Sweet Violets and Golden Cowslip by StarSpray

One

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Smoke hung thick in the air; there was no wind even off of the sea to drive it away, and a mist had come up out of the bay and out of the reedy river beds to mingle with it, so that every figure looked like a ghost, and the sky was pale and hardly to be seen. It was not the first time Lalwen had had to scour a settlement for bodies or survivors. But every other time it had been because of orcs. Who else would attack a place that could not even be called a city? A place of refuge for those whose homes had been destroyed, full of children and elderly Men?

Since coming to Middle-earth Lalwen had not let herself think of Alqualondë, but now she could not help but compare as she watched pink-stained foam lap against the broken boards of a pier. In Alqualondë the blood had been black under naught but starlight. They had all been afraid and furious and confused. She stood amid the wreckage of Sirion feeling ill and remembering Minyelmë's ashen face when she realized what had happened—what Lalwen had done. But inexcusable as Alqualondë had been, this was worse. No one at Alqualondë had been battle-tested or trained. Alqualondë had not been planned.

Círdan appeared out of the mist. He carried a sword in his hand, and his lips were set in a thin grim line. "Have you seen Elwing or the boys?" Lalwen asked.

"No. But others saw Elrond and Elros being carried away—by Maglor, if the description is right."

Lalwen closed her eyes. In her memory she saw Maglor as a little boy with his first flute, stumbling through breathy notes with tiny fingers unused to the work of playing an instrument. She saw him as a youth of great skill, performing before the court of Finwë and Indis with his parents beaming behind him, their pride as bright a light as Laurelin.

"We have found the twin sons of Fëanor," Círdan went on.

"Where are they?" Lalwen opened her eyes. "I would speak with them—" But Círdan was shaking his head. Neither Amrod nor Amras would be speaking with anyone again.
But they were her nephews still, in spite of all they had done. Lalwen followed Círdan to where a small, ragged band of Fëanorian followers had gathered with their dead, including Ambarussa, who lay together a little apart from the rest. Their copper-colored hair had been loosed from its battle braids, and lay in dirty tangles over their shoulders. The surviving soldiers scrambled to their feet and bowed low as Lalwen approached. She stopped and looked them over. Gil-galad would not welcome them on Balar, but they could not turn away anyone who could hold a sword. So she only nodded and gestured for them to continue.

No cairns or mounds could be built in Sirion. The ground was too wet. Graves were dug in the hills near Arvernien instead, though there were not enough stones for cairns even there, and there were a great number to dig now. Too many, and the work left too few to keep watch—Maedhros and Maglor had gone and Lalwen did not think they would return, but there were still orcs to think of, and the Easterlings. She helped her nephews' people carry their dead up to a lonely bit of dry land near the eaves of Arvernien, where the stumps of the trees felled to build Vingilot were just beginning to soften with moss and mushrooms. Once Lalwen filled Ambarussa's grave—they would be together in death as they had always been in life—she slipped away into the woods, and carefully dug up a few flowering plants—white wood anemones and sweet violets and golden cowslip—and brought them back to plant in the bare brown earth.

Not far away the Elves and Men of Sirion were singing and chanting mourning songs, funeral songs to honor the dead. Lalwen did not raise her voice to join them, but she sang very quietly a hunting song that she herself had taught to her nephews long ago and far away in Valinor when they rode through the forests of Oromë together. "May you someday see those woods again," she said, though only the earth and the flowers were there to hear.

Celebrimbor found her still kneeling a short time later. "My uncles?" he asked, as he lowered himself stiffly onto the ground beside Lalwen. She nodded. "Which ones? I've heard several rumors."

"Ambarussa," Lalwen said. "Maedhros and Maglor escaped—and it seems they took Elrond and Elros with them."

Celebrimbor's laugh was bitter. "Exchanging one set of twins for another? Or no. They expect Elwing or Eärendil to return with the Silmaril, and have taken hostages."

"Who can say? Perhaps they thought no one else would come quickly enough to rescue them."

"We had ships on the water before they left," said Celebrimbor. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes, and his hair a tangled mess escaping from its battle braids. "And there has been no sign of orcs, or anything else. There was no danger."

"It is easy for us to judge that, in the light of day, hours after," said Lalwen. She reached out to pat the earth down more firmly around some of the wood anemones. But she knew that whatever their thoughts had been in the moment, neither Maglor nor Maedhros would have overlooked the value of Elwing's children as hostages once they had a moment to consider the matter. She looked at Celebrimbor. "Surely you don't believe they'll harm the boys?"

Celebrimbor's grimace said he hated hearing the question as much as Lalwen hated needing to ask. Once upon a time it would not have needed asking—of course they would not hurt innocent children. But that had been before the Nirnaeth, before Doriath. Lalwen sighed, and turned back to the graves. She had dug far too many, for too many of her nephews. "There is talk of going after them," Celebrimbor said. "If a party is sent, I have asked to lead it. Will you come with me?"

"I am too weary of this for diplomacy," Lalwen sighed. "But I do not think knocking heads together will solve anything."

"Maybe not," said Celebrimbor. "But who else is there that they might listen to?"

"I think they are past listening to anyone at all."

.

She still thought so three days later when Gil-galad gave his blessing and Celebrimbor rode away with a small party made up of those who had followed him out of the ruin of Nargothrond. She did not go with them. Neither did Galadriel, nor Celeborn. Galadriel was even less certain of her ability to speak reasonably than Lalwen was. They were all only just clear-headed enough to know that a confrontation of tempers between the last remnants of the House of Finwë would end only in disaster, and would be of no help at all to Eärendil and Elwing's children.

But in the end it didn't come to that. Celebrimbor and his party returned before they were looked for, without the children and without having even made it past Nan Tathren. "Orcs are crawling like ants over the north lands," said Celebrimbor as he stepped off of the boat onto Balar. "We won't reach them now."

"Do you believe they got through before the orcs came?" Gil-galad asked him.

"I think so. We found signs of their camps, and they were gone long before the orcs came." But there was no retrieving the boys. And with the Shadow growing more with each passing day it was likely they would never see them again.

Lalwen retreated to the seaward walls on Balar. All of the construction on the island was a hodge-podge affair, incorporating elements of Falathrim practicality and Noldorin aesthetic with varying degrees of success. The newer constructions were of a newer design still. It was all sturdy and thick and able to withstand whatever storms Ossë might toss at them as his moods changed. Lalwen leaned against a parapet and stared out over the water. There was a stiff breeze coming off of the sea, and the waters were grey and choppy, mirroring the cloudy sky. Near at hand only a few fishing vessels were braving the waves. Farther out there was nothing, no sign of familiar sails or of a white wood prow cutting through the surf. And again Lalwen found herself remembering Eldamar, and the bright-sailed vessels that skimmed over the clear blue waters, and from there her thoughts turned once more to Minyelmë, wondering what she was doing at that moment, and whether she ever spared a thought for Lalwen at all.

"You will not find victory at the end of this road, only death. And I will not wait for you at the gates of Mandos." So Minyelmë had spoken, her last words to Lalwen on the road outside of Alqualondë, while Ungoliant's Unlight still lingered like slick oil over the land, and blood still dripped from the edge of Lalwen's sword. Lalwen had sneered and scorned Minyelmë at the time, so sure that whatever lay before them they would conquer it, avenge her father, recover all that had been stolen, so sure that Minyelmë would regret them and perhaps repent and follow after her. Now those words came back again and again and in them Lalwen saw nothing but the truth. She sighed, and bowed her head, and let her tears fall silent into the grey waters far below, as somewhere out over the water a lonely gull cried out, but found no answer.