What the Water Gave Me by Rocky41_7

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Chapter I

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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 :(

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