Geese and a Violet by Himring  

A day in the life of Naurthoniel in Rivendell

Warnings for canonical reference to the Fall of Eregion and the trauma of survivors.

In the early years of Imladris, nobody could have said Naurthoniel did not pull her weight. Even though she had been embroiled in centuries of warfare in Beleriand long before the fall of Eregion, her skill with the dagger or the bow was still less than noteworthy, but she had much experience of sieges and defeat and desperate retreats. She knew all about failing supply lines and foraging and making do in a camp crowded with wounded and refugees. So she pitched right in, was here, there and everywhere in the valley, organizing soup, bandages, bedding to the extent they were to be had, while Elrond's dwindling forces laboured to fortify and defend the valley and keep it hidden.

And when the siege was lifted and Elrond decided to stay on in the valley, turning the refugee camp into a home for himself and such people as wished to remain, Naurthoniel still worked on tirelessly beside the rest. This, too, was something she had  known before, in the early days of settlement in Mithrim and in Himring, in Amon Ereb and Lindon, although most of those she had worked with and shared those times with were long gone. She had once taught Elrond some of what he knew and he still respected her opinion and listened to her, as he did to others.

Those who did not know Naurthoniel very well--and there were  few now left who did know her as well as that, outside the Halls of Mandos--believed she had taken events in her stride. But at last the day came when the Last Homely House was finished, all arrangements in place and all plans carried out. That evening there were celebrations in the newly completed Hall of Fire and many looked forward hopefully into a brighter future, ready to put past horrors behind them, at any rate for a while, despite knowing Sauron was still at large.

It was then Naurthoniel began to withdraw. She began to delegate and eventually to pass on tasks entirely to others, one after the other. At first nobody raised an eyebrow. They assumed she was taking a much-needed break. That was before they noticed she was talking less and less and that, if she was taking a break, she was not taking it around other people, slipping away by herself towards the farther reaches of the valley where few people came. Eventually it transpired that she had taken over minding Rivendell's flock of geese. Some of those who encountered her out there with her hissing stand-offish flock ventured the opinion that they were well-matched.

There was one of her former tasks that she clung to still. Every single morning, she was up early and in the kitchen, baking a trayful of cinnamon rolls. And when they were done, she insisted on taking them to Elrond personally.

At first nobody interfered. But as she gradually lost the mantle of her former authority and more and more people began to regard her as distinctly odd, they began to question her rights in the kitchen and the privileged access to Elrond that she defended so stubbornly, more by dint of ignoring anyone who tried to stop her than by argument, and at last someone dared to raise the matter with Elrond. They met an unusually sharp rebuke.

'Let her be,' said Elrond. 'You may have forgotten, but she kept house in the Hall of the Gwaith-i-Mirdain and the Gwaith-i-Mirdain are no more.'

And thus for a time--quite a long time--this became Naurthoniel's daily life: rising before dawn to bake, seeing Elrond long enough to make sure he was doing all right, pressing her trayful of rolls on him in lieu of things unsaid, then wandering off down the valley alone except for the companionship of her geese.

This morning had not started any differently. But as she waited patiently in front of the oven for the rolls to be ready, she felt a thought stir in her brain, a new thought perhaps, but as she tried to catch it, it flickered and was gone, like a fish in a murky pond. And as she mounted the stairs with her tray, on her way to Elrond in the breakfast room, she noticed the morning light, how it fell in through the windows and how she herself was passing in turns through light and shade and back into light again.

Elrond was alone in the breakfast room, keeping tryst, but it seemed the rest of the household had been slower to rise this morning. Naurthoniel carefully set down her tray of fresh-baked rolls before him as usual, but, as she did so, the scent of cinnamon wafted up and she spoke.

'Of course, we did not have any cinnamon, in Himring.'

She raised her eyes and saw that Elrond was listening--his face so intent that she could not help it, she went on speaking.

'Well, I guess we did, sometimes, that is, I can remember perhaps two or three occasions when we received a consignment of cinnamon from Cirdan, but it was precious. I would not have wasted it on a private breakfast, then, not even for Maedhros himself, I would have kept it for a formal banquet, with guests. That was during the Long Siege. There was none at all to be had, during the early days--and none at all in the time you were with us, as you know. An entirely false tradition, really--it was in Tirion that my cinnamon rolls were famous. Maedhros used to praise them extravagantly...'

She stopped, feeling abruptly that she had run out of breath, as if she had run a very long way.

'I know,' said Elrond. 'It is a good tradition nevertheless and the rolls are excellent. I am sure there could be none better in Valinor.'

'You are far too kind to me,' said Naurthoniel. 'You have been putting up with me all this time... I was not nearly good enough to you when you came to us, after Sirion, and don't deserve so much consideration.'

'I remember you as kind,' said Elrond. 'You did much more for me than you remember, probably. You were grieving bitterly for your cousin Ceredir, but that didn't stop you from taking care of our needs, mine and Elros's, as best you could. I can recall at least half a dozen occasions when you went without just so we could have a treat.'

Naurthoniel regarded him dubiously, but he really seemed to mean it.

'I should not have left you to go to Ost-in-Edhil,' she said then. 'Especially not if you remember me like that. I felt, even then, that I was deserting you.'

'But how could you have resisted, Narye?' said Elrond, using her old name, the one they had used in Beleriand. 'There was so little for you to do in Lindon, by then, except to try not to tread on anyone's toes and avoid offending people by being Feanorian!  I wasn't at all surprised when, after that visit to Eregion, you chose to stay.'

Elrond put his hand over hers, on the table.

'I'm just so glad you're still here, Narye,' he said.

She considered the surprisingly sane and well-balanced person sitting before her and just how many people in his life he had already lost. Then she squeezed his hand. She did not feel she had the right to, but someone should, even if it was just her.

'I'm not leaving, Elrond,' she said firmly.
 

And Elrond smiled, as if she had given him a great gift.
 

He had really been afraid of losing her, like the rest. The discovery overwhelmed her just a bit, so much that she found she needed to go away and think about that.