Moon in the heat of summer by Quente

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Nimloth is a hot mess and Dior likes it.

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The leaves were long, the grass was green, and Nimloth the Fair was being dragged through the halls of Menegroth toward Elu Thingol, Beleg gripping one arm and Mablung the other. They paused at the guard outside of the great hall.

“Again?” the guard said, eyeing Nimloth distastefully. The hemlock umbels had left their white petals in her hair, which would have been lovelier had her hair not been stained dark as a Golodhrim with mud. Her raiment was similarly torn, the green dress in shreds above her very practical leather pants. Her skin was mottled like a deer.

Beleg shot the guard a weary look. “All the way out near the south station. Thank the stars we were guarding her when the orcs came.”

“I tell you they would not have found me,” Nimloth said, equally weary. “I was up a tree, and very still.”

“You were shining in the moonlight like a beacon,” Mablung said, sighing.

Nimloth opened her mouth, and closed it again. They were in the great hall of carven trees, lit from above by yellow-green light so like sunlight that it may as well have been. They followed a path to Thingol’s throne carefully, avoiding the little carved rills that ran through the room. It was as like to a forest glade as the art of the Elves could make it, and yet, to Nimloth’s eyes, it was a still thing devoid of the real life of the forest.

Thingol sat looking perplexed, and flanking him was Nimloth’s father, of course. Both of them had similar expressions of exasperation, and Nimloth wondered how long she’d be confined to Menegroth this time.

When she bowed before the throne, gathering up what skirts were still left, laughter rippled through the gathered court. Nimloth ignored it, thinking about how real birds were far more beautiful, in all their imperfect honesty, than carved ones.

“My king,” Galathil said, looking sideways. “I would speak with my daughter privately.”

“There is just one thing that I would know,” Thingol said, resting his chin upon his fist. “What draws you to the wild, young Nimloth? Can you not stay nearer home?”

Nimloth thought of the sparrowhawk she’d followed from just outside the rocky cleft of Menegroth’s doors, down along the Esgalduin, to the very edge of the realm. “The hawk would not stay so close,” she explained. “And I wished to see it fly.”

“You followed the hawk to the far western border,” Thingol said, brows drawing together.

“She was in a tree,” Beleg said, “watching the hawk when the orcs came. There were two score of orcs in the party; we left none alive.”

Galathil’s face grew distressed as he heard of Nimloth’s close brush with danger, but Thingol looked expressionless, as if thinking of distant things.

“You are a precious child of our realm,” Thingol said finally, “and must not endanger yourself thus. Your father will mete out your consequences, but I would give you other occupation. Can you not assist your queen in her work about the girdle?”

Nimloth bowed her head. There was nothing safer than trotting along after Melian as she did her rounds of singing in her girdle; all of the plants and animals welcomed her gladly, and there was never strife in the forest when Melian was about.

But unexpectedly, Celeborn spoke. “Galadriel and I shall go visit Tol Galen soon, on our way to explore the Blue Mountains. Will you come with us as far as Luthien’s realm?”

That was farther than Nimloth had ever been from the kingdom of her birth, and she smiled at Celeborn then, feeling her fetters loosen just a little – and along with it, Beleg and Mablung’s hold on her arms. “I will go,” she said, “if my father allows it.”

Later, in their bower in a passageway off the main hall, Galathil was silent for a long while, gazing at the tapestry Nimloth’s mother had embroidered when she was very young. Swan-prowed ships floated on an azure sea, and beyond it lay Tirion upon Túna, fair and white.

Lagreth was gone, back to the Falathrim that were her people. The sea-longing had grown too much for her, and she had left Nimloth and Galathil safe in Menegroth to return to the sea. Nimloth had not seen her mother in many long decades, enough that Nimloth no longer missed her.

“I fear you have your mother’s restless spirit,” Galathil said finally, “And that if I let you go, you will not return.”

“I will return,” Nimloth said, and felt it shiver somewhere deep within her. “I will live the rest of my life in Menegroth.” She knew it to be true.

Her words seemed to reassure her father, and he bowed his head. “Do not tarry long in the wilds, my strong one. And … go wash your hair before you depart.”

~

Nimloth donned finery when they departed despite her best protestations; Lúthien could maintain her gowns and jewels while dancing about in the wild, but Nimloth never had the talent. Nimloth had no Maiar blood, and the bushes and brush that parted before Lúthien seemed to almost join forces to impede Nimloth’s way.

Besides, there was always a tree to climb, or a blackberry bramble to fall into, or a lake to wade in (Nimloth found singing and dancing in glades somewhat repetitive after a week or two).

And so Nimloth sat in a fine gossamer dress all in silver to make her a pale and shimmering moon, and looked around her at the company of the people of Finarfin, clad in gold with the crest of a sun at sunset. This was the company that had stayed with Galadriel during her years in Menegroth, and were now mingled with the Sindar of Celeborn’s house as one people.

“Remain with Galadriel’s folk,” Galathil said to Nimloth sternly at their farewell. “The country there is unprotected, and it is clear you know nothing of true danger.”

“And Lúthien’s folk will bring me home,” Nimloth muttered, sighing. She was all set to see the larger world, but already had a collar around her neck.

They set out with Melian singing a farewell, so that even the trees around her waved and swayed to bless their departure. Galathil watched after her silently, another pale beacon against the shadow of the great Hirilorn. He held up a hand and Nimloth waved back. At the very least, she’d be outside of the protected woods of her home, for the very first time.

~

Their progress was slow. By the first day, Nimloth’s dress was ripped when she’d sent her horse Gwedal on a wild chase through the woods after a fascinating pitch-black kine. By the second day, her hair was snarled with burdock to the point where even Galadriel’s handmaidens threw up their hands at it.

By the third day, they crossed the Aros and Nimloth finally felt the constraints of the blessed wood fall away from her shoulders. South of them lay the tall range of the Andram as it cut across the country. To the west lay the fens that led to the falls of Sirion, but their party was going east – along the gently sloping land at the bottom edge of the mountains.

The world was larger here, the vistas overlaying Nimloth’s senses with many different greens. Instead of forest there were vast plains leading to lakes and rivers and copses of low-branched hawthorn trees. The birds were different here too – from the fens came the long-legged storks, and from the mountains, the swallow-tailed kites, and kestrels, and ospreys.

When the company hunted for their dinner, Nimloth joined them, her dress now so impractical that Celeborn lent her a set of his leather. They were serviceable and kept her protected from the midges, but were very very warm in the increasing humidity of the summer days as they journeyed east.

Finally there was an enormous river in the distance – the Sirion. They crept toward it at an agonizingly slow pace. The company was in no great hurry to move through the land, and Galadriel paused to observe everything – every rock, and tree, and bird.

It was, Nimloth thought, as if Galadriel was bidding farewell to the land.

When they finally reached Amon Ereb, Nimloth saw other mountains to the east that she had never seen before. They marched south along the land to provide a lush backdrop to the many rivers and falls of Ossiriand, a land as green as a garden. The moment Nimloth saw the mountains, she felt another wave of foresight. Somewhere over there, in Ossiriand, lay her future.

~

“We shall rest here before we cross the Sirion,” Galadriel ordered one afternoon, and many fair tents were raised for what looked like a relatively long encampment.

Nimloth sighed. They were so close, and it was very warm, and her horse shifted restlessly on the soft grass.

“Uncle,” Nimloth said to Celeborn, raising her chin, “I am going hunting across the river.”

Celeborn observed her thoughtfully, taking in the tangled hair and obstinate chin and restless horse, and then spoke a moment silently to Galadriel.

Then he looked up and smiled. “All is well, Nimloth – we are nigh to Lúthien’s realm. Go and ford the river at the shallows yonder. We shall meet you again at Tol Galen.”

~

Dior was guarding the herd of deer from the cover of a bush when he saw the hunter.

They were friends of his father, that small herd. The mothers were does of eight and nine years, and their six fawns from the tall, ten-pointed stag had been born a summer past.

“Why do we guard them, father?” Dior asked. He loved the deer for their velvet noses, and for their large and trusting eyes. But he knew, deep within, the song of the forests around Tol Galen that sang in his blood: the deer ate the small brush and new green leaves of the saplings, and the wolves ate the deer, lest the forest suffer in its turn.

“We do not guard them from their natural foes, son,” said Beren. “We guard them from Elves who would hunt them.” The lines of Beren’s face were growing deeper, that year. News from the North and West had come by swift riders from Menegroth – a dragon waited in the cold countries, and Melian felt him, brooding as he sat.

The King of Elves, Elu Thingol, felt insecure in his underground throne: the battle of unnumbered tears had slain the Golodhrim who had stood between Thingol and the northern Darkness. Three great fastnesses of the Sindar had fallen. His riders had asked – nay, begged – for Lúthien to return to him, even though her Elven life was gone.

And, stranger tidings still, a Man who had been in Menegroth after Beren, one named Túrin, had mysterious dealings with the death of the Elf Saeros, and fled. Beren had much to concern him, and Dior could feel it seething like a restless wind at the edges of his mind.

And so Dior had left his father and mother, brooding and worried, on their island, and went forth into the land between the Adurant and Duilwen as they wandered down the bones of the Ered Luin. Bow unstrung, and unclad save for his pack in the heat of the summer days, Dior dug his feet deep into the rich loam of the earth, listening, listening.

The birds spoke of the hunter long before the deer did. They sang of one who rode upon a grey horse, silver hair streaming in the wind, deadly and precise. The rider had come from the north and west over the river Galion, and had felled a goose flying high and wild turkey scratching in the brush along the way.

So Dior found his feet trending toward the rider, thinking to intercept and guide, and spare some of the geese who were flying northward for the season of warmth – surely it was a rider from Doriath, if the description was right. Silver hair – it could be the Lord Celeborn, whom Dior had met once or twice in Melian’s retinue when she visited the island of her daughter. Or it could be Celeborn’s brother, Lord Galathil, he of the sorrowful eyes.

The thought of eating deer was strange to Dior. His mother, seeing the power within him, taught him some of the Songs. It was right that Elves ate deer, like any predator. But Dior was not entirely an Elf; he was born with the power of a steward of the land, and was biden by Lúthien to eat not of the life he protected, save that which grew from the earth and renewed itself gladly after the harvesting.

The hunter was riding, and Dior heard the horse first. He turned, catching a glimpse of the swiftly striding form – a grey, beating thunder on the land – and upon the horse’s back, a figure of grace and might, bow strung and upraised, pointing with keen vision directly at his charge.

The rider loosed the arrow before Dior could call a warning, and so he did what he needed to without a second thought – he leapt from the bush where he’d been hiding, and yelled to startle the deer into motion.

She ran; the herd ran; the arrow sank into the ground behind Dior with a deep wet thwock.

And then the rider came up to him, and Dior saw that this rider too was naked. She was an Elven maid with wild tangles in her silver hair, strong and powerful of muscle, and looking exasperated. She lowered her bow as she came near.

“That was my dinner,” she said, staring down from the horse. Then she blinked, and dismounted, shaking her hair around her like a mantle to clothe herself. Walking closer, and closer, to where Dior sat upon the ground, her dark eyes were as bright and soft as the doe’s.

“I am Dior,” he said in a similar accent, that of his mother’s people. “You may not hunt upon our land, it is held for the animals in thanks for the lives they spent upon my mother and father. Who are you, maid?”

She seemed struck dumb, though, for she knelt beside him, staring long at him – into his eyes, and at his body where he sat pillowed by the tall grass of summer.

For a long moment they stared at each other. Dior could see that she was young in the manner of her kind, but not so young in the years of Men.

Nimloth drew breath, then. “I am Nimloth of Doriath. I came to accompany the Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn as they ride to Tol Galen, before they depart over the mountains to the east. Galadriel desired to speak to your mother. I… got tired of the slowness of their company, and…”

Dior smiled at her then. “And then you slipped away, to meet them at your own pace? Come and gather food with me then, Nimloth of Doriath. I will make you a meal to replace the deer herd that I guard.”

“Thank you. I should probably wash. And…” Nimloth shook her hair, “dress, if you think it necessary. Do you know a pool nearby?”

“I will show you after we forage, I deem you will only get dirty again if I show you before. And as for garment – lady, it is your decision.” Dior said it evenly. Beauty did not sway him much, nor did an unclad body. But Nimloth’s spirit sang with a fierceness that Dior liked, and he smiled at her.

Nimloth’s smile was as starlight in her grey eyes. “Then, let us forage.”

They spent the rest of the long summer day together, wandering west along the north bank of the Adurant. Dior showed her what the tops of tubers looked like, and pulled a few for roasting in embers. They gathered enough greens and mushrooms and wild herbs for a hearty meal, and berries they ate as they walked. Nimloth’s horse obliged them by carrying what they gathered, and walked behind them to graze here and there on the grass near the water.

As they wandered, they spoke. Nimloth readily answered all of Dior’s questions about life in Menegroth. She spoke of the royal court of Queen Melian and King Thingol, and of his many wild moods. “He did not trust your father, and sought to remedy his misdeed by taking in Túrin. Alas! It should have been the opposite. Túrin proved to have a darkness within him that not even the power of Melian could ease.”

“And yet, I understand why Elu Thingol might have wanted to keep Luthien away from a Man with such a short life. I live with them and watch them even now – my mother no longer has the life of the Elves. Perhaps it would have pained my grandfather to see her fade so swiftly. I know that it pains me.”

“Swiftly?” Nimloth’s face turned to concern, and she looked up from the carrot she was pulling. “I think he should treasure them all the more for the swiftness of their passing from Arda.”

“Perhaps.” Dior smiled at her again, feeling a small swelling of hope in his heart – for what, he did not understand. “It is good to meet one of my mother’s kin who thinks so. For I will never go to Mandos, and follow my father instead to the west of the west, where Men go. And I fear that this is what Elves see, when they look upon me. I have the life of the Elves and the strength of the Maiar, but in the end, my fate is that of Men.”

Nimloth sat back entirely, then, and looked long upon him. “In you I see three races mingled to what is surely their best form. We Elves think so much about eternity, and living unto the end of Arda Marred, so that we readily spend a whole season ignoring the world as it passes by. Men do not have that luxury, and I wonder, in the end, who lives more? Perhaps we do not live as fully as Men, knowing their time is short.”

Dior could tell by the clear burning of her spirit that she spoke truth, and not flattery. It warmed him, and he wanted…he wanted something more. He stood then, and offered her his hand. “We have enough to cook. Shall we bathe? There is a pool not far from here where soapwort grows.”

Nimloth raised her hand to take his, and saw that it was full of carrots. She laughed and called over her horse. “Yes, it is time to bathe, me and Gwedal both.”

They first scrubbed Gwedal with handfuls of dry grass, and then bathed themselves with the pods of the soapwort until Dior could see Nimloth’s skin in all its sun-warmed golden glory. Dior took down his dark hair from its braids, and hesitated, glancing in Nimloth’s direction.

She looked up, and caught his meaning. “Ah – I’ll wash your hair if you wash mine? I can never get all the knots out of it. I’d cut it, if my father didn’t like it so much.”

“It is beautiful, but not the most beautiful part of you,” Dior said without thinking. Then he laughed, blushing. “Ah, I mean – I have well enjoyed your company, this day.”

Nimloth’s face was red, and it continued down her neck to her chest set with archer’s muscles. “You are unlike anyone I have met. My eyes see that you are young, even by the count of Men. And yet, you have wisdom in you that is the match of the most learnéd of Elu Thingol’s court, if not more. For I see your compassion, and that makes you wisest.”

Dior was blushing now too, and busied himself with plucking more soapwort and gathering up a few sticks to assist with the unknotting of Nimloth’s wild curls. He beckoned her over and sat behind her, slowly working through the knots from the ends upward.

He wrestled long with the burdock, but finally Nimloth’s silver hair was soft in his fingers, and where it fell against his body, it made his skin rise in bumps. It was not a feeling Dior had felt before, and as more and more of her long locks untangled, his body was awash in them, and he wanted to bury his face into the clean curls.

It did not help that she was making soft, pleased noises as he worked.

“Your fingers are gentle,” Nimloth said. “I like your touch.”

And suddenly, Dior realized he felt entirely too naked. When he was finally done with her hair, he felt hesitant to turn away from it. So Nimloth turned, and they were face to face in the water with matching rosy faces.

“Let me tend to your hair, then,” Nimloth said, reaching up to touch a strand of Dior’s straight, dark locks as they fell over his shoulder. Her fingers lingered, moved down, and suddenly were on his skin. And the feeling was like a strange fire, and an ache, and Dior made a noise that was not words.

Nimloth took a deep breath then, and let her fingers trail down his skin to his hip. “Turn around. I will wash your hair, and we will eat, and we will go to your parents on Tol Galen.” She bit her lip then and turned him with a gentle shove.

It took a great effort for Dior to turn.

Dinner that night was rather more silent than their day had been. Clothed, they were suddenly strange to each other, and it felt more formal when Dior passed Nimloth a potato stuffed with mushroom and carrots and herbs, no matter that they ate it with their fingers.

But Nimloth smiled at him across the fire, and Dior let himself get lost in the clean warmth of her spirit.

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Chapter End Notes

They met! My work is done.

...Except I'm leaving this open-ended, just in case I have the stomach to add a chapter that follows them through the birth of Elwing, at least.