Interlude Before Exile by Elleth

Chapter 1

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“You are leaving.” Indis was standing rigid by the window, staring where the darkness clung like syrup to the sides of the mountain. Only far above, barely visible unless one knew where to look, it strove against the light that radiated forever from the peak of Taniquetil - but now even the Halls of Ilmarin stood empty; the Valar sat like stone in council in the Mahanaxar and spoke among one another with voices unheard while below in Tirion the people were clamouring, and rivers of torches burned in the streets.

Unnerved by Lalwendë’s silence, she turned around at last, half-expecting to find her daughter gone. Lalwendë was and had always been a prodigy at moving lightly, and although she had had the least reason among her siblings to wish to elude Fëanáro, since her quick laughter, bright mind and practicality somehow placated his ire, she had nonetheless picked up the habit from Findis - and mostly used it for mischief.

But not today. As quickly as she sometimes vanished, this time Lalwendë still stood in the same place, so pale-faced in the gloom of the palace that Indis jumped, at first thinking she saw some unbodied apparition floating before her.

Her pale hands emerged from the sleeves of her dark gown, stretching out to Indis, and she overcame the hesitation to move into her daughter’s arms. For all intents and purposes, it seemed the tables had, at least for the moment, turned, and their roles reversed. Indis laid her head against her daughter’s shoulder and closed her eyes, while Lalwendë’s soft hand rubbed up and down over her back.

“Am,” she murmured, crooning the childhood name she had ever called her mother when official dictum did not demand a demure Mother, and Indis felt her eyes sting. “I came here from the lower city as fast as I could to say farewell. You understand that it is not because I love you any less than I love Nolvo, nor because I no longer respect the Valar… but I cannot let the people go alone - I have done so much for them, and it was not enough, everything here was so frozen in place here, and now it is all shattering and once we come back into the world, I can finally effect what I never could here - they rely on me! I cannot leave them now!”

Her voice broke, not with tears but with an excitement that she barely suppressed from thrumming freely through her. She made a sound like laughter, but it fell oddly and put Indis in mind of shattering porcelain. “And if they are well-established, that will be the best defense against the war. If not I, who will go in my stead? Who will care for them?”

“I rue the day that I brought you into Lower Tirion,” Indis said. Her daughter started violently against her; the stroking hand hung still and heavy in the middle of Indis' back. “Or I ought,” Indis added. “If I thought it changed the situation. If I were not so glad of all the good you did.” If her voice was as toneless and cold as it felt, then Lalwendë said nothing of it - she said nothing at all for a moment, and if her arms had not been around Indis, Indis might again have believed that her daughter had already vanished.

“My only regret, Am… is that you and Findis will not come. But you will take up my work here, won’t you? You know what there is to do.”

Indis nodded, then her head fell back against Lalwendë’s shoulder. She had been the one, after all, who had insisted Lalwendë choose something befitting the royal family to occupy her time in a way that served as an example to the people and taught her the humility that was befitting a leader.

Findis, prompted toward the same before her sister, had nurtured her talent in music and worked with her beloved Elemmírë as well as Makalaurë and sometimes even Rúmil to put the history of the Eldar into song and tale to preserve it in its original form, from the star-chants in the very earliest language to the bitter debates between the Unwilling and the Elves of the Journey, and the joy and peace of Aman. In her songs it had yet to shatter.

Lalwendë, although she loved hearing her sister sing, had decided to do more than preserve - spurred by her half-brother and some of his utterances, she had gone among the poor people distributing alms and listening to their sorrows at first, later gathering complaints and taking them to her parents, and after her father had un-kinged himself and gone to Formenos, to Indis and Nolofinwë. By then, the city had been sliding into a crisis - Fëanáro had torn many of the guilds apart by taking many of the most skilled craftsmen to Formenos, and Lalwendë had allowed herself barely a moment of complacency, her bright eyes burning with a steady grey flame as she recounted the conditions she had found and the measures she had taken, pacing through the throne room before the assembled council.

Indeed, Indis knew what her tasks would be, remaining to reign whatever remnant of the Noldor would stay in Aman. “I think,” she said softly to Lalwendë, eliciting another soft laugh, for her daughter could read the cadences of her voice and its meanings like a book, “that your people, those of them who remain here, will find their chances much improved, and many opportunities open to them that did not exist before. I shall see that they have them.”

In answer, Lalwendë’s hold tightened on her again, warm and gentle. “Am,” she said. “But that also means - perhaps means,” she corrected herself, “that these opportunities may not arise for the people who leave? If so many of them come…” she paused, and Indis looked up to see her face crumple into a grimace that had nothing to do with the eager, if anxious optimism for her people before, but was pure and simple - doubt. “If Fëanáro was right, saying to say farewell to…” her lips moved reluctantly, “... the weak…”

“No. Lalë, do not even think that. It may be true, even likely, that many of our structures here will replicate themselves in your new home. You have heard your sister sing of Cuiviénen often enough to know that much of the same held true when we first came to Aman. And you must consider that even if this stratification persists, you may not be given the time or opportunities you have here. It is a different land altogether, and with the benevolence of the Valar no longer upon you, the House of Finwë may find themselves lowered and humbled, and no longer in the same place that you inhabited in Aman. But never say farewell to the weak. It is upon their shoulders that we all rest, truly.”

“I know,” Lalwendë answered in a low voice. “Nolvo has already done what he can against Fëanáro in that respect; he gathered the people Fëanáro found unfit to accompany him to Formenos, and declared before them that he will make me Seneschal of his household. He said it was to grant me powers I would not otherwise have access to as Princess,” and here her lip curled in brief disdain, “so I could continue my work - and still I fear it will cause me to become mired in other duties… it is as you said, it is a new world, and war and dangers await us.”

She drew back from embracing Indis with her eyes wide, but full of resolve, and it seemed the roles reversed again. Lalwendë had turned into the anxious child again, even world-wise as she had become in her work.

Indis sighed.

“Whatever happens, and we would be fools to try and predict unknown unknowns, I am certain it will change you, Lalë. But you would be no daughter of mine if that change were not toward the better.” She tried to muster up the resolve it took to turn her back to Lalwendë. She had always known her daughter’s beloved, beautiful face like the lines on her palm, but now the time seemed too short to memorize it, so she could imagine future changes, and instead of turning away, she reached out for Lalwendë’s hands, folding their fingers together.

“If I were to decide - I would keep you with me, as my mother would have done with me. But what mother would I be if I could not let you go? Be well. Be safe. Return.”

Words failed her, after - they failed both of them. Lalwendë’s eyes remained dry, but her knuckles were white and her movements wooden as she knelt and lowered her head for Indis to bless her going. Indis’ fingers were cold while she spoke the farewell.

At last, when Lalwendë had gone and the door fallen shut behind her, Indis returned to the window and sank onto the little bench beneath, watching as her daughter emerged from the gate below, hurried through the stretch of dark lingering in the palace courtyard, but rather than vanish into shadow, was swallowed among the crowd and the lights.