Atandil by Eilinel's Ghost  

“I convinced myself the situations were different. I built labyrinths within my reason to justify the pretense, and in their twisting ways I wandered blind till faced with her grief—the tribute paid in pain, as thou hast named it. Till then I could contend that I suffered so thou might be spared; I grieved so that thou might hold love in memory untarnished. That I learned at the feet of Doom to thus keep its step from thine own neck, and so should goodness come of it. Eru forgive me, I was wrong.”

After his conversation with Andreth forces him to face his own rationalizations and hypocrisies, Finrod realizes he needs to come clean to Aegnor and confesses to him both the consequences of his former advice, as well as his own secret grief that motivated it.

It was danger only if the goal was avoidance, and Balan had no desire to escape. The urge to laugh returned and his heart dared Estreth’s cautions to be true so he might find himself ensnared forever, held motionless on this hilltop, a statue cradled within the other’s hands till the world’s ending. If his soul was consumed in the process, then let it be so. It was a fair price.

A few months after Finrod discovered the Edain near Thalos, he continues to dwell with them and form friendships. Balan (Bëor) attempts to learn multiple languages, some old folktales of the Edain come up in conversation, and Balan and Finrod discuss grief with a side of constellations. Balan has a crush.

Finrod felt the other’s panic strike his perception like a blow and was running even before Balan’s cry reached his ear. In a glance, his eyes took in the scene before him: the camp in sudden stillness, one of the Laiquendi staggering through the clearing, a limp body slung in his arms, Balan and Baran sprinting toward him.

It was Belen in his arms.

The Edain and the Laiquendi cross paths in the woods of Ossiriand and are faced with immediate conflict. Finrod and Estreth work to heal the damage, Balan (Bëor) tries to learn the communication of thought, and the Edain choose where their loyalty will abide.

In that moment he envied for the first time the mortality of Men. He coveted a death that came upon you softly, death that whispered and held out a hand and let you slip into his arms in sleep. Death that passed his fingers over your eyes and left a visage in peace. Balan’s death.

It's the Fen of Serech, more or less. An oath for an oath, blood for blood.

It was a custom done in scorn of death, Balan would tell Finrod later that night as they sat beside the fire in the hush of the midnight watch. He might come ever ravening among them, but they would scorn his maw. Even in their rotting they would lay claim to life.

Balan's people are on the road to Estolad. Finrod begins to suspect his own feelings, there is danger on the road, and we witness Atani burial rituals.

“Let us not perish here in the long darkness,” Balan said softly, crossing back to take one of the waiting wreaths and set it upon his own brow, “these creatures you chose to form. Remember us, here in our frailty.”

It is Yuletide. The Atani and Finrod celebrate throughout the night as they stay awake to greet the dawn after the Longest Night. Balan's people settle into Estolad, Atani traditions abound, and Finrod faces some memories.

That it was returned, he did not question. He could look back now and see everything arranged in its full image, he could trace the careful dance they both wound through this past year; every word, every silence, every touch ringing through with that steady truth. How had he been so blind?

Springtime has come to Estolad. Finrod is struck with a realization he has been avoiding and faces the decisions that lie in its wake.

Finrod had felt the cold creep over him at his brother’s words. It was come, then, as he knew it would from the moment he saw Aikanáro’s eyes across the great hall at Ladros, struck through in a single moment with the shock, the gulf, the sudden rush of illumination and despair.

Aegnor comes to Tol Sirion seeking his brother’s advice as he navigates the complexities of his love for Andreth.

“I would give everything to thee, but not as a stray once smiled upon who ever after limps hopefully at thy heels; to be some brittle leaf, wind-tossed and in its delusion of flight thinking it might reach the sun. Nay, there is no choosing for me, Nóm, thou knowest my choice already—writ as plain upon my face as in the thoughts I know thou hast seen. I do not ask thee to make my choice, I ask thee to make thine own.”

But when a year had passed Felagund wished to return to his own country, Bëor begged leave to come with him

“I have felt this role devour me, each year it has claimed; and as I watch you now I see its echo—the years it is kept from you devouring you in the same way. Why should I hold from you, my son, that which destroys me and would prosper you?”

Finrod and Balan say farewell to Estolad and begin the long road to Nargothrond.

“You ask only such? To place the road to torment within thy palms and send thee forth, dear son of dear sons, unto a death of agony, alone and friendless? Only such!” Nóm’s eyes blazed out in the vehemence of his words. “I cannot, Beren. I will not."

Beren arrives in Nargothrond and both he and Finrod navigate a swath of memories as they determine the path forward.

Finrod and Bëor arrive in Nargothrond and navigate what this new context means for each of them.

Belen was near. He had passed the Narog that morning and must be well within the highlands by now. Any moment, he would appear from the trees, shifting from longing to presence through the twilit shadows. The parting would be mended, his son was coming home.

Now settled in Nargothrond, Balan looks forward to welcoming his younger son to join him there. But each has changed in the months since Balan’s departure and they navigate these distances in past and present, home and journey, presence and absence.

His voice was hoarse as the weight of his helpless ardor bore down upon him and the water’s one epiphany flowed through his heart with bitter clarity: it was inescapable now, the truth and the reckoning.

It is Yestarë, the first day of spring, and Balan joins Finrod and a small company in their yearly pilgrimage to Ivrin, and to the holy spring in the hills above. Finrod is haunted still by his recent discovery of the Atani's lifespans, while Balan finds he can no longer keep a confession from his lips.

Here too the king’s presence was distant. Permeable almost, as though he stood half in the glade and half out of time—another wraith, Beren thought with affinity, drifting through the wood.

At the Pools of Ivrin on their road nothwards, Finrod, Beren, and their ten companions rest for one final day of safety before setting out toward the Pass of Sirion. 

In the aftermath of their conversation at Ivrin, Finrod and Balan stumble through the new distance between them. Memory, jealousy, and the ghosts of each follow them throughout.

If the airna’akran had not lingered upon his tongue, if its taste had not brought the memory of all he abandoned, if self-loathing had not rekindled his envy…

Ghosts of the past rise up between them. Balan must face his jealousy, and Finrod the possibility of losing him—as well as reckon with what he is willing to sacrifice to keep the other beside him.

“Blessed was the joining of your forbearers’ souls, and blessed are we by the fruit of their labor.” Eldalótë stood at one corner of the table with a slim chalice raised in salute, first to the king at her left, then to her husband at the foot of the table. “May joy be upon what joy hath wrought!” 

Shortly after Finrod and Balan's encounter with the Orc ambush, members of the family have gathered in Dorthonion to celebrate the begetting days of both Finrod and Angrod.

Finrod attempts to bring Balan to Menegroth as emissary of the Edain, the Girdle does not approve, and Finrod has words with Thingol on the matter.

Balan felt a twinge in his chest as he looked out over them, first of pride in his son’s work, and then of loss—that this land which held his early love for Nóm had been changed now beyond return.

Bëor and Gildor travel to Estolad while Finrod is occupied in Doriath. The two discuss their similar griefs and Bëor must face seeing his people - and his eldest son - for the first time since passing down the clan's leadership.

"I’ve missed this life more than I’ve dared tell you, and I’ve come back and found it gone. It will not have me back. He will not have me back—and no wonder. Where am I meant to put this hunger?"

Finrod arrives in Estolad and does his best to dispel the conflict between Balan and his eldest son. The Atani teach him a drinking game as they celebrate the eve of Baran's wedding.

Had they not promised as much already? Were these not the words of his own soul on the battlements of the Cened Beraid, caught in the other’s arms behind a shroud of rain? His eyes drifted from the joined hands to find Balan’s face. I pledge to you fealty of my heart…

Midsummer in Estolad. Baran and Balan address their conflict, games are somewhat fraught, and the vistors join in the celebrations for Baran's wedding.

“I felt it within me, the terror and despair of the shackled; and twas as though it had been fitted to my soul—my own horror and not the recollection of another’s. I have never known such a fear. It choked me, some heavy, skulking thing bearing copper’s taste upon the tongue.”

Finrod, Balan, and the Guard encounter an escaped thrall while returning to Nargothrond, and foresight rears its head.

”Thou hast set a fracture within me already, canst thou see it not? Broken along the line of my own self. It is the soul’s bond that would be our unmaking, thou sayest—yet thou it was who named us lovers in soul, who holds me still in that bond while denying its effect. I shall rend already at the parting. Wilt thou not?”

After returning to Nargothrond, a welcoming feast for the returned thrall triggers a progression of crises.

“I should have let it bide in memory as was thy counsel, static and finished. I might toy with a future I did not have, imagining it this way or that, but within it she remained the same, ever as she was and thus ever a clear fable.” He winced as he swallowed the mouthful of hrögemetheilit. “Now I have seen her face, and I can never be free of the truth of it: breathtaking as in her youth, changed in all those ways I should have known at her side. Never has the path I scorned seemed more tangible than in that sight.”

In the days following Finrod’s confession, Aegnor comes to his own decision and the brothers discuss their differing paths.

How different this was to that first embrace beneath Rivil’s crags, when all was desperation and relief, the ache of his wounds inseparable from the press of the other’s lips. It was almost strange now to know the caress as joy only and not interwoven with pain. And how different too was Nóm’s heart unbarred; reticence gone, desire unshrouded, all the cold and guarded distance now warm and yielding within his arms. 

Balan wakes to a new and unexpected life.