Our Share of Night to Bear by Elleth

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Chapter VI: Storm

Grim tidings reach Nerdanel and Anairë en route to Tirion.

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The horses had been skittish ever since they had left Mahtan’s homestead. The air smelled of fall as it had towards the end of Nerdanel’s last visit to Formenos. There, where the light had always been weaker, Yavanna had decreed the trees habitually lose their leaves to rest at certain points of the year, but nearer to Tirion the withering evergreens shedding their foliage onto the road was enough to unsettle her.

Hísimë’s hoof sunk deep into a pile of dead leaves, and docile though she usually was, the horse yanked her head up, nearly tearing the reins from Nerdanel’s gloved hands. Beside them, Anairë’s horse nickered and danced. It spoke to her skill as a rider that Anairë easily gentled Morilintë and turned her from the distraction and back onto the road toward the distant city.

Almost immediately Hísimë gave a call of distress and followed, and Nerdanel breathed a sigh of relief. The long, slow ride toward Tirion through the cold had frozen her bones and muscles, and she doubted she would have been able to hold herself on horseback had Hísimë continued to dance. Nerdanel patted her neck, murmuring reassurances.

When they had caught up with Anairë, Nerdanel pulled the shawl from the lower half of her face, and for a moment her breath stood in a white plume in front of her mouth before dissipating. The cold air stung at her lips and nostrils. “Thank you,” she said to Anairë over the clop and crunch of the hooves. “I thought she would throw me.”

“It is a trick Írissë taught me - herd instinct is the surest way to get them to follow along,” Anairë answered. It seemed the significance of her words did not occur to her until a moment later, when her lips tightened in the shadow of her hood, and her eyes caught a hard glitter of starlight.

Nerdanel herself felt her throat tighten, but rather than give in to the new onrush of grief tried to breathe it away, pulling in lungful after lungful of cool air. It did very little, apart from spreading the ache of the cold through her body. Coming from within, it was not kept off by the expedition garb she wore, thick wool and fur-lined leather that had served her well when she and her father had gone prospecting for gems and metals in the Pelóri, often near the snow line. But then, the cold there had also not been a match for what they were facing now, streaming in from the void behind the open sky.

“You do not think they went of their own free will after all?” Nerdanel asked against her better wisdom.

At first the ride continued in silence. Nerdanel did not press Anairë, who had turned her face away, for an answer, and Anairë did not give it until they had passed from the open fields stretching on either side into one of the many farming hamlets that littered the road.

“Truly?” said Anairë as they passed through the shadows cast by the unlit houses against the starlight. “I know what I said before, but… I do not know. You know how Nolvo became when Finwë passed him the crown, and the strain that put on us…”

Anairë let the words peter out, pushed her hood back, and ran a hand through her hair until her fingers caught again in the braided crown at the back of her head, then tugged them free with a noise of frustration. “...but nothing short of Moringotto’s influence - not even Fëanáro, not even Finwë’s death - could have brought forth that. I was afraid of him, Nerdanel.”

Nerdanel nodded. Trying to oppose Fëanáro she had been afraid of - for - because of - Fëanáro as well, as much as she had been angry, and although he tended toward a placid, often mellow personality, there were times when his brotherhood with Fëanáro became regrettably obvious. Nonetheless it hurt.

“And that would leave him no free will in whether to leave or stay... I do not know if it was so simple, Anairë. Moringotto sought to deal Aman the heaviest blow he was capable of, and that included spreading his poison. I do not think we would have this conversation if we were unaffected and saw clearly, but Nolofinwë - and Fëanáro, for that matter - I do not think their decisions came from outside themselves. Even láta, their minds would have had to be broken first to force Moringotto’s will upon them, and he was more insidious than that. When Fëanáro was questioned, that was revealed. His trickery woke something in them that made them fall, but buried though it may have been before… it was theirs. Else I cannot in good conscience believe that the Valar would be content to let them go with so little attempt to sway them. They are certainly not victims only.”

Nerdanel passed the last building while she spoke, and emerged into the open field again. The exposure made her shudder, and a sudden gust of wind sweeping from the Calacirya with the distant odour of sea salt did nothing to ease her mind. She had ridden this road many times when the Trees still shone, and the width of the plains stretching until sight’s edge had always woken an odd, boundless joy in her; now Hísimë’s nervous whickering struck her to the bone, and every sensation in the dark did likewise. She wished now she hadn’t heeded her mother’s suggestion to leave her lamp unkindled and try and adapt to the darkness after the return of the stars: it had been their natural way of living for years upon years in Cuiviénen, after all, but for Nerdanel it lacked all the comfort her mother had promised, and with Hísimë continuing to skid about, she had now no hand free.

She looked forward to being on the causeway up to Tirion soon; it began lifting from the plain toward the foothills and the city not far ahead. Perhaps then the horses might calm.

“Spoken like someone who had time enough to reconcile herself with their loss,” Anairë’s voice said from behind Nerdanel, coolly, picking up the thread of the conversation again after a bout of silence. “Morilintë, what is it? Go.” She clucked her tongue, but still the horse would not move, her eyes wide and rolling with the whites showing even in the dark, her ears playing to pinpoint something neither Nerdanel nor Anairë were able to hear.

Anairë sighed and dismounted, and, laying a hand over Morilintë’s eyes, attempted to lead her forward, to no avail. The horse pulled backward into the shadow of the houses, and stood there panting, when at last another distant howl of wind came from the direction of Tirion, stronger than the first, and sent dead leaves skittering from the wagon ruts like a nest of mice across the pavement. Hísimë continued to fight. Nerdanel finally relinquished the reins from her aching hands, and Hísimë crowded into the same corner Morilintë had found.

Anairë said, after a moment of concentrated listening, her head tilted toward the distant tumult, “There are voices in the wind - a voice, at any rate. A woman’s.”

The next gust swept from the foothills, strong enough to slam an unfastened window-shutter against the wall of the house. Hísimë tossed her head. The brine-smell of the sea hit them both in the face once more, and when Nerdanel had dismounted and fumbled the lamp affixed to her saddle alight in time to see Anairë blanch as realization came to her.

“That was the Lady Uinen’s voice! Have you ever considered how they would cross the sea? Nerdanel, they must have swayed the Teleri! Eärwen!” she cried, all her restraint suddenly abandoned in favour of the restless energy that was such a vital part of her. “I must get to Alqualondë, Morilintë won’t budge, give me your horse! I cannot let her go!”

With frantic motions, Anairë dismounted and began to fumble with the straps that fastened Morilintë’s saddlebags. The blasts of wind continued, and if Nerdanel had not grabbed her reins, she was sure Morilintë would have bolted. Anairë’s fingers were shaking as she tried to fumble open another clasp; Nerdanel wrapped her free hand around them and held until they stilled.

Anairë stood, trembling, her dark eyes on Nerdanel’s face.

“Anairë,” she said, willing calm into her voice despite the fear for Alqualondë - the isolation of the Teleri had grown in recent years, and Olwë himself had renounced the Unrest, saying that he and his people were content, and their loyalty to the Ainur of the sea unwavering. Nerdanel swallowed the unease that the memory invoked, hoping the tremor in her voice would go unnoticed. “Eärwen is sensible. You know that she would not leave you.”

For a moment it looked like Anairë’s mouth opened and she wanted to object, perhaps once again invoke Nolofinwë and the change that had come over him, or Arafinwë claiming the lordship his marriage into Olwë’s house had granted him, but she seemed to think better of it, and the pinched look of worry that had drawn her face into a grimace relaxed, and she relented, briefly and warmly leaning in to wrap Nerdanel in her arms. But even then, not all the tension had gone from her body - and Uinen’s screams continued to rush down at them with the wind.

“Trust you to help ground me,” Anairë murmured into Nerdanel’s shoulder, and then pushed herself away, to fix the straps she had worried loose. “Eärwen loves me, in a manner that Nolofinwë has never done… she rejected Arvo, even, as I did Nolvo. For one another.” She sucked in a heavy breath.

“Some of us long suspected,” Nerdanel said, although Anairë’s voice was tinged with regret, and bit her lips. She did not begrudge Anairë and Eärwen their bond, and whatever the nature of it was was not hers to question, especially not at such a time, but that Nerdanel herself should again find herself bereft alone out of the three of them stung. She mounted Hísimë again when Anairë was ready for departure.

“You should not let her wait. Whatever -” she swallowed around her heart pounding in her throat, and willed away the taste of bile that rose at the thought - “whatever happened at Alqualondë to grieve the Lady Uinen, I am certain Eärwen will be watching for you. I will go to the palace alone and tell Indis, if she does not already know.”

“I hope -” Anairë began, but her words faltered as her eyes fixed onto the road. On the causeway not far distant, a globed light was swaying toward them in a runner’s hand, but the dark figure’s gait was stumbly and unsteady; the netted lamp swinging wildly with every movement.

“That is a Fëanárian Lamp!” Nerdanel finally succeeded in driving Hísimë from the sheltered corner into a gale of wind, and as though she sensed her rider’s renewed will and urgency she plunged forward into a gallop toward the runner. Anairë was following not far behind.

The distance flew by.

Hísimë had barely skidded to a stop on the smooth pavement that Nerdanel dismounted and headed forward through the last stretch of darkness with a cry of recognition. The heavy boots, the white shift, the blonde hair now matted by sweat and the braids torn both by the storm and what must have been a relentless race.

It was an ill omen, at best.

“Estelindë? Estelindë! Are they well?”

She was the last person Nerdanel had expected to find. She herself had asked her friend to accompany Fëanáro and her sons to Formenos; they all trusted her, having known her from their very first breaths. Often it had been Estelindë’s hand that had coaxed them to breathe in the first place, and it had taken no request of Nerdanel’s for the Master Healer of the House of Finwë to accompany them into Exile; although she had renewed her own oath to Nerdanel to watch over them all, if she could.

Estelindë said nothing, merely stopped and swayed on her feet trying to suck in enough breath to fill her lungs; her face shone with sweat and tears, her narrow eyes bloodshot, and she reached out an arm to steady herself against Nerdanel’s shoulder, her fingers digging through Nerdanel’s garb with painful strength. The lamp slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor but did not shatter; the netting protected the crystal within from the impact. It rolled over the stones, momentarily dipping everything into a sharp blue light.

“You have --” Estelindë gasped. Her throat was so parched that the words were nearly unintelligible. “Nerdanel, you have -- to Alqualondë. They’ll -- take the ships, by force --” she sucked in another breath, doubled over and coughed painfully until her voice returned and she rasped, “they wouldn’t listen, you need to come at once, perhaps you can still -”-

Words couldn’t describe the weight of dread that settled onto Nerdanel, and she pulled Estelindë back upright. “You ran all the way from Alqualondë? Estelindë, what are they doing, how did you come here? Are they safe?”

“From the - encampment. My horse - bolted halfway. But - they were thr-” another cough, and Nerdanel wished she had a flask of water or some of the honey that Estelindë’s mother made to ease her friend’s speech, but she also knew that if Estelindë, even with her history of self-sacrifice, had put herself through this ordeal to deliver her message, she wouldn’t stop to take the slightest thought to herself, Master Healer though she was.

“- threatening violence in their council, Fëanáro, Tye -Tyelko and Curvo -- Olwë did not yield the ships; so the boys - they’re oath-bound to obey, they must have done - the storm, they wouldn’t listen to - me, but they - they will - to their mother!”

Anairë pushed forward, ashen-faced, while Nerdanel still tried to process Estelindë’s words and implications - her husband had threatened Nolofinwë before, but her sons, to bloody their swords - her mind, repulsed, wrenched from that thought.

“No! If that is what they have turned to, then there is no swaying. You saw us at the gates!” Nerdanel replied at last, pressing Hísimë’s reins into Estelindë’s hands, and stooped to pick up the fallen lamp. “I could not sway Fëanáro then, and if - this - has already begun he will be swayed by no less than force used against him - ask others to restrain him, but not me!”

“Nerdanel,” Anairë said, “you can’t mean what you are saying there; the Teleri --”

Nerdanel closed her eyes and shook her head. There was bile rising in her throat, her mouth so dry her tongue stuck to it and became a heavy, clumsy thing. Her sons would not… but their father...

“No! I tried and failed in less desperate circumstances. What makes you think I could have an effect if it is already too late, if they were past listening to begin with? Take Hísimë, Estelindë; go back, try to save whom and what you can, but I am no healer, or miracle worker, and I must wash my hands of this!”

“Please! I swore an oath -- to you to -- keep them safe in Exile, and now you will not even -- aid me?”

“What can we do? We have no weapons, no armour, nothing; I will not step in front of him when he is intent on murder!”

“If you even refuse the att--” Estelindë forced out loudly, promptly doubling over into another raw coughing-fit. Spittle flew from her lips; Nerdanel recoiled.

“- the attempt - the blood of the Teleri is on your hands, too! Theirs, and that of your family!”

“If Uinen grieves it is already too late! You were not fast enough, we tarried too long, but I am not - none of us - is the one who wield their swords! The fault is not ours! You know that, Estelindë! You held to your own oath, I know you tried - but you are the one who must go back to them. Save who can be saved, go! I am ordering you!”

The next moments passed in a blur of Nerdanel pulling the wrapped statue of Nienna from the horse, Estelindë hesitating, inclining her head, for the blink of an eye Nerdanel thought Estelindë might spit at her, this time deliberately - but instead she swung into Hísimë’s saddle, Anairë followed suit into Morilintë’s, and the two of them thundered past, back in direction of the city.

Nerdanel remained behind, still clutching the statue and the lamp that Estelindë had brought, standing in the storm as though a blade of lightning had struck her to the heart.

How long until she began making her way, foot by numb foot, to the city gate, she could not say. It still was dark, and the wind bearing Uinen’s screams had not abated.

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Chapter End Notes

láta: "Open", in particular referencing an elvish state of mind when it comes to thought communication (ósanwë-kenta). When a mind is closed, no one, not even a Vala, is able to do anything short of breaking it; openness is necessary for manipulation like Morgoth's.