Fault Lines by Lferion

Fault Lines

Mist poured like water over the cliffs, softening their edges, blurring the sheer plunge, hiding the sharp and ragged stones that reared up from the deceptive surface of the sea. Once, that fault-line had lain hidden in the folds and valleys of the southern arms of the Ered Luin, a curious note in the Song of the stones. A note that had pulled on Thórdri's stone-sense, dimming the voices of kin and clan, sending them seeking the source, the reason, the wonder of Mahal's working that could make such music -- keening, droning, chord compelling chord of balanced stress and pressure.

Stable. Secure. Unlikely to move in Thórdri's lifetime, or that of their sister-sons or any number of subsequent generations.

The end of the Age changed that. As the Works of the Mighty Ones are all too prone to do. They were far from the Iron Hell of the North. Not far enough. Not nearly far enough. (No place in Muthurkâmin would be -- was -- far enough to feel nothing of the Breaking of Beleriand, the drowning of an entire 'utlar of land.)

There had been precursor shocks, warning enough to sound the alarm, evacuate their small stronghold. Not enough for more.

Only the screaming roar of rending earth, not a physical sound at all, yet deafening all the same. Like the end of the world, only it was not, just the end of part of the world. The part they knew.

Thórdri hardly knew what to do with themself, especially since, peculiarly, under stone the noise was worse, under the sky it retreated to the background, and they could feel the presence of songs of other things -- the sea, the stars, the invisible, ever-present air, -- though they couldn't hear them. They could hardly hear ordinary sounds, though that was slowly improving.

Now, not Usahu's waves, nor Mamahdûn's airs could wholly ease the noise where once there had been song, the symphony of stone in its myriad forms, masses, stresses, upthrusts and descents.

But Outside did have it's beauties, even in the midst of what had been broken, and Thórdri was grateful to have survived the cataclysm to witness them. The mist and light pouring over the edges of the new cliffs. The endless, clear up of the sky, the stars still shining behind the veiling sunlight. And there was a great deal of building to be done: worthy and useful work.

Chapter End Notes

Khuzdul from the Dwarrow Scholar
--Muthurkâmin - Middle Earth
--'Utlar - greater/greatest plate, that is, in this context, a tectonic plate
--Usahu - Ulmo
--Mamahdûn - Manwe