Trinkets by Independence1776

Until the Change of the World

Idril and Tuor encounter the Enchanted Isles. Written for Huinárë’s June of Doom and Gloom challenge. Ficlet. Rated Teens for mature themes.

Idril stumbled out of the surf, the water tugging at her feet. Her wet braid slapped against her sodden clothes and her boots crunched on the gravel. She looked over at Tuor, his gray hair dripping water. He sat down on one of the larger rocks strewn across the rocky shore and started coughing. She rubbed his back and looked out at the fog, the sound of the remains of their boat crunching over and over again on the rocks dull and strange-sounding. She shivered, her soaked tunic and trousers clinging to her skin. Tuor was no better-- and he was an old Man, too. He could easily sicken and die from this.

She did not want that to happen. For him to die in Valinor, a reward for a hard life well-lived-- yes. But not here and not like this.

After they wrung out their clothes and redressed, he said, “We need to build a fire. If this is Tol Eressëa, there should be some sort of dry wood nearby.”

She nodded. The debris from their ship would be too waterlogged to burn. “We go together. It would be far too easy in this fog for us to become disoriented and never find each other again.”

He took her hand and she let him lean on her. The warmth of his body mitigated the chill somewhat, but they needed to get warm fast. Hypothermia killed both Man and Elf.

After an unknown time walking and scrambling over boulders, they finally reached the forest that marked the interior of the island. They pushed their way into the interior through the underbrush and found a freshwater spring a short distance inward. Tuor sat down on a fallen log while Idril collected enough kindling and broken branches to start a fire. She scouted around the spring, never leaving eyeshot, while Tuor used friction to light the fire. When it finally caught, she returned and said, “I think this will be a good camp. There’s fresh water, plentiful wood, and there are enough small animal tracks and edible plants that we’ll be able to feed ourselves while we build--”

“I’m not sure we’ll be able to make a new boat,” Tuor said, feeding a small stick into the flames. “We have no tools.”

“We should try.” Idril rested a hand on his shoulder. “The fog cannot last forever. Maybe we’re far enough West that a signal fire will be spotted by the Teleri, or even by a Maia of Ulmo’s. We have options.”

“I know.” Tuor put a hand on hers. “But even if we are stuck here and I die, don’t give up in despair. You will eventually reach Valinor. And while it may take until the end of the world, we will meet again.”

“I know. And we will.”

She stayed by the fire, drying off and warming up, resting her sore and weary body, and trying not to contemplate the fact that the fog bank had looked entirely unnatural as they sailed toward it. After she warmed up, pushing her concern that this was where they would both die to the back of her mind, she told Tuor to remain by the fire-- they could not risk it extinguishing-- and she gathered armfuls of pine needles to make a comfortable and insulating bed a safe distance from the fire. By the time she was done, it was beginning to grow dark and Tuor has managed to spear a fish from the spring with a sharp branch and cook it over the flames.

A hot meal heartened their outlook: they could survive here, at least for a little while. After they ate, Tuor banked the fire and they crawled into bed, covering themselves with the pine needles as much as possible. She pulled him against her chest and glanced up at the dark sky.

The fog had not lifted and there were no stars to be seen.

She kissed the back of Tuor’s head and closed her eyes, letting the exhaustion that had been pulling at her ever since she’d stepped foot on the island overwhelm her at last.

Chapter End Notes

The title comes from this line in “Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor”: “And in the twilight a great weariness came upon mariners and a loathing of the sea; but all that ever set foot upon the islands were there entrapped, and slept until the Change of the World.”