Warning Labels by grey_gazania

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Warning Labels

Galwen let herself into the kitchen, stamping snow off her boots and brushing even more from her cloak. The snow in her hair was already beginning to melt from the room’s warmth, sending an uncomfortable trickle of cold water down the back of her neck, and she scowled to herself, doing her best to wring out her ponytail.

 

“Well, you look a little bedraggled,” Maedhros said from his seat at the table near the fire. “What’s going on out there?”

 

Those boys of yours should come with a warning label, she grumbled, her signs tight and jerky with irritation. ‘Oh, please, Galwen, won’t you teach us how to walk on a rope? Pretty please?’, they said. She snorted. They nagged me about it so often that I finally said yes, and what do they do halfway through the second lesson? They decide a snowball fight would be more fun and they start pelting me with the damn things. Those little demons are a menace.

 

Much to her further frustration, Maedhros seemed far more amused than sympathetic. “They’re young,” he said. “And they don’t often get a chance to go outside in the winter. You’ll have to forgive them their high spirits.” He took a sip of his drink and added, “I gather you told them to pelt each other instead? Or have they ganged up on Maglor?”

 

It’s Maglor and Elros versus Doronel and Elrond now, Galwen said. They were building snow fortifications when I left. I can’t remember the last time I saw Doronel have so much fun, she added, thinking of her friend’s wide grin as he and Elrond began constructing an embankment to shelter behind.

 

Something in Maedhros’ face seemed to lighten when he heard that, and Galwen thought she knew why. Doronel was Maedhros’ second in command, a friend from his youth in Valinor, and he had long been one of the Sons of Fëanor’s staunchest supporters. But he was often troubled in the dark of the winter, sunk in a deep depression and plagued by ghostly visions of his wife, who had died years ago in the Dagor Bragollach. To know that Doronel was enjoying a bit of happiness, even if only briefly, must be even more of a relief to Maedhros than it was to Galwen herself.

 

“Come, join me,” Maedhros said, gesturing with his truncated arm to the bench across from him. “It’s been a long time since we had the chance to talk.”

 

That was true. Apart from the report Galwen had given when she’d returned from her patrol three days ago, she and Maedhros hadn’t had a real conversation in nearly a month. And Maedhros liked to know how his people were faring. After all that he, his brothers, and their people had endured together, they had come to be a tightly-knit group – all keeping watch over each other, all worrying when one of their own was struggling.

 

Everyone left at Amon Ereb was unshakably loyal to Maedhros and Maglor, and they in turn were equally loyal to their remaining followers. Fealty went both ways.

 

Galwen sat and then, watching as Maedhros speared a sausage with his fork and began tearing at it with his teeth, asked, Would you like me to cut that?

 

“If you would,” Maedhros said, passing his plate across the table. As Galwen began to slice the sausage into pieces, he added, “They’re not my boys, though, menaces or not. Maglor has far more to do with them than I do.”

 

Setting down her knife, Galwen signed, They’re not his boys, either, my lord. They’re Elwing’s. And sooner or later, you’re going to have to send them back to their own people.

 

Maedhros nodded, though the expression on his face was one of melancholy. “I know,” he said quietly. “It’s convincing my brother that’s going to be the hard part. He loves them.”

 

So do you, Galwen pointed out. So do most of us. They’ve even grown on me, and I was ready to toss them in the river in a sack when you and Maglor first brought them here.

 

“I remember, believe me,” Maedhros said wryly. “I was the one who told my brother that you would soften towards them once they learned to understand your signs and you could actually talk to them. And I was right, too.”

 

Galwen finished slicing up the sausage and passed it back across the table before she answered. I was frustrated, she admitted. I had no way to make them understand me. And I was angry, too. Elwing’s people killed so many of us.

 

Elwing’s soldiers had killed Amras and Amrod – Galwen’s first lords, the people who had saved her life when she was young, given her a home after her brothers had been killed, and created a language specifically for her, teaching her to speak with her hands after she’d been robbed of her voice. She’d owed Amras a life debt, but had been unable to prevent him from being killed at the Havens of Sirion.

 

Her parents may have been of the Danas and the Kinn-lai, but the Noldor were Galwen’s people now. And while she still grieved for Amras and Amrod, she would be the first to admit that she had come to feel a certain kinship with Maedhros in particular, much more so than with Maglor or the three who had fallen in Doriath.

 

Like her, something had been taken from Maedhros – in her case her voice, in his case his hand. Like her, that made certain things a struggle for him. Like her, Maedhros had had to learn to adapt to new limitations, learn to work around the things he could no longer do. And like her, he had chosen a new name. He wasn’t Maitimo, well-formed one, anymore. He was Maedhros. And she wasn’t Linn, singer, anymore. She was Galwen. She was the one who had been lucky. She was the lone member of her family who had survived.

 

Everyone left at Amon Ereb was wounded in some way – Doronel’s winter troubles being a case in point – but some wounds were more of a trammel than others.

 

Maedhros had nodded his thanks and was now chewing on a piece of sausage. He swallowed and, softly, said, “I know we have to send them back, for their own good. I’ll admit that I don’t want to – they’ve brought such joy to us – but we’ll have to do it all the same. Better to send them home before they become ensnared in our Doom.”

 

Stabbing at another slice of sausage, he looked at her pensively and asked, “Do you ever regret it, Galwen? Swearing fealty to us? I value your loyalty, rest assured of that, but it crosses my mind sometimes that you probably would have been better off returning to the Laiquendi. Maybe we should have come with a warning label, too.”

 

Galwen didn’t answer right away, but stood, crossed the room, and poured herself a glass of small ale while she considered her answer.

 

Sometimes, she finally said, sitting down once more. I was young when I pledged my loyalty to your brothers, and I would say that I didn’t fully understand what I was getting myself into. But I stayed by choice. I was five hundred and seventeen years old when you decided to move against Doriath. I wasn’t a child anymore. I stayed of my own free will then, and I stay of my own free will now. I owe a debt, and I will pay it.

 

Or die trying, perhaps. That possibility was still on the table. Galwen had survived many battles already, and was confident in her abilities in a fight, but she knew, as she’d known before all the others, that there was always a chance that the next battle might be her last.

 

This rather gloomy turn in their conversation was interrupted when the door banged open and Elrond and Elros stamped inside, followed by Maglor and Doronel.

 

“It’s cold out there!” Elros said, pulling off his boots and gloves and taking a seat on the warm flagstones by the hearth.

 

Who won? Galwen asked.

 

“It was a draw,” Doronel said. His cheeks were flushed, and there was a sparkle in his eyes that had long been absent. “Elrond builds better fortifications, but Elros has better aim.”

 

Maglor was smiling to himself as he poured some milk into a saucepan to heat. “Next time we’ll have to switch,” he said. “Elrond and me versus Elros and you, Doronel.”

 

You can make any teams you want, as long as you leave me out of it, Galwen said, with an exaggerated grimace. She waved to catch the boys’ attention and added, And I expect you two to take my next rope-walking lesson seriously, or that’ll be the end of them, understand?

 

“Yes, Galwen,” Elros said, with a meekness that was quite probably feigned. Then he laughed as she rolled her eyes and gave him a light swat to the back of the head.

 

Maedhros was right. Elwing’s sons had grown on her. Someday they would have to say goodbye, but, as Galwen looked at the happy faces surrounding her, she was glad that it wasn’t today.

Chapter End Notes

You can read more about Galwen in my "Chosen Exile" series.

 

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