In Need of a Cold Shower by heget

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Chapter 7

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

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.

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