. “My good-sister Bortë’s words. She was raised by Vanyarin soldiers. It is a most vivid analogy, is it not? And accurate.” 

Seregeithon, imitating a corpse, refused to reply, so Elrond did what he would have done had this been Elros. He balled his fist and struck sideways, socking Seregeithon firmly in the stomach.

Elros would have known the blow was coming.

Seregeithon expelled a curse. Elrond regretted that he had not pulled back a portion of his force, for the punch had not meant to be serious. He muttered an apology and a command that Seregeithon confess to Helcerían, then awkwardly shuffled upright just in time to see the lady herself walking over to their prone bodies, arms crooked at her hips. Elrond offered her a grimace and shuffled away. “I’ll skip the lecture,” he said as he fled, leaving Seregeithon breathless on the ground. 

Helcerían decided against chasing after Elrond to walk up to Seregeithon, stopping at his feet so that she loomed over him, her silent expression akin to that of a disappointed mother, her face a mix of stern disapproval and befuddlement. Rather than ask for an explanation, she let her silence speak for her.

Their relevant positions and the imbalance of power inherent in it, that Helcerían stood while Seregeithon was helpless - soft belly exposed, on the ground, every battle instinct screaming that he was dead now - triggered a fear in him. It was not the fear that his long years of training and longer years as frontline soldier would have predicted. Don’t turn away, he screamed in his mind. The desire for her was overwhelming. He had no blood to spare for his legs to stand even if he wished to. Milady, please, don’t turn away from me; don’t leave me here. Say anything. Tell me how disappointed you are, berate me, your tongue is cutting and let me feel it once more. Step on me. It was the potent fantasy once more, the lust and shame and submission. Or smile. He wanted her to smile at him, that soft and beautiful face. Join him, ride him. He was helpless, exposed, if she wanted to do anything to him he could not -nor would- stop her. The only choice that Seregeithon could not accept Helcerían making would be to walk away from him, to deny this opportunity. He stared directly into her pale eyes, accepting that his own expression stood nakedly exposed to her. The fear that she now knew of his strong desire for her fought but fell defeated before his desperation. Ósanwë was unnecessary before the betrayal of his face, that potent tangle of hope and fear in his eyes. If Helcerían turned away without speaking, she could continue to play innocent of his feelings, but they would both know it to be playacting. Seregeithon knew not when he would have the courage to confront her. He needed to speak. His voice croaked.

“Whatever excuse you two had for acting like young boys, I care not,” Helcerían said lightly, cutting him off, and she reached a hand down to help pull Seregeithon up. Seregeithon took the proffered hand, memorizing the feel of calluses on her fingers, editing his future fantasies, still trying to stammer a confession pass his tongue before his courage failed him. He stood inches from Helcerían and could count every nearly imperceptible freckle on her face. Her lips were close. With more courage, with any encouragement from her, he could kiss them. She could stand on her toes and kiss him. Helcerían did not move; Seregeithon sought the willpower to initiate. He began to lean down. Helcerían broke eye contact. She turned her eyes away. Seregeithon froze.

This was all his fears. She rejected him. Her feelings were not the same, he had disgusted her, too much pressure, too much desire, twisted and wrong and marred. Self-loathing overwhelmed him, and to further his disgust he could feel no abatement in his loins even with this sign that she refused to court his attention. The proper action would be to pull away. 

Helcerían’s fingers tightened around his. “Stop. Don’t pull away. Wait. Seregeithon, I...” Her words came out soft, halting, and quiet, and her eyes flicked back to his, no longer half-lidded but wide and filled with some emotion that Seregeithon could not understand. “Wait until after we finish this quest. Then we shall have the leisure to plan, to decide where.”

It was as if she spoke Telerin; Seregeithon did not understand. “Forgive me, Milady.”

Her fingers squeezed so tightly it was as if she was trying to pull the bones away from their joints. “A fool you are,” Helcerían snapped, her pale brows pushed down together in anger. “Why it adds to your allure, it is incomprehensible.”

That Elrond might not have been hilariously wrong about Helcerían’s attitude towards him was starting to dawn on a dumbstruck Seregeithon. “You desire me?”

She scoffed, “You are asking me this? When I was…” Helcerían trailed off, once more staring up into his eyes for the wondrous confirmation that he was offering her. “Could I kiss you?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Seregeithon croaked, closing his eyes, overwhelmed by the whiplash of emotions, the death and resurrection of hope. “Helcerían, if you wish me to beg you to-” he started to state, but her hand yanked on his hair and she shoved herself up to smack her lips against his. It was not a tender kiss - not even a decent kiss, for her nose hit his, and it was awkward and painful, and he could barely feel her lips for they were pressed so firmly against his lips that teeth received the sensation without any involvement of biting, which overall would have probably improved it. Not a glowing omen of compatibility - Helcerían was right in that they needed to have a long and serious conversation about if a life together would work for them and where would they live, if he was willing to give up Middle-earth for her because Seregeithon wanted her so much that he was willing to say yes, damn the sea, the pull on his scalp from the way she was yanking on his hair to drag his mouth within reach was exquisite. By all the stars, yes.

Elrond, watching from a safe distance, felt relief and apprehension. Now that wind had shifted, he could also smell the unmistakable stench of rotting flesh, but he would wait a few moments before alerting Helcerían and Seregeithon to the lead.

Chapter 7

Descriptions of dead animals in this chapter and some minor violence. Most of the sexual humor is in the footnote this time.

Read Chapter 7

The dead whale derailed the mood.

It was too large to do otherwise.

The living animal had been roughly ten times longer than an elf. That left around sixty tons of flesh rotting in the weak northern sun. Some of the flesh and mass of fatty blubber had already sloughed off, exposing the whiter bone, but most of the dead whale was still intact. The rot had not progressed to disguise that it was a whale carcass, freshly killed, and too far from the shoreline to have been beached. The high tide mark was over two hours' walk to the northwest. 

Helcerían identified the carcass, “A bowhead- you can tell by the massive jaw, how large the head is. And those are teeth, the long sheets of comb,” she said, pointing to exposed bone. “Used like a sieve to filter food. The giant ones with comb-teeth eat only little things. A useful material, strong yet flexible, good for baskets and reinforcement to make a bow that does not snap.” The dead animal stretched out along the hill slope, lumps of white blubber shining in the sun contrasting with the black hide that remained. A gash opening onto eviscerated bowels was likely caused by the natural fermentation of rotting corpses, but a larger gash, ragged by the efforts of scavengers picking at the edges, hinted at a mighty death wound. 

“That does not answer how it came to be here, so far from the ocean,” Seregeithon said.

“And they are too large to be prey for any beasts, even the wolf whales, in their adulthood.” Helcerían paused. “Unless some monsters of Morgoth survived.”

Seregeithon looked at the long gash in the black hide, then at the snow-covered earth around the carcass of the dead whale. Deep grooves in the ground could have been the marks of either skis or sled rails- or long claws or talons. Some marks paralleled in the loose earth and faint dusting of unmelted snow around the pebbles and other small stones, but others overlapped. Had there been deep snow instead of a faint powdery veneer hardened into a thin layer of icy frost, the trails would have been clearer. He could not find prints of paws, hooves, or boots, but with the lack of butchering of the carcass for the valuable blubber and bone, he was not surprised at the absence of evidence of Forodrim presence. And those people were reindeer herders, not whale hunters. The largest furrow, he guessed, was from the whale being dragged by the tail to this low ridge. Unless that was a dried shallow creek bed. Seregeithon knelt by one of the marks in the earth as Helcerían and Elrond, holding fabric to their noses to vainly combat the dreadful stench, approached the rotting corpse to inspect it further. 

“It died less than a week ago,” Helcerían stated. “Perhaps three days. Were it winter, the cold would prolong decay more.”

“Is this connected?” Elrond asked, even if he knew his question was unnecessary. The oddness of the dead whale, so large and so far from the beach, was a sign that they had been searching for.

The two approached closer, almost overwhelmed by the stench. The curtain of baleen rose above them.

“Where are the gulls that should be feasting?” Helcerían wondered, “and the foxes and other scavengers?”

“Get away!” Seregeithon hollered, racing up to Elrond and Helcerían with his spear lowered. 

Elrond saw a strip of white moving next to the mass of pale pink blubber and red flesh. He was slow to identify it as one of the great white bears, feeding on the carcass on the other side of them. Helcerían gripped the danger faster than he, for she immediately reached for Elrond’s arms and began to back away, wincing at the rattle of pebbles beneath her feet. The wind shifted. Helcerían swore as Seregeithon ran past them. The white bear had lifted its face from the feast, scenting the intruders, and stood on its hind limbs. The bear roared. Elrond had not realized how much larger than the fearsome brown bears of the northern forests that the white bears were. Helcerían’s tug no longer attempted to drag Elrond back towards the beach - at first Elrond thought that she too was frozen in fear; then he realized that she had accepted the futility of trying to outrun the beast. Seregeithon charged at the towering bloodstained figure, spear aimed high. His battle cry challenged the bear’s roar for intensity and volume. But the steel spear looked like a child’s toy before the bulk of the white bear, its red-stained jaws, and outstretched claws.

Helcerían screamed and pulled Elrond down into a protective huddle, covering his head with her body and turning them both away as Seregeithon charged at the bear. Crushed against her chest, jacket ties digging into his cheek, Elrond was blind and deaf to what happened next.

Much later, after the shock surrendered his hostage mind, Elrond would identify whom his memory supplanted in that moment when Helcerían futilely and instinctively made her body into his shield. Meleth, his old nursemaid, had huddled his twin and him beneath her body as Helcerían had, arms around them and her hands covering their ears and eyes, trying to hide the sons of Eärendil in the sea cave after she could no longer carry them, begging that the twins survive even as the sword that slew her slid through her chest.

 

“You great fool!” Helcerían stated, bending over Elrond as he administered to the shallow cuts on Seregeithon’s skin and the deeper gash on his upper chest- a wound that was not nearly as deep as it could have been and not the fatal blow that would have been if Seregeithon was not supremely skilled with his steel spear.

“You block the light,” Elrond said peevishly to her.

Helcerían walked over to the other side of Elrond, leaning over once more to berate Seregeithon with a lack of specifics and an abundance of worry about her displeasure at his charging -and successful slaying- of the bear. Elrond ignored her lecture. He suspected that Seregeithon did too, except that the older man had a calf-dumb expression on his face, bewilderingly laced with lust, whenever Helcerían shouted angrily at him and which he was currently displaying. Once more Elrond tuned out his companions. 

Seregeithon had pulled his spear out of the dead bear before allowing Elrond to minister to the faint wounds. The spear rested against their packs, and Seregeithon kept eying it, nervous to wipe it clean before the blood dried on the metal.

“Allow me to suture these cuts and the sooner you shall clean your weapon,” Elrond said, dabbing a salve on the last shallow gash on Seregeithon’s arm and eyeing the one on his chest. Coat and undershirts had been removed and the blood washed off with the remaining drinking water. After these wounds, which now that Elrond was inspecting them, were not nearly as deep as the blood had suggested, were tended to, he would sew the overcoat and patch it with deerskin. Elrond's skill with a needle surpassed the other two.

A piece of Helcerían’s long white hair fell into Elrond’s face, and he batted it away.

Helcerían sighed in defeat. She straightened and walked over to the dead bear and Seregeithon’s spear and lifted the weapon up, then carried it over to her pack, pulled out a rag, and unscrewed a tiny bottle from the silver ornaments dangling from her belt. Seregeithon struggled to stand and protest but both Elrond and Helcerían shouted him down.

“I shall clean it,” Helcerían snapped. “I know how to clean spears. It has fewer barbs than fishing spears.”

Seregeithon accepted this, though whether he was mollified by Helcerían’s explanation and obvious competency as she wiped at the spearhead or by the glare in Elrond’s gray eyes was anyone’s guess.

Elrond threaded his needle and sutured the final gash, then carefully wrapped bandages around Seregeithon’s chest, following the older man’s careful instructions. They murmured about field medicine and Elrond’s desire to further his studies into the knowledge, Seregeithon praising the young man. He flexed to check if the skin pulled at the stitches and doubled his praise. Elrond helped Seregeithon slide into a fresh shirt and then went to repair the thick overcoat as Helcerían returned to Seregeithon’s side, her hands smelling of the metal polish. Her hands rested against her hips, elbows crooked out. Her signature pose, Seregeithon thought fondly. Those half-lidded eyes, moon-pale and irate. The expression shifted, then the hands dropped to her sides. Seregeithon watched as Hecerían relaxed the muscles of her body and knelt down to be at his eye level. “Irredeemable fool,” she hissed once more without a bite. 

“By all the bright stars, I love this woman,” Seregeithon thought, and only later realized that he had whispered the astonished words aloud.

Helcerían slid into Seregeithon’s lap, careful to avoid leaning her weight against his fresh wounds and delighting in the warmth of his body. Seregeithon radiated heat higher than that of an average man, a quirk of his physiology that she was discovering, or perhaps she had forgotten how warm others were, or perhaps she felt terribly cold. Too many years she had been the Iceheart. Seregeithon was warm, even if he stank of sweat and blood instead of his regular pleasant musk, and his fingers twining themselves in her hair were covered in blood and would make cleaning her hair a tedious task. He did like playing with her hair, Helcerían noticed. His was a pleasant length. She wiggled her hips against his upper legs, delighted to see that she was distracting him from the sting of his cuts. Seregeithon’s arms jerked as well, tightening around her waist.

“I understand why you are angry with me,” Seregeithon said, “but my actions were necessary to save your lives. It is fear you feel, not anger. I do not regret my actions, and you would not choose me to do otherwise. But I will not mistake this for true anger or be upset with you.”

“Upset?” Helcerían hissed, pulling her face back from where she had nestled it in the crook of Seregeithon’s neck.

“I do not strive to make you angry with me,” Seregeithon said, but Helcerían laughed and cut him off.

“Don’t you lie to me, Seregeithon. You delight in making me angry!”

“Yes,” Seregeithon whispered, shifting her weight on his lap and repositioning his arms around her. “Though not this time.”

“I won’t wait for you if you die,” Helcerían murmured into his arm, leaning her body against his and delighting in the warmth. “I will not stand sadly at the Gates of Mandos waiting for your release. I have better things to do with my time than pine. Don’t need you. I have a perfectly serviceable piece of carved whale-tusk, well-used, to replace you.”

Elrond, eavesdropping, pretended that he did not understand any of the context around Helcerían’s confession - whereas by the bright speculative gleam of Seregeithon’s eyes, he did.

 

Afterwards, Seregiethon butchered the white bear, lamenting the lack of sled and distance from any settlement to make a waste of the coveted bear fat, thick white fur, and other goods. After long self-argument, he decided the weight of the fur was worth it. The rotting whale was another decision, and Helcerían wistfully eyed the bounty of the long sheets of baleen. A token amount, she decided, and then to leave the rest for a return trip or for the eventual discovery and harvest by the Forodrim natives. Butchering the bear took precedence over harvesting from the whale carcass, and she knelt next to Seregithon as he was tugging at the skin.

“I will assist,” Helcerian declared, pulling out a sharp knife. 

He grunted. “Gladly, Milady.” There was a poetry in how competently she skinned the bear, rolling the hide away from muscle, making only the necessary cuts. Seregeithon’s fantasies adjusted once more. Helcerían stretched out naked on the floor, a disrobed garment of pale blue felted wool lined with thick white fur and crystal beads under her. His robe or her overgown, he was unsure - but she was naked except for a pair of stockings gartered at her knees by a pair of ribbons with a familiar pattern. She was on her back, arms stretched out above her head, and her legs were slightly parted and knees raised. Her long loose white hair fanned out around and above her, spread as if she was floating in a pond, like the tendrils of an octopus or sea fronds, like the net of Uinen’s tresses to catch her Ossë. In this fantasy Seregeithon knelt reverently before her, hands moving onto the plush white fur, edging his way towards the legs, to part those knees as Helcerían smiled.

“Hold this,” Helcerían said brusquely, dropping the heavy roll of the bear’s hide into Seregeithon’s lap and interrupting his dream. His loins disliked the jolt, but Seregeithon accepted the break from the fantasy. Helcerían had asked him to begin to share these scenarios, for she wished to describe hers, and together they would pick out the mutually appealing. He catalogued which of the details were most important to share.

Helcerían returned to the bear. She wretched and pulled at the bear’s head, dislodging one tooth after another until she emptied the mouth, then gathered it into a pile next to the claws. “Jewelry,” she explained.

A deafening roar and shadow above their heads startled the three elves, and they careening their necks to see a rapidly descending winged figure - Hiswalagawen, honking furiously. Seregeithon could not tell if his ability to perfectly understand what the giant swan was screaming was because the swan of Ossë had chosen to speak in the elven language, or if it was ósanwë, or just that the rage transcended boundaries of language. “I leave you alone for one hour and this is the trouble you incur! Foolish Incarnates!”

Amazing, how closely the voice resembled Seregeithon’s memories of his mother scolding him for letting a sheep escape the spring wash or his mentor Albethor disgusted at what had befallen the training dummies.

---

So faint was the sound that imagination could dismiss it, music echoed across the water of the bay. The melody was complex and hauntingly sad, too distorted by distance to discern words. Wind blocked it, allowing the melody to reach ears only between the pauses in gusts.

Helcerían was uncertain if the song was real until she looked back at her two companions. Seregeithon still had not noticed, but the pallor and terrible expression on Elrond’s face betrayed that he not only had heard the music but recognized what the mystery was. Elrond was trying to blank his expression, but his eyes betrayed fear. There was sadness and longing mixed in with the fear, a mournful pity induced by the sorrow of the melody, and only Elrond knew that the fear was manifold, the old childhood terror but also a fear generated because of whom his current companions were: a Falmari maiden who had lost her entire family and previous life in the First Kinslaying and a Sindarin veteran of Bleriand who had helped Elrond and his twin brother made good their escape from the two that had abducted them after the Third Kinslaying and returned the peredhil to their people.

Helcerían opened her mouth to ask about the music and if it might be connected to their quest, but Hiswalagawen nudged her. The swan spoke, telling her that the song was not their concern. That was for their master to deal with, the decision ultimately up to Ulmo, and was inconsequential to them. Elrond shook his head in agreement. “We leave it. Harmless and nothing to us. I want nothing more with it, and neither would you.” The ‘more’ he had not meant to say, but Helcerían politely ignored the slip. She had met Houseless dead Noldor upon the ice of the Helcaraxë, and after a few times of venting her grief and righteous anger upon the luckless shades, she found no more beneficial healing in the act of confronting them and would no longer indulge them. She understood and nodded back to both Elrond and the swan.

 

Seregeithon had not noticed the music hiding beneath the strong sea breeze or the momentary pause of his companions. He was staring at his feet. For accuracy’s sake, he was staring at the footprints that his soft boots had left on the surface of the light snow. More snow had fallen the previous night, for it was not yet the high summer when all snow would melt, but Seregeithon knew that out on the sea ice now within eyesight that the melt pools atop the thick layers of ice were reflecting bright blue in the sun. By summer, the sea ice in the Icebay of Forochel would be mostly gone, exact for the northernmost region, floes floating like ships in a harbor that the seals and walruses would lounge atop. But north of Forochel the mass of sea ice would not melt even under Arien’s fiercest attacks, for that was the Ice Desert. It was the footprints that troubled Seregeithon - and his suspicion of what lay under them. Deliberately Seregeithon focused his weight and pressed down with his foot, breaking the surface of the snow as if he was a mortal man instead of elf. His foot pressed into the earth, which was only a few inches until it hit the permafrost of the tundra. Seregeithon lifted his foot and stared down at the impression. The uneven oval shape was darker than the surrounding snow. But it was not the right color. Seregeithon pulled off his glove and brushed his fingers through the fine grains of the uncovered ground, then rubbed the particles against his fingertips, testing the texture. The dirt was fine and powdery and light gray. There was a faint smell that still clung to it, unmistakable.

Ash.

And there was very little to burn out on the treeless tundra and rare cause for sweeping fires. Seregeithon swept an arm out across the ground, shoveling with his sleeve, uncovering the thin blanket of ash between the snow and permafrost.

Seregeithon of Hithlum knew what this ash signified.

---

Chapter End Notes

Bowhead whales are a solely arctic species and are as described, including the common usage of their baleen teeth.

Meleth, Eärendil's nurse, is a character from the earliest versions of The Fall of Gondolin, though I forget if it was an alternative canon suggestion or just fanon that she was, like Mablung, slain in the Third Kin-slaying.

And for another addition of deleted scenes in the footnotes, though this one did occur and only for Elrond's sake shall we pretend otherwise:
...
Helcerían’s palace duties were to distract Elwing and provide diversionary companionship to the newly-arrived long-lost royal relation. She solved her task by taking Elwing through Alqualondë’s various markets. Currently the two women browsed the line of stalls displaying various trinkets and items of ivory and scrimshaw, some as small as buttons and beads, others larger sculptures or tools. Nautical motifs were common but not mandatory. Elwing seemed particularly fascinated by the contents of one tray, so Helcerían joined her. The Falmari maiden looked down at the carvings that had so engrossed Elwing and felt a premonition of the lecture that Queen Hwindië would inflict upon her once they returned to the palace.
“Are the shapes supposed to match penises?” Elwing asked, staring at the array of objects jutting merrily from their satin pillows.
Helcerían stumbled over her words. “Yes. ...They are... tools. For those that do not have their husbands. Or a husband. They are very popular with the Noldor, with so many men having departed.”
Elwing snorted at Helcerían’s delicate explanation. “I am young, but I am married - to a husband who was often away at sea for long stretches of time. I am not shocked or bewildered - except to wonder at the bone. That does seem excessive. Leather would be more pliant.”
Helcerían floundered.
“And the sizes seem too fantastical.”
“Oh?” the unmarried Helcerían asked. She listened, blushing, as Elwing explained that only a certain length was really necessary, but angle and motion mattered most.
Elwing turned to her companion, asking brightly, “Do you want to buy one?” As Helcerían hemmed and stuttered to avoid answering, Elwing continued. “They are a good tool to have, even after you marry. And some husbands like them, too,” she explained, pointing to a collection of thin leather straps on the neighboring pillow.

Chapter 8

Read Chapter 8

Seregeithon stood beside the giant swan, Hiswalagawen, as the bird acted as translator for the portly walrus looming before him. That he had dared to think the seals large, a jest now that he faced these creatures. The bull walrus dwarfed the white bear. He wondered what walrus meat tasted like - one carcass could feed a village, Seregeithon wagered. Would the hunt be worth it and how did one plan such a hunt? The whiskered and long-toothed head turned towards him, beady little black eyes staring as if it knew of what Seregeithon had just thought.

“Ask it about dragons,” Seregeithon instructed the swan. Hiswalagawen hissed. With a deliberately long pause to signal her disdain at being commanded by an elf other than Helcerían -for that was how Seregeithon was choosing to interpret that vocalization and silence- the swan honked for two minutes as the walrus grunted back, the bird growing progressively louder and more agitated. 

Helcerían shook her head. “The walruses think that you may be correct, Seregeithon. A foul-smelling beast, large, that stalks both land and water, long like an eel. But why? And how?”

“Some must have survived the fall of the Iron Fortress, and they are no strangers to the bitterest cold. Their breath is poison as well as flame, and it would explain both the sickness and the carcasses.”

Helcerían shivered. “It is a foul thing, but a sound theory.” 

Elrond dug around in his bird-embroidered satchel until he pulled out a half-composed missive and wrote three tehta against the parchment pressed against his trouser leg, struggling to scribble out the thought in this awkward contortion without resorting to unpacking his full kit.

Seregeithon only felt a calm acceptance instead of panic at the support for his suspicion. From curtailed childhood his outlook leaned into fatalism. “Eärendil slew the mightiest of the dragons and most of its kind perished in the war, but no one would be fool enough to believe that all of Glaurung’s spawn were vanquished when Angband was cleared. No more than all of the enemy’s monsters were slain when the first dark stronghold was breached. Something foul always slithers away.”

“Have you fought dragons before?”

The older man pulled at the almost-healed wound on his hand. The itch of healing skin existed only now in his mind, but the gesture had become a tic. “In the Fourth and Fifth. Many times. I was a spearman, not an archer, and not Noldor-born to join one of Prince Fingon’s personal cavalry to attack the Sire of Dragons when the Golden first revealed himself. Later, after the last strongholds on the mainlines were wiped out due to the Kinslayings and Fall of Gondolin, many smaller dragons roamed Beleriand. They avoided the deep forests, and Orothaiben would not waste us trying to fight them. The dragons’ only weaknesses are their bellies, and that is difficult to pierce. Like hunting wild boar. Only worse. Brave and cunning and skilled you need to be to hunt boar, and a hero to go after dragons. Or have a death wish.”

Hiswalagawen honked once more, louder than before, and buffeted her wings. 

“A storm is coming in off the ocean,” Helcerían translated. “We need to move inland.”

 

A basin in the landscape, the center white with unmelted snow and ice, spread temptingly before their feet, the slopes shallow and the center flat, “Another frozen lake?” Elrond asked.

Seregeithon grunted, “Yes.”

“Do you think it safe to traverse?”

Helcerían walked out to the frozen shore edge and tapped her booted foot against the ice. While the earth around the lake was brown, the top of the lake was like a piece of winter dropped by a careless traveler. The surface texture was cracked and flaked like a covered pastry, but the color was still a uniform semi-opaque whitish blue. “Safe,” Helcerían declared. 

Eager to reach the rise of land opposite the frozen lake and the promise of terrain in which to find a windbreak, the three crossed the lake ice, moving carefully to avoid slipping. Hiswalagawen, recently returned from another round trip to Harlindon and Númenor, desired to rest their wings instead of scouting. Helcerían carried the giant swan in her arms, sparing the bird the ice against its feet. A spoiled cat carted around by an indulgent owner was the overall effect, Seregeithon thought ungraciously. 

As they walked, Elrond continued his recitation of the final actions of the Narn i Hîn Húrin, stressing the details of Turin’s hunt and subsequent slaying of Glaurung the Golden. Helcerían allowed him the monologue, considerate not to interrupt nor inform Elrond that she was already well-acquainted with Dírhavel’s masterpiece. The epic, as well as other Edain literature, was wildly popular in Valinor, and one could not escape recitals in Tirion or Tol Eressëa, let alone the full ballet in Valmar. She could not tell if the recitation was Elrond’s method of reassuring himself or an act that only swelled his dread at the possibility of encountering a dragon.

Eyes on the ice for wet patches where the melt had thinned beyond the safe weight threshold or where fissures were waiting to crack, Seregeithon found an unexpected treat. “The ice fire,” he said, interrupting Elrond. “The bubbles of burnable air I told you about.” He pointed to opaque white and cyan blue patches inside the ice revealing where the bubbles were trapped.

Elrond crouched down and swept the dusting of snow off a stretch of lake ice, revealing more round white shapes underneath. They looked like suspended snowballs. “Are you sure?”

Giddily Seregeithon pulled out his icepick and instructed Elrond to get the flint striker ready. “Watch carefully. When I break through, you’ll feel the difference.”

“Boys,” Helcerían scorned. She waited while the two elves broke the trapped bubble and lit the flame- the first fire almost invisible except for how the edges of the hole melted, the second bubble turning into a torch that belonged in a glassblower’s forge. Seregeithon and Elrond hollered with excitement. Helcerían sighed. “How long shall this burn?” The flame roared up for half a foot in front of her, seemingly conjured by nothing and widening the hole in the ice.

Seregeithon pondered. “Several minutes. Not long enough to cook something, though my old patrols would use this trick to heat stew. You are unfamiliar with this?”

“It is a thing of lakes and rivers, not sea ice,” Helcerían said. “I think. I do not know. Few wander into the Grinding Ice besides myself.”

“The smell is odd,” Elrond said. “Not sulfuric or rotting. Almost nothing.”

“Not like dragonfire,” Seregeithon said. “That you will smell, for leagues. And you will not wash the stench away.”

<hr>

The colder temperature forced the reconfiguration of their tents into one larger shelter reinforced with a windbreak of snow blocks and a ring of stones. The shelter was not tall enough to stand fully except at the center, but they could fit all of their gear and party. Wind pawed at the hide flap of the tent’s door, but the storm demurred from breaking. Inside, via lantern-light, Elrond reexamined Seregeithon’s wounds from the white bear. The peredhel removed the final stitch and peered at the skin. Without the fear of infection that could turn minor cuts dangerous, Seregeithon found Elrond’s worry excessive and a byproduct of his mortal lineage. The kneeling elf suffered the younger man’s ministrations with his characteristic lack of grace. “See, healing well. You irrational worrywort. Now leave me be and let us sleep. What little we shall - you sprawl in your sleep and hog the bedrolls.”

Elrond flung Seregeithon’s shirt at the other man’s head, the bundled garment bouncing off of the side of Seregeithon’s face. Before Seregithon could snatch the shirt and shrug it back on, a beak pulled it out of his reach. Hiswalagawen’s neck retreated, the shirt in her stolen grasp, and the swan pushed the garment under its body, adding another layer to the impromptu nest that it had created out of Seregeithon and Elrond’s fur-lined hats, a spare blanket, and other items piled in the corner of the tent. Small black eyes glared a challenge as the swan settled into a comfortable position, the shirt hidden beneath thick white feathers.

The only circumstance in which Seregeithon would have attempted to reclaim his shirt from that giant swan involved a hypothetical and impressive amount of consumed alcohol. Soberly he resigned his former shirt to its fate as Hiswalagawen’s nest for the night.

“Leave it be,” Seregeithon said both to the swan with his purloined shirt and to Elrond with the roll of bandages and sharp-smelling salve. Helcerían, humming the last bars of the song to re-enforce heat retention of the shelter against the night’s cold, nudged her avian companion with a foot. Hiswalagawen tucked her head beneath a wing and nestled deeper into the pile of clothing and hats. As Helcerían unsuccessfully prodded her stubborn swan, Elrond rerolled the excess bandages. “If they do not bother you,” he prompted, leading into a question that Seregeithon curtailed.

“No pain. No tightness. You did well, Boy.”

Elrond beamed. “These should not leave deep scars, as long as I do not deplete my supply of the poultice herbs. The wounds are healing clean, and I did not misjudge the recipe,” Elrond said smugly. “Skimp not the fresh application with each rewrapping of the bandages, and rub the poultice around the skin.”

“I will,” Helcerían interrupted, sliding between Seregeithon and Elrond and sinking to her knees above the older elf, straddling his legs between her knees. She placed one hand on Seregeithon’s bare shoulder and challenged him with a pale stare. The slight difference in angle forced Seregeithon to raise his chin, and Helcerían’s eyes dipped from his face to the exposed tendons of his neck. Shirtless, Seregeithon knew the blush blossoming across his face and upper torso was unmistakable. His skin grew hot, feverishly flushed if he had been mortal. Helcerían’s fingers remained cool - but the corners of her lips curved up. Oh how he had longed for the return of her queenly smile. Seregeithon flushed a deeper shade of pink as Helcerían smirked and placed her second hand not on the tingling skin around the healing claw marks on his belly but up on the curve of his pectoral. She cupped the muscle in her palm, long cold fingers brushing against his nipple. Stunned and aroused, Seregeithon did not think to raise his own hands and mirror the gesture. Thinking was not a task that he was capable of at this moment. That one of his first thoughts upon meeting Helcerían was the desire to cup her breasts only made this lapse in gumption all the more tragic. Mute and frozen, Seregeithon stared at her. “My fool,” Helcerían murmured, moving her hands slowly to caress his body, “you have enough scars.” Her fingers played across his upper chest, running along the ridgelines of old scars and around the areola. 

“Milady needs to pick another name for me,” Seregeithon replied.

“I told you many times to use my name,” Helcerían said in the same low and teasing tone, sinking fully into his lap and feeling the heat of his body press delightfully against the muscles of her inner thighs. The hand at Seregeithon’s shoulder now wrapped around his neck, thumb on one side and fingers below the other earlobe. Not with squeezing pressure, but the placement did have interesting effects on Seregeithon’s eyes. His pupils blew wide, swallowing the irises. Black as the night sky above the sacred island of Tol Eressëa, Helcerian thought. His mouth hung open. The expression was an intense repeat of when he finally confessed his feelings, and that face made Helcerían desire to shove Seregeithon supine onto the floor of the tent and strip his remaining garments from his flushed and overheated skin to feel the rest of him. That which she could currently see and touch enticed her in a way that she found unfathomable. The blood-flushed skin hot against her fingers. The pale scars. The soft nearly invisible hairs on his chest and arms. The curve of his muscles, perfect under her palm. His long white hair sticking with sweat to his forehead. The strain of his tendons and the fast flutter of shallow breath under her hand encircling his throat. Eyes black and glassy and unfocused. The black of the ocean far from the lights of the harbor. She needed all of him.

“I am still here,” Elrond snapped. Helcerían pushed herself off of Seregeithon, sliding off his lap with a startled squeak that made Seregeithon laugh despite himself. “And I thought the two of you had planned to wait until after the expedition to address,” Elrond paused, uncertain of the words to express the overwhelming cloud of lust that his two companions exuded. “Well… wrap the injuries first,” he switched focus and tossed Helcerían the roll of bandages. “And refrain from strenuous ...kissing while I am present.” 

“We were not kissing,” Seregeithon grumbled.

Helcerían reached for the jar of salve. “I said that I would apply the herbs.”

“I do not trust you,” Elrond grumbled. He turned to the giant swan nestled on the pile of purloined garments and furs. “Can you not stop them?”

Hiswalagawen created a hissing sound that sounded suspiciously like a human snore.

 

The tent was as dark as the interior of the cave system beneath Hithlum. Detecting that Helcerian was both awake and turned towards him was impossible via sight, but Seregeithon was certain of it. Within that awareness was the knowledge of their physical closeness and that Helcerían was only inches away in this darkness. The tent was silent, the muffled quiet that Seregeithon remembered of his childhood, back before there was a moon in the sky and his parents and younger brother were alive. Peaceful, safe. To break that silence seemed almost sacrilegious. The tent felt as if under a spell, enchantments sung in a dark forest to settle overhead like owls and nightingales perching on the high branches, waiting for time to restart.

Sleep’s exhaustion had not released him, and his limbs were unwilling to answer eagerly to desire. 

Not unable.

Seregeithon slid a hand across the blankets and furs until he felt Helcerían’s hair fanned out around her pillow. Greedily he sank his fingertips into the hair, tangling and twisting. Helcerían sighed in pleasure. Encouraged, Seregeithon shifted his body, praying not to wake the other occupants of the tent, until he was close enough to kiss Helcerían. Without illumination his lips ghosted across her face until they found her parted lips. They kissed slowly. The languid pace added to the dreamlike quality. Chaste, in comparison to all of his fantasies.

Helcerían kicked a heavy fur blanket down to free her arms to pull at Seregeithon, sighing softly as he angled more of his body to overlap atop hers. While not intentionally pressing down against her, his weight was a heavy pressure against her upper chest, and his arms circled protectively around her head, pulling at her hair. His motions were gentle. Reverent. She stilled, moving nothing more than her mouth and closing her eyes once more, focusing on Seregeithon. He had her pinned beneath him; his scent flooded her senses. However, his hands never moved from where they were entangled in her loose hair and his kisses remained slow and persistent, nibbling at her lower lip but never biting. 

Helcerían allowed him to dictate this, unwilling to demand more, submitting to his tender attention. Overwhelming passion she still desired, but there was a peaceful security in how Seregeithon only kissed her mouth in the pitch black silence.

“If that cock leaves the trousers, then Hiswagalawen and I are going to crawl out of this tent,” Elrond threatened dryly in the darkness, and Seregeithon ceased movement.

“You’ll freeze at this time of night,” came Helcerían’s sensible counter. A melodic but emphatic hoot expressed the swan’s disdain for that threat.

---

Chapter End Notes

Methane bubbles in frozen lake ice - and people lighting the gas on fire- is a real phenomenon.

 

And now in scenes of dubious canonicity, the start of several conversations that our couple need to have before their relationship progresses further:
...

“You said that hunting dragons was only for if one had a death wish, Seregeithon, and in the same conversation admitted to hunting many.” Helcerían’s tone was solemn.
Seregeithon lifted his head from where it was nestled in her lap. Words hesitated to leave his reddened lips. “I sought vengeance, not mine own death. But I did not treat my life cautiously. Slaying others - be they beasts or orcs- consumed me. I learned nothing else, trained for nothing else, desired nothing else. Have...nothing else.”
Helcerían sat frozen.
“Does that repulse you?” Seregeithon asked haltingly.
“Saddens me,” the Amanyar woman admitted. “I understand how you could have grown into a man of such singular violence. And that your fate you wish on no others. I only wish that it had spared you as well.” Her hand fell to his forehead and brushed at his bangs. The gesture of a goddess granting absolution.
“Let us change the topic. We need a safeword. And what is your opinion on collars?”

Chapter 9

Hiswalagawen decides that she is Y'shtola. Alternatively, one could say that she pulls a Gandalf.

Read Chapter 9

Seregethion’s hand curled around the shaft of his spear. The gesture was familiar- and pointless. The spear had saved him against the white bear, as it had against the orcs and wolves decades before. The foe before him no single spear could fell.

“A long-worm,” Seregeithon hissed. “It is wingless, else our Doom would be greater still, but we have been given this one mercy.” Elrond was uncertain if the thankfulness of his voice was a truthful sentiment or irony. The older man was fond of his sarcasm.

“And it yet does not see us,” Helcerían added.

“Yet,” Seregeithon echoed, teeth barred in a sneer that was equally fatalist humor as it was anger and disgust.

The wingless dragon was -if Seregeithon’s eye for judging measurement at a distance was accurate- longer than the whale corpse by a third, though that length was mostly tail. The beast was thin and long, weasel-like in body shape, with neck and tail the majority of its substance and a torso barely thicker than the ends. Supine in repose, it did not coil like a resting snake, but the dragon looked more like a snake than any other living creature. The hide of iron-hard dark bronze scales glinted and shimmered in the sun, darkest in color around the head and then dappled and banded with a row of raised lighter bronze scales in a ridge along the spine. A pair of horns rose like antlers from its head. Said skull was vaguely horse-like in shape, long and heavy compared to the narrow lithe body. The creature was beautiful, taken in isolation, but the odor even from this distance was foul, and awake all dragons were both dangerous and cruel. Seregiethon did not forget this, that dragons were the worst of Morgoth’s creations, more vile than orcs or werewolves and more dangerous than balrogs. Nor was the danger limited to the maw of many teeth, taloned feet, and fiery breath. The sleeping dragon blighted the surrounding land. The earth was soft with rot and ash, as if stone and ice were necrotic flesh. Gold was the only substance of Arda that did not physically degrade beneath a dragon and thus why the creatures valued the metal so highly for their nests, though this fact would remain unknown until the wars against the dwarves.

Helcerían’s mystery was solved.

The dragon’s passive despoiling of the land created a faint depression on the flat ice sheet, not deep enough to be a crater but a change in elevation over a great distance that the three elves were looking down upon the beast. The unevenness of the rocks and ice gave them cover to crouch behind, but if the wind shifted then their scent would be carried to the dragon, and on foot their ability to outrun it was in doubt. Seregeithon, Helcerían, and Elrond’s survival depended on the direction of the wind and soundness of the dragon’s sleeping.

“We need to retreat,” Seregeithon said. “We have your answer, Milady. One of the great dragons survived and has learned to swim.”

“But we do not know its lair,” Helcerían hissed. “They do not nest out in the open if they can find another option. And we do not know if there is but one or if others had survived the destruction of Thangorodrim.”

“One is enough,” Seregeithon said, anger and fear dropping octaves in his voice to make it sound un-elven. Helcerían ignored the inappropriate affect that the vocal change gave her. That he belonged in her marriage bed was a worn and familiar thought.

Helcerían’s giant swan companion, who until now had huddled close to the elven woman, struck quickly with her black beak, jabbing Helcerían in the ribs. Helcerían bit off the shout of pain and surprise, fearful of awaking the dragon, but turned to glare most spitefully at her companion. Hiswalagawen hissed, lifting her giant white wings slowly from her back, and jabbed again with her beak, creating another bruise on Helcerían’s upper arm. The command was clear.

The three elves began the awkward yet necessary backwards belly shimmy away from the slumbering dragon, knees and elbows digging into the crust of ice.

The swan did not.

“Hiswalagawen, what are you doing?” Helcerían wheezed. 

The swan’s head oscillated between the dark supine line of the dragon in front of it and the three elves behind, weighing and reweighing two options. Decision chosen, the swan turned once more to look at her companion.

Ósanwë -unnecessarily- clarified Hiswalagawen’s decision. “We are too close to the despoiler. Flee. I will give thee a cushion of safety in which to escape its notice. Beloved children, flee. Debate this not with me, Little Ice-Crowned. Not today. ” A tinge of sorrow colored those words, almost drowned out by amusement and love.

Elrond was the one to pause and Helcerían to curtail his horror-fueled defiance with a sharp and insistent tug at his blue coat. Back over a small crest of rocks she pulled him, the ridge of earth too slight to hide him if he stood upright, but from here the earth began to slant downwards. Eventually the elevation difference would expand to hide them from an earthbound foe in this overcast weather, as long as no errant reflection betrayed them. Seregeithon had no intention of disagreeing with Hiswalagawen’s plan, but he too was sluggish to retreat as he had yet to unhand his iron spear, making his elbow crawl awkward as he carefully reduced the sound of the polearm scraping against the ground. Raising the spear to strap it against his back might create that flash of reflecting metal that they were desperate to avoid. Fear sweat battled with the dragon stench to overwhelm their noses.

Slowly the giant swan unfurled her wings to their full width and held them extended until the three elves were twice again the distance of the shadow clear of those wings.

Ósanwë once more brushed against their minds. “Flee, Children. Whatever occurs, flee. ”

Hiswalagawen shrieked something unfathomable in Valarin, the discordant words as sharp as swords, and in their incomprehensibleness there remained still a glimmer of understandable feeling: the image of a shield and summoned courage, a declaration of protection and a defiant cry against a foe. Of bravado beget by dire necessity. The Maia of Ossë launched herself into the air and flew high into the air, then began to dive towards the dragon. Her cry and rapid descent roused the monster from sleep, but the high angle obscured that Hiswalagawen had companions.

Not that it mattered, for the dragon’s attention fixated upon the swan. The horned head rose, yellow eyes tracking the bright spot of the white swan above it. The dragon crouched low against the tundra, the splay of limbs positioned not for a pounce but protection. Iron-hard the scales were, but the belly was as soft as squid flesh.

Hiswalagawen screamed once more, and nothing would displace her from the dragon’s attention. 

The white of her feathers were so bright it was as if the swan was glowing like a star. 

Elrond had never seen his mother transformed. He imagined how Elwing would have looked when Ulmo uplifted her body from the crashing surf outside the burning refugee camp at the Mouth of Sirion, Silmaril shining against her white gull feathers as she flew to bring Beleriand’s eventual salvation. The fellow survivors on the Isle of Balar and the envoys from the Army of the Valar told him the stories. His mother looked like how Hiswalagawen looked now, Elrond supposed. Both bird and light.

Helcerían bit her lip against the cry of dismay. The three elves watched as the swan bought them safety with her feint.

As Hiswalagawen sped towards the dragon, her shape expanded until the giant swan was of the same wingspan as one of Manwë’s great eagles - and yet she was still dwarfed by the dragon. Now she was upon the monster. Her white wings buffeted at its head, beating against its jaws and pummeling the horned head to and fro. Jaws snapped open and close, fruitlessly swallowing air. Her chance of defeating that array of fang and claw and ink-black scale was nil- but for a second they hoped.

Then the dragon reared back and opened its mouth wide, spewing flames. The air smelled like sulfuric discharge, and the roar of the ignition of the dragon’s breath could be felt from their hiding spot.

Hiswalagawen disappeared.

Immediately Seregeithon lunged for Helcerían and covered her open mouth with his hand, muffling her scream of anguish and pulling her back. The pair scrambled against the cold earth, Seregeithon holding Helcerían in a death hug. “We flee! We flee, Helcerían, now - or make her actions vain!”

Elrond, sobbing in that quiet way he had learned as a young child, turned and crawled and when some sixth sense told him, rose into a crouch and began to run half-bent. As children Elros and him had run thus, more than a century ago, after cutting loose the horses of their kidnappers as a distraction and then fleeing into the forest, wherein Orothaiben and his men had found and rescued them and brought the boys safely to their last remaining kin on the Isle of Balar. His ears waited for the roar of the dragon to grow louder, a sure sign that the monster had spotted them, but the sound only lessened.

Beside him ran Seregeithon and Helcerían. What little wind that there was blew against their backs like a hand shoving them to safety. Fading with every lurching step was the rumble and snap of fire igniting in dry air. Sulfuric ash fell on their clothing. The particles were small, density minimal, just enough that the smell would linger for weeks.

The dragon, preoccupied with worry of another aerial assault, mindful of the vast flock of birds led by Eärendil that had combatted the dragons during the final battle of the War of Wrath, looked only towards the sky, never south towards the sloping plain down which the elves fled.

Only when the sun lowered behind the horizon line to allow all shades of pink to fade and the stars to reveal themselves did the three stop. To the walls of their endurance had they run - and for the peredhel, beyond it. Joints burned like fire, and predators could have tracked them by the clamor of their panting, but nothing had chased them. Midges buzzed around Seregeithon and his two companions, but the insects were their only company. The last of Anor’s light disappeared behind the unseen sea, giving way to the sliver of silver light that was twilight’s illumination. They were not mortals to need the sun to find safe footing, but the temperature had dropped to degrees unsafe when one was as weary as their hours of running had made them.

One more step, Elrond knew, would force him to puke. Then collapse in bone-dead exhaustion onto the permafrost. Then perhaps never wake when the sun next rose. A corpse mummified by the cold, like so many of Helecaraxë’s dead that Helcerían had found and given burials to while surveying the damage left behind by the Noldor's trek to Middle-earth.

Tear tracks had dried on Helcerían’s face, leaving only reddened eyes and a crestfallen brow as signs of her weeping. Elrond’s eyes mirrored hers. Only the tightness of Seregeithon’s jaw and a pallor to his complexion revealed his grief. “I apologize for my rudeness, but it was not safe yet to mourn. The swan’s sacrifice-” he began to say, but Helcerían cut off his apology with a gesture.

“Peace, Seregeithon. It was wise.”

Seregeithon pulled Helcerían into an embrace to combat the weary grief in her words, a gloved hand against her soft white hair and his other arm loose against her waist, giving her the option to push him away, still uncertain of the comfort that he might provide to her. Helcerían rubbed her face against the front of his jacket, nose hitting the row of stitches that Elrond repaired, tears returning to the wells of her eyes. Against her shoulder she could feel another head - Elrond leaning against her and embracing them both. She had forgotten how wonderful this felt. Seregeithon muttered wordless sounds as the two snuffled and wept.

“Do we dare a camp or keep running?” Elrond asked in-between snotty sounds. Helcerían was too exhausted to reprimand the young man for wiping his nose against her coat. She prayed that her hair had been spared.

Seregeithon pondered variables, but a shape in the westward sky distracted him. At first he thought it was one of the white owls hunting, and the sign of a normal creature assured him, for only the crows of the enemy flew when dragons were nearby. By the absence of birds was how Orothaiben taught him to track dragons in the forest, when their stench had permeated the territory and tracks were too layered to tell age.

The white bird was diving towards them. Seregithon pulled away from his companions and pointed to the sky. 

“I do not wish to give false hope,” he said hesitantly, but Helcerían gripped his face in excitement and pecked his cheek. 

“That cannot be…” Elrond said in amazement as the white bird descended in a familiar dive to land with a loud buffet of wings and the unmistaken honking of a swan. The landing, as always, was ungraceful on dry land. The swan stood before the trio with no holy light and no sign of injury. Only the unnatural size and intelligence of the eyes betrayed that this was a Maiar of Ossë instead of a common waterfowl. And that articulate words came from its beak instead of a trumpeting cry.

“Aie, that was stupid of me,” the swan said in a gravelly voice. She fluttered her wings awkwardly and dipped a beak to preen the disorderly feathers, radiating self-conscious embarrassment. 

“Hiswalagawen,” Helcerían exhaled, “I am relieved to see you!”

The swan made a dipping motion with its head to approximate a bow. “Don’t tell Little Duck that I did that. I rushed to re-embody and return, and I thank you all for not killing yourselves in my absence. Not that I can lecture any of you for foolishness now without incriminating myself. Hark! I am no warrior, as I just proved. Stupid. Duck will reprimand me for this deed until Arda is Remaded.”

“Who is Duck?” Seregeithon whispered to Helcerían. 

“Her sister. Another of Ossë’s Maiar, currently lives in Alqualondë as a dancer.”

“Wait, she is also a swan?” The Sindarin man pondered the oddities of Falmari theater.

“She used to be a duckling.”

Seregeithon snorted.

Hiswalagawen flapped her wings, buffeting the whispering elves with light gusts and interrupting their discussion. “We should continue to retreat from the range of the dragon. I have informed my superiors, and Lord Oromë and his hunters - proper trained warriors - have chosen ones more suited to the task of removing this blight upon the northern ice than you or I.” Elrond and Helcerían pretended to ignore the speculative interest in Seregeithon’s eyes, preemptively plotting their arguments to convince their companion that there would be no circumstances in which they stayed behind to watch the dispatch of the dragon. Or allowed Seregeithon to join.

“Our part in this task is complete,” Helcerían stated with finality, glaring at Seregeithon. The man sighed.

“I submit my curiosity as folly to your good sense,” he quipped, but Helcerían’s mood was buoyed by Hiswalagawen’s return and ignored his mockery.

“How did you cross the ocean so swiftly and find us?” Elrond asked.

The swan pointed upwards to the stars dotting the purpling sky. “I bartered a ride,” she said, beak towards the brightest of the lights, and then made no other speech except that of birds no matter how she was pressed. Hiswalagawen, like Huan, had a limited allotment of verbal speech, and she had decided to save her remaining words, refusing even ósanwë with Elrond. The swan would not describe the uppermost airs through which the hallowed Vingilot sailed nor what words she might have conveyed to its pilot.

---

Chapter End Notes

Yes, that was a reference to Princess Tutu. A fusion fic will happen some day. I almost made it to 30k words without a fight scene or a character death - after this we return to the raunchy romantic comedy as I pull out the relevant LaCE passages for wedding ceremonies.

 And once more to the 'deleted scenes' of negative canon status:

"Why did I feel a strongly if fleeting inappropriate desire towards that dragon?” Helcerían asked.
“Cross contamination with meme of the inspiration canon,” Seregeithon explained dismissively. “Don’t fret over it.”
Helcerían was soothed. “Now what’s next for us?”
Seregeithon pulled out some hastily written nonexistent notes from the fourth wall. “When we get to the final chapter - which should be next but what with how this prose has ballooned out of control I wouldn’t guarantee it- Elrond officiates our wedding, we finally fuck, then make it back to Lindon, and some people receive letters. This fic trails off into epilogues, footnotes, and possibly more chapters.” Helcerían nodded as Seregeithon flipped a nonexistent page. “We have a shit-ton of sex, cameo in future fics as background support NPCs, create at least three children, move to Imladris when Elrond establishes the place, and the author is toying with the idea that I am one of Celebrian’s doomed guards when she is captured by orcs.”
Helcerían frowned. “Veto that last one.”

Chapter 10

Double length, for the conclusion and wedding.

Read Chapter 10

The missive that Elrond sent had no copy. What Hiswalagawen carried was a short letter to High King Gil-galad that their quest was fulfilled, the details withheld until explained in person. Elrond planned to write to his brother only once he was safely back in Forlindon. Elrond’s reason for this truncated correspondence rested on an immutable fact: he had nearly run out of paper, having misjudged the quantity to pack in his scrivinal satchel. The royal patron (as opposed to the royal twin) had priority. Anyways, Elrond needed the authorities in Lindon to inform the ship to return to the cove to pick up their passengers. Thoronchen’s brother would await them as long as travel schedules were not misjudged. The window of opportunity afforded little leeway, for a fishing vessel could not lay in anchor for more than two or three days. Further south, where the woods were less wild and the fresh streams charted, such a wait would not be a worry, but too long to reach their cove and the three would have to walk all the way back to Lindon.

A short missive made it easier to downplay what had happened - most of all the lingering fear and grief that Elrond dismissed as inappropriate. Hiswalagawen acted as if nothing had changed between these two letter deliveries. To mourn someone who had returned was paradoxical. Nor was Elrond’s pain solely for the swan.

Depriving Gil-galad of the details also forestalled the King from sending his own troops to try to slay the dragon. Gil-galad had more good sense and less impulsive rashness than his biological sire, but as with Seregeithon, Elrond would limit the opportunities for unnecessary acts of martial excitement seeking.

The lack of writing material meant that Elrond sat idly as Helcerían crafted her favorite fish stew, finally emptying the bounty from the tiny silver fish at her belt. Elrond recognized the citrus scent of lemon or capers, and fennel was another one of the herbs, but for the flavor of the dish itself he was unfamiliar, and Helcerían explained that the recipe was named for the ceramic bowls in which the fishmen of Alqualondë cooked this stew, a piece of pottery that she had not packed. The dish was meant for family, that gesture was plain to discern, and the warmth of Helcerían’s affection comforted Elrond. 

Seregeithon judged the two hours spent ice fishing at the lake worth the delay of their journey, that he could provide the correct type of fish meat for Helcerían to recreate her family stew. Now he sat nearby also watching Helcerían cook while idly whittling antler bone. He confessed that the skill was taught to him by the man that had found and adopted him, Albethor, and it was Albethor who excelled at the craft and found true joy in the art of carving. For Seregeithon, whittling was a way to keep his hands occupied and to remember his foster-father.

As Helcerían stirred, she sang. The Falmari Quenya concealed the meaning of her song, but between loan words and root similarities and the ósanwë that had allowed Felagund to understand the language of the Bëor during that first encounter, Elrond deciphered Helcerían’s song.

As it was a song from the people of Alqualondë, the subject matter did not surprise. A fish caught in a net, struggling to slip free and deciding not, having exhausted itself against the ropes that bound it. A catchy tune, Elrond thought, if strange in focus. Fishermen singing about a good bounty was expected. Helcerían’s song, unless there was an error in translation, was not that. The detailed lyrics about how the fish was bound by the net betrayed a preoccupation from the song’s composer that was irrational and bordering on the comedic. Shortness of breath for a creature with gills exposed to air, yes, but to make a chorus of that? And to point out every loop and knot of the net and where upon the fish were placed said bonds? Since when did a fish have legs? Elrond belatedly realized the point of the song. Not fish. Not fish at all.

Seregeithon’s jaw hanging stupidly open, doing his best unwitting impersonation of a basking shark, proved that the older man had also deciphered the hunger to which Helcerían’s song truly addressed. Erotism tied to physical restraints was difficult for Elrond to parse out - but after more than a month’s worth of exposure to Helcerían and Seregeithon, he knew that the concept existed.

Elrond was starting to have suspicions about Sindarin songs about acorns and trees, if Falmari fishing net songs and Vanyar royal poetry were indicative of a greater truth.

Seregeithon’s cow-stupid gawk was easy to see because he had one of Helcerían’s ribbons tied around his head as a band to hold back the front fringe of his white hair. It was unusual to see the entirety of his face, and the short bangs stuck up messily behind the headband. It made him look younger than Elrond. Domestic. Cute.

Elrond shook his head. That thought was not his. Helcerían’s ósanwë infected him again. Between Seregeithon’s fascination with Helcerían’s long unbound hair and this, Elrond vowed that he would shave his head bald. Their amorous capacity and creativity perplexed Elrond. He adored his two travel companions- but they sorely tested him with their lust. Yet how easily they irritated him but had his forgiveness was a quality that Elrond associated with his twin brother. 

He would need to plan a new adventure when the three returned to Lindon, some excuse as to not lose contact with either Helcerían or Seregeithon.

The stew tasted as wonderful as Helcerían promised - and the lemony scent was dried capers instead of some foreign fruit exclusive to Valinor. As they finished second helpings, the Falmari woman sighed. “It is a pity that we have not encountered any Forodrim. I met some Second-born briefly, during the stop at Elenna, and saw some, I think, at Lindon’s dock. But I have yet to speak with any. A terrible disappointment it would be to have travelled to the Farshore and yet never have more than a glimpse of the Second-born. A waste of a trip, others would tease me.”

“They are so curious to know of mortals?” Seregeithon asked, wondering why this surprised him, for the reaction had been the same among the Eldar as when Finrod Felagund had first found the mortals. He remembered his curiosity when Malach arrived in Hithlum. After two centuries the wonder and strangeness of the Second-born wore off, and for the Sindar who lived in less northerly reaches of Beleriand and thus had regular contact with the dwarves for several thousand years, the novelty was lessened.

Discussion of the Forodrim evolved into Elrond detailing more of his efforts to convince the scattered groups of men to take the offer to build new lives on Númenor and how he doubted that he would convince any Forodrim to leave for the safety and bounty of the new island even if he encountered them. Elrond did share amusing stories of helping to build boats for the mortals and the often aggravating task of guiding them to the island, stories that delighted Helcerían. Seregeithon remembered clearly the incident with the chickens. He had not been one of Círdan’s many pilots, but he had helped to load the resettlement ships. His reputation for a sharp tongue fluent in mortal swear words had not been created by those voyages, but incidents like the quarrelsome grandmother and ill-behaved livestock enhanced it. The topic shifted to the elves settling on Tol Eressëa, the pardoned Noldor and those of the Sindar who wished to finally complete the journey to Valinor but stay in a place that still felt most familiar to them rather than the mainland. Many did settle in Aman, but few in Alqualondë, preferring instead to go south and inland to where Yavanna had forested the southern reaches, and there was talk of expanding the land. The work of seeding Númenor rekindled the joy of the Giver of Fruit, and she and her spouse and sibling and Maiar wished to expand their projects. The rebodied dead settled through Aman, and the growth of the population filled many once-empty houses and lands, though the Valar wished for everyone to have room.

“I understand,” Helcerían said, speaking of the preference for Tol Eressëa and the nostalgia for old trees and stars. “They thought my fondness for the ice wastes above Araman was foolish. A Noldor-like restlessness. Moripedi .” She sighed. “They do not look different, the stars here. The land, yes, a little, and the animals upon it, and the fish. The northern oliphaunts and the deer. But for all that there is some difference in the air that I cannot explain, the stars do not shine brighter. I think because I have been to the Helcaraxë, again and again to clean the dead that despoiled it, that I am unlike other Amanyar. The ocean is the same on both shores,” Helcerían added, “only the people differ. And not that much.” Her companions joined in her laughter. Her unspoken confession that she would not resent if Seregeithon chose that they stayed in Middle-earth conjured lightness, a final burden falling from his shoulders, like the last piece of armor unbuckled.

“Has any of your family returned from the Halls of Mandos?” Helcerían asked, and Seregeithon shrugged.

“I could not guess if they have even gone to the Halls or chose to linger on this side of the shore. Albethor, my foster-father, has perhaps been reborn, and my uncles through him -Annael and his husband- took one of the first ship passages to Tol Eressëa.” 

“We should go to Tol Eressëa,” Helcerían proclaimed, “and then onto Alqualondë so that we may inform our families. There is no ban to stop us from returning to Middle-earth, if we decide not to stay.” The question of where they would live remained unanswered, and it was not one that could stay open - but at least it could be delayed.

“Do we wed then?” Seregeithon asked, referring to the planned visit to Alqualondë.

“Can you wait that long?” Helcerían asked.

The look that he gave her in reply calculated more than just her appearance (and the lust that it induced in him) but also the tone of her response. Cautiously Seregeithon answered, “I would not wait an hour more to marry you, if that was also your will. But if your will was to wait a year or a thousand, I would, to please you.”

“It is not my pleasure alone that we must consider,” Helcerían said with downcast eyes averted, her fingers smoothing the pale fabric of her sash, “but I too would rather have the hour than the year.”

Oh, Elrond thought numbly, this is happening. Damn.

“So…now?” Elrond asked. His slow delivery spoke of hesitation, but the firmness of his falling tone showed that even he knew that it was not a question that he had asked but a confirmation. He sighed. “After we finish the meal, I’ll stand for the ceremony.”

Helcerían and Seregeithon stared first at Elrond, then at each other. “Seregeithon?”

“After we finish eating?” Seregeithon asked, though the strangeness of his tone betrayed that this was not a jest.

“Yes.”

Helcerían’s ice-pale eyes pinned him, her face solemn. The rigidity of her posture recalled the towering might of a glacier, implacable and cold. 

The arch of Seregeithon’s neck and lift of his chin was subtle, as much a flex of his upper back and shoulder blades as that of his skull. The rapid heave and flutter of his chest and widened pupils of his eyes denied aggression but submission and desire as the root of his posture. His heavy jacket hid any sign of growing blush on his neck and upper chest, but now Helcerían knew that he colored prettily when so aroused. He was blushing now, under all those layers that he was mutely begging her to remove.

The boy had the correct idea. She would wed Seregeithon within the hour, strip him of all clothes, have all that scarred skin to explore beneath her fingers and mouth, those night-dark eyes worshiping her body, and initiate the long process of recreating all their fantasies.

“I have no ring,” Seregeithon said.

“We are skipping the rings,” Helcerían said forcibly.

Elrond snorted. “How do you wish for the ceremony, Helcerían? We are unfamiliar with the customs of the Falmari, if they differ from the traditions of this shore.”

Helcerían blinked rapidly. “I...I had not thought that customs would differ. Not in the ways that mattered, the vows to Manwë and Varda and to Ilúvatar. That each family would provide a married couple to present the bride and groom, to be their mentor and guide. The ones to hold their hands before the bride and groom reached for another. And the large wedding feast.” She laughed. “We have eaten a meal. As for what customs are not shared…” She bit her lip. “The Noldor exchange gifts, the father of the groom and mother of the bride, gems usually because of course the Noldor add jewelry to whatever they can. And the year of betrothal has traditions, same with courting, to exchange gifts.” Helcerían flicked her eyes to the roll of bearskin against their travel packs.

“Is the tradition the same for a war wedding?” Seregeithon asked. “You would not call it that -and we did not, at first- but there was the weddings for the full family, with everyone who was nearby to join in song and feasting, where we roasted lamb and sang and wore finery, and quick weddings where all was forgone except the two wishing to be wed, without witness except for the stars and the One, because none could be gathered. No rings either, though that was a Noldor custom widely adopted. Before the Sun we wove bracelets, I think, to bind the wrist of the bride and groom. I never learned what materials or how or why. The mortals wed with great ceremony, and did not believe it proper to have otherwise.”

“Do they not swear by Ilúvatar?”

“Some,” Elrond answered. “By their own names for the One.”

The clearest wedding that Elrond could recall in detail was that of his twin brother, which was only natural. Elros, having chosen his mortal heritage, desired a mortal wedding, but Bortë had insisted on including the elven vow ceremony before the more elaborate tradition of her own people. Fully mortal as her peredhel husband was not, still Bortë had been raised among the Vanyar troops who fought in the War of Wrath, calling the blond soldiers her uncles, and she loved them as dearly as her father and mother. She spoke their version of Quenya as readily as she did the Easterling tongue of the House of Bór to whom her father, Bledda, was a scion. She would honor Amanyar customs as well as those due to her through her father’s people. The wedding ceremony of the Bór involved dances, cups given as gifts to the families and a separate cup that the married couple drank from, a lengthy speech that Elrond did not remember, and the scattering of loose petals or grain. Other Edain traditions had been tacked on, so that their new king and queen belonged to all. Elrond had to stand for over an hour of that wedding ceremony to the left of his brother and watch as Elros recited a droning speech and swallowed fermented milk, and later dance with every single one of Bortë’s distant female relatives (nary a single one under the age of thirty) in complicated patterns that Carnambos and Bledda struggled to teach him. Not that the elf nor the doddery Bórian man were masters of old Easterling folk dances - or particularly good instructors - and the crones had patted Elrond pityingly on his head and swore that he had not stepped on their feet. Patronizingly they batted away his concerns that he had been out of tune or disruptive to the choreography. Some of the dances involved the shoulders more than the feet, but those had also been the dances with exuberant arm movements. Such dances were dangerous when in close quarters and the involvement of alcohol. Elrond did not receive a black eye on his brother’s wedding, but it had been a near miss. Bortë’s great-aunt Ataun had a wickedly sharp elbow.

The wedding ceremony of the Haladim involved the chopping of a log, first by the groom and then by the bride. Sane heads skipped that tradition when the amount of alcohol was appraised.

Elros and Bortë never complained about the abundance of ceremonies involved in their wedding. Conversely, Seregeithon and Helcerían approached the lack of anything but the barest essentials of their own wedding with eagerness.

Bortë wore unique garments for her wedding: a robe and matching trousers of rich blue embroidered and beaded with red birds, flowers, and fruit, and a headdress of silver coins and chains that covered her forehead and ears. Silver was a bride’s metal; married women wore bronze. The old women of the Hadorim and Haladim disapproved of the new queen’s wedding crown, demanding a heavy headdress of flowers.

Helcerían stood in the same fur lined coat that she had worn throughout the journey, but she pulled down her hood and brushed out her long white hair so it hung loose to the back of her thighs. Seregeithon placed himself at a parade rest across from Helcerían, also attired in the distinct lack of anything to identify this moment as significant from any other evening on this journey. Well, Elrond admitted, the grin was manic. And Helcerían was starting to vibrate. They faced each other, and Elrond stood where he remembered the Bórian priest stood, between and behind the groom and bride. His other choice was to stand either on Helcerían or Seregeithon’s side, and he was to be witness to both, a stand-in for both of their families.

Hiswalagawen in transit flight would miss the ceremony. If this was a mistake was yet unknown.

Elrond ran the blessings to Varda and Manwë in his head, his memory alternating between the verse spoken in Quenya by Carnambos, the Vanyar godfather of Bortë, and the Sindarin of Celeborn whom had stood in for Eärendil as the closest male relative on this side of the ocean that the twins had left. Married relative, that was. Gil-galad had also offered, but Celeborn as younger brother of their great-grandfather was the nearest blood relation. Also, unlike Gil-galad, Celeborn was married. The giver of the blessings was supposed to be espoused; that was the point, that they would stand as an example of a union of loving equals, as Manwë and Varda themselves. One did not invoke Ulmo and Nienna at a wedding for good reason. Elrond pondered the two that he was about to wed. Perhaps the Valar that he should be calling were Aulë and Yavanna. Best that he stick to Sindarin and the standard blessing. The hand holding and exchange would be awkward, so he should forgo that part of the ceremony as well. There were no rings to swap out either. 

The most important part was the commitment to another in oath to Ilúvatar. 

“Do you wish for me to make a speech?” Elrond tentatively asked, hoping for a denial. He could not remember what Celeborn or Bledda had said before or after the oaths, or Rúth or Galadriel, or any of the other old mortal men and women, or the guests at Elros and Bortë’s ceremonies. Repetition did that, making itself meaningless.

Seregeithon and Helcerían shook their heads. They made the single oath, sentence rushing together to become one in their impatience, then smacked their faces together in an alarmingly passionate kiss. Elrond coughed. Then cleared his throat. Then pointedly did not look at where hands were wandering.

A blasphemous thought entered Elrond’s mind. He wondered if Ilúvatar was ever embarrassed to play witness to such events. Or did the One prefer when vows were capped by enthusiastic tongue?

As a final gesture, because the abbreviated nature of this wedding offended something mortal deep within Elrond’s sensibilities, the young man scooped a handful of loose earth and gravel around his feet and then tossed it towards the couple, aiming not to hit either elf but for the bits of dirt and small stones to clatter harmlessly a foot away from them. Seregeithon and Helcerían spooked at the action. Elrond tried to shout the matrimonial blessing in Old Hadorin as his handful of dirt hit the ground, but most landed before he expelled the words. The throw had not been high.

Seregeithon raised one unimpressed eyebrow. “Isn’t it supposed to be barley chaff?”

“Seeds, not chaff,” Elrond corrected, blushing. “It is to bring good fortune and fertility.”

“A mortal custom?” Helcerían asked.

“Hadorim,” Seregeithon explained. He paused, recalling details given to him by long-dead soldiers of the Long Peace. “It is how they end wedding ceremonies, by buffeting the bride with loose grain. The seeds caught in the apron correlate to the number of expected children.” 

A pebble sat ominously in the fold of Helcerían’s coat. 

“Husband and wife. Congratulations.” Elrond patted his hands to brush off any lingering dirt. His two companions glowed at one another, mouthing their new names for one another with wonder.

Just as sappy as Elros and Bortë. Probably universal.

The awkwardness had not concluded, for there was one more element to a wedding. 

Elrond did not need ósanwë or foresight to predict what his companions would do next. Seregeithon’s hand on Helcerían ass was clear, as was the glances that Helcerían was giving towards the tent.

“I am going to gather firewood,” Elrond stuttered.

“But there are no trees for leagues,” Helcerían countered.

Too exasperated to fumble for words, Elrond responded. “I don’t care. I’m leaving the two of you alone for a few hours. Do whatever you wish to to complete your marriage. I truly wish no details,” Elrond stressed. “Please, for once, spare me. I don’t care what you do.”

“I have an idea or two what we could do,” Seregeithon growled, pulling at Helcerían’s arm to lead her back towards the tent.

“I know,” Elrond wailed. “You have plenty of ideas. So does she. Stop sharing them by accident.”

“Oh. Oh ,” Helcerían purred, her smile broad and lascivious, “but I must share them with my husband.” She turned to press against him, legs twisting, and her hands rubbed across his neck and along his collarbone. Seregeithon immediately closed his eyes in eager surrender, his hands tangled in her long hair. No longer pulling, now it was Helcerían pushing them to the relative privacy of the tent.

“Firewood,” Elrond stuttered. “Going. Back later - much later. Be in one piece when I return,” he tossed out as a parting joke, but Helcerían countered with her own jest.

“What if I want to break him instead?” she asked, and Elrond gasped in shock. Seregeithon had moaned. Never had that particular loud sound emitted from Seregeithon. The moan reached out from his core, deep and drawn out like whale song in the abyss, begging Helcerían to fulfill her jest, the hands in her hair pulling her on top of him, demanding to be broken.

Elrond fled.

 

At the breakfast table of the king of Númenor, as the pregnant queen and teenaged prince watched in concern, the king lowered the latest letter from his twin to the surface of the table, inadvertently dipping it into porridge and staining a corner of the parchment. Elros pinched his nose and bit back a scream of frustration. Queen Bortë paused in the careful peeling of her small orange, and Prince Vardamir lifted himself out of his seat and used his elbows to brace his weight as he leaned over the table to look at the letter that his father had partly submerged into spiced breakfast porridge. The angle was awkward, but Vardamir’s eyesight was keen. 

The text of the letter read thus:

“Dear Elros,

As promised the update to this freezing adventure of mine- do include more smug details of how swelteringly hot Armenelos is, I love you too, Dear Brother. The blight affecting the local bay is a dragon, as suspected. Walruses are reliable gossips, of all things. Be not alarmed; none -none of us elves- approached the beast but just enough to judge its shape in the distance, and the smell is unmistakable. One of the larger cold drakes, but nothing like Angacalon or the golden forefather. Whale-sized, but small whale with normal teeth, not the biggest comb-toothed ones. Helcerían has taught me more about whales than I ever thought or wished to learn. Nor did we have any plans of attacking it; we swiftly retreated well out of range and sent the swan to alert the Far Shore so that soldiers and Maiar may be sent to slay it. Oromë’s Hunt will be glad of the excitement. I was in no danger of recreating Cousin Túrin’s feat.”  Vardamir peered at the scribbled out tengwar, trying to decipher the crossed out letters. “What is the correct term of kinship for one’s grandfather’s first cousin?

“The other equally important update I must share with you pertains to the ongoing insufferable status of my two companions - overflowing with relief and joy I commit to you that that particular dilemma has also happily resolved. Thanksgivings onto the Valar.” This line was easiest to read, having been written with thick brushstrokes. “Seregeithon and Helcerían wed each other after we put a few days’ journey back between us and the dragon. Should have happened sooner, as I have regaled you in all previous missives. I stood in witness for both sides, though there was nothing to use as rings, and it would have been silly for me to hold both hands. But I heard them speak their vows to Ilúvatar, and then I pretended to go gather firewood for a long time as to give them room and privacy in the tent. I dare say that they exhausted themselves by the time that I eventually returned. Seregeithon in particular was dead to the world. The remainder of the journey was as miserable as the majority. Our trek on foot demanded energy that they could not spend - though often I was required to give them privacy either of the campsite or to delay returning to it. We have returned to Forlindon and the two are now Círdan’s headache. Until they board the ship to Alqualondë to visit her relatives. It will not be a permanent resettlement. Yet. They are still undecided. Olwë may have the joy of them. If Helcerían is not already with child, you may pick the rules of our next card game and I shan’t call you out when you cheat. If Seregeithon survives til then. Helcerían treats him most eagerly. Like the single stud ram for an island’s worth of ewes. Please do not tease me about my lack of spouse. I cannot wait to get back to Harlindon. ”

 

A third letter in Elrond’s handwriting, of pages numerous enough to qualify for a small book and within those many pages more tidings accounted for than just the young man’s most recent northerly adventure, rested not in the palace of Armenelos. This package the swan had delivered to the Doors of Night, and the parchment, much creased with reading, sat folded inside a basket on the deck of a most singular ship. No waves lapped against the white hull of this ship, though a faint rime of glimmering frost did cling to its surface, for perspiration froze in the extreme cold of Ilmen. The Star-Road had no wind to ruffle the pages, but the recipient was loath to lose this extensive letter and had placed it within the meal basket that his wife packed for him. She had already read the contents, and a tear blotched the ink of a paragraph or two. Most of the letter, however, had made her laugh or smile. The mariner’s journey was a long and silent voyage, familiar and a little monotonous. His wife gave him the letter to re-read during the quiet moments between the stars. 

The mariner thought back upon the contents of that letter and laughed.

---

Chapter End Notes

The two are finally wed, though Elrond -and the author- is not free of them yet. The abbreviated wedding is canon to LaCE, as it follows the early medieval tradition of requiring only the bride and groom's desire to be wed, and later a witness.

Elrond's wedding to Celebrían follows the elven tradition, complete with the exchange of rings - and Seregeithon returns the favor and stands in for Elrond's father during the ceremony.

 

And for one final non-canon scene to grace the footnotes, the real reason why no Forodrim appeared on-screen:

Short men with stout limbs, the bodies that suggested a dwarven grandfather or great-grandfather, and yellow hair as pale as unvarnished pine lumber, crowded around the taller elven woman, pointing at her long white hair, pale eyes, and blue clothing.
“They think that you are an Ice Witch, some type of winter spirit,” Elrond translated helpfully.
“Ah,” Helcerían murmured. “I see why we removed this from the plot of our fic. Wrong crossover entirely.”

In Need of a Baby Shower

Short Epilogue, Strong Sexual Content, in where Seregeithon and Helcerían are on their way to Alqualondë, and Elrond is proved right.

Read In Need of a Baby Shower

Helcerían has her legs wrapped around her husband’s waist and lower back, her hands clutching his upper back and shoulders. He is panting heavily, climaxing inside her once more, as hot as a furnace, and she is reveling in his sounds, his heat, his touch. They are in the dark of the ship’s hold, in their private cabin of the ship taking them back to Alqualondë so that she can introduce her new husband to her kin and friends. They have a bed instead of a hammock - not a large bed, but better accommodations than their wedding night, and more than sufficient for their need. Privacy, if nothing else. And a hammock would make positions and thrusts difficult - so good, her husband, so good for her. Helcerían and Seregeithon have not decided if they shall stay in Alqualondë or sail back to Middle-earth. The life that they shall build together is still undecided in too many fundamental details. Except for the sex. That he is glorious.

Seregeithon has stilled. The cabin rocks gently in the surf, but there are no lanterns lit to see his face. Helcerían can guess at the expression, the one that makes him look young and stupid and exquisite, and she pulls a hand from his back to stroke his sweaty face and lift the hair clinging from his forehead out of his eyes. Her other hand, as she also relaxes her legs, she pulls down and between their bodies to rest below her stomach.

Helcerían can feel - with the soul and not body, and she knows a little about mortal men compared to elves to know that this is one of the ways in which they differ - that Helcerían has, possibly, conceived. Or could. If she allows.

She has to decide.

This is far from the last time that she has had sex with her husband and far from the last that she shall. Their opportunities are limitless. Her choice is if it will be today, on this journey to her old home, before they have even decided where they shall live and who will give up their old life for the other.

Seregeithon, ignorant of this, has reached his own hand past hers, towards where they are still joined, to stroke and rub and bring her to climax. Attentive man. Desperately eager to please her. Helcerían grabs his wrist to stop him. “Love, do you want children?”

“If you do,” Seregeithon murmurs, still sex-drunk and bleary from his release.

“What do you want?” Helcerían asks again, her harsher tone demanding an answer and not just his deference towards her.

“Yes,” Seregeithon says, his voice still panty and breathless. “Yes, I want to be a father. I want it very much.” He would have continued with affirmations of his willing desire to sire said children with her, but by then Helcerían had released his wrist and wiggled enticingly.

A few minutes later, as Helcerían is panting heavily, her legs bonelessly draped over the sides of the narrow cabin bed, Seregeithon lifts himself up, wincing at the scratch marks on his back, and asks, “Why did you ask now?”

“My fool,” Helcerían pants. 

Yes, she thinks.