the marks that bind us by polutropos

Chapter 1

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Terms/Names

Lachenn (S.) - Deep Elf, lit. ‘flame-eyed’, Sindarin name for the Noldor (used derogatorily here)

Danwaith (S.) - Sindarin for Nandor (Q.), which meant ‘people who go back again,’ i.e. forsook the Great Journey (used derogatorily here)

Golodhrim (S.) - the Noldor (“chiefly used by those who wished to mark the difference between the Ñoldor and Sindar” - from ‘Quendi and Eldar’)

Laegil (pl.), Laegel (sg.) (S.) - Green-elf (neutral here)

Lindi (pl)., *lind (sg.) (Nandorin) - singer, the name the Nandor had for themselves; Lind-nín is (an approximation of) ‘my singer/my Lind’

Iathrim (S.) - people of Doriath

Helcheth (Doriathen/Woodelven) - original character, name meaning ‘bitter cold woman’ 

Other Notes

Amrod and Amras are both alive, because I like to mix it up. I headcanon that a longstanding friendship from their time living in southern Beleriand is the reason the Green-elves were at all amenable to having the Fëanorians among them. 

Celegorm got silver hair from (HoME)Míriel and gold strands from…who knows.

But the Orcs came down upon either side of Menegroth, and from camps in the east between Celon and Gelion, and west in the plains between Sirion and Narog, they plundered far and wide; and Thingol was cut off from Círdan at Eglarest. Therefore he called upon Denethor; and the Elves came in force from Region beyond Aros and from Ossiriand, and fought the first battle in the Wars of Beleriand.

[...]

But the victory of the Elves was dear-bought. For those of Ossiriand were light-armed, and no match for the Orcs, who were shod with iron and iron-shielded and bore great spears with broad blades; and Denethor was cut off and surrounded upon the hill of Amon Ereb. There he fell and all his nearest kin about him, before the host of Thingol could come to his aid. Bitterly though his fall was avenged, when Thingol came upon the rear of the Orcs and slew them in heaps, his people lamented him ever after and took no king again. After the battle some returned to Ossiriand, and their tidings filled the remnant of their people with great fear, so that thereafter they came never forth in open war, but kept themselves by wariness and secrecy; and they were called the Laiquendi, the Green-elves, because of their raiment of the colour of leaves.

The Silmarillion, Ch. 10 ‘Of the Sindar’

 

The realm of Fingon was no more; and the sons of Fëanor wandered as leaves before the wind. Their arms were scattered, and their league broken; and they took to a wild and woodland life beneath the feet of Ered Lindon, mingling with the Green-elves of Ossiriand, bereft of their power and glory of old.

The Silmarillion, Ch. 20 ‘Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad’

 

It was high summer and the river was languid, its banks dry. I noticed first the sun glinting on the gold in his hair, bright strands among the silver darkened by the water. Shorn to his shoulders, it clung to his pale, vulnerable neck. A long scar split the smooth curve of his shoulders. His great bow rested on a pile of clothing, stripped off in haste and cast on the ground. He bent to wet his arms in the river, scratching the dried blood from his wrists with clawing fingernails. As it washed away it drew a faint line of pink through Gelion’s stream before dispersing, invisible, through the waters. 

“Lachenn,” I called to him, “you stain the waters with the blood of the slain.”

He turned to face me, his broad chest also marked with scars. He did not hide himself.

“How long have you stood there, lady of the Danwaith?” he said, exaggerating the inflection of the Golodhrim when he spoke our common language. “Do your people always spy upon strangers as they bathe?” 

His thin scarlet lips twitched, the blaze of his eyes a colourless grey. He pulled a towel from the heap of clothing and patted his face dry before wrapping it about his waist, still knee-deep in the river.

“May I not wash myself of the stain of blood in peace?” he said. “Or do the Laegil forbid even this?”

“We forbid nothing,” I said, “but the blood on your hands was not shed in reverence for the life you took.” I knew from the way it was splattered on his arms, even to his chest, that the creature had struggled. “You will find no nourishment in that kill.” 

He tipped his head back and laughed hoarsely–too loudly to be mirth.

“Yes,” he said, “you speak more truly than you know. I have taken many lives without reverence.” 

“Who are you?” 

He smirked and climbed from the river to pull a tunic over his head. “Would you believe it if I told you I am a prince? Or, I was before we were driven in disgrace to submit ourselves to the charity of your wild and leaderless people, who lurk in the trees to gawk at the last relics of Finwë’s line.”

“You are a Fëanorion,” I said, recognising now the sharp line of his nose, “a brother of our friends, Amrod and Amras. You do not look like the others.”

“No,” he said, “so I have often been told. But worry not–I am just as proud, just as cursed as the rest of them. Or so it is said of us. I am Celegorm in your language. Will you tell me your name, Laegel, or must I beg?”

“I am Helcheth. You should show greater respect for your hosts, Celegorm son of Fëanor.”

“I thought your people considered yourselves guests of the land. Am I not a guest on this land also?”

I hesitated; he had outwitted me. I stepped towards him. He was tall and strong, but his spirit shrunk before me. 

"Be wary," I said, "for often you will not know whether the land welcomes or rejects you until it is too late. Treat her and her creatures with gratitude, for she will rebel against those who do not, and I sense that you have nowhere else to go.”

He studied me then, and there was pain in those Tree-lit eyes.

But now the rumour ran among the scattered Elves of Beleriand that Dior Thingol’s heir wore the Nauglamír, and they said: ‘A Silmaril of Fëanor burns again in the woods of Doriath’; and the oath of the sons of Fëanor was waked again from sleep.

The Silmarillion, Ch. 22 ‘Of the Ruin of Doriath’

"Our Oath has awoken again," Celegorm told me years later, when winter's chill drove us together for warmth. (Perhaps there were other reasons, too. I have always been inclined towards dangerous things that I do not understand.)

“It will drive us from this place, in time,” he said. “My brothers still have hope that our birthright will be returned to us without bloodshed. I do not believe it. You will not see me again after that."

"Good," I said, turning my face towards the fire. These bright elves wore their regret like armour and bore their grief as a weapon, but they had forgotten how to fight. "You should not wait."

He shifted to look towards the sky and the cold seeped into the space between us. 

"So you would urge me towards evil?” he said to the treetops. “You who have such fierce love for Yavanna’s creatures, have you no love for Illúvatar’s children?"

"I have love for those who stand by their friends and stay true to their word.”

“Ah,” Celegorm said, “so that is why you tolerate me. I have done many things, but breaking my word will never be one.” He reached down, searching for my hand. I did not give it to him.

“Do not think that I love you, son of Fëanor.”

“Helcheth–bitter cold. Your name was chosen wisely.” He turned and placed a calloused hand on my back. I could see it in my mind, for I had often marvelled at the stark whiteness of his hand, gnarled from use, against my own skin, soft and brown as loam. 

“What is this mark on your skin, like a slender broken branch?” he asked. 

“It is a mark that my band of companions bears, in remembrance of what was taken from us.”

He pulled my hair from my face and brushed that sharp nose against my neck. “And what was taken from you, Lind-nín?

“My father,” I told him.

He drew back slightly. “I did not know,” he said, but his sympathy was feigned. 

“You have never asked.”

I thought he would then tell me how he, too, had lost a father; how he, too, had lost so much. But he surprised me, saying, “He must have been a great man, to have his memory engraved forever on your skin and that of your people.”

“He was,” I said. “You scorned us once for being leaderless. That was not always so. We followed him, and he was so loved by our people that we never took another king.”

Celegorm propped himself on an elbow and leaned over me to find my eyes. I did not look.

“Your father was Denethor?” he said in a whisper, as if the truth spoken too loudly would shatter the image of me that he had so carefully crafted.

“He was slaughtered by the orcs,” I said to the fire. “But it was not the Enemy who killed him. The Iathrim killed my father. We are not a warlike people, but Elu called us forth to war and left us to fend for ourselves. Our bodies were broken and smeared across the stones of Amon Ereb in the hundreds. The mark on my skin, the broken branch, that I and my companions wear, is so that we will never forget where we came from, what we lost–and who took it from us.”

Celegorm took my jaw in his hand and pressed a cold kiss to my cheek.

“Would you carve such a mark into my skin, Lind-nín?”

* * *

“Do not flinch,” I said, pulling the sharpened deer’s bone from his back. 

His brother, the black-haired one with a face as white as birch bark, the one who bent metal with fire, watched as I cut the Star of their House into his favourite brother’s skin, a mark he would bear forever. ‘Forever won’t be long for us,’ Celegorm had said, ‘but until then, let it remind us that we share the same Doom.’

After him each brother submitted his battle-worn, royal flesh to my instrument. The smith was next: I cut the Star into his upper arm, the one he used to swing a hammer that turned earth’s ore into weapons. After him, the one whose cheeks were ever painted red with anger: I carved and stained with soot the symbol of their blood bond on his chest, over his heart. The twins wore theirs upon their thighs: one, the left; the other, the right. The sad singer asked to have his Star drawn upon his neck, beneath dark hair that fell like waves down his back. Last of all the broken one, the marred one; his I cut into his right arm just above the severed wrist.  

When it was done, I staunched their wounds with lichen and sang of the love that binds the generations in duty to each other. The broken one bowed his head deepest to hide his tears. The others sat in silence, eyes cast down–save Celegorm, the glint of his colourless eyes the brightest light in the darkness. I knew he would kill, and that they would not be seven when they returned–but I have no more love for them than I do for the Iathrim.

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Chapter End Notes

As the story is told in The Silmarillion, Thingol of course does not abandon or betray Denethor and the Green-elves; he is simply too late to save them all. Denethor is actually said to have been very willing to ally with Thingol, drawn by his “might…and his majesty, and....the peace of his realm.” Helcheth doesn't quite remember it that way. It is also said that his closest kin fell with him. Whether Helcheth is actually his daughter by blood is up to you. 

One meaning given for Denethor's name is ‘lithe and lank’, which is the inspiration behind the tattoo of a slender, broken branch.

Yes, Helcheth is a bit (or a lot) morally grey, though I think no more than the Fëanorians. I imagine that the distributed authority among the Green-elves (Lindi) meant there were many and varying opinions. Helcheth and her companions represent only one. Her character is not a comment on the Lindi as a whole or on any real-world culture they might resemble. I had none in particular in mind when writing this, but if there are resemblances that you find problematic I welcome discussion on it.  

This was written for the February/March 2022 SWG prompt, ‘Opposites Attract’. My prompt was summer-winter (which I really stretched, though I hope I captured the theme).