Geese and a Violet by Himring

Frenemies since the First Age

Warning for reference to canon-typical background (for a follower of the House of Feanor) and resulting tensions.

It was her geese who let her know that a stranger was approaching. Not that any seemed alarmed, but the flock was gradually shifting from leisurely foraging to watchfulness, drawing closer together. Naurthoniel, sitting in the shade of a rock, was alerted, observing their change of mood, and concluded that they had not noticed any predator nearby but were reacting to an unfamiliar arrival. She stood up and gazed  along the valley, towards the House.

A few weeks had passed since her conversation with Elrond in the breakfast room. There had been no great changes yet, since then, but she and Elrond had spoken a little longer in the mornings and she had even had a word or two beyond the absolutely necessary with the kitchen staff. And she was beginning to consider that she might want to change more than that.

She spotted the arrival the geese had alerted her to and realized that the sight was not as unfamiliar to her as to her flock--and yet it was a sight so entirely unexpected that she had to look again and keep looking to make sure that this was not just some chance resemblance and that her eyes were not deceiving her. But it was Huntress who came walking up the path along the shore of the Bruinen in her accustomed easy stride. Surely, that shape of head, those shoulders and hips, that easy gait could be duplicated anywhere among the Sindar, but not all of them together! She could not be mistaken, not even though it was all of an age since she had last seen her.

Naurthoniel stood quite still. It had been such a long time. A great many things had happened in that time... She remembered how Huntress and she had first encountered each other, in Mithrim, before the rising of the Sun. Naurthoniel had still been reeling inside with shock and with guilt at events before the arrival of the Noldor in Mithrim and had only just begun to learn the ways of Middle-earth and of the Sindar. She had not trusted the Sinda, at first, being painfully aware of her own, recently revealed untrustworthiness. But Huntress had become a trusted friend--so very close--before they parted in fear and pain.

And now Huntress, whom she had thought lost, as utterly as the rest of Beleriand, was here. But there was no counting on it that Huntress would still wish to be considered a friend, not considering all that had happened after their parting. Naurthoniel stood unmoving. Huntress reached the point on the path where the Bruinen was closest and turned off the path, coming closer.

Naurthoniel could not read her expression. The geese had picked up on Naurthoniel's  uncertainty and anxiety. The gander closest to Huntress reared up his long neck and emitted a menacing hiss.

Naurthoniel came out of her frozen state and made a soothing, clucking noise to quieten him.

The corner of Huntress's mouth twitched.

'Oh,' said Naurthoniel, clenching her hands before her stomach, as if to hold the emotions in. 'Oh, Huntress, you are alive!'

'I am', said Huntress. 'If you were so worried I might not be, you could have inquired, you know--come looking for me, even.'

'I couldn't,' said Naurthoniel, simply. 'I stayed with him right until the end, you see.'

And might have followed farther, even, if Maedhros himself had wished it. She remembered how, at the last, he had begun to look around for her, for them, as if out of habit, and clearly stopped himself. And seeing this, she had understood that he feared that if he allowed himself to say farewell to them, it would not be a farewell, that she and Celvandil and perhaps others would continue to follow him as they always had, regardless. She had let him go without protest, then. He had left with Maglor, without another backward look, and she had followed Elrond as Maedhros had wanted her to.

'I thought you might have,' said Huntress.

They were silent for a moment.

'What happened to you, after the Nirnaeth?' asked Naurthoniel, then. 'Did you ever reach Mithrim?'

'I did. I had to go round about, in the end, any more direct route proved impassable, too beset with danger. It took me a long time and I had to sell many of the pearls from the necklace Maedhros had given me on the way. When I finally got there, I found Annael, but my own kin had gone. I stayed with Annael until he left, too.  Later, at the Havens, I found some of my kin again who had survived and, when they decided to board ship and go south, giving up Beleriand for lost, I went with them, for it seemed to me that, having left them and found them again, I could not let them go into the unknown without me. And so I came with them to Edhellond.'

'I'm glad you found your kin again, Huntress! And I grieve for you, to hear that there were some who had died in the meantime, ' Naurthoniel responded. She had not known any of Huntress's kin well, but she thought others among the followers of Feanor might have known them better, although none as well as Huntress, of course, who had shared their life in Himring from start to end. There was an older relative, some kind of uncle, probably, she thought, that Ceredir, her cousin, had mentioned. She would ask about that later, if she could.

'Edhellond, the port of Copas Haven, in the south?' she asked now instead. 'Is that where you have been, since then? But you are here now.'

'News came south concerning the fall of Eregion,' said Huntress, 'although it was not known you were there--I only learned that here in Rivendell. People grew restless and talked about the bad times returning, although Sauron's armies had passed us by. Then Elrond's message arrived.'

'Elrond sent a message?'

'It took some while to reach me,' said Huntress. 'There are few now on this side of the sea who ever knew what name I went by among the followers of the Sons of Feanor and fewer who cared to remember.'

'His message was addressed to you?' said Naurthoniel, startled. 'If anyone had asked me, I would not have vouched for it that Elrond knew who you were.'

'Is that so?' Huntress regarded her quizzically. 'You must have talked more of me than you remember, then, in his presence.'

'You were not forgotten among us,' said Naurthoniel. 'But, after Doriath, few would have believed that you wished to be remembered by such as we had become.'

'Perhaps I was not sure myself, of that, for a while,' said Huntress. 'But when Elrond's message reached me, I thought it was sent, not only on your behalf, but with your knowledge, and I found myself glad to hear my old name again.

I have spent more time of my life apart from you and yours than with you, and now the time that Himring stood seems short, almost--shorter than it seemed when I lived there with you. And yet I find I am still reproved by some for my Noldorin ways, they say, that I learned in in my irresponsible youth. There were few, in Edhellond, who  asked what it was like to live as a Sinda among the followers of the Sons of Feanor in East Beleriand and even fewer who were willing to listen to my answers. And I have found that some things I heard said about the House of Feanor made my blood boil, despite myself.

The message said I was needed and so I came.'

'You came to Rivendell for my sake?'

'That I did.'