And Love Grew by polutropos

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Scattered

Dornil leads the host from known threat into unknown danger.

Sunrise coloured the long spine of the Andram a dusty pink. Eastwards, the round height of Amon Ereb rose above the forest like an island floating atop the dark mass of trees. Dornil had not looked upon home since setting out for the Mouths of Sirion at the end of a wet spring. A sigh shuddered through her, and she lifted her hand to cover the involuntary sob trailing behind. The tip of her nose was cold against her palm. Since Morgoth’s triumph, winter’s crawl southwards hastened, arriving earlier every year. She cupped her hands around her face, warming herself with her breath.

The remnant of Sirion had fled in a hurry, unprepared for winter. So far, Dornil had lost no more upon the road, but they were weak; it would take only one night of frost to begin to pick away at the beleaguered host.

Time was short, and Maglor had not returned.

Dornil turned from the east and resumed brushing the day’s dust from her horse. In the middle distance, the forest loomed, as yet untouched by the light of dawn. But at the edge of her vision sat a figure, hunched over its knees. Dornil’s brushing slowed; she narrowed her eyes, focusing. When she took command of the host, she ordered all to stay together. None were to wander alone, least of all by night. There were grumblings, of course: that she had broken Maedhros’ promise of freedom; that she meant to keep them as prisoners of war. Let them believe what they liked about her. Her only concern was to lead them to Amon Ereb without further loss. They could thank her after they had safely arrived. Or they could go on hating her — so long as they lived, Dornil did not care.

She marched towards the lone figure, bristling at the ineffectiveness of the guard she had put on watch and wearied by the thought of reprimanding him later.

“Friend,” she called to the shape bowed upon a rock. A woman, she thought, and a mortal one by her small stature. A black shawl over her head and shoulders concealed her face. “What are you doing? You know it is not permitted to wander alone.”

The woman turned her bent shoulders towards Dornil to reveal herself: Gwereth, the person Dornil most feared to lose. Still recovering from her illness and distraught by the loss of her young charges, she had made a rash attempt on her own life. Dornil ought to have placed a personal guard on her, but pity, not sense, had guided her in extending her trust to the woman.

“You swore to me that you would not again endanger yourself,” Dornil said.

Gwereth’s lids were swollen thick around reddened eyes. She looked as though she had been weeping for hours. A sob wracked her as she struggled to answer Dornil’s admonishment.

“I have not,” she said. “See, I am here. No danger has come to me. But they— they are somewhere in there. Lost. Lost as my lady’s brothers were lost. Dead. They are dead.” Between words, her breath caught in her throat, whining pitifully.

Perhaps it was this sound, like the mewling of a kitten, that made Dornil rush to her side. Once there, she fumbled, unsure what to do. When she draped a tentative arm across her shoulders, Gwereth’s back rounded, retreating; but a moment later she seized Dornil’s hand in hers, pulling at her arm to draw it around her more tightly.

Someone kinder would have known what to say, but Dornil was not inclined to kindness. She might say she was sorry, but for what? The whole of her life since fleeing Tirion? At that thought, Dornil huffed a noise half-laughter and half-pain. If she could not bring herself to give Gwereth hope that the twins were alive, what did that mean of her hope for Maglor? A low, choked sigh escaped Dornil’s throat. It must have startled Gwereth out of her own grief, for she was suddenly still and she pulled away.

“What,” she said, “what is it? Commander?”

“They are not dead,” Dornil said, squeezing the words out with effort. “They are not dead. They are not.” She repeated the phrase again and again. Whether staving off tears or willing them to come, she did not know. She clasped both Gwereth’s hands in hers. They were small but her fingers were stout and her palms strong, roughened with use.

Not the hands Dornil expected. She had thought Gwereth weak, a woman prone to fits of emotion, too delicate for the world outside her haven. But that was not so: Gwereth was a spruce of many years, standing lonely on the mountaintop, appearing no bigger than a sapling for the cruelness of the climate, but aged, and strong. Stronger than the thousands of other seeds that had blown on the harsh winds of this age and become lost in barren cracks.

No tears came, but Dornil felt somehow more settled, as though her grief had gathered about her like a layer of fat that might be scooped away. “Gwereth,” she said. “We cannot allow despair to claim us. Not here. We are too close to home now to give up hope.”

Gwereth laughed darkly and shook her head. “Home?” she said. “You ravaged my home. Why,” her fingers tightened around Dornil’s wrists, “why did you ravage my home? None of this need to have happened, Dornil, wife of Caranthir.”

Her face snarled. Her grip was strong, but it was not what kept Dornil from striking her, as her impulse urged her. There was something unassailable about hatred so purely expressed. Dornil wanted to preserve it, sear that raw expression in her memory forever. Had anyone ever despised her so, with such open disgust? No, they had always held out their excuses for her to take, to mask herself with empty apologies so they need not look upon the monster she had become. Under Gwereth’s eyes, a curtain was pulled back to reveal the whole of her, exactly as she was: unrepentant, cruel, relentless. The relief of being so exposed was almost dizzying.

“No, it need not have happened,” Dornil said, teetering on the edge of laughter, and Gwereth’s tight expression collapsed. “It need not. But long, long before now, long before you were born or your people walked in Beleriand, these things were set in motion.”

Gwereth thrashed, hurling Dornil’s arm aside as she let go of her. “No!” she cried. “That is what your kind all say, but it is not so! How can you say, ‘Have hope,’ and yet speak thus of doom? It cannot be so! Do you know what my lady told her sons before she leapt into the sea? ‘I do not think my doom as high as Lúthien’s, but this course alone remains to me.’ She leapt because she had hope. Their father sailed because he had hope. A wild, incredible hope that things need not be as they are. Maybe they failed! Maybe the sea has claimed them both, as it claimed your Silmaril. But at least they did not march willingly towards doom, leaving a trail of destruction and death. They tried to do differently. And what of you?” She tilted her chin up, proud. “Have you done anything but to blindly follow the Doom whose path you so carefully set before you, in that time before Time? You and your ancient, all-knowing kindred.”

Dornil could not endure Gwereth’s dark eyes boring into her. She turned away, worrying her hands between her knees. “You cannot understand. But you have every right to hate us.” She slid her eyes to the side, resisting the pull to draw closer, to restore the touch they’d briefly shared. “Come back to the camp,” she said, standing. “We have reached the final stage of our journey and will cover as much ground as we can while there is light.”

She waited for Gwereth to rise. After a pause, Gwereth gathered her shawl about her and went ahead on hurrying feet. Her shoulders pulled tight, she drew her hands over her face, and then she straightened and returned to the carriage, where a group of children whose parents had succumbed to the sickness awaited her.

It was midday when Dornil spotted her scouts hurrying back. There were others with them, clad in muted browns and greens that blended into the surrounding hills. They were armed for combat by stealth, but the finely crafted mail of the Noldor peeked from beneath their long tabards as they walked.

“Rangers of the Hill!” she called to them. “I am glad to see you. What news from Amon Ereb? Have Lord Maedhros and his men returned?”

“As we are glad to see you, Commander,” said their leader, Ifrethil — a dressmaker at Ost-nu-Rerir, once, when they still had the luxury of adornment and the pursuit of craft. “Though we are troubled by the report of your scouts that Lord Maglor and the sons of Elwing are not with you. The host of Lord Maedhros arrived at Amon Ereb safely. They have begun fortifying our defences and bringing those who live about within the walls. There have been orc incursions far into the south. It is well we were patrolling these parts, for we waylaid a band gathered behind Ramdal. They were destroyed, but some of their company fled away. I fear they know of your presence here.” She looked over the host gathered behind Dornil, assessing. “You are not safe journeying in the open.”

“We have a guard,” said Dornil. In truth, their guard had been small from the outset, and was reduced to no more than a dozen now: four lost to Maglor’s search party and twice as many dead by each other’s swords in the madness of Morgoth’s contagion. They would not be able to ward off an attack by an enemy who knew their strength.

“I can spare none of my rangers to increase your numbers,” said Ifrethil. “Our orders are to rout as many of the orcs as we can, before they can come to you. But we are uncertain of their whereabouts. They may be few, or the hills may be swarming with them. We advise you retreat to the forest for the remainder of your journey.”

Dornil stood silent. The memory of ghostly cries returned to her. Were the forest’s unknown dangers any safer than a host of orcs? Even if they escaped danger, the dense woods would prolong their journey by many days. They would need to abandon most of their supplies, sending the horses and carts ahead to make their own way to Amon Ereb.

“Give me time to consider,” said Dornil, and bid the rangers rest with them a while.

Disobeying her own command, Dornil stood alone upon the eaves of the forest, palms turned towards it like a supplicant. "Will you welcome us?” she asked. But nothing moved, nothing made a sound. Even the voices who had troubled her all these days were quiet. No welcome, no warning. She would get no answer from the trees.

A marshal approached from behind. “Commander,” he said. “We have assessed our food supplies. We have enough to keep the mortals of your following alive for a fortnight, provided there is clear flowing water along the way. They will be hungry, but they will live. That is if our own people forgo nourishment. If we had more lembas—”

“No, Palannor,” said Dornil. “We have not the time, even if I could find any nut or grain with which to grind flour in these parts. We will go ahead, and pray the forest will supplement our supplies.”

Palannor nodded; his head remained bowed. He had been at Doriath: Region had not been kind to them. Though the Girdle had fallen, something of Melian’s power still lingered in the plants and creatures of her forsaken realm. Or perhaps Dior himself had laid some enchantment over the land, marshalling tree and leaf in place of the Sindarin bows and axes felled by ceaseless war; for Celegorm’s men who ate from Region’s spare winter crops endured torment for their trespass and were rendered useless by sickness. Pressed as they were, the others had no choice but to abandon them to face the wilds alone.

Palannor’s father had been among those left behind.

But what reason did Taur-im-Duinath have to oppose them? Dornil had no love for this forest; but it harboured nothing more dangerous than unhappy memories. There was no malice in its dark streams and drooping boughs. If the vast woods of the south defeated them, it would be with indifference.

Torches flickered upon the hills the night Dornil and her host retreated behind the pillars of the great trees. She spared a thought for their horses, hoping the orcs, finding naught but abandoned chests of heirlooms and oddments with no practical use, would not come upon the poor animals and turn their wrath against them.

They made slow progress. Dornil’s scouts returned nightly to report that they were still on course: it would not be long before they emerged at the place where the rangers promised to meet them for the last league of the journey. But as the trees ought to have begun to thin, their reports grew more confused.

“I cannot explain it, Commander,” one said. “It is as though we have turned round and completed the same day’s journey again.”

And another, missing for a night and returning by morning: “I ought to have reached the eaves by midday yesterday, and yet I pressed on all through the night and came no nearer. If I had not the sun to tell me otherwise, I would think we had turned south. I have lost confidence. I do not know how, but I believe we have strayed off-course.”

Not long after that, the scouts stopped returning at all. The forest began to speak to her again: How many more lives will you forfeit, it whispered, before you lay down your hopeless cause? Why push on, when all is already lost? No oath did you swear; you are no child of Fëanor. Your bond to that bloodline is no more.

“No,” Dornil said aloud, then glanced about to be sure she was alone. “No,” she said more softly, “a bond holds me to that Oath as long as any one of my husband’s kin yet lives.”

He is lost to the Dark, a voice answered.

“Who?” Dornil demanded to know. “Where?”

The howling of voices stopped so suddenly that Dornil’s hand leapt for her knife and she dropped to a crouch. What folly! She clutched her chest to steady her beating heart. What grief thrashed and groaned there! She held her breath; coerced it back into the cage of her ribs. She would not go mad.

Dornil would risk losing no more of her following to the forest’s dark maw. She sent no more scouts. The host travelled close-packed and vigilant. When Palannor tried to give her the accounting of their supplies and the number of their journey’s days, she snapped: “It will do us no good to know the reckoning of our failures. We push onwards.”

Some of the Men had grown so gaunt they had to be carried. Dornil took a turn, cradling an aged father in her arms like a child and weighing little more. For a brief moment her mind slipped, her foot catching on a stone, and she stumbled. Gwereth was suddenly beside her, hand on her arm to hold her steady.

“You,” said Dornil. Some bitter remark bubbled on her tongue about how Gwereth ought to have taken the chance to trip her; that she would find many allies to join in her mutiny. Instead she said: “I am glad to see you still on your feet.”

Gwereth hummed. “Dornil,” she said. Rank and title had fallen out of use in their desperate plight. “What was your husband like?”

Dornil nearly tripped again. “What a strange thing to ask at a time like this!” But Gwereth appeared earnest. “You have no doubt heard what he was like. Harsh and quick to anger. Immensely wealthy and unsparing of his wealth. Derisive, haughty.”

What sort of woman would wed such a man! That is what they said of her, if they remembered that she existed at all. Yet was she not the only law-sister of Fëanor’s House who remained steadfast through exile and doom and defeat? Whatever they said of her, they could never deny her devotion.

“That is not how he was spoken of among the Haladin,” said Gwereth.

“What?” Dornil blinked. Her eyes stung with weariness.

“Well: they do say he was haughty, and rich. But all Elves are haughty and rich in the tales of Men.” Gwereth laughed weakly. “They say he was a formidable warrior, a lord of great might who saved our people from certain defeat and did the Lady Haleth great honour, such as was seldom shown to women. Not all Haldad’s people wished to follow a woman, it is said — but when they saw the honour the elf-lord gave her, they were chagrined. They do not say he was unsparing. They say he was a gracious host, offering many gifts even after the Lady refused to settle in his lands. She refused those too, but not for lack of esteem for the giver, I do not think.” Then she turned to Dornil, alighting on a thought. “Did you know her?”

“I did not,” said Dornil, the corner of her mouth pulling upwards. “I was far afield, patrolling the northern border, when the orcs came through the passes and assailed the stockade. Lady Haleth had already come and gone when I returned. I wish I had known her. I daresay I would have enjoyed her company.”

Gwereth huffed lightly. “Perhaps. Or you may have found one another utterly intolerable. But tell me what Lord Caranthir was like. To you.”

“Intelligent,” said Dornil. “Fiercely loyal. He had a dreadfully coarse sense of humour, at which you could not help but laugh though you knew you should not. He had many gardens, meticulously maintained. He kept falcons. He loved those birds more than any other, even his wife. He delighted in swimming, no matter how cold the water — and Helevorn was always cold. He hated nothing more than injustice and disloyalty.”

She might have said more. She might have said that he seldom considered the hurt his words might cause until it was too late; that he did not comprehend why others gave such import to empty phrases and gestures of affection when affection could only truly be shown over time, through steadfastness and honest action; that he feared anything unknown and untested and for that reason made few friends; that he had wanted to be a father; that he had never again mentioned children after his sword drew blood at Alqualondë. That all of this had changed, after their defeat; after Uldor. That the greater part of him had died years before the axes of the Sindar found his neck.

And somehow, Dornil had kept living.

Darkness settled about the boles of the trees. The host no longer awaited Dornil’s command to halt, but came to a stop when there were too few left walking to carry those who had collapsed. They formed a circle with the soldiers on the perimetre and the weak and children at the centre. The watch was kept haphazardly, by anyone able to resist the pull of sleep. Dornil allowed herself to rest upon the ground that night. The moon waxed full, bright enough that the canopy allowed its gauzy silver light between its boughs.

She dreamed she was at the square in Tirion, surrounded by many torches. Fëanor spoke before them, as he had so long ago, and as he spoke the torches turned to great towers of flame, blazing even as the forest about Mount Rerir had burned in the wake of Glaurung’s passing. Dornil turned about in terror. She sought her husband in the conflagration, only to find she was surrounded by monsters. Hideous beasts with matted fur and bent backs, clawing and biting at each other. All was a mess of roars and shrieks and blood.

“Commander! Dornil, rise! We are being attacked!”

Dornil was on her feet before she had left the dream, a knife in each hand. Someone wailed and a hand seized her by the ankle.

“Let go!” she cried, kicking. Her heel made contact with something hard; she heard the smashing of teeth and a cry of pain. Realising it was not an attacker but one of the host who had reached out in terror, she could only say, “Hide yourself!” before she charged forwards into the dark.

She ran towards the glint of swords and the rush of arrows and the grunts and shouts of a struggle well underway. While she slept, the moon had sunk below the edge of the world; darkness shrouded all. Bumping up against the shoulder of another elf, she could only imitate their movements and hope her knife points found an enemy and not one of her own.

But the enemy, when it lunged at her, could not have been mistaken for Elf or Man. It was a great furred thing, the terror of her dream made real. Leaping out of the darkness, it threw her onto her back. She slashed her arms as she fell, seeking by whatever means she could to harm it. One knife struck flesh, and the creature roared in pain, momentarily withdrawing its forelegs. She rolled to the side, but only had time to rise to her knees before the enormous animal had pinned her between its paws. She saw its face, then, whiskered and snarling. Its cold blue eyes froze her with fear. Its black lips pulled back to reveal teeth like blades. Reeking, wet breath spattered Dornil’s cheeks, and fear gave way to revulsion; she stabbed at its eye, driving deep into its skull, and as it yowled and thrashed she drove her other knife into its neck. Hot blood engulfed her hand, ran down her wrist, and pooled in her sleeve at the bend of her elbow. The beast collapsed.

Not a moment later another of its pack had thrown her down. Its claws scraped down her back, tearing through leather and wool and digging painful tracks through her skin. She writhed, trying to turn onto her back, but the cat put the full weight of its body over her. She could not move. She was going to die, naught but hunted prey; her body would be devoured before it could be given to the fire. What would become of her soul then? Would she join with the beast, inhabiting its monstrous body?

But with a cry and a great thud, her predator was thrown off her. She scrambled to her feet: in the grey of earliest dawn, she could just make out a struggle between the cat and its assailant. The woman was no match at all for the beast, which she managed to elude only due to her small size, wriggling and curling into a ball. But her neck and face were dark with blood. Her own, or the animal’s? Dornil leapt at them, and seeing her the cat forgot its lesser prey, shaking the woman off and flipping to face Dornil, crouching low. Dornil leapt; the cat lunged. In midair, its jaw clamped around her thigh, the sheer force of it against her muscle and bone worse than the slice of its teeth. But as she lurched forward, her knives found the base of the cat’s neck. They pierced it to the hilts. The cat’s jaw slackened; it twisted and twitched on its back in eerie silence. Then it lay motionless, all its violent life force snuffed out.

Dornil’s eyes raced to take in the scene: the remaining cats were fleeing into the trees; the ground was strewn with bodies, beast and Man and Elf. Alone, she stood amid the heap of dead and injured. She crumpled, too faint to hold herself upright, and too breathless to scream when her injured leg hit the ground and sent a shock of pain through her whole body. Her breeches were torn, blood spilling in pulses from her wound.

“Help,” she said, in a voice too feeble for anyone to hear. She tore her sleeve from her shirt, twisting and knotting it above the open wound. The bleeding slowed, enough that she could crawl, dragging her numb and useless leg behind her, to where the woman who had saved her lay sprawled on her back. Her sorrowful eyes peered out from behind a mask of blood.

No, no— “Gwereth!” Dornil cried. She crawled to where the other woman lay, reaching for her. It was too late. Teeth had pierced her throat just above the join of her collarbones.

“Why? Why throw your life away for me?”

But Gwereth had no voice; she would never speak again. She could only manage a high-pitched wheeze. Dragging herself closer, Dornil lay down beside her.

“Gwereth, why?” she asked again and again. “You have come so far. It is I who should have died, and you lived.”

Why? Dornil imagined Gwereth asking. For what?

For what did any of them persist in living? Dornil craned her neck to look behind. An arm’s reach away, an elf lay face-down in the dirt: she uncurled his fingers and took the knife from his lifeless hand.

Dornil had done this too many times now to feel any hesitation. It was the kindest thing she knew how to do. Piercing with precision, she ended Gwereth’s life with one swift stroke.

Mortals believed there was a moment, between the heart failing and the flight of the soul, when the physical senses were still awake. Dornil hoped it true; she hoped Gwereth heard her regret, her gratitude, her affection when she whispered, “Farewell.”

Dornil kissed her temple. Then her head banged against the ground, and she fell into a swoon beside Gwereth’s empty corpse.

She awoke in agony. There was a storm raging within her, pain churning and churning with nowhere to go. She lay upon her back: the trees passed by overhead, the ground bounced and swayed beneath her.

She strained against bindings, gripping the edge of a stretcher. “Where are you taking me?” she demanded.

“To Amon Ereb,” said the elf who held the handles at the head of her stretcher.

“No!” Dornil cried. “Let me out of this! I can walk!”

“That is doubtful,” her bearer said.

Another ran up. “Nornawen,” she called her by her Quenya name, and Dornil knew her by her voice. Elas had been her peer, a very long time ago, studying land and water forms far in the east of Aman. But Beleriand had forced all but a few to choose between healing and warfare; Dornil chose the latter, but Elas had chosen healing. “You are awake,” she said. “That is good. Rest, please. That wound could have killed you.”

“Put me down,” Dornil said. “I do not wish to be taken to Amon Ereb.”

No one acknowledged her, but they did come to an eventual halt. They set her stretcher down on the forest floor. She tried a gentler tone, for though she felt no gratitude for it at the moment, they had saved her life: “Thank you for tending to my injuries.” She rolled her eyes back and to the sides, counting them. “Where are the others?”

“They perished, lady,” Elas answered. “It is only us left.”

“None of the Men?”

Elas shook her head. Dornil groaned, straining against her ties. “If there is any loyalty left in you, please release me.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Mírlach, the man who had been carrying her and seemed to have taken command, nodded; Elas knelt and untied her.

Dornil sat up, clamping her jaw to keep the pain at bay. “We are not going back to Amon Ereb. We will not abandon your lord and mine. Macalaurë is somewhere in these woods.”

The others exchanged doubtful glances. “What?” Dornil snapped. “Do you intend to carry a message back to his brother that you lost him? That you abandoned him to die in the forest?”

“My lady,” Elas said, “the best course of action for Lord Macalaurë is to seek help at Amon Ereb.”

“No. I have lost everyone, Elas. We will not lose him.”

“Lord Macalaurë went mad,” said Mírlach. “You cannot believe he survived the trials of the forest, in such a state, with so few to protect him? He is gone.”

Dornil screamed, ragged with anger and banked pain. “Traitors! Is that what you believe of your lord? He was not mad!” Her voice cracked. “Go then, go onwards to tell Maedhros his last brother is dead. But you will have to tell him his law-sister is dead, also, for I will not go with you.”

“Please, take your rest,” Elas said, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“No!” Dornil batted her arm off. Perhaps harder than she had meant, for Elas yelped and clutched it to her chest. Or perhaps it had been the betrayal that hurt her old friend. Dornil struggled to her elbows. She was flush with heat, fevered from the intensity of her pain. “You think we are both mad, is that so?”

Mírlach answered, “It is madness to do anything but find our way out of this place.”

“It is madness to desert your lord! It is madness to break your oaths of loyalty to his house!”

Mírlach’s mouth curled into an expression of disgust. He looked her squarely in the eyes, undaunted. “It was madness to swear loyalty to that accursed house in the first place. I am finished.” He pulled a gold band from his finger and tossed it at the ground. “May Fëanor’s band upon my hand rot in the leaves of Taur-im-Duinath. It is nothing to me.” He looked away from her, speaking to the others. “The Silmarils are beyond hope of retrieval. The war is lost. We have failed altogether in our purpose. Our commander says, ‘Go not to Amon Ereb.’ Shall we tell her the truth?” He paused a moment, then directed his words to Dornil. “We never intended to take you there. We are leaving these lands. We are going over the mountains.”

“Never!” Dornil shot upright, heedless of her pain as she seized a knife strapped to Mírlach’s thigh. “You will never make it. Vengeance for your faithlessness will find you, wherever you run.”

“Put down that knife, madwoman,” said Mírlach.

Dornil did not. She shot upward onto the knee that could still bear weight and thrust the knife at Mírlach’s waist. Her reach was weak. He dodged easily, then twisted her wrist and disarmed her.

But the damage had been done. She felt rather than saw the bodies of the company pulling away from her. They were leaving her.

“Come,” Mírlach said, addressing them as if Dornil was not there. “There is no hope for her. We carry on.”

In silence, they gathered their things. No one looked at her, no one spoke to her. They deserted her. They broke their oaths and left her to die.

She would not die. Not until she had found Maglor — or whatever remained of him.

Chapter End Notes

Ifrethil, Palannor, Elas, Mírlach (S.) - All from Chestnutpod’s Elvish name list.

Yet was she not the only law-sister of Fëanor’s House who remained steadfast through exile and doom and defeat? Yes, Maglor’s and Curufin’s wives do/did exist in this ‘verse; no, it may never come up again. We’ll see if Maglor breaks down enough for that fragment of trauma to bubble up. I promise a fic about my spitfire lady Lacheryn one day.

There is a logic to my capitalisation of Elf/elf and Man/man (or woman). It’s possible I’ve slipped up here and there, but there’s theoretically a deliberate choice behind every instance.

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