The Singer's Girl by Lady MSM

Chapter 11

Look, I'm back! And I've brought an emotional roller coaster of a chapter with me!

Chapter 11

In the last few centuries, I’d become accustomed to things I would never have expected happening. Honestly, with all that had already happened to me, I was quite convinced that I would never be surprised again.
But I was wrong. Because one of the few things I would never have expected to happen, not even after everything else, was Hallamar getting married before Rille did. No, not even after he’d been out west for over five hundred years and Rille seemed to have backed off from her flirtatious demeanor somewhat.
However unlikely the situation seemed, Vanafinde and Mardan received a letter from their son that simply stated:

Ma and Dad—Getting married to Tintalar’s daughter Tara. Wedding’s next month on the farm. Tell Andril she can come too. You’ll like Tara, she’s great.

When Rille read it, she was so surprised she fainted. Vanafinde nearly did. Earya just laughed hysterically until he nearly fell off his chair. I kind of wanted to do that too, but I kept it under control. I had a reputation to uphold.
“This is all the warning he gives us?” asked Mardan. “In a note that’s 25 words long? The boy never was one for good timing.”
“Well,” said Vanafinde, “I for one can’t wait to see this girl. She’d better be something pretty special, to get a boy like Hallamar to fall for her.”
“Yeah,” said Rille groggily, having recovered from her faint. “She’s probably a brilliant cook.”
“Or she’s a great kisser,” snickered Earya, and collapsed into helpless laughter once again.
I shook my head. “I cannot wait for this wedding.”

Hallamar greeted us cheerily at the front gates when we arrived at the farm. He looked the same, yet different—more sunburned, more muscular and a lot more confident.
“You all came!” he said.
“Of course we did,” said Earya. “You think we’d miss this? Where’s the girl?”
“Back at the house,” said Hallamar. He jumped in our cart and tapped the horses to get them going again. “Tintalar invited all his family, and they’re a big clan, so be prepared to make a lot of small talk.”
Tintilar’s family were exactly the way I expected them to be—loud, rural, eccentric, and hilarious. His son (also named Tintilar, though he preferred to be called Junior to keep things straight) was slightly more cultured than the rest, but he still had the same twangy accent and sense of humor as his father.
And what of Tara, Hallamar’s future bride? In a word: Tiny. I mean she was shorter than me, which I hadn’t previously thought possible. But aside from that, she was an extremely nice girl and seemed to adore Hallamar.
After we ate and before the ceremony, I made sure to talk to Hallamar one last time.
“Are you ready for this?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “As ready as I’ve ever been for anything. I mean, I’ve known this girl for centuries, Andril. We’re hardly rushing into things.”
“I know, I know,” I said, sighing and smiling. “It’s just kind of too bad that you fell in love and I wasn’t around for it.”
Hallamar laughed. “It might have been useful to have you around giving me advice. But I figured it out in the end. So it’ll be all right.”
“Good,” I said, and gave him a hug. “I can’t wait to see what your children look like.” I finished hugging him and patted him on the back. “Now go become a man.”

“…and then he fell in the fountain,” I said to Romenella. “It was ridiculous.”
    “Gods, I haven’t been to a wedding since my sister got married and that was nearly a thousand years ago,” said Romenella. “But I had two drunk uncles at mine, so I guess that makes up for it.”
    “Girls?” said Nerdanel, coming in the room with an odd look on her face. “I just got a letter ye may want to read.”
    “Is someone else getting married now?” I asked, taking it from her. “That seems to be what all the letters in my life are about right now. Eru has a cruel sense of humor.”
    “No,” said Nerdanel, shaking her head. “Just read it.”
    So I opened the letter, and it said,

Idril Celebrindal daughter of Turgon to Nerdanel of Tirion
   
Dear cousin Nerdanel,
    Hello! I don’t know if you remember me (I was about six when I left Valinor and we never spent a lot of time together before that), but I’m your husband’s half-brother’s granddaughter, so I believe that makes us…half-cousins-twice-removed-in-law. Let’s just call it cousins to make everything easier.
    Now that we’ve gotten the relationship technicalities out of the way, we can get down to why I’m actually writing to you. My husband and I have recently returned from Middle-Earth after a series of events I’d rather not get into right now, and it’s come to my attention that none of our family members still here in Valinor have any idea what’s been going on across the pond. So I thought perhaps I would stop by and catch you up on everything your relatives have been up to. It’s not all good, just to prepare you. But it’s not all bad, either. Write to me and let me know.

Love,
Idril

    I am infinitely ashamed that instead of saying, “Oh Varda Almighty she has news about your relatives and possibly my fiancé and I am so excited!” I said, “Half-cousins-twice-removed-in-law?”
    “She was always a very precise little girl,” said Nerdanel. She sat down with a sigh. “Sure and is it wrong that I am really tempted to tell her not to come? I’m not sure if I want to know what’s happened to me husband. I mean…what if he’s dead?”
    “I know how you feel,” I said. “But honestly, I’d rather find out and be sad than just sit around and drive myself insane with worrying. I’d tell her to come.”
    “I’m with Andril on this one,” said Romenella in a small voice. “Tell her to come.”
    Nerdanel stared at the floor for a moment, and then nodded. “All right,” she said. “I’ll write to her.” She got up and left the room. Romenella turned to me.
    “So,” she said. “How would we be related to her?”

    Three days later, Idril and her husband arrived at our doorstep.
    To be honest, I’d pictured Nerdanel’s half-cousin-twice-removed-in-law as being small, dark-haired, bookish, and polite. I certainly wasn’t expecting her to be tallish, curvy, and brash, with hair so blond it sort of hurt to look at. She was pretty intimidating, but I couldn’t help liking her anyway.
    “Cousin Nerdanel, excellent to see you,” she said, sweeping in the door as soon as Nerdanel opened it. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Doesn’t seem like much has changed around here, not that I would really know. Are you Andril? Great to meet you. And you’re Romenella, I take it. Smashing. Oh, this is my husband, Tuor. He used to be human, but he’s counted as one of us now, so don’t let the beard fool you. Long story.”
    Tuor—a tall, strong young man with a mop of messy gold hair—smiled and nodded awkwardly (We later learned that his lack of talking was due to the fact that he’d grown up speaking Sindarin and knew very little Quenya; plus, he was just sort of an awkward person). Idril grinned at him adoringly and then went on with her monologue. “Anyway, I’ve got over five hundred years’ worth of news to catch you up on, so is it all right if we sit down? I can guarantee you that this will take at least an hour and involve a lot of emotion.”
    “Yes, of course,” said Nerdanel faintly. “Please, sit down.” The five of us took our seats, and there was an uncomfortable pause. Finally, Nerdanel took a deep breath and asked, “So. What news do ye have of Feanor?”
    “Well,” said Idril bluntly, “frankly, he’s dead.”
    Romenella and I both gasped. Nerdanel went pale, but otherwise seemed unflustered.
    “Sure and I suppose I was expecting that,” she said quietly. “It’s still not easy to hear.”
    “I can imagine,” said Idril, patting Nerdanel on the knee. “I’m very sorry.”
    “How did it happen?”
    “Balrog.”
    Nerdanel smiled wryly. “It would take one of those to bring him down.”
    “Lady Idril,” Romenella blurted out. “What about Celegorm? Is he still alive?”
    Idril shook her head. “I’m afraid not, honey. He was killed in the attack on Doriath. Along with Caranthir and Curufin.”
    “What?” shrieked Romenella. “What the hell? Why would they be attacking Doriath?”
    “Evidently, King Thingol had gotten hold of one of the Silmarils,” said Idril calmly. “The Oath and all, you know.”
    “That idiot!” cried Romenella. “That complete stupid idiot!” She burst into tears, and Tuor flinched. “Now we’ll never be together!”
    I looked over at Nerdanel, who had started to cry, quietly. Understandable, since four members of her family were dead—hell, I felt rather choked up myself. But I couldn’t cry, not yet.
    “And what about the others?” I asked. “Maglor?”
    Idril shrugged. “Last I heard, he and the rest were still alive. We’ve been sailing for a few years, so I can’t be certain, but I’m fairly sure Maglor, Maedhros, and the twins are still around.”
    “Oh, thank Varda,” I gasped, and then joined in the crying.
    “Woman, you didn’t tell me there’d be this much crying,” I heard Tuor hiss to his wife. He had an interesting, twangy accent and, obviously, was not fond of overt displays of emotion.
    “Put up with it,” Idril hissed back. “You know damn well this kind of information isn’t easy to hear.”
    “So,” said Nerdanel once she’d stopped crying. “What about the rest of the family? Which of them are dead?”
    “Well,” said Idril, and proceeded to launch into a detailed explanation of everyone who had died and how they’d died and when, and who had gotten married and been born and which cities had been founded and destroyed and what Morgoth had been up to and everything else that we’d missed over the past five centuries.
    “…and so we left after our son Earendil got married to Elwing, and when we finally got here Mandos told Tuor that to make things more convenient he’d count him as one of the Noldor, and then we moved to this fishing town by Alqualonde, and then I wrote to you, and then you wrote me back and I came here, and then it was now, and then I don’t know what happened,” finished Idril with a shrug.
    “I…see,” said Romenella. “That’s rather a lot to process.”
    “Thank you for telling us all of this, dear,” said Nerdanel. “Excuse us for being so emotional, Tuor.”
    “Nah, it’s fine,” said Tuor. “My family’s all dead too, I know how it is.”
    “I think we’d best be going now,” said Idril, standing up. “It was excellent to see-slash-meet all of you.”
    After they’d left, the house was silent—Nerdanel and Romenella mourning, me quietly celebrating.
    He was alive. After all these years, he was still alive. And if that wasn’t worth being excited about, I didn’t know what was.