The Rain against My Window by Himring

The Rain against My Window

The weather was milder in Lindon—not just milder than the cataclysmic weather of Beleriand’s final decades, before the whole coastline sank under the waves, but milder than Gil-Galad remembered it being even in his childhood. Being a sensible, practical king, he appreciated it and made the most of it, during the daylight hours. It was difficult enough to rebuild a kingdom from scratch with the aid of a very mixed and very stubborn bunch of refugees without having to contend with an inhospitable climate, too.

At the end of those long days, for the most part he slept the sleep of the just or, if not quite that, the sleep of the hard-working and exhausted. But sometimes, even in Lindon, there came a rainstorm in the middle of the night and Gil-galad would wake up to the sound of raindrops dashed against the window and the rising and ebbing voice of the wind. Then, opening his eyes in the dark, for a moment he could almost believe he was back in his bed at home, with Father—Fingon—at his desk in the adjoining room, within easy call if he only raised his voice, and a doting Grandfather just down the Hall.

The illusion fled quickly, as soon as his mind cleared even a little. Barad Eithel was so long ago; it had been lost to him for what felt like a lifetime even before Beleriand sank. But always, after such nights, as soon as he could, he would try to arrange a meal just with Erien and Berion and those few others—very few others—who still remembered him as a child in Barad Eithel, in the time of Fingolfin. They never seemed to question it and he wondered whether, maybe, they had their own memories of rain.

Chapter End Notes

The title is taken from Tina Turner's song "I can't stand the rain", I guess, although it would make sense easily enough without that...

Goes with this drabble: The small rain down can rain

Erien here refers to a OC of mine, a Noldorin woman from Barad Eithel who is a kind of mother figure to Gil-galad, but who is not a relative. (In HoME, this was briefly the name of a Finwean, a daughter of Fingon.) Berion is also a recurring OC of mine.