Yet another winter by ford_of_bruinen

Yet another winter

The wind is cold tonight and harsh, the first stirrings of yet another winter on these shores. Another winter where the water freezes where it meets the sand before it spreads, cold tendrils snaking further and further out into the water of the bay and the snow falls thick and heavy on what was once open sea. I have seen many such winters and it was long since I lost count of the snowfalls and thawings that came with the change of seasons.

It is strange that I dwell here, as far north as this shoreline can take me, as close to the hardship of the grinding ice that my kin crossed. I am unsure of why I came here when my wanderings where over, unsure if it is a wish to atone or to get closer to them, a wish to find a way home or simply to hide from the world. No one else ever comes here, to the cold north where the winters run without the light of sun, only the stars and moon spreading a pale blue light over sleeping snow.

I bend and dip my hand in the cold water, wondering if you are there, on the other side; dipping your hand in the same sea, seeking some way to touch me, but I have no way of knowing. The road home is closed to me, I saw to that.

Closing my eyes I bend my head and think back to those last days with my brother, the Silmarils, even I have adopted the common name they use for the Silmarilli here, had been regained from evil, the war against Morgoth was over and all I wanted was peace. I no longer cared who held the jewels of our father.

But Russandol did. No matter how I pleaded with him he would not forsake the Oath we had sworn. I admit I gave in to him easier than I should have, how could I not when the only time I saw life in his eyes was when he mentioned them. He had been broken so long and he was the only one I had left on these shores.

I smile bitterly to myself as I remember. Russandol had never been whole after Nirneath Arnoediad and neither had I. I sent you away before the battle, thinking you and our unborn babe safer in Findekáno’s keep and I lost you both. After that we comforted each other, Russandol and I, crying, raging, questioning together with the only person that would understand. He broke more than I did from his loss. Does that make me less in your eyes, my love? The fact that I still lived when you did not. I still missed you, I ached for you every day and night during the years that followed, I still do, but I was unable to break.

Doriath. It was an insanity when Tyelko first suggested it, I expected Russandol to agree with me, but he did not. He gave in to the hatred and insanity that I could already see in the eyes of my brother and again, Valar forgive us even if we ourselves cannot, we slayed kin. We lost brothers that night but it was as if their deaths never fully reached Russandol, only the children did, the children left out to starve and die. They crushed whatever life was still left in him and after that he merely existed.

So yes, when I saw life in his eyes again I did what he wanted, I expected us both to fall and the Oath to be fulfilled with our dying breaths. Well, we fulfilled the Oath. We did that.

It is starting to rain now, a sharp hard falling of half frozen raindrops and I stand again, going back into the small house that I have made for myself. I rarely dwell on memories these days. They serve no point in this existence I call living.

I close the door behind me and sink down in the chair beside the fire, looking at the small portrait that hangs over the fireplace and smile to myself. Somehow that stayed with me through all that happened, the ivory face surrounded by hair as deep and brown as the fresh earth that is our mother. I still miss you, my love, you and the child that was never born but I am glad you are not here. No one should have to live with what we made ourselves, sons of Fëanáro, grandsons of the Þerindë, ever cursed.