Picking Up The Pieces by Grundy  

A Good Day

Maeglin wondered if he should take it as a good sign that the first thing he saw when he awoke his second day travelling with his new companions was Tindomiel lit by the morning sun. She was laughing at something Anairon had said, though Maeglin had not woken fully in time to catch it.

There were certainly worse ways to start one’s day.

Her smile broadened to include him once she noticed his eyes focused on her.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” she grinned.

“Good day, morning star,” he replied, unable to resist smiling in return.

He almost missed what she was saying because he was firmly telling himself not to get used to this.

“-once they wake up, anyway. Tas sleeps sounder than anyone I know.”

Tindomiel gestured toward the younger girls, both still asleep.

Ah. That explained why she had not been taking any care to be particularly quiet.

“So you can take your time with breakfast,” Tindomiel concluded. “It’ll probably be another hour at least. Plus time for them to eat, and all of us to pack up.”

“Yes, packing up takes so long,” Anairon said mildly in Noldorin, handing Maeglin fresh bread, and what must have been the eggs of some wild bird. “Jam is just there. Have as much as you like, if Tas complains later, tell her she shouldn't have slept in.”

“Thank you,” Maeglin said politely.

“Packing might be a whole ten minutes,” Anairon continued to Tindomiel, “Particularly if you and Tas can’t agree on the approved Sindarin method of stowing a bedroll.”

“Lindarin,” Maeglin and Tindomiel corrected in unison.

“That only happened once,” Tindomiel sniffed. “She knows how to do it now. Not that it much matters today, no one but us is going to see how she stowed it. We won’t make the road today, so we’ll camp at least once more before they head for home and we turn for Neldoreth.”

Anairon merely rolled his eyes and turned to clean his cooking equipment. Seeing that there were two leaf-wrapped packets close to the ashes of the fire, Maeglin concluded he had already made enough for Laurefindiel whenever they woke.

Califiriel joined them while he was still eating, but Tasariel had to be prodded into waking half an hour later by Tindomiel, who was eager to be off. Tasariel elected to eat as they went rather than have everyone else wait for her – though she looked mainly at Tindomiel as she said it.

Maeglin was certain he was missing something, but he wasn’t sure what. With a group of friends like these, it could easily be that there was a prior incident he was unaware of. He tried to reassure himself it was likely nothing more than that. And even if it was, what of it? They weren’t orcs. And the girl with the light would hardly be in league with the Enemy…

He found it easy to overlook it once they were underway. While the girls assured him they were making good progress, by his standards they were moving at an easy pace, at times barely more than a slow amble. His uncle would have had a fit at their definition of ‘good progress’. Though his great-uncle Thingol would probably laugh rather merrily...

The scenery was of less interest to him than his companions, but he still could see no good way to ask more about them without inviting the same sort of questions himself – or making it obvious that he did not wish to answer them.

He compromised by asking Califiriel – the calmer of Laurefindil’s daughters – about her studies, as the girls had mentioned tutoring. That got both her and her sister talking, and it didn’t take very long for them to segue from their studies to the city and its people in general. So it was that Maeglin learned to his immense confusion that all the Lords of Gondolin were alive and well.

He didn’t see how that could be. Not unless the reports that had come through before Sauron had gone hunting for Idril and Eärendil had been inaccurate – or perhaps deliberately false? Could it have been a ruse to panic his cousin into premature flight? He could not see how so many of the Ondolimdrim escaping alive was reasonable, though. He knew full well the forces that had been arrayed against them.

Fortunately, his quiet was interpreted not as confusion but as interest coupled with inability to contribute anything to the conversation, to the point that Anairon finally hinted gently that they were being rude.

It was nearly time for lunch by then. Anairon had sandwiches at the ready, and all three girls passed around nuts, berries, and other small things with the promise that dinner would be heartier.

“We don’t want to have to stop long at midday, so simple food like this means we either stop briefly or can eat while we walk,” Anairon explained.

“If you are asking my preference, I am happy to eat as we go,” Maeglin responded. “What will we do for dinner?”

“Not sure yet – it all depends on how the hunt goes. We’re just coming to the edge of forest here, and we’ll be cutting through. So Tindomiel and I will hunt this evening.”

The other man didn’t sound very enthusiastic.

“I could hunt in your place,” Maeglin offered. “That is, if anyone is willing to lend me a bow.”

“Of course, if you wish,” Anairon nodded at once.

Maeglin suspected from his reaction that he was either not a natural hunter or simply one of those elves who disliked the hunt – though clearly he did not object to using the results.

Tindomiel frowned.

“You don’t have to,” she began.

Maeglin waved that off.

“I want to be of assistance,” he assured her. “You have all been more than generous, and I do not wish to be the only one not contributing. I assure you I am capable.”

“Ok,” she said, still sounding slightly dubious.

He did not press her about it until that evening, when the pair of them, bows in hand, had gone some slight distance from the camp the others were setting up.

“You did not wish me to hunt?” he asked. “Were you concerned for your safety? Or did you not trust my skill would be sufficient to actually bring anything back?”

She sighed.

“It was less anything about you than that Anairon’s being a butt,” she explained. “He’s fine with a bow. Really! It’s just getting him to actually believe that. Whenever it’s anyone but just us, he’ll seize any excuse to get out of it.”

Maeglin got the distinct impression this was not the first outing they’d had a ‘guest’ make such an offer.

“It’s not his fault, really,” Tindomiel said after a moment, scuffing at the ground unhappily as though the dirt were somehow at fault for her kinsman’s lack of confidence.

“He expects a lot from himself,” she added. “Too much, sometimes.”

“I understand,” Maeglin told her.

Both their bows sang as one, for they had startled a pair of rabbits.

Tindomiel’s skill was plain enough, for she hit hers even more neatly than he did his. He supposed it was luck they hadn’t both aimed for the same one – the arrows might well have met in the air.

“Not bad,” she grinned. “Let’s see if we can’t find another rabbit or two, or maybe a bird.”

If they had stumbled onto rabbits this quickly, he suspected her plan would prove little trouble.

“Keeping to rabbits would doubtless simplify things for the cook,” he offered.

“Good point. We’re straining Anairon’s patience enough already. Rabbits it is.”

If we’re quiet, it will be easier, she added. I really shouldn’t have been making so much noise.

Her mental voice was much like her physical voice, but somehow more soothing – as if someone had pressed a cool compress to his mind.

He nodded, and with both of them moving silently, it was only a few minutes more before they doubled their haul.

“Right, you can talk again now!” Tindomiel chirped. “This was so quick we’ll have time to bathe before dinner instead of after.”

They returned to find Anairon presiding over a campsite which was fully set, a fire crackling cheerfully, and neither of the two younger girls in sight.

“Good hunting,” Anairon nodded approvingly. “And faster back than I thought you’d be. Could each of you prep one rabbit for the spit and I’ll do two? Use this to stuff it.”

This looked like a mash of wild garlic, berries, and herbs. Though it was nothing he had seen before, Maeglin was not inclined to argue. Thus far, Tindomiel’s assessment of her kinsman’s cooking skills had not been overblown, and it sounded as if the two of them traveled often enough that he had plenty of experience in camp cooking.

Maeglin set to his task at once. While he suspected he had done this more often than Tindomiel, she was not as at sea as his cousin or her ladies would have been if presented with a fresh killed rabbit. But neither of them could match Anairon for speed – he had his brace ready for the fire not long after Maeglin got his onto a spit, and some minutes before Tindomiel pronounced hers ‘ready for roastin!’

“Do you need us to do anything else?” Tindomiel asked.

Anairon shook his head.

“No, you can go bathe now if you like. I have to wait on the girls – there was watercress in the stream, but no groundnut around, so Cali wanted to look for spring beauty instead.”

At Maeglin’s inquiring glance, he explained.

“The roots are edible, and will roast quickly enough to be done about the same time as the rabbits. At least, they will if she doesn’t take too long finding them.”

Tindomiel hesitated.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

Anairon waved them toward the stream he had mentioned. It was broad, and while it started shallow, further out it looked deep enough for even Turukáno to submerge fully if he so chose.

“You’ll be just as happy without me and my Noldorin prudishness,” Anairon said wryly. “Besides which, we don’t have a spare towel. If he bathes now, he can use mine and then hang it near the fire so it dries before I bathe after dinner. And there’s no sense in me bathing until after I’m done cooking anyway.”

“Good point,” Tindomiel agreed, digging through her pack to pull out her towel.

Anairon was a step ahead of her, and handed his to Maeglin before turning back to mind the spits.

Maeglin followed Tindomiel down to the stream. He hesitated only a moment before concluding that Anairon’s mention of ‘Noldorin prudishness’ meant he didn’t bathe in mixed company as a rule, but Tindomiel did.

She noticed his quizzical expression as they reached the water.

“Anairon was raised strictly Noldorin,” she explained as she shucked her clothing. “So he’s not used to stripping off in front of people outside his immediate family.”

“But you are all travelling together,” Maeglin said uncertainly, wondering what the prevailing etiquette was. “And it does not sound as if this is the first time.”

“Yeah, it took some getting used to on his part,” Tindomiel snickered. “You should have seen his face the first time he was sent to get Cali, Tas, and me when we were sea-bathing! He’s lightened up a lot since. He doesn’t mind when it’s just us, but I guess it’s not surprising he’s turned shy in front of someone else. Oh, also, we let his mother assume that he bathes separately from the rest of us when we’re out and about like this, so whatever you do, don’t say anything to her about it. Or in front of her!”

Maeglin thought it rather unlikely he’d have any chance to do so. But it did seem it would not shock or disturb Tindomiel if he bathed as he would have among his father’s people rather than according to the mores of Ondolindë.

“I would not get anyone into trouble if it can be helped,” he assured her, piling his clothes neatly, and wondering if it might not be sensible to wash them as well.

“I know. But you might not have realized until too late that you shouldn’t say anything, so better a warning now than all of us – probably including you – hearing about it at length later. I’m not sure if you’d be expected to know better or not.”

Tindomiel paused, considering, before plunging into the water.

“Either way, better to just avoid the topic entirely,” she decided when she surfaced.

“What of the Laurefindiel?” he asked, following more sedately.

The water was crisp, but nowhere near as cold as the waters than came down from the Echoriad. He found it quite pleasant.

“Their dad knows,” TIndomiel laughed. “Ennor these days is not much like Tirion in the Years of the Trees, so he doesn’t expect them to be super Noldorin about nudity. It just wasn’t going to happen. I mean, even Ada and Grandmother are used to it, and they’re like the last Noldor-raised Noldor, or sorta Noldor, standing.”

He wasn’t sure he’d entirely understood that. Oh, the words individually made sense, but…

“Sorta Noldor?”

“Yeah,” Tindomiel sighed.

He tried not to watch too closely as she soaked down her magnificent hair.

“It’s complicated. But Grandmother’s the one who taught us Noldorin in the first place, so clearly she sees herself as one of the Noldor at least sometimes…”

Maeglin, only too keenly aware of what that was like, nodded before focusing more on washing himself than on conversation. He hoped that would serve as the reason for not following up with the logical questions. Normally he would have wanted to know more. Who is your father? Who is your grandmother? But normally he would not have felt any reticence about asking.

If Tindomiel saw anything odd in his silence, she did not comment. She seemed just as happy to relax in the water as he was  – happy enough that both of them lingered until Califiriel and Tasariel joined them with a warning from Anairon that dinner was nearly ready.

Tindomiel pulled herself out of the water with a sigh and said she’d go help if they would make sure Maeglin didn’t fall asleep in the water. He was a bit indignant at that – after several good nights’ sleep, and only an easy walk during the days, he wasn’t as tired as that!

But he made sure to keep his reaction to himself, and to keep his conversation with the younger girls pleasant and innocuous. Tasariel loved gossip as much as any of Rillë’s ladies ever had, and it didn’t take much prompting for her to tell him everything currently interesting to the Golden Flowers (and, from the sounds of it, the Fountains as well.)

By the time Califiriel reminded them that they should all get out of the water before dinner went cold, he probably could have ventured an opinion on Ecthelion’s latest flute composition, the romantic prospects of the Golden Flower’s steward (still inexplicably unattached, though not for lack of nissi and neri trying), and whether celandine or buttercup would prove the most popular shade for Tarnin Austa next month.

He had managed with some difficulty to control his reaction to learning that particular holiday was imminent. With any luck, by then he would be far from the city.  He covered it by busying himself with his clothes – he made to wash them, but Califiriel intervened.

“You need to let Anairon’s towel dry,” she pointed out. “If you wash your clothes now, either you’ll be eating wearing wet clothes or naked. Not that Anairon couldn’t use some practice getting over some of his hang-ups…”

“Better idea,” Tasariel suggested. “Wait until tomorrow. I’ll leave you my towel when we head for home. Then you won't need to borrow and you’ll have something to wear while you wait for your clothes to dry. Or you can just walk around naked. Anairon will be less weird about it if it’s just you guys and Tinu.”

Maeglin had to agree that her logic was sound.

Dinner was delicious, and the company just as good. The more Maeglin thought about it, the less he could see how he could possibly tear himself away from his companions. He ought to, he knew. But he didn’t want to. This was the most pleasant, untroubled evening he could remember since… Well, that he could remember. There was none of the tension of Ondolindë, or the misery that came when he had been under the dominion of Sauron and Morgoth. If there had been better days in his childhood, they were lost to him.

He was still musing on this after the meal had ended when it occurred to him that all four of his friends – if he dared call them that – seemed to be urging him to sleep. Perhaps he was unduly suspicious, but after his last experience of trusting too much in his safety, he couldn’t help it. But there was no harm in playing along, he decided. He could lay down as though he were following their advice and feign sleep but stay alert. Like as not he’d swiftly discover that he was more tired than he realized, and his friends were doing no more than looking out for him.

But no matter how it turned out, he’d be able to look back on this as a good day.