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“Do you think we have not courage?” Boron asks Lord Finrod, when the elven king warns of the dangers of Dorthonion, of its proximity to Thangorodium. “Do you think we chose not to fight against Morgoth, that he is not the avowed enemy of our race? That the harms he has done to us and our families is somehow less than those he did to the Noldor, and we have less cause or motivation to bring war to him, to stand against him?”

“Well, you certainly have more conviction than many of my cousins,” interjects Lord Finrod’s brother with a sardonic smile. “If Lord Boron and any of his people that wish to join him want to move up to our lands, Dorthonion has land for their choosing. It is not as if we have many men or homes on the land as it is, or warriors to patrol it. I will not gainsay anyone willing to fight, not when our efforts to encourage anyone beside Uncle Fingolfin have fallen on defective ears.”

King Finrod makes a strange little expression that starts as a glare but transforms into a huff, as if he cannot decide which part of his brother’s statement to rebut first and if any are worth the effort to deign a response.

Boromir has a odd moment of empathy, seeing the elven lords not as mighty figures but as a pair of bickering brothers, and wonders if his father was ever embarrassed by Belegor and him sniping to each other over family. Then again, his arguments with Bereg have shamed the family enough. He glances to his father, who is nodding vigorously at Lord Angrod with a particularly stubborn set to his jaws and remembers that this is how the situation started, that Boromir’s cousin was foolish enough to play into the enemy’s hands. The Dark Lord up in Thangorodrim did not desire Bëor’s people allied with the elves or anywhere in this new land, and Boromir cannot think of a better reason to do anything than defying the Master of Lies. And, staring at his father, Boromir knows the surest way to prod anyone in his family to avow a task is to impinge upon their courage or imply they are forbidden.

“The Master of Lies will hunt us anywhere we live, and his emissaries in disguise have already tried to come among us in Estolad. This is an old trick of which my father and the Wisewomen of our tribe long recognize. But the servants of the Dark Lord fear the power of you elven lords and your ability to perceive their seemings of deceit.”

“Imperfectly,” interrupts the Lord Finrod.

“Yet you have the power of the mind we do not,” counters Boromir’s father.

“And it would be harder for a disguised sorcerer of the enemy to sneak into Dorthonion, if there are so few people that live there to begin with, and few visitors,” Boromir adds, hoping he sounds intelligent and adds value to this weighty conversation. Often he feels as if he is but a callous seventeen instead of twenty seven, but he knows he has a point, so crowded has Estolad become with new arrivals from the East trickling in each month. Amlach’s doppelganger could pretend to be him because no one knew that Imlach’s son had not joined the pressing crowd. Few there knew Amlach intimately to know if his words were those of his mind or true manner. Bereg had derided Boromir for being too trusting of the elves, but Boromir holds that it is his younger cousin that was naive. The elves can do what the People of Bëor cannot and are willing to give what they need. Land, as much and more than can be had in the overrun settlement of Estolad, and the chance to fight against the true enemy of his people are not gifts to be tossed aside. Boromir can not fathom what Bereg hopes to find by returning to where Grandfather Baran fled from, but he knows Bereg will not find it. There are three tribes of men, whom the elves are now calling Edain, who have entered Beleriand because the unknown on the western side of the Blue Mountains was a better prospect than what they had.

Boromir thinks he has much in common with the spirit of his forefather Bëor, for the appeal of a new land to explore and the hope it offers fills him with a desire to sing. Boromir desires a life of greatness, in the manner that truly matters, of leaving the world better than he found it, and standing firm against the Master of Lies is the greatest calling he sees.

The elven king clears his throat in the manner of over-corrective older brothers everywhere -which makes Boromir feel even more strangely elative to know he shares a trait with Nóm himself - and smirks as only an older brother to an younger sibling facing their comeuppance can. “What about the swamp?”

Lord Angrod grimaces, and Boromir’s father shifts his eyes between the faces of the two elven lords.

“Are those the fens I’ve heard of?”

“And the only way to enter Dorthonion from Tol Sirion, unless you take the long way around from the Pass of Aglon,” states Lord Finrod. “I’m sure you remember Lady Haleth’s stories of leading large groups of Edain through unwelcoming terrain, and you are very familiar with those fens, aren’t you, Brother?”

Angrod scowls and folds his hands in front of him, but before he can retort, Boron laughs.

“I fear no swamp. We shall take that route, for I wish to see your city of Nargothrond again and the white tower you have built on the river.”

All the elves gathered around observing this conversation make appalled faces, and Boromir blushes, praying his father has not made an over-bold and foolish promise. This conversation was to prove they had more sense than Bereg.

“We’ll go through the swamp,” Boron states firmly, the declaration tied to the decision to move to Dorthonion itself, and he will budge on neither. Finrod and Angrod look as if they wish to argue, and both pairs of bright eyes land on Boromir.

The young man swallows and rubs at his beard under their scrutiny. “As my father says,” he says and prays he does not sound foolish.

King Finrod mutters something under his breath that sounds like ice, but Lord Angrod smiles brightly. Perhaps too brightly, for his cheer seems false, but he clasps Boromir’s arm with a warm hand. “Do not fret; my brother and I will help your people through the Fen of Serech, carry you all if we must.”

Boromir has a bad feeling about this.

A quick explanation of a line in this fic-

Aegnor hands his brother the drinking horn of Edain beer with a hidden grimace, wiping his hand on the tartan wrap across his shoulders, then frowns at the stain on the green and yellow fabric. He goes to ask the matron of the house about adding the garment to the laundry, as it was a gift from Boron’s wife and thus one of the first gifts that Aegnor received from a member of Bëor’s family, holding for him a particular sentimental value.

Angrod hides his own smile and turns to Belegor to inquire after the reason behind this impromptu and boisterous party. The brother of the Lord of Ladros replies in a more than mildly inebriated voice that the engagement between his oldest son and a woman with very annoying and parsimonious parents has been annulled, to which Angrod replies he did not know that -an annulment of engagement- was a cause for a celebration. Belegor laughs, jostling the drinking horn in Angrod’s grip, and says, ‘It would be if you knew these potential in-laws!“

At this point Aegnor returns to interrupt the conversation with an even more pained expression on his face to ask if Belegor knows about the men outside trying to steal his cattle.

Continuing this sad tale:

He has found his parents. If he keeps repeating this, reminding himself that the time to fear is over, to calm his racing heart, wipe away this sweat that makes him shiver and cold, it will stop. Mother has knelt in the forest floor, knees crinkling and crushing the decaying leaves, and has opened her arms wide. She calls for him to run into her arms so she may devour him into a hug, her mouth split into a wide smile, the white of her teeth shining like a wisp-light in the darkness. Father leans beside her, neck bent oddly but his face smiling with relieved delight, eyes almost hidden by the creases in his face from the sharp grin. The boy wonders what has happened to his father’s bow, for his hands are empty. Neither parent is carrying their travel packs, and the boy wonders if they lost all the family supplies, if that is but one minor calamity to have happened when they became separated. He has never been separated from his parents, never for this long, and some disaster must have struck to have kept them apart for so long. The boy asks what had gone wrong, how they had become separated from another, why his parents had not heard him calling for them. He had been calling for a long time. Scrambling down an outcropping of rocks, hands skidding on the stone, scrapping away a layer of skin, the boy ignores the pain that blossoms in his palms to reach the lower incline where his parents wait for him. Pressing his injured hands to his side and ignoring the blood, the boy feels the sharper sting of irrational anger. He had called and searched and had panicked for so long because his parents had disappeared. That should not have happened, but it is now over, and his parents are here. And yet his heart is racing like a hare in one of his father’s clever snares. “Where were you?” he shouts again.

His mother does not answer the question, nor any flicker in her eyes show that she acknowledged it. “Come to me,” she calls, her voice low and sweet.

His mother never croons. She has a pretty singing voice, but when she speaks it is always loud and harsh like a jay, and Grandmother bemoaned that her middle child was fortunate to have found a spouse that could handle her brier voice and thorny temperament. Father is that, calm and soothing, but now he is too quiet, has said nothing.

“Come here,” Mother pleads, as soft as there would be tears in her eyes. But there are none.

Her eyes…there is nothing.

“Come here,” the voice commands. This time the underlying sternness spoils the sweetness. The fingers of her outstretched hands twitch and curl inward like spider jaws. The boy does not run to her, pauses and shifts his weight back, presses against the rocks behind him.

Something is wrong.

“Hurry to us,” his father says. “It is no longer safe here in the woods. We will take you to a safe place.” This is his father’s voice, and his father’s face, handsome and pale, his black hair grown long to swing around his ears but still recognizably him. And his father is wise, rightly praised by the rest of the Forsaken as clever and cautious. The boy was instructed by all his family that he should never doubt his father’s wisdom, that his sight was keener and clearer that his mother. The boy knew his grandparents believed his mother to be too reckless, but staying in one spot close to the shore would not find them Great-uncle Elu the missing king. But the boy wishes his grandparents were here, or uncles, even the long missing one. Because something is wrong. And his father has not called him as he normally does, has not said my son. My son, my son, said with such love, such joyous pride, as if there is no other name worthy of the boy, no other words that could contain such deep emotion.

“Come here,” his mother says.

The boy does not wish to disobey, wants nothing more than to run into his parents’ arms, feel the embrace of reunion squeeze away this panic in his chest, but his bloody hands stick to the rock at his back.

Something is very wrong.

heckofabecca asked for a story with Círdan and Eärendil and/or Elwing:

The Fëanorians had torched Elwing and Eärendil’s house. Círdan tried not to feel surprised at the act of arson. It was not the only area of the Havens put to the torch. With the silent patience of a fisherman, Círdan watched the black charred remains of what had been rafters, beams, and furniture slowly smolder and collapse in the harsh shore breeze. A beam slipped free of where it balanced precariously and thudded to the ground, but the sound was muted by the heavy layer of ash. All the embers had cooled by now, and Círdan knew he could approach the ruins of what had been the house of his dear friends without fear of burns. No, give them truth in the silence of his heart as he stood and paid his respects before the ashes of their lives. Elwing and Eärendil had been his adopted niece and nephew, yet another war orphan he had taken in as his own, as Ereinion became the beloved child of this lifelong bachelor.

And because of that deep love, Círdan feared approaching closer, feared to walk through all those charred black piles, worried that it would be more than burned wood that he would find in the wreckage. His men, searching the other buildings, had already found bodies. Elven and mortal, male and female, old and young, every sort imaginable. All except bodies of orcs, and that was the key difference that confounded the searchers, for they were all veterans from Brithombar and Eglarest and all the points inland, all familiar with the aftermath of towns and cities sacked by Morgoth’s armies. Strange it was for them to find only elven and mortal dead, only those weapons, only red blood. Some bodies had burned in the arson; most had not. Identifying the dead was easy if they had been neighbors and friends. Círdan’s men had the survivors of the Havens assisting the search, looking for any other survivors, looking for the dead, looking for names to give the slain refugees. Some of the dead elves the survivors did not recognize, but they begged that the bodies collected for honorable burial, as they had tried to stop the attack or tried to extinguish the fires. Some of the buildings were still too unstable to investigate.

Círdan did not wish confirmation of which he would find in this house.

If he refused to cross the threshold, the horror remained an abstract.

The Fëanorians had also burned the docks. That he was not surprised at, for they had no more use for ships. Or at least still had the self-awareness that no boat upon these waves would tolerate them. Still, Círdan knew one ship had not been present, and thus one body he shall not find.

And, staring at the charred ruins of the home of Elwing and her young children, for the first and only time, Círdan fervently prayed that Vingilot had foundered upon the waves. The Shipwright, who prided himself on the soundness of his ships, wished this betrayal of his craft. He hoped that only pieces of driftwood returned to this beach to join the charcoal that lined it. Let not the lad return to this, he prayed. Better he dies, drowns in a storm, not seeing the destruction of his home, the death of his people. Never have I asked this of you, Lord Ossë, oh, how Círdan wept, but never allow him to return to this shore, when this sorrow is all that awaits him.

The Gift of Men

Nóm has many questions, but he never asks about the wreath Andreth wears in her hair, the white berries of the mistletoe, the needles of the yew, the star-like purple nightshade flowers, and the white clusters of celery or carrot in place of the water dropwort. White flowers and white berries are popular to make into flower wreathes to crown a head, and the bright purple and yellow of the wise-woman’s flowers show dramatically against her dark hair. Perhaps he thinks they were chosen for their beauty. It is the same wreath that Adanel wears, and every Wisewoman before her, the mistletoe and yew and many changing flowers. Andreth weaves in the bright yellow flowers of the golden chain tree, for they are easy to find and pair nicely.

The dangers of the starving years on grass peas, how fearful her people were when they no longer had even the vetches with their tiny blue flowers to survive on, are long gone. Now only the animals eat it, mixed in with rich grains, fat off the summer grass in the highlands. That her people even have cattle and herd animals is thanks to the generosity and protection of Nóm, of Lord Finrod. But no longer do they fear the wasting paralysis from the only food that would grow in famine and drought, even if Adanel adds their tiny flowers to her own wreath in remembrance.

Andreth touches the wreath and wonders if he does not know all are deadly to eat, but then he is an elf. Perhaps he knows and says nothing, as all his kindness.

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On the eve of the War of Wrath, Ingwion asks his father to be the one to lead the Vanyar in battle. Afterwards his family dinner highlights a hidden motive in his eagerness to journey to Beleriand.

"Let me lead the armies of our people," Ingwion petitioned to his father. "Let me stand for you and command our people when we cross the sea and wage this final war against the renegade as the Valar have commanded. I will do you proud and bring honor to our people. The Valar shall give only praise to our efforts." I am your son, let me prove it, Ingwion did not say, but knew that raw desire was what showed in his eyes and gave conviction to his words.

His father, Ingwë Ingweron, High King of all the Elves, did not reply immediately. It was rare for him to be in Valmar, to sit in state with the simple feathered crown of high kingship on his brow. The palace of the Vanyar in the foothills between the sprawling city of Valmar and the true slopes of the Pelóri Mountains did not often see its king in residence, and Ingwë seldom gave decrees from the throne room of Valmar. Back during the first few years when his people lived in Tirion among the Noldor, in the Mindon Eldaliéva where Ingwion was born but had few memories of, his father did not sit often in court and proclaim many laws. It was not the style of Ingwë Ingweron, for the will of the king was absolute among his people, and the Vanyar were loyal and obedient. In return the king asked little of them. Once they reached the safety of Valinor’s shores, he commanded of the elves only that they obeyed the strictures of the Valar who brought the elves to their land. For his part the king, once his children had grown, retreated often to the slopes of Taniquetil, the holiest of mountains, and there he meditated on the meanings of the world, wrote poetry and music famous throughout Valinor, and delighted in the antics of countless litters of cats. Ingwion thought fondly of those cats, and peace of the mountain retreat where the high winds sang purely, and the softness in his father’s large hands as he pointed out the beauty of their home.

It was that peace, that love, that begged to Ingwion to convince his father to allow him to take command of their forces.

Ingwë was in Valmar now, having come for the feast of the Lord of the West. That great feast had been interrupted by the Peredhel mariner from the Hinder Lands, the one that had finally turned all of Valinor into frantic motion. During the excitement that followed, there was no lack of intention in the king of all elves to be absent while such momentous decisions were made. Ingwë sat with the herald at the Elder King’s side to listen to the mariner’s plea and approve the new plan for his people. The raising of Vingilot and the Silmaril aboard it was herald of their intentions and a warning to their foes that all the might of the West had not forgotten.

The Valar said now the time was now ripe to go to war against the Black Foe. The Vanyar must gather old weapons and forge new, this time with the wisdom of the Maiar to guide them. All that wished to hearken to the Valar and the Blessed Mariner must go - but there was still need for some to remain in Valinor. The Lords of the West would not leave their homes, their backs, unprotected. And Ingwion wished to be the one to go, not stay.

Ingwë nodded slowly, but did not yet speak.

Ingwion glanced to his mother. Ravennë, queen of the Vanyar ever since her father had been defeated by Ingwë back in the time of Cuiviénen when the Minyar had decided if to listen or not to the ambassador of the Valar and march to Valinor, smiled. It was not a gentle smile, but then little of Ravennë was gentle even in the ages of peace of Aman. Lionesses of her namesake glinted in gold thread of her gown and upon the combs in her hair, shining in the light of Anar and asserting her power. Ravennë needed no crown to proclaim her rule, for with Ingwion’s father often away from Valmar, meditating in solitude in his monastery atop Taniquetil’s slopes, the queen of the Vanyar handled the day-to-day affairs. Since his majority Ingwion had joined his mother and two older sisters in the task of rule. He felt confident of his abilities to lead his people. So he told himself as he met his mother’s dark purple eyes.

Ravennë leaned over to his father and murmured low into his ear.

Ingwion hoped it was in praise of him, knew it must, stood tall and proud and prayed he honored his name.

"You will lead our people with wisdom and glory," Ingwë said, his voice like the slow rumble of rocks crashing down the mountainside. "As my son, raised well in the embrace of the Valar, a source of great pride to myself and your mother, we see no other outcome. Go with our blessing, Ingwion."

Exultant joy coursed through Ingwion, which he knew was readable on his face, but did not care. He felt as if again a young boy not a century grown, crowing the victory songs of how his father had defeated the old first chieftain of the Vanyar back in the days of darkness. Of a victory unblemished to lead all the people of his tribe to the land of the Valar, of how when his father had washed the blood off his body with the water of Cuiviénen’s lake, there had been no mark from the enemy’s weapon. Boastful songs, war songs, songs Ingwion wanted for himself. Songs he wanted to sing to the stars of the Outer Lands, so no songs of sorrow or woe or defeat would echo through the mountain passes of his home.

When he returned to his wife, Laitissë, he told her of what his father had agreed, and that more-so they were expected to attend a private meal tonight with the royal family. Their two young children were welcome to join, as would any family that was in the palace at the moment. His wife smiled, though he made no mention of the faint hints of red at the corner of her eyes. “Helinë and Ingil will be pleased to see their grandfather. It is so rare for him to be in the palace at Valmar instead of his retreat on Taniquetil.” And to spend time with you, she did not say, for which Ingwion found himself grateful. His wife had not decided if she would be joining the armies, for Ingil was not fifty. Their eldest child trained with the phalanx, questioning Oromë on how to turn the spear wall into a defense from all angles. Laitissë was a fine wielder of spears as well, and more importantly a loud voice that did not panic or react with rashness under pressure. Ingwion wanted her strength at his side during the war, but wondered if he should ask her to stay and guard the homeland with his father and mother. He had not, for he also felt that would be an insult to her commitment and devotion to the Valar. And Ingwion was honest with himself. The presence of his wife made him less nervous.

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Ships leave the port of Alqualondë for the shores of Middle-earth to begin the War of Wrath, and the niece of Olwë recounts her grief and cries for vengeance.

The ships that carried Ilsë from the shores of Middle-earth, parting her from her mother, father, sister, brother, uncles, was pulled by swans. The ship that Ilsë, Fleet Admiral of Alqualondë, commands today is not a Swan-ship. Once she had sailed the most graceful of crafts, tending the rigging and rudder of a ship she had designed and built. Her hands had placed and known every plank and rope and canvas and jet insert on the swan-like prow. But her ship had been stolen from her over the dead bodies of her sailors, taken and then burned.

The ships Ilsë embarks on today are not Swan-ships and can never match them. No swans are carved on their prows; no swans fly before them pulling these ships back to Middle-earth. Still, Ilsë had requested each of her captains gather a fragrant bough from the trees of Tol Eressëa to hang on the prow. The trees came from the Bay of Balar, their seeds grown in the earth of Beleriand. They are a piece of Middle-earth retained in the Undying Lands and one of the only connections to the land of her birth. They are the trees of the family that Ilsë and her people abandoned, the reason she sails today.

One of the oldest among the Falmari of Alqualondë, first among its captains and high in the king’s councils, many forget Ilsë is not one of the Unbegotten, though she was born on the shores of Cuiviénen and remembers the day her uncle returned with a strange light in his eyes and a cloak of starlight. It is Ilsë that leads the fleet of the Falmari, and until her ships reach their distant unfamiliar harbor, it is she and not Ingwion of the Vanyar or Finarfin of the Noldor who command the Army of the Valar.

Ilsë walks to the prow of her deck, ignoring the glances of her sailors, the nervous cough of the helmsman behind her, the bosun’s mate that points to the spray of the waves cresting over the railing. She closes her eyes and breathes in the scent of sap and seaweed, salt and storm-winds. A gull cries above her, and Ilsë nods faintly. The birds that carried her from Middle-earth were swans, but gulls should take her back. It was a seagull that brought her to this deck, a once-gull with the voice of her family that spoke of those who had been abandoned. Star-spray had launched the fleet of the Falmari, and for her sake does Ilsë lead these ships.

She opens her mouth to scream the ancient song of Cuiviénen, the grief chant that she thought would lie forgotten once she reached Valinor’s shores. The song she had been promised would be never sung again, until Fëanor came with his demands. In the dark had her people relearned the chants and songs of Cuiviénen’s terrors, to recount entire families gone and the feeling of security and peace shattered. The songs of the Falmari are water, and tears of grief have as much salt as the sea.

"Carry my song on your winds," she cries to Ossë, feeling his storms whip at her silver hair. He knows her feelings of sorrow, has shared them with her these long years. More importantly he knows rage, and Ilsë screams her grief in anger, feeling the heady satisfaction that there is finally a way to sate her cries for vengeance, to expel the hurricane of rage and horror and weeping upon targets that can be smashed and drowned. She desires a storm to carry her ships laden with soldiers and spears and the reckoning of the Valar to the shoreline of Beleriand, to the very feet of the Great Enemy. She wishes the very sea to swallow him. The is a dark undertow in Ilsë from too many years of pain. "Hear me, oh stars of the Hinder Shore! Hear me, oh stars of my birth!

"I am the daughter of Elmo, taken from us by teeth of the Enemy’s wolves. I am the daughter of Linkwînen, taken from us by the Enemy’s deceit. I am the sister of Galadhorn, taken from us by the Enemy’s orcs. I am the sister of Egnith, taken from us by the Enemy’s deceit."

Ilsë lists her dead, the family she had parted with on the shores of Middle-earth to never see again. Hers is a powerful voice, rough from eons of hollering orders above the flapping of sails and crashing of waves. She does not have a beautiful voice, but this song is for waves that smash the shore, for whirlpools that suck victims for the deep. This a song of harsh winds and ungentle tears. The crew on her deck do not interrupt her song, and if some whisper their own names to the wind that fills the sails, Ossë listens.

Elwing had given Ilsë the names of her dead, of family she did not know she had. They are names without memories, for only her oldest uncle, his name changed unfamiliar to her, does she have a face to recall, a sound of a voice, and a feel of a hand. Her sorrow must be for lives cruelly ended and the lost opportunity to embrace them, as she was able to her distant cousin with the name of star-spray. But her grief is still potent.

"I am the aunt of Galathil, taken from us by elven blades. I am the niece of Elwë, taken from us by dwarven axes. I am the cousin of Lúthien, taken from us by the Gift of Men. I am the cousin of Dior, taken from us by elven blades. I am the cousin of Nimloth, taken from us by elven blades. I am the cousin of Elured, taken from us by elven malice. I am the cousin of Elurín, taken from us by elven malice."

Ilsë remembers the cold face of her uncle Olwë, of her king when she chose to board the ships that would carry her from Middle-earth. She thinks of her graceful Swan-ship, the delight of her seas, the darkness of her grief.

"I am the cousin of Uilon, taken from us by elven blades. I am the cousin of Airesarë, taken from us by elven blades. I am the aunt of Marillo, taken from us by elven blades."

Ilsë wants to rage at Ossë of her home, that she is the captain of her lost sailors, teacher of the ships’ captains, princess of her people. But the ship she stands on is festooned with the boughs of trees and sails towards the sun. It must be the vengeance before her to fill, not the grief behind her that cannot wash away. When she boarded the ships pulled by swans she told herself she was no longer a daughter, a sister, a princess of the family behind her. Now she sails to them.

"I am the cousin of Finrod, taken from us by the teeth of the Enemy’s wolves. I am the cousin of Angrod, taken from us by the Enemy’s fire. I am the cousin of Aegnor, taken from us by the Enemy’s fire. I am the cousin of Orodreth, taken from us by the Enemy’s worm. I am the cousin of Finduilas, taken from us by the Enemy’s orcs."

The saltwater on her face comes from the waves that wash up with each roll of the deck.

"I am the cousin of Elwing, who bids for my aid. I am the cousin of Elrond and Elros, her sons she cries for. I am the cousin of Celeborn, sapling of a beloved brother. I am the cousin of Artanis, last of my cousin Earwën’s children. I am the delight of Círdan, who taught me to swim. I am a child of water, that taught me to sing."

Ilsë’s throat is raw, and her voice has not the weight of power. The sea does not care, she tells herself, for how unlovely are the cries of gulls.

I am the captain of this ship, that will take me to that shore. I am the silver starlight that reflects in my family. I will not be the last of my family, nor hear and see more taken from me. When I was born, Uncle found the Valar that went after the Great Enemy, hunted down his monsters, and pulled him beaten from his throne. Now it is my turn to bring the Valar and their wrath, as terrible as the engulfing sea, to pull the Enemy from his throne. I will see him drown in the sea. Then I will have my family return to me.

Ilsë and her other sister appear in my family tree for the brother of Elu Thingol and Olwë, and thus the stories involving the Lindar, be they Sindar or Falmari. And there was little focus on any Falmari character, especially during the end of the First Age. She is darker and angrier then what I imagine the consensus in Alqualondë might be, but she has more than enough reason to be.

(My tentative fancast for Ilsë is Lin Beifong).

Beleriand drowns between the waves. Just whose doing is that?

See First Chapter for Notes and Summary.

The people of his tribe would say two things about that act of Ingwë's mother, when she lost the use of her arm to drag her husband from the leopard's deadly embrace. First that Maktâmê did it for Alakô was her mate, and it was tribal lore that the first concern of a woman was to the one at her side, he that she saw first when she awoke. That he would always be the primary concern.^[3]

Second that it was foolish of her to do it. The man was too badly injured by the predator, and that by going after him all the woman truly accomplished was to injure herself and thus place two burdens upon her people instead of one. She would have better served her son and tribe and the legacy of her husband had she let him die that day, and kept her body strong and whole.

None said what should have been, and was, what the truth should have been said.

That there was one of the Kwendî screaming out in pain, and compassion would not allow anyone to stand aside, to attempt nothing to stop the pain of a fellow being.

That compassion was the greatest strength of her, and the greatest gift she gave into her daughter Indis.

The broken man that his tribe called terrible names like Skarwô and Ulgundô, Khyannô and Nukottô had been grievously injured in body, it is true. But the long years of pain had weakened his resolve and spirit. To be so cruelly shunned by one's only home, to have no hope of recovery, no one's strength could have mastered that in the end. Thus the woman with her scarred arms, one that was useless to lift and stroke the faces of her family, held onto the man as he sat by the edge of the camp. Her good arm would thread through his remaining fingers, squeezing them tight in her fear. The hand she held would rarely echo her gesture.

The father of the young man who would become Ingwë watched the waves that gently lapped the shores of the Great Mother Lake. One day, Skarnâ-Maktê knew, the despair would grow too great, that emptiness that she could not fill, not when there was so little spirit inside her as well, and her husband would walk into the embrace of the lake. When the suffering was too burdensome, the Kwendî already knew, one could abandon the body, return to the stars, or that darkness between. And yet the father of the man who would become Ingwë lingered, held back by the feeling of those fingers.

But his eye was empty and looked out upon the lake.

Their son could not watch. To the camps of the Tatyar and Nelyar he walked instead, to find peace among the forest or even to hunt alone among the tall grass, anything to avoid his home. To the Tatyar boy Finwë who had no parents, lost long ago in a tragedy forgotten, and raised as the clever and tolerated nephew of all and none, the man that would be Ingwë went and watched the younger man mold clay vessels for storing food and invent names for the markings Rúmil drew in the clay. To the Nelyar boy Elwë who had two younger brothers, the man that would be Ingwë went and helped his taller friend chase after the boys and their friends, to clean mud from their faces and learn to swim on the lake. Joy was to be hunted outside his village, thus knew the man that would be known as Ingwë Ingweron. He could not continue to bite his tongue and say nothing as the chieftain and highest among his tribe mocked his parents and him, not after he became a man grown. To improve his family's standing drove him like the need for air and water. And the man who would become Ingwë Ingweron could not bear to be witness to the last fading of his father.

One last attempt to save her husband did Maktâmê devise, and begged for another child. A child, she hoped, might give her husband a task to focus on, a reason to not fade. Or at least give her one. And perhaps she knew he was lost to her, and hoped to preserve that last bit of his spirit, create one more thing of joy, something that would be born unscarred.

This plan was mostly unspoken, for it would have been mocked if her tribe learned she wished a child from the weak and grotesque. "Neither of you have the strength for a child," they would have told her. That any child from two with inner fires so low and guttering would be one with a spirit so weakly glowing as to be embers easily stamped out. This was the wisdom of the tribes. But they were wrong, the woman knew, as she watched the first child of her and her husband approach. Her strong son, who carried three dead hares in his hand and knelt before them, swiftly and expertly skinning the animals, spitting the meat and roasting the flesh, then pulling off the best parts to feed his father. All the while with bright blue eyes that refused to release their tears. "My first son is powerful, and learned to make the hunting snares of Tatyar boy," the woman called Skarnâ-Maktê said.

To which, with a helplessness born from many mothers, the young man who would be called Ingwë corrected her, "The snares were from Belekô, a Nelyar."

"It does not matter if the child is not strong," Maktâmê said, "or brings home glory and gifts." Of heartbreaking loveliness was the smile she turned to her son, the one that glanced beyond him to where his father sat near the ring of campfires and picket stakes that ordained the border between the safety of the village and the dangers of the dark wild. "But that child would be mine, and of Alakô. A new life, like you, my son." She left unsaid that any chances for another child grew slim. That the call of the water and the darkness was stronger than her voice and her arms.

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The banners of the Vanyar are white and pure; the banners of Ingwë King are unmarked, unblemished, untouched.

The banners of Ingwë Vanya are the surface of his body when the blood of his fallen foe was washed away, and he stood with skin unbroken by his enemy’s weapon.

When the elves go laughing into battle against the orcs, singing loudly tra-la-laly and smiling bright, they learned this from the Vanyar, who with the spirit of golden-haired Tulkas delighted in the feeling of chasing down their foes, in mocking their enemies, the untouchable-ness of their strength, the arrogant tilt of their heads.

Eventually, Yavanna and Oromë beg, can something be done about the Vanyar’s tradition of a young man’s rite of passage to hunt a lion. The great cats of Valinor are suffering, and it seems quite unfair.

When Melkor lying first came to Valmar, said he had come to fix his wrongs, to make good his promises to the Valar to advise and teach, no Vanyar was interested to hear his words. What wisdom could be found in one so soundly defeated, so weak as to be cast down and wrestled to the dirt? A defeated foe had no right to brag of his skills, nor any glory to offer a listener.

Of the history of the Elves at Cuiviénen and the development of the the three tribes, of the family of Elwë and the discovery of Oromë, of how Indis received her name and Ingwë earned his, and of the honor duel between Imin and Ingwë to decide the leadership of the Minyar and the future of the Eldar.

Note: Some names and terms are in Primitive Elvish, but should be self-explanatory. I am using elements of the Cuivienyarna from the appendix of HoMe XI -plus other parts of HoMe- and the history of the Awakening of the Elves as presented in the Silm, with the one glaring difference - logically it makes more sense to me that the first three elves to awaken and lead the tribes are not the same three elves that go with Oromë. The Ingwë and Vanyar here are based off ideas outlined in this post - Klingon Promotions Among the Vanyar.
Though the focus is mostly Ingwë and his sister Indis, the story covers early life for everyone at Cuiviénen, especially Elu Thingol and his brothers.

The first tribe of Speakers, Kwendî, were never large in number, and their choices would keep their tribe small. In this time all elves lived near the shores of the Great Mother Lake which had birthed them, Cuiviénen, and there did most remain. Yet some chose to venture away, for in that time all elves were curious. But curiosity and hunger drew the people of the first tribe away from the safety of the lake more than all other elves and thus sealed their fate.

The first tribe was the Minyar, led by the First to awaken of all the Speakers, and Imin regretted that his people were never as many as those of other tribes. Tata was the leader of the second tribe, from which they were known as the Tatyar, and their numbers were great enough that more than one village needed to hold their numbers. Of the third tribe Enel was their chief, though so many were the third tribe that added together the first and second could not equal. The Nelyar thus had many villages spread across the shores of the Great Mother Lake. The Tatyar people with flat dark hair and pale skin delighted in all curiosities and new knowledge, and the third tribe found the sounds of water sweetest and thus clamored around the shore and paddled into the lake itself.

But the people of bronze and golden skin, with hair that shone light and golden when the great camp fires were lit, they were fearless. They were first to see the meat of animal kills and use the gift of voice to shout and frighten the scavengers away. They were first to decide to emulate hunters like the great cats and the wolves, to leave the echoing water and run through the fir forest and dark plains in search of prey. With the clear voices and the use of song the Minyar Kwendî called out the plans. With newly invented words they called the ideas of running ahead, of circling the prey and herding it, and of throwing from many hands as if one.

No other creature looked like them, walked on two feet and had hands that could grasp and throw and make. On the first hunt it was rocks to scatter the animals, like they had done to the other scavengers to claim old kills, and sharpened spears from branches and young saplings around their home. A Tatyar would find a way to lash the knapped stone scrapers the Kwendî were beginning to use as knives to make a sharper spear-point atop the wooden javelin. On the second hunt this spear would prove superior. The Minyar would learn to make these stone knives, but most traded with the Tatyar instead. The second tribe had not the skills of body strength, the understanding of animals both prey and predator, the songs and strategies of how to successfully hunt the best game. Better the Tatyar craftsmen spend their time on the spearheads and knives, for their hands were skilled to it and familiar, and the Minyar to the long hunts. Thus no time was wasted, and true talents matched of crafter and hunter. This was said to be the wisdom of the customs of the Speakers, the Kwendî, and none questioned it.

The Nelyar fished. In truth they accomplished more than that, for their careful tending of the water reeds and plants growing on the narrow rich land between shore and the surrounding woods was the beginning of agriculture. The Nelyar would tend the reeds to make woven goods like clothing and baskets and later the walls of their houses. Tubers and edible greens they also farmed, beginning to control the environment instead of the other way around.

The Minyar grew strong on the rich red meat of prey, drinking the thick blood and sucking the bone marrow. They would offer pieces of heart and liver and lung to the Tatyar craftsmen who gave them the spearheads. Not just stone, but tools and art of many materials became the province of the second tribe. Clay from the lakeshore baked in fire pits became hard enough for bricks and pots, and skilled hands learned to make many shapes and patterns. Once enough deer were killed and antlers gathered, bone weapons became common. Even the Tatyar children would expend their curiosity by hunting through the woods after rutting season, looking for discarded antlers to make into new tools and ornaments. Thus the character of the Noldor, of what the second tribe would value most, was given its foundations.

But to leave the sight and hearing range of Cuiviénen, to run after the great deer and horse and boar, was dangerous. Not only was such big game dangerous to the hunters, where a kick or tusk of an animal even fatally captured could injury an unwary Minyar tracker, but the Kwendî were not the only hunters on the plains. Great beasts, monsters of horn and ivory dying the earth with blood^[1], also competed with the Minyar for prey, or saw these Kwendî as food. Hunters, both male and female for in those days and indeed forever after for the first tribe saw no difference of gender in the skill of a runner to defeat the swift deer or an arm that could hurl a spear, were lost to the violence, and thus the first tribe was never able to grow in number like their kin who did not venture into danger.

And the best illustration of this is the story of the mother and father of those we would later name Ingwë and his sister Indis.

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Before I can (cross)-post "Of Ingwë Ingweron" and all my other stories centered around the time before the Great Journey, I must explain a headcanon that became the bedrock upon which all else is built. It was built off some ideas about the Vanyar and my ideas and opinions about Cuiviénen, then once I mulled over some thoughts, I landed on what I swear is not a crack theory.

Ingwë is a Stone-Cold Killer, or Klingon Style Promotions Among the Vanyar

The Cuivienyarna presents the first three elves to awaken as immediately partnered with a corresponding spouse, and together these couples are the finders, founders, and leaders of the three tribes. The Three are Imin (and Iminyë) for Minyar/Vanyar, Tata (and Tatië) for Tatyar/Noldor, and Enel (and Enelyë) for Nelyar/Teleri. The most popular fan concepts are that the first Unbegotten elves are allegorical figures or if actual characters then are not alternative names for Ingwë, Finwë, and Elwë but their immediate predecessors. Treating these three (six if counting their spouses) as purely allegorical will work, roughly, because the Cuivienyarna is supposed to be the simplified story that teaches counting to young elven children. But I think simplifying their existence to allegory only really applies to their names and a glossing over of political reality. And misses out on developing any real story set in Cuiviénen. If they are real historical people, then matching the First Unbegotten -Imin, Tata, and Enel- to the later trio of Ingwë, Finwë, and Elwë ...doesn't work. At least not for Finwë and certainly not Elwë. But the alternative never sat easy with me. Because if Imin, Tata, and Enel exist as separate characters, why are they never heard of again or influence events in the Silmarillion? At least whomever they were based on, those shadowy first tribal leaders of the elves - who cannot be the Ingwë, Finwë, and Elwë for reasons I will soon explain. The common fan theory is to make Ingwë, Finwë, and Elwë (plus Olwë and Elmo) the sons or grandsons of these legendary first leaders of the three elven tribes. Or work around the problems of siblings in Ingwë's case with Indis and Elwë's two younger brothers, not to mention the disappearance of wives, and say that the Three are the same characters. Either Ingwë is Imin’s son, or just another name for Ingwë. But not even Ingwë fits perfectly into the silhouette of Imin. Or pretend that Tatië and certainly Enelyë don't exist. (For if Enel is Elu -highly unlikely- then wherefore can Melian and her love be?)

Now I’ll admit I first fell into this trap of saying Ingwë, Finwë, and Elwë were the heirs of the leaders of their tribes. That this family tie was why the three were chosen as ambassadors to go with Oromë and why the elves of their kindred followed them. But it is said only this: that Oromë picked the three, and that after they came back from Valinor with tales of that land and the light of the Two Trees now in their eyes, the elves of Cuiviénen listened and followed them as leaders. The implication becomes clear. Ingwë, Finwë, and Elwë were not leaders of the elves until after returning from Valinor. And no reason is given as for why Oromë chose them. (Or if they weren't volunteered or volunteered to go.)

So what? Did the elves have no leaders before Oromë's arrival? Please. Elves are social beings. There might not be a formal hierarchical structure yet, if one really wants to stretch credulity, but there would be leaders. Maybe not permanent leaders, not a single leader for every category of decision facing the group, but they exist. And if the elves were a settled community, as hints of the language might suggest, the necessity of some Initial Three Bigwigs can't be denied. So the ruling families might be but one generation, but there would be present those personages most looked to for leadership, and they will be called by their Cuivienyarna names for ease of convenience.

Back to the supposition of Ingwë, Finwë, and Elwë as the sons and heirs of the leaders, that headcanon so popular to fic writers would don't ignore the Cuivienyarna but aren't willing to twist the story to make them the same figures. The headcanon I dropped. What if our three, Ingwë, Finwë, Elwë, are not at all related to the ruling families of the three tribes? That these three are on the social outskirts of the tribes, low-ranking members among their groups. Young men with ambition and drive, but little chance for opportunities. And if one or all are orphans as well, dodging the issue of an Elwë with two brothers but no parents, no recorded parents for Finwë or Ingwë, all the better to explain why there are none with authority over the three kings or to whom they turn to for counsel or must share power with in Valinor. Because it was getting unrealistic to lose all three original leaders to the Black Riders, unless in one fell swoop, or have all three choose not to follow their sons to Valinor.
And add the fact that the elves had no guarantee that those going with Oromë to Valinor would or could return or how long that they would be gone. You would not want to send a person in authority away, especially if they are either leading the tribe or depended up in an assisting role- or just to be around in case something happens to the leader. Elwë, perhaps, as he had two younger brothers as spares to the heir, and thus his loss would not be a permanently fatal blow to the running of his tribe. But this crisis would still happen to the Teleri anyway, permanently dividing their tribe and psychologically scarring them. Ingwë, Finwë, and Elwë are scouts. You don't send the most important people out as scouts, people you need to be leading the tribe and nascent villages while waiting for the scouts to return with news. Send out trusted people, perhaps. Maybe your heirs. Depends on how callous one imagines the early elves, and just how great the uncertainty Oromë's offer is. Is he promising a hyper-quick visit with guarantees of their swift safe return? How much do the elves, so recently plagued by abductions by Dark Riders, truly trust that promise?

So Oromë picks (or is offered) the three that are not necessary for their tribes’ continued survival, three young men from each group who are eager for the chance at something greater.

Ingwë, Finwë, and Elwë go to Valinor, bask in the light of the Two Trees, and grow stronger and wiser and more powerful. They desire to return to Cuiviénen and convince their people to follow them back to Aman. They return with the goal of gaining followers, of convincing the Eldar in their tribal groups to follow them so that they may live under the Two Trees and away from the shores of Cuiviénen. They return as the Three Prophets.
And the three leaders of the Minyar, Tayar, and Nelyar are going to see the young men as dangerous threats to their authority, rebellious and seditious upstarts trying to steal their power and leadership. Raging debates would occur as the tribal kings tried to silence these three prophets. Over time, both Finwë and Elwë (who has his brother Olwë as the Aaron to his Moses, so to speak) use speeches to convince about half the members of their tribes to abandon the authority of the true leaders and commit to going to Aman. The Tatyar and Nelyar that do not convert become the Avari, the Unwilling, staying under the leadership of Tata and Enel, knowing that they were the true elves and that those the took to the march were deserters and also rebels.

We know the Avari are equal parts the Tatyar that stay and Nelyar, and none are Minyar.

And here is where the most radical point comes in- for all of the Minyar chose to go with Ingwë to Valinor. Which means we can’t have a Imin and Iminyë, that arrogant hypothetical first elf ever awakened, still leading the Minyar unless we decide Imin and Ingwë are one and the same (which makes Indis a daughter or granddaughter). Is then Iminyë ruling as queen as the Minyar let their king go off to the unknown with a strange power, one that is of the same kindred as those frightening riders? Okay, but then we say Imin is Ingwë, but Tata isn't Finwë and Enel isn't Elwë, that only the first couple is real and the other two are stories or that our sets of trios must be unequally mixed. No, we must keep Imin and Ingwë as separate characters.

Which means Imin has to die.

...Or at least be permanently removed from power among the elves, for Ingwë will be held forever more as High King of All the Eldar.

And how is Imin going to die and to leave the power vacuum for Ingwë to step in, thus allowing Ingwë to gather all of the Minyar under him to move en-mass to Valinor? Especially when Melkor has been chained away, removing that immediate threat and oh so convenient tool to remove Imin. When debates are raging among the elves of Cuiviénen of whether to stay or go.

And that's when I had the idea for the elegantly simple solution.

Ingwë kills Imin, takes his place as king.

(**insert Lion King gif**)

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Bledda lurched back suddenly, almost losing his balance and falling to the dirt as his legs tangled beneath him. It would have been a humiliating blow to his young pride, but he was too startled and concerned with the creature in front of him to worry overmuch about a young man’s dignity.

Bledda was almost eighteen years old, a young man who had grown up in the dark days of Beleriand when the Great Enemy had ruled uncontested over the continent. Until ten years ago, that was, when the vast and glorious armies from the West had landed to challenge the Great Enemy. Bledda’s mother had decided it was time the Bór return to Beleriand from the homeless wilds of Taur-in-Duirnath and plead for succor where all the other survivors of Beleriand gathered. Bledda had fought orcs and seen many elves, but he had never seen this creature before.

It was large and loud, with a mouth full of white fangs, and it was snapping and growling at Bledda. The vicious beast was only restrained by a piece of leather around its throat and linked to a post driven in the ground. If pressed, Bledda would say it most resembled a warg, though he did not understand why anyone in the refugee camp of Balar would keep a live werewolf, especially when children and the infirm were nearby. Spittle flew from its red maw and dagger-like teeth. Its body strained against the thin piece of leather, lunging towards the young man. Bledda cringed at the volume and malice of sound. Why was there such a dangerous beast in the center of camp and why was he not warned when the boat crammed with other desperate and weary survivors of Beleriand had unloaded its passengers on the crowded shores of this island?

An old man was drawn by the noises of the creature and Bledda’s startled shout. He started to yell at Bledda in an unfamiliar language, making gestures towards the howling creature and pointing accusingly at the young man.

"I did not do anything!" Bledda shouted in his best Sindarin. He knew his mastery of the Grey-elven tongue was better than most in his tribe, but it was hard to hear anything over the creature’s snarling and howls. The clamor was drawing spectators, and Bledda began to panic.
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A new star has risen in the sky, a great army from the West has come to war with Morgoth, and the survivors of the Bór make their choice for honor and hope.

"We cannot stay," Kreka says, scrutinizing the timbre of her own voice. She stands before the two elf lords near the edge of the camp, facing them alone, but the eyes of both her people and theirs are upon her. Age has begun to creep into her voice. She is only a few years over forty, but she will soon be old, with a voice withered and desiccated. Already she can hear her voice made bitter and fragile like a piece of untanned leather now riddled with cracks. No good for belts and shoes, but she hopes the strength of her heart makes that leather voice into the finest bowstring, that her words fly sure and deep into the breasts of the Bright Ones. She will not allow her speech to be dismissed. "Our people will no longer stay with your camps. We no longer pledge for your protection, Lord Maglor, Lord Maedhros."

Kreka wishes she was like Old Ullad with her failing vision, that she had a flimsy haze to settle over her eyes, one that would give her power to meet the piercing light of the Bright Ones’ eyes, the power to not look down, to feel confident that a shield protects her conviction and inner mind. But Kreka stares, and allows her anger and duty be her shield.

She is an old woman by the reckoning of her people, and age ate away her fear of them.

There are few in the camps of the Bright Ones anymore. The elves that remain are mostly drifters, suspicious ones with gaunt faces, the escaped thralls and exiled criminals. Those that still value their own kind and their own lives band together to join the Bright Ones, and many of the ex-thralls see a kinship with the one-handed. The human outlaws are worse than the elven ones. Violent crude men, they either boast about or hide dishonorable deeds in their pasts according to temperament or crime. Kreka cannot decide which she finds more worrying. The men that come are desperate, and among the merely scared and hungry are the oathbreakers, murderers, and traitors. They crawl into the following of the Bright Ones, who need the numbers and no longer cared what type of men will follow them.

As a mother to her son and leader of her people, Kreka cares. As holder of the honor and memory of Bór of the Great Soul, of Great Foremother Borte, of her grandfather and great uncles that died to preserve their loyalty, the soul of her people, she must stand and fight for it.

Especially now when rumors of another choice have come to her.
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After the Third Kin-slaying, Maglor and Maedhros return to their camp in Ossiraind with Elwing's sons.
A human woman learns of what happened and must make hard decisions.

Or, "What Happened to the people of Bór after the Nirnaeth Arneodiad?"

"The sons of Bór were Borlad, Borlach, and Borthand; and they followed Maedhros and Maglor, and cheated the hope of Morgoth, and were faithful."

“the sons of Ulfang went over suddenly to Morgoth and drove in upon the rear ... They reaped not the reward that Morgoth promised them, for Maglor slew Uldor the accursed, the leader in treason, and the sons of Bór slew Ulfast and Ulwarth ere they themselves were slain”

- The Silmarillion "Of the Fifth Battle"

"For the sons of Fëanor that yet lived came down suddenly upon the exiles of Gondolin and the remnant of Doriath, and destroyed them. In that battle some of their people stood aside, and some few rebelled and were slain upon the other part aiding Elwing against their own lords (for such was the sorrow and confusion in the hearts of the Eldar in those days); but Maedhros and Maglor won the day."

- The Silmarillion "Of the Voyage of Eärendil"

The camp is full of noise long before Kreka sees the red banners of her liege lord, the Bright Ones. Once the Folk had pitched their round felt tents separate from the Bright Ones, the elves, but they are together too few in number and now sit only strides apart, and when their horses are corralled, it is in the same pen. It is the horses she hears first, the stamping of their hooves, the whuffs of their breath and low cries as they sense home and food and rest. Kreka is a woman of the People of Bór, and she knows horses. She smiles, perhaps more nervously than she wants to admit, for she is glad her liege lords have returned, even if they make her uncomfortable.

A glance to confirm her young son is where she left him. Old Ullad has a vulture-like grip on the back of his tunic as the other hand stirs the footed cauldron in front of her tent. Children could never be unattended, least they run loose into the paddocks and tramped, or worse into the woods beyond and lost.

"Mind Grandma-ma Ullé, little one," Kreka says on a laughing tongue, making shooing hand motions at the boy. "Stay put so I may find you after I speak to the Bright Ones, and maybe I shall tell you of what happened. Be a good son; do not shame me, and perhaps I shall bring you with me tonight and sit on my lap as the Bright Ones sing of their victory."

Her son plops to the ground, a fat pout on his small lips, but he does not stand up and pull at Ullad’s grip. Having accepted her admonishment to wait - a small miracle in itself! - he picks up a stick near his chubby knees and begins to bend it. Leaving her son to play at being an archer, Kreka meanders her way through the circle of tents, following the rest of her kin that line the rough wooden palisade waiting for the elves to come out from the trees.

The blood-haired one emerges first, Maedhros One-handed. The leader with the sad face, she thinks, sad and broken Little Father. His shadow follows, the dark-haired brother. Once there had been more than one brother of Maedhros with dark hair, before Doriath. Kreka, like all her people, secretly fears the second brother, Maglor of the serpent-swift sword. He is a great warrior, as skilled in war-arts of the sword, the bow, and the horse, as good of a warrior that her kin should aspire to be. But Kreka will not deny she feels uneasy around the one they call Maglor. For all his seemingly gentle manner, his sorrowful voice, she remembers who the stories say slew Mighty Uldor. A wolf may howl mournfully, but a wolf is full of hungry teeth.

She does not see the one that looks like One-handed, the two-soul that would ride behind the serpent-swift sword. Is it to be Doriath again? The riders that enter the camp are too few, and this close to the encampment any scouts or outriders would not stay divided.

The warriors have filtered in through the palisade that separates their camp from the gloom of the trees. At first the voices had been happy, excited, but as all the Bright Ones enter and people begin to count the numbers, see the empty saddles and the ugly stains of gore and blood, the questions change. Kreka sees the faces of the lords, Maedhros and Maglor, and for all the brightness of their eyes knows this coldness. My eyes, when Ernath died, she thinks. They have failed. They did not recover the jewel that means so much to the Bright Ones’ honor. They have lost the last of their brothers as well, and so many, too many of their men. Kreka needs only her hands twice to tally the warriors of the elves, and fear climbs up her innards on taloned paws, for how can her lords keep her people safe with so few?

The men of her people press at the lords for knowledge of the attack, of how it failed, if the fallen were buried at that place next to the strange thing called the sea.

Kreka cares little. They have failed, and more have died. Whenever the elves attacked another, the only thing they bring back is more death. Her mother said as much, the day the Bright Ones returned from Doriath.

She notices shapes in front of each of the lord’s saddles, which she could not discern as they entered. Now that she sees, she stifles a cry of shock. Children, two very young boys, a pair of elves, she thinks, as alike as the two-souled was said to be to his long-dead twin in appearance, though the one seated before Maedhros clutches at the horse’s mane and looks around fearfully, while his brother sits listlessly against Maglor. Both boys have been worn out by the journey and whatever they saw before. Kreka knows, for their eyes are red, and faces sullen and puffy, like Bledda after her son cries out a tantrum. They must have come from Sirion, from the village her liege attacked, for Kreka knows the elves have no children here and does not know the faces of these boys.

Why have her lords taken these children, she wonders, for their parents must lie dead by her liege lord’s blades, and what reason would they have for stealing the children? Unless they were the only survivors left, she guesses, the only ones not slain, and the lord with one hand is soft-hearted, would not leave two young boys to die of exposure again. According to her mother, that is, who remembers what happened after Doriath, that Kreka was too young to know. Hearsay, anyway, for no human fights at the side of the Bright Ones anymore, not since the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, not since the sons of Bór chose to fight for the elves against their kin. Damning their people to flee afterwards to the Bright Ones for safety, for all the good it did, Kreka thinks bitterly. To swear an oath to no longer raise a weapon against any of the elves, for even the sacrifices of Bór’s sons bought little trust after Uldor’s treachery.

Once everything has settled, the bowstrings unstrung, horses checked and brushed down and turned loose to the paddock, the one with dark hair, Maglor, calls for some food to be brought for the boys. A bit of goat’s milk, he says in an unconfident voice, most unlike him, and Kreka knows he has never cared for any children aside from his brothers, and that these boys are a challenge. The word Peredhil she does not hear yet, nor will understand its meaning at first.

It is as she is fetching some nourishment for the new hostages, for they must be the Bright One's insurance to keep the boys' surviving kin from following and retaliating, though it is best to think of them as just new refugees, for maybe elves consider the boys the same as how they think of her folk, that Kreka learns that which breaks her world.

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They are the equal -if not greater- in worth to the Silmarils.

“But as for our white ships: those you gave us not. We learned not that craft from the Noldor, but from the Lords of the Sea; and the white timbers we wrought with our own hands, and the white sails were woven by our wives and our daughters. Therefore we will neither give them nor sell them for any league or friendship. For I say to you, Fëanor son of Finwë, these are to us as are the gems of the Noldor: the work of our hearts, whose like we shall not make again.”

Their ships are their glory and their homes. Song cannot contain the importance of their ships to the Teleri. No words would ever hold the entirety of their meaning and worth. The ships are the unsurpassed culmination of the craftsmanship of their hands, their creativity, their love for and striving towards beauty, and the product of the collected knowledge of their people. This knowledge was built upon trial and error and by lessons learned from every watercraft that has come before. The ships of the Teleri are the legacy of their people, but also the kindness and friendship of Ossë, the first to teach then to sail and master the waves. Through this they learned to fly across the surface of the sea. The ships are a connection to their roots and also the wings that take them to the future. But most of all, their ships are the breathing present of their culture. Daily life ties to their ships like the netting that hangs from the masts. The Teleri are their swan-ships, for they have poured their souls into their sails and used the planks as the foundation of their lives. The ships are the physical manifestations of the furthest flights of fancy dreamed up by their builders. Seemingly delicate, yet expertly calculated and engineered, they are also the work of an entire community, those long efforts of many hands, of men and women, from eldest to youngest. Every hand has at least some small part in the building and maintenance of the fleet, and all have sailed upon them. Undeniably the swan-ships are masterful works of art, yet they have purpose and a practical application greater than their unequaled beauty. Tools as well as sculpture, homes as much as monuments to their creators. The movement across the bay comes from the performance of their sailors to ensure their white sails catch the winds and their swan-shaped prows cut through the cresting waves, to create a dance that gives meaning to their glorious appearance. It is with pride that their owners gaze upon the work of their people.

The mingling lights of the Two Trees dimly illuminates the harbor of Alqualondë, and even that light disappears when one takes a ship out into the bay. It would be a waste of not the just effort and craftsmanship but of the soul to chain any seaworthy vessel to the docks, especially those as perfect as these masterpieces. To Tol Eressëa they will sail sometimes, but usually there is no destination in mind. The joy of the ocean and to see the jet inlay eyes of the swan-like prows buffeted by spray is goal enough. Uinen combs her hair by the lines of the ships' wakes, her divine voice raised in joyous laughter. Out on the water there is no Tree-light, only the stars, and this darkness holds no fear if it is surrounded by the creaking of sails and the roar of wind and wave. To sail is to dance and sing and reclaim what once held fear. The Teleri can survive without Tree-light, for they came to Aman for its safety and their friends, but their ships are their lives.

When the true darkness of Ungoliant’s Unlight comes, and Morgoth destroys the Two Trees and steals the Silmarils, there is unease and sorrow in Alqualondë. It is strange to have only darkness come through the Pass of Light, and Ossë and Ulmo do not answer their demands for news or reassurance. The Teleri turn to their ships, for the vast majority live upon their vessels far more often than they do ashore. And standing aboard the gently swaying decks, huddled with their arms around their families in the cool holds, here they feel safe. The ships are the most perfected works of their people’s hands, their homes and their pride. And as long as they are aboard their ships, the lack of aught but starlight feels completely natural, whereas the dark streets of Alqualondë hold no comfort when there is no more even a faint silvery twilight. On their ships the Teleri can pretend they are somewhere else, out on the bay away from shore, out near Tol Eressëa with its high cliffs and sweet-smelling trees. This they tell their worried and afraid. One can almost forget anything dire has happened. The swaying of the ships rock their children to sleep.

The Darkness of Valinor, and the madness that comes with it, feels like a hurricane on the horizon to the Teleri. They know one that was elder and envious, fallen in pride, had come demanding works not his own, and once rebuffed had returned with violence and theft. Greed like that would return to steal what could not be given, but the Teleri think their harbor sheltered. Their ships do not falter on the waves and with hand pressed to their tall masts and proudly carved prows, they know they need but to wait out this storm and the smooth waters will return. Strength pours from the wood of their ships to calm them.

With their swan-ships the Teleri wait.

One difference between Morogth and Fëanor, aside from the scale of destruction and murder between Formenos and Alqualondë, is that Morgoth didn't destroy the Silmarils after he stole them.

“How is it an insult when your brother calls me your pearl?”

Eärwen pauses her fingers in Finarfin’s hair, the discarded silver comb at her feet and her lover’s head in her lap. “Because pearls start off as irritants inside the shells, and they must be coated smooth. Eventually the oyster turns the evasive grain of sand into a beautiful part of itself.”

“So I am the annoying Noldo grain of sand who you have softened with prettier words and manners until I fit in Alqualondë?”

Eärwen giggles. “And you might dissolve if dunked in vinegar.”

Finarfin twists his neck so he can look up her. “Where would I be immersed in vinegar?”

She runs a hand over his brow, pushing aside the almost iridescent golden hair. “Tirion is full of sour, quarrelsome people who make you unhappy to be around. It is better for you in Alqualondë. You should stay here. You are beautiful here.”

“Because I am with you, and you are more beautiful than any pearl.”

“You coat me with flattery, marilla.”

A young boy is lost during the long hunt of the Eglath for their missing king.

The moss is cool and soft, feels like the hair of his father under the boy’s fingers, short hair right after it is shorn when the boy rides on his father's shoulders, for the boy’s father wears not the long braids with feathers and beads like Mother and Uncle and Grandfather and the others. Dark hair, not silvery like Uncle Galadhon, or even the dark silver of Grandfather, it does not reflect light. Mother says her uncle, the missing king, has even brighter silver hair, as bright as the stars that pierce down through the trees. They will find King Elu, Grandfather’s brother, by the shining silver of his hair, like a star between the branches. Mother says to always be looking for those glimmers of light behind the leaves, move through the forest with eyes open, to never stop and never forget to see. The boy has spent his whole life searching through the trees, even before he was old enough to know what is was everyone was searching for. He knows each type of tree by the texture of bark under his fingers. He can find his path by the scent of earth and outcroppings of rocks. His mother taught him the names of the birds and other animals by their calls as she carried him in their journeys, then how to hunt them when he grew older. His father taught him how to build snares, to find water when there are no streams, to build a fire when the cold comes, what to say to make Mother pause and laugh.

He is not afraid of the dark forest, to be alone in its shadows, for he has always had his parents, known that he would never be lost, ever unable to find them. Even when he could not see them, he could hear and feel his way back to them, and know that in truth they had never been far. They were never truly separated, never truly lost. The king is lost between the trees, we shall search and find him, see my son, see if you can find him, don't become lost like him. You are not a star; do not wander far. Grandfather and Grandmother worried, the last time they stayed in the same camp, told Mother they disapproved. They worried she and her husband and son would disappear into the trees and never return like Grandfather’s brother the missing king. Mother had laughed then, long and sharp, and Father had rubbed the short hair of his scalp in worry.

Now the boy wishes they had stayed with the rest of his family, with Grandfather Elmo and Grandmother and Uncle. Or that he could find them. Even a glimmer of star-silver hair, though in the back shadow cave of his heart the boy never believed Great-Uncle Elu would be found. It was just a story, like touching the stars with your fingers, or dreams of flying, or that there were songs of the family that forsook them echoing back across the waves whispering 'sorry we abandoned you sorry sorry sorry'.

I’m sorry, the boy whispers to the echoing caverns in his heart. Sorry sorry sorry. I’m lost; I wasn’t listening. Why aren’t you replying to my calls? Mother, Father, come back. Don’t join the missing king in the stars.

The boy feels his youth, too young still for an adult name, though just recently he had begged his father for a true name, a name with meaning, old enough to prove his character, old enough to search on his own.

Now the boy is alone, and rubs his fingers across the cool moss and shivers and wipes away tears.

His eyes water because he is straining them so hard, searching between the dark leaves. He must be confident, he must see. Look, look long enough, and we will find him. Behind every tree, look for the starlight. Mother’s echos are weak without her laughter to give them weight and texture.

Look, look long enough and he will find them.

If you read Wall the Heart, you know this story does not have a happy ending.

That Eöl's name has no meaning, and he waited twelve years to bestow a name that celebrates the deductive and insightful eyesight of his son, suggests a possibly cultural practice of temporary child names (perhaps even to discourage evil spirits around Cuiviénen?). And yes, I make Eöl related through his mother to Elu Thingol- though his father's heritage I leave purposefully unclear as to work with other proposed family backgrounds, though my best guess is Tatyar Avari.

Eärwen has a distaste for spinning flax, as the thread breaks in her fingers, and even when she successfully spins it, she can see and feel all the slubs of her inferior work. Her mother laughs and promises that it is nearly impossible to spin a purely smooth thread, and will make no difference in the weave. The cloth will be for sails, so all that matters is the strength of the thread and the tightness of the weave.

Her mother sings as she spins for sailcloth, and Eärwen learns the new tunes and words. The songs are about Lady Uinen gathering clams and seashells, or brushing minnows gently out of her hair, or seducing her wild husband Ossë to forgo a storm to come into her arms and enjoy the feel of her fingers on his beard. Her mother has to explain what a beard is, and uses the goats as an example. The maids titter and laugh over that song, so Eärwen decides there must be something especially humorous about beards when they are not on goats. Her aunt, Ilsë, and her wife teach Eärwen other songs, the ones from the Powers, so that the cloth will not rot in the wet and it will catch the wind. Eärwen’s mother praises her niece’s wife as the most skilled of all the weavers in Alqualondë, whose enchanted sails never fail to find even the slightest breeze. The maids chime in with how there is no better in all of Alqualondë, and while the weavers in other cities embroider tapestries to fool the senses or craft smoother and finer cloth, none are as perfect for ships and the demands of wind and wave. Aunt Ilsë laughs at how this praise reddens her wife’s cheeks, tucking a blue flax-flower in her hair and brushing a soft kiss across her cheekbones. “Some are best at spinning the thread, or weaving it. Others are best at using it,” says Ilsë with a knowing wink to her young niece. “Do not be discouraged if your work is not the finest. A ship needs much canvas, and no single weaver can provide it all.”

"And you have greatly improved," says Eärwen’s mother, holding up a piece of Eärwen’s thread between her fingers to the gentle silver glow of Telperion.

Eärwen smiles, and her mother hums the next song. It is one that the girl learned the other day, about ducklings following their mother through the streets of Alqualondë. It is a humorous song of everyone politely moving out of the way or helping the ducklings over the city steps so they won’t be separated from their mother as the ducks travel down to the docks. Her favorite verse is when the ducklings and their mother cross the path of her father, and King Olwë bows to the waddling waterfowl and politely wishes them a good day and a gentle swim. She easily believes such an event happened, for it is exactly in her father’s nature.

When Eärwen sings together with her mother, aunts, and their maids, the task of making sailcloth is no longer onerous.

The Great Wolf of Angband leaps, and Thingol thinks of family.

As the Great Wolf of Angband lunges toward Elu Thingol, King of Doriath, the fetid breath reeking of poison and blackened meat, thorn splinters and broken spears flying through the air and the screams of his soldiers and the baying of the Hound of Valinor overshadowing all, he has time for one frozen thought. ‘This is how Elmo died. My little brother slain by the fell wolf-shapes of the Enemy. And my nephew, too, eaten by a werewolf. Is this the last thing they saw, these teeth? Did he call out for me, a desperate reflex for his big brother to save him?’

Then there is a body between him and the red jaws, saving him. The human, Elu thinks coldly in one part of his mind, like the faint echo from a distant cave, but louder is the part of him that screams, ‘Beren, Family, Lúthien’s, Son,” whispers, “family, Finrod, son, Elmo, brother,’ and continues to scream as the Great Wolf flings the body aside. Thingol barely hears the snarl of Huan slamming into the wolf, the fury of teeth and claw as two titanic mirror images rend and savage each other in the twilight. He stares at the body crumpled in front of him, the boy covered in blood, the pale face missing that infuriating, arrogant, familiar, oddly-endearing smirk. “Beren,” he calls, taking in the sight of all the blood, crawls towards the boy, shrugs away the hands of his men that try to restrain him and check for his injuries. He doesn’t matter; Beren does. Lúthien’s Beren, his daughter’s love, his new son-in-law, saved my life, son, family, little son little nephew little brother can’t be dead can’t be dead like Elmo is dead. Thingol kneels at Beren’s side, cradles the boy’s face, feels for the heartbeat, ignores the dark red that is seeping into the grey fabric. Behind them are the howls of the Great Wolf and Hound, trumpeting the echo of the wars of the Valar, the titanic struggle from before the mighty spirits’ entry into Arda, and it is nothing but noise.

Beren’s eyes focus finally through the pain and looks up at Thingol. The king is aware he is speaking desperately, yammering to the boy reassurances that the healers will save him, the wounds be cleansed, that Beren will live. That the human was beyond foolish, stupid. Why did he try to hold the wolf off with a spear in one hand, arrogant unthinking boy; didn’t he remember how successful the last attempt had been? Foolish boy who thought he could do the impossible, always so reckless. Elu isn’t even sure if he’s calling Beren by the right name, for there is something wrong with his vision, the face is blurred, and he can’t tell if that bold smirk - ‘why is he smiling, that idiot, you never listen, you never listen to me, that’s why Mother and Father have me watch over you constantly, you’ll need a keeper until you’re as tall as me, you’d run off and get yourself snatched up by the Dark Hunters, you’re so reckless’ - belongs to his brother or the human his daughter dragged home.

"You aren’t going to die on me," Elwê commands, and he knows not who he is truly addressing, only that yet again he will be disobeyed.

the name change was intentional

Of Beren and Lúthien:

But Carcharoth avoided him, and bursting form the thorns leaped suddenly upon Thingol. Swiftly Beren strode before him with a spear, but Carcharoth swept it aside and felled him, biting at his breast. In that moment Huan leaped from the thicket upon the back of the Wolf, and they fell together fighting bitterly; and no battle of wolf and hound has been like to it, for in the baying of Huan was heard the voice of the horns of Oromë and the wrath of the Valar, but in the howls of Carcharoth was the hate of Morgoth and malice crueller than teeth of steel; and the rocks were rent by their clamour and fell from on high and choked the falls of Esgalduin. There they fought to the death; but Thingol gave no heed, for he knelt by Beren, seeing that he was sorely hurt.

What happens when I connect my ideas of what happens to the missing Elmo to the canon events for Elu and come away with fresh fridge horror.

Also this moment of the Hunt of Carcharoth, Beren's self-sacrifice yet again, Huan's actions to save his beloved friend, and Thingol disregarding everything for the son-in-law he has had such a dramatic change of heart.

After the first battle of Beleriand, more unexpected tragedy strikes in the heart of Menegroth, and a Girdle must be raised.

It is the scream that draws Elu’s attention, a scream that sounds like it should come from the throat of an injured animal rather than that of an elf. The sound has echoed down from the serpentine corridors of the subterranean palace system, warped and uncanny. Elu Thingol grabs the heaviest of the rolled map scrolls from the desk in front of him, privately lamenting that he left his sword and armor back in his private chambers. The scroll will make a poor weapon, but the uncanny scream triggers a fear and a reflexive impulsive to defend his home.

After months of wearing the heavy steel of sword and armor, Thingol had relished the absence of the weight, the respite from the fighting. Only a week and a half after returning to Menegroth from the killing fields in the East, Elu is tired of war and death. His muscles are exhausted from the strain of desperate marches across the rough terrain of his realm, back and forth from the stronghold, of heaping the corpses of orcs in stinking hills trying to expend the rage of helplessness from Amon Ereb. The guilt of coming too late save his friend and fellow king Denethor, of being unable to save any of the Laegrim, has destroyed his sleep, and at first Thingol thinks the scream is just a walking dream, another hallucination. Images paint across the back of his eyelids: finding the cooling bodies of Denethor and his two sons that played with Lúthien as children, bright and dear lads who Thingol had taught to use a sword, nephews in all but direct blood, their bronze swords bent and broken by Angband’s steel. Denethor’s wife, as dead as he, found on the hill, who constantly teased Thingol for being too tall and ugly, and who he had retaliated by insulting her cooking. Elu thirsts for at least one sip of her awful bitter beet stew, an irrational craving ever since he returned from the battlefield, and knows the only reason he feels nostalgic for that nasty stew is that he will never have it again. Galathon, last child of his brother Elmo, the only one of Thingol’s nephews and nieces left to him on these shores, is last no more. Thingol hates how he found the dead body, a grisly wound on Galadhon’s head that made all features of that smiling face unrecognizable, only knowing it was his nephew by the dark silver of the hair and the familiar leaf embroidery on the padded silk jerkin. Denethor’s kinswoman and Galathon’s wife, Danaril, stretched out at his side almost as if she was sleeping peacefully, the illusion broke at the ragged bite marks on her arms and the gaping wound that nearly severed her torso in two.

Elu’s first task upon returning the Menegroth and reassuring his wife and daughter of his personal safety had been to approach Galadhon’s two young sons. They had been under the care of their grandmother, Elmo’s wife Linkwînen. That painful walk to their wing of the palace made Elu feel like he was wearing a pair of those ridiculously ugly Naugrim boots, steps weighed down by heavy cast iron. A long walk, in the end unavoidable, for Linkwînen knew. His sister-in-law grew up on the shores of Cuiviénen, had lost friends and relatives to the dark riders. She has comforted Elmo when he and Elu’s parents had been taken by the hunters, stood strong during the long years Elu had been missing, separated by choice from her oldest child when the tribe was split, and lost her second child to the evil spirits during that long and dangerous period when the Eglath wandered the wild of Beleriand. Strong unbroken Linkwînen. Then came the year Thingol had to approach her when the fell false wolves hunted and tell her that Elmo, her beloved husband and Thingol’s precious brother, was among the missing and presumed dead. Tell that the reed girl who grew up with the youngest of the silver-haired boys that she would no longer have her companion, no longer tease a man curious as a squirrel and have his voice answer back, that her walks through forest and wading in the shallows of the rivers and lakes would be lonesome where it once was always with treasured company. That grief had bent Linkwînen harder than the day the Lindar tribe split, or the day young Eöl returned unexpectedly to them with dark eyes haunted by unspeakable events and told a sinister tale to sicken the joy of reuniting with the knowledge this reunion came only to her grandson, that her daughter and son-in-law would never return as well. Thingol had feared the grief would break his sister that day only her grandson returned, but she was well-named, for like a reed bowed by the wind Linkwînen had rebounded. She had poured her energy into helping her people, into building friendship and knowledge with the dwarves that had returned her only grandchild, and then when the Laegrim came to befriend and assist them. She had encouraged her last child, Galadhon, to find happiness with Denethor’s sister, to start a family.

And once more, because of Elu’s failings to protect his friends and kin, he had to approach Linkwînen in the aftermath of Amon Ereb. He had to inform her of more family that would no longer walk at her side.

She had known, for news of the grievous price victory had cost them flew ahead of Thingol’s returning army like bands of crows, and the tales of the Laegrim refugees deciding to shelter in the many halls of Menegroth instead of retreating home spoke loudly. The young boys, Galadhon’s two sons, were old enough to understand what had happened, though the elder, Galathil, had put on a brave face and did not cry, nor did he say that he wished he had been allowed to fight at his parents’ sides, and die with them. Not that he needed to; Thingol read it in the grief and guilt across his face. The younger, Celeborn, had been the one to place his hands around his grandmother’s shoulders. Taller than his bare fifty years would seem, the youngest scion of Elu’s kin had only asked if his parents had been in much pain before they died. Celeborn was wise; he knew his great-uncle had lied when Thingol answered it had been swift.

In the echoes of the unnatural scream, as Thingol kicks the maps outlining the armies of orcs that have overrun his kingdom, the lists of refugees that have poured in from all over Beleriand to crowd the halls of Menegroth, Elu connects the straying thoughts. The scream is coming from Linkwînen’s chambers, deep in the heart of palace. And it is not a wail of heartbreak.

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Heget's Blatherings

Hoard of the Squirrel Wrangler

Entries tagged with heget writing

Boromir and the Swamps

That Summer When Aegnor and Angrod Had to Intervene in the Inception of a Clan Feud

Those Wisp'lights Aren't to Be Trusted

Burnt Lighthouses

The Brides of Death

Feasting with the Lions of Valmar

Grief is an Undertow

Of Ingwë Ingweron - Chapter 2

The Pride of the Vanyar

Of Ingwë Ingweron - Chapter 1

Klingon Promotions Among the Vanyar

Bledda and the Beast

A Vulture With the Sun in Its Talons

In the Camps of the Bór

The Swanships

Pearl

Wisp'light Through the Trees

Spin Songs for the Sea

Family and Wolves

Wall the Heart

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