Part 06: Here in Our Frailty by Eilinel's Ghost

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Here in Our Frailty | Part 06 of the Atandil Series

Apologies for the longer stretch between posting Part 05 and this one. I was accosted by some extremely rude and persistent writer’s block that refused to take the hint and leave the party. We now return to our usual programming (hopefully).

Still anticipating this to be a ~15-20 part series Now anticipating this to be at least a 25 part series because I do not know how to be remotely normal about these two.

Thanks once again for bearing with the slow burn.

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As always, I am so very sorry to write YET ANOTHER piece that includes paragraphs featuring three separate individuals named Balan, Baran, and Belen. Please do, in fact, blame Tolkien entirely for this and pay close attention to everything between the B’s and N’s.

With that in mind:

A QUICK EDAIN PRIMER for anyone who doesn’t obsessively carry the Bëorian family tree around rent-free in their heads:
Balan: the Atani chieftain later known as Bëor
Baran: Balan/Bëor’s eldest son
Belen: Balan/Bëor’s second son
Original characters: Estreth (sister of Balan's deceased wife), Hathus, Eimet, Meyla, Avina

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310^th YEAR OF THE SUN, YULETIDE
Estolad

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Estreth pulled another handful of meadow garlic from the cluster hanging beside her. It was always best to use one more than you thought you needed, especially when they had been hanging all this while. She set the handful with the rest upon the table and began to mince it. 

It was lucky the winter had been mild so far. They made quick progress along the road and had reached the new encampment before the first frosts struck. But it needed quick work nonetheless to raise a village from the ground with time enough to prepare for the long, barren months ahead. Nóm’s people had been of help, of course. More help, Estreth could grudgingly admit alone here with the stores, than her expectations allowed. It was little time at all before they erected a tall palisade around the perimeter—likely unnecessary, Nóm reassured her as they worked, but more convenient to have than to find wanting. And soon the huts too rose from the meadows; simple, one-roomed structures made of woven hazel branches and daub. Nóm’s people had been both repulsed and fascinated by that process; eying the paste of manure and mud with aversion, but admitting respect for the quick use of the materials to hand.

It had been strange to meet more of his kind. Estreth found them as disconcerting as she found Nóm in the early days of their acquaintance. His company, she noted with a wry twitch of her lips, was much improved by the comparison. Their demeanor held the same curiosity as his, but they remained aloof and distant, cautious observers rather than his ardent engagement. She had been relieved at their departure, though she hid that from Balan and his sons, who would gladly have urged them stay to on through the winter. Nóm alone had remained, which returned a semblance of normalcy to their days. He, at least, was becoming a known variable.

Estreth gathered the cut greens into a bowl with those already prepared and carried them out into the twilight. It was cold. No snow had yet fallen, but the ground and various tributaries of Celon had frozen over and the clouds were heavy. It would not be long now—Yuletide had come and the solstice was upon them. But they were provisioned well, far better than she feared when they left Thalos with such short warning. They had managed to carry much upon the road, and greater yet had been brought since by the Nómin. It would be a more plentiful winter than many these several years gone.

“Haelis, Estreth!” Nóm walked toward her from the edge of the village, a large basket under his arm. Estreth spoke his tongue as well as most others of Balan’s clan, but she still held firmly to Taliska—another of her small stubbornnesses. He greeted her ever in kind.

“Haelis, Nóm,” she replied, then glanced at his burden with a quick chuckle. “What has Balan set you to now?”

“Leaf seeking,” he said smiling. “Berry harvesting. Gathering Yavanna’s bounty to the halls of your dwelling.” He laughed at her look of skepticism and shifted the basket where she could see the contents. “He told me to fill this with holly sprigs.”

“That’s a fair harvest,” she glanced approvingly at the collected greenery.

“It is. It felt a pity to cut them, but the boughs are well laden still and should suffer no harm from the pruning.” He stood aside as Estreth entered Balan’s hut then followed after, ducking beneath the frame. Like all the quickly constructed village, it was a small structure; a single room serving every function, with bedrolls set along the edges, rope and board shelves lining the walls, and a circle of stones at the center to serve as a hearth. Baran sat on a bench beside this, twisting holly leaves into a circlet while Balan arranged various ingredients alongside a board on the earthen floor. 

“Here.” Estreth set the bowl on a bench beside the doorway. “This should be the last of what you need for it.”

“Aye,” Balan glanced up with a smile. “Thank you. Ah, Nóm, you’re back as well. Take those over to Baran, would you?”

“Better yet,” Baran placed the finished circlet on his head as Finrod set the basket of holly beside him, “could you weave these instead? These two are not yet finished and I’ve promised Eimet to help build the night’s fires.”

“Just these two?”

“Aye. One for vatta and one for you, if you’ll wear it. I’ve done the rest.”

“Certainly.” Finrod took Baran’s place on the bench and reached into the basket of holly. “Are these a tradition of yours?”

“No tales,” Baran said sternly as he paused in the door, grinning back at them. “No lore. Once the two of you begin down that path there’s no telling how long it would be before he’s finished preparing the meat.”

“Insolent pup,” Balan chuckled at him, rising and moving toward the door. “Hand in the boar, then, if you’re so impatient.”

“Impatient?” Baran lifted a large pot from where it sat, preserved in the cold outside the door and passed it to his father. “I’m ravenous.” Then he followed Estreth back out to the village, the sound of merry songs drifting in behind them as he closed the door.

Balan returned to the fire once more and set the pot beside him. He removed a section of boar’s meat from the icy water and dried it with a cloth, then laid it out on the flat board before him and scored it with his knife.

“What do you call it?” Balan asked, nodding toward the holly in Finrod’s hands.

“Ereg,” he answered as he finished binding a sprig. Then he leaned forward and tucked another into Balan’s hair, securing it behind his ear. “Ercassë,” he added with a quick smile.  The greenery stood out against the other’s hair, gleaming in the light of the fire, and the scarlet berries shone against the warmth of his skin.

“Ercassë,” Balan repeated. He finished mashing the herbs and salt into a thick paste, which he began spreading over the scored meat.

“What does it mean?” Finrod asked as he returned to his own task. “It has some significance to your people, I presume, given all of this.”

“Mm. Simply put, it does not die, nor does it lose its color through the cold of winter. So we bind it about when night is at its longest and hope scarcest. Defiance again, you see,” he said with a wink as he pulled a second slab of meat from the water and dried it. “I think you’ll find it the unifying thread in all our traditions. In this case we’ve an old tale as well,” he added, setting the meat beside the other upon the board, scoring it, and rubbing the remaining paste across its surface, “though I doubt it would interest you.”

Finrod glanced up in amusement and saw the mirth in Balan’s eyes. “You tease me,” he said, raising the circlet he was weaving to inspect it in the light.

“Aye.” Balan chuckled as he reached out for his cup and took a draft of ale. “Never have I met a pair of ears more eager for tales—and Belen is one of my sons.” 

“And Baran your other. Shall we risk his censure?” Finrod asked with a sidelong smile as Balan retrieved the bowl of chopped meadow garlic Estreth left on the far bench. 

Balan grinned and laid the bowl beside the other ingredients, setting a handful atop each cut of meat. “Aithan-hropit is its name in our tongue,” he said, indicating the holly in Finrod’s hand, “mother’s-cry. In the lore my own mother taught me, it’s said we suffered much in our early wanderings from prowling creatures who came among us in the dark of night to take or to kill. It became so dire that nearly every night there was a loss until, as one day drew to a close, a woman of our people fell upon the ground, wailing as the sun faded in the sky.” 

He paused as he finished wrapping the prepared meat within cabbage leaves and tied them tightly with long grasses. Then he pulled handfuls of clay from the basket beside him and began working it down into a thick sheet upon the board. “As the tale goes, she had lost all children but one to these attacks, and that one remaining was an infant of less than a year. Night was drawing on. So she clutched the child to her breast and wailed out a desperate plea to the gods, reminding them that we had life but from their breath, and that by such breath they laid a promise within us—else they had created but to abandon and made life but for to watch its ravaging.” 

Balan set the wrapped meat each upon its own section of clay and began folding it up around the parcels, pressing it together to cover the leaves. “Many were afraid at the boldness of her plea,” he continued, “and tried in vain to silence her, fearing that it would only bring further retribution upon our people. Yet seven times she cried out and at the seventh cry the sun dipped below the horizon. Night was upon them. But a single beam of light shone out through the clouds ere the sun departed and it fell upon a grove of holly, rimmed about the hilltop before them. It was the gods’ answer, the woman asserted in conviction unwavering, and she would not rest until her feet reached the grove. Seven days our people camped within the thicket and no evil dared venture through their boughs, nor for all the nights they remained in that place. And so it is said that for long years after we carried boughs of aithan-hropit as talismans upon our journeys to ward off those evils that dogged our early steps.” 

 Finrod had finished his weaving while listening to the other’s tale and two holly crowns sat beside him on the bench. He watched with fascination as Balan rubbed the last seams from the clay and sealed the meat within it.

“Now we mostly hang it only in remembrance during the Longest Night,” Balan continued as he rose to wash his hands in a basin and tapped his fingers to the greenery strung about the door frame. “And by that I mean we not only recall it in ourselves, but we hold it a remembrance for the gods as well, the bold plea of aithan-hropit, calling forth their own promise set with the breath of life. Let us not perish here in the long darkness,” he said softly, crossing back to take one of the waiting wreaths and set it upon his own brow, “these creatures you chose to form. Remember us, here in our frailty.” 

He fell silent, then lifted the second wreath in his hand and held it out toward the other, a note of question in his gaze. Finrod held his eye for a long moment, then reached out and took the twined leaves from his outstretched palm. After all, he reasoned, was that not his own plea at every rising of the sun, every setting of the moon? “Remember us, here in our frailty,” he repeated, and set the aithan-hropit upon his brow.

Baran’s head dipped in through the doorway. “Vatta, nearly done? The fires are lit.”

“Aye.” Balan nodded down at the prepared slabs of meat, looking rather like bizarre, giant eggs upon the board. “They’re ready. And,” he added as his son retrieved the board and lifted it his arms, “we’ve managed the tale of aithan-hropit while we were about it—and do note, if you please, that the preparations are none the later for its telling.”

“Incurable, the both of you.” Baran shook his head with a laugh and carried the board out through the doorway, his father and Finrod following behind. 

A line of fires ran down the center of the village, casting a warm luster over the huts and faces, and the sound of laughter rippled through the air. Hathus stood with a cluster of children about him and they watched in awe as he held two sturdy sticks in his hands, which he used to send a larger branch spinning through the air. The twirling branch was wrapped about with strips of cloth and ribbon and these billowed through the air as he tossed it whirling through the firelight and the children laughed in delight. 

“Oy!” Baran exclaimed as Belen ran past, a carved mask over his face and chased closely by two friends bearing green boughs. “Mind your steps! You’ll have this over.”

“Skadus anek sá!” Belen shouted back over his shoulder with a laugh and ducked beneath the swing of a branch as he changed directions abruptly and leapt over the nearest fire.

“He’ll damage that wound yet if he’s not careful,” Balan muttered.

“Let him celebrate,” Estreth said with a chuckle as they joined her beside the fire. “It’s been knit together long enough now there’s little danger of that.” 

“Little danger is still some danger.” Balan knelt beside his son as Baran set the board beside the fire. They lifted the clay-wrapped meat and set each within shallow holes dug at the edge of the fire, raking the soil and ash back over with their hands. “I wish he’d stay still.”

“He won’t mend if you keep him caged up in a hut either,” Baran retorted, lifting a spade and shifting the coals to cover the buried meat.

Balan snorted in response and cast a wary glance toward where Belen and his friends chased each other across the green.

“Nay, Balan, a little running puts him in no peril.” Finrod smiled as he shifted closer to the fire. “If Estreth has no concern, then neither have I. Allow that his spirit needs healing as well as his flesh.”

Balan rose and his features softened as he watched the activity about them. “It is good to see him joyful again,” he admitted grudgingly.

“So my words reach your ears when his tongue delivers them?” Estreth sipped from the cup of warm mead in her hand and looked at Balan under her brows.

“I heard them when you spoke,” Balan protested. “You’ll allow it needs several voices to still a father’s vigilance.” He leaned over the cauldron and ladled mead into two waiting cups.

“Yours, at least,” she laughed. “But he’s not a boy any longer, Balan. Let him err and learn for himself.”

“Nonsense.” Balan held out one cup to Finrod, then shrugged the fur-lined tunic further over his shoulders and sipped from his own. “He’s a babe in arms yet.”

“Aye. And you’ve not a grey hair to your head.” 

Balan gave her a sidelong grin, then took another draft of his mead as he watched Belen through the glow. Preparations were already being laid for the feast to come and he saw the plate and chalice set at the head of the fires, garnished round with sprigs of aithan-hropit and left empty in remembrance of the dead. What a knife’s edge, he thought with the cold grip once more upon his gut, what a knife’s edge he had danced between watching his son dart through the firelight and marking him alongside all the others held in that empty seat. Esrid, Alémi, his father and mother…He shivered as Belen’s chase moved into the shadows and his eyes drifted instead to rest on Nóm, his profile sharp against the flames.

Finrod turned as the gaze reached him, sight itself a touch, and the warmth of his smile coursed through Balan’s veins like wine. He held out his musings of his son, offering them specifically, even though their thoughts now were ever twined. But Nóm had been more reserved since teaching him the technique. He realized then how often he trespassed in their early friendship and adopted in contrition a penitent politeness, holding ever a light touch of bond, but never drawing from that openness without invitation. The thought passed over into the mingled space and with it Balan pressed the ache of gratitude, and felt the smile grow upon his own lips in return.

More had joined the game now and children and adults alike darted in and out of the firelight, some masked, some barefaced, and shrieks of laughter filled the air. “What are the rules of it?” Finrod asked, nodding toward the chasing figures, then jumped back, smiling as a group of children nearly collided with him. “Merry chaos! Are there any?”

Balan laughed. “Few. The goal is to catch the masked creatures—the shadows of night. Their goal, in turn, is to subdue any of the maskless before that happens, which they do by stealing the aithan-hropit.” He reached up and tapped the woven crown about his brow. “If your holly is taken, you’ve till the count of twenty to catch the creature who stole it, or you’re counted dead.”

“And to catch the creatures?”

Balan bent down and lifted a thin evergreen branch from the pile beside him, tossing it to Finrod with a grin. “Knock them with a bough. Any contact will do. They’ve the same count from then to double back upon you, so it’s all agility and speed from there.”

“Alassëa sámalórië…” Finrod laughed quietly and shifted the stick in his hand to find a grip. Pine-scent filled his nostrils as the sap clung to his fingers; a wholesome fragrance, sharp and clean.

“Skadus anek sá!” Belen sprinted between them, his face shrouded by the bear’s visage he wore, and he snatched at Finrod’s circlet as he passed. He caught a handful of leaves, but Finrod ducked and clapped a hand over the crown before it could be taken.

“Ai!” He took off sprinting after the boy. “Brazen cub!”

Belen shouted in mirth and leapt over the low fire before them, Finrod following close at his heels. They wove through the crowd and about the scattered huts and he laughed as Belen evaded the path of the branch whenever he neared. The boy was surprisingly agile, Finrod noted, or perhaps it was that he himself dared not commit fully to the chase lest he push Belen beyond the limits of his healing. They rounded back into the light and Finrod darted forward, seeing his chance as the other slowed to avoid a pair of children. “Nahtan steiha!” he called in imitation of the others about him and swung the soft end of the branch in an arc toward Belen’s back. 

The specter of a wolf loomed up from the shadows and Balan, masked, snatched the holly from the Elf’s head with a shout of triumph before the blow could land. “Skadus anek sá!” His voice flew back over his shoulder and he sprinted hard for the dark behind the village huts. Finrod flew after him in pursuit, caught up in their wild levity, and joy filled his heart near to bursting as he and the Atani ran laughing beneath the stars.

❈ ❈ ❈

“May goodness dwell in your household,” Balan’s voice echoed over the gathered kindred.

“And health be the drink at your lips.” The response rippled back as the voices gathered together, tapered down into quiet.

Carts had been hauled out and overturned as improvised tables, stools and casks dragged from the huts to provide seating for some while others made shift upon the trodden ground. Each family’s parcels of clay-baked boar were dug out from the cinders and the clustered groups ate merrily while they took turns rising to call out toasts, one to the other. 

Finrod was captivated by the form these took. They reminded him of the naming ceremonies of his own people, of seeing a new vision of oneself rising to life through another’s eyes, being named into that which they saw you embody.

“Leader truly in spirit, as chieftain you shall be in blood.” Balan began the ritual, raising a carved cup of ale and speaking in blessing over his eldest son. “Courage as the heart of a bear. Warrior and minder. Kind as you are valiant, son of my wandering. Sama’nd sá.”

“Sama’nd sá,” Baran responded, echoing and receiving the benediction, then rising in turn to bestow his own, naming his brother gentleness and wise-heart, curious, beautiful and bold. 

Finrod was strangely moved to hear them speak this way. He was transfixed as the hours drew on, drawn in by these half-familiar rituals, but set at once outside them by that same difference. Each knew their place in the dance while he sat alongside, quiet and watchful, gauging his motions ever by those about him. 

This sensation bore him away from the warm firelight, till he stood in memory within the palace at Alqualondë, looking about at a flurry of activity. He was a child, not even the full height of his father’s leg, curious and small and shy in the face of such bustle. Lamps were strewn in clusters as far as he could see, intricately carved shells throwing light over the stone in myriad patterns. He could smell salt in the air as the sea wind drifted through the open halls, tousling his hair and brushing softly along his cheek, and he closed his eyes, comforted by the caress. ”Uinen’s greeting,” his mother would say whenever she saw the flaxen waves lift in the breeze, and would kneel beside him, setting her palm against his cheek, her smile warm as the sea air. “You see? She cherishes my boy as I do, winicë.”

Then a further memory—the same lamps, warm and fluttering, the same sea breeze ruffling his hair, grazing his skin. Only now he was grown, a prince tall and proud, and his steps carried him through the halls with hardly a trace of that timidity of his youth. He paused at a threshold off the main hall as he saw his father and grandfather wrapped in close conversation.

“…and they grow restless, Arafinwë,” his grandfather was saying. “Thou hast no wish to see it, I know. But we know it even here, more markedly perhaps than do thine own folk who have accustomed themselves by degrees, while we are met with the fresh shock of it at every encounter. There is danger in this disquiet.”

“I am not blind to it, atta.” 

“Art thou not? My daughter has told me more yet of what she heard rumored in Tirion.” Olwë watched his son-in-law attentively and both were so engrossed in their converse that neither had noted Finrod’s arrival. “Of the hildor.”

“The Aftercomers.”

“Is this a true whisper or but the further spite of thy kin?”

“I know not. It must be true, I deem, at least in part, for the Valar deny it not.” Arafinwë’s fingers played distractedly over the chair before him. “Though I cannot believe such malice is in their nature, to keep us here from jealousy or avarice. If we are to relinquish Endórë to the Secondborn Children, then surely it is by the will of the One and no petty contempt.” He held quiet for a moment, then added, “Besides, what use have we for the shadows? Let the little race have Endórë—here we dwell in the Light.”

”Nay,” Olwë raised his hand reassuringly. “Save thy persuasion for thy father’s court. I entertain no belief that the Lords of the West would disinherit any of the Eruhín. But be wary, Arafinwë, lest thou scorn overmuch what thou knowest not. Long I lingered in those lands thou hast dismissed as darkness, and greatly did we love them. They are great and beautiful yet, despite—“ He broke off as he noticed his grandson at last, hovering uncertainly in the door’s shadow.

“Findaráto!” Arafinwë’s voice was uncharacteristically sharp in rebuke as he turned to follow Olwë’s gaze. “Hie hence! It is beneath thy blood to listen at doorways.”

Finrod felt shame burn anew in his heart, remembering the sensation of their eyes upon him as he fumbled for a reply. He could feel the gaze even now as he recalled it, eyes resting expectantly upon him as he faltered, the warmth of the firelight mingling with the flush of chagrin.

“May goodness dwell in your household,” Balan’s voice cut through his wandering thought. Finrod realized with a start that it was his gaze he felt resting upon him, and his heart leapt into his throat as he was called back from his brooding by the other’s blessing.

“And health be the drink at your lips.” 

“Bearer of light. Restorer of my child. Wisdom and mercy.” Balan had lifted his cup toward the other with a smile. “Joy’s song that scatters our night. Sama’nd sá.”

“Sama’nd sá,” he managed in response and then felt his heart turn to water.

❈ ❈ ❈

They glided over the frozen water. It was a sudden, unexpected rush of joy.

He had never yet set a willing foot upon ice in all the years since reaching Beleriand, except by unavoidable necessity. Too much was bound into the familiarity of that sensation and he could not bear feeling the slick treachery once again beneath his feet. But this…Finrod laughed as he chased after Baran and Eimet, their voices passing a simple ballad back and forth through the frigid air, and he felt alight with the abandon of it all.

The feasting had lasted late into the night, only dispersing when the food and ale dwindled and Baran emerged from one of the huts, carrying a basket of cattle bones under one arm and shouting, “nik’lénor!” which was met by a rousing cheer. It was customary, Balan had told him earlier, for the revelry to last throughout the night so that they might hail the rising sun and know the long darkness had passed. Finrod had watched in curiosity as a large contingent headed off into the night, wondering what form this latest would take, and he followed them toward one of Celon’s frozen tributaries. 

“You lash them to your feet,” Estreth had called to him as they reached the shore, depositing two bones and a tangle of leather bands into his arms before sprinting after the others toward the bank. Balan stood by, watching in amusement as Finrod held them up and tried to make sense of the flotsam. Each bone had been shaped and flattened along the top and bottom edges, and two holes were carved at each end. The leather thongs passed through one set of these, forming loops at the ends of each bone, then dangled loosely in the air as Finrod turned them over in his hands.

“Here, sit down and give me your foot. Like this,” Balan said with a chuckle and guided Finrod’s boot through a loop, setting one carved bone along the sole and bracing both foot and skate against his own thigh. He pulled the leather thong taught, then crossed it over top of the foot before threading it through the second hole, cinching, and wrapping it several times about the ankle to tie the strands securely in place. “You want it as snug as it goes so the bone doesn’t slip when you move. See?” He knocked his palm against the lashed skate to demonstrate, then flashed a brief grin before moving on to tie the second foot as well. “That way you don’t lose an ankle.” 

“You go on the ice like this?” 

“It’s simple enough,” Balan grinned at the incredulity on the other’s face and held out a hand to help him to his feet. “You slide across the surface on their edges rather than trying to walk as you would on dry ground. That way you use the nature of the ice in your movement rather than fighting against it by trying to walk. Come, I’ve no doubt you’ll soon enough put us all to shame.”

Finrod balked more at the thought of explaining his reticence to Balan than he did at the prospect of the ice itself, so he pressed down his unease and allowed Balan to lead him to the shoreline. Finrod watched as he selected two sturdy branches from the undergrowth and broke them under his foot so they were no higher than their waists. He trimmed one end of each into a rough point and handed one to Finrod, then stepped out onto the ice using the second to steady his own balance. 

“Come along, then!”

Finrod glanced dubiously at the other Atani already bounding across the frozen river, then looked back at Balan. He stood only a few steps down the bank, hand outstretched and his features creased merrily in a smile. His brown skin was gilded silver in the moonlight and the circlet of aithan-hropit still rested askew about his brow. He laughed as he watched the other’s hesitation and Finrod felt the sound roll over him, an aching beauty in the bitter air as his feet clung fast to the shore.

“There’s naught to fear, Nóm, I’ll keep hold of you till you’ve mastered it,” he said as though coaxing a pup out from its mother’s den, then laughed again. “You’ll wait out the dawn there if you don’t make up your mind to it.”

“Go on then, eagerness,” Finrod retorted as he moved a step further down the bank, “and I’ll come after thee when I’ve seen it done.”

Balan shook his head with another grin and raised his hand higher toward the other. Finrod forced his gaze up to meet Balan’s eyes and then set his hand tentatively within the outstretched palm. Balan’s grip was firm as his fingers closed around the other’s, steady as Finrod allowed himself at last to be led out over the frozen water.

“No, don’t take steps. Push off with the sides, one to the other, and use the branch to keep balance. Like this.” 

His palm was warm as it pressed against the other’s skin and Finrod found his misgivings eased by the touch. His own grip tightened as they moved into the center of the tributary, holding fast to that reassurance, though he already moved easily on the rudimentary skates. He had hardly touched the bracing pole to the ice and would have outpaced Balan easily were they not bound still hand in hand. 

He laughed as they picked up speed and followed the others. It was absurd that something as ordinary as a cow’s bone could entirely remake his perception. The ice was marvelous, a thing of beauty. Its treachery had shifted to moderate control, and consequently seemed no longer vengeful, no longer loose or untamable. Finrod glided over the river’s surface, releasing Balan’s hand at last, and his eyes drifted up to the stars as he grew accustomed to the equilibrium of this new motion. Menelmacar, Wilwarin, Itseloktë, Valacirca…their promise blazed bright above him as he laughed upon the ice with these children of the Sun. “Órava omessë,” he whispered into the night sky, “remember us, here in our frailty.”

He lost count of time as they skimmed about on the river, first racing hither and thither, then dabbling through a variety of games. He and Baran fell to Balan and Estreth in one complicated undertaking involving a sash rolled up and tied together as a ball, the poles they carried, and an inexplicable muddle of improvised wrestling. Finrod protested the loss, insisting that Balan and Baran had told such conflicting summaries of the rules that it was impossible to know if they were all playing the same game. Which, Baran mumbled as he set a chunk of ice gingerly against the bruise on his forehead, was entirely the point.

“Carrying the cub from the den was the point,” Balan remarked as he tossed and caught the rolled sash to flaunt their victory.

“Gaitch,” Baran swore at him with an affectionate grimace.

“Less conventions for the next, I think,” Estreth retrieved a flat stone from the bank and balanced it carefully atop her head. “Your mother and I played this when we were young, Ran. It’s merely whoever holds theirs for the longest distance.” She glanced back at her nephew as she glided in a circle. “The beauty of it is having no rules to bicker over when you’ve had more ale than you hold…”

“Did you and Esrid do that often as children?” Balan grinned as he lifted rocks from the river’s edge and passed them to Finrod and Baran.

“Gaitch,” Estreth swore at him in turn. “Go back and sleep, you’re terrible company.”

Balan balanced the rock on his head and began skating along the river, his voice lifted in one of Eimet’s drinking songs,

“O come! Be merry, my lad, there’s drink to be had,
there’s mead and ale in good measure.
Aye there, lass, fetch us some! And when you’ve so done
then we’ll beg too to drink of your—“

He broke off with a muffled snort as the rolled sash struck his face and knocked the rock from his head. 

“That’s quite enough of that,” Estreth said with a laugh. “And you’ve lost already.”

“I haven’t,” Balan said with a show of affronted dignity, replacing the stone and moving back to stand beside the others in a line. “A game not begun cannot be lost.”

“And by that reasoning will never be started,” Baran retorted, then pushed off across the ice. “Hrava!” he called and made his way back along the stream toward where the rest of the group was clustered.

Estreth followed close behind him, then Finrod and Balan after her. The night was quiet apart from the distant sounds of laughter on the breeze, and Finrod felt the well of joy rise once more within him. He sang, using the pole now to push himself along the ice, and his voice echoed over the frozen water as he gathered each moment close in his memory, hallowing these little snatches of simplicity. 

“A Elentári Tintallë
tyelpë pendas mírilya
menelo alcar elerrimbë!
Hairanna palan-tírienwa
Endórellon—"

A sound like a branch snapping. An unearthly echo, wobbling, resonant.

Before his sight could note the other’s movement, Balan felt arms about him like steel, the rush of air as he was pulled to the side, staggering together into the bracken on the riverbank. The drumbeat of the other’s heart pounded against his ear as Finrod held him clutched against his chest. 

“Nóm?” he gasped, shaken. His own heart was pounding as well and his breath fled at the close crush of the other’s embrace. 

The grip loosened as Finrod’s eyes darted back over the ice and took in the unblemished surface. It was whole. He took a step back, breathing fast as embarrassment rose hot through his blood, but he did not release his hold.

“Nóm, what happened?”

“My apologies.” Finrod shook his head dismissively, but his voice shook. “I must have imagined it.”

“It was the ice shifting.” Balan’s voice was quiet, reassuring, and he looked up in concern at the drawn lines of the other’s face. 

“Yes, so it was.” Finrod’s knuckles were white as he gripped Balan’s arms. A pause. Then his voice again, hoarse and unlike any tone Balan had heard in it before, “I thought it would take thee.”

“Nóm…”

“Forgive me. I am behaving foolishly.” Finrod released him abruptly and turned away. He was overwhelmed by the urge to run, to flee far from the vision that arose with the ice’s cry. It stabbed—violating, thieving, a fracturing thing between each of their words. He clenched his hands into fists to keep them from reaching out for the other once more. “Please go on,” he managed and forced a smile over his lips, then stumbled up the bank.

“Nóm!”

But he was gone, pausing not even to remove the skates from his feet before disappearing beneath the darkened trees.

❈ ❈ ❈

Balan returned to the others on the ice, but found little jollity was left in him. He could not shake the image of the other’s face hovering before him, drawn and fearful, or the way his hands trembled as he caught hold of him. It had unnerved him to see the transformation, not least because he had never yet seen such fear upon Nóm’s features—concern, fury, grief certainly, but nothing near the abject terror that had poured from his eyes as he clutched Balan close against him. He had looked through him, not at him, and this too was jarring. Balan had grown accustomed to the piercing gaze, noting both face and spirit and by that sight solidifying them together into a unified whole. The lack of it now left him disoriented, disjointed. 

What was there in that eerie, frozen cry to cause such fracturing between them?

His worry set him on edge, even more than the distraction of remembering the other’s touch, the thrill of finding himself wrapped within Nóm’s arms. He drew apart from the others again and stood lost in thought upon the bank where they parted. Balan rarely attempted to reach out toward the other’s thought, finding it a far greater task to seek than to welcome—and rarely had he the need, for Nóm was ever resting patiently at the door, needing only his invitation. But there was no hovering touch now, and that too heightened Balan’s concern. He filled his lungs and stared hard into the distance, lifting up the image of a flowering tree—set your hand over mine—the gentle brush of warmth, a caress behind his eyes—move your hand forward and follow my arm—soft, golden light—I will not bar the way—then a wall of ice, frigid and impassable. Sharp at every edge. 

Balan drew back as though slapped.

Then he shook his head and strode up the bank, unlashing the bones from his feet as he reached the top and dropping them into the waiting basket. He moved quickly toward the trees. I thought it would take thee. He heard the other’s voice over and again in his mind and could not escape the pain in it. Whatever difference lay between the causes was irrelevant—he recognized the fear at the root as his own constant companion, and he would not leave the other alone with such demons of grief. The Elf might close him out in thought, but he would seek him out in body, as he too had sought Balan upon the hills of Ossiriand when he sat frozen beneath the summer’s night. 

He reached the village in short order and found Meyla and Belen beside the fires, teaching Avina to roast apples and cheese over the twinkling embers. He smiled despite himself at the sight, recalling how eagerly Belen devoured those delicacies as a child and watching now as he showed Avina how to draw them off the long twigs with fresh slices of bread.

“You’ve given up too, vatta?” Belen flashed a welcoming smile as his father joined them beside the flames.

“Aye, it grew cold for my old bones.” Balan accepted the proffered apple and held its warmth awhile within his hands before blowing on the edge and taking a bite, savoring the sweet crunch of the apple, the sharp tang of the cheese. “Has Nóm returned, then?”

“Mm.” Belen nodded toward their hut. “Slipped in without a word, not an hour past.” He speared another portion of apple and cheese onto the stick and passed it back to Avina. “All well?”

Balan’s nod was noncommittal and he moved away toward the thatched hut. 

Finrod was seated on the floor when he entered. He had built up the hearth fire again and sat in front of the wooden benches, staring down into the flickering embers. The firelight illuminated his face in sharp relief against the shadows behind him and Balan’s heart contracted to see the features haggard and drawn.

“Nóm?”

“Balan.” He looked up at the sound of the other’s voice and tried in vane to shift his lips into a smile. 

“I was troubled for you.” Balan removed his hat as he entered, heavy and lined with thick fur, and set it aside.

“Yes. You reached out and I slapped you away,” he said as Balan  crossed to open a chest beside his bedroll and removed a squat, clay bottle, sealed across the top with wax. “I apologize. I am glad you came despite it.”

Balan collected two cups from a shelf and walked back to sit beside the other, setting a cup before each of them, and gripping Finrod’s shoulder briefly before turning to the clay bottle. “We keep a portion of this held over whenever we set out upon a new journey,” he said, drawing his knife and working it about the top to loosen the wax, “to salute the sun when she rises after this longest night.” He pried the remaining wax from the mouth of the bottle and wiped away the loose flecks, then poured a large splash into the bottom of each cup. “I think on this occasion we will bring it out sooner. You look as though you could use something stronger than mead.” He lifted his cup with a wry grin at Finrod. “Sama’nd sá.” 

“Sama’nd sá,” Finrod echoed and raised his cup toward the other, then drank. He gasped as the liquor cleared his throat and looked back at Balan in surprise, his eyes watering. “Miru-na-naur!” he coughed, laughing despite himself. “What is it?”

“Hrögemetheilit.” He tried not to laugh at the look of comic betrayal on the Elf’s face.

“Hrögeme—what does that mean?”

“Nothing at all,” Balan replied with a chuckle. “My father’s jest was we named it a nonsense jumble because that’s all you manage once it’s been downed.” He drained what was left in his own cup, then added with a sidelong grin, “Estreth says it’s self defense—the name’s long enough that you can only ask for more of it when you’ve had naught of it.”

Finrod took another sip and shook his head with a grimace. “True enough.” The shock of the hrögemetheilit had eased his memories for a moment, but soon despair began creeping back about the edges. He was cold, as he had not been in centuries, and felt himself shivering as he moved even closer to the fire. He realized he must have sat upon the ground instinctively after lighting it. There were no benches upon the Ice, you simply sat as close to the warmth as possible. “Forgive me,” he murmured at last. “I’ve disrupted your time of celebration.”

Balan reached out and took Finrod’s hands in his own. “Do not disparage how thy body mourns,” he said quietly, reciting the other’s words back to him in his own tongue. “I judge thee not for it. Only would I comfort thee, if I can.”

Finrod’s face twitched dismissively. The words fell hollow and trite when turned upon his own ears. What right had he to mourn, regardless of the manner, he who had led them thence to the fate he grieved? He could hear yet the wind howling over the fissures, roaring up from the sea in bitter gusts. He had felt Uinen’s greeting there as well, but that sea wind slashed stinging cuts across his skin and no caresses. The Swan Maiden’s boy disowned and not cherished, and far now from Eärwen’s solace as well, her warmth and loyalty forsaken upon the stained docks when he chose the forward path.

The cracking, the muttering echoed again in his ears. “Racië!” Warning cries tore like howls through the evernight. He flinched as the vision rose once more before his eyes: a shattered berg, sagging under its weight. Pounding, relentless. Taking and dragging and crushing. 

But it was Balan’s face he saw, lifeless and suspended beneath new-forming ice—how swiftly it always leapt over the exposed water when one had fallen—and blood seeped across his features as it had over Elenwë’s. It had spun a bright and binding web through her hair as he and Fingon dragged Turgon, screaming, from the crumbling edge. Beautiful and appalling. 

“Nóm?” Balan’s voice cut through the dark and he turned towards it, grasping his hands. They were warm upon his skin and steadied him, pulled him back. They were born with the Sun, he thought incoherently, warm as the Sun. “Nóm, are you well?”

“I owe you an explanation.” Finrod’s voice trickled out at last.

“Only should it ease you to speak of it.” Balan’s face was lined with concern as he watched the other move in and out of memory. “You owe me naught.”

“Nay, you’ve earned the truth of me long since. It is only fear that stayed my tongue.” He pulled the cloak tighter about his shoulders. “Only help me begin…” He lapsed again into his own tongue as he stirred up the fire with an iron. “Tell me, from our time together, what hast thou understood of that which brought my people from the West?”

Balan rose and retrieved another log for the fire, choosing his words slowly. “The Foe assailed the land of thy dwelling and destroyed the Light that was, stealing then that which remained. Thy people followed him hence to seek vengeance.”

“And how dost thou believe we made our way to these shores?”

Balan thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I know not. I have not contemplated it, strange though that seems.”

“Then I shall give thee an accounting.” Finrod drew his knees down to sit cross-legged before the hearth and rested his hands, one upon each, in the posture of a storyteller. Then, slowly, he began to tell of the Silmarils, of the death of the Trees and the tangible Dark, the fear and the agony of that ever increasing loss. He told of the flight of his people and their fire for vengeance, of the strife in Araman and the breaking of the host, the burning of the ships at Losgar, the specter of the grinding ice unrelenting before their feet. Then at last he fell silent and Balan saw his knuckles were white where they gripped his knees. “Alas, my words catch and tangle on my tongue. Never have I spoken it to another, Balan, and I find I fall short at the need.”

“Then let it fall short, Nóm.”

“Nay, I need thee to know of it. For thy goodwill, Balan, I find I cannot hold by half measures. I would have thee know the whole of me, to take or leave what thou findest. Let me tell thee all and then thou shalt decide—and, if thou wilt, I shall release thee from thy bond. I would not have thee sworn blind.” He turned at last from the fire to face the other, his eyes hard with determination. “What I have not said to thee, what I have hidden in silence of my omissions, is that we left Valinórë against the will and counsel of the Valar. Losgar, Araman, all that followed…it was the firstfruits of our rebellion and the blood already upon our hands.” 

Balan felt the soft touch against his mind, questioning, asking for the simplest way forward, and he opened to him without a moment’s hesitation, glad for a way to ease the other’s distress. Then the images rushed in like a gale, stone piers, raging water, the screams of battle. A sickening horror of carnage, warm and red, glistening in the lamplight—no not lamplight, it was fire amid the city, raging fire all about the quays. Feet slipping helpless in the blood. A piercing, bitter keen echoing between the cliffs, both song and scream, like the death-cry of seabirds. 

Memories, Balan realized as he gasped for breath, these were memories, these flashes of agony and horror. He clung to the other’s hands as the waves of images lashed forward. 

“We did not have ships when we set out.” Finrod’s words moved through Balan’s ears, muffled as though he spoke from a great distance. “Only my mother’s people knew the making of those, and they would have no part in our madness.”

Two women upon the dockings, hair of gold, hair of silver, blood upon their raiment, blood upon the blades they swung. 

“Amil! Artanis!” Nóm’s voice seemed to cry out from Balan’s own chest as he saw through the other’s eyes.

A rain of arrows. The roaring sea.

“The greater part of us came upon the battle after it was begun. They had butchered the mariners, taken the ships.”

Nóm’s hands now, covered in blood, desperately holding together the chest of another Elf, bones exposed and organs slipping loose. The weight of the body resting within his arms. 

“But we did not turn back. Fear, pride, duty…name it what thou wilt, but it held our course.”

A dark coast, a stinging wind. Far and tiny upon the horizon, a flicking line of red.

“We chose the ice over turning back.”

The eerie groaning, a crack, howling, a sickening ripple of snapping. Blind mist. A scream in the darkness. Again the moaning ice; a great, resonant thudding. Through the mist, figures are running, tying cloaks into ropes. He is running, slipping, leaping into the water. Cold like a knife, every fiber screaming, no breath, no breath. Dragging at phantom shapes in the water. A child in his arms, pulling her free from the wedge of ice. Arms atop the ice, hauling her up. Turn back, turn back, he is still there. “Turukáno!” Nóm’s hands again, catching hold of a tunic, a handful of dark hair. A second pair beside him. “Hanno, she is gone!” Crashing, wailing, the wall crumbling.

“We chose death over turning back.”

A still pool in a crack of ice. A brief moment of starlight through the mist. The Valacirca. Nóm’s reflection beside it in the water, gaunt and hollow, lips cracked open and the bleeding frozen over, eyes haunted, dim.

The memories seeped back from his thought and Balan became gradually aware of his own weeping, his breath catching in great gasps as they sat yet beside the hearth. He had reached out to clasp his hand behind Finrod’s neck, holding fast as though he might slip away into the memory, foreheads pressed together as his tears fell onto the other’s tunic. 

“Balan…” Finrod took hold of his shoulders, holding him gently and his voice was laced with concern. “Balan, forgive me. I should have found the words rather. That was too much to ask of thee.”

“Nay, it was not.” He pulled back, shifting his hand to rest along Finrod’s face and tracing his eyes over the features to still the memory of that haggard reflection. It had been a death’s head in comparison to this golden visage against his palm, vibrant and radiating life. He could not shake the image. “I wanted to share in it, lord,” he said, and a wan smile turned the edges of his lips as he included the honorific, claiming again that bond. “Bound in faithfulness and truth, I told thee, to hold dear as thou holds dear, to mourn as thou dost mourn.” He let his hand fall back to his lap and added, “I would never have coaxed thee out upon it had I known.”

“I know. And I deemed my fear of treading it was less than my fear of telling thee.” He smiled and this time it reached his eyes as well. “The greater fool, I.” 

Finrod was quiet for a time, then plucked a dried leaf from where it clung to the hem of his cloak, turning it over in his hands and tracing a finger along the edges. “When our feet reached Endórë’s soil at last, cold tundra though it was, we sang as we had sung not for long years behind us. Broken music of weeping, greeting the soil and grime. And with our voices Isil too rose through the firmament, brimming with silver to end our long darkness.” He set the point of the leaf against the fire and watched it burst into flame. Carefully he lifted it, music rippling under his breath as the flames consumed the papery tendrils until only the light remained suspended, hovering above his palm. “And as we marched renewed toward the fortress of our Enemy, hope unlooked for burst forth at our backs. Anar rising, breaking the sky with a light we thought lost forever. Only the work of the Valar could have wrought such,” he murmured as the light over his own palm dwindled and faded. “A sign that we did not lie forgotten, here in our exile.” Finrod turned to look at him and the warmth of his smile set Balan’s heart alight. “And so ye awakened then as well, children of that same remembrance.”

Long Balan held his eye in silence before his heart released its grip on his throat. “Ever have I learned of our genesis in darkness,” he said at last, “understanding my kind always as creatures brought forth into shadow and peril. Never till in thine eyes have I envisioned us born of light.”

“You are of Light as we are of Light, children beautiful and intended, reflecting each in its various ways as the cut edge of a gem.” Finrod’s voice caught and he paused. “Dismiss my words if thou wilt, but in thy people—in thee, Balan—I have seen the mystery of the Song enfleshed, I have known the beauty of the ever-faceted thought of the One more vividly in thy presence than in the many centuries I’ve spent afore.”

A log cracked in the fire as he spoke and the flame leapt up as though in answer, the sudden glow hovering warm and bright between them, mirroring the reflection each upon each.

“My mother had a saying,” Balan’s voice was quiet as he reached out and held Finrod’s hands cupped open within his own. “Presence is the greatest solace.” He smiled across at him, then took his tenuous courage in hand and bent his head to kiss first one palm, then the other. “One for comfort,” he said quietly, as his mother had done so often to still his tears, “and one for company.” He set the hands back together, clasped within his own, and held them firm and steady. “I have no wish to be released from what I swore to thee.”

“Nor truly have I to release thee.” Finrod’s voice was little more than a breath. Estreth had told of the ghomennin transfixing their quarries, yet he it was now held motionless, mesmerized within the other’s gaze.

“Then come,” Balan said, rising and holding out his hand. “The sun is near to rising. Let us greet her together, thou and I, here after the long darkness.”

“Yes,” Finrod said, and took the hand within his own.

❈ ❈ ❈

The tendrils of morning stretched up from the horizon. All the kindred had gathered about the village edge and huddled in little groups, children rubbing their faces against their parents’ legs or curled and drowsing in their arms as each traded yawns through the crowd. Bottles of hrögemetheilit were passed from hand to hand until all stood with cups to the ready, turned toward the waking sun. The heavens blushed, quickened, spread wide with color until Anar lifted above the rolling hills and a stab of light blazed out over the frosted ground. 

“Nahtan steiha!” Balan cried at the head of his people, lifting his cup toward the brilliant gold.

“Nahtan steiha!” they echoed in return, and all lifted the toast to their lips, drinking and calling out weary cheers as the night was ended at last.

“Nai lye hiruva airea amanar, Balan.” Finrod said quietly after drinking from his cup, looking down with affection at the man beside him. “Nahtan steiha.”

“Nahtan steiha,” Balan replied and knocked his empty cup against the other’s, smiling.

“And this then for thee,” Finrod said and raised his cup once more, half the amber liquid yet remaining. “May goodness dwell in your household.”

“And health be the drink at your lips.”

“Balan, meldonya, dearest friend of my heart. Truth-namer. Steadfast as the ancient oak. By sorrow’s knife marked, by sorrow’s mark carved to beauty. Anarinya—gift unforeseen in the darkness. Sama’nd sá.”

---

Chapter End Notes

TRANSLATIONS
Q = Quenya, S = Sindarin, T = Telerin
Ereg: [S] holly
Ercassë: [Q] holly
Alassëa sámalórië: [Q] roughly “joyous madness”
Winicë: [T] little-one, baby
Atta: [T] father
Hildor: [Q] followers
órava omessë: [Q] have mercy on us
“A Elentári Tintallë…”: [Q] rendering of the Hymn to Elbereth in Quenya
Miru-na-naur: [S] wine of fire
Racië: [Q] it is breaking
Amil: [Q] mother
Hanno: [Q] brother
Nai lye hiruva airea amanar: [Q] roughly “may you find a blessed Amanar [sun’s returning]”
Anarinya: [Q] my sun

TALISKA INVENTIONS
For the most part, all faux-Taliska is loosely inspired by or modeled on Germanic-Gothic:
Haelis: hello, greetings
Vatta: father
aithan-hropit: mother’s cry
skadus anek sá: shadow upon you
nahtan steiha: night is ended
Sama’nd sá: good/abundant life be unto you
nik’lénor: ice run
gaitch: swine
hrava: start

MISC NOTES
- Nómin: “the wise,” name given by the Atani to Finrod’s people

- Fun fact: Vikings used bone ice skates and that is what the nik’lénor scene draws from as its source.

- For some absolutely haunting sounds of shifting/cracking ice, see this Jonna Jinton recording

- Artanis: “noble woman,” the given name of Galadriel