What the Water Gave Me by Rocky41_7

Chapter I

Read Chapter I

Finduilas was wandering abroad in the dissipating fog of the morning when she found the woman in the water. She had taken to walking since she had recovered from her injuries, but she always found her way back to the village. Years had rolled by since she had first been brought in, though to her, it seemed only a short time since she had awoken there in a flight of panic. No one asked why she stayed, and so she was not forced to confess she wasn’t sure where else to go, and that the thought of travel alone on the open road made her stomach turn.

            Nargothrond was gone. Her mother and father were gone. Gwindor was gone; Agarwaen lost. She supposed she could venture into one of the other Elven realms—former king Felagund and her grandparents had been close with the royal family of Doriath, and her father had visited Menegroth on a few occasions—but the effort of setting out in search of a new home always exhausted her so thoroughly she retreated to the loft to lie down or picked up some chore to distract her mind.

            Had she become so fearful of travel, she wondered? And if so, could she be blamed? Certainly, it wasn’t very becoming of an ex-princess, but who was here to judge? The Men didn’t know who she was, only that she was one of the Eldar, and that when they found her, she had been in desperate need of aid. They had meant to bury her at first, believing her dead when they saw her. Finduilas had been surprised to wake up and find that was not the case.

            She was by the side of the Teiglin when she saw the body. The sky above was a gentle blue, with pearly gray clouds scudding across the open expanse and a faint breeze neither warm nor cool. Attracted to the burble of the river at this shallow point, Finduilas came near to the bank and down below was the body. She drew in a sharp breath at the sight and nearly fled—she had seen quite enough dead bodies recently! Surely there was someone in the village who could help! But she remembered how the Haladin had set upon the Orcs at their own peril, how they had come to her even believing her dead, and thought if they had left her there, they would never have known she was alive, and their mistake would have become a truth.

            With a quick breath, she steeled herself and picked her way down the embankment. The woman lay supine in the water, her honey blonde hair in a waterlogged cloud around her head. Finduilas could see she was a Man, though of her age Finduilas was unsure. It was hard to tell with mortals. Slightly upturned was her nose and firm was her jawline; there was a smattering of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, and a tiny white scar on the left side of her chin. Her dress at the breast was torn, as if someone had rent it, and her golden skin was flushed on a closer look, as if she had been under the sun for sometime uncovered.

            It was the color that drew Finduilas nearer with alacrity—corpses didn’t flush! She dropped to her knees in the pebbly mud and pressed her fingers to the woman’s neck through the wet tangle of her hair, her own breath quickening to feel a pulse.

            “Alive!” she exclaimed to herself. “What a lucky pair are we!” Hoisting the woman onto her back—she was quite heavy despite her size—Finduilas struggled back up the soft embankment and carried her to the village.

            Seeing their dead girl bring back another dead girl startled the villagers, but Finduilas was permitted to bring her into the house of the family who had housed her through her own illness, and install her in the loft where Finduilas herself slept. The homeowners were an older couple, whose daughters were years out of the house, and the loft over the main room of the house was where they had slept before marrying and moving into homes of their own.

            “You carried her all this way?” exclaimed Arnor, the man.

            “It wasn’t so far,” said Finduilas.

            “They do not exaggerate the strength of Elves,” he murmured in amaze, passing a pail of water up to Finduilas so she could dribble a little into the woman’s mouth. He had said similar things before—Finduilas had taken it upon herself to manage as many of the chores which vexed the Mannish couple as she could. In truth, she pitied them, for she saw how their bodies began to grow feeble, and as she understood, it would only worsen with time, until at last their spirits wearied overmuch of the world and departed. If she could assist and express her gratitude by hauling their water from the well, she was glad to do it—yet surprised also, by how many things they insisted on doing for themselves, in spite of the fact that it would have been much easier for Finduilas to do it!

            It was in examining the lost woman for wounds that Finduilas learned she carried a child. This news was met with much fretful murmuring among the couple, and the woman, Hild, departed to speak with a neighbor. She returned with a midwife to examine the woman, who still had not woken. The midwife estimated the woman was midway through her pregnancy.

            “Her good fortune you found her when you did,” she said. “Although a pregnant woman is tougher than most would give her credit for!”

            Arnor and Hild allowed Finduilas to go on tending the woman in the hopes of her recovery. Several other villagers they brought by, but no one recognized the woman nor could find aught on her that would indicate from where she came. If anything, she was more of a mystery than Finduilas herself.

            On the third day, the woman opened her eyes. They were hazel green, ringed with a light brown, and complimented the freckling on her face well. Finduilas leaned over her eagerly, watching for some additional sign of awareness.

            “I am alive?” she croaked, her eyes darting about before settling on Finduilas’ face.

            “Yes!” Finduilas said excitedly. “I was walking along the Teiglin when I espied you there in the water! It was fortunate I went abroad that day, for not often do folk walk by that place. You must be very lucky!”

            “I am alive,” the woman repeated in disbelief, and she wept.

***

            It became quite readily apparent that Finduilas’ charge was not pleased to have been rescued, nor did she have a great desire to make use of the life she had been spared. The next morning, Finduilas found her on the roof, and had to wrestle her down before she could harm herself. It was astounding that in her weakened condition she had managed to get there at all, let alone how she resisted being brought down. The woman fought like a wildcat, but when at last she understood she would not overcome Finduilas’ Elvish strength, she slumped into her arms, sobbing.

            “Let me die, let me die,” she cried. “Oh, Iluvatar, let me die!”

            Finduilas held onto her until she had exhausted herself, and then took her back to bed. For several days this went on, with Finduilas thwarting the woman’s efforts to end her life, until at length they reached a stalemate wherein the woman at least recognized she would need a stealthier methodology to escape her Elfin guardian.

            “Most like, her husband and the father of her child is dead,” Hild speculated in front of the hearth late one night. She was squinting intently at a hole in the armpit of a shirt, which she was attempting to repair in the low light. Finduilas sat in a rocking chair nearby, her feet drawn up on the seat, ready to hand Hild whatever tools she might need, but presently staring into the flames of the fireplace, chin resting on her knees. “I’ve seen it afore. Some folk, they lose a life partner and just can’t go on.”

            “She will fade away then?” Finduilas said softly, an unaccountable grief stabbing through her ribs. The woman was no one to her—she still didn’t even know her name. Yet the thought of her death was painful.

            Hild did not seem entirely to understand, but she frowned up a the loft.

            “Sometimes, if you get them through the worst of the grief, they find a new reason for being,” she said. “But it can’t always be done.”

            “What should I do?” Finduilas asked. “If it is truly her wish to die, perhaps I ought not intervene.”

            “If death is truly what she wants, she’ll find a way,” Hild warned. “She has only to slip past your attention once. Have you been sleeping, dear?”

            “I can sustain on waking sleep for some time,” Finduilas said. The woman, unsurprisingly, had thought to take advantage of the small hours of the night when she assumed Finduilas would be at rest. Hild flicked her eyes over the Elf, and then filled in the rest of the sentence:

            “But you will need to sleep sometime,” she said. Finduilas sighed and hugged her legs. Did that need to be said?

            “Perhaps you can—”

            “Mayhap on a time I could have stopped her,” Hild interrupted. “But she is young and I am not, and she is driven by the fire of anguish. If is truly her wish to die, I doubt any among us will stop her long.” Finduilas seemed to sink lower into the seat, her shoulders slouching. For a long time, she watched the tongues of flame dance around the logs in the fireplace and listened to the crackle of the wood, and the occasional rustle of the woman in the loft turning over on the straw mattress.

            At last, Finduilas broke the quiet again and said:

            “If her hand I may not stay with force alone, perhaps a more persuasive effort will succeed.” Hild paused in her work and looked up.

            “I think that’s likely to be true, dear,” she said. “If you snatch her from death yet give her nothing for which to live…well, what kind of life is that?”

***

            As she had on mornings past, Finduilas brought the woman breakfast up in the loft. Arnor and Hild had discouraged Finduilas from eating there, but Finduilas had insisted the woman needed her rest. As she had on mornings past, the woman picked disconsolately at the porridge with which Finduilas presented her, and did not look much at the Elf sitting cross-legged on the mattress beside her.

            “You have my deepest condolences about your husband,” Finduilas said. The woman’s head snapped up so fast for a moment Finduilas was worried the porridge was too hot and she had burned herself. Those hazel-green eyes scrutinized her as if tying to peel back her skin.

            “Condolences about what?” she said, gripping the spoon.

            “I—well, I thought—forgive me, you seemed so aggrieved, I thought he must have perished,” said Finduilas. “If he has not, and we may find him—”

            “No.” It was the loudest word Finduilas had ever heard from her and there was something scorching in her gaze—Finduilas’ first guess was anger, but she wasn’t sure. Aware she had mis-stepped but unsure if she had crossed some cultural boundary or simply offended with her ignorance of the woman’s circumstances, Finduilas hesitated to speak again.

            The woman put aside the bowl and moved the tray Finduilas had given her off her lap onto the floor, rolling onto her side so her back was to the Elf.

            “Forgive me, I meant not to wound,” Finduilas pleaded. The woman made no sound. “The grief of war is familiar to my heart as well,” she offered softly, “for Nargothrond I called my home all my life that I recall, and it lays now under the thrall of Glaurung.”

            “Have you not heard?” said the woman bitterly, pulling the covers tight around her shoulders. “Glaurung is dead.”

            “Dead!” Finduilas exclaimed. “How came you to know?”

            “I have seen his putrid corpse,” said the woman. “Whatever troubles Nargothrond hence, it will not be he.”

            With this news, Finduilas had to sit some time and consider. She spoke with other Men about the village, but none had heard the news of Glaurung’s death, though all were mightily pleased to hear it. The pub patrons offered a toast.

            The woman was abed still when Finduilas returned to the house, and Arnor and Hild were about with chores to keep an eye on her, so Finduilas left again and sought out some of the mothers with children. She wanted advice on how to persuade a Man to eat when she would not, but no one could tell her much beyond coaxing or waiting.

            Finduilas bought a honey cake from the pub and brought it back wrapped in a handkerchief, but the woman did not touch this either. Clearly, Finduilas thought with despair creeping up her throat, she must speed along her plan of which she had spoken to Hild—if the woman meant to starve herself, there was little Finduilas could do if she could not persuade her otherwise.

            “You never gave a name,” Finduilas remarked gently as she sat beside the still woman. “Rude it seems to me to call you nothing. What do you prefer?” There was silence, such that Finduilas thought she meant not to answer—often, she did not answer—but then:

            “Whatever you prefer. It makes little difference to me.”

            Finduilas considered this. Through her mind she ran several compositions of names. It was important, she felt, to choose one with a strong meaning—something that might indicate to this woman she had a life still to live.

            “If I called you Himil—” which was to say Enduring Woman, “—would that be agreeable?” After a quiet sigh, the woman grunted.

            “If it pleases you. As I said: it makes little difference to me. I should not expect to be called anything for very long.”

***

            Finduilas did not really think it was her place to tell others when to bathe, but she was concerned over Himil’s health, and also had to share a bed with her. Still, the topic was uncomfortable enough that she avoided it long past when it first occurred to her, and when she did broach it with Himil, the woman was so appalled at the thought of someone bathing her that she got out of bed and did it herself. Finduilas had not meant it as an insult, merely an offer of help, but perhaps, she thought, it was good for Himil to do something for herself, even if it was out of annoyance with Finduilas.

            She wanted to talk to her while she was up and about, but it seemed best to give Himil as much privacy as possible, so instead she busied herself brewing tea and pounced on Himil before she could make it back up to the loft to offer her a cup.

            For a moment, it looked like Himil would decline, but then, to Finduilas’ surprise, she took the cup and joined Finduilas at the hearth. She smelled like the family’s soap, but she had put back on the same dirty shift and her hair was a knotted mess. Finduilas had brushed it out when she first brought Himil back, but that had been over a fortnight ago.

            “If it might please you, I could brush your—”

            “Please don’t,” Himil interrupted, folding her legs on the bench. Finduilas lapsed back into silence.

            “There is not shame in accepting the care of others,” she said at last, speaking softly that the good intention of her words might make it through to Himil. “I have taken much in the last several years, as it was needed.”

            “I don’t need it,” said Himil.

            “It may also be a kindness to others,” Finduilas went on. “Many are glad to be of use, and glad to help.”

            “The good feeling and pride of others is no responsibility of mine,” said Himil. “They may find other charity cases on which to ply their feelings.” Her words wounded, but Finduilas remembered how it had been for her when she awoke there, and how long her thoughts and her heart had been in tumult with the memory of her trauma. Himil’s sharp tongue might well seek to protect a damaged heart.

            “It was not out of pity that I drew you from the river,” Finduilas said.

            “You should have let death claim me,” said Himil, which she had said before. “I meant to die.”

            “When first I saw you, I thought you were dead already,” Finduilas said.

            “Then why trouble yourself?”

            “The Men of this village believed I was dead when first they saw me as well,” said Finduilas. “If they had therefore let me alone and gone on walking, I would not be here now.”

            “What happened to you?” The words seemed to blurt out of Himil, even to her embarrassment, though she did not claw them back once they were out. Finduilas fidgeted in her seat and did not look at Himil, and the woman said: “Forgive me. That was thoughtless. I should…”

            “No!” Finduilas had spent too long trying to get Himil to speak with her to allow herself to be put off by a personal question. “’tis no trouble. Only one wonders how to describe things of this sort.” Himil nodded in ready agreement and settled back in her seat. “I was in Nargothrond when the dragon came,” she said. “The bridge which Agarwaen had built…” She trailed off and realized how tightly she was clutching her mug. “Well, it matters little how it came about now. Glaurung took the city and his Orcs took the residents who remained still.”

            “You were captured?” Himil’s words tumbled out in breathless terror, her eyes wide and doe-like. Finduilas looked at the floor. The mug was too hot against her fingers, but she did not loosen her grip. “Then how came you away from them? I have heard Morgoth and his lieutenants release prisoners only by death most gruesome.”

            “You have heard true, for it was so that I escaped,” Finduilas said with a twist of her mouth either darkly amused or pained, or perhaps both. “They sought to slay me and believed they had, surely, but I was found by the Men of this village before the job was done. Morgoth’s troops then were all in a rush to return to their foul master, and were set upon by the Mannish warriors, so they stayed not to watch my end.” The memory of it made her cold still and she took a hasty swallow of tea, which was on the wrong side of too hot against her throat. It was likely worse, she had long imagined, that they might have stayed to watch her bleed out. But there was cruelty too, wasn’t there, in being left behind like refuse, of so little importance they cared not even to be sure they had finished the job? When she thought of herself there, pinned to that tree, alone in the bloody darkness, praying only for someone to carry news of her death to Túrin and her brother, she shivered still.

            “Morgoth’s poison has touched every corner of this land,” said Himil, bitterness dripping from her voice. After a moment of hesitation, Finduilas rose from the rocking chair and moved to sit beside Himil on the bench, keeping a respectable distance between them.

            “Not forever,” she said quietly, looking to Himil’s shadowed eyes. “In all this time he has not yet crushed the spirit of Middle-earth, nor do I believe he will at the last.”

            “Yet how much must we endure to be free of him!” Himil exclaimed.

            “I know not,” Finduilas murmured, looking down into her tea as if it might carry answers. For some time after, they were silent, but Himil nursed her tea and did not retreat back to the loft. Finduilas thought to ask her of herself, but she had always responded so poorly to such questioning that Finduilas had become concerned with treading on old wounds and kept silent.

            “I have never known an Elf to live so among Men,” Himil murmured eventually.

            “Much have I thought on this,” Finduilas said. “Yet when I consider taking to the road, I confess, my spirit falters. There is warmth here, and kindness too. Perhaps I have no recovered so well in heart as in body.”

            “Wounds of the spirit do more damage, I think,” Himil said, more quietly still.

            “It would be sensible to travel to Doriath,” she said. “Yet the journey seems too far to me. No nearer is Balar, where I might avail myself of Círdan’s hospitality.” Finduilas was talking in a river now, thinking perhaps that Himil would understand. “In truth there is only one thought which presently draws me from here: A brother I have, Gil-galad, and I would know if he lives still, or if my family’s line is ended with me.”

            “Your brother is Gil-galad?” said Himil, turning to look at her. “Then your father: Orodreth, King of Nargothrond?”

            “He was,” Finduilas murmured, pressing her cooling mug against her legs.

            “What tales you tell!” Himil exclaimed, with the least of grief and resentment that Finduilas had heard from her yet. “‘Nargothrond I called my home’ she says, and nary a word that she was its very own princess! Now I wonder what else you have told me without telling!”

            Finduilas blinked at her, for she had not considered it much that way, but then a tentative smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

            “I meant not to deceive you,” she said. “I spoke only of what seemed important.”

            “Not important to mention your father was a king?” Himil said. Finduilas shrugged.

            “He was my father before he was a king.”

            “I never knew my father.”

            Himil’s words hung in the air, the only thing she had ever said of her past, and she seemed almost surprised that the words had passed her lips. The two stared at each other and then Finduilas said:

            “The loss of a parent is a terrible one. I grieve with you.” She reached out and set her hand on the bench between them, but did not touch Himil.

            “Difficult to grieve what one does not know,” Himil muttered, looking away from Finduilas’ hand and knocking back the dregs of her tea.

            “An absence can be a loss,” Finduilas said. “An ignorance can be a loss.” At this, Himil lapsed back into melancholic silence, and would say no more, before she went back up to the loft and returned to bed.

***

            It was possible that Himil had fully intended to starve herself to death; Finduilas couldn’t say. But she was aware from her own experience that the biological drive to keep one’s body alive was strong and would require incredible force of will to overcome. Himil ate, although she did not seem pleased to do it. She alternated between sitting sullenly and silently at Arnor and Hild’s table with the three of them and picking at her food, and staying in the loft until Finduilas delivered her something, which she would take a few bites of before abandoning the rest.

            She allowed Finduilas to take her clothes once a week and give them a scrub, though she did not come down or change, but stayed up in the loft naked in bed until her things were dry enough to put on.

            At times, she seemed almost to be reaching for a light, like a drowning person who surfaced before sinking back below the water. Finduilas tried desperately to grab at her during these moments, but Himil always slipped back through her fingers into the murk.

            Finduilas’ entire existence had come to center around keeping Himil alive and trying to repair what damage had been done to her. She still did whatever chores she could for Arnor and Hild, but her mind was often occupied with some way to coax Himil into more cheer. At night, when Himil slept—Finduilas no longer felt she needed to keep watch to prevent Himil from taking advantage of cover of dark to end her life, but she often stayed up a few hours later, just to ensure Himil did indeed get to sleep—she worked over the torn dress in which she had found her. First, she patched up the holes and tears, wondering if they had been made by Himil’s own fingers, or if someone else had clawed at her with such violence. Then, with some direction from Hild, she began to embroider over the patched breast with flowers. It was delicate, time-consuming work, and Finduilas was grateful to have something to keep herself busy. Himil would not mind if it took Finduilas time to fix the dress, for she had never yet left the house save by need and never ventured at all beyond the ambiguous line of Hild and Arnor’s property.

            When the dress was done, Finduilas presented it with a flourish to Himil up in the loft.

            “Now you have something you may wear into town!” she said brightly, eagerly watching Himil’s face for a sign of pleasure or even an absence of sorrow. She saw neither.

            “I expect it shan’t fit anymore,” was all Himil said before going back to staring down at the wall over the front door.

            Indeed, the swell of Himil’s belly had grown even in the time she had been there, and she was likely correct the dress would be tight on her now—it had been made with a different figure in mind. Still, Finduilas could not help but deflate at this utter non-response.

            Perhaps Himil was afraid to go into town and ashamed to say so. Neither thing would be difficult to understand. For a while, Finduilas sat on the edge of the loft beside where Himil lay, swinging her feet in the empty air.

            “I could fashion you something new,” she suggested. “Though I would need to take your measurements. Especially here,” she said with a hint of teasing, gesturing to Himil’s round belly. The woman frowned and bunched the covers up around her to hide the sight. (Among Elves, there was often a measure of pride in displaying a pregnancy, as evidence of a coming child, but perhaps it was not so among Men?)

            “No, thank you.”

            “I asked Hild if perhaps she had something old she might lend you, but all her maternity wear was given away or cut up for other use,” Finduilas went on. Himil sighed and rolled onto her back.

            “You needn’t go through such pains on my account,” she said. “I never asked it of you.”

            “One need not always ask for help for it to be offered,” said Finduilas.

            “One who may be helped does not always wish it to be offered,” said Himil.

            “If death has not claimed you, nor will in short order, you may as well go into town,” said Finduilas.

            “It is you who has prevented that,” said Himil with a glare, snapping her eyes onto Finduilas’ face. “Now you use your own machinations to push me out the door!” Finduilas swung her feet.

            “Many weeks I too, spent in this loft,” she said after a thoughtful pause. “There are no Elven healers here, and the methods of the Men here are…” She did not wish to insult her hosts, as they had saved her, but it had not been a painless process. “…rudimentary. But even when it no longer pained me to climb up and down the ladder, I remained. In time, though…well, if naught else, one grows terribly bored up here. It sounds awful, doesn’t it? To be bored, when one is in the midst of such agony of spirit? And yet, the mind craves a distraction, a purpose.”

            “No purpose seek I,” said Himil. “Only an end to this…” She waved her hand around, at a loss for words.

            “Perhaps more paths to that goal there are than you have yet seen,” suggested Finduilas softly. “Perhaps that is all I mean to show you.” Again, Himil glared, but less fiercely than before. “Will you come into the yard with me? I should be glad of the fresh air.”

            “Then go,” said Himil.

            “I should be gladder to have it with company.”

            “Hild may join you.”

            “Hild is luncheoning with a friend.”

            “Perhaps Arnor will go.”

            “Arnor is helping patch a neighbor’s wagon.”

            “Perhaps you will still enjoy the air alone.”

            “Still, I should be gladder to have company.” Finduilas swung her feet. “Immortal am I,” she said with a tug of a smile at her mouth. “I may have this conversation as long as you like.” Himil narrowed her eyes.

            “Perhaps you are no Elf at all, but some other torment on me,” she said. For a moment, there seemed to be a fire in her, and when she moved, Finduilas thought it would be to throw off the covers and tag along, but just as quickly it vanished, and she turned her head to the side, away from Finduilas. “Let me alone, won’t you? I’m tired.”

            So Finduilas went out alone and gathered a few of the simple yellow flowers around the yard and brought them back to place in a mug of water near Himil’s head.

            “At home, it was considered of great value to the sick that they should feel the sun on their cheeks and the wind in their hair,” she said. “Being so confined damages the spirit.”

            “There is no star in the sky nor wind in the air that might heal me,” said Himil. Finduilas felt a tightness in her throat and for a moment she wanted to shake the woman. Would Himil take nothing of what Finduilas offered? Had she truly no wish to live that might be recovered? How it stung, to pour life into something only to watch it drain right back out!

            “So certain, are you?” she asked despairingly.

            “Never have I been more certain.”

            Not trusting herself to keep from crying if she stayed, Finduilas left the loft and drifted listlessly and anxiously around the house until Arnor returned to begin preparations for dinner. He sent her out from there when her nervous air became difficult to bear, and she went again for Hild’s sewing tools.

            A new project, that would keep her mind at rest.

---

Chapter End Notes

I hate to end the first chapter on such a note, but Nienor is, understandably, having a very difficult time :(

On tumblr | On Pillowfort

Chapter II

On the accent: I have chosen to eschew the accent in Nienor's name, because in published Silm it isn't used.

Read Chapter II

There was one thing that finally got Himil out-of-doors: Hild insisted the sheets needed to be washed and the loft swept clean. Finduilas offered to take care of it, but Hild assigned her the task of keeping Himil out of the way until it was done, a state of affairs that quite obviously offended Himil to no end, but Hild was sterner with Himil than with Finduilas, perhaps owing to their being of the same species.

            Finduilas nonetheless flicked out an old blanket in the grass for Himil and brought them out a tray of tea with slices of buttered bread from the loaves she and Hild had made two days previously. Summer was rolling in on the tail of spring by then; it was warm enough to be out with no cloak or scarf and the birds and insects had returned from their winter absence. The light gleamed richly off the slight curl in Himil’s hair, though she squinted out in the light after so many days indoors. Finduilas wanted to offer to brush it and braid it for her again, but she refrained.

            “Hild has chosen the ideal time for cleaning the loft,” declared Finduilas when they had finished their bread. Himil flicked her sharp eyes over to Finduilas but said nothing. She picked at the grass and watched a goat meander about. “Why is that, you wonder?” Finduilas said, when Himil did not fulfill her assigned part by asking. “For now I have such a lovely setting in which to give you my gift to you.”

            Himil heaved a sigh, not all in the manner of one expecting to receive a surprise gift, but rather anticipating enduring a trial.

            “And what is that?” she said.

            Pleased to be asked—pleased to see Himil exhibit even perfunctory curiosity—Finduilas reached for the bundle at her side to unwrap her project of the last several days, which was a new baby shift with a scalloped collar. She held it up for Himil to see before handing it over.

            “It will be too large at first,” she said. “But she’ll soon grow into it!” Mannish babies grew quickly, she understood. Many of the parents in the village had commented on how their children’s youth flew by. Even some who had been babes in arms when Finduilas first arrived were walking by then!

            Himil sat, staring at the tiny gown in her lap, silent so long Finduilas wondered if perhaps she knew not what to say about it. Finduilas could not say she had been an avid sewer in her life, but surely her work wasn’t so terrible!

            Then, Himil thrust it back at her.

            “Keep to yourself your pity!” she snarled, that fire which had heretofore only been hinted at blazing in her eyes. “I need it not! I will be no pet project of yours! Perhaps it is your Elvish disposition which makes you so arrogant and presumptuous, and so quick and so keen to believe you know what is best for me! Or perhaps they are your flaws alone; I know not, nor do I care. Believe you this: if I had anywhere else to go but here, and any way to get there, I would stay no more under your insufferable smothering!” She rose to her feet and whirled back into the house, slamming the door shut behind her.

            Finduilas could do nothing but sit in shock on the blanket, clutching the little shift, replaying their last several interactions in her mind, wondering where she had gone astray. Perhaps Himil was right. Perhaps it had never been any right of hers to try to save Himil. But how could it be that the right thing to do was simply to let her sink or swim on her own?

            She remained in such unhappy considerations the rest of the day.

***

            Himil had returned to the loft as soon as Hild had finished cleaning it, and was already asleep when Finduilas climbed up after dinner, or at least feigned that it was so. Sometimes, when she bedded down, Finduilas would try to engage Himil in some conversation, but whether asleep or no, she guessed Himil would not welcome the effort that night. It was not the most complicated guess she’d ever had to make.

            Dark and close was the dead of night in the loft when she was startled awake by Himil’s desperate sobbing. Flailing around in the covers in a most inelegant way, Finduilas struggled upright to see Himil sitting up, clutching at the covers over her legs, bawling.

            “Himil! What’s wrong? Is it the baby? Shall I run for the midwife?” she cried, grabbing at Himil’s arm in her panic.

            “I cannot have this baby,” Himil sobbed. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!” Her voice broke and she turned to Finduilas and slumped against her, weeping raggedly into her shoulder. “What misery,” she wailed, “that we should both survive, when I meant it to be an end for us!”

            “Shh…” Finduilas, startled by the close contact, sat stiffly, and then tentatively put a hand on Himil’s back. She had observed that Men were more physical with one another overall than Elves, most notably in their casual relationships. Perhaps Himil required this. She began to rub her hand in circles. “Himil, I know your strength,” she urged quietly. I named you for it! “You can deliver this child. And you will not be alone! Hild and I will be with you. She has birthed three daughters herself, and the midwife will be here also.”

            Himil went on crying, twisting her fingers up in Finduilas’ shift, and the Elf’s heart stung sympathetically.

            “Will it not be sweet too, to have a reminder of your spouse?” Finduilas asked softly. This made Himil’s crying worsen considerably, until she was choking trying to draw in breath, and Finduilas thought she had never met someone with whom she managed to so frequently put her foot in her mouth.

            It occurred to her then, when considering Himil’s tight-lipped attitude about her past and her marriage, that it might not have been a happy one. Perhaps her husband was not dead at all—perhaps Himil had left him behind. A feeling of protectiveness against this imagined foe swept over Finduilas and she held Himil more tightly.

            “Himil,” she said lowly, “if your spouse was cruel—if he mistreated you—”

            “No,” gasped Himil through her tears. “No, no, no. He was good. He was always good to me. He felt—like home.” Her eyes welled over with tears again and she spoke no more for many long minutes, putting her arms around Finduilas and sobbing until her throat was raw, and her eyes red and puffy, and she had thoroughly exhausted herself. Finduilas went on rubbing her back, occasionally glancing towards the hall below to make sure neither Arnor nor Hild had been woken.

            “I cannot have this baby,” Himil whispered again, her voice thick with her tears.

            “But you will,” said Finduilas. “And our aid you will have, whether you ask it or no.” So many contradictions ran through the story Himil had constructed so far with her sparse words that Finduilas could not help but turn it over and over, looking for the path that would make all those gates line up. “Himil…are you truly certain you wish us not to seek out your husband? If he was a good man, if you think well of him and he lives—”

            “No!” Himil shouted. She shivered and pulled away from Finduilas. “Never have I brought him aught but the worst ill. A curse lays on me, Finduilas. I brought him terrible misfortune and I will bring it here too, just you wait. If he lives, and I do not believe that he does, it must be far away from me, and the memory of what was done.”

            “No lie would I accuse you of spinning, yet I find it most difficult to believe this true,” said Finduilas slowly. “You seem no wicked heart to me. Perhaps you place an unfair burden of blame upon yourself. Often, it takes two to make a relationship unhappy.”

            “We weren’t unhappy,” Himil protested, her voice shaking. “Tu—Turambar was…we were happy. That is the wretchedness of it! The cruelty! We were happy. In our stupid ignorance, we were happy. If we had died in ignorance, mayhap we would have died in contentment.” It was the first time she had mentioned her husband’s name and she swallowed as if she might be sick. “But a truth once known may not be shielded again.” She pressed her hands over her eyes.

            All of these things only woke more curiosity in Finduilas’ heart, but she swallowed her questions. This was the most Himil had ever shared; she would not ruin it with prying into what she wished not to tell. Instead, she took one of Himil’s hands carefully between her own. The callouses which had been on her hands when first Finduilas had found her had faded with her idleness, rendering her fingers and palms softer, though still sturdy and warm in Finduilas’ grasp.

            “I am sorry for your loss, although I do not understand the nature of it,” she said quietly. “Beleriand has known more than her share of grief; these lands are watered with the tears of the Children of Iluvatar. In this you are far from alone.” Himil turned her face away, but Finduilas tried again. “You need not suffer alone,” she urged. “It does no good! No gain will you find in forcing yourself to bear up in isolation. We are not solitary creatures, neither Men nor Elves. Please. At least until the birth of your child, permit me to assist you. After, we may speak again about what you mean to do and you need not stay here if it displeases you.”

            Himil seemed to have wept the fight out of herself. She still would not look at Finduilas, but she did not protest.

            “Very well,” she murmured. “I concede; you win.”

            “’twas not a battle,” Finduilas objected. “You may refuse, Himil. If you wish to go out from here, I would not stop you. I would counsel you against it, but I would not tie you to the front post.”

            “I am too weary to go from here,” said Himil.

            “This feeling I do know,” Finduilas sighed. “Let us rest a while, then. We may speak more in the morning.”

            So they lay back down and Finduilas smoothed the covers over them and she listened to the sound of Himil’s breathing, waiting for it to steady into slumber, which did not come before Finduilas herself slept.

***

            Himil fought less after that. She asked for the return of baby shift which Finduilas had made, and tucked it away in the loft with the dress Finduilas had repaired. She ate, following her growing appetite as her pregnancy progressed. Hild gave her some socks to darn, and she busied herself with that for a while, and then with darning some from scratch.

            “Have you no spouse awaiting your return?” Himil asked Finduilas one day. The weather was growing warm, so they sat with the windows open, allowing a fresh breeze to chase the last of the winter fug from the house while Arnor hung the laundry out to dry. Finduilas had pushed most of the furniture up against the walls, and was scrubbing the floor, a job which made the backs and knees of her Mannish hosts ache sorely, and which she was therefore glad to take on herself.

            This startled a quiet laugh out of Finduilas.

            “Nay, I have never wed,” she said.

            “Now that I can scarce believe,” said Himil. “Unless it be a political matter for the princess of Nargothrond.” She had still not let go the notion Finduilas had meant to keep her identity from her.

            “Nay, we marry not the way you do, for land or title. I could have. I…I was affianced, once.” Finduilas wasn’t sure why she volunteered that. Himil’s hands paused where she was raveling wool for another round of socks.

            “Lost?” she guessed.

            “Now, yes. Before…for a time.” Finduilas had been so distracted with Himil’s struggles of late, it had been some time since she thoroughly considered her own, and now the memory of Gwindor pierced her to the core. “At the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, he was captured.” She gave a nervous laugh. “I insisted he would return. My father beseeched me to give up hope, pleaded that I clung to a dead man, but I would not relent. And then…he did. He returned, he walked right up to the front gates! With a Man!” She sat back on her heels, looking straight ahead. “He was so wearied from his years of slavery in Angband that none recognized him, but I knew him immediately.”

            “You lost him to Glaurung after that?” Himil guessed.

            “Yes, but…I had left him, before.” Grief and guilt and the unhappiness of wishing for reality to be other than what it was bubbled up in Finduilas’ breast. “You will think poorly of me if I tell the truth.”

            Now Finduilas was shocked to hear a laugh from Himil.

            “We shall see,” said she. “Though I doubt you will tell me something to make me cast you out from me.”

            “When Gwindor returned he was…different. He was not the person I had known before. That is…he was himself, yet…changed.” She twisted her soapy wet hands nervously together. “I wished so much to care for him,” she said, still looking forward. “To heal his hurts and make him whole again. I believed that I could do it. But Angband…perhaps it is unreasonable to expect one to ever be as they were before setting foot in such a place. And I…a great deal of time I spent with his Mannish companion, Agarwaen.” She worried at her lower lip with her teeth.

            “Ah.” There was a knowing note in Himil’s voice that made Finduilas turn her head to look at her. “The heart wanders,” Himil said with a shrug. “Far from the first are you to find over the course of an engagement that your feelings have changed.”

            How quickly she guessed!

            “It was terrible,” Finduilas objected. “To tell him after such suffering that I no longer wished to wed him! How I cut him! And he knew at once I left him for love of Agarwaen, his friend.”

            “Was he wroth?”

            Finduilas sighed and wiped her hands on her thighs, looking forward.

            “Nay, more wounded than wroth. ‘twas he told me to follow my heart, even if it lay no longer with him. He tried to warn me, but I listened not; I cast my lot in with Agarwaen and never did he return my affection. I reminded him of his sister,” she said, turning again to give Himil a bittersweet smile. “His idea it was to build a bridge to the entrance of the city that we might march our troops out more quickly, and across this bridge came Glaurung, and he slaughtered half the city, and drove the other half out as slaves to Angband. There I would be also, if those Orcs had not been set upon by the Haladin and thus chosen to slay their captives rather than risk losing them.”

            At the mention of this senseless act of cruelty, Himil’s jaw clenched, but she spoke not on it. Never anymore should the folk of Beleriand take surprise at the cruelty of Morgoth’s minions, and yet still the heart rebelled to take such things quietly and without shock.

            “If Gwindor I had heeded…” Finduilas smiled again, bitterness overtaking the sweet. “But to linger on such thoughts is to invite despair and death. It is done now.”

            “The fall of Nargothrond was nigh on five years ago,” said Himil. “You have been here since?”

            “I have, but such time seems less to me, I imagine, than to you,” Finduilas said. Himil shrugged.

            “Perhaps. Time may seem to pass quickly for us as well. Sometimes it seems a trick of the mind, how it can pass without notice, and in surprise you look back and see how much has gone.”

            “A gift, I think,” said Finduilas. “In chains, every minute that passes is a terror, an agony. One may lose no time there.” It was something she had thought of frequently regarding Gwindor and Gelmir since her own brief experience as a prisoner of Angband. To spend years in such fear and agony—she could not imagine it. “Here…with tasks, and company, and plans to make…perhaps it is a gift to lose time.” Himil studied her carefully.

            “Perhaps it is,” she agreed unexpectedly. “Need you help with the floor?”

            “No, no! Stay right where you are, I will ask no such thing of a woman in your condition,” Finduilas said, grabbing the brush and getting back to her scrubbing. For a few minutes it was quiet, with only the sounds of Finduilas’ brush on the floor and out the window, Arnor talking indistinctly to a passing neighbor.

            “We have stories about princesses who wind up scrubbing floors,” Himil said, looking at Finduilas as she worked over Hild and Arnor’s floor.

            “Yes? How do they usually end up so?”

            “Why, the curse of a wicked witch or an evil stepmother, of course,” said Himil.

            “Stepmother?” Finduilas asked. Himil paused, considered, then said:

            “The wife of your father who is not your mother.” Finduilas blinked at her, then determined this must be some cultural aspect of Men. It seemed that, being so susceptible to death, they needed be open to marrying more than once.

            “Stepmothers are evil then?” said Finduilas.

            “Nay, not one and all. But in the tales, she is usually jealous of her husband’s children, not wishing them to be favored over her own, or desiring for any boons to them to go to her children instead, so she may banish a disfavored child or trick them into wandering the woods at night or some other such thing.”

            “Terrible!” said Finduilas. “What happens to the child?”

            “Oh, the stepmother most often has a comeuppance, and with her wickedness revealed, is cast out, and the poor princess returned to her rightful place.”

            “Tell me one.” Finduilas paused in her work to look at Himil.

            “A story?” said Himil.

            “Yes, one of your tales about a lost princess.”

            “They’re only children’s tales,” said Himil.

            “I should like to hear one all the same,” said Finduilas, and she found she was entirely genuine. Himil was quiet, twisting the wool, and Finduilas thought she would refuse. Himil often refused Finduilas’ requests, but she kept making them, just in case this time might be different.

            “Once upon a time,” Himil began in a tone that suggested this beginning was known to her audience, “there lived in a castle on the hill a princess, the most beautiful woman in all the land, and they called her…” She fumbled.

            “Faelivrin,” suggested Finduilas softly.

            “And they called her Faelivrin, and she was beloved by all who met her…”

***

            It was becoming difficult for Himil to climb into the loft. Finduilas often went after, to anxiously watch Himil climb up ahead of her, just in case she might slip. When Finduilas spoke to Hild, she agreed Himil could not keep sleeping there for the remainder of her pregnancy. Instead, they brought the bedding down and established the bed in front of the hearth, on the floor.

            “This is not necessary,” Himil objected as Arnor pushed the furniture aside and Hild helped Finduilas bring the mattress and bedding down from the loft. “Your sitting area will be unusable! I have no trouble with the loft.”

            “We’ll work around it,” Arnor assured her. “This will be safest for everyone.”

            “It won’t be for long,” Finduilas reminded her.

            “Perhaps several months!” Himil argued.

            “Precisely—not long,” said Finduilas cheerfully as she stepped precariously down the ladder with her end of the straw mattress.

            Himil muttered something darkly about Elves, but seeing that she was outnumbered and outgunned—and wrong—she went to sit on the back step and shuck corn until the work was done. When she came back in, Finduilas could tell she had been crying again. It happened often at night, and she was never sure if she ought to say something. For now, she allowed Himil her illusion of privacy. She tried her best to improve Himil’s mood during the day instead.

            Himil sat on the bench which now walled in one side of their mattress. Trying not to step on the bedding, Finduilas joined her.

            “Do you…wish to talk at all?” she asked.

            “My feet hurt,” Himil declared. Finduilas doubted very much that was the source of the tears, but it was something easier for Finduilas to fix than whatever complicated and painful relationship Himil had had with her husband or her past. She filled one of Hild’s soup pots with water and put it over the fire, checking the temperature with her fingers every few minutes until it was piping hot—but not so hot as to burn (assuming Men burned at roughly the same temperature as Elves). She coaxed Himil through her objections to sticking her feet in one of Hild’s cooking pots, and despite her initial protests, the mother-to-be sighed and sank back into her seat as she lowered her feet into the hot water.

            “May I?” Finduilas asked from where she knelt before Himil.

            “May you what?” Himil asked. Her eyes peeked open. “Touch my feet? That will bother you more than me.”

            So Finduilas dipped her hands into the water and withdrew Himil’s feet one at a time to rub as much of the soreness out of them as she could. Himil let out a long, trembling breath and tipped her head back over the back of the bench. She groaned when Finduilas’ fingers dug into the softness of her arch and sighed blissfully as each foot was returned to the water. There were tiny tufts of pale hair on her toes and the tops of her feet that Finduilas couldn’t resist running her fingers over as she massaged, alternating between feet until the pot had grown lukewarm.

            “Do you feel better now?” she asked.

            “I feel not worse,” murmured Himil, eyes closed, which was very nearly a positive statement. She would say no more after that, so Finduilas left her to rest and occupied herself with scrubbing the pot.

***

            Finduilas went into town with Arnor for wood to patch the shed and Himil was left behind with Hild. The woman did not give her a choice about assisting in the jarring of some jams, which Hild declared was light enough work it ought not trouble a pregnant woman even as far along as Himil. The heat of it was another thing, and in no time Himil’s hair was stuck to her cheeks and forehead and neck with sweat, which pooled under her arms and at the hollow of her throat and under her tender breasts. She resented not being left alone on the bed and she was irritated with Finduilas for leaving and not being there to intervene—the Elf would have done the job cheerfully, she was sure. Finduilas had never turned down a task asked for by either of the couple who owned the home.

            “I know you are not yet so feeble!” Hild said, grasping Himil’s hands to force her to stir more vigorously. “Come, or all the jam will be lumpy come fall!”

            Himil jerked back, not trusting herself not to say something rude if she spoke, and flounced over several feet away to lean against the wall and cross her sticky arms over her belly, scowling.

            “Tetchy, are we?” said Hild. “A bit of work will take your mind off—”

            “Oh, leave me alone!” Himil snapped. “As if stirring jam be enough to take my mind off my back and my feet and everything else which pains me!”

            “Two months you’ve lain on that bed while that Elf flits about you like a wood fairy all but plaiting your hair with gold and here you gripe about a few hours’ work?”

            “It’s hot,” Himil said, and flushed with how like a whining child she sounded. What would her mother have said?

            “Come here, then.” Hild waved her away from the wall, and when Himil came, Hild took a few pins and wrapped Himil’s hair up off her neck. “That should help. Help me with this pot and we’ll have a rest.” Embarrassed with her outburst, Himil complied and made no more fuss until the last of the strawberries had been jarred and set aside.

            Hild brought out cheese and bread and beer for lunch, and they sat on the front step and caught the breeze. Himil peeled off her shoes and stockings and sighed, leaning back on her hands, as the cool air washed over her feet.

            “Pregnancy in summer is always a curse,” said Hild. “My youngest was born in midsummer and I never forgave Arnor for it.” She gave a rusty laugh. Himil said nothing, but accepted another slice of bread from Hild. “At least you’re young.” She knew already that this was Himil’s first child. Still, Himil did not reply, but after a long pause filled with the rustling of grass and the distant call of a bird Himil couldn’t name, she asked:

            “Has Finduilas been with you since she came here?”

            “Mm…” Hild made a noise of confirmation. “We had the room, we volunteered. She was in a bad way when they brought her in.” Hild’s face turned grave and she shook her head. “No one thought she would live. Seemed the right thing to do, at least to give her a comfortable place to die.”

            Finduilas had suggested before her situation had been serious, but Himil could not resist the chance to pry without upsetting her.

            “She was so far gone?” she probed.

            “Aye, in a very bad way,” Hild emphasized. Her normally soft mouth turned down in a hard frown. “Those animals of Morgoth’s…nay, for animals were never so cruel…you know when our warriors set upon them, they slaughtered their prisoners to a man rather than risk their escape? Ours had meant to free them; by the time they realized what was happening, it was too late. Finduilas, they said, the Orcs pinned to a tree with a spear for sport. She was near dead when they found her…bleeding out, fading in and out…she’s tougher than she looks though…she had kept enough strength to give them a message, though it meant little to us.”

            “What was it?” Himil asked.

            “Eh…it was something about the Mormegil. I remember that much. Arnor might remember the full thing. Not much; not enough to tell us who she was. But that she managed anything at all!”

            “The Mormegil?” Himil whispered. “Finduilas knew the Mormegil?” Hild shrugged.

            “I thought it best not to ask,” she said. “Anyway, that girl has a way of talking circles around an answer she doesn’t wish to give. You won’t see until much later she never answered your question. Mayhap Elves are just that way.”

            Himil said nothing else and returned to jamming with Hild free of protest. After, she bathed with a cloth and a bowl of water, and sat barefoot on the front step, waiting for Finduilas to return.

            In the evening she came, strolling up the dirt road with the sky a vivid purple behind her head, the fading sunlight only half illuminating her face, and she was lovely in the breathtaking, ageless way of the Eldar, the eternal unchanging beauty of a diamond. When she drew near to the front path and saw Himil on the step, she waved.

            “Had a long day?” she asked as she approached. “You look rather tired.” She looked frazzled.

            “Did you know the Mormegil?” Himil blurted out. Finduilas stilled all at once.

            “Did Hild tell you what I said?” she asked. Himil flushed.

            “Did you?” she insisted.

            “I did, though I rarely called him by that title,” she said. “Rather, he was—”

            “Túrin,” said Himil. “My—my brother.” Finduilas’ eyes flew open.

            “The sister!” she exclaimed, the basket falling from her grip. “’tis you? All this time? Túrin’s own sister?” Himil looked away from her, pulling at the hem of her dress, and then nodded curtly. A kind of awed smile touched Finduilas’ face. “He spoke often of you, though he never gave your name,” Finduilas said softly. “He never stopped wanting to see you and your mother. He loved you very much.”

            “I know,” Himil muttered, ducking her head.

            “Now I know we were meant to meet!” Finduilas exclaimed. With no concern for her basket, she cast herself down on the step close by Himil, knees bumping together. “It must be. I can think of no greater service I might have rendered Túrin than to keep his sister well. He would be glad to know we had met, I think.”

            “Did you know him well?” Himil asked, looking up, unable to resist seeking information about who Túrin had been before his ill-fated meeting with her.

            “Ah, you didn’t know? He was with us in Nargothrond for a time,” said Finduilas. “’twas he that returned with my fiancé, Gwindor.”

            “Oh,” said Himil. “Agarwaen—was Túrin?” Finduilas blushed delicately.

            “Yes,” she admitted freely. A wry smile crooked her mouth. “’twas your brother with whom I had such ill luck in love.” She laughed. “Now to meet this sister to whom I compared! I hope you find it not an insulting comparison.” Himil was astonished at the lack of bitterness in Finduilas’ voice; she seemed only pleased they had met. The Elf tilted her head, still smiling. “There is a likeness of spirit in you both, if not in face. Túrin was also very proud,” Finduilas added pointedly.

            Himil looked away; she considered herself well aware of her flaws already. That she could do little to remedy them did not mean she was ignorant of their existence!

            “Would you tell me your name, then?” Finduilas asked gently, turning to face Himil more directly. “I should call you by your proper name.”

            “I’ve grown accustomed to Himil.”

            “Still…I should prefer to call you by your true name, if you would permit it.” The Man breathed deeply and rubbed her damp palms against her knees. She looked at the road, and then the horizon, and then she lifted her chin to look at Finduilas and said:

“I am the daughter of Húrin Thalion and Morwen Eledhwen, and my name is Nienor.”

---

Chapter End Notes

Fanart recs:
- Turin teases Finduilas in Nargothrond by akita-sensei
- Finduilas' Death by ragartstuff
- Stealing Kisses by alackofghosts
- The Accursed by croclock

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Chapter III

Read Chapter III

Finduilas had gotten used to “Himil” also, and spent several days calling Nienor by both before she settled into the new (old) name. She had thought that sharing this might make Nienor feel better—less alone—less anxious—but it did not shift her melancholy in the slightest. When Finduilas asked if she knew anything about where Túrin was then, she insisted she didn’t know.

            Nienor was sleeping worse, and could only lay comfortably on her back. Finduilas heard her restless shifting as she herself was drifting off, and Nienor often slept late in the mornings. Not merely the depressed sulking of before, but sleep, as if trying to catch up on what she had missed overnight. It also seemed she was still crying at night.

            When Finduilas returned from milking the goats for Arnor early one morning, she took a peek at the bed by the hearth, where Nienor was sitting slouched and upright, but not moving. She seemed to be trying to gather herself.

            “May I help with your hair?” Finduilas asked. This time, Nienor wearily agreed and Finduilas sat cross-legged behind her with a brush. Nienor had thick honey-blonde hair with a slight curl and for a few moments, Finduilas simply delighted in running her hands through it and shifting the mass of it this way and that. It had been years since she had been so close with someone to allow for this.

            “What are you doing?” Nienor asked, the cranky note in her voice of a sleepless night.

            “Admiring you,” Finduilas said simply. “Such beautiful hair you have…is it like your mother’s?”

            “No, my mother had—has—dark hair,” said Nienor. “She says it is nearer in color to my father’s, but I would not know.”

            “I think you have a most regal crown of gold in your possession,” Finduilas said, laying Nienor’s hair against her back to brush it out. She took care and time, as they had no rush, and Elves never hurried in the estimation of mortals.

            “My mother and father used to do this for me,” she murmured as she gently worked the knots out of Nienor’s hair. Nienor braided it before going down for the night, but the curl ensured it was still tangled when she woke up. “And I would return the favor for my brother, when he allowed.”

            “Did you grow up together?” Nienor asked.

            “Yes and no,” said Finduilas. “We do not have children so near together as you. Ereinion was half-grown when I was born. I was still a child when mother left Balar and returned to Nargothrond with me.” A tender smile ghosted over her lips. “He would say I had done a terrible job, but he would smile, and let me do it again when next I asked.”

            “Then it has been some time since you saw him last,” Nienor said.

            “Oh, yes,” said Finduilas. “It has been many years now. I hope he is well.” She wondered if he was still in Balar, or if he had ventured elsewhere. She wondered if he was still alive. If I were a better sister, she thought, I would have sought him years past rather than lingering here. But she put that aside as she began to section Nienor’s hair. She clung to the thought that there was purpose in her meeting with Nienor. It was simply too coincidental to be other than fate! And it would have relieved Túrin, she thought, that Nienor was in the care of someone who would look after her in such a state.

            She began to sing softly as she wove a trifecta of braids into Nienor’s hair, twining them together at the base of her skull and down the length of her hair. Nienor said naught and held still until Finduilas had tied the end off with the string Nienor had been using for that purpose, and gave the braid a little tug.

            “All done,” she chimed. “Breakfast?”

            Nienor gave her head a shake, as though to dislodge water from her ears.

            “Yes,” she said distantly, making Finduilas wonder if she hadn’t drifted off. Smiling to herself, she rose up and flitted off to the kitchen. Breakfast was cold biscuits from the day before and one sausage apiece, with mugs of black tea.

            “Tomorrow, you will permit me to return your favor.” Abruptly, Nienor broke the silence by hitting her fist, fork in hand, against the table and giving this declaration. Finduilas blinked at her.

            “If you wish,” she said. It was on the tip of her tongue to insist it was not an exchange, but she held back. Nienor was not a woman who appreciated favors, that much had become clear, yet she had virtually nothing to offer in return. She had no money, no particularized skills, and her condition made physical labor out of the question. This was something simple and easy, something she could surely do without trouble. And the thought of such an exchange did not displease Finduilas; rather, there was a bright look on her face as they finished eating and found tasks with which to occupy themselves for the morning.

            The next day, Nienor made good on her promise. She sat behind Finduilas on the bed and spent a long time brushing out her hair until it fell in a flaxen sheet of silk down her back. She had worn it quite long in Nargothrond, but her rescuers had cut it short to keep it out of the way during her recovery. Now, it was nearly the length it had been before, the longest hairs reaching down to the base of her spine.

            “What made you love Túrin?” After so long in silence, Finduilas startled a little at the abrupt question.

            “Túrin? Ah, well…” Finduilas poked around her sore heart. “His spirit was radiant,” she said at length. “Despite the air of such grief and tragedy he carried with him, he had still hope and purpose. Despite his mistakes, he pursued still the doing of good. It did not always play to his favor, but he never surrendered to despair. And in his heart, he cared for others. He could often be proud and sometimes thoughtless, but he rarely meant to do ill.”

            Nienor was silent again, her fingers still at work in Finduilas’ hair, tugging lightly here and there in a way that made shivers go up Finduilas’ back, and she was almost sure she felt Nienor’s fingertips tracing the shell of her ear.

            “Did you ever meet him?” Finduilas asked quietly. Nienor yanked clumsily at her hair.

            “How did he escape Nargothrond?” she asked and a cloud drew over Finduilas’ heart.

            “I am not certain,” she murmured. “As I was led away, I saw him and I called out to him, but he neither spoke nor turned…it was as though he heard me not at all, though I was not a stone’s throw from him…he stood before Glaurung and in his eyes was a senseless look…it may be some dragon spell was about him then and for this he heard me not…” She remembered the scene, remembered screaming for Agarwaen, for Túrin, until her throat felt raw, and how he stood unmoving before the dragon, not even turning his head to see her led away in chains with the other prisoners of Nargothrond’s former populace. She bowed her head a moment, before realizing she was making Nienor’s job difficult and straightening up again.

            But then, something else occurred to her.

            “But how did you know he had escaped Nargothrond?” she asked.

            “Finished,” said Nienor, jerking more purposefully on Finduilas’ braid so that it pulled her head back. “Time for breakfast.”

            “Nienor! I had thought Túrin lost to the teeth or claws of Glaurung! Have you news that he lives?” Finduilas scrambled to her feet to follow Nienor.

            “I heard word in Brethil,” said Nienor as she gathered plates, in such a tone as Finduilas guessed she would grow angry at further questioning. “But that was a long time gone now. As I have said, I know not where he wanders now. I hope it is someplace warm.”

            “Your brother and mine,” Finduilas murmured, sensing there would be no more pursuing this topic at that time. “Perhaps they have found each other even as we have,” she suggested with a slight smile, hoping to turn Nienor’s mood around. She was ever so changeable, and like to sink into a funk at the drop of a hat, and Finduilas often struggled to note all of the things which portended a sour shift in Nienor’s mood.

            “Perhaps they have,” said Nienor, closing the conversation.

***

            Finduilas woke in the night and Nienor was gone. Finduilas did not usually wake so; Elves were heavy sleepers when they went down, but something pulled her to waking and when she felt the other side of the mattress was empty and cooling, a chill ran through her. She hurried to her feet and grabbed a cloak, making a quick check of the loft to make sure Nienor was not in the house. Out the front door she went, the ground cool under her bare feet, looking this way and that, but saw no sign of her.

            Before she tried her luck in town, she went around back, and there she found Nienor out behind the shed, slumped on her knees in the grass, bathed in the moonlight, her hair frizzing free of its nighttime braid.

            “Nienor!” she cried, running to her, trying to keep her voice low so as not to wake Arnor and Hild. “Nienor, what are you doing?” As she approached, she saw the gleam of a knife in Nienor’s hand, but Nienor did not fight her from wrestling it free to cast it aside into the grass, well out of Nienor’s reach.

            Nienor tipped her head back to look up at Finduilas and there was such a deep miasma misery in her eyes that for a moment Finduilas thought she understood Nienor’s wanting to end her own life.

            “You should have let death claim me,” she said, and her voice sounded off, as if she had been drinking. “There are none who aids my family and yet lives. There is nothing good to come of us but is turned to rankest misery. I will be the end of you, Finduilas.”

            “No!” Finduilas exclaimed.

            “Never should I have left Doriath,” Nienor went on, tears welling in her red-rimmed eyes. “I went for love of Túrin, and my love destroyed him.” She made a choked noise in her throat. “Mablung I deceived and Morwen I defied to give aid to my brother, and all that I was warned of came to pass: I was no help, and I became endangered and so required aid of others, and Turambar’s life in Brethil I wrecked to ruin…” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “And I cannot escape it! I cannot escape!”

            She doubled over, wrapping her arms around her belly.

            “I didn’t know,” she whispered, shaking.

            “Túrin loved you,” Finduilas objected. “He would not blame you for—”

            “Ah, yes, he loved me! Twice beloved, and never more wretched!” Nienor’s shoulders quivered and tensed. “He saved me and ruined himself in doing so!”

            “Túrin…Túrin saved you?” Finduilas said. “Or Turambar?”

            Nienor snapped her head up, her eyes wild and fey, her face wan, still trembling.

            “I didn’t know,” she whispered again. “Never had we looked on one another’s faces and Glaurung spoke to me and I forgot…I didn’t know…” Nienor’s eyes did not leave her face as Finduilas processed everything Nienor had ever mentioned about her brother and her husband. In one horrible moment, with Nienor’s help, Finduilas twisted the kaleidoscope just right and all the pieces she had been puzzling over for months fell into place into such an appalling picture she wanted to erase it. Perhaps seeing something there she feared, Nienor flung herself at Finduilas, grabbing at her shift, knotting her fingers up in the fabric. “I didn’t know,” she sobbed. “I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know…” She was then crying too heavily to speak further, pressing her face against Finduilas’ legs.

            “He called himself by so many names,” Finduilas murmured faintly, slowly sinking down into the grass to make Nienor less the penitent supplicant. Nienor hunched over, loosening her grip on Finduilas, and went on weeping as though she meant to fill in a new river.

            “I didn’t know,” she choked out again.

            Wordlessly, Finduilas embraced her, and Nienor let it happen, slumping into Finduilas’ arms. She did not keep track of how much time passed with Nienor crying against her breast and insisting she had not known the man she wed was her own brother Túrin. They sat in the stiff grass until Nienor had cried herself out, until she had lain so long against Finduilas her hiccupping had stopped and her breathing had returned to normal and there was room to think.

            “This was not your fault,” said Finduilas quietly, at long last. “Túrin would find no blame with you.”

            “Of course not,” said Nienor bitterly. “He would find it in himself. Preferrable would it be if he blamed me.”

            “Glaurung ensorcelled you,” said Finduilas. “Perhaps Túrin also.”

            “When I came to Brethil I remembered nothing,” Nienor confessed in a whisper. “The first thing I remembered was being in the woods, alone, and hiding, until Turambar and his men found me. The women in the village taught me to speak anew, as if I were a babe. Turambar, he nursed me back to health but even so, when first he asked for my hand, I refused. I was told, even! Brandir warned me that Turambar was in truth Túrin, son of Húrin, but the name meant nothing to me then,” she said, digging her fingers into Finduilas’ shift.

            “After Turambar slew Glaurung outside the village, I looked on his wasting form and he exhaled his last breath in all the malice with which he had lived, and so my memory was restored, and I saw what we had done. ‘Worst of all his deeds thou shall feel in thyself,’ he said! Túrin is dead, you see,” confessed Nienor at last. “Slain by Glaurung. I meant to make an end of it, of all of it, of our whole family’s wretched story. A kindness that he is gone, that he need never know the horror of our marriage bed. Misery, misery, misery! And to cast it on all who come near!”

            Finduilas said nothing, only held her.

            “Perhaps the world will be kind, and I may yet die in the birthing bed,” she said, her voice thick with loathing. She drew away from Finduilas then, her small hands curled into fists. “You see me now,” she said. “You see that I am wretched and you should have left me to die.”

            “I see that you are hurt,” said Finduilas softly. “Which I knew already.”

            “Would that my brother had loved you as you loved him!” Nienor cried. “Then all might have been content! You would have done him right!” Finduilas hesitated, but then placed a hand over Nienor’s.

            “I still believe ‘twas fate led me to you,” she said. “Perhaps you were meant to meet with someone who had loved Túrin as you did.”

            “’tis a cruel fate, to ensnare you with me,” said Nienor. “When you have done no wrong.”

            “I have not thought so,” said Finduilas.

            “Our time together is perhaps young yet,” warned Nienor.

            “It would please me greatly if that were so,” said Finduilas. “For I have no desire to be parted from you.”

            “Oh, miserable kindness! Why do you insist on clinging to me? Why not let me go?”

            “I think you are worth saving,” said Finduilas. “But let it not be said I have treated you unfairly.” She rose to her feet and retrieved the knife she had cast away, laying it in Nienor’s hand as she knelt before her again. “If your life you wish to end, let it be done without interference. I would not keep you here in such abject suffering if there is nothing worthwhile in your life. Not so heartless am I yet.”

            Nienor looked at the knife, and at Finduilas, and at her bared wrists, angry red with tiny specks of blood where she had pressed the blade before, and clutched the handle until her knuckles went white.

            “Not heartless,” she ground out. “Yet you took me from death’s embrace and now you have stolen my resolve and condemned me to this life.”

            “Nienor,” Finduilas pleaded. “Never have I meant you anything but kindness. Do you truly believe otherwise?”

            “What am I meant to do!” Nienor cried, looking up at her, for even kneeling, she could not look Finduilas straight in the eye. “What future exists for me? What peace? Tell me there is some, and mayhap then I will leave alone the knife!”

            “Come with me to Balar,” said Finduilas, taking Nienor’s hands gently in her own, careful of the blade. “Help me find Gil-galad.”

            “You will cover small distance dragging a newborn babe along with you,” said Nienor.

            “I have waited so long for your coming, I may wait a while more,” Finduilas said. “When the babe is old enough to travel, we will go. Perhaps we will be slow. But we will go. Wish you not to see the ocean?”

            Nienor stared down at their knees.

            “Will you come?” Finduilas asked. “Will you help me?”

            Nienor flung her arms around Finduilas’ shoulders, not thinking to release the knife first, so that Finduilas had to dodge sideways to avoid having her face cut, and she stiffened under this considerable affection. She reached out to return Nienor’s embrace, but already Nienor was pulling back.

            “You are a queer sort, Finduilas Orodrethiel,” said Nienor. “Yet I…” She trailed off, twisting her hands together, looking away. “I would go with you, if you mean it truly,” she said softly, her eyes darting back up to Finduilas’ face. “For now I think in your absence I…I would be rather at some loss.”

            The corners of Finduilas’ mouth turned up. She put her hands on Nienor’s shoulders, then eased into a very light, delicate embrace.

            “Oh good,” she breathed. “Good. I was not wholly certain I could leave without you.” Nienor huffed.

            “How foolishly you speak,” she said, but she leaned into Finduilas. “I suppose it must be so that you drew me from the water, which makes me your responsibility.” Finduilas laughed.

            “I should be more careful pulling women out of rivers,” she said, sitting back to look at Nienor with a teasing glimmer in her eyes. “Or perhaps I should look for more.”

            “Nay!” Nienor struck her in the arm with a closed fist. “Is one not sufficient for you? Greedy Elf!” Finduilas laughed again.

            “This is fair…my one keeps me quite busy.”

            When the suffocating weight of the moment felt past, Finduilas stood up and offered Nienor a hand up. They put the knife away and returned to bed, though both women were so keyed up that they slept little and rose early, awash in the hopeful energy of a new direction.

***

            The time of Nienor’s delivery drew near. She often rubbed her belly with a wince, which Finduilas knew came from the kicking and stretching of the child inside. While helping Nienor dress, she had seen little hands and feet pressed against the inside of Nienor’s womb, and she could not help but be fascinated and touch her fingers to them in return.

            “They’re giving a greeting,” she cooed, awed by the sight of what were undoubtedly tiny fingertips.

            “If only they would do it more subtly,” Nienor groaned, pressing both hands against her lower back.

            Finduilas resumed the few chores Nienor had picked up since her arrival, until she saw this gave Nienor nothing to do but fret and feel the aches in her body, and then she renewed Nienor’s chore list with things that could be done mostly seated. She began to ask Hild and the others in the village about the local herblore. She remembered the healthcare she had received, and she was determined Nienor should have better. She had made studies of the healers in Nargothrond and had seen the delivery of a few babies there—she was confident she could translate that knowledge to a Mannish patient.

            “Have you settled on a name?” Finduilas asked her as she braided Nienor’s hair one morning. This question—which would have been among the first posited to any Elven parent-to-be, and usually answered with a lengthy explanation—she had held back on, uncertain what upset the thought might cause Nienor.

            “If she is a girl, I had thought perhaps to name her after my sister,” Nienor said thoughtfully. (Finduilas knew by then that Men could not tell what sex the babe might be before its birth and had to plan equally for either.) “But I think it would be ill luck.”

            “I knew not you had a sister.”

            “She died very young, before I was born,” said Nienor. “Mother said her name was Urwen, but that Túrin as a child named her ‘Lalaith’ and so everyone else called her this as well. She said Lalaith was a cheer to be around. I think the loss grieved her greatly the rest of her life, though she never said so.”

            “I should imagine so,” Finduilas murmured. “The loss of a child…” Such a thing was an unimaginable tragedy among Elves, and incredibly rare. She had heard of it in only a few instances, and in most cases, it was followed very quickly after with the fading of one or both parents in the throes of their grief. To hear how often Men and Dwarves lost children—for Men, it was almost expected that one would lose a child at some point—seemed an unfathomable pain.

            “But perhaps it is unwise to name a child after one who died young. If it is a boy…” Nienor made a short noise that might have been amusement, or something darker. “I would have thought to name him for my father, but that seems to call some terrible luck down on him. Perhaps Bregeben, or…perhaps Fuindir…”

            “Your family seems to have a tradition of rather grim names,” Finduilas said.

            “Better to look directly on your fate than pretend otherwise,” said Nienor. Finduilas thought it was better to give the child a hopeful name, but what did she knew of the traditions of Men?

            As she had feared, being made to speak on the name of her future child sent Nienor into a funk and the conversation trailed off. Finduilas wanted so intensely to say something else to fix it, but she was trying to teach herself she could not always talk Nienor out of her pain. There were times it was better simply to let her feel it; there was value to knowing the shape of one’s grief.

            “Sometimes I think of the children who died in Nargothrond,” she admitted very quietly. “Those who were too little to be of use as slaves were slain, even babes in arms.” She shivered to remember it, to hear the screams of their parents as Orcs tore children from arms and put them to the blade or bashed their heads against the walls or tore at them with teeth. She wondered at times, how many parents had perished of this treatment of their children before they could be clapped in irons. A lump swelled in her throat and she tried to pull herself from the memory, but her hands had gone atremble and clumsy on Nienor’s hair.

            Suddenly it seemed, Nienor turned and put a hand over Finduilas’, looking up into the Elf’s teary eyes.

            “I understand Elves are much affected by the death of children,” she said cautiously. Finduilas gave a quick nod, sniffling. “Though I believe there is not a thinking creature who could be unaffected by such sights as Morgoth sacking a city.” A few tears spilled over Finduilas’ cheeks.

            “It was our home,” she whispered. “It was safe. They should have been safe.” Nienor looked at her almost pityingly. She ducked her head and wiped at her eyes and was surprised to feel Nienor’s hand on her upper arm. Nienor said nothing, but kept her hand there until Finduilas had gotten the better of herself again and then sat patiently while Finduilas finished her braid.

            Later, when Finduilas came in from churning butter, she saw that someone had placed a bouquet of flowers in a tin cup in the center of the table and for a few moments she stood and admired it and how it brightened the room. She took one of the flowers and tucked it behind her ear and tried to think more of the beauty of the flowers than the horror of war.

***

            It was late summer when the baby came. Hild went for the midwife while Finduilas stayed and pressed a cool wet cloth to Nienor’s forehead and allowed Nienor to hang onto her arm as they walked circles around the house. When Nienor needed a rest, Finduilas helped her lay down and let Nienor pillow her head on Finduilas’ lap, while she sang to her Elven songs of strength and well-being.

            Finduilas had laid out the herbs she had gathered earlier and ran her hands up and down Nienor’s upper arms, willing the power of her song to lessen Nienor’s pain and make the birthing go smoothly.

            Nienor did not say she was afraid, but she clenched her teeth so tightly Finduilas could see the rigid knot of muscle at the corners of her jaw, and she squeezed Finduilas’ hand until it felt like she might crush her fingers. Still, when the midwife arrived, the woman was surprised at how calm Nienor was “especially on round one!”

            Finduilas gathered she was not thrilled to be sharing her job with an Elf, particularly not when Finduilas insisted her methods were better, but they kept at it, coaxing Nienor to the crowning until she screamed at them that she didn’t need any more “bloody encouragement!” Finduilas tried to get her to drink a cup of tea, but she wouldn’t have it, and she could see Nienor was on the verge of tears.

            She put Nienor’s head in her lap once more and rubbed lightly at her temples, and scratched her nails gently through Nienor’s hair, and talked about what she remembered of the Havens of the Falas and Balar from her youth, and how beautiful was the sea, and how fresh the air, and how kind was Lord Círdan.

            Nienor wept anyway, but it was quick and quiet, and shortly overtaken with howling as the crowning began. Finduilas sang for her, through the midwife telling her to stop making such a racket when Nienor was trying to focus, and put all she had learned of healing into steadying Nienor’s body. She had not brought her this far to lose her now; she would not even consider it!

            The birthing seemed to take so much longer than those Finduilas had seen in the past, but she allowed this may not have actually been the case, merely an effect of nerves she’d never had going into it before. Nienor seemed to wail for hours, clawing at the sheets and at Finduilas’ hands with breaks in between where she was too tired to cry. Finduilas wanted to shout for joy when the midwife announced the shoulders were delivered and that Nienor was past the hardest part, but she kept it to herself, knowing Nienor had more work still ahead of her.

            It wasn’t much longer that the baby was free. Hild and the midwife saw to cleaning it and wrapping it up while Finduilas stayed with Nienor and tried to make her comfortable to wait for the passing of the afterbirth.

            “A girl!” the midwife declared as she swaddled the child. Finduilas looked up from where she was smoothing out Nienor’s soaked blankets to smile brightly at her. Nienor simply looked exhausted. The midwife crouched to hand her the baby, but Nienor barely opened her eyes to look on the child, and made no move to take her from the midwife’s arms.

            “Amlugnod,” she said wearily, unable or unwilling to summon the energy even to sit up. Finduilas wanted to protest at naming the child something so sinister as Dragon Bound, but given what a trial it had been to get Nienor even to this point, perhaps it was best not to start off by critiquing her name choices. And after all, ill-fated names did run in the family. Finduilas would simply have to think of an appropriate nickname for her.

            When the afterbirth was done, the midwife and Finduilas made as quick work as they could of clearing away the soiled sheets and blankets and replacing them with the fresh ones lent by neighbors. Finduilas sat half-beside, half-behind Nienor so that she could hold her upright while Nienor held the baby.

            “How fare you?” she murmured to Nienor. “Is aught…amiss, that you can tell?” She was not familiar enough with Mannish physiology to know if she ought to be looking for signs of illness besides what might show in an Elf.

            “All I wish for is sleep,” Nienor sighed, leaning against Finduilas. “First, though, she must eat.” Finduilas rubbed her side comfortingly and Nienor let her eyes slide shut, Amlugnod still held up to her breast. When the babe began to slouch in Nienor’s grip, Finduilas put a hand under her head and gently returned her to a position where she could feed.

            It was not, in the end, the longest birthing Finduilas had ever partaken in, but it was the one over which she felt the greatest triumph.

            In the days after, all the guests and well-wishers Hild and Arnor had thus far kept at bay broke through the dam and streamed through the house with gifts and advice and village gossip, eager for a look at the latest stranger in Hild and Arnor’s house and her new baby. Finduilas tried to soothe her that they didn’t gawk half so much as when Finduilas had been the newcomer in town, but Nienor was not overly comforted, so Finduilas played interference between Nienor and the guests—ever the gracious and amicable host, and ever able to restrict their time around Nienor and the baby without it being remarked upon.

            Even Arnor and Hild’s daughters, with their own children in tow, stopped by with hand-me-down clothes and toys, recommendations for the new mother, and food prepared for the household.

            “Good to see life in the house,” said one as Finduilas walked her back to the road one evening. “When I left—I was the last out—I worried Mother and Father might be lonely. I know you came to us in a bad way—but it gladdens me that you ended up with them. Good to see the loft getting use again.” She smiled and gripped Finduilas’ shoulder in a way that would have been awfully presumptuous for a fellow Elf.

            “How I wish to be a bear,” Nienor groaned as they lay down for bed that night.

            “A bear?” Finduilas asked with amusement as she whipped her hair into a simple three-strand braid for sleep. “Why a bear?”

            “Then I might sleep all winter.”

            Finduilas laughed and settled down. Between them, Amlugnod was already asleep, though it wouldn’t last—Finduilas knew she often woke Nienor in the middle of the night, wanting food or a change or the comfort of her mother’s touch. She ran a finger lightly around the curve of the baby’s tiny ear.

            “Perhaps you should attempt it regardless,” she said.

            “If my fate were mine alone…” said Nienor. She sighed and focused her attention on the baby. “Often,” she admitted very quietly, “it feels I choose a much harder path. Is there not something alluring in sleep, in death?”

            “When life seems very difficult, yes,” Finduilas said. “Is it not a relief to set down a heavy burden?”

            “And I have only picked up another,” said Nienor, chagrined.

            “But you will not carry it alone,” Finduilas insisted. “We shall share it, and then it will not seem so heavy.” Nienor’s eyes flicked over to Finduilas.

            “For what do you offer me so much of yourself? No obligation do you have; no repayment do you owe me. Rather, it is I in your debt. Yet still you reach your hand out to me.”

            “Because I wish to,” Finduilas said simply. “For I was in need and others took my hand. For Beleriand bleeds with the violence of Morgoth and to take even one life from his relentless parade of death is a victory. For I have seen great suffering and I may not end it, but I may ameliorate it in this one small way. For I enjoy you and your company.” She smiled. “And I would stay beside you, if it is your wish also.”

            “It is my wish,” Nienor said quietly.

            “Then your question is answered. Now rest, Himil. Much of it have you earned.” She reached over and squeezed Nienor’s arm. Nienor caught her hand as she drew back and held it a moment before letting go and settling down for sleep. Finduilas remained awake a while more, watching mother and baby rest with the peace in her heart of feeling she had achieved some goal, some hope she had been reaching for since she first drew Nienor from the Teiglin.

            Perhaps Nienor might finally have some peace of her own.

---

Chapter End Notes

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Fanart recs:
- Finduilas by croclock
- Finduilas/Nienor by nisiedrawsstuff
- Nienor and Glaurung by url-okay
- Nienor sleeps in Finduilas' lap by Alackofghosts

Chapter IV

It's time for a ~*~*time skip*~*~

Read Chapter IV

Two years more they stayed with Hild and Arnor before they agreed that Amlugnod—whom Finduilas had taken to calling Amdirlhê­, which was to say “thread of hope”—was old enough to travel.

            It was amazing how fast she grew! Already she was chirping words, mimicking what she heard the adults around her saying. She was crowned with a shock of soft black hair and had Túrin’s gray eyes, but Nienor’s darker skin. Privately, Finduilas hoped she would have Nienor’s freckles too—how cute that would be!

Now that the girl was no longer breastfeeding, Finduilas could often help Nienor by caring for the child without having to run her back when she grew hungry. While Nienor caught up on sleep or rest or sewing, Finduilas would happily sit for hours playing peek-a-boo and singing with Amdirlhê and helping her learn to walk and talk. This was met with some awe by the Men around her, who wondered at her patience, and Finduilas was not sure how to explain this was not at all unusual among Elves.

            Often she carried Amdirlhê when she and Nienor went out walking, for she never ceased trying to coax Nienor into the fresh air and the sunlight, and gradually Nienor emerged more from the close dimness of the house, though she still avoided going into town if it could be helped. Finduilas would take Amdirlhê with her, bound to her chest, so that she might see and hear and smell the things going on in the town center. On those days, Amdirlhê always slept well, and was usually dozing by the time Finduilas made it to the front step.

            If it were not for her dreams of the sack of Nargothrond and the sharp pain still brought on by the memory of those she had lost, Finduilas could almost forget she had ever lived another life outside of this one.

            While Amdirlhê played with a set of wooden blocks gifted by a neighbor on the fur before the hearth, Nienor raised the issue of their old plan.

            “Mean you still to seek out your brother?” she asked.

            “Of course,” Finduilas said, tearing her attention from Amdirlhê to Nienor.

            “Time waits not,” said Nienor. “It may be time to consider our departure.”

            “If you are of a mind and body to go,” said Finduilas cautiously. “And Amdirlhê, too.”

            “She eats solid food, she sleeps mostly through the night, she nearly walks…” Nienor shrugged. “It seems to me we might be off, if we wish.”

            Finduilas had never forgotten her desire to reunite with Gil-galad, if he still lived, but she had been lulled into the quiet pleasure of their life in Brethil. Watching Amdirlhê grow, helping Arnor and Hild around the house, and most of all, watching Nienor find joy in things again filled her with such contentment she could almost let go of the notion of leaving. If Nienor asked her to wait ten years, Finduilas knew she would. Perhaps she shouldn’t—but she would. Gil-galad would understand, she thought. Nienor needed her more!

            But once they had begun even in passing to discuss plans, she saw that Nienor grew restless, and she understood Nienor did not see a future for herself in that house. She was ready to move on.

            They began to discuss the issue of money and supplies. These would need to be acquired on their own and could not be borrowed or taken from Hild and Arnor. Finduilas determined she might offer assistance to others in town with tasks that might be easier for an Elf, and gather some coin this way, but most likely, she warned, their best option was going to be hunting and gathering on the way. It would slow their journey a fair amount, but they were already going to be traveling slowly on account of Amdirlhê, and they had not the money, nor would make it quickly, to stock up on enough to carry them even halfway to the coast.

            “Are you a hunter?” Nienor asked. Finduilas shrugged.

            “I have done it,” she said. “And if we follow the Teiglin and the Sirion, we may take advantage of the fish as well.”

            “That will necessitate we enter Doriath,” said Nienor.

            “May we not?” Finduilas asked, bouncing Amdirlhê on her hip. “You were a guest there on a time, and my grandfather was welcomed as kin by the Greycloak.” Nienor blinked and shook her head.

            “Aye…still I forget you are kin to Finrod Felagund!” She frowned at the rough map she had constructed of wood chips, twigs, and string laid out on the table. “If we may pass behind the Girdle our going would be safely assured for a time…” she murmured, following a path between the chips with a finger. “But we would need to pass through the fens of Sirion…and over the Andram…”

            “The mountains are low near the fens,” said Finduilas. “But that route will take us perilous close to Nargothrond.”

            “Yet Glaurung is dead, and may menace us no more from there,” said Nienor, but Finduilas still looked uneasy. “Once we pass over the Andram, the path should run smooth along the Sirion to the coast. I am trusting there we may find passage to the Isle of Balar.”

            “They must travel to and fro the coast,” Finduilas agreed. “Shocked I would be if they had no harbor on the mainland.” Amdirlhê yipped and flailed her hands, unable to get a grip on Finduilas’ hair with it bound to the back of her head.

            “Mama!” she cried. “Mama!”

            “Shh, sweet girl,” Finduilas cooed, shifting her attention from Nienor’s planning. “Your mama is busy.” She murmured to the girl, smiling, and when she looked up, Nienor was watching them. “You wish to take her?” Finduilas asked.

            “Nay, nay.” Nienor waved a hand and went back to staring at the tabletop, re-arranging her wood chips and string bits. She was nibbling at her lower lip, her brow furrowed. “Only thinking…” Finduilas studied her a moment, then went back to playing with the baby.

            The real problem was horses. Finduilas had suspected and knew from the first several weeks of their planning and gathering that they were not going to afford mounts anytime soon, which meant they would be departing on foot.

            “If we divert to Menegroth,” Finduilas proposed, “I may convince Thingol and Melian to lend us a pair. It would halve our trip to have mounts, and we would be able to carry a great deal more. We could send them back with a trading caravan.”

            “Mm…that might work,” Nienor mused. “We may also take a boat down the Sirion, which could be faster…”

            “It would keep us tied to the river though,” Finduilas warned. “If we need abandon it for any reason, we would be once more afoot.” Nienor made a displeased noise and went back to her mental calculations.

            Finduilas had begun to sleep badly. The dreams of Nargothrond’s fall—of the slaughter of her people—of the reeking terror of Glaurung—of her own captivity and the spear that nearly bled her out—which had quieted in the years since she had been in Brethil returned with a vigor and she often woke before dawn and chose to sit with Amdirlhê’s cradle or make her hands busy rather than try for more sleep.

            At last, they were decided, at least on the start of things: they would head east into the woods of Brethil, cross through the Girdle of Melian if they could (and Finduilas was reasonably confident they would be able to), follow the Teiglin to where it joined with the Sirion, and then head south towards the coast.

            With the coin she had earned from her odd jobs, Finduilas had purchased them what supplies they might carry, and the rest of the coin she kept in a small leather pouch in hopes they might find places or people to buy from on the way. They gathered Amdirlhê’s things, choosing a couple of toys to bring with, and leaving the rest to be handed down to the next newborn in the village (Which included the shift Finduilas had first made her, already too small for her rapid growth. Nienor lingered over it before finally admitting there was no reason to take it and setting it aside with the other things to remain in the village.) They made sure all the clothes and shoes were in good shape and then it seemed no time at all that they were bedding down the night before they planned to leave.

            “Certain are you that now is the right time?” Finduilas couldn’t help but ask lowly into the dark. “I should not wish you to feel rushed on my account.”

            “More than two years has it been since first you asked me to go with you,” said Nienor. “Is this ‘rush’ by the measure of the Elves?” There was a faint teasing in her voice, which was difficult to discern if one was not familiar with her general bearing. She had something of Túrin’s somber manner.

            “I should not wish to take you not wholly willingly from safety,” said Finduilas.

            “You would not,” said Nienor, “for there is no safety here. Only an absence, presently, of open war. Quiet is not safety.”

            Of course, she was right. Finduilas had only ever deluded herself that it was safe here—how could it be, when even mighty Nargothrond could not hold back the force of Morgoth? Perhaps she did ill to take Nienor so far out of her way. Perhaps they would do better to simply beg the hospitality of Menegroth and stay in Doriath. There was nothing for Finduilas in Balar—only the chance to see Gil-galad again, if indeed he lived. There was certainly nothing for Nienor or Amdirlhê.

            But she did not argue, only closed her eyes and hoped to sleep. She doubted Nienor would yield to any effort to persuade her of this, and Finduilas’ own selfish heart rebelled against the notion of parting before they had to do it. She would keep her hold on Nienor’s hand until she had no choice but to let go.

 In the morning, they bid goodbye to Hild and Arnor and shouldered their supplies and set off. Still deep in her ruminations about the morality of this road trip, Finduilas was surprised to glance over and see that Nienor was smiling, wrinkling the freckles on her nose and cheeks.

            “Are you envisioning success for our trip?” she asked. “Or has something else cheered you up?”

            “Aren’t you cheered?” Nienor asked. “’tis your brother we go to find.” When Finduilas did not answer quickly, Nienor took a deep breath through her nose and tilted her head back, carefully not to bonk Amdirlhê, strapped to her back. “Is it not cheering, to be at the start of something new?” she asked.

            Finduilas regarded Nienor a long moment, taking in the sight of hope in her face, brightness in her eyes, walking with purpose, driving them towards something. Without thinking, a reciprocal smile started to spread across her face.

            “Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?”

***

            Finduilas had been right about Doriath: they passed the Girdle without issue and needed not even make it as far as Menegroth to obtain mounts. The first marchwarden they countered recognized both their names and willingly handed over a pair of horses. Nienor inquired about Morwen, her mother, but the sober marchwarden informed them she had not returned with Mablung and his company after their ill-fated quest to Nargothrond, though Mablung had ventured forth on several occasions in search of her. Briefly, the marchwarden implored Nienor to return to Menegroth where she would be welcomed with open arms, but Nienor declined, citing her intention to travel to Balar with Finduilas. Instead, she bade them send word to Thingol and Melian that she was in good hands.

            On horseback, things proceeded the quicker, though long hours riding left them both sore and in some instances, blistered. Finduilas did what she could for them, but field medicine had never been her specialty.

            Moreover, the coming heat of summer occasionally peeked its head through the spring chill, and the two Men bore it less ably than Finduilas. During the first heat spell, she learned that it was best for them to stop and rest a few hours during the peak of day, else they were liable to be in a bad temper if nothing more serious. She used this time to hunt or gather while Nienor tended to Amdirlhê or took stock of their supplies or refilled their waterskins.  

            But before Finduilas had determined they would do well to avoid traveling during certain times of day, Nienor cut her hair.

            It had been late afternoon, a sweltering day during that first hot streak, when Finduilas had returned from catching a pair of rabbits to see Nienor hacking at her loose hair with a knife.

            “Nienor! What are you doing?” she exclaimed as Amdirlhê laughed to see her mother in such a state.

            “I cannot bear it!” Nienor exclaimed. “It is sticking to my face!” Even as she said it she seemed to realize this did not make her reaction look terribly proportional. Sweaty and red-faced, she looked at Finduilas with such a frazzled expression that Finduilas set down the rabbits, briefly mourned and accepted the loss of Nienor’s beautiful curls, and took the knife from her to do a neater, more careful job of shearing it.

            Regrettably, Nienor had already done quite a bit of damage in her haste, which required Finduilas to cut it quite short trying to repair.

            “Ah…” When she finally sat back to look, she was grateful Nienor didn’t have a mirror.

            But Nienor only sighed in relief and reached back to run her hands over her bare (only slightly bloody) neck and new, short hair.

            “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “I felt I was being suffocated!”

            “’tis…a bit shorter than I meant…” Finduilas admitted, gnawing at her lower lip.

            “’tis perfect,” Nienor insisted. “I can feel a breeze!” She turned to look at Finduilas with something near a smile. “I wore my hair so short when I was young in Doriath as well. It is much better for the summer I think! And requires a great deal less care.” Finduilas tried to picture teenage Nienor with her hair cut to her ears; such a thing would have made any adolescent Elf weep.

            But Nienor seemed pleased and cast off the hair clippings without the slightest hint of regret, so Finduilas shrugged it off as well and handed over the rabbits to be skinned. As Nienor worked, she couldn’t resist leaning over to run her fingers over the fresh-cut ends of Nienor’s hair.

            “’tis very soft now,” she remarked, twisting her fingers through Nienor’s short, thick locks by her ear.

            “Is it?” Nienor reached up to feel also, remembered she had rabbit blood on her hands, and stopped herself before touching.

            “It is,” Finduilas said with a little smile. “Maybe it will grow out all this soft.”

            “Perhaps I will simply keep it short!” Nienor countered. Finduilas moved around to look directly at her and have a look at it from another angle. It was very short. She had seen some Men wear their hair so short and she had never liked the look of it before, but perhaps on Nienor, it was tolerable. It made her happy—didn’t that make it the best option automatically?

            They were after all, always looking to carry less weight! Nienor joked.

***

            Amdirlhê sometimes grew fussy on their long rides; they stopped intermittently to let her move and stretch her legs, but both women were keenly aware how exposed and alone they were in the wilds of Beleriand. Once, traveling there at the edge of Nargothrond’s territory might have given some comfort, to think they had King Orodreth’s warriors on one side, but now, danger seemed to glare at them from every angle, and sometimes, with no apparent trigger, Nienor would stop Amdirlhê’s play and scoop her up protectively.

            Finduilas had found a cherry tree while out searching and had gathered as many as she could, intending to return and bring Nienor and Amdirlhê to the tree that they could all pick more and have some to snack on for a few days. As she approached where they had settled for the night, she heard the sound of Nienor’s voice and she paused with a smile to listen.

            “…but Princess Faelivrin was keen of eye and mind, and she saw how the viceroy deceived her father. Yet when she tried to speak with him, he would not hear it! So Faelivrin knew this problem she must solve on her own.” Nienor paused, perhaps determining where to go next. “An ally she had, in the captain of her mother’s guard—a woman called…um…Himil. To Himil she explained her plan and together they decided how to expose the plot of the viceroy.

            “But! There was another, a man among her father’s councilors called…uh…Gram, whose eye had been fixed on Faelivrin for some time, and who often turned up at the most inopportune times. Faelivrin and Himil would need to keep their works secret from him as well if they wished the king not to learn of them before the right time.”

            “It sounds that Faelivrin is in rather a tight spot,” said Finduilas as she emerged from the evening shadows with her bounty of cherries.

            “Amlugnod was telling me how she wishes to ‘go home’,” said Nienor, in a tone that suggested the story had been a desperate effort to calm the child down.

            “Well, let me not interrupt the story,” said Finduilas. “Go on!” She peeled the meat of a few cherries away from the pit, discarding those off to the side and handing the de-pitted cherry flesh to Amdirlhê to gnaw on while she listened to the rest of her mother’s story. Nienor was clearly more reticent with an audience of more than two years, and the story was wrapped up quickly.  “So short!” said Finduilas. “Here I thought it would take them a great deal longer to expose the viceroy.”

            “Well, perhaps you wish to share a story instead,” said Nienor.

            “Hm…” Finduilas thought about this as Nienor began to arrange their kindling for a fire. “No, I prefer yours,” she said at last with a shrug.

            “Oh, I see!” Nienor exclaimed, her mouth falling open. “It must be I alone offering entertainment on this journey!”

            “Precisely,” said Finduilas, grinning.

            “Some stepmother you are!” said Nienor, which made Finduilas laugh.

            “Am I Amdirlhê’s stepmother now?” she teased.

            “I daresay you shan’t be, with that attitude,” Nienor said, digging around for their flint rocks.

            “Well, if I must give a story for the privilege, I will see what I can recall from mother’s tales…”

***

            Finduilas’ nightmares continued to plague her as they traveled down the Sirion. She wished they could have taken the long way around Nargothrond’s territory, but it could have easily added a month or more to their journey and would not necessarily have guaranteed they were any safer. She hung onto Nienor’s words about Glaurung’s death and tried to let that soothe her, but her stomach felt in knots the moment she noticed the ground starting to soften as they entered the fens, where they would need to travel especially slow and careful, and the anxiety that had been whispering in the back of her mind since they left the safety of Doriath’s eaves made itself known.

            While Finduilas could sleep through Nienor’s nightmares even in the tiny tent shared by three of them, Nienor did not sleep so heavily that she could always overlook Finduilas’ nighttime distress. On one particular occasion, when Finduilas jolted awake, heart pounding against her chest, from visions of Nargothrond bloody and burning, which had warped into Doriath set upon by faceless soldiers bearing blank banners, and the suffocating thought that there was no safe place in Beleriand, she felt Nienor’s fingers touch her hand.

            “Finduilas,” she whispered over Amdirlhê. “Are you awake?” Finduilas was breathing steadily, trying to calm her racing heart, and took a moment to reply.

            “Yes.” Her voice came out shakier than she wished.

            “Were you dreaming?”

            “Yes.”

            There was rustling in the dark as Nienor carefully shifted Amdirlhê from where she lay between them over to Nienor’s other side, allowing Nienor to scoot closer to Finduilas.

            “Was it about Nargothrond?” she asked.

            Finduilas did not want to say. Her idea it had been to travel to Balar, and Nienor had held up so admirably, even towing her toddler along with her, that it seemed rather selfish and childish for Finduilas to throw a fit about traveling in the vicinity of her old home, particularly when Nienor’s own brother and husband had died killing the same beast which had terrorized Finduilas and her people.

            In Finduilas’ silence, Nienor gathered the answer anyway, and she touched Finduilas’ hair and then her shoulder and then her hand, seemingly at a loss for what precisely she ought to do to remedy this situation.

            “It will pass,” Finduilas whispered.

            “But it has not yet,” said Nienor. Finduilas did not reply. “Perhaps if you spoke of it…” Nienor suggested tentatively.

            “No one wishes to hear of such a thing,” said Finduilas.

            “I would hear, if it would set your mind at ease,” said Nienor. For a moment they were quiet, but for their breathing, and Amdirlhê off to the side, and then Nienor added: “You have heard the details of my sorry tale.”

            And so, haltingly, Finduilas explained the dream, and how it pertained to what she had seen at the sack of Nargothrond, and in a sense, it did feel like purging a bit of poison from her mind, though the anxiety and fear lingered.

            “I saw my mother and father cut down by the beast Glaurung,” she said. “I saw the lifeless body of my one-time fiancé on the bridge built by the man for whom I left him. I saw the remains of my people clapped in irons by Orcs, and then slain when the first chance for freedom came near. ‘tis nothing new. Grief and fear have ways of treading very familiar routes in the mind.”

            “Indeed,” Nienor murmured, almost to herself. She shifted again and gathered Finduilas against her, so the Elf’s forehead was against her chest. Nienor’s hand rubbed her back and the other was against her hair, as if she were a child being reassured. Perhaps she ought to have protested, particularly being so much older than Nienor in truth, but she didn’t. She pressed close to Nienor and closed her eyes, focused on the warmth of Nienor’s body and the firm touch of her hands, which were growing calloused again with all their work.

            “It is not your burden alone,” Nienor murmured very quietly. “We shall carry it together, and then it will not seem so heavy.”

            Finduilas’ throat felt tight all of a sudden, hearing her old words to Nienor, and she fisted one hand in Nienor’s shift.

            “Nay,” she whispered. “It seems not so heavy now.” A burden it was still, and would remain for some years—perhaps forever—but with Nienor there, it seemed infinitely more bearable, an obstacle that could be overcome or managed, and not one that would destroy her.

            Finduilas did not know when Nienor let go of her and rolled over, for she fell asleep still with Nienor’s arms around her.

***

            Finduilas and Nienor had done their best to calculate the lowest route through the Andram, but it still required a great deal of uphill walking and some navigation to avoid the more dangerous routes. Some, Finduilas would have been willing to take herself, but was not willing to risk Nienor and Amdirlhê, so she insisted on more secure routes for her Mannish companions, and Nienor did not argue. If anything, she seemed relieved to not have to be the one to make the insistence.

            Thus, passing through the mountains slowed them considerably, but they had timed the journey such that there was very little risk of bad weather, and not a hint of snow, which was something for which to be grateful. Snow made any journey trickier, but it was downright deadly in quantity, particularly where footing was already treacherous. Finduilas’ grandparents had rarely spoken of their long journey across the Helcaraxë, even to their own son, but whispers still went around the family about the terror of the cold and the danger of the ice. As a child, Finduilas (and, as she understood, Gil-galad also) had wanted stories of this great feat their grandparents had accomplished, but such tales were not forthcoming. She hadn’t thought of it in years by then, but picturing the ground she and Nienor now traversed blanketed in snow with a howling wind blowing overhead made her think of the few tales her father had been able to pass on of the Helcaraxë. She chose not to share those with Nienor presently.

            However, for all the delay and the shadow of danger presented by the mountains, there was great beauty. In fact, some small part of their delay was surely due to Finduilas frequently stopping simply to observe the scenery until Nienor called her name as if to ensure she was still among the living and the sane.

            When they stopped for Amdirlhê to rest and play, Finduilas wove flowers into crowns for Nienor and named the birdcalls she recognized and reclined in the grass to watch great, puffy clouds pass by, seeming so near she felt she could almost reach out and touch one. Sometimes, when Amdirlhê was calm, Nienor might lie near to Finduilas’ side and they would watch the clouds pass together. The rest of the world—the bloody graves of her family, brooded over by Glaurung; the question of Gil-galad’s survival; the shadow of Morgoth with his hands gripped around the throat of Middle-earth—seemed so far off as to belong to some other world, one of which Finduilas and Nienor were not a part. Once, Finduilas put her head on Nienor’s shoulder, and Nienor did not move her off.

            Nienor, as often, kept her thoughts to herself, but it seemed to Finduilas that even she breathed a little easier up in the hills, away from everything else. One night she told another story about Princess Faelivrin and another she taught Finduilas and Amdirlhê one of the traveling songs of the Men of Dor-lómin and insisted they both performed it equally well. After, when Finduilas thought they needed a pick-me-up as they walked, she would raise the song and even when Nienor did not join, she would often look over with a smile softening her hazel eyes.

            It was at or near the highest elevation they passed over when they stopped for camp perhaps a few hundred yards from a cliff’s edge that looked out over the flat lands towards the southwest. Finduilas had Amdirlhê strapped to her back while Nienor was back at the campsite stoking a fire; she had meant to give Nienor a break from company and childcare, but when she saw how the sinking sun set fire to the darkening sky, turning it such a rich, dark orange she wanted to plunge her hands into it, how it threw its shade across all the land she could see, she had to bring Nienor over.

            “Nienor, come and see this,” she said.

            “I cannot now; the fire must be lit before dark,” answered Nienor without looking up.

            “I will light it; come and see,” Finduilas insisted.

            “Come see, Mama!” said Amdirlhê. Outvoted, Nienor sighed and pushed herself up off her knees, allowing Finduilas to lead her over to the cliffside where she gestured at the sun setting over the west of Middle-earth.

            “See?” she whispered after a moment. “Is it not breathtaking?”

            Wordlessly, without looking from the setting sun, Nienor slipped her hand into Finduilas’ and they stood there without speaking until the sky had gone purple and the distant treetops had melted into the inky darkness overtaking the continent. A pair of birds of prey winged out from the trees along the mountainside and sailed over the flatter land below, joyfully twisting and swooping. When Finduilas glanced over, she saw there were tear-tracks on Nienor’s face, and she almost said something, but then held her tongue. Instead, she just squeezed Nienor’s hand and, moments later, yelped when Amdirlhê yanked on her hair, which made Nienor look over and laugh at the disgruntled look on the Elf’s face.

            Once Nienor started laughing, it was difficult for her to stop, and any annoyance of Finduilas’ dissipated in the face of Nienor’s lightening mood. It was too rare to hear her laugh to be sour about the source. A smile spread over Finduilas’ face and she waited patiently for Nienor to catch her breath.

            “Another benefit to my new cut!” Nienor declared when she could speak again. “Less material with which this one may cause trouble.”

            Finduilas took Nienor’s hand again to return to the campsite, and with Nienor somewhat useless in the dark, Finduilas lit the fire and then left the setting up of the tent then to her companion while she put their dinner over the fire.

            It was such a small thing, the sunset, in light of all else—yet Finduilas felt lighter for it, and for having been able to share it with Nienor. If I had never left Brethil, she thought, if I had delayed Nienor, or let her depart without me, I would never have seen this. Other things like it perhaps, but not this one.

            At moments like this, she felt sure that nothing in her and Nienor’s encounter had been a coincidence. But perhaps that’s how it was with things of great personal import—that it felt so earthshaking to her it must be the result of some grander force or plan. Whether it was or not—she was glad, and hoped that Nienor was glad also.

***

            On their way down the far side of the Andram, the rains struck hard and heavy. Sheets poured down the sides of the worn mountains, turning the sky to slate and reducing visibility to scarcely more than a few feet ahead. Even Finduilas’ keen Elf eyes squinted in the downpour and she was raw with frustration at not being able to see clearly where they were going.

            When they found a copse of trees, it seemed best to stop for the day—Amdirlhê had been crying for hours about being cold and wet, and progress was so slow in the rain it hardly seemed a waste to give the day up for lost.

            All their kindling was soaked, so they agreed to split into the trees in search of any that might have escaped the deluge of rain. Nienor took Amdirlhê and went off one direction, and Finduilas another, and so intent was she on her search for any useful bits of wood that had been somehow sheltered from the storm that by the time she heard Nienor’s voice, the woman had descended into hysterical screaming of her name.

            “Nienor!” Abandoning the search at once, Finduilas took off in the direction it sounded like Nienor’s voice was coming from. The fear in Nienor’s voice made Finduilas’ heart come near to stopping. “Nienor!”

            “Finduilas!”

            The rain made a mess of their hearing and Finduilas halted, whipping around, trying desperately to determine which direction Nienor was calling from. She had been sure it was from the south, but now it sounded more northeast! She strained her eyes in the darkness of the trees and the clamor of the rain, but she couldn’t see Nienor.

            “Nienor! Where are you? I can hear you!” she cried.

            “Finduilas!”

            “Nienor! Where are you?” In her panic, she overlooked that staying put was likely her best option, and started to run again, only to collide sharply with her quarry as she came around a stack of boulders. Nienor screamed in surprise and seized Finduilas’ shirt.

            “Finduilas! Where have you been?” she shouted, her eyes glassy. “I’ve been calling for you!” She gripped Finduilas’ shirt so tightly her knuckles went white and Finduilas, around their nerves, became aware that Amdirlhê was crying.

            “I heard you not with all this rain!” Finduilas said, having to raise her voice just to be heard. “And then I could not tell which direction you were…” Nienor gave her a shake.

            “You must pay more attention!” she said, an angry flush in her cheeks, nearly giving Finduilas a shake. “There is danger out here!”

            “Did you see something?” Finduilas asked.

            “We cannot stay here,” said Nienor. “I have seen evidence of goblins over yonder. There must be an entrance to a goblin tunnel somewhere nearby.” Her message had been delivered, but Finduilas could see that Nienor was not finished being upset.

            “Then we will go,” said Finduilas, putting her cold, wet hands over Nienor’s cold, wet hands to pry them gently off her shirt. “Come. Perhaps we may yet find somewhere drier to spend the night.”

            They did not, and spent the night huddled in their dripping tent, Amdirlhê’s wailing ensuring they got not more than a few hours’ rest, and spent several hours of the next morning laying everything out to dry, lest their things mildew before the next camp.

            All three of them were testy and talk was scarce; Finduilas heard Nienor bickering with Amdirlhê about eating, for the girl was still angry about being made to ride through the rain the day before and then to sleep in such conditions, and would not take the mashed carrot Nienor was trying to feed her.

            “Well fine, then!” Nienor said harshly. “Be hungry and add that to the list of your miseries I have inflicted upon you!” Amdirlhê started crying again and Finduilas glared at Nienor from across the camp where she was spreading out the tent to dry.

            “Leave her alone, why don’t you!” she said. “Are we not all unhappy enough already?”

            “Oh, are you her mother?” Nienor demanded. “Foolish of me not to realize!”

            “Stop being so unpleasant!” Finduilas snapped. “You have been as a bear woken from sleep since yesterday!”

            “Forgive me for my concern for your safety!” Nienor snarled back. “I shall have less of it in the future!” Amdirlhê wailed louder at the sound of her mother’s raised voice.

            Finduilas opened her mouth to respond in kind, then took a moment to breathe and reconsider. The weak sun shining overhead would take hours to dry their things appreciably; they could not row the whole time, and it was small wonder they were all so cranky after the last forty-eight hours.

            “Give me your things to lay out,” was all she said, more curtly than she meant to do. “We ought to dry as much as we can, while we are delayed.” Nienor’s hackles went down and she stripped first her own clothes, and then Amdirlhê’s, and Finduilas found a place to hang them. Being permitted to run about in the nude improved the toddler’s mood for reasons unknown, and Nienor was able to coax her into eating at least a few bites. Finduilas’ hands moved slowly at work; she found herself watching Nienor and how the sun almost seemed to make her golden skin glow. Pregnancy had softened the curves of her body in a way that had never disappeared despite their limited diet, a very comely look on her. Finduilas knew also that she had grown stronger on their journey; she carried more now than she could at the start, and she swung the axe with confidence in gathering their firewood. Small wonder Túrin had felt so for her! Finduilas thought. She was remarkable. (It was not the first time Finduilas had thought this.)

            Nienor was doing her best to wring out their cloaks when she cast a furtive glance at Finduilas, who had not moved in many minutes, and said:

            “Forgive my temper. I should not have shouted.”

            “’tis forgiven,” said Finduilas. “I shall apologize as well…I did not realize how upset you were.” Nienor looked down at the by then minimal amounts of water she was able to squeeze out of the cloth.

            “It was wet and dark and there is danger about and I called for you and you came not,” she said, almost sullenly. “What was I to think?”

            Nibbling her lower lip, Finduilas came and sat beside Nienor on the rock they had left free of wet fabric.

            “I truly came as soon as I heard you,” she said softly. “I would not have left you to wonder.”

            “I know.” Nienor was getting nothing out of the cloak, but she went on squeezing. Finduilas reached out and put a hand on one of Nienor’s, feeling her heart beat quite emphatically in her chest.

            “Even had the goblins trussed me up to feast on, you would have stopped them,” she said with a teasing smile. “Of this I am certain.” Nienor looked at her a moment and then snorted, red in the cheek.

            “I do not fancy to test my strength against a horde of goblins,” she said.

            “Yet you stood unflinching before a dragon,” said Finduilas.

            “And look what that got me,” Nienor muttered.

            “I feel most secure in your guardianship,” Finduilas said, bending to lay her head on Nienor’s bare shoulder.

            “And here I thought ‘twas you the guardian!”

            Finduilas gave her another smile, and coaxed Nienor to put the cloak aside, and they played a game of tag with Amdirlhê instead, which had the bonus effect of warming them up. Nienor made lunch after that, and when their things were damp only, and not dripping gray rainwater, they dressed and packed and mounted up again to carry onwards.

---

Chapter End Notes

Do NOT ask me how to pronounce that nickname. Fantasy novel names aren't about being pronounceable, they're about looking cool.

On tumblr | On Pillowfort

Fanart recs:
- Nienor by alackofghosts
- Sketch for Finduilas and Nienor Body Types by crocstuff (nonsexual full-frontal nudity)
- Finduilas and Uncle Finrod by Adanedhel
- A Kiss on the Forehead by alackofghosts

Chapter V

Final stretch here we go! I made a playlist for them too (Youtube | Spotify)

Read Chapter V

It had been past the midpoint of spring when they left; it was nearing the end of summer when they stood at the edge of the coast of Beleriand, looking out into the Bay of Balar. The horses obtained in Doriath had made things much faster, but between Amdirlhê and the need to gather food along the way and the standard delays of such journeys—weather, predators, small injuries—it had still been over a two month trip. Nienor had darkened from all the sun and Amdirlhê was walking, though still unsteady on her little toddler legs.

            “Can you see the isle there?” Finduilas asked, shading her eyes with one hand and pointing into the bay with the other.

            “Yes, I think so,” said Nienor, tilting her head. “It isn’t so far, is it?”

            “Not now!” Finduilas said with irrepressible cheer. To be so near to their goal after all this time made her nearly lightheaded; she felt giddy. She turned to grin at Nienor. “Now all we  need is a boat!” Nienor glanced back at Amdirlhê, who was crawling and toddling about the grass chasing flying things, before allowing Finduilas to take her hands and pull her into an impromptu dance.  She twirled them around until Nienor was laughing too and then she fell into the grass.

            “Findas!” Amdirlhê shouted, trying to run to her and falling several times on the way. Each time, Finduilas encouraged her and she jumped to her feet and kept trying until at last she had reached the two women near the cliffside. “Findas! Look at this!”

            “Look, sweet thing, can you see? Our destination is just there.” Finduilas scooped her up and tried to turn her attention to the bay, but Amdirlhê was more interested in showing Finduilas a fistful of clovers she’d pulled up.

            They remained there for a snack and to pass around a waterskin before making their way down to the beach. They had guessed right, and there was a small dock at the mouth of the Sirion, though it took a bit of hunting through the reeds before she uncovered a boat where the Elves of Balar had hidden them.

            “Perhaps someone else will need it,” she said, “but we can return it once we’ve made use of it. No one will be troubled too long.” They loaded their supplies and themselves into the small boat and Finduilas took up the oars. Nienor insisted on taking turns, although Finduilas assured her she could do the whole journey, so they traded off with making sure Amdirlhê stayed in the boat, for she was deeply fascinated with the dull glitter of the water passing by them under the gray sky and kept insisting she had seen fish near the surface.

            Naturally, they were seen on the approach, and by the time they drew up with the docks of the island, there was a committee waiting for them there. Finduilas left Amdirlhê with Nienor and stepped onto the dock, throwing back the hood she had drawn as they crossed the bay.

            “My name is Finduilas, daughter of Orodreth, last king of Nargothrond,” she said. “And I have come to see Lord Círdan the Shipwright, and my brother Ereinion Gil-galad, if he be still among you.”

            This was an effective method for gaining welcome to the city.

            The Elves from the dock led Finduilas and Nienor up to the city center where Círdan designed and dwelt, and he received them at the door of his blue-capped house, having been alerted by a runner just ahead of them.

            “It is you, Finduilas,” he said in awe. “When last I saw you, you were but half the height!” He came to her and they clasped hands, his calloused brown palms gripping her tightly. “When we heard the news of Nargothrond…” he said lowly.

            “The news is grievous indeed,” she said. “My parents are lost, Lord Círdan, and the city too, though I may at least share that the beast responsible—Glaurung, foul worm of Morgoth’s make—is dead as well.”

            “Now that must be a story!” said Círdan.

            “Indeed, he was slain by the brother of my companion,” said Finduilas, turning to draw Círdan’s attention to Nienor.

            “Indeed! Mighty is the company in which you return,” he said. “By what name should we call you?” he asked.

            “My name is Nienor, daughter of Lord Húrin and Lady Morwen of Dor-lómin,” said Nienor.

            “Lord Círdan,” said Finduilas with some urgency. “We have come seeking Gil-galad, or at least news of him, if you have it. Tell me—does my brother live, or am I the last of the line of Angrod and Edhellos in Middle-earth?”

            “Indeed he lives, my lady,” said Círdan, “though he is not here.” Finduilas must have deflated some, for Círdan spoke lightly and added: “He is away on the mainland with a party, where he will be for some months. There is trade and hunt to be made there, and he sometimes grows restless on the island. But he is due to return. He departed not quite ten days ago. You are welcome to await him here if you wish.”

            “Ah, we missed him by so little!” Finduilas exclaimed in lament, yet she brightened to hear that he was alive and well.

            Amdirlhê, troubled with the journey across the bay and unsettled at so many new faces and voices, began to fuss, and the attention of the Elves was at once drawn to her even as Nienor tried to quiet her. Poor Nienor was flustered, but Finduilas would have told her it was not displeasure with the babe’s noise, but fascinating with anything of her age that drew the Elves. Babies were few and far between among the Elves; they couldn’t help but dote whenever they had the chance.

            “Let us find you a place to stay until then,” said Círdan, motioning for them to enter. “There is plenty of room, come, come.”

            Finduilas reached for Nienor’s free hand, clasping it loosely in her own as they followed Círdan into the house. She glanced at her companion with a smile and Nienor offered a nervous return, squeezing at Finduilas’ hand in the way she did when she sought to receive or give reassurance. Finduilas squeezed her back, to let her know all was well, and Círdan introduced them to a wing of the house they might make use of while they awaited Gil-galad’s return.

***

            “Your sleep has been less restless of late,” Nienor remarked with blatantly intentional nonchalance as they readied for bed. Amdirlhê was down already, so they spoke quietly. Finduilas paused where she was undressing. They had bathed and eaten and Finduilas had caught Círdan up on the unhappy news of the continent, and being so ready for rest in a bed for the first time in quite a while, she was unprepared for Nienor to feel like talking.

            Finduilas looked at her a moment, then shrugged and went back to changing for bed. The room Círdan had given them felt nearly as large as Hild and Arnor’s entire house and included not only the bedroom but a parlor for privately hosting guests. There was a vanity, in front of which Nienor sat, and a broad four-poster bed dressed in white linens, with gauzy curtains tied to each post, which were less for keeping in heat so far south, and more for keeping out bugs or for simple aesthetic. They had been provided a crib for Amdirlhê and there was a solid teak dresser for their things—and between their arrival and their returning to the rooms after dinner, someone had installed a mobile over the crib which danced with colorfully-painted crabs and gulls and whales.

            “I believe it was worst passing through the fens,” commented Nienor in that same tone of feigned casualness, turning her attention back to the mirror in which she examined her hair. It was the first mirror she had been able to look in since they had cut it, which had made Finduilas slightly nervous, but the cut had also had time to soften and grow out since then. In any case, Nienor did not seem displeased, and kept running her fingers through it to fluff it out.

            “Mm…” Finduilas made a noncommittal noise and began to let her hair down.

            Nienor twisted on the seat to face her, abandoning her efforts at seeming merely conversational.

            “Do you still dream of Nargothrond?” she asked bluntly. It was a fair question, as she had lain beside Finduilas through many of them.

            “Not so much, now that it is behind us,” Finduilas murmured, taking her time on her hair. Nienor fidgeted on the seat.

            “If you wish to speak more of it…” she said. Finduilas looked at her, some of that old grief showing through her eyes. It was a kind offer, for often it felt there was little they could do for one another but listen. Still, sometimes that was enough. This time, though, Finduilas shook her head.

            “’tis nothing new and I hope that here, it shall feel more distant…”

            Nienor hesitated a moment more, then rose and came near.

“Allow me,” she said, reaching for Finduilas’ hair, and the Elf took the vacated seat so Nienor would not have to reach up to brush her hair out. Nienor worked slowly and carefully, and when Finduilas glanced up at the mirror, she saw Nienor’s eyes looking back at her, though she hastily turned her gaze back to her task. “Still, I would hear again, if it would ease your heart,” she said quietly, running the brush through Finduilas’ hair.

            “I should rather hear one of those tales you tell Amdirlhê,” Finduilas said. “I believe you grow more skilled in the weaving of tales on a whim.” Nienor laughed a little.

            “Soon she will be old enough to know my stories are no good,” she said. She set the brush aside to braid Finduilas’ hair, though she took her time with the parting. Finduilas felt the trailing touch of Nienor’s fingers over her shoulders and the skin exposed by her sleeping gown more than could be coincidental. “Perhaps you will have some better tales about Princess Faelivrin.”

            Finduilas made a kind of bittersweet noise, with an accompanying smile.

            “I’m afraid Princess Faelivrin’s adventures were never quite as triumphant and romantic as the ones you tell,” she said. Nienor paused and looked up again.

            “She was real?” she asked.

            “Of course,” said Finduilas. “She was me. Faelivrin was an epithet given to me by Gwindor when we were still very much in love. It is a reference to the glimmer of sunlight off the pools of Ivrin.”

            “You never told me!” Nienor said.

            “I did not wish to interrupt your stories,” said Finduilas. “And in your tales, Faelivrin always gets a happy ending.” Well, nearly always. Sometimes things didn’t work out so well, particularly if Nienor was in a poor mood. Finduilas would not meet Nienor’s eyes then and wondered if she should have said nothing.

            “Well, then,” Nienor said, resuming her braiding, moving slowly down the long fall of Finduilas’ wheat-colored hair. “Have you heard the tale of Princess Faelivrin’s journey across the sea?”

            “I have not,” said Finduilas, a smile budding on her face. “Does she meet another beautiful princess there?” Nienor’s hands slowed, but only for a moment.

            “She may,” she said. “Perhaps you will have to listen to find out.”

***

The big bed Círdan had provided, heavy with quilts even in the warmth of summer, meant there was no need to sleep pressed together the way they had in the tent, nor even so close as they were in the loft in Brethil, but they stayed close anyway and Finduilas would not have had it another way. She had grown accustomed to the comfort of Nienor’s steady breathing beside her, and the smell of her hair, and being able to reach out and touch her in the night.

            With Círdan there was food and company and space—they walked together and apart through the bright streets of Balar, and took Amdirlhê down to the beach, and Nienor slept, and Finduilas mended the tears in their clothes. Every journey was wearying, no matter how well it passed, and both of them—and Amdirlhê too, Finduilas imagined—were grateful for the rest. (Amdirlhê certainly seemed grateful for the many Elves willing to sit for hours and entertain her and sneak her treats and make her toys—there was never a shortage of someone willing to play with her.)

            “All this time, I thought you had a particular patience for children,” Nienor remarked. Finduilas snickered.

            “I tried to tell you, dear one,” she said. “We all tend to get rather excited when it comes to babies.”

             There was a near specious quality to the peace; Finduilas could tell neither she nor Nienor was willing to wholly trust it. Nienor tensed up whenever someone unfamiliar entered the scene; she kept Amdirlhê close to her; she often seemed restive in spite of the chance to relax. Círdan introduced her to many of the Elves who frequented his home, in hopes of putting her more at ease by making her acquainted with them, but she did not seek them out nor spend much time with them. In fact, even Finduilas saw less of her as time went by. It seemed to Finduilas that Nienor once more grew restive and after a brief period of recovery, became easily agitated again. She pushed Finduilas away when she went to brush her hair or got too close to her in bed, and got snappish when Finduilas tried to make plans more than a day or two out. She even suggested they return to the mainland and seek out Gil-galad themselves, though Finduilas insisted that was unnecessary.

            “What shall you do when Gil-galad returns?” When they stood one early afternoon on a stone balcony overlooking the beach, with Amdirlhê having her nap watched over by any one of the Elves of Balar who were ever so solicitous of the chance to assist with her, Nienor posed this question.

            Finduilas considered, looking out at the glittering horizon.

            “I am not yet certain,” she said at last.

            “Do you mean to remain here?” Nienor pressed. “Or will you go to Doriath?” Finduilas leaned back against the white stone wall around the edge of the balcony, facing Nienor rather than the sea. Rather than the clothes she had been given there, Nienor wore the gown in which she had been dressed when Finduilas first encountered her, now a riot of color about the breast where Finduilas had embroidered it after its repair. Finduilas had opted herself for one of the breezy tunics given to her by Círdan, which were cool in the warmth of the southern sun and rippled fetchingly in the wind.

            “Truthfully, I have not much considered it,” she said. She had simply been enjoying the chance to rest with Nienor and Amdirlhê, knowing they were not the only ones keeping an eye on potential threats. The rhythm of Balar was drawing her in and she began at last to relax. “Why?”

            “I must know whether Amlugnod and I will travel alone when we leave here, or if we will have company,” said Nienor, with a stubborn set to her jaw as if she were braced for a fight and already determined to win.

            “You mean to go, then?” Finduilas said, frowning, her posture stiffening slightly.

            “No business have we here,” said Nienor. “And I would not impose on the hospitality of Lord Círdan.”

            “’tis not an imposition,” said Finduilas. “You are my guest and if we remained here long, we might busy ourselves such that we contributed to the household and thus cause no imposition.”

            “I cannot live as your guest, Finduilas.” Nienor delivered this in the blunt way that she usually conferred information about herself, which left no room for disagreement.

            “Then do not,” said Finduilas. “Lord Círdan I told you were my companion; I hold that the truer. I would not have come so far without you. I may not have left Brethil at all.”

            “That I doubt; likely you would have come much sooner to the coast.”

            “Or I would have accepted the invitation of the marchwarden and remained in Doriath,” she said. “You underestimate your effect in fortifying my resolve,” she added with a smile.

            “If you would not be parted, then come with me,” Nienor said, and there was a desperate edge to her voice, as if grasping at something falling through her fingers. “We may journey again, just the three of us…” She trailed off.

            “And go where?” said Finduilas. “If you have some quest in mind, my ears are yours.”

            “A considerable property to own,” Nienor joked hopelessly. She fidgeted with her hands and Finduilas saw in her an aimless drive to motion.

            “Nienor,” said Finduilas gently. “If you wish to return to Doriath I would not stop you, and I would go with you, but I would ask you first consider why it is you wish to be gone from here.”

            “Why so? Is there some reason I might have you consider insufficient to justify my departure?” Nienor demanded.

            “None could be so,” said Finduilas. “Only that I fear for you to lose a chance for happiness with haste.”

            “And what chance is that?” Nienor asked.

            “To stay here,” said Finduilas, feeling her heart beat sharply against her ribs. “At least for a time.”

            “Stay and do what?” Nienor pressed.

            “Do?” Finduilas echoed. “Live. Be safe, for a time. Raise Amdirlhê.” She took a slow breath. “Be with me.”

            “Oh, ask me not that!” Nienor burst out, all at once in a fit, throwing her hands up and then curling her hands into fists at her sides. She took several rapid paces back and forth in front of Finduilas and then turned sharply to look at her again. “You know it cannot be! Be not so cruel as to ask!”

            “What cannot be?” Finduilas straightened up off the wall.

            “You know very well!” Nienor said, flushing furiously, her mouth trembling.

            “Nay, explain it to me,” said Finduilas. “For there is nothing I see that may not be, if we wish it.”

            “I am mortal; you are Elfkind!” Nienor’s cry broke from her throat; she waved a hand vigorously at Finduilas. “Do not paint some vision of a future for you as my companion, as my—it could be nothing but a dream, and I cannot bear another fool’s dream turned to ash in my hands!” She clutched her arms against her, digging her fingers into her elbows. “I cannot pretend with you forever,” she said quietly. “It may be a diverting game for you for a time, but sometime I must return to reality.”

            “If you think I have done all this for a diversion, perhaps we have less to say to one another than I thought,” Finduilas said, her voice quivering. She did not truly believe Nienor thought of it that way, but even the idea cut. Nienor’s eyes were glassy, and she bit her lip and clenched her jaw and looked away.

            “Whether diversion or no, it has put blinders on us, which cannot remain forever,” Nienor insisted.

            “And why is that? You object to being in such company with an Elf?” demanded Finduilas. Neither did she believe Nienor thought this.

            “Clearly I do not!” said Nienor. “Have I not been with you all this time?”

            “What is it, then? It troubles you that to your eyes, I shall not age, and you will?”

            “In part!” said Nienor. “Tell me this: Is it not so the Eldar may perish of grief?”

            Finduilas hesitated.

            “Indeed it may be so,” she answered slowly. “A brutal enough wound to the spirit may kill as much as one to the body.”

            “Then how do you not see?” Nienor asked in despair. “Even the happiest of endings for us will be a tragedy! Should we remain here all the rest of our days and live in love and peace and Amulgnod grow strong and wise, still I shall be parted from you, and I will see you no more beyond the end of days, and after, my miserable mortality may cost your life as well! What goodness is there in me, if I should allow such a thing to happen? How selfish, how greedy must I be? How,” she implored, her voice cracking, “could I live knowing I would take such a beautiful thing from the world?”

            “Nienor,” said Finduilas, pulling away from the wall.

“It will happen!” Nienor cried. “Do not tell me it won’t! I am cursed, Finduilas, and to ill turn all things for me which begin well! I warned you before: I will be the end of you!” Finduilas came to stand in front of her.

“Nienor, you misunderstand; I have chosen. What remains now is only your decision. You speak as if we may now part ways and feign as though nothing happened; is that not another kind of pretend game? Do you not see?” She reached out and took Nienor’s hands, feeling the faint callouses on her palms from the work of their trip. “I have chosen you, Nienor,” she said softly. “If you make another choice, I shall hold it not against you, for you as much as anyone I have known deserves such freedom to make her own choices, regardless of the motivation, but think not you will divert my love elsewhere by refusing me now. Thrice now have I loved; I will not take another. It will be you, or it will be none.”

            Nienor swallowed and tried to stiffen her shoulders and choke back her tears, but they spilled over her lashes anyway.

            “Then I have done it already,” she said, her voice breaking again.

            “You have done naught but bring me joy,” said Finduilas. “Nienor! Do you not see? My life ought to have been lost upon that hill. It very nearly was. But I lived, I lived so that I might find you. If you leave this world and I depart soon after, then it is not a shortening of my life; my life ought to have ended already! Every day I spent in Brethil waiting for I knew not what; every day I have spent with you is an extra day that I have been granted. I will not mourn that my life may not extend so far as others of my kind; I ought only be grateful it does not end as it might have. I will be grateful I was given the chance to know you.”

            “How can you let it go so easily!” Nienor cried, tears dripping down her cheeks.

            “For love,” said Finduilas simply. Nienor made an aggrieved noise and wept and then put her arms around Finduilas, and Finduilas held her tightly around the shoulders, surprised to feel tears wet on her own cheeks. They stood there a while in the ocean breeze until someone came out to let them know that Amdirlhê had woken and wished for her mother, so they left the conversation on the overlook and went inside to tend to the child.

***

            The brilliant morning sun over Balar beamed through the windows of the room Finduilas and Nienor had been given and Finduilas had decided she enjoyed the gentle waking of the light slowly brightening the room, though it often made Nienor groan and cover her face with a pillow. Some mornings, Nienor rose to collect Amdirlhê from her crib and laid her in the bed between them to play or doze a while more while they woke and readied themselves for the day.

            That morning, Finduilas woke first, she thought, for Amdirlhê was not there, yet Nienor was still present, but when she looked, Nienor was awake, and watching her.

            “What are you thinking?” Finduilas said, her voice croaking in the way of one who has just woken.

            “I am thinking of how I love you,” Nienor said simply. It was not meant to flatter or woo; it was just the truth. Just honest.

            “Tell me,” said Finduilas.

            “I cannot,” said Nienor. “How does one put such a thing into words? Poets may do it, I suppose, but no poet am I.”

            “Then you must find another way,” Finduilas said. Nienor reached out and brushed a bit of hair away from Finduilas’ cheek, her fingers lingering there. Her touch moved along Finduilas’ jaw to her chin, but there was a downturn to her mouth, so Finduilas said: “What troubles you?”

            “I am dying,” said Nienor. Finduilas’ shock must have shown clearly on her face, for Nienor quickly added: “Not presently. But I shall.”

            “Yes,” Finduilas agreed cautiously.

            “What will you do then?” Nienor asked.

            “I will care for Amdirlhê.”

            “She too, will grow old and die. What will you do then?”

            “I will care for any children she may have.”

            “And if she has none?”

            “Then I will sing songs of the women of Dor-lómin that I knew, and how bold and how brave were they, and I will weave fishing nets and baskets for Balar, and if we march once more against Morgoth I will go, and I expect I will not return.” Nienor was still looking at her as if waiting for more. Finduilas smiled and touched her cheek. “An Elf may not plan for every day of her life, Himil,” she said. “Even we may not see so far. If you wish to hear I have a schedule for between now and the end of the Music, I must disappoint you.”

            Nienor studied her face, then took Finduilas’ hand from her cheek and pressed her lips against Finduilas’ palm, making Finduilas’ cheeks warm, thrilling something deep in her chest.

            “I love you,” Nienor said. “I can offer you nothing else.”

            “I have asked for nothing else,” said Finduilas, slightly breathless. “I desire nothing else.”

            “I cannot be with you forever,” said Nienor.

            “I know,” said Finduilas. “And yet neither will we part forever.”

            “The breaking of the world and the Second Music may seem very similar,” said Nienor.

            “Similar, but not the same.”

            “Do you love me?” Nienor asked. Finduilas’ smile grew.

            “Of course I love you.” Nienor nodded slowly, thoughtfully, and then leaned down and pressed her mouth to Finduilas’. Finduilas’ eyes fluttered shut and her hand moved back into Nienor’s hair, the softness of Nienor’s lips seeming to transport her to some realm of light and weightless air, some place where Orcs and dragons and dark lords had never been. One of Nienor’s hands was braced on either side of her and the feeling of safety and comfort that came from being so bracketed in Nienor’s arms felt like something Finduilas had sought for years. She reached her arms up around Nienor’s shoulders to pull her closer and as her mouth parted against Nienor’s, they heard shouting from the side of the room: Amdirlhê was up and wanted out of her crib.

            Drawing back with an annoyed furrow of her brow, Nienor turned towards Amdirlhê, and Finduilas laughed.

            “We will have to work on our scheduling, I think,” said Finduilas with amusement, reaching up to smooth a bit of Nienor’s hair back from her face. She had trimmed it anew since their arrival (whomever had done it had done a neater job than Finduilas had the first time). She had decided it was a flattering look on Nienor.

            “Tsk! Everything with a baby must be scheduled!” Nienor griped. “I know not how my mother managed two at once! At least with you, I shall never have such worries.” Finduilas laughed again.

            “Nay, that is one task you may set aside,” she said with a playful look. Shifting, she moved out from under Nienor and nudged her back down onto the mattress. “Let me.” She swung her feet out of bed and fetched Amdirlhê from the crib. Cooing and bouncing the girl in her arms, she carried her over to the bed and set her between Finduilas and Nienor.

            “Beach today?” Amdirlhê asked, looking between them. “Go beach today?”

            “Mm…I suppose we could make today a beach day,” said Nienor, reaching out to let Amdirlhê grab at her fingers. At least as many days as not were beach days in Balar. She tipped her head to look around the child to Finduilas, curled up against the headboard. “What say you, princess?”

            Finduilas flushed and scoffed quietly at this address and the look in Nienor’s eyes as she said it, but she smiled anyway.

            “I think ‘tis a perfect day for the beach,” she said.

            “Well,” said Nienor. “That’s decided then.”

            And so it was.

FIN

---

Chapter End Notes

I want to give a HUGE thank you to everyone who's supported this story, especially my friends from the Tolkien Writer's Union who have been SO supportive <3 I have loved hearing your guys' thoughts throughout the story and I am SO grateful to have you all around!

On tumblr | On Pillowfort | Story promo

Fanart recs:
- Orodreth and Finduilas by Kanafnwe
- Finduilas/Nienor Lady Porn by nisiedrawsstuff (Yeah it's NSFW)
- Glauring Mesmerizing Nienor by Egobarri
- Flower Crown Kisses by alackofghosts