The Beautiful Ones by Elleth

"Elî and Kêmî made us," said Istajê, one of the Tatjâi visitors, reciting the traditional tale that marked all the Kwendî as kin despite their differences. "Kêmî formed our bodies from the ground, but it was Elî's starlight which we beheld first that loosed our tongues and lit our minds to give us life that is different from the animals of the forest. It is why we cried her name first."

"That is so. But we would not have come into being in the first place if not for their love," affirmed Kwessê with the fine golden hair, who was rubbing reedmace tubers into flour by the fire. Dess handed her a basket to catch the excess that began spilling from the saddle stone. "They made us because they wanted no mates except each other, and yet wanted children. It is why some of us are as they are." She put her handstone aside and grinned at Dess, who grinned back. "Maybe some got a little more of Elî and Kêmî's love than we others, and that is why we want mates with wegî and they want mates who have peñû," Kwessê said, and glanced at the broad back of her husband by the other fire. He seemed not to notice. It was not something that was often spoken about openly – but the Tatjâi appeared to be untroubled, laughed, and continued speaking.

"We call them sjatsî," said Ruskê with the strange hair, another of the Tatjâi, and she and Istajê unconcernedly began to speak of matters and new words that related to what they had discussed. At the other fire, the men began to stir and look across, and Târî raised an eyebrow and glared at them. She could not very well chide the visitors, although some of the women had begun tittering among themselves.

"This is private! Off with you! Go and brag about how the fire baked your clay to greater hardness! We aren't prying into your affairs, don't pry into ours!" she said to the men, Minjâi as well as Tatjâi visitors, who had been listening, and they rose, muttering. "Sit in your huts, we have matters to discuss that are not for your ears. Talk about the things Elî and Kêmî did to make you different from us! " They rose muttering, but when the men had gone, she turned back to the visitors. "Let us speak more openly now.

Dess grinned to see her mother send the men away, and stayed a little while to listen. Then, red in the face, with the Tatjâi words still churning on her mind, slipped to her feet as well, though she did still not follow the men into the huts, and instead sped past the guards on their posts at the edge of the village and down into the forest until she found whom she had sought. Hiding a giggle, she slid behind the trunk of a large pine and waited until Kalrê had finished mapping the standing stone to determine the next strokes of her brush.

Dess jumped from her hiding place.

Kalrê's brushstroke went awry, a smudge over the rock painting's face, and the bowl of ochre pigment spilled.

"Dess! You are hopeless! Distracting me from my tasks all the time! What are you doing down here in the forest alone? Would you have the Rider take you away?"

"There are guards above us," she said and pointed up the slope through the trees, to the huts on the hilltop, "Târî's brother Ingô, and others, too, like Ilwê who always keeps near him. But nothing will hunt us while they keep watch, even though I have no spear like you." Dess grinned. Kneeling behind Kalrê on the pine-needle carpet, she regarded her friend's work upon great rock rising from the forest floor – it proudly displayed tall figures with spears and flowing hair, beautiful but terrible, apart from the last of all, with the smudged face.

"And none of the Rider's... things will dare cross this." It was only the third stone in the fence that Kalrê had painted, but already they showed the beginning of a host marching to protect the outer borders of the settlement, many more people than lived on the hill, perhaps as many as had gathered to erect the stone fence – all the settlements of the Minjâi had come together, and even some of the Tatjâi had come to show them how to shape the stones, pull them upward, and anchor them in the earth.

"I hope they won't dare; else the work will all have been in vain. But they never did before; I do not know why it should be different now." Dess began to play with the braided string across Kalrê's shoulders that held her clothes up, having her half-turn, and put her paint and brush aside as she leaned into the touches.

"I wanted to tell you - there were visitors these won't keep away, though – and shouldn't," Dess said. "From the dwelings of the Tatjâi on the hill in the north. That is why I came to talk to you - they brought Târî dough, and recited the tale, and for some of us they had new words that I wanted to share with you."

Kalrê's eyes lit up. "Then let us go back, so we can talk in the light, and I will fetch new colour. And you can tell me of their words."

"Oh. I... I think it would not do to share them by the fires." She laughed a little, and rubbed her hands over her cheeks, which were growing hot again. Even though the men were probably still in their huts, it would not do to banter them around unconcerned.

"Just what kinds of words did they bring? Was it that Tatâ's and Tatjê's son again? He always brings words that make you flutter." Kalrê's lips drew into a pout, and she rocked back, crossing her arms.

"Don't be bitter, Kalrê, please? You make me flutter. And it was not him, it was Ruskê who brought them, little Mahtô's mother with the strange hair, and Istâjê."

"Well." Kalrê was still pouting, but her heart was not in it. "Now let me hear, what words are they?" She was not yet entirely consoled, Dess knew, but she was not really angry either, because she knew that Tatâ's son wouldn't steal her.

Dess leaned closer. "They are private words. There is skelnâ, and it is this." Dess tugged on the braided string. It unravelled easily, and before Kalrê could voice protest, her garment slipped down her body and pooled in her lap. But when Dess' warm hands followed the path of the clothing, cupping what they had not long ago learned were called tiuksû, Kalrê's surprised silence gave way to a breathy hmmm, a sound that she often made, especially when Dess taught her new words, and now that her fingers were busy teasing a tyetsê, that little nub mothers used to feed their babies, it soon gave rise to delighted laughter.

"Dess, you are unbeliveable! Distracting me from painting, for your little games!"

But although Kalrê was protesting, there was no heart behind it - Dess was learning singing and word-shaping from her father when he emerged from his mind-seekings, but even so she had a talent for finding exactly the right ways, good ways, interesting ways to fill words with life, and if she could not find those, she made songs, finding instead a melody to make the words, sometimes awkward and unwieldy on the tongue, beautiful. Some said that Dess' voice made the branches stir on trees, because it shone like the stars on the water, and that it had even woken some of them, but Dess always shook her head at that and kept her secrets.

"Do you see now why we cannot share them openly?" she asked. Kalrê nodded. Dess' warm lips – for all of her was warm, and soft, and inviting – brushed over her ear, and her hands, as soft and gentle as the rest of her, travelled over the muscles of Kalrê's stomach, each line and ripple in the skin, and then beneath the folds of the garment in her lap, her nose in Kalrê's golden hair.

"And this, this---" her fingers squirmed and wormed a little further, and Kalrê gasped, arching up, "--- this she called sjatsê. Perhaps because it is as a cleft in the mountains Kêmî made, and sometimes it is in those places that the ground is soft, and wet, from hidden springs..."

Kalrê was shivering with delight; her voice shook a little,"... perhaps we ought to find Ruskê and Istajê, to thank them. I like it better than the old word. That already has a place, here." Kalrê's fingers touched Dess' lips.

"You mean peñû?" Dess pressed a kiss to her friend's hand, dragging her lips, soft and parted, over her fingers to Kalrê's open palm.

"And what do you think, the old word and the new, peñû upon... sjatsê?"

"Dess!" That was something they had never done before. That perhaps they ought not be doing yet, foregoing an announcement. But, Kalrê, laughing, pulled her down onto the forest floor.

It was not long before Dess, silver-tongued, golden-voiced, had indeed demonstrated that her idea was nowhere near as strange as it had seemed. Kalrê, sprawling on the pine needles, was giggling her way through the little kisses Dess lavished onto her, but then flung out her hands, one to grasp Dess' head and push it down, the other far enough for her fingertips to drag through the dregs in the bowl of red colour, dig into the earth, and claw there as she bucked and twisted. Dess flicked her tongue into the warm, wet cleft, where Kalrê seemed to like it most, once more. Kalrê, it sounded, swallowed her laughter when other sounds came out instead, little moans, in time with her hips bucking and Dess trying to elicit more: Tiny licks here, soft nibbles there, flicking her tongue just so.

And then, breathing heavy, quick, shuddering puffs of air, Kalrê tensed up, relaxed, lay still. There were pine needles in her wild hair and a flush over her cheeks, her neck, and down her chest. Dess, who wiped her lips and moved up, likewise dipped her fingertips carefully into the colour that still remained in the bowl of red. A dab on Kalrê's nose, a stroke each on her cheeks, light as a caress, a line over her neck along the flush shimmering on her skin, and around each of her breasts. Her body was moist with sweat.

Kalrê, at yet another intimate touch, cracked open silver-shining eyes. They caught the starlight filtering between the trees. "Dess?"

"I am now an artist, too," Dess said, sweetly. "You are my tale. I made all this happen. Even your khôn - that it beats so fast, that was my doing too. Here, this." Dess slipped her hand over where Kalrê's heart was throbbing underneath her skin. "That is the last word they brought."

"Hmmm." It seemed she had no objections. "Ingenious, you all are." Kalrê nestled close, her face upon Dess' shoulder while her hand began to stray. "Though I wonder what the watchers think they heard."

"Two wendî's voices," Dess said and grinned. "The rest isn't their business." And it shouldn't be, she thought, when Kalrê showed her just why she had made such movements and noises.

A short while later they returned to the hilltop, hands linked. Some of the women chuckled about the flush on Dess' face and the lines on Kalrê's skin disappearing underneath her re-fastened clothing.

"See Elî and Kêmî walk among us," someone called. Dess flushed, but she joined in the laughter when Kalrê called out a loud, clear, "Ele!" with her face not lifted to the sky as was custom, but turned toward Dess the same way the first couples had awoken looking at one another, and it warmed her more than a fire did in the midst of winter, knowing what it meant.

"Ele!" she replied, laughing. Together, they looked up at the sky.

They began gathering food for Dess and Kalrê's betrothal feast during the autumn turn of stars, when, usually at its most abundant, it suddenly turned scarce. The feast could wait, they agreed, but even though all hands sought to gather what they could to last the snows instead, roaming ever wider, they found little – fruit had withered on the branches all around the lake, roots dried in the earth, and what few crops the Tatjâi were growing failed without apparent cause. The animals fled, the nets of the Lindâi came from the waters slack and empty, and the forest grew still and ominous.

The Rider and his ñguruki, the word went among the soothsayers and the wise, were to blame – seen clearly in the veiled stars and the growing darkness from the north. Dess' father walked with a troubled look on his face and spoke of the Rider more often than not. Târî sat with Dess and the other women making clay likenesses of Elî and Kêmî to show they were not forgotten, and perhaps even to call them. Dess, where no one could see, made a figure of Kêmî of her own, and painted her with dabs of red. Kalrê painted more stones, one by one, the whole fence around the border. Dess begged to accompany her to painting and to gathering pigment, and was given leave – it was not safe to go alone, and fear and grief frayed tempers into strife and argument: Five had already vanished, leaving the village of five handful and three in dire straits: Pherenê, their chief toolmaker and her best student had been among them, two hunters had not returned, and a child had strayed too far into the forest. They made for fewer mouths to feed, but without someone who knew the secrets for splitting flint just right, or how to cook birch pitch to fix shaft and spearhead, how were they going to make more hunting weapons? And without hunting weapons ---

"What will we do if we find nothing to eat?" Dess poked at the bones rising sharply underneath Kalrê's skin when she had thrown off her shift to wade into the brook coming from the Óroto-Karanî and scrape at the thick red crusts that clung to the rocks. They already had a skin full of the ochre clumps that they had to carry between them to share the load, but Kalrê had thought of something more. This red colour the water couldn't wash away, she hoped, while so far a heavy rain would often leave the fence nearly blank of its protective host, and required her to start anew. The rains, too, had come more frequent recently, always rolling in terrible gusts from the north, extinguishing even the fires in the huts when the water seeped in thick drops between the weft-and-fur roofs, drenching all their possessions until they mouldered in black spots and stank. It was the Rider's greedy touch. Some had even begun calling him Mailikô for it.

Kalrê interrupted the gloom of her thoughts. "We will find something to eat; there will be a hunt of all the clans, even those of Morîkwênô and Nûrîkwênê are joining us, and they will all together work to bring us better spears and arrows," Kalrê said. "And the second and third Minjâi villages have more toolmakers than we do. Perhaps one will marry here; we are the first village after all, and they all came from us," she explained while she stood knee-deep in the icy water, and scraped away at the rocks. The water churned red around her, clung, red, to her legs and washed downstream in a red flood. "It will be no hardsh---"

"Are you bleeding?" Dess cried after staring in horror for a moment. She drew her hand from the water, where she had dabbled among the rocks and sand hoping to find water snails or clams, or at least a few of the crayfish that Târî loved and all would welcome in such times of scarcity, but there was nothing in the brook either.

"No, no, it is the stuff from the rocks. Use your head!" Kalrê laughed, but Dess climbed to her feet and ran, as fast as they could carry her, back to the settlement. For reasons she could not explain, she was near tears, the kind that stung her eyes and would not stop, until her father caught her in his arms and had sung a song to quiet her. Dess lay in the darkness of the hut, with her face to the wall, and did not rise even when she heard Kalrê speak with Târî at the door. Her head hurt, and so did her heart, and she couldn't say why she suddenly remembered Kalrê's rapid heartbeat underneath her fingers.

Kalrê left eventually to prepare the ochre for painting, after she had drunk some fragrant brew of herbs with Târî and set a bowl of it next to Dess, for ther to find when she 'woke'. Dess couldn't have said what had upset and startled her so, but she could not shake the feeling that it must have been an ill omen of sorts that she had failed to understand. Her father looked at her for a long time, and then looked away, leaving the hut when someone outside called his name.

"We are still waiting for the Lindâi scouts to return," Kalrê said a few days later, working earnestly and quickly on the drawing of the spear-men on the rocks. She avoided looking at Dess, who hovered close behind her shoulder and felt like Olsê's irritating dog begging for a scrap of food. "The Minjâi and Tatjâi are all with us again, and they found very little, but the Lindâi walkers think there may be herds on the plain west of the mountains, unless the Rider went there as well. They have seen them before, and they say there are animals there that are larger than the deer and boar of the forest, and larger even than bears! Kine, and great beasts that bear a single giant horn on their snouts, and ones they call andambundâi - high as Kêmî's trees, large as a boulder, and full of hair! And a nose like one of our arms, but many times as long!" Kalrê's eyes shone when she eventually turned to look at Dess after all. "I would love to see one – and if we managed to hunt it that would be meat for all of us all winter!"

Dess, quite against her will, started laughing. "Fancies! The Lindâi walkers tell all sorts of stories, and some come from their minds, not from the world! We can't eat stories, and if there animals that really are as large, then we can't keep all the meat all winter – you know that the Rider touches the dead meat we keep too long, that and all else! If we could even hunt them at all, if they are really so large!"

"Did you listen? We will be many! It is going to be the same great gathering as when Iminjê-Târî made your mother Târî before all the clans!"

"Of course I remember! I was very young when my mother became Târî, but I remember." Dess felt her lips pucker into a pout, but she scooped new pigment into the bowl Kalrê held out to her all the same. "After all, Mother was honoured for being the first-born of the Quendi that day, before my grandmother passed away into the forests to seek for Imin whom the Rider took."

"You are still very young, or at the least you behave it," Kalrê said. Her voice took on a teasing tone.

"You are not so much older! Six years only!" Dess protested, feeling, all of a sudden, how her anger surged. "I will choose my own name come spring; are you out to mock me? And I am old enough to be betrothed to you - and old enough to change my mind. There is Tatâ's son, and I hear that he has grown handsome." If Kalrê would mock her about her age, she could reply with the one thing that always made her jealous.

It seemed that she had gone too far this time: Kalrê looked stricken for a moment. Her beautiful face hardened into something strange and unkind, only for the blink of an eye, then she cast the newly filled bowl onto the floor where it shattered, and the pigment spilled like blood. Kalrê began walking up the hill with swift, stubborn steps, and her long braid, garlanding her head in the fashion of a betrothed woman, unravelled at her insistent tugs, swaying down her back in golden waves before she disappeared from view.

Dess touched her own hair. It remained in place; the three elaborate rosettes above her brow were perhaps a little mussed, but she would do her best to keep them orderly to show Kalrê that she had no intention of betrothal to another, not ever. Another moment of deliberation, and she dashed after Kalrê. It began to rain that instant, in thick, plodding drops that soon caused rivulets of dirt to run downhill and made the path slick and slippery underfoot.

"Wait!" Dess cried and wiped a frazzle of wet hair from her face after she had slipped the second time. "Wait!" This was not what she had intended; she could not even really say when their conversation had taken this ugly turn. Perhaps it was the Rider's presence in the forest that slowly drove them all to madness. It was high time they went hunting.

Chapter End Notes

Glossary:

Elî: Star(s) – a hypothetical form that refers to Varda.

Kêmî: Earth – a hypothetical form that refers to Yavanna, borrowed from the Book of Lost Tales (where it is taken to mean Earth-Lady) and adapted. How the early Quendi knew about these two prior to contact with Oromë will be explained in the course of the story.

Târî: A title; Queen.

Minjâi, Tatjâi, Lindâi: Old clan names respectively for the Quenya forms Minyar (first clan, the Vanyar), Tatyar (second clan, the Noldor being a part of these) and Lindar (third and most numerous clan, the Eldarin part of whom yielded the Teleri).

Wegî: the plural form of early wegê, manhood, vigour

Peñû: the dual form of peñe, lip – context should make clear which ones are being referred to.

Sjatsî: the plural form of sjatsê, cleft

Skelnâ: adj., naked, unclothed

Khôn: Heart (the physical organ)

Wendî: plural of wendê, maiden

Ele!: Legendary first outcry of the Eldar upon seeing the stars after their Awakening, apparently meaning something like "See! Look!"

Óroto-Karanî: Red Mountains, the Orocarni mountain range east of Cuiviénen.

Ñguruki: At that point not referring to Orcs or Uruks (though the latter word is derived from this one as far as I know); rather generally meaning any greater, malicious creature that posed a danger to the early Quendi, often in league with or corrupted by Morgoth. This particular form is a correlation with the stem NGUR, horror.

Andambundâi: plural of andambundâ, elephant, literally translating to long-nose, so I considered it safe to use for a mammoth, or the Middle-earth equivalent of it, as well.

Mailikô: Greedy One, a name for Morgoth.

A note on breasts and nipples: I tried to use (or, uhm, repurpose) attested words in the Primitve Elvish dirty talk (file under: things that I never thought I'd write), but given the scarcity of that word-list it wasn't always possible to use the appropriate words.

Tiuksû: The dual form of tiuksê, which in turn is comprised of TIW "fat, thick", plus an adjectival suffix -kâ, plus a nominal suffix -sê, "something that is made by the action denoted by the stem" (Ardalambion). I chose to use this to mirror the origin of English breast, PIE *bhreus- "to swell/sprout" – there also is the stem TUY, swell, sprout, bud, and other similar words (eventually yielding Quenya tuilë "spring"), but both seem to be related, at least semantically – e.g. a bud is a swollen thing.

I was initially looking for a way to reconstruct tyetsë, Qenya "breast, teat" for "nipple", but didn't manage that with the roots available – linked as it is to smallness, little babies and suckling in Parma Eldalamberon's Qenya Lexicon, the only available root in the same direction is TIK "small", yielding *tik(k)â, 'little' and *tiksê as a noun going by the same formation process as above. There exists a Quenya word tixë "dot, tiny mark, point" from this root, so I am sure the process is not wrong, or not entirely so (since an actival suffix seems a bit strange here, but there are several other and more appropriate uses to -sê), but it is not the right word (unless the possibility of PE > Q initial k > t change as in kyulumâ > tyulma also works in other positions, and something could be built from that). Any attested Quenya stems for babies listed are related to vinya, "new" rather than their smallness, or come from a root LAP yielding lapsë, "babe". It seems, however, that Tolkien did go for homophony with the supposed real-world etymology of tit/teat, which likewise seems to harken back to the meaning "to suck" from an unexplained origin, as well as small things (such as the birds of the same name) from a Northern Germanic direction. So rather than reconstruting a primitive form (which would probably have ended with me throwing my books across the room), I assumed a root TYET (then yielding tyetsê in Primitive Elvish and tyetsë in Q(u)enya) that is denoting something to do with suckling babies somehow.

The rain had begun to fall in earnest by the time Dess put the comb aside and tucked the last of the bone pins out of her own and into Kalrê's hair.

"You are truly not angry with me?" she asked, looping an arm around Kalrê's waist to pull her closer. "Because I did not mean for that to happen. And you are looking far more lovely with your hair up this way – perhaps I should call you Spindê from now on," she murmured. Kalrê closed her eyes and hummed; she made no objection when Dess tucked her chin on her shoulder and her nose into Kalrê's damp hair.

"I might not have forgiven you so easily if not for the pins – you would not give them up so gladly if you did not mean your apology. I know how long it took you to whittle them down so far, and that you hold them very precious."

"Held. I hold them more precious now that you have them, because I hold you the most precious."

Dess ran a hand through her hair. Although she had undone her own braiding in order to replace the pins that Kalrê had lost unravelling her hair, she did not mind terribly. She kept a few more of the whittled pins in a little lidded box, alongside a strand of Kalrê's hair wound with her own, a heavy, round-edged black rock the length of her smallest finger that her father claimed Elî had sent them to show where to settle, and that her mother had received from Iminjê herself – and a necklace of shells that was the root of Kalrê's jealousy. Tatâ's son had traded it for one of her songs the past summer, and then even made a lot of words to compliment her and her singing – lindâ banjê he had called her. Try as she might to prevent it, her heartbeat still picked up when she thought of that moment, but especially now guilt jabbed through her stomach and she wished she could sing the thoughts away. Kalrê had given her many more names, and many of them, especially Glisî, were far more beautiful and inventive than the compliments of Tatâ's son.

As though Kalrê caught her thoughts, she regarded Dess with a half-amused look, leaning to rest her face against Dess' chest, nuzzling and kissing through the weave of her clothing. "Mikwînê," Dess said and laughed, a little breathless, and pressed a kiss to Kalrê's hair. Kalrê's scent, sweet herbs and earth, rose to her head and drove out the thoughts of Tatâ's son.

Her face was burning again by the time she climbed to her feet, stepping around the puddle that had formed before Kalrê's bedstead where the rain was leaking through the roof.

"Perhaps you should take your things and come to us – all of you - your mother and father, you and your brothers, until the rains have stopped. It would be crowded, but you could share my bed with me..." she said.

Kalrê laughed, still reclining on her bed. Her hair was more mussed than it ought to be, by virtue of Dess' enthusiastic touches, but even the strands hanging into her shining eyes only served to make her more beautiful. "We will consider it," she said. "I will ask my family when they return. If your roof fares any better, that is – but don't think that even with us in one bed I will spend all my strength on yet more games with you, such a brief time before the hunt."

Dess returned Kalrê's wide grin. Her whole body still tingled; and the air that fanned the high colour in her cheeks was deliciously cool. "I may have been hoping for it, but I hadn't considered that. Has there been word when the gathering will begin?"

"Whenever the rain ceases. It will be no use to get soaked on the gathering place; some even say that Mailikô has eyes in the rain." Almost Dess wished that Kalrê had not said that – important though it was to know – because the tingling feeling quickly faded, and then vanished entirely. Kalrê was watching her, tugging on the skin of her lips with her teeth.

"I will talk to my father. I am sure he can tell how to keep the Rider at bay," Dess said, even though she suspected it would hardly be as easy as she made it seem.

Nonetheless she took her leave, and went to confer with her father to find if there were any songs that could be sung to protect the gathering. He did not think so; saying that the Rider had many more ways to hurt them than they knew songs to prevent, and that their trust in Elî and Kêmî would serve them better.

When it was time to rest, Dess slept uneasily. Not merely because of the storm that had begun to scream through the forest and splinter branches off the trees, howling with Olsê's dog, but because the idea of the great black horse coming from the dark at them was frightening in a way that jolted her awake and took her desire for sleep away. It seemed that even the ground shuddered and thrummed with her for a moment only, rattling the storage jars, and shook Ilwê, who had been sitting near the door with her spear to watch, out of her concentration. Quakes like this were no longer very unusual, but no reason for panic. Whatever portents they might be, they did no harm – some said it was merely Kêmî stirring – but with her dream of the black horse, perhaps it – no. She swallowed, and shook her head. If the Rider could shake the ground then he must be many times stronger than they knew, and that could not be – then he could have taken them all already.

Murmuring something – not quite a melody, not quite a song, merely a rhythm that lulled the sound of the rain outside to a dim drumming on the roof, Dess reached for a carrying basket she had begun to weave earlier in the day. Her family could not sleep either. Dess watched them go about their business while she twined strip after strip of reed, until the wind picked up enough to burst into the hut and spiral up embers from the fire in a sudden gust.

Ingô and Ilwê followed Târî with their spears when she went to the other huts to tell them to douse all the fires, keeping only a few glowing embers for rekindling – else sparks from the fire could blow and smoulder unnoticed in the roof wefts until another gust of air would fan it to open flame. One of the Tatjâi families in the greensward dell where they had first woken – their first village – had failed to douse their fire only two handfuls of years ago, and many of them had come to death when the fire leapt from hut to hut. One Mîrî, who had been with child then, had been one of the few survivors of her family. Her besnô had been sleeping in one of the huts, in a heavy, drugged sleep after he had startled a sow on the hunt, and he had not lived. Although Mîrî had returned to her parents in the second village of the Tatjâi, many agreed that her girl was growing up to be weak and strange; it showed in her pale hair and dark eyes, it was said, and that there was none of Elî's starlight in them. Dess would have dearly loved to see her to know if that was true, but she could hardly believe it – any Kwendê worth that name surely had to have at least a spark of it, even little Mîrigseldê. If her body was of Kêmî's stuff, then surely Elî would not slight her, either.

She hummed and resolved to find out more when she could; perhaps she would find someone at the gathering. Weaving by touch needed her whole concentration now; with the fire gone only the embers cast a dim red glow – but it was enough to see that when Târî returned, she looked shaken. Pherenê's hut, she said, where she had lived with her student, had vanished: It had stood at the edge of the hill, near the path to the brook, and the rain had caused the earth to slip and slide down the steep incline with such force that it even tore rocks from the hill itself. Perhaps that had been the shudder they had felt earlier, Kêmî releasing her grip on a fleck of ground that would no longer be needed.

"Then the Rider has taken them indeed," said Dess' father after the first outcry. Târî, who was cleaning her feet of mud, clucked her tongue. "Ñalatô, I knew it for a sign. Speaking the name was not necessary, not when his evil weather is upon us. You of all people should know."

"Idrê," her father said, but before he could reply, Ilwê and Ingô crowded into the hut. They both were sodden to the skin with rain, and Ilwê's spear dripped something dark – not mud, but not blood either, Dess thought, though that too was hard to make out – or at least it was not any blood that Dess had ever seen, until Târî hissed at her, "Do not bring that into our home!" and Ilwê hurried to place the spear outside.

"There was only one," she said, returning. "One of the Lindâi, going by its hair, scavenging near the village," she explained. "Not fully a ñgurukô yet, but no longer fully a heklô either. I found it howling by the refuse pit, and it did not answer when I recited the tale. What I did was healing."

"It was healing," everyone murmured in chorus. Ilwê, who had been called Laibrê before, after all could not take lives unless it was in cases like these, when she could lessen some creature's suffering without her healing taking a toll, and that needed affirming, lest Elî and Kêmî took it the wrong way. It would have been worse if the creature had entered the ring of stones, or even the village itself, but the refuse pit was outside the borders and somewhat hidden. Perhaps the creature had happened upon it by chance. Perhaps. It was an evil portent either way, they all knew.

Dess' father sat, bowed his head, and began to sing a song to placate Kêmî, and then rose with his head tilted toward the roof where various bright stones hung as in the sky outside, to repeat the same words to Elî. Dess joined in.

When the song ended, Târî said, "Be aware of the sounds in the forest; there may be more of the creatures. In evil weather, evil prowls." She settled down on her seat opposite the door to resume the work she had been doing, kneading a ball of fat with a handful of pine needles, scraps of dried meat, and the few grains and berries they still had had in their stores – provisions for the hunt, not for eating now. Dess felt her stomach rumble.

"When do you think the rains will let up?" she asked. "Kalrê said we would not gather until they did."

"Soon, we hope," said Dess' father. "I spoke with Olsê when we saw the clouds rolling in, and she guessed that it might be three times resting."

Dess nodded. "Then we best prepare, is that what you mean to say, Atû?"

"Quite so. And you, you should speak to Ekjarô from the second village. He arrived before the rains started and will make spears for those who need them. Annê and her family gave him space to sleep and work; it is even said that he may be seeking Annassê's love – I wonder if Annê will allow her daughter to marry yet. She is younger than you are."

Dess felt herself staring at her father, finding from the other side of the hut that her mother was also looking at her, but her keen eyes were relaxed and smiling.

"A spear for me?"

Târî said, "I believe now that you are betrothed, you might as well accompany Kalrê. You know how to read tracks and understand the sounds of the earth when animals pass. In case of misfortune the hunters will need someone to sing for them, and Ilwê alone will not be able to carry enough meat for all of us to see us through the winter. Consider this the beginning of your training."

Dess nodded. Her heart was pounding, and her mouth dry. She had expected to be allowed to accompany the hunters to the gathering, but no further (though she had let her fancies run away with her when Kalrê had spoken of the hunt), and to have the knowledge that the plains beyond the forest lay open to her now made her both want to roll into her bed-furs to hide from the wide world, and run outside to yell her fortune so that all should hear, especially Kalrê. That side won out.

Târî caught her eyeing the door, and shook her head. The storm had still not abated, and until it was time to rest again, Ingô instructed her in the use of his spear. His was by far the heaviest, a smooth, sturdy shaft of ashwood longer than she was high, and with a hand-sized tip of near-translucent flint – Pherenê's work, and Dess whispered a "be well" to the the spear in an unguarded moment when Ingô let her rest her burning arm and aching shoulder after practicing the throwing motion again and again in an endlessly frustrating exercise. With no space for throwing inside the hut, that would need to wait; venturing outside while it rained was useless.

Her arm still ached with the constant practice, though more dully, when the clouds finally tore and the steady streams of the water from the sky ceased. It had kept them in their huts for longer than expected, and Dess wasted no time to stretch her legs, even if it was only to fetch water from the brook. Outside, underneath the once more clear sky, people were wading across the mire of slushed earth that the common space had become. It sucked at Dess' feet and oozed between her toes when she made her way over to the hut of Kalrê and her family, but she felt as though she could leap and sing. Her voice rose to Elî while she took in the starlight glinting upon the wet world, multiplied in all the droplets as though Kêmî lay aglow: "Elî-târî, silikjê î-elênî î-Kêmî-târîssi! Ele!"

"Kalrê," Dess called softly when she reached the hut. "It's stopped raining. There are stars again. And I will have a spear! I will come hunting with you!"

Kalrê wasted no time in throwing aside the skin that covered her doorway, and instead of simply stepping outside, she threw her arms around Dess and pulled her close with a jubilant shout that sent Olsê's dog yipping in the next hut. Dess sighed, laughed and pressed a kiss to Kalrê's lips, finding the touch eagerly returned.

She drew back with a caress to Kalrê's face. "Mikwînê," she murmured fondly, half teasing. "But not now - Mother sent me to fetch fresh water; I had best not keep her waiting. Our flour is clumping already, and she wants to make bread for the gathering before it spoils."

"If you are going to the brook, then best make yourself useful as well, Kalrê," her mother called from within the hut. Kalrê deftly caught the water-skin that was tossed her way, and grabbed the spear that was leaning next to the door.

They wound their way among the dripping pines and down into the mist steaming from the forest. The path to the brook was clogged with mudslides and fallen rocks that left it near-impassable; there was nothing to see of the remains of Pherenê's hut save a splintered pillar jutting from the dirt askew – but in a jumble of earth and rocks at the foot of the hill, something shimmered. Dess and Kalrê exchanged a look and clambered toward it.

"Are those bones?" Kalrê asked once they had reached their discovery. "Bones in the rock?"

"I think so! Look here, this is the row of back-bones. Part of the ekmâ," Dess repeated a word that Ilwê had taught her, and couldn't resist the opportunity to run her hand up and down the center of Kalrê's back, then around, over the sickle-shaped bones that formed her chest. Some of the animal's were also showing underneath the muck, in a layer of grey rock. Dess drew her knife but considering the flint blade put it away again. That would only break, and there was no need to risk something so valuable. She returned her attention to Kalrê.

Kalrê leaned into the mapping touch – none of them had had much to eat, it seemed – not surprisingly in the bad weather that prevented even the foraging for the scarce food that still remained. Dess and her family had been chewing pine needles to quench the worst of the hunger, preserving what they might, but even those had grown tough and bitter, unlike the sweet shoots of spring.

"When did you last eat?" Dess asked, but Kalrê was too busy to answer, digging into the earth and scraping the loose mud away by the handful where the rain had not washed the bones free. More of the spine came into view in another boulder, twisting here and there in a long tail, as though the creature it belonged to had thrashed about before it died. It was far larger than they, perhaps twice the size of any Kwendê. Dess rocked back on her heels, watching.

"I wonder what kind of creature it is," Kalrê said. She must have forgotten about her hunger for the moment, busy as she was with the bones. It was exciting, but perhaps it would be best to leave this, whatever creature lay here, alone, and cover it again – after all, the bones that the Minjâi tossed into their refuse pit were either stolen by scavenging animals – that was how Olsê had found a young wolf in the times of Iminjê when they had first built the village, which had by now become a dog, and it seemed even the heklô-creature remembered that some people might be wasteful and toss away bones that still had the marrow or sometimes even scraps of meat to gnaw on – or they returned to the stuff of the world, given enough time. That these hadn't...

"Ow!" Kalrê cried, tossing Dess from her thoughts, and drew her hand from the pile of earth she had been shifting aside. Through the muck that coated her fingers, blood was blooming and rolling down her hand from a gash along her palm.

"I was going to say – this isn't good. We should cover it with earth again – and now it hurt you!"

"Oh, don't be a fool – first you think I'm bleeding in the brook, now you think this hurt me – you are too worried. I just cut myself on a sharp stone!" Kalrê laughed, and plucked out a splinter that still clung to the wound.

"But you cannot dig with a hurt hand," Dess cautioned, taking the stone from her to rub it clean. It was a dun brown and sharp-edged, a tiny, jagged triangle. "Here, look – it did not merely hurt you, it bit you – that is a piece of tooth, and if the wound festers – I don't want you to die, where would I be? Or worse, as some people say, the Lord of Death..."

Kalrê snorted. "This won't hurt me. And dying would be better than being nabbed by one of Mailikô's people. I know he has all sorts of helpers, but --- Mailikô as the Rider has been seen. The Lord of Death I will believe in when I meet him. If a Kwendê dies, she'll return to being clay again - like a tree that is felled and burned, or an animal, and to starlight, as Smaltwê did. I was very little when she died; you probably do not even remember – the Rider tried to take her, but she fought, and his horse trod on her, and she died soon after. This Lord of Death can't be more powerful than Elî and Kêmî. Someone made him up."

"So then how do you explain this? Don't you think that someone must have turned it to stone?"

"But not all of it; only the bones. Maybe Kêmî did this, and she – maybe she wanted it to be found as a warning."

As though spurred on by that realization, Kalrê, uncaring for her hurt hand, began to dig faster. "We should find out what it is."

Within a short time – Dess soon began to help moving handful by handful of earth - they uncovered more fragments, first, a grasping, clawed, three-fingered hand, and then a skull, broken in two, but otherwise whole, from the ground. It was unlike anything they had ever seen before, and in light of this even the tales of the Lindâi walkers and the strange, long-nosed beasts on the plains seemed less incredible. The skull was riddled with large holes like windows, and it ended in a gaping jaw full of knife-shaped teeth – unlike a wolf's or bear's or lynx's maw, but certainly no less dangerous; Dess could not recall anything at all that resembled it. Eventually, crumbling clumps of earth between their fingers, revealed a chunk of rock with a deathly-looking sickle-claw that might once have belonged to a foot. Kalrê, not without hesitation, plucked it from the ground.

"What is it?" asked Kalrê, hushed.

"I don't know," Dess replied, her eyes fixed on the claw. It jogged something in her memory. "But there was... a... legend that I heard."

"A legend?" Kalrê asked. Her eyebrow was rising. "Heard from whom, your father?"

Dess shook her head. "I heard it from... don't laugh! I heard it from a tree – a conifer, one of the oldest and largest ones in the forest; someone awoke it to speak to it – I do not know who did – one of the Unbegotten, perhaps. They talked to all the things. They woke the trees to awareness, though this one was lonely, and always straining and calling to reach both Kêmî's earth and Elî's light. And Olsê took me to speak to it. I shouldn't be telling you. Or anybody."

"Why not?"

"It is secret knowledge. Olsê told me that it was passed along among the wise only, and she and my father want me to become one, why else would he teach me all the songs?"

"And?" Kalrê, undisturbed by the breach of confidence, had leaned forward, the skeleton forgotten for the moment, so rapt that she was almost touching her nose to Dess'.

"And it told me that there had once been other life, as it had learned it from the earth and from the trees in whose shade it grew. Before the Kwendî, long before them – the Rider already walked the Earth. And he already took joy in destruction, and he took Kêmî's creatures and changed them – as he changes the Kwendî now, from what they are into something twisted; and then, fair beings into beasts of horn and claw that feasted on their peaceful brethren and grew bloated on their blood. Lôkaraukâi, that was the word. And there were two great mountains that held Elî's brightest stars, so bright that their brightness covered all the lands and there was not a single star to see in the sky -"

Kalrê giggled. She clamped a dirty hand over her mouth to stifle the laugh, but still her shoulders were shaking, and her eyes slitted in badly concealed mirth. Dess huffed, and pecked a quick kiss on her forehead. Imagining the sky so lit was a strange notion, but that was the way the tree had stated it. It would know, wouldn't it? Or would a tree lie to her?

" - and the Rider meant to spoil that, too – as he covers the sky with his storms because he hates light. And his shape grew as tall as the mountains – and he toppled them, and the stars fell from on high, and all the animals that were – Kêmî's, but also his own creatures - perished in the great burning that followed - save for some small ones, tiny like mice or squirrels, that hid, and survived the burning. And the great forests, too, perished, save in some hidden vales and secure places, and new forests grew in the dark that followed, until Elî scattered new stars over the sky and Kêmî new creatures over the land, and then when all was ready, they made us."

Kalrê was still grinning. "And that is what a tree told you? Not that Elî and Kêmî made us at the beginning of all?"

"It is what the tree told me," Dess repeated. "Maybe it's true, perhaps it is not – but these bones must be older than we are. When Iminjê found this place, the hill was already there, and if this was in the hill, then it must have been there already as well. Besides, nothing like it roams the forests now. We would know if it did."

"Hmmm," said Kalrê. Then, scrabbling for her spear amid the muck, she bolted to her feet, ducked and moved from the pile of earth into the forest and away from the skeleton. The claw she slid into a pouch on her belt. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Dess asked in a hurried whisper, following behind. She wished she already had been able to pick up a spear from the new toolmaker, so Kalrê would not have to defend both of them. "Heklâi? Ilwê caught one while it rained, what if there are more?"

"And you didn't think to warn me? Dess!"

"There!" Dess pointed through the trees below. Outside the gate in the stone circle figures were crowding; she counted five that seemed to stoop there, perhaps to consider Kalrê's paintings if the rain had not washed them off, talking amongst themselves. One of them, she thought, had hair of silver, like the heklô-creature. Her breath stuck in her throat.

Then Kalrê began to laugh softly. "Silly Glisî, silly me! They are Kwendî. That is that strange one of the Lindâi; what was his name, Elwego, Eldîs' oldest son?"

Dess breathed out, and straightened from her crouch. "Him? Then Belekô and Tatâ's son can't be far either, they are hardly ever very far from one another. They must have come to fetch us for the gathering!"

Chapter End Notes

Glossary:

Spindê: "tress, braid of hair"

lindâ banjê: "sweet[-sounding] fair one", and of course the adjective banjâ is also the origin of the later group name Vanyar, which was in fact given to them by the Noldor because they loved gold and especially the golden hair of the Vanyar. The Vanyar still called themselves Minyar, the Firsts, their ancestral name. Because there are very few hints toward grammar and word order in Primitive Elvish, I borrowed from Quenya in this case.

Glisî: Something of a pun on g-lisi (the stem LIS sweetness/honey, with a strengthening stem prefix g- yields attested PE glisi) plus a female pronoun sî. It could probably be translated as "honey-sweet girl" wrapped into one word.

Mikwînê: Constructed from a stem MIQI, kiss, in the Qenya Lexicon. This looks suspiciously like a full word rather than a stem in Tolkien's later Quenya, though, so I went with that assumption in my reconstruction (with the orthographical change of q > kw that is also found in Quendi > earlier Kwendî) and a lengthening of the final vowel as is common in Primitive Elvish, plus a female agental suffix -ne, which might yield something like "kiss-giver" or "kiss-maker".

besnô: "husband"

Mîrî: "Jewel-woman", Míriel's mother. The story surrounding Míriel's birth is my own invention.

Mîrigseldê: Míriel. Either "Jewel-Crowned Daughter", or (if considered a matronymic) "Mîrî's [Jewel's] Crowned Daughter". Might be either descriptive, because Míriel is canonically envisioned as having silver hair, uncommonly so for a Noldo, or perhaps even a foresighted mother-name. I found both etymologies (jewel-daughter, and jewel-crowned), so went with a – hopefully – somewhat ambiguous construction that might allow for either version.

Laibrê: from laibê "salve, ointment" with a feminine suffix. Could translate as "salve-maker" to hint as Ilwê's function as a healer.

Heklô (heklâi): "waif(s), outcast(s)"

Atû: "Father"

Elî-târî, silikjê î-elênî î-Kêmî-târîssi! Ele!: "Star-queen, you are shining the stars upon the Earth-queen! Look!"- highly hypothetical sentence, and with elements borrowed from Quenya, as very little is known about Primitive Elvish grammar.

Ekmâ: "spine", from a stem *EK, thorn, prick, spine, with an ending -mâ denoting body parts.

Lôkaraukâi: My coinage (though I'm somewhat doubtful about the construction, I couldn't come up with a better one), from the stem LOK "dragon, serpent, reptile" and grauk- "a powerful, hostile, and terrible creature", which probably is ultimately derived from RUK, with strenghtening g-prefix (see above in the entry for Glîsî) and an a-infix for yet more intensification, a collective plural form. It's roughly analogous to the real-world construct of deinos "terrible" and sauros "lizard, reptile". Yes, I went there, and yes, the Fall of the Lamps that Dess describes in her story is in fact intended to allude to a fictionalized K-Pg event (or in layman's terms, the impact that caused the extinction of most dinosaurs).

“ - not a useless thing, not as useless as your sticks and string,” said a voice over the animated buzz the visitors had caused. Now that the rain was gone, the others had come from their huts to welcome them, and must already have recited the Tale while Kalrê and Dess had brought the full water-skins to their mothers. Faintly, Târî's voice singing the baking song came from her hut, although Dess wondered how they could divide up the little bread they'd get for all the people who needed food. With everyone so badly hungry, it was her duty to feed the people first, the sole reason what few stores they had left had been preserved. It would be handed out at the gathering, and already Dess could see the bread vanish between the teeth of the hungry, while her own stomach still growled.

Kalrê, who had come from her hut with healing clay sealing the wound on her hand, did not know about her gloomy thoughts and tugged Dess along on her unhurt hand, further into the bustle of people. Many had gathered around the newcomers and jests were flying about; in their center was Belekô, a tall, dark-haired man who bore himself straight-backed and laughed easily at the jokes tossed his way. He was leaning on a bow of dark yew wood, almost as tall as he was. Dess wondered how anybody could shoot it, unless they were very strong, and her thoughts gladly left behind the lack of food.

“Kugnâ, I call it!” said Belekô, not without pride.

“Well, yes, we can all see that it is bent!”

“Such an inventive word!” called someone else, and there were ripples of laughter through the crowd. Of course everyone had recognized the weapon for what it was, but the good-natured teasing was a game they all loved, and the best quips could win someone high acclaim.

Kalrê giggled and slipped her hand into Dess'. “I have a good one,” she whispered to Dess, making her shiver because of the warm breath on her ear, and raised her voice. “What does it do? That would make a poor instrument!”

Dess clapped a hand over her mouth when Belekô looked straight at them, but didn't answer. He grinned with a flash of teeth, and almost too quick for thought he had nocked an arrow. With a hiss of air and a twang of the bow's sinew, the it was gone - and stuck, quivering, in the wooden pillar of the last hut across the common space.

There was stunned silence, and then a woman's voice cried, “Kugnâ-stalgondô!” and a babble of words and laughter followed. The arrow had flown much further than any of the Minjâi arrows did, and everyone would want such a bow for the hunt now, if they could even use it. It would make hunting much safer.

Kalrê huffed and then laughed. Belekô had bested her in this game. “How smug,” she muttered to Dess. “Let them play with his bow,” she said looking at the crowd around Belekô, “and we should fetch your spear from - what did you say his name was, Ekjâro?”

“The new toolmaker, yes,” said Dess. “I want to become used to my own spear before the hunt; maybe then my arm will stop hurting from Ingô's. And I do not want a scar like Ilwê's.”

“The deer?” asked Kalrê. “I remember. This is why you should not go too close to the prey on your very first hunt. I want you to stay in the back. She was lucky that it only caught her leg. It could have cut her elsewhere, and then Ingô would not have a companion now. I do not want to lose mine.”

“You will not.” Dess made to tug her away, but just then someone in the crowd turned, and Dess felt her stomach droop. Sleek, dark hair, high-browed and handsome, and the last person in all the villages Dess would have wanted to see.

“Tatjôn,” said Kalrê. Her voice had cooled, and she was not even trying to hide that she did not like him. Everyone knew.

Dess closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, Tatjôn was still there, and Elwego, the silver-haired Lindâ who was his friend, stood scowling beside him, but at least did not meddle any more.

“Kalrê, come. The spear,” she said. If they caused an argument now, she did not want to know Târî's scolding. Strife before a hunt was an evil portent, and those who had caused it would not be allowed to go, so their anger would not drive away the animals and everyone would go hungry instead of just them, or - if the worst happened - they would not turn on one another with their weapons. “Kalrê, please,” Dess said, louder now.

Tatjôn was mustering them both with a sneer, and his eyes were flicking from their linked hands to the hair-wreaths, before he turned to Dess. “I see you are betrothed, lindâ banjê,” he said. “Who is he?”

Cold anger flared up in Dess. She let go of Kalrê's hand.

Kalrê stepped up to Tatâ's son. She was barely shorter, but much slighter than him, and instead of attacking him, she waved her hand at her own head. “Do you have eyes? Can you see this? Its word is bestâ-weî but perhaps you do not know what it means! I know you watch her whenever you are here, but it means Dess and I will be wedded come spring!”

Dess cringed. Kalrê had the truth of what she said, but her raised voice carried, and already heads were turning in their direction. Tatjôn also seemed to notice, because he took a step back, and muttered, “The best of luck to you,” but he neither looked at Kalrê, nor did he sound like he meant it, speaking to Dess.

The blood that had been draining from Dess' face during the argument came flooding back in a warm rush when another voice said, “That was uncalled-for. You of all people should know games from earnest matters, Phinwegô.” Belekô was shouldering toward them from in between the onlookers. His bow he had left behind for the moment.

Dess wanted to say, we do not need you to speak for us, but no word came out; instead she tugged Kalrê's hand again when Tatjôn - Phinwegô - and Belekô began to speak, low and swift and angry. Some of Phinwegô's words she did not know, undoubtedly new ones by the Tatjâi, who always made new things first and did not always keep with their shared and simple speech, and in Belekô's voice she heard a strain like tiredness.

“Their choice is made,” Belekô insisted. “As mine was. You know not all plans go as they are meant, not even those of the High Ones. Yours you made yourself, and it was much more likely to go awry. We told you to stop skulking after her like a heklô instead of speaking with her. She is not the one to blame.”

The silver-haired Lindâ laid a hand on Phinwegô's arm, but he opened his mouth to speak again, and Dess heart twisted at the plea that came out instead of the rude words she had expected.

“Dess... if you do not love me in return, at least be wise,” said Phinwegô, shrugging off his friend's arm. “We are the children of our leaders, we should --” but then he paused, seeing all the eyes upon them, and his words stopped before he had finished the thought. He turned and marched off.

Kalrê's anger at Phinwegô, it seemed, had turned to mirth seeing him humbled and defeated. With a bright grin on her face she watched him go. Using the lack of resistance, Dess pulled Kalrê out of the assembly and into a spot out of view in the dark between two huts, where Kalrê began to laugh in bright, chirping giggles that were impossible to resist, and Dess felt the tension bubble away in laughter between her own lips as well.

Pressed against the daub of the two walls, they both doubled over with laughter, wheezing until the tears ran freely down Kalrê's face, and Dess was clutching her shoulder to steady herself.

“Did you - did you - his face!”

“A fish!”

“A lamprey!”

“Dess!”

Dess pressed her face into Kalrê's shoulder and tried to stifle her mirth, without luck, instead squeezing her eyes shut while answering ripples of laughter went through her, slowly calming to burbling water-noises, and then quieted.

“Maelâ mikwinê,” Dess murmured once she trusted her voice again, her cheeks still flush with laughter and her heart beating high in her throat. She fitted her body closer against Kalrê's warm one, and tipped her head up to speak against her lips. “Why did you defend us?” she asked. “We are sure of one another; why should we care what he said?”

Kalrê's voice still was a little breathless from the laughter, but growing serious again. “We are. But only because Tatjôn did not speak kindly does not mean he did not speak truly. The daughter of Idrê-Târî, the son of Tatjê… and he could give you daughters. We are not truly Êlî and Kêmî, and no teasing will ever make it so, and we cannot endow what we make from the earth with life and language. Who will carry on the memory of Iminjê?”

Dess thought the Rider's great hands had seized her, suddenly, squeezing the breath and joy out of her, to hear Kalrê, always so sure of herself, speak that way. “Ilwê will have many daughters and they will learn Iminjê's tale, and Idrê's tale, if she goes into the forest - and if we should follow her long hence, ours. I need nothing of Tatjôn - not his sweet talk, even when it makes me flutter, not his power, not his wegê, not his children.”

The stiffness passed from Kalrê, who pulled Dess into another, deeper kiss, reassuring and decisive both. “That is enough for me.”

Dess' shift was hanging askew by the time someone called Kalrê's name. “That was your mother,” Dess muttered. Kandê passed by, never looking at the darkness between the huts, and did not spot them. She called Kalrê's name again, this time more insistent and followed by a stern reprimand, and Dess muffled a laugh against Kalrê's lips. “You did not yet pack for the hunt? Go on, when do you want us to leave?” Her stomach growled, as if reminded that it had gone on poor fare for too long.

Kalrê re-braided the strap of her own shift, tugged her own garments back into place with a lopsided grin, and slid out into the open. “I shall now. And you - fetch your spear!”

“I shall now,” Dess echoed, grinning at the way Kalrê rolled her eyes.

When she had gone, Dess stood for a moment, wondering what she might offer in exchange for the spear - Pherenê had been glad about anything from a helpful hand or a report about her tools in any given situation to a share of firewood or a meal, but Ekjarô was a stranger, and being provided by Annê's family while he lived with them, so that nothing seemed very useful. The basket she had woven during the rain her mother had claimed for the bread; Annassê, if she intended to return his attention, would prove herself capable as a huntress and bring him a gift of meat…

… but she had Phinwegô's shell necklace, justly hers to pass along. It would be good to be rid of it, and she had learned from Pherenê that some shells, if flaked right, made for good scrapers. Maybe Ekjarô would like it.

Still, she could not help a little regret when she headed into the hut and pulled the necklace from her treasure box, and her mother looked strangely at her even as she pulled another sad, leaf-thin wafer of flatbread from its hot stone. The bread would dissolve into nothing in any mouth, and certainly help no one's hunger, but at least Târî was making an effort to help the people until the hunters returned.

Dess hurried from the hut with the rattling, clattering shells in her hand before her mother could remark on the choice. It was beautiful, she thought as she sped over the common area between the huts, trampled even more muddy than before, and she couldn't help slipping the necklace over her head a last time. The insides of the shells had been rubbed clean with care until they shone with mother-of-pearl and Tatjon had strung it together with care - but Kalrê especially would be pleased to find it gone, and that made it easier to part with.

Ekjarô had spread a leather under the overhanging roof of Annê's hut, and was seated there with Belekô, and the space had become cluttered with tools and implements while the two men worked. She called out in greeting, “Elî and Kêmî made us!”

“Elî and Kêmî!” replied Ekjarô with a smile. He had been shaping a stone-blade with astonishing surety and speed, but seeing her approach he rested his busy hands for a moment, putting down the flint nodule and blunt antler piece that served him as a knapper on the spread of leather over his crossed legs. “You are Dess and have come for your spear, am I right? Careful, watch your feet. There are stone chips all over.”

“I am - and I did,” Dess said, and stretched out the necklace to him. Ekjarô studied it attentively. “My thanks,” she said, and remembering that he was a stranger to the village, added, “Our toolmaker always asked for a boon, and I thought you might do the same.”

“Ñalatô already read the stars for me when I came. There is no need, but I thank you for your kindness,” Ekjarô replied. He folded Dess' open fingers over the necklace in her palm. “That is Phinwegô's work, I think? He has become a craftsman of some renown and skill; I am surprised that you are giving it away.”

“Is that the reason for his name?” asked Dess. “I was wondering why Tatjôn was trying to seek fame for his hair. It is not so strange for his own people.”

Belekô laughed, not unkindly, although it came out sounding a little hoarse. He made room for Dess by the small fire they had burning, and replied, turning back to chipping an arrowhead into sharpness, “No, it is for his craft. He is proud of that, and this will be another blow to his spirit.”

“Ah, there is a personal history behind this,” Ekjarô said. It seemed he had missed the argument before, and Belekô had not told him, so Dess merely bobbed her head, touching her hair, and tucked the necklace into her girdle. It still seemed wrong to hold onto it, but perhaps something else could be done with it.

“Ah,” said Ekjarô again, with a look at her hair. “I understand - spurned love. Now -” he pulled closer a long, leather-wrapped bundle leaning against the hut, and twisted open the strings that held it together with nimble fingers. “ - these are the spears I have to offer.”

Dess' breath caught. The spears Ekjarô had made were not only weapons, they were works of art like Kalrê's paintings on the rocks. The shafts, all of cool blonde ashwood, had been sanded down until they shone, and into their surface Ekjarô had carved designs - there a herd of racing horses, a red deer with his wary head raised, a shoal of flitting fish on a very narrow, slender spear with a many-pronged antler as tip that Dess thought was for fishing, and there - Kêmî's Ladder stretching along the shaft, above the lake and the mountains, toward a tip of flint much smaller and more compact than those Pherenê had made, in the rare blue-grey of the starry sky.

“This one,” Dess said, even as she thought, with its depiction of the stars, that it should be Ilwê's, not her own. “What gave you the idea to carve them? Our spears bear no marks of that kind.”

“Strife,” said Ekjarô shortly. It seemed he wasn't a man of many words, but this time he elaborated. “Two of our hunters nearly came to blows over a boar, each claiming her spear had dealt the death-blow and she deserved the main part of the meat. I made them alike before to prevent that, but our provisions were beginning to run low then already, and those stiff-necked… well.” He shrugged. “I bowed to our Wise, and began marking our spears.”

“They are beautiful. My betrothed, Kalrê, she is the one who painted our stone-fence. She would like to speak with you, I am sure.”

“Thank you. I will remember that,” Ekjarô said, and handed the spear over. It lay in her hand like a reed as she weighed it, and flexed her arm to test it; her fingers closed around the shaft for a firmer grip as the spear slipped smoothly over her palm.

“It is eager for the hunt!” Dess cried. “And it is beautiful; I shall not even have to sing over it! Did you already tell it its purpose?”

Ekjarô smiled and nodded without stopping his work, accepting an arrowhead that Belekô passed him. “I sang a hunting song when I made it, but I am no maker of songs. Most of all, tell it of yourself.” If his voice sounded absent because he was holding up the arrowhead against the firelight, so thin that the glow of the flames shone through the thin, jagged edges, Dess could hardly blame him. With the upcoming hunt, he surely was glad of any help he could have.

“And, Dess?” asked Belekô, already selecting the next sliver of flint to work on. “Are you excited for your first hunt?” Whether he was trying to be kind because she was sitting, unsure of what to do, in between the two craftsmen, or wanted to know her opinion, she could not say, cleared her throat, and answered, “Kalrê told me about the andambundâi - I wouldn't like to meet one.”

“We mean to seek them out,” Belekô replied, and Dess felt dread settle on her. “My wife... Belekê, and the other Walkers, returned before we came here. The andambundâi are often very far north on the plains near the ice, farther than we can easily make it, but the Rider will send us a fell winter that has already driven them south. Some people among the Walkers have already hunted them before; I think they will take the lead - we will discuss the best way at the gathering.”

Dess began turning the spear over in her fingers, running them over the lovely carving Ekjarô had crafted. “It is good to know that there are people who have hunted creatures that are as high as Kêmî's trees.”

Belekô laughed. “Not quite so large, I think, though enough that a small herd may last us all through the winter.”

“We will be very tired of andambundâi by the end of it!” Dess laughed, making both Ekjarô and Belekô chuckle. “But I wonder - if I may ask, if you are Unbegotten,” she said to Belekô, “how is it that your wife is wandering and you are here?”

Belekô's hands stilled, and Dess wondered if she had offended him. When he spoke again, there was a curt note to his voice, and although it remained friendly, Dess decided not to press the matter beyond what he was ready to speak about. “We Awoke together, but we are friends, not truly spouses, and did not stay together. I cannot say much more,” he said. “Some among the Lindâi think that the Dark came between those like us from the beginning. Ragnâi, they call people such as us. There are not many, but is a thing to be feared and pitied, and not much spoken about.”

A bitter line, deepened by the flickering fire, appeared around his mouth.

“Elî and Kêmî forgive,” Dess said softly. “I did not know - “

“ - no, and how could you?”

Belekô was holding her eyes, perhaps testing her. His were not unkind, and Dess, not knowing what to reply, felt her face heat up. “There is much I need to learn before I become one of the Wise, as my father wants me to be,” she said quickly. “But I do not think there is as much Dark on you as there is on some others. Elî and Kêmî must have meant a different purpose for you. I think that is what the Minjâi would say - we welcomed you because we know that Elî and Kêmî do not fail or err.”

Ekjarô looked at her and nodded.

“Perhaps,” said Belekô. Silence fell again, leaving Dess to wonder whether she had the truth of it. That there was more behind the stories her people told she knew already, and they had been building up and up like a knot in her mind. Finally it came apart. The conifer's tale and Mailikô's greed trying always to spoil the works of Elî and Kêmî… and sometimes spoiling them indeed. Pherenê and all the other people taken, Mîrigseldê with the lightless eyes, the storms and the dearth of animals driving the Kwendî toward starvation, the heklô-creature by the refuse-pit, the strange skeleton bearing proof, perhaps, of his hold on the world before them, and now how Belekê and Belekô and how their not-union – strange as it seemed – was spoken about…

It almost felt as though the Rider was growing stronger.

She would have to speak to her mother and Ilwê, who knew best how to fight. They would know if there were stronger ways than fences and songs to drive back the Rider, but even that - the idea that they might need to confront Mailikô - made Dess wish to push the thought from her mind entirely.

The tock-tock-tock of Ekjarô's antler on flint at least was a soothing, regular sound against the turmoil of her thoughts - and the rising noises of the village as more and more people came from their huts laden with their packs. Kalrê had come from her mother's hut finally bearing her own, and looking around, before she spotted Dess and waved an arm at her.

Dess climbed to her feet and stooped to reach for her spear. “I think we are leaving soon,” she said to Ekjarô and Belekô, glad to have a way to leave them without seeming very rude. “And Kalrê wants me. I should go.”

She was clutching the spear tightly to herself as she wove between the people towards Kalrê, and hoped dearly that she was wrong in her thoughts, that Elî and Kêmî would keep them safe.

They would need it.

Chapter End Notes

Glossary:

kugnâ: “bent, bowed”, but also “bow-shaped”

Kugnâ-stalgondô: A hypothetical Primitive Elvish form of Cúthalion, “Strongbow”, also translatable as “Bow-Hero”.

bestâ-weî: “bridal-weave” referring to the hairdo signifying Dess and Kalrê's betrothal.

Maelâ mikwinê: A term of endearment, “dear/beloved kiss-giver”, though mikwinê should strictly go asterisked since it's a Primitive Elvish form reconstructed from Qenya rather than Quenya and clashes with the existing stem MIK, “pierce”.

wegê: Manhood.

Ragnâi: from ragnâ, “crooked”, hence “Crooked Ones”.