History Will Be Kind To Me, For I Intend To Write It by sallysavestheday

History Will Be Kind To Me, For I Intend To Write It

Pengolodh’s neck aches, and his split lip throbs. He is hunched over the table in his workroom, trying to control his shaking hands as he drafts the record of the last two days’ events. He has torn up a wastebasket’s worth of paper already, wrestling with his own shock and fear. He does not know how he will tell this story.

So much of what must frame it is outside his personal understanding; the history reaches so far back and the conflicts and resentments run so deep. He feels his relative youth keenly – a childhood in Nevrast and a youth spent in Gondolin have not prepared him to untangle the great themes of pain and rage and despair that permeate this tale. All his claims of mastery, of status among the Lambengolmor, wither in the face of what he has just seen.

Turgon’s fury drives him on: he must have a record ready for recounting at the council in the morning. If not, the city walls are steep, and the fall to the plain is long. There is no question that it waits for him.

So, then: the truth.

The unexpected arrival of the Lady Aredhel was surprising; the existence of her son, astounding. The absence of her unknown husband, attributed to his diverting a hunting band of Orcs that had followed them all from Nan Elmoth, enflamed suspicion: had she come gladly to introduce her sundered families, or had she run?

Turgon’s displeasure with his sister’s impulsive marriage and her choice of spouse was only magnified when Eöl arrived, dark and bitter and proud. His love for Aredhel notwithstanding, there was no space in his heart or mind for the Noldor and their wars. Pain and pride and fear of dispossession spilled on the stones of the throne room as he and Turgon circled each other like fighting dogs, Aredhel and Maeglin pleading for peace, for stillness, for a family bond.

Insult fed on insult, pain on pain. When blades were drawn, it was Aredhel who darted between them, and Turgon who struck.

But the King cannot be a kinslayer – the foundation of his power rests in that distinction between himself and his Fëanorian kin. Pengolodh shudders, remembering tales of Mandos arriving in Araman. The long shadow of Alqualondë reaches even to Gondolin, it seems, and Doom does not split hairs.

For his own wavering before Turgon’s command to write, he earned the king’s fist across his face and a threat that hovered in the air. The wall; the fall.

So, then: the tale.

Fear, flight, a vengeful pursuit. Pain, poison, punishment.

Neither Aredhel nor Eöl can now dispute it, and Maeglin has gone mute. What will become of the boy, Pengolodh cannot imagine. Nausea washes over him, and a dark, foreboding chill.

The others in the room will keep their peace; the public theater of Eöl’s death has now ensured it. All that remains is to tell the tale, and tell it, and tell it again, until it becomes the version all remember.

Pengolodh shivers and picks up his pen.