Our Share of Night to Bear by Elleth

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Chapter I: Steerless

Left alone with 'her' group of children, Calassë must try and find a way to take care of them.

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Calassë had been in Lady Saminquirë’s house once before, when she had just begun her apprenticeship with Mistress Lúlë, and the matron of the Weavers’ Quarter had been wanting to have a good look at her. She’d been pressed into one of the plush red armchairs that still littered the sitting room, and was served a cup of sweet red wine that rose right from her empty stomach into her head and loosened her tongue. After a while when all the questions had been asked and she had grown tired, the two women had left to conduct some other business, and she'd been allowed to stay in the long, low room beneath the roof where she had been content to watch the light of Laurelin slip over the wall paintings and gilded ornaments.

Now she dumped down a final pile of blankets and pillows she’d found in the maid’s chamber, as well as a little hand mirror inscribed with Lialmë’s name across the back, and looked around. Little of what she remembered had changed - if anything, Lady Saminquirë had come to enjoy opulence a lot more, and by some miracle the looters had not touched the upper floor of her house. Now the room lay awash in the light of candles and oil lamps set along the walls, and a low fire was crackling in the grate. She set her own candle down and turned around to find her little sister close behind her, clutching her own little candle-stub - close enough that she easily might have singed Calassë’s skirt.

“Írimellë, I told you twice already, keep a step back,” she said and crouched by her, prising the clump of wax from her tiny fingers. “I don’t want you lighting me on fire!”

Írimellë sniffled and stared at the floor. “It’s dark. I don’t like it when it’s dark.”

“I know,” Calassë said, ruffled her hair, and smoothed the dark locks down again. She hated the sense of helplessness that bubbled up in her throat. It felt too much like tears. “But as long as we stay in here, there is at least a little bit of light.” She didn’t like to think of the moment when their stash of candles and firewood ran out; for now the way they’d been set up - in front of mirrors and other reflecting things - made the room bright enough to blur the shadows into something soft-edged that felt cozy rather than threatening even with the dark staring in through the windows. Still, the other children had all huddled into armchairs or taken some of the blankets and pillows, and built themselves a nest on the floor where they’d curled up. None of them even looked glad that they at least had gotten out of the rain.

Írimellë piped up, “I want my candle,” but Calassë shook her head.

“Here,” she said, leaning Lialmë’s mirror against the wall and putting Írimellë’s and her own candle before it. “That way it is a little more light. And we should try and sleep a little now.”

* * *

Wrapped in a blanket on the floor, Calassë wasn’t sure how long she had slept when a boy’s voice made her bolt upright and straight into wakefulness, although it took her a moment to get her bearings.

Lady Saminquirë’s sitting room. Their parents gone, and -

“- Thamnis said the King is dead, that’s why everyone left, and the Princes, too!” The boy who was talking ducked his face into the cushions of the armchair he was sharing with Írimellë to hide the tears running down his cheeks freely.

“What’s dead?” Írimellë piped, before Calassë could stop or distract either of them.

“It means you’re stupid and a baby if you don’t know!”

“Am not!”

“Are too! Baby, baby! Pityinkë, lapsë, winimë!”

“Not!” After that, Írimellë began howling in wordless fury and hurled her body against the boy who had been taunting her. The armchair tipped over and spilled them to the floorboards with a dull crash, in a mess of tangled limbs. Her brother, woken by the noise, began to yammer, and someone else in the room started crying.

Írimellë, who had by some luck fallen on top, began pummeling against the boy with two tiny fists, and although he - one of the newcomers rather than one of the Weavers’ children - seemed older than Írimellë’s three years, he looked so slight and hollow-faced that Calassë feared her baby sister would snap him in half if she continued hitting him. She pulled Írimellë away by the neckline of her shirt and into her arms, where she quieted and clung on, scrambling into her sister’s embrace and pressing a tear-wet face against her arm.

“When Mother comes back I’ll tell her!”

Calassë didn’t have the heart to repeat that their parents weren’t coming back, instead she nudged the curled-up boy with her foot. He peeked between his fingers and sniffed, and then muttered, “Didn’t even hurt, she’s just a baby,” though his voice threatened to spill over into tears, and it didn’t take much effort to gather him into Calassë’s arms as well. Írimellë pushed against him once.

“Now. Stop fighting or next we know you’ll not just just knock over an armchair, but the candles as well, and that would be very bad,” she said, straining to make her voice sound adult and reasonable, the way Mistress Lúlë had taught her to deal with buyers who came into the shop when she was alone. “And you, you need to tell me who you are,” she said to the boy. “I haven’t seen your face here before.”

“‘m Tavaron of the woodworkers. And Thamnis is my Ammë’s... she lives with me and my Ammë.”

“And your father?”

Tavaron shrugged his shoulders and pressed his lips together. “Don’t need one because of Thamnis, Ammë says.”

Calassë sighed. “Fine. But they went away and left you behind as well?”

Tavaron shook his head wildly. “We got hungry after it went dark and nobody in the city wanted to give us food because of - because Thamnis' name is funny, Ammë said, so we went with the other woodworkers. They said it's better where they're going, and that the trees here are all gonna die because of the dark – not just the Two – all of them! But then - " his face crumpled. "- they weren't there anymore! I lost them!" The words came out in a desolate wail. "I wanted to go with them to where it's better! Over the sea!"

“Shhh,” Calassë said, and by now even Írimellë was clumsily patting his hair. “I’m sure they’ll come searching for you when they can, but Tirion is very big and maybe they’ll be looking for you at your home first. Where do you live?”

She felt sick lying to him. Her own parents and those of all the others in the house had left without a proper goodbye, but the idea of his family returning seemed to be cheering Tavaron, and he wiped at his face. That only smeared more tears and snot over it, but some of the sadness cleared from his eyes. “Luvailin, by the timber-yard near the waterfall," he explained, hiccuping but trying to keep his voice under control now. "Thamnis cuts the trees, and then Ammë helps float the timber down to the sea and raft it to the Teleri towns for their ships and things.”

“We’re in the Weavers’ Quarter here, and you came all the way from the Shadowmere? No wonder you lost each other. It’s almost the other side of the city, and with the murk and the rain it’s -”

Tavaron bobbed his head, looking up at her through red-rimmed eyes. “But you’ll help me find them?”

One of the other girls spoke up before Calassë could answer. “Not while the rain persists.” It was the girl who had studied the drops on her hands, had helped light the candles, and who had been looking after the younger children while Calassë had kept searching through the house. In the light of the lamps around the room, Calassë could see, more clearly now than before, that she had wavy brown hair framing a sweet, round face, and her dress complimented the brown of her skin - but, Calassë realized, the gold-wrought brocade would need one of Master Yarcardo’s looms to weave.

Nothing that precious would ever have graced Mistress Lúlë’s shop. Only people in the upper city could afford such fine clothing. The girl spoke like them as well, her every word perfectly measured and pronounced with care. Lady Saminquirë had no family, but the she looked like she wouldn’t be out of place living in this house.

“What?” Calassë asked. “Why do you think you can give ord--”

The girl smiled, apparently unfazed by the rough tone, and crouched down by them. “My Atto is Mirimon Melindil of the Coiviengolmor; he suspected that this would be a consequence of Melkor’s actions. It is not only the pollution of Melkor and Ungoliant, but now that the Trees can no longer dissolve them, fogs are also drifting in from the sea. Both are mingling, and falling down as this dirty rain. It would be best if we did not expose ourselves to it.”

Calassë grit her teeth. They had not been hiding long - a few hours at most, she thought, although it was hard to be certain in the dark, and it felt like days, or what had been days before - but the thought of needing to take care of the children for much longer made her nervous. “Who are you, anyway?”

“My name is Máriellë Eruvandë, but everyone just calls me Máriel,” the girl said. “And you don’t have to behave as though you were solely responsible for everything. I am almost your age, I think, and we can cooperate again.”

“Mine’s Calassë, and how about you find your father instead, if he’s so smart? Why didn’t you stay with him?”

Máriel squared her shoulders. “Because I am old enough to take care of myself, and he took the opportunity to further his studies about our origins. He went with King Nolofinwë.” Something in her green eyes flickered painfully.

“Dumb Nolofinwë,” muttered Tavaron. “Thamnis says.”

“You don’t look sad,” Artaldë piped in, one of the baker’s twins from further down the city. She had curled up on the seat of one of the armchairs with her brother Armacil. “Aren’t you sad he’s gone? I’m sad my Ammi and Ata left.”

Máriel took a moment to answer, but she put on another smile and shook her head. “He and Amil were gone a lot. They went sailing with the Teleri to Tol Eressëa and to explore the sea, and with the chance ahead that the Exile offered he was very excited - and he was very worried for me, so he gave me a kiss and went away. I am used to solitude, so it is for the best.”

Calassë released Tavaron and Írimellë, who were both listening to Máriel, and climbed to her feet, but she couldn’t help whisper “liar” to Máriel. In response, the girl just smiled brighter, and sent her brown hair flying as she shook her head again. Some of the other children, like little Maitirno the dyer’s son, had crept closer during the conversation, and now he sat sucking a blue-stained thumb into his mouth, a habit he’d stopped years ago. Under the frazzles of dark hair hanging into his eyes, he looked as hungry as the rest of them.

“I’m going to go make food,” Calassë announced. She needed to get away, at least for a moment, from all of them. “And since Máriel wants to help so badly, she can look after you again while I’m downstairs.”

She only took a pause to see to the bundle of blankets she’d put down in a patch of lamplight. Her baby brother had fallen back asleep, so Calassë took a candle and closed the door to Lady Saminquirë’s sitting room behind her. Back inside, she could hear Írimellë starting to cry, and Máriel’s voice answering.

In the dark stairwell to the kitchen she made her way down with one hand on the wall. Shadows trembled before her as the flame whipped around in a sudden draft of cold air that made her stop with pounding heart, thinking of her warning to Írimellë about the things in the shadows that some of the others claimed they’d seen, and for a moment she found she couldn’t move, or breathe.

She pressed against the wall and bit down hard on her lips until the gust of wind abated.

Even then it took Calassë a moment to move on and peer around the stairwell wall before stepping into the empty kitchen. They hadn’t searched it before; because even from further away the stench of sour milk made her want to retch. It was strong even though the kitchen windows were smashed, and more of the fat, dark raindrops rolled off the glass shards that still clung to the frames.

Pots and pans had been dragged from their hooks and shelves; a sack of grain had split open and scattered across the floor. The single grains crunched like little pebbles under Calassë’s feet before she dropped to her knees and brushed some of them into a heap. Even though they were on the floor, and whoever had been in here before had dragged in dirt from the street, she thought she could wash them, and perhaps cook them in a stew if she found anything else, or at least make grain mash if nothing else was left in the pantry.

The pantry door hung askew in its angles and wouldn’t budge when she pulled, so Calassë squeezed through the gaps and inside. The stench of sour milk was stronger there, and the floor sticky; then her foot landed in something wet and soft that burst under her weight. It smelled like rotten apple.

Calassë gagged when the stench hit her nostrils, and almost backed outside again - but then her eyes lit on an array of spices - and an upended glass of fat white beans that the looters hadn’t taken. If she picked up all of them, even the ones that had gone crushed underfoot; she could probably make soup that’d feed them all; perhaps even her little brother would take it, only a little bit, to tide him over until they found him milk.

A cry of joy wanted out, but Calassë bit down on her knuckles to stifle it. A warm meal would be a happy surprise, even if she wasn’t the best cook; she set her candle aside, and crouched to brush the beans into her shirt from the shelves and pick them from the ground, careful not to step into the milk or the rotten apple again. Like the grain she hoped washing them would be enough, and soon the front of her shirt bulged out. Her mother would have scolded her for stretching the fabric, as she’d always scolded her or Írimellë or even their father, but instead of stopping she only dropped another handful of beans into her shirt and stuck her tongue out into the darkness in a moment of giddy defiance.

“You left us alone, so I’m an adult now, and you can’t tell me to stop!”

There was no reply, but she didn't care much and set to work.

Soon after, a dented pot was bubbling away over the hearth fire she’d managed to kindle. She’d drawn water from Lady Saminquirë’s private well in the garden that ran deep into the rock of Túna and hopefully still was sweet, but by the time she’d washed the grain and beans and poured the dirty water away, her arms were heavy from the weight of the bucket, and the skin from her scalp all the way down her back had gone numb from whatever Máriel had said was in the rain.

She yawned and tucked her legs under her and leaned against the side of the hearth where the wall was nice and warm, and even though her eyes were growing heavy she kept them trained on the fire. She’d had to cook at home when both her parents were busy, and it had never been very good, but Írimellë at least had always wolfed the food down without complaining, no matter if it was much too salty, and when they had meat, Írimellë had always picked the bits of it out with special joy. There wasn’t any of that left here, and Calassë hadn’t known half the spices in the pantry. They’d probably come with a caravan from the south of Aman to the markets of the upper city where the rich people went and she’d not used any of them, but at least the food would be warm and maybe a little comforting. They must all be hungry, and her own mouth was watering. The smell…

… was that of food that had burned. Calassë wrenched her eyes open and lounged at the fire, nearly tripping over her own feet because her legs were asleep. The pins and needles began when she knelt by the fire to stir the soup, to find that it wasn’t soup any longer, just a thick, starchy, brownish-grey mush, and black, burned bits floated up when she stirred harder.

She pulled the pot from the fire and blinked away her tears and the hot throbbing of her fingertips where they’d touched the metal.

Maybe the food could still be eaten - at least it would still be warm - so she ladled some into a bowl to try it, grimacing when the burned beans and grain slid down her throat with a taste that was both bitter and somehow differently awful. Calassë hadn’t even finished it when her stomach clenched and she pressed her fingers over her mouth to keep from soiling the kitchen, raced out into the garden and was sick into the flowerbeds. The flowers all lay wilted and yellow anyway, and she knelt in a puddle that made her knees go numb as well while more rain pattered down on her, and she tried not to cry over the taste in her mouth and because she’d ruined it all - the beans and the grain, and probably she’d not cleaned them well enough, and then she’d dozed and let the food burn, and if not even she could eat, she wouldn’t even be able to feed her brother eventually, like her mother said she might, if she tried, and wished for her body to do so enough.

She was still crying when she carried the pot outside and tipped it over in the same place where she had been sick, then she washed her mouth and hands and snuck back upstairs in the dark. Her candle had long since burned out, and the crack of light under the sitting room’s door made her never to leave again - but when she crept back in she saw that the others had gone back to sleep in their landscape of pillows and blankets - except for Máriel, who lay awake near the baby, and was stroking Írimellë’s head with a soft brown hand. She’d curled up against Máriel’s stomach the way she’d usually do with Calassë, and Máriel, taking one look at Calassë’s dirty knees and wet clothes, patted the blanket beside her.

In the soft light of the room her eyes looked wide with pity, but she didn’t say a word.

Calassë turned around roughly. There still was an armchair in the corner by the window that no one was sleeping in, and she curled up in that, staring past the curtain of droplets on the window into the night until her sight up the slope of the hill blurred, and the pale lamp of the Mindon and the golden light of the palace windows on the hilltop swam over the misted glass - she wasn’t sure whether with the rain or with tiredness or tears, but she closed her eyes anyway. They probably had all they needed there, food and comfort, and they were not alone. They’d be fine. As always.

She wiped the sleeve of her shirt over her face. She couldn’t do this. She’d never be able to take care of everyone. She’d never be able to take care of anyone. Nothing was going to be fine in Lady Saminquirë’s house.

“Calassë?” she thought she heard Máriel whisper once, but she squeezed her eyes shut tighter and didn’t reply.

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Chapter End Notes

Tavaron's remarks about Thamnis and his Ammë should be fairly straightforward; the references to them talking strangely and the "dumb Nolofinwë" remark are based on the fact that his family has their allegiance with the House of Fëanor. In ordinary Quenya Thamnis' name would at that point have become Samnis, but they have maintained Fëanor's th-s Shibboleth in his absence.

Coiviengolmor was coined after the attested Lambengolmor, the Loremasters of Tongues, i.e. linguists. The Coiviengolmor are the Loremasters of Life, biologists.

"and wished for her body to do so enough" - references the idea from the Laws and Customs that Elves have a greater mental control about the physical aspects of their bodies than humans do, and whether or not this is factual within the fictional world, I decided to adapt it as a belief, at least (any more info on this would be a spoiler for future chapters, my apologies for the vagueness).

Finally, I'm sorry for the delay in this update; the chapter needed more revision than I'd expected, but thank you all so much for your enthusiasm about the prologues, and your patience waiting for this. Next week we'll look in on Nerdanel and how she's doing.