Distance by StarSpray

“Is something troubling you?” Fingon asked. He sat with Turgon on a balcony overlooking the harbor of Vinyamar, sipping wine and watching the gulls fly over the water, and the ships come and go. The wind was up, so the water was choppy, flecked with white as the waves rose and fell. Fingon did not envy the mariners.

Turgon had been quiet since Fingon had arrived. Vinyamar, too, seemed quiet—but Fingon could not put his finger on precisely why.

“Hm?” Turgon looked up from contemplating his wine. Fingon repeated his question. “No,” he said. “I was only thinking.”

“Thinking very hard, it seems,” Fingon said. “What about?”

“Dreams,” Turgon said, but he would not say more. Instead he started talking of Idril and how she was growing, and of Irissë and the latest news from Círdan. Fingon let it go, though now he was troubled. There had been a time when Turgon would not have hesitated to confide in him, even about the smallest thing—but ever since they had left Aman, Turgon had withdrawn more and more, little by little until only now, when it seemed too late, did Fingon realize it. There was a gap between them that he did not know how to cross.

He returned to Hithlum without any answers—and before the year was out, word came back to them that Vinyamar was emptied, and where its people had gone, no one knew. Fingolfin turned to Fingon in bewilderment. “He said nothing to you? No hint at all?”

“No,” Fingon said, shaking his head. “Nothing.”

When next he saw his brother, it was in the midst of battle, and though their meeting was glad, that gap remained, widened so much further now by years of silence and wondering—and a balrog’s ax ensure that there would never be a bridging of it.

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