Our Share of Night to Bear by Elleth

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Chapter III: Plans

In spite of the darkness, things may begin to look up for Calassë and Máriel.

Her parents were faceless.

No matter which way Calassë ran around them as they walked steadily away, her bare feet slapping over cobbles and then over marble until they hurt as they neared the lower eastern gate of the city, no matter how much she screamed at them to stop and look at her until her lungs burned and her head ached from holding in the tears that would make her mother scold her if she had eyes to see and a mouth to speak, they didn’t react. There was only the sound of calm murmuring, murmuring that grew steadily louder.

When she woke, with her head and heart throbbing so hard she thought she’d split apart, it was Máriel's precocious voice that resolved itself into a stream of words somewhere nearby. Calassë looked up, tried to find her bearings in the strange room - Lady Saminquirë’s sitting room, she remembered - low, stiflingly warm and reeking with woodsmoke from the fire and the already-breathed air, the absurd collection of red plush armchairs - and in the middle of it all Máriel was seated in the middle of the floor by a candle that gave off pitifully little light, cross-legged with a heavy tome on her knees. The other children had come to sit in a half-circle around her.

Calassë felt an ugly stab of jealousy seeing that peaceful scene, and especially seeing the book that Máriel read from with such ease; an old thing with Sarati running down the pages, not even the simple tengwar that still gave Máriel problems.

“... the darkness of Middle-earth beneath the innumerable stars, faint and far. Then she began a great labour, greatest of all the works of the Valar since their coming into Arda. She took the silver dews from the vats of Telperion, and -”

Calassë coughed. Her throat was dry. Máriel’s head snapped up, and she couldn’t help feeling a little satisfied that she’d maybe startled her.

“Hello, it’s good you’re back awake. Won't you come join us? I'm reading them of the Awakening just now. You scared Írimellë with your dreaming, and Artaldë wanted to know where our parents were going.”

A wave of shame bloomed up in her chest and rose hot into her face. Her sister was sitting close to Máriel and was tracing her fingers over the paper; she hardly looked scared. "Away. So that's not the right story for this time, is it? Especially not now." Calassë said. It came out louder than she’d wanted, and there was a bite in the words. If she’d wanted that she wasn’t sure, but she knew she didn’t want Máriel to have everyone’s love, with Calassë herself being only a stumbling block and an ugly shackle on her leg. Her mother had called her that often.

“Oh. Why is it inappropriate?”

“It's inappropriate because I'm saying so. I found this place, and if you want to stay, you'll listen to me. That goes for all of you, is that clear?”

There were demure nods all around the circle, but Máriel held her head up stubbornly, and shut the book with a forceful thud, but did not let go of it. “I'll read them something else next time,” she said after a moment, her voice quiet. “I don't want to go out into the dark alone.”

Calassë had not expected that. The rush of her heartbeat throbbed loud in her ears.

“Well, you can stay. Just read them something else.”

She leaned back against the armchair and closed her eyes again, to the sound of pages rustling. It would be much easier to kick out Máriel, but for some reason – maybe because the children ringed around her like around someone they adored – she was reluctant to, even if it meant another mouth she couldn't feed.

And maybe, just maybe, they could go outside together.

If they went and scrabbled through the houses around, perhaps they'd find enough food to last them a little while. As if on cue, her stomach rumbled, and there was a hitch in Máriel's voice, which had begun with another story, a ridiculous morale thing about the Avari that had stayed behind. She wondered how the author of the story would know all that, or if it just was a stupid invention to make the parting easier to deal with. She supposed her family would soon find out, at least. And there came the tears again. She was growing tired of those. As the oldest she couldn't cry all the time, so she dragged her sleeve over her face again - it was soiled anyway - and sat up straight in her armchair, looking out at the city. The palace, which had been brightly lit before, was now dark as well, and only the lamp up in the Mindon still shone through the misty, rain-stained window against the backdrop of the low, wet clouds.

Her brother, wrapped in a pile of blankets, made a noise; a tiny, thin sound that barely even still sounded like a baby's voice any longer. It was more like a newborn cat's, like the sounds of the litter of kittens Írimellë had discovered in the hayloft of the Yavannildi's estate the past summer, when they had helped Mistress Lúlë deliver cloth for their new garments, and to help reef their windmill's sails after the old ones had worn away. They'd been allowed to explore, and Írimellë had come back with three tiny kittens, their eyes still closed and the mother cat trailing after her with anxious noises, before they'd put the babies back into their nest, and the mother cat, with angry looks from her bright green eyes, had begun grooming them vigorously.

Her brother mewled again, and it was Máriel who was on her feet first, giving Calassë an imploring look.

“I didn’t even ask yet - what is his name?” she asked, and Calassë could only shake her head vaguely. Her parents hadn't given him one yet, and every time they had tried in the four weeks since he had been born, they had been driven apart yelling at each other over it, with the baby's loud wails in the middle. She'd slept at Mistress Lúlë's house more than once, even though there seemed to be a lot of anger everywhere, and even Mistress Lúlë, usually so kind and gracious, had argued with her maid over a lot of very little things – the shade of blue of the dresses they'd wear for the festival upon Taniquetil, a sauce being too watery, the state of Mistress Lúlë's herb pots that were already rankling down the walls from the windows. But at least they'd been quiet enough for Calassë to pull a pillow over her ears and try to sleep. Not so here. Especially not with Máriel around.

She shook her head again and wiped a strand of hair off her cheek. “He doesn't have one. They couldn't agree on anything. I've been calling him Toron when I needed to call him anything. He's only a month old, he doesn't understand yet.” Her voice made a horrible gurgling sound, like all the tears and snot of crying she couldn't let out were flowing down her throat to choke her.

“It's fine, it's fine. I'll just call him Toron, then, too. It's a good name for now,” Máriel murmured. "But do you know what to feed him?" She took up the baby and rocked him in her arms, pacing the room, and in passing she stroked a hand over Calassë's hair. “It's obvious that you didn’t have any milk for him, the time you tried to feed him.”

Calassë wanted to bat the hand away, but for a moment she allowed herself to let the touch be, and the next Máriel was past her and began singing softly.

She sang like a lark, low and sweet and lilting. Of course she did.

“Don’t,” she murmured, but Máriel did not hear her. “We need to do something more than just sing. That won't feed my brother, and if he sleeps any longer it'll be the Lady Míriel's sleep soon.”

Máriel’s song had stopped. “Then what do you suggest we do instead?” came Máriel's voice, now anything but sweet, verging on tears herself.

“I don't know! What do you do when our parents are gone and the Trees died, and it's dark and cold and my brother is starving because I don't have anything to feed him and -” something hitched funnily in her throat, and then the tears came for good, and then her brother was in her lap and Máriel’s arms went around her, holding tight with unexpected strength. She smelled faintly of parchment and dust and her hair tickled Calassë’s face.

“It is going to be fine,” Máril whispered.

Calassë shrugged her shoulders and drew her arm over her face, hoping that her voice wouldn't fail her entirely. “We'll give him water so he has something to drink, and go into the city when the rain's stopped. There must be other people there. Maybe the Lady Írimë didn't leave. She always looked out for the Weavers, that's why we named Írimellë after her. And then she'll know what to do. Or we'll see what we do, if she's left as well. Then we'll just fend for ourselves. But we also need to find food soon,” she said and then paused, feeling Máriel’s hold slack around her, although she didn’t yet draw back.

“There… wasn’t any in the house. I looked.” She stared down at her brother’s face. His eyelids were already drooping again.

Máriel pulled back, crouching before the armchair, and gave her a long look that put Calassë in mind of her mother wanting to scold her, but being too tired when she had dragged herself home from the market or where else in the city she had been working, and found something she didn’t like - the food there was, or that there was too little food left for her because she and Írimellë had been so hungry.

Except that Máriel clamped her lips together and didn’t say a word, but her pretty eyes with their long lashes flickered here and there instead of looking at Calassë directly as though she knew about the lie and didn’t want to admit that she did.

“Maybe you can help me look. You’re smart,” Calassë added. “When the rain stops.”

“It stopped quite some time ago,” Máriel answered, giving the windows a glance. “You were asleep, and you seemed like the rest would do you well, so we resolved to let you sleep until you woke up on your own. I am sorry if I woke you with my reading.”

Calassë shook her head. “I wasn’t that tired anywa--” she didn’t get to finish the word, and her mouth opened wide in a yawn. Heat rushed into her face.

Some of the children who had crowded closer giggled, quiet and quick as though they didn’t quite dare. Even Máriel’s lips twitched.

“--anyway. And we still need food.”

“Going as a pair seems like the best idea,” Máriel suggested after a moment. “Now that the rain has passed, the air should be clear, and nothing bad will happen to us. It just is dark now, and there should be no problem finding something.”

“But what about Melkor?” a voice piped up. Little Quiquillë, herself not much older than Írimellë, looked at the rest of the group. “My Amil said he ate up the Trees and now he’s wanting to eat us up as well…” Her face creased.

“You’re very sweet,” Calassë said to the little girl, and forced a grin. “And I’d like to eat you up as well, but it’s really safe out there. The Valar chased him away. No one’s going to eat anybody here.”

Víresso, one of the older boys, snorted, and opened his mouth.

“Shut your trap, Víresso,” Calassë snapped. He was few years younger than Calassë who had somehow tricked his way into the favour of a lord in the upper city who had arranged his schooling with the lord’s own children. Since then, Víresso had started behaving like he was something better than the other people from the Weavers’ Quarter. He talked a lot like Máriel, when he talked at all, but at least Máriel didn’t sound like she had a weaving shuttle sticking up where it hurt.

“I know a solution,” Máriel piped in, smiling at Víresso in a way that made Calassë doubt her mind. Víresso smiled back.

“Víresso is going to stay here as protector. There will not be many people left in Tirion. If they become as desperate as we are, then they will begin looting where it makes the most sense, and that is the houses of the rich. This is a rich house, but I am certain Víresso should be able to defend everyone while Calassë and I will be finding us provisions that last us until we have decided what more to do about our situation.”

A murmur went around the circle of children. Víresso crossed his arms and looked unhappy now that he understood he had been duped, and seeing Máriel grinning, Calassë would have liked to hug her - just quickly, but hug her anyway, even as little as she wanted to leave the house in the dark.

She’d do it for Írimellë and for Toron.

Írimellë turned dark eyes on her, and Calassë squirmed under her little sister’s look, although the little girl said nothing. “I promise I’ll be back as soon as I’m able,” she said. “And Víresso will be looking after you, so you won’t be alone.”

Still, when she and Máriel got up to leave, she thought that Írimellë was trying not to cry.

Chapter End Notes

Toron simply means 'brother'.

The excerpt on the Awakening of the Elves that Máriel was reading toward the beginning of the chapter was of course taken from the Silmarillion.

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