The Loneliness of the Fishermouse by Clodia

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Fishermouse

One final note of thanks to my beta, Ignoble Bard, without whom I might never have finished this story. ♥

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~ fishermouse ~

 

It was a clear, warm day. The halls were quiet and the gardens empty; Erestor did not hurry down the terraces and the neat white paths. On either side of the valley rose the mountains, shining snow-capped against the sky. Something about the grass and the dark green trees and the flowers in full bloom was peculiarly vibrant; all the colours struck Erestor as too rich and too deep, and the sweetness of the air was almost overpowering. He had almost reached the river before he realised that spring’s pale greenness had given way to the heady heights of summer.

The observation gave Erestor only a moment’s pause. He stopped to watch the river rush past and tried to calculate the missing weeks, and failed, before shrugging and moving on. Time had always been malleable. The longer they lived, the faster it flowed. What if one day, he had said to her, time starts to slow down again, until at last it turns back on itself and piece by piece undoes everything that was ever done...

Ahead, the waterfall roared. The path sloped upwards. He followed it.

No one else could have come to this part of the valley since they buried her there. It was too still. Erestor stood at the end of the path, which had then been lined with primroses, and looked around. There was no table or chairs now and the brassbound chest had been set even further back among the ferns. Grass was growing on the grave, around which slim green stems had been planted like a frame. Celeborn and Galadriel had brought niphredil to Imladris, as their granddaughter had wanted.

The pool under the waterfall was full of sun and sky. A white butterfly fluttered past. Erestor could not see the ruined spindle anywhere. He walked slowly round the edge of the little garden and found nothing but grass, ferns and flowers. It smelled of summer.

The grass was warm when he sat down next to the grave. Springy, too. He lay back and stared up into the unending blue between the peaks. The sun had just passed its zenith.

It was sunset by the time he sat up again. Perhaps he had fallen asleep. He didn’t really think so. The sky had darkened to indigo and only the edge of the sun still glimmered on the very rim of the valley. As he watched, it slipped down behind the mountains and was gone.

She was not here. She never had been. Erestor had known that already. She had made her choice and followed through with it, lacking anyone to stop her; she would not linger after that. He was alone in the garden.

He got up slowly. The light was fading, but it was still warm. The waterfall splashed merrily down the mountainside. He was calm to the bone and deeply tired. “If we meet again across the sea,” he said, looking down on her grave, “if what they say about dying and Mandos is true, we’re going to have words, you and I.”

She would have laughed at him for that. He shook his head and turned away.

Glorfindel was still playing the nightingale harp. Erestor heard its new strings singing as he came up the green terraces to the house. He recognised Glorfindel’s touch on the strings, although Glorfindel was playing one of Erestor’s songs, a light, merry ditty that floated out through the open window into the blue evening. Whether Glorfindel should have recognised it as Erestor’s composition, Erestor could not recall. He thought probably not.

On the steps of the eastern porch, Lindir was sitting with his head in his hands, staring down into the valley. He did not look up until Erestor was actually in front of him. His weary, dreamy expression suggested the throes of poetic composition; he blinked twice and said jerkily, “Erestor – you’re up – I wanted to ask, but Glorfindel said – but maybe I shouldn’t...”

“Ask what?”

“Your commentary. I wondered – will you finish it before – before you sail?”

“Who said I was going to sail?”

“I – oh. Aren’t you? I assumed...”

“Did you,” said Erestor. “I see.”

Lindir looked blankly up at him. “So – aren’t you?” he asked, rather hesitantly. “And what about the commentary? I thought – well – Alvellë was so looking forward to it, she wanted to read it, she would be happy to know...”

Bubbly little Alvellë, desperate to read a poetic commentary? Surely not. “She said that because she knew you wanted to hear it.”

He saw Lindir wince. “Perhaps,” Lindir said quietly, looking away. “Even so.”

Erestor watched him for a moment or two. “Anyone could finish it. You know those songs as well as anyone else in Imladris. You could.”

“But you knew Daeron. You heard him sing them. He even gave you his harp.”

“True,” Erestor said. “I suppose I will, then. Before I sail.”

He left Lindir there and went into the house, where the silver notes spilling from his sitting room led him through the quiet halls and up dark stairs. His door was wide open. He went inside and found Glorfindel lost in music, his fingers dancing over the shining strings, while Arwen sat folded up on herself in the cushions like an unhappy child. She was hugging her knees and was more or less cloaked in her long black hair. Lúthien must have sat like that once in Hírilorn, long ago.

The music ceased. “Long walk,” Glorfindel remarked.

Erestor shrugged and went to sit on the weaving stool. Arwen’s bright eyes followed him; she said nothing. After a moment, Glorfindel said, “We were just talking about you. Well, what I was playing. I had this idea it might be one of yours. Arwen thinks –”

“My father sang it when we were children,” Arwen muttered, burying her face even more deeply in her arms. She glared at both of them. “He learnt it from Gil-galad.”

Glorfindel raised his eyebrows at Erestor, who did not smile. “There you are,” he said. “Not mine. I expect Gil-galad picked it up at Mithlond. I think I heard it there too.”

“I see,” said Glorfindel. “Very likely.”

He raised his eyebrows again, meaningfully, and started up a lilting dance that was entirely his own, one of those he had composed since arriving at Imladris. It was a pleasure to listen to. Erestor closed his eyes and remembered dancing to it with Melinna, although she had always preferred the slower, more formal dances of Doriath and Gondolin. Even with his eyes shut, he could tell the light was almost gone. At the end of the piece, Glorfindel got up to light candles. “I might get wine,” he remarked. “Back shortly.”

He went out. Erestor glanced at Arwen, who glowered. He remembered her accusing him of driving her mother away. “What?” he asked. “Why did you come back? I’m not going to apologise, if that’s what you want.”

Arwen’s eyes narrowed almost to slits. “I know. You never do. That’s what Father says.”

“Well then. Doesn’t your mother need you?” She mumbled something. “What?”

Arwen lifted her head. She was flushed where her face had been pressed against her arms and the glitter in her eyes might have been grief or anger. “She doesn’t,” she said sharply. “She doesn’t need me! I can’t help her! All right? Happy now?”

“What?”

“She doesn’t need me.” She set her forehead against her arms, her hair falling down across her face. “She doesn’t – I can’t do anything, all I can do is be there, but it’s not enough. She needs – I don’t know what she needs. My father. Maybe, I don’t know. He helps. He does help. She’s not going to die of it, she never was. But she’s not – she’s not getting over it, whatever happened to her. I can’t help her. I’ve tried.”

Erestor said nothing. He should have felt sorrier for it, for Arwen’s sake if not her mother’s. Arwen was shaking, very finely. “At least my brothers can go out and fight Orcs,” she said, although she was speaking to herself rather than to him and what she said was not particularly clear. “At least they can do something!”

“Are they going to? I thought those who – I thought the pass was clear now.”

“They rode out days ago. There might be others. Father said – but they wouldn’t listen, I was glad. I would have gone with them, if I could.”

She spoke with a sort of savageness that might have startled anyone else. Erestor looked down on her dispassionately. “They were Elves once,” he said. “Like us. Orcs. They can’t all be bad. You might call it a kinslaying.”

“So? Some kin deserve it! And don’t pretend you don’t think so, I know that’s not true.”

“Perhaps.”

“They said Mother needed me,” Arwen said bitterly. “It’s not true, though. I think – I think she’s going to sail, whatever we do. I don’t think my father knows that yet.”

“Probably not. It’s not easy to face.”

Arwen screwed up her eyes and looked up at him through her lashes. “Are you going to sail?” she asked him, almost hopefully. “Do you think I should? When she does, I mean. I don’t think Father will. She might need me there, even if she doesn’t now. I might – I might be able to help...”

Another one expecting him to sail. Probably they all did. All these children, all grown up to think the salve for all their petty scrapes and bruises awaited them across the sea. Elves had thought otherwise once. “Your father will need you if she does,” Erestor told her. “I – will you do something for me? Melinna left some things undone. I thought – I was sitting by her grave, I thought I should do something about that. Before I sail. I should finish a tunic she was making. And – something else. Will you help me?”

“You want me to finish weaving it?”

“No, just – show me how. I should learn to spin too. She started with that.”

“Oh.” She looked doubtful. “That might take some time.”

“Really?” said Erestor. “I think I can spare it.”

Arwen unfolded herself and got up, then stood there uncertainly for a moment, frowning at him. “I could get a spindle. If you wanted.”

“Yes,” he said. “That would be good.”

She nodded and went out, brushing past Glorfindel, who had been standing silently in the doorway for some time. He came in once Arwen had gone and put the wine he had gone to get on a gap between the stacks of notes on Erestor’s desk. There were cups in a cupboard nearby; Glorfindel brought out three and set them by the bottle. “I never really believed that,” he remarked. “About Orcs and Elves.”

“You wouldn’t. Not glorious. Or heroic.”

Glorfindel glanced at him sidelong, his mouth twisting downwards, but said only, “Something else, other than the tunic. What?”

“She wanted to recolour a tapestry,” Erestor said. “The one behind me. But Galadriel says it can’t be done. The only thing to do is weave a new one.” It sounded oddly decisive, spoken aloud. “All her sketches are still here somewhere. I can use them. I can add to it. She did that, when she wove it. It was patterned on one the Queen wove for us, one we had in Menegroth. In the old days.” That one had never faded, no matter how long it took them to come back to Doriath. He remembered that. “She added the Queen to it. I’m going to add her. Arwen can show me how.”

Glorfindel’s sidelong glance had become one of open surprise. “That’ll take more than some time.”

“Do you think so?”

“I think you do. You’re not going to sail.”

“One day,” Erestor said, instead of telling Glorfindel that he was not going to chase a ghost across the sea as long as he had any reason to remain in Middle-earth. She had made her choice. She could wait for him in Mandos. “Won’t we all?”

“But not soon.” Glorfindel nodded to himself. “I’m glad. Elrond will be, too, if you keep that child of his here. You were right. He’ll need her, if Celebrían sails.”

“I’m not doing it for Elrond.”

“Whatever the reason, I’m glad,” Glorfindel said quietly. “Drink?”

“Please.”

It was elderberry wine. “I wondered if you’d finish your commentary too,” Glorfindel said as he poured it. “I’ve seen Lindir – I think he’d be grateful for something to take his mind off poor Alvellë. Melinna would’ve been pleased too, wouldn’t she? I used to hear her singing those songs. She must have known them by heart.”

Lindir’s look of surprise and sudden, tentative pleasure came back to Erestor. “She did,” he said. “It won’t be much fun without her. But I mean to. You don’t have to talk me into it. I already told him so.” He saw Glorfindel had gone very still, arrested by an abrupt suspicion. “Yes,” he said, before Glorfindel could ask. “Of course. The last song Daeron ever sang in Middle-earth was the Lay of Leithian. Lúthien was all he cared about then.”

Glorfindel leaned on the desk and stared at him across stacked notes and green leather. “Seriously?”

“What, that Melinna wrote the songs or that Daeron wrote the Lay?”

“Now? Both!”

Erestor could not quite smile. “Seriously,” he said. “It was – we were all hurting, all three of us. It wasn’t part of the game. We only helped Daeron with the Lay, only with the things that happened after he’d left Doriath, the things he didn’t know. After he sailed, we went wandering again. She made up those songs then.” He paused, saw Glorfindel’s expression and felt compelled to add, “After the War of Wrath, she made up a whole song cycle by your Rúmil and said she’d heard it from the sailors on the swan-ships. It was exceptionally tedious. It’s still one of Elrond’s favourites. You’ve probably heard it. I almost let her win then.”

Glorfindel closed his mouth and picked up one of the glasses. “I won’t tell Lindir,” he said dryly. “Or Elrond, for that matter.”

Then Arwen returned with her basket of red wool, her starry eyes only slightly reddened, and set it down on the floor to take the glass Glorfindel offered her. Erestor got up to get one himself. The candlelight caught the wine and brightened it almost to ruby, but all it tasted of was elderberries.

He took another mouthful. It helped, a little. It was strong and rough and he could focus on it better than on anything else just then. He needed that. Something was better than nothing, even if it was only elderberry wine.

 

~o~

 

The leaves had begun to turn and the nights were lengthening when Elrond came in. Glorfindel was playing the nightingale harp again, some odd, experimental piece he was probably making up as he went along. He said the new strings called for new songs. The stars were out and the moon was shining; Arwen was walking up and down the room with her spindle humming and Erestor’s lumpy thread had just snapped for the third time that evening. He was bent double trying to retrieve the spindle from under the weaving stool as the door opened.

It was weeks since Erestor had even seen Elrond; he had not spoken to him since the burial. Elrond had been spending all his time caring for Celebrían, Arwen said. He moved like a sleepwalker and looked a lot like one too. He came in without really seeming to see any of them, stood there wordlessly, then turned around and punched the wall so hard the oak panelling splintered.

This appeared to wake him from his waking dream. He rubbed his bleeding knuckles and looked around blankly.

“She wants to sail,” he said to no one in particular. “I can’t convince her otherwise. Celeborn can’t. Galadriel can’t. All she talks about is sailing.”

They stared at him. The harp was still. Arwen had forgotten to keep her spindle turning; it was starting to unspin her fine red thread.

Elrond’s eyes were bright with unshed tears. “What can I do?” he asked. “I’ve said everything there is to say. So many times. I can’t bear this. I can’t bear to see her like this. She means everything to me. What am I meant to do?”

His daughter was frozen in place, her gaze fixed on Elrond with a sort of painful intensity. Glorfindel frowned at the nightingale harp and did not answer, although he emitted a breath that might have been a sigh or the start of a word. The candlelight mingled with the moonlight to cast an odd sheen on his hair.

“Nothing,” Erestor said, because it was clear that no one else was going to. There was an odd catch in his throat, but he ignored it. It was easier to say than he would have thought. “You can’t do anything. Let her go.”

Arwen’s thread snapped; her spindle hit the ground. She dropped her distaff with a clatter and brushed away the trailing wool, almost feverishly, and ran to her father. “It won’t be forever,” she told him, although she had wrapped her arms round his neck and pressed her head against his shoulder, so the words were muffled. “She’ll sail and get better and we’ll sail too and we’ll all be together. It’ll be better. She’ll be better. It’s what she needs.”

Elrond was slow to put his arms around her. He must have been staring into some distant, imagined future; he looked too desolate to be seeing only the faded tapestry. “I can’t sail with her. Not while Elros’s heirs...”

“One day. We’ll all sail one day. We’ll all be together again.”

“But how long will that be?”

No one had any answer. Elrond’s arms tightened around his daughter; he blinked and buried his face in her black hair. She was shaking. They stood like that for a long time, while Glorfindel ran his fingers absently over the harp strings.

At last they parted. Elrond rubbed his face and turned away. “Sit down,” Glorfindel said, getting up and going to get the big, solid chair from behind the desk. He set it in the middle of the room for Elrond, who dropped into it, looking exhausted and unhappy and rather ill. Arwen hovered at his side as Glorfindel returned to the harp. After a while, when no one spoke, he began to play again, something soft and unfamiliar in a minor key. It filled the night air.

Erestor got up and went to the window. No one said anything when he opened it, which was just as well. He might not have heard them. He leaned on the windowsill and began to count stars. Anything was better than looking at Elrond’s face.

The night was cold and very clear. Down below, the gardens dreamed, sloping up from the river running silver in the moonlight. Soon the swallows would fly their nests. He could think of that now: the swallows and the south and the sun on the sand. Curunír’s tower at Isengard. That pleasant lake and those ruins in Emyn Uial. So much for that. So much for any of it. There would be no pleasure in wandering alone. Besides, he had a grave to tend.

In the distance, the waterfall tumbled. Unbidden, he thought of leaves and dragonflies.

“I heard a story once,” he said to the moon and the stars and the swallows under the eaves. No one else was listening. None of them could hear him anyway. The harp was still singing. She would have shaken her head and said it was a good thing too. “In Annúminas. A children’s tale. There was a mouse wandering beside an endless lake...”