Gil-galad, son of... by chrissystriped

Ereinion hugged Elrond tightly. “It is good to see you, my friend”, he said.

“Good to see you, too.” Elrond sniffed, then punched him in the shoulder. “You had to go an get yourself killed!”

Ereinion smiled wryly at him. “Well, you might call it a family-tradition”, he said and winced when Elrond punched him again.

“That’s not funny”, he growled and Ereinion sobered. “Yes, maybe not. Sorry.”

Elrond shrugged and smiled at him. “Celebrían said, you looked after her, when she arrived. Thank you for that.”

“Nothing to thank me for. She’s my friend, too.” Ereinion grinned. “I’m glad you two finally managed to get together. I’d already lost hope!”

Elrond blushed and mumbled something unintelligible, then he drew a package from his bag. “I have brought you something. I’d hoped to be able to give it back to you someday.”

“Oh?” Ereinion hadn’t expected a gift. He unwrapped the protective paper and held his breath as his eyes fell on ratty pelt and dirty-red cloth. “You kept it?”, he whispered.

“Of course.” Elrond squeezed his hand. “I know how much this cloak means to you.”

Ereinion blinked down at his mother’s cloak, the only thing he had of her. It had always been with him since he’d been an infant. His father had told him that his mother had worn it, when they’d found them in the woods, her dead and him barely alive. Ereinion pushed his face into the pelt around the collar and tried to swallow a sob.

“Thank you”, he croaked.

He’d never known his mother, he would never meet her, given that she’d been an orc, to have this single link between them back meant everything to him. It had lined his crib and when he’d wrapped himself in it as a child — the cloak feeling huge — he’d felt so safe. When Fingon had sent him to Círdan it had reminded him of his father, so far away and then gone. Elrond squeezed his arm.

Ereinion blinked back his tears and smiled at him. “Do you know already that Maedhros is reborn and Maglor found his way back over the sea years ago?”

“Yes, but I haven’t talked to them, yet. There’s a lot of family-members who want to meet me.”

Ereinion chuckled at the look on Elrond’s face. “Welcome to the mad-house that is the House of Finwe. Don’t worry, they are mostly quite nice once you get to know them. And considering who you brought with you on that ship, I think their thoughts might be on the upcoming trial anyway. How did you get yourself mixed up in that?”

“Manwe personally asked me to take Melkor in. I could hardly say no. And before you ask, yes I intend to speak on Melkor’s behalf, I believe him changed.”

Ereinion sighed, but he knew that look in his cousin’s eyes, no use arguing. He supposed, he’d hear everything at the trial.

Faranwe looked up when the bell of the shop-door rang and looked into the wide, dark eyes of a woman. She had the disoriented look of the newly reborn and while she didn’t have the eyes or skin of an orc, Faranwe knew that her finding her way here meant she must have been one in her first life — or her second.

“Good day”, he said. “My name is Faranwe, but in the old life I was also Gârsh.” 

“Kashnai”, she said with trembling voice. “I don’t know of any family I have and here would be a good place to start, I was told?”

“It is.”

Faranwe smiled at her. Over the years a slow trickle of orcs had been reborn. Most of them showed up either on the Island or here with Shai and him, if they didn’t have family — or didn’t dare to meet those who’d thought them long lost.

“We have a guest room upstairs. You can stay here for a time, get your bearings, and then decide what to do.”

“I don’t want to be any trouble”, she said uncertainly.

“You aren’t. We know how disorienting it is to be reborn here. Let us help you and no strings attached.”

Kashnai smiled at that and nodded. “Come, I’ll introduce you to my wives.”

Kashnai followed him behind the counter into the workshop where Shai and Arasiel were poring over a new cutting pattern for a coat.

“These are Shai and Arasiel”, Faranwe said. “Kashnai has just come back from Mandos”, he told his wives.

“Welcome back to life”, Shai said. “Would you like a cup of something hot to drink? I know it can be all a little overwhelming. But you’ll see that people are usually very nice here.”

Faranwe felt Kashnai relax when she saw Shai’s orcish features — or maybe it was because she was more comfortable with women — she nodded.

Kashnai held the hot earthenware between her hands to hide her trembling. She had wanted to live again, but it was scary to be here. And it was scary to have this new body. She had chosen it, she knew that, and her fea and hroa felt whole like they’d never done in her old life — in her old life she had never known that the ache in her soul came from her body not completely fitting it — but each time she looked down on her hands, she startled. She expected grey-green mottled skin, instead of the warm brown she saw.

“Made or born?”, Faranwe asked her.

“Born”, she answered and sipped on her drink. It tasted fruity and sweet. She looked at Shai, because her orcish face felt less scary. Faranwe, for all the kindness he was showing her, looked too much like an elf. ‘Like yourself’, she thought.

“Feeling a little odd in your new skin?”, Shai asked.

Kashnai shrugged awkwardly. She didn’t want to seem ungrateful for the new life she’d been given. But it still felt strange being an elf — an enemy.

“You’ll settle in”, Shai answered with a kind smile. “If you want, I can introduce you to some of us, who’ve made them same experience.”

“Maybe”, Kashnai said uncertainly. “What’s going to happen to me now?”, she asked, trying to hide the tremble in her voice.

“Nothing is going to happen to you”, Shai said gently. “You can stay here for as long as you like. You can do what you want. Get to know people — I know meeting elves is scary, but they are usually very nice. Find a profession, learn new skills. Make yourself at home in this new world.”

Kashnai was overwhelmed by the possibilities. “There always were orders”, she said. “I was never… free to choose. But you know that.”

Shai and Faranwe nodded solemnly.

“Is there something, you always wanted to do?”, Shai asked. “Anything that’s left unfinished from your old life?”

“Well… I know I said I don’t have family, but I had a child. He… he looked like an elf, I knew he’d be killed, so I ran away with him. I died, but he was found by two elves. Maybe he’s still alive — or again, I suppose. Do you think there might be a way to find him?”

“We can certainly ask around”, Shai said. “We’ll try to find him.” She squeezed Kashnai’s arm.

Sharû walked whistling towards his parents' house. He had had business on the Island and decided to stop by to visit his parents. Arasiel smiled at him when he entered the shop.

“We have a visitor. A new arrival”, she said. “Faranwe and Shai are with her upstairs.”

“Should I come back another time, do you think?”, Sharû asked. Newly reborn orcs were often a little jumpy — especially if they recognised him, he was a living reminder of their old life.

“No. She seemed relatively stable. And I think she’ll be more comfortable with ‘real’ orcs around”, Arasiel answered.

Sharû thanked her end went upstairs. His father opened the door to him when he knocked. “Sharû! Good to see you.”

They embraced and Sharû’s heart beat quicker with love. It was so good to have his father back — whole and happy.

“We have a newcomer.” Faranwe led him inside, a hand on his shoulder.

Sharû smiled at the woman sitting at the dinner table, a cup between her hands.

“Kashnai, this is my son Sharû”, his mother said.

The woman’s eyes widened when she looked at him, a startled sound came from her mouth. Sharû tried to make himself as small and non-threatening as possible.

“I know you”, she said. “You helped me escape.”

“I’m sorry?” Sharû blinked at her.

“Oh, you wouldn’t remember me”, she said, touching her face self-consciously. “But you helped me get out of Angband with my newborn son who looked like an elf.”

“Oh.” Sharû had a faint memory of a friend of his sister coming to him with a frightened woman and a newborn. “I wondered what had happened to you and your child.”

“I… died. But my child was found.”

“She’d like to see him again”, his mother said. “Do you think there is a way?”

“I don’t know. Did you make towards Himring?”

If there were any place where an elvish looking child of an orc might have been accepted, it was there. For all the fierceness Maedhros showed in battle, he had also been known for taking in escapees.

Kashnai nodded. “I think, I was close, but…” She shivered. “It was so cold.”

“I’m sure my husband can ask Maedhros, if there were any foundlings in Himring.”

“Thank you.” Kashnai smiled at him. “For everything. My child would not have survived without you.”

Sharû blushed, because she looked at him like he was a hero. He had only done the decent thing.

Ecthelion sat down in the chair opposite Maedhros and accepted a glass of wine from him.

“You wanted to talk to me?”, Maedhros said, coming straight to the point.

“Yes.” Ecthelion was highly sceptical that anything would come of this conversation. Maedhros surely had had better things to do than keep count of every single child in Himring and orphans sadly hadn’t been all that uncommon at that time, either. But asking wouldn’t hurt at least. “My husband’s parents are a bit of a first place to go for reborn orcs. There’s one who is looking for her son. She ran away from Angband with him because he looked like an elf. She made toward Himring. It was known that you were someone who’d give escaped thralls a chance and the hope was that you would at least let her child live. She died on the way, but she thinks she wasn’t far away and she says one of her last memories is someone finding and taking her son with them. Would you know anything about an elfling being found in the wild? The finder probably would have kept quiet about the circumstances, but…”

“I might know something”, Maedhros interrupted him. His face was blank, betraying no emotion and Ecthelion wondered at that. What was he feeling that he saw a need for hiding it? “I have to talk to a few people. I’ll send you a notice.”

“Thank you.” Ecthelion left, mulling over Maedhros’s strange behaviour. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had poked a hornets’ nest.

Maedhros walked agitatedly up and down Fingon’s living room. His friend was on a ride and not expected back till evening, but he couldn’t go back home. What were they going to tell the boy? Maedhros huffed at his own thoughts. Ereinion was hardly a boy anymore and he’d ruled the Noldor in Exile longer than any of the other High Kings. Ironic to think that he wasn’t related to them by blood — or maybe the reason for it, he might not have been under the Doom, being not a Noldo. Fingon had been open with him about being adopted since he was old enough to understand, but he doubted he’d told him what his mother had been. It would have been a scandal, if it had ever come out. And of course the rebirth of orcs was something new, they hadn’t thought a meeting of Ereinion and his mother would ever be possible. Maedhros wasn’t sure it wouldn’t be a scandal now, but he also felt in his heart that they couldn’t hide the truth from Ereinion any longer.

He’d settled down in a chair, trying to read a book from Fingon’s collection but his mind wandering, when his friend came in, still wearing riding clothes and his hair looking wind-blown.

“What’s wrong? They tell me, you’ve been here all afternoon.”

Maedhros told him of Ecthelion’s visit. “As I doubt there were many incidents like this — or that one of my people would have hidden it from me — this must be Ereinion’s mother. I guess he finally has to know.”

“Oh, he knows”, Fingon said, sitting down with him. “I told him the truth long ago.”

Maedhros stared at him, lost for words. That was the last thing, he’d expected.

“He wouldn’t stop asking about her, so I told him the only things I knew.” Fingon shrugged. “He understood he had to keep quiet about it. If this is truly his mother, I’m sure he’ll want to meet her.”

Ereinion felt young and frightened as he walked towards the house where his mother lived at the moment. He’d thought it best to not meet her in the palace where everything would be even stranger to her than it already was. He clutched the parcel with the cloak to his chest. He was grateful for the silence of Ecthelion and his husband who were bringing him here. He didn’t want to talk about the fear that was curling in his stomach. What if it was a mistake somehow? What if she looked at him and was disappointed in who he had grown up to be. He had killed so many orcs! Always pushing the thought far away that he might have been one of them, if fate hadn’t smiled on him.

The High King of the Noldor! What a joke. He’d been an impostor all along. He never said this to anyone. He knew it would make his father sad — his father who loved him as if he were his flesh and blood, his father whom he loved, too. No, he didn’t talk about the things that sometimes came to his mind in the quiet hours of night, but now he felt like they had been dragged into the light of day. He would soon look into the face of his mother, would that change who he was? Would he still be Ereinion Gil-galad, son of Fingon, former High King of the Noldor in Exile — or would that be taken from him, if the world heard about his ancestry. Because one thing he knew: He would not hide his mother, he would not be ashamed of her. She had done the bravest thing when she ran away to save his life.

The woman who was his mother waited sitting on a sofa, pastries and a pot of tea stood ready on the table along with two cups. She rose when they entered. Sharû introduced them — Kashnai, that was her name — and he and Ecthelion excused themselves to give them time with each other. Ereinion looked into her face. Her skin was the same copper colour as his, her hair curly and dark — his had the same texture but not the colour, his silver must have come from his father, then. He would not ask about him. Sharû had mentioned to Ereinion that it was like she hadn’t known him well.

“They say you were a king”, she said, a tremble in her voice.

“I was”, Ereinion said gently. “But I am not now. I am only a son who wishes to meet his mother.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Ereinion”, she whispered. “Did he love you? The prince who found you.”

“He did. He does.” Fingon wanted to meet her, too, but Ereinion thought she was still too nervous to confront her with that idea.

“Good. I hoped…” She fell silent.

Ereinion realised that they were still standing awkwardly in the middle of the room and he was pressing the cloak to his chest. He shook himself.

“I brought something with me”, he said and unwrapped the paper. “When Father and Uncle Maedhros found me — us — they wrapped me in your cloak for warmth. Father kept it, it was my blanket when I was little and the only thing I had of you.”

Kashnai touched the fur lining. “Sharû gave that to me — it was winter, he knew I would need a warmer cloak than the one I had.” She looked up to him with wide, dark eyes. “Did you… did they tell you?”

“That my mother was an orc?” Ereinion nodded. “Father told me. He also said how brave it was of you to run from Angband towards your enemies to save my life.”

Kashnai’s hand found his. “I could not bear the thought of giving you up to be killed. I want to know so much about you!”

“Let’s sit down?” They finally settled next to each other on the sofa and Ereinion poured them tea. “I also have questions”, he said. “For as long as I knew that I was adopted, I wondered, what name you had given me.”

Kashnai looked away and Ereinion had a feeling he’d asked the wrong question. “I could not name you”, she whispered, her voice heavy with tears, before he could take it back. “I knew you would be taken from me — one way or another. But I loved you. Love doesn’t need a name.”

“You are right. It doesn’t. I’m happy we are finally able to meet. I always thought… well, clearly we were wrong about orcs.”

“Not about all of us.” Kashnai grimaced and Ereinion didn’t ask about her memories — they didn’t know each other well enough for that. “We weren’t a very nice people. There were some, like Sharû, who managed to claw themselves out of it, but we were made with a strong potential for cruelty.” She visibly pulled herself together and looked at him again. “But that’s over now… My son, you are so beautiful.”

Ereinion felt his cheeks heat. “You are very beautiful yourself… Kashnai.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to call her mother. Seeing her before him was too fresh.

“You think so?”, she asked, laughing nervously. “I’m still unused to looking like this.”

“Oh?” Ereinion cocked his head. “Of course, you wouldn’t have…” He trailed off. “Did you fight? In any of the wars?”, he asked softly.

Kashnai shook her head. “We women did not fight. It was the women’s task to grow food and tend livestock. We lived on the outskirts of Angband, in dells and valleys far from the en… the elves, where hot springs and warm airs rising from cracks in the stone made the climate warm enough for most crops even if they didn’t see much of the sun. And those of us who were thought to be… good breeding stock were usually either pregnant or had a child too small to be weaned. It was… not the worst life.”

Ereinion had a flash of memory of a green valley, the corn high and golden, almost ready for the harvest, cave-dwellings showing signs of a hasty departure. They had given pursue at first, but soon lost the trail in the inhospitable mountains around it. He had been frustrated then, fearful that an army might attack them from behind — now he was glad that they hadn’t followed further. In the general mood then, they might have killed women and helpless children who were only trying to survive.

“Elves can be cruel, too”, he murmured.

Kashnai made a questioning sound.

“Not Father”, he hurried to add, lest she worry about his wellbeing. “He his one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. He loved me like his own.”

Kashnai reached out shyly and took his hand. “I’m so happy to hear that. I ran away to give you something better, I’m glad you got it.”

“I did. Sorrow and loss, too, but I was loved, I had a family. He’d like to meet you, you know? Father, I mean.”

Kashnai gasped. “But… a prince? No, I can’t.”

“It doesn’t have to be now, if you don’t want to, but I don’t want to hide you. You are my mother and I’m proud of you.” Kashnai’s eyes filled with tears and Ereinion wanted to hug her, but he didn't dare. “I want to get to know you. I want us to be family.”

“But… I’m an orc”, she whispered. “What are your people going to say?”

“I don’t care. I’m no longer the king, and even if I where… I wanted to meet my mother all my life — both lives. I won’t let people act as if you are some dark secret I have to be ashamed of. You are not. I want to spend time with you, out in the open.”

Kashnai gave him a shaky smile. “I want that, too. But I’m not sure I’m brave enough to go outside. Even if everyone tells me, that I won’t be harmed here.”

“I will protect you”, Ereinion said seriously. “I won’t let anyone come closer than you wish them to.”

Kashnai looked him over like she was gauging his ability to follow up on his words and Ereinion smiled to himself.

“I’ll feel safe with you”, she said finally. “Yes. Show me your home.”

“I will”, Ereinion said, a lump forming in his throat. “I will show you the home that is yours also now.”

Kashnai could not take her eyes away from her son. He was so handsome, brown-skinned and grey-eyed with hair that shone like the stars. And he looked at her with so much happiness that she could no longer be afraid of him. Of the family that had found him, yes, but not of him.

“Will you tell me of your life… lives?”, she asked.

He told her of his childhood in Hissilóme. Of his father who always made time for him, even buried in his duties. Teaching him to ride and fence. Of his grand-father who came to him in the evening and sang him to sleep with stories from across the sea. Of Uncle Maedhros who visited them sometimes and who would humour him by playing his horse. She held back the tears of happiness that pricked at her eyes. He’d had such a happy childhood. Her choice had been the right one. To give him this had been worth every sacrifice. There’d been sorrows, too, in his life. First, the death of his grand-father. And when the war came closer, his father had sent him south, giving him into the care of Círdan.

“I loved him, too”, Ereinion said. “He taught me to sail. I learned how to lead as much from him as from Father, if not more. But I missed Father so terribly. He visited, of course, but…”

And then his father had been gone, too. Kashnai hesitantly laid her hand on his when he said: “I never wanted to be High King. When I heard of his death, my heart broke. At that time I thought, I’d never see him again.”

He wiped at his eyes and smiled at her.

“But that turned out to be untrue. We were allowed to return to Aman. Father is alive, as is Grand-father and Maedhros and so many of my oher relatives. Círdan sailed in the end. And you. You are here, too, Mother. And my heart is whole.”

Kashnai felt a tear slip down her cheek. “I love you, my son”, she croaked. “I have always loved you.”

She tensed in surprise when he hugged her but then she returned the hug, holding him close as she hadn’t been able to in life.

When Ereinion left, they agreed that they would meet again soon. They had been parted for long enough, they would be a part of each others lives now.