A Deed Unforgiven by LadySternchen  

Chapter 12- Dior

Dior shuffled around under his mantle, trying to get comfortable. One of the first storms of this autumn raged over their heads, bending the treetops and making the trunks moan and creak. Maybe it was just his imagination, but he found that the storms during the cold months got worse with every year, blowing almost constantly out of the north, carrying with them a threat.

It was but a small group of people compared to the numerous inhabitants Nargothrond had once had, but to Dior, they were still too many. Too many to lead stealthily south. Too many to feed through the winter that would soon be upon them, and that furthermore promised to be a harsh one, judging not only by the northwinds but by all the animals bearing thick coats already so early in the season. And they could usually be trusted in the matter.

Dior hoped with all his might that they had at least a few more weeks left until the snow started falling. They needed to find food, sustenance that might get them through their journey. Travelling in winter -and with children as small as his own still were- had been what he had so desperately tried to avoid, yet had failed to all the same. It was as if they were held back by invisible bonds, and with each week they had wasted in the spring and summer, Dior had grown more impatient to be gone, yet if anything, that had seemed to slow down preparations even more. If they now had to add lack of provisions to their list of worries, then they could well abandon their errand right now, and wait for Morgoth’s henchmen to find them. Of course, that might well be their fate in any case. The scarce tidings from the other Elven communities had now ceased altogether, and those that reached them from the settlements of Men were solely ones of horror. It seemed that Morgoth truly had won.

There was only one place that was safe now- the Isle of Balar, whither Círdan had retreated after the fall of the Falas. Protected by the sea that Morgoth feared, the island was the only truly safe place- safe perhaps the city of Gondolin, if indeed that place was more than a myth. Dior knew that they would be safe if only they could reach the Mouths of Sirion. There the orcs would not go, and moreover, Círdan had his hand and eyes over the delta- he would be aware of their coming, and would surly welcome them with open arms.

Beside Dior, Elwing snuffled slightly, and pressed herself more tightly against him. Elurín had done just that not long ago on his other side. The children were frightened of the storm, and sought the security of their parents’ arms all the more for it. Dior would normally had no objections to this, would have savoured the closeness, even; only it made the blankets and cloaks in which they were all covered uncomfortably hot. And just now, Dior longed to be alone, to have some time for himself so as to try and master his ever whirling thoughts. It did not altogether help his restlessness, either, that comforting his children these days made his heart ache with longing for his own parents. He missed them so very much. This time last year, they had been still there, and Dior had not wasted a moment to think about the fact that someday they might not be.

It had seemed so very minor, such a little mishap that had ultimately lead to such disaster. They had been out hunting, he and Beren, when Beren had slipped on these stupid rocks. The memory of that moment haunted Dior. Could he have prevented it? He surely could have- after all, he himself had found the rocks to be covered with the thinnest layer of ice- and yet he had failed to warn Beren. He had simply not thought it necessary.

Perhaps it was living among the Elves, who did after all not age in body like Men did, and whose senses, if anything, grew sharper with every passing year. Or, Dior had to admit to himself, he might simply have refused to see, refused to think in earnest about his beloved father’s mortality. Instead, in some childish way of denial, he had chosen to overlook the fact that Beren’s hair and beard had turned whiter with every waning year, and that his once so nimble steps had grown heavy even unsteady at times. He had chosen to ignore his father’s stifled groans whenever he rose from his camp, had chosen to see his mother’s loving care as a simple demonstration of their mutual affection rather than her growing concern for her husband’s wellbeing.

But there was more to it. Little though Dior wanted it, the simple truth that this might someday be his fate as well frightened him. Not that he feared the Gift of Men, as they called mortal death, that rather left him with a faint curiosity. No, it was the sufferings of the old age of Men that he dreaded; that one day a simple fall might cost him the ability to move, like it had done with his father. Beren had broken his hip that day, and despite his mother’s best efforts, she had been unable to do anything about it. Lúthien had been devastated when she realised that there was no easy way of healing these broken bones, as there would have been with her own kin, that nothing but lying immobile would in time mend her husband’s injury. They had truly tried to do anything earthly possible to make this easier for Beren, and at times it had worked, too, especially when Nimloth or Dior himself had brought the children with them to entertain Beren, to make him forget the episodes of excruciating pain he had to go through every time he moved. Yet all their efforts, and all the endless patience with which Beren had endured the torments of his last bitter winter, had in the end come to naught, all his father’s slow and gruelling progress been in vain.

It had started harmless enough, with a simple cough, nothing threatening at all. At least not at first. Only his father’s condition had not remained harmless, and before long, they had all been kept awake at night by Beren’s bellowing coughs. By the time the fever had set in, Dior had known in his heart of hearts that his father’s life was drawing to a close, much as he had still tried to deny it before himself. That knowledge still had done nothing to prepare him for really facing Beren’s final death throes, hours so terrible that they haunted Dior to this day. He had fled into Nimloth’s comforting embrace after Beren had breathed his last, never thinking… had he known, had he even considered the possibility that she might follow her husband, he would never have left Lúthien alone with Beren’s body for the night. He would have kept her company despite her request to have some time alone with her beloved. Had he ever imagined to find her curled at his father’s side the next morning, fair and ever-young as she had been all her life, but cold and still, he would never ever have left her side.

The very worst thing about losing both his parents that day was his concern for Nimloth, though. To think that he might share his father’s fate, might have to leave his beloved wife with the self-same heartbreak that had taken his mother, have her wasting away from grief, was beyond what he thought he could bear. Nimloth, of course, had but shushed him, had told him not to worry, and that he could not be mortal. Her reasoning was that he had, after reaching adulthood rather sooner than Elves would, not changed at all physically, which he probably ought to have done had he been counted fully among Men. Dior was not at all convinced of it, though. For one, he was still too young to show any signs of ageing even for a Man, and who said that a scion of both Elves and Men would not simply live longer? A hundred years, two-hundred… to an Elf, this mattered not, not when the parting was still one for eternity. Perhaps he would remain unchanged for as long as he lived, and then simply drop dead one day? He knew it not.

And really, he could not know. He knew next to nothing about Men, he had only ever known his father. And now all that knowledge was lost to him. To any Mortal, he would ever appear as an Elf, one of the fair folk. And to the Elves who had known him since birth, he was but an oddity. A beloved oddity, yes, but still not one of them. They were not wrong, either, seeing that he was not only half-mortal, but that his grandmother had been… who? One of the divine, they had said, but what that meant, Dior knew not. Whenever Lúthien had talked about her, she had just been her mother, and to Galathil and Celeborn she was their aunt- and that hardly answered Dior’s questions. Bereft, that was how he felt. Here he was, a father, a lord, a hope to his people, and still left with nothing of his heritage…

Or almost nothing.

He fingered the gem he carried tied to his chest, a comfort, yes, but also a deadly threat. He had grown up with his parents always keeping the Silmaril well hidden in their chambers, not touching it, hardly ever looking at it and never, never, talking about it. He knew of the Oath, of the horrible lure that the Silmaril would pose to the sons of Fëanor, perhaps even to Celebrimbor.

How they had come to know that he possessed it, he had no idea, but that they knew had become clear when he had received the message from Maedhros, bidding him to hand over the gem. Perhaps their holding the Silmaril had not been so great a secret within Nargothrond as his parents had thought it was, perhaps some of the Fëanorian soldiers who had initially stayed with Orodreth had returned to their former lords after the fall of Nargothrond, and told them of it?

However that was, it put him in a very precarious situation. He had considered handing it over, truly. And yet… the Silmaril was as much his birthright as it was that of the sons of Fëanor. Had not his parents done what the Fëanorians had never dared? Had they not won the Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown itself? Had not his mother called it weregild for the Noldor’s crime against her kin? Had not the fight over the Silmaril cost his father his hand?
No, he would not give it up. Instead, he had told Maedhros to return once they had acquired the other stones, and then thy would talk about the one Silmaril Dior held. That was what his mother had always said she would do, anyway, and which he deemed a very fitting answer.

But he must not think of it now. He must sleep, rest, and lead his people on tomorrow.  South, to the sea, to Círdan. There they would be safe, and then, perhaps, Dior would allow himself to grieve, and possibly make up his mind what to do with the Silmaril.