A Thousand Winds that Blow by StarSpray  

Everything hurt. Everything—and he couldn’t move. With effort, he strained against something on top of him, and finally pushed it off, rolling after it onto his stomach. The movement made the pain in his head spike, like someone had driven a knife into his skull, and his stomach rebelled, bile burning in his throat as he choked on it. 

He couldn’t just—he had to move. There was something—

He couldn’t think. There was something he had to do, but—no, there was someone. Someone he had to find. Something he had to find? He tried to call out a name, but his tongue wouldn’t work, and if he made any noise at all he couldn’t hear past the ringing in his ears. The ringing sounded like words, but he couldn’t understand them. 

Every breath was agony as broken ribs jabbed into lungs. His mouth tasted of blood, but he didn’t know if what he coughed up was blood or just more bile. He couldn’t see—it was so dark. He couldn't think, either, past the stabbing pain in his head and the fear that crowded in behind it. Someone was—he had to—where was—

“Curvo?” Was that his voice? It didn’t sound right. Was— “Carni…where…” Who was he looking for? “Nelyo—” Who was Nelyo?

Something else was weighing him down. Somehow he fumbled straps open in the dark, and winced every time something heavy and metal clattered to the stones—but it made it easier to move. Even to breathe. The wind blowing over him was cold, but—

Wait. Wind? Fresh air? He lifted his head, and saw light, faint but clear, somewhere ahead of him. That was it—that was what he had been looking for. Light. 

Somehow, he got to his feet, and staggered toward the light, leaning heavily on the wall of the—the hallway? Tunnel? Didn’t matter, if he could just— 

It felt like it took years, but at last he stumbled out of the dark into blinding light—sunlight on snow. It hurt, like knives stabbing into his eyes, and he covered his face with an arm, falling to his knees. The snow immediately melted into his clothes, so cold it burned, but he couldn’t get up again. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think, couldn’t—

Something creaked, like branches in the wind. A voice said something—low and deep—but he couldn’t understand it. He tried to say something but his tongue wouldn’t work. The pain in his head spiked, and he slumped over into a snowdrift as both the light and the pain faded around him into darkness.

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Daeron could not say what had brought him west of the Ered Luin again. His dreams were strange, smoky and muddled, and he did not understand what they meant—foresight, at least in the way it was given to others, had never been one of his gifts. But it felt right when he turned his feet west again, and when he found the abandoned flet within sight of the joining of the Rivers Gelion and Thalos, that felt right too. He fixed the roof and gathered stores to last him through the winter, and then ventured south to see Tol Galen for himself—he had visited it before, long ago when only the stars lit the world, but had not seen it since Lúthien had come there. He could feel the memory of her all around, even on the banks of the Adurant. The island itself was green and lush, and flowers bloomed even so late in the year. 

He did not go out to it; he did not think he could bear to try to find her grave. 

There were vanishingly few others to be found in Ossiriand. Once the woods had been filled with music and laughter, for the Green Elves had been a merry people, fearless and free. No one had been fearless or entirely free in many years, but the stillness was unsettling. Daeron did not know what had been happening in Beleriand since he had left it; he had avoided others in Eriador beyond the mountains for the most part. He had heard of the success of Beren’s quest with Lúthien’s aid, and he had heard something of the great battle in which the High King of the Noldor had been slain, among so many others, but very little more. 

He knew that Lúthien had been here in Ossiriand, and that she was dead, only because the trees still lamented her. 

Then he returned to his flet and composed some laments of his own. He did not sing them, but played his flute to the wind, and watched the river flow by. Autumn waned—his least favorite time of year, always when he felt the most melancholy and unwilling to get up in the morning—the leaves turning brown, and as the days grew shorter and the nights longer, fell things crept through the trees. The leaguer of the Noldor had broken indeed, for orcs to come so far south in such numbers. Daeron was skilled at hiding himself, though, and none who passed near his flet ever so much as glanced up. 

Winter came, bringing sharp winds and fewer orcs. Then, one unusually bright afternoon, movement by the river caught his eye. Daeron watched an Ent wade across the water, and wondered what could have happened to rouse one of them in the dead of winter, when Ents usually drowsed alongside the trees they tended. As the Ent drew nearer, Daeron realized that he knew this one—it was Finglas, who Daeron had once known well when he spent the autumn in Neldoreth, when they had sung together as the leaves fell around them, and again in spring when the world awoke again to birdsong and snow melt. 

He swung down the tree he had been climbing, so that when Finglas approached they could speak eye to eye. “Hail, Finglas, well met!” Daeron called. His voice was hoarse, and cracked a little, for he had not spoken aloud—let alone to another person—in so long. “What brings you east of the Gelion at this time of year?”

“Is that young Daeron?” Finglas replied. He lengthened his stride, and when he came closer Daeron saw that he was not alone. He had someone in his large, long-fingered hands, bloodied and unmoving, wrapped in a tattered cloak. “I am glad to see you here,” Finglas said as he stopped before the tree. His deep green eyes were full of grief and worry. “A fell wind blows from the north, I fear.”

“Who is this?” Daeron asked, looking down at the figure in Finglas’ hands. He saw matted silver hair, but could see nothing of the person’s face.

“I do not know—perhaps you can answer better. I found him in the snow, stumbled out of Menegroth after a part of the caves fell in. There was fighting there, some days ago now—there was no one left, when I found him, and so I came seeking Elves here across the river. I have given him what Ent-draughts that I could, though I hardly dared to stop long enough to make them, but he is sorely wounded, and beyond an Ent’s skill to heal.”

“Maybe I can help,” Daeron said, wishing he had given more of his thought long ago to healing. He was capable, and where his knowledge failed the power of his songs often made up for it, but it had already been days—if this person’s wounds were as bad as they seemed at first glance, it was a miracle he was still alive at all. “I have been staying in a flet nearby—can you bear him just a little farther?”

“Lead on, young Daeron.”

The flet was just low enough that Finglas could easily lift the elf in his hands onto the narrow balcony that wrapped around its walls. It was with some difficulty that Daeron dragged him inside, where he stirred the banked fire back to life. Then he went back to the doorway. “Where are you headed now?” he asked. 

“I think I will linger here for a time,” said Finglas after a moment of slow, steady thought. “I am weary—I had to make haste, coming so far, and I was not the only Ent in Region this winter. I will see if others come this way too—and in spring I will pass over the mountains. Fangorn has passed into the east already, and the Entwives left Beleriand long ago. Alas for Neldoreth, for Region, for the pine woods of Dorthonion! A fell wind blows from the north, and the Enemy’s power only grows. There is naught the Ents can do now to stop it. We can only hope to outrun it. I would advise you to do the same, young Daeron.”

“Perhaps, come spring,” said Daeron, heart sinking. He had not intended to return there, but if Doriath had fallen, even Doriath… “What has become of Melian, Finglas? What of the Girdle? How did enemies come even into Menegroth?”

“Did you not know? Melian departed some years ago, after Elu Thingol was slain in his halls—a nasty business. Dwarves and gems and greed, it seemed to me. I know no more than that, only that Dior Eluchíl came with his little family from Ossiriand afterward. What has become of them this winter, I cannot say.”

Elu Thingol, slain. Daeron’s legs gave out and he slid to the floor, leaning hard against the jamb. Thingol dead, Lúthien dead, Melian gone—everyone gone, it seemed. He couldn’t imagine it. Could not comprehend a world in which Thingol and Melian were not, in which the woods of Neldoreth and Region were as silent and empty as those around him. Where the Esgalduin ran red with the blood of his people. 

He should never have left. It wouldn’t have made anything better, but at least he would have been there. He would have at least died with them, and not been left so utterly alone. For a few minutes he thought he might die anyway as despair flooded through him, colder than ice, could almost feel his spirit trying to loosen itself from his body, to leave this terrible, freezing, empty place.

But he roused himself, remembering that he was not alone—but he would be if he did not act. “Thank you,” he said to Finglas, “for telling me. I hadn’t known.”

“Ah, I am sorry, young Daeron. If you have need of help, only call for me,” Finglas told him. “I will not be far.”

“Thank you, I’ll remember.” Daeron closed the door against the cold, and went to heat water and pull out bandages and a needle and thread. He swallowed down the tears, put thoughts of grief out of his mind, and focused instead on the songs he would need, and on the figure lying in front of his hearth. 

He pulled the cloak away, finding an unfamiliar face under a tangle of matted silver hair. Bits of armor still clung to him, one or two on his legs, another on his arm. He was covered in blood, but how much was his own was impossible to say. Daeron pressed his fingers to a wrist and felt a pulse, thready but there. He heated the water and carefully cleaned away what he could, finding bruises and cuts—all things he would expect to find on someone caught in a cave-in. There was another wound near his shoulder that looked as though it had come from a blade, and a jagged cut from his hairline down to his cheekbone, crossing his left eye, and Daeron couldn’t tell whether it came from a falling stone or a sword. It probably didn’t matter. More concerning were the other blows he found to the head. Those needed to be his first focus, along with the broken ribs and injured lungs. 

Daeron was not a skilled enough healer for this. Hopefully the sheer power he wielded in his songs would suffice, but…

He took a deep breath, laid a hand over the stranger’s forehead and the other over his chest just above his heart, and began to sing. He lost himself in it, and when he opened his eyes he’d sung himself hoarse, and evening was coming on. The fire had burned low, and the stranger’s breathing had gotten less labored, and when Daeron felt for his pulse he found it steady and strong. His skin was no longer ice cold, either. Daeron peered at his face; the bruises were still there, but the swelling had gone down, and the fractures to the skull had mostly knit back together, though he would be fragile and weak for some time yet. The worst of the danger, Daeron thought, was past. 

Who this person was, though, remained a mystery. Daeron carefully peeled his clothes off of him, unwilling to cut them away because he had no extra clothes to spare—or at least none that would fit the stranger, who was both taller and broader than he was. As he cataloged other more minor injuries and wiped away the blood and grime, he came upon a small pendant around the stranger’s neck, gleaming gold in the firelight. When Daeron lifted it up he found a small golden eight-pointed star, no bigger than his thumbnail. 

He had seen that star before—emblazoned upon banners at the Mereth Aderthad, long ago before the lies had been uncovered, when the Sindar had been wary of the Noldor but not yet mistrustful. Thingol had bidden him to be watchful, to learn all he could of these strange would-be allies, and Daeron remembered still all that he had seen and heard. He remembered Maglor with his mighty voice and ready smile, and Maedhros with his scars and watchful eyes. Their brothers had remained in the east, and Daeron had never seen any of them, though he had heard of them. He’d learned quite a lot of them, in fact, for he had befriended Maglor with ease—he had thought, then, that theirs would be a lasting friendship, had been so happy to meet someone who lived and breathed music the way he did, who thought so similarly, who was as uninterested in competition as he was—and Maglor had been quite happy to speak of his absent brothers. Both he and Maedhros had so obviously loved one another, and that love had equally obviously extended to their five younger brothers too. Daeron had, as a result, heard all about the silver-haired hunter Celegorm with his great hound—the same Celegorm who had broken the siege of the Falas, and instilled fear into every orc that laid eyes on him.

Dior Eluchíl—with a name like that, he had to be Lúthien’s son—had come from Ossiriand to Doriath. Lúthien was no more, and Thingol had been slain—for jewels and greed, Finglas had said. What jewel would cause such bloodshed but the Silmaril that Beren and Lúthien had brought out of Angband against all odds? What reason would the Sons of Fëanor have to draw their swords against Doriath but their Oath?

Daeron took the necklace and tucked it away, and then continued his work. If he was right in his guess—and he thought that he was—then it was too late now to change his mind. He couldn’t just toss him out into the snow to die—that would make him a kinslayer, no better than the one lying so still before him.

As he wound bandages around and over Celegorm’s wounded eye—Daeron feared he would lose sight in it permanently if he hadn’t already, but did not have the knowledge or skill to fix it—he wondered whether any of his brothers had survived, and whether they were looking for him. He wondered if they had gotten the Silmaril—but something told him they had not. Still, what would happen if they tracked Finglas, somehow, here to Ossiriand? If they accused Daeron of—he didn’t even know what. He did not hold a Silmaril, but what might they think, finding him with their brother so badly wounded, he who had no real reason to see any of them as anything but his enemies?

What would Celegorm do, when he woke and found himself far from anything familiar, and in the care of a stranger?

Well, hopefully nothing—he wouldn’t be able to do much for some time. Daeron was not entirely confident that he could convince Celegorm that he meant him no harm, but at least he’d have a chance to try. And if in the end Celegorm or his brothers decided not to believe him—well, it would only end in his death, and that was no longer a source of horror. Who was left to miss him?

Daeron drank water and took stock of his supplies, and fell asleep listening to the wind howl through the branches of the tree just outside. 

Celegorm stirred in the morning, with a low moan and a shudder as he fought to open his one good eye. Daeron managed to help him drink a few sips of water before he slipped back into unconsciousness. Daeron ate a small breakfast, wondering how he would stretch what supplies he had gathered now that there were two of them—and one in dire need of food to regain his strength—and then sang again, more songs of healing, of strength and an easing of pain. Celegorm’s color looked better afterward, Daeron thought, though he was still very pale. He shivered as Daeron drew the blankets up over him again. 

Then Daeron hard Finglas calling to him from outside. He wrapped himself in his cloak and stepped out onto the small balcony of the flet, and found Finglas approaching with another Ent—another Ent who had not come east alone. This one had two children on his shoulders, bundled up against the cold and, blessedly, unharmed. “Young Daeron, it is a very lucky thing indeed that you are here,” Finglas told him.

“It seems so,” said Daeron, as the other Ent—introduced as Fladrif—lifted first one child and then the other up onto the flet with him. “Do you also come from Doriath?”

“Yes,” said Fladrif with a sigh. His deep green eyes were pools of weariness and sorrow. “The snows there are stained with red, and smoke drifts from the gates of Menegroth. All are fled—where, I cannot say. Some have gone south, perhaps, toward the Sea. Others may come east—who can guess?”

“Not me, certainly,” Daeron sighed. He knelt so he could look the children in the face. “My name is Daeron,” he said. “What are yours?”

They exchanged a glance, and then one said, “I am Eluréd, and my brother is Elurín. Are you the Daeron that made the runes and was our grandmother’s friend?”

Daeron swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat. “Yes, I did make runes,” he said. “Was your grandmother Lúthien?”

“Yes.”

“In that case, I’m glad indeed to meet you—though I wish it were under better circumstances. Come inside, out of the cold.”

Inside, he stoked the fire and checked on Celegorm, finding him still deeply asleep. Then he turned his attention to the children, helping them to remove their cloaks and coats. “Can you tell me what happened?” he asked as he helped one of them unwind a scarf from around his neck. 

They exchanged another look. “We don’t know,” said the one that had spoken before. “There was—there was fighting, and Nana told us to run, but we were caught by—”

“We don’t know who,” said the other. “We got away, but it was dark and snowing, and cold.”

“Then Fladrif found us, and said he would bring us east. He said there would be other elves who would take care of us, but you are the only one we have seen.”

“I have seen no one else here in Ossiriand either,” said Daeron. “They have all fled, either west to the havens by the Sea, or east over the Ered Luin. As for us, we’ll have to remain where we are until the spring.” He took their packs and peered inside, finding changes of clothes and a surprising amount of lembas, carefully wrapped in leaves to keep it fresh. They would all still be tightening their belts before the snows melted, but between his stores, the lembas, and what he thought he could hunt or gather in the coming months, Daeron thought they would all at least survive until then. 

Now that the could see their faces clearly, Daeron found that the twins were identical—and that they took after Lúthien so strongly that it took his breath away. It was like looking back in time to his own childhood when he and Lúthien had played together under the stars. He also realized something else. “I’m afraid I’ll have to apologize now for all of the times I’m going to mistake one of you for the other,” he said. 

Both boys giggled, and some of the tension in the air faded way. “That’s all right,” said the one who had been speaking all along—Eluréd. “Only Nana and Ada can ever tell us apart.”

“I’m sure I’ll learn eventually,” said Daeron. 

“Who is that?” asked Elurín, pointing to Celegorm. 

“I…I don’t know,” Daeron said. It wasn’t even entirely a lie—he had a guess, but he could be wrong, even if he didn’t think he was. “Finglas brought him here, just as Fladrif brought you.”

Eluréd looked at him with eyes that did not belong in such a young child’s face, eyes that made Daeron suddenly understand what a burden it was to be a child of Melian’s line. He had never seen it in Lúthien, for they had grown up together in happier years, and when she had spoken of what she knew or had seen, later, he had been too frightened of what he had glimpsed to listen. “Were you waiting for us?” Eluréd asked. 

“Maybe,” said Daeron. “I was waiting for something—I did not know what. Come sit by the fire.” The moment passed and Eluréd’s eyes were again those of a child—a frightened and weary child, who had seen too much even without the burdens of his blood. Daeron got both boys settled, and wrapped a blanket around their shoulders before he put more water on to heat for tea.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked one of the twins, pointing to Celegorm. 

“He’s very badly hurt. I think a part of Menegroth caved in, and he was caught in it.”

“Can you heal him?”

“I’m trying.”

Once the water was on, Daeron went to check on Celegorm again. He stirred when Daeron touched him, mumbling something in slurred Quenya. Daeron thought that he heard the word for mother, but he couldn’t quite be sure. He had learned the language from Finrod and Galadriel, long before Thingol had instituted the Ban, but he hadn’t given it much thought in many years, and it was hard to make out any words, let alone parse their meaning.

He didn’t know what he was doing. Daeron rubbed a hand over his face and swallowed a sigh. All he could do was try to keep them all alive until spring, and then get at least Eluréd and Elurín east of the Ered Luin, into the hands of those who could care for them far better than he, and away from any notice of the Enemy—or the rest of the Sons of Fëanor. Daeron had no idea what they might attempt in their efforts to get the Silmaril. They had not balked at another kinslaying—he saw no reason why they would hesitate to take hostages. He couldn’t let that happen. 

Of course, that depended on Celegorm, and what he chose to do when he recovered. They might have to fly east sooner than springtime—perhaps they might go south instead and take shelter on Tol Galen, though Daeron flinched away from such a thought. It felt—he didn’t know what it felt like, except that he didn’t think he could do it except at utmost need.

There were too many questions that he could not answer, and too many choices he did not know how to make. He was so tired.

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Everything hurt. The light was flickering and dim but it pierced through his closed eyes like a knife. A voice was singing, very softly. That didn’t hurt—that sounded right…until he realized the voice was wrong. It wasn’t—

Whose voice was he listening for? He couldn’t…

The singing stopped, and a hand rested on his forehead. “Shh, it’s all right,” said the voice. It sounded slightly hoarse, as though the singing had been going on for a long time. “You’re safe. Just rest.”

“Where—where is…” He couldn’t remember what he needed to ask. There was something he needed to be doing. There was someone he needed to…

“Here. Drink—it’s willow bark, so it tastes awful, but you’ll feel better for it.” The rim of a cup was pressed to his lips, and he opened his mouth without thinking. It was awful, bitter but in a way that he recognized. After a few sips that cup was replaced with another, this one full of cold water. That both felt and tasted much better in his mouth and down his throat, washing away the lingering aftertaste of the willow bark and soothing an ache he hadn’t even noticed before, because everything else hurt so much worse. 

“Please,” he rasped when the second cup was lifted away. “Where—Curvo—?”

“Go to sleep,” said the voice, as a hand stroked over his hair. 

“No, I n-need to—” He tried to open his eyes, but only one would work, and he had to shut it again when the pain in his head grew worse, sharp like he’d been stabbed through the eye. He thought he made a noise, small and pathetic, before giving up and letting his head drop back onto the furs beneath him. He needed…he wanted…someone. Someone important, he just couldn’t think—

“Sleep,” said the voice, and then it started singing again. 

When next he woke the light was the same. There was still a fire; he could hear it crackling gently very close by, could feel the heat of it on his face. There were other voices, too—children’s voices—in addition to the singer from before, though they were not singing now, only talking quietly. When he opened his eyes—his eye, for only one would work still—he found everything a little clearer. His head still hurt terribly, but it was no longer blinding. He blinked slowly, looking toward the fire, and then to the figure sitting by it, slender and dark-haired. He was carving something, and though he had dark circles under his eyes he was smiling, small and soft, as he answered a question that one of the children had asked him. It sounded like there were two, but he couldn’t see them from where he lay. 

“Look, Daeron,” one said suddenly, “he’s awake!”

The dark-haired figure—Daeron—looked up, smile vanishing. He set his carving aside and came to kneel by the makeshift bed. “Good morning,” he said, speaking quietly. “How are you feeling?”

“Hurts,” he whispered, and winced at the hoarse wreck that was his voice. 

“I imagine so. You are very badly wounded.”

“Where…am I?”

“Ossiriand.” Daeron paused, as though waiting for a reaction, but he had none. The name was familiar, but he did not know where it was, or where he had heard of it. “Do you remember what happened?”

“I…” He had an impression of—screams, blood, falling stones. Something hard striking him—or many things? Someone snarling something into his ear, though he couldn’t remember the words. Cold. None of it meant anything. “I don’t…who—who are…?”

“My name is Daeron.” Daeron paused, again as though waiting for a response. A faint frown creased his brow, and he asked, “Does that name mean anything to you?”

“Daeron,” he whispered, searching his face. “Should it?”

“I thought you said you didn’t know him, Daeron,” said one of the children. 

“I don’t,” Daeron replied without looking away, “but my name was once widely known. Can you tell me your name?” he asked then. 

He opened his mouth, but found no answer waiting on his tongue. He closed his mouth again, and tried to think, but it was so hard. He had a name—he had to have a name, everyone had a name. But when he tried to think of it he found that he could remember nothing—not who he was, not where he had come from, nothing of a childhood or parents or family, nor friends nor— 

“All right, it’s all right,” Daeron said, and he realized only then that it was suddenly very hard to breathe. “You were struck in the head, and it might be that the memories are slow to return. It’s all right.” Daeron’s hand rested on his cheek, and he turned into it without thinking. That gesture felt familiar, though Daeron was a stranger. Someone had cared for him like this once—maybe? “Drink a little more willow bark, and then some broth, and then sleep. You were sorely wounded, and you need to rest and recover your strength.”

“But—how…?”

“A cave-in,” Daeron said after a moment. “That is what I was told—I was not there. I do not expect you to remember Finglas, who brought you here—I think you will likely never remember what exactly happened to injure you.” His thumb stroked over his cheekbone once, and then he withdrew his hand to fetch a cup of the bitter willow bark tea. The broth was better, rich and warm, but by the time it was gone he couldn’t stay awake any longer.

So it went. He woke, ate or drank, tried to remember his name and failed, and slept again. It was impossible to count the days. 

Eventually, he could stay awake for a few hours at a time. Eventually he could even sit up, if Daeron helped him, and to see properly just where he was. It was a small room, all made of wood; the flet, as Daeron called it, was larger, but he had erected partitions to close off most of the rest—easier to keep a smaller space warm, he said. It was high in a tree, though that was impossible to tell at a glance; the windows were all shuttered against the cold, and according to Daeron it snowed more days than it didn’t. 

The children proved to be a pair of twins, with dark hair and soft grey eyes that seemed to see sometimes more than they should. It was one of them who said one afternoon as Daeron replaced some bandages, “If you cannot remember your name, should we not give you one?”

Daeron’s hands froze, but just for a second before he finished wrapping the bandages and secured them. He reached up to take the ones from around his face—that covered his eye. “It is no small thing to give someone a name,” Daeron said. 

“We need to call him something,” the child said. 

“He’s right,” he said, watching Daeron as he examined the tender and swollen skin around his eye. It was still too swollen to even try opening, but Daeron had already warned him that he might have lost sight in it entirely. Daeron was, he’d said, a powerful singer, but less knowledgeable a healer. “What have you been—been calling me?” It was still hard to speak, sometimes—he couldn’t always think of the right words, and his tongue felt clumsy in his mouth, but if he went slowly he could manage all right.

“The stranger, or just him,” said the other child. “It’s confusing, because we’re all hims.”

“Well, I don’t know your names either,” he said. Again, Daeron froze—but again only for a moment. 

“Eluréd and Elurín,” said the child, pointing to himself and to his brother. “But it’s all right if you get us confused. Everyone does.”

“I think I’ll leave the bandages off,” Daeron said after a moment. “But don’t poke at it. I think I am rested enough to sing more healing over you, if you would like.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Not if I sing you to sleep first.”

“But we have to give him a name first!” Elurín protested.

“Have you already thought of one?” Daeron asked them. He sounded very serious. “Names are important, not to be given lightly.”

“We’ve been thinking about it,” said Eluréd.

“What’s the name?” he asked, before Daeron could discourage them further. Mostly he was curious—but he also wanted to have one, and it made something warm unfurl in his chest, to know that these children who hardly knew him cared enough to think of one for him. 

“Lossenol,” they chorused. 

“Snowy dream,” Daeron murmured. “That is what this all feels like, isn’t it?” He looked up from gathering the discarded bandages. “It’s your choice,” he said, “to take the name or leave it.”

“I think I like it,” he—Lossenol—said. “It’s far better than not having a name at all.”

“Then Lossenol you’ll be,” said Daeron. “At least until you recall your right name. Do you need to lie down?”

Lossenol thought about it, and said, “I don’t think so.” He didn’t want to lie down—he wanted to be awake, even if there wasn’t really anything to do. He felt a little dizzy, and his head constantly ached—but that was nothing new. At least it wasn’t bad enough just then to make him nauseas.

“Then I’m going to see if I can wash your hair. It’s a mess, and it must be getting uncomfortable.”

It was, and when Lossenol reached up he found spots of crusted blood and matted hair. He grimaced at the feeling under his fingers. “You might as well just—just—just cut it off,” he said, fumbling for the word cut.

“I’ll wash it first, and then we’ll see,” said Daeron. “Eluréd, or Elurín, can one of you fill this up with snow? At least we aren’t lacking for water to melt.”

“Are you going to go fishing in that pond you told us about?” Eluréd asked as Elurín took a pot to the door. A burst of cold air flowed in when he opened it, and he was very quick to scoop up the snow and shut it again. 

“Maybe,” said Daeron. “Thank you,” he added as he took the pot full of snow and set it over the flames. “I need to wait for a clear day, and those are few and far between this winter it seems. Would you like to hear a story?” 

“Yes please!” chorused the twins. 

The story Daeron told was a silly one, about badgers and hedgehogs fighting over the best place to dig a burrow. By the time he finished the snow had melted and the water had heated enough for washing. He spoke brightly and briskly as he worked the dirt and grime out of Lossenol’s hair, but his hands were very gentle around the lingering bruises and still-healing cuts along Lossenol’s scalp, and he stopped often to make sure he wasn’t causing any pain. As he worked he told other stories, and taught the twins some songs, simple rhymes to help them learn their numbers or the names of plants, or of the stars. It all felt new to Lossenol, too, though he knew the numbers and the plants, and recognized the stars. Maybe he had learned them in different ways.

Daeron was able to get his hair clean, and then to comb out almost all of the tangles, and only cut off a few inches from the ends when they proved to be hopeless and tattered. Then he braided Lossenol’s hair, quickly and simply. “There,” he said. “That must feel much better.”

“Thank you,” Lossenol said. He toyed with the end of the braid, a little startled to find his hair was silver-grey, rather than dark like Daeron’s or the twins’. 

Daeron’s smile slipped. “You needn’t thank me,” he said, and turned away before Lossenol could say anything else. 

He was feeling tired by then, though, and all his various aches and pains were worsening. It was a relief to lie down, with the fire warm on his face, and…

“Lossenol?” Daeron was suddenly leaning over him, and the light peeking through the window shutters was dimmer than it had been a moment ago. “There you are,” Daeron said as Lossenol blinked at him. “Your mind was wandering; were you dreaming?”

“I…don’t think so?”

“Hm.” Daeron peered into his face, his dark eyes seeming to see straight through him. Lossenol wasn’t sure what he could possibly find—there was nothing to see—but whatever it was he didn’t seem to like it. “Here; I’ve made dinner.” He helped Lossenol sit up and then put a bowl of thick stew into his hands. “I hope everyone likes stewed things, because that’s the easiest meal I can make with what supplies we have,” Daeron said.

“Could be worse,” Lossenol said, and then tried to think of how he knew that. The attempt just made his head throb. It felt like there was a joke about someone else’s cooking just on the tip of his tongue, only he didn’t know whose. His own? Maybe—he suspected that he could make something edible at least, but he didn’t know if he was really good at it. But he thought it was probably someone else, someone he used to tease all the time…almost he could hear someone telling him, laughing, to shut up and eat his food. But the memory was so faint that he couldn’t be sure it was real, or if he just wanted it to be. 

“It could, but it will also get rather tedious,” said Daeron. He glanced toward the windows, though there was nothing to see. It was hard to guess what he was thinking of.

“If you go fishing you can cook that differently,” said Eluréd.

“You really want fish, don’t you?” Daeron replied, with a smile to show he was teasing. “I’ll try, if the weather clears and if I can be sure there are no enemies making their way over the Gelion.”

“Is that likely?” Lossenol asked. 

“I don’t know. I was able to avoid roving bands of orcs earlier this year, when I was wandering through Ossiriand alone, but I have not seen any since the weather turned cold. I—” Daeron paused as though listening. Then Lossenol heard it too—a strange call, like a horn. “That is Finglas, I think.” Daeron set his dinner aside and went to slip outside, wrapping himself in his cloak as he went. 

“Finglas is…an Ent?” Lossenol said to the twins. The call had sounded familiar, and the word Ent felt as though it went with it—so at least he remembered some things, even if he didn’t know how or why.

“Yes,” said Eluréd. “The one that brought you here, I think. It was Fladrif who found us in Doriath. Do you still not remember?”

“No, I don’t…remember…anything.”

When Daeron returned his expression was grim. “I spoke too soon. Orcs are moving just west of the Gelion,” he said. “I need to renew the enchantments I had set around this flet; it will take most of the night. The healing songs will have to wait.”

“How are you going to do that?” Elurín asked.

“Music.” Daeron shed his cloak and picked up a flute. “Do not try to interrupt me unless it’s very important.”

“Like if the orcs come here?” Eluréd asked as Elurín shrank against his side.

“I’ll be able to tell if they get close,” Daeron said. “Don’t worry—they’ll pass us by and never know we’re here, especially once I have finished tonight. Try to get some sleep.”

“How can we sleep if you’re going to be singing all night?” Lossenol asked.

“I won’t be loud, and I flatter myself that my music isn’t that terrible to listen to.” Daeron sat down by the door and put his flute to his lips. The song was haunting, and Lossenol immediately felt a change in the air, as Daeron gathered his power and put it forth through the music. It made the hair on Lossenol's arms stand up, and he shivered. The music itself wasn’t familiar but the power held within it was, somehow. 

Why did it make him want to cry?

He lay back down with a sigh, and then opened his good eye when the twins joined him, curling up on either side. “Are you all right?” he asked them. 

“Yes,” said Elurín, but he buried his face in the blanket covering Lossenol’s chest as he spoke. 

“No,” said Eluréd at the same time, also burying his face in the blanket. 

Lossenol sighed, and rested a hand on each of their backs. “Don’t worry,” he said, glancing toward Daeron, who sat shrouded in shadows across the room. There was something almost frightening about him, in the way he so effortlessly put forth so much power. Lossenol found himself thinking that he would not like to face down Daeron in a fight, even if he were uninjured and armed. “I think we might be in one of the—safe—safest—places in the world right now,” he said. 

He fell asleep to the haunting sounds of Daeron’s flute. His dreams were full of smoke and noise, confusing and disorienting, and when he woke in the morning he couldn’t remember at first where he was or why. It came back after a minute. The twins were still asleep on either side of him, and another blanket had been drawn up over the three of them. When Lossenol turned his head he found Daeron asleep nearby, still holding his flute in one hand, and with what looked like tear tracks on his cheeks. 

It occurred to Lossenol that he did not know anything about Daeron—only that he was very kind, a terrifyingly powerful singer, could make decent stew, and seemed to be taking in stride the fact that he had had a pair of children and a half-dead stranger dropped into his lap in the middle of winter. What was he doing out there, alone in the empty woods? 

Lossenol fell back asleep before Daeron woke, and when he woke again he thought vaguely that he’d had questions, but he couldn’t now remember what they were.

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Daeron didn’t know what to do. 

He had two children to worry about—Lúthien’s children! Her grandsons!—and a half-dead son of Fëanor who did not even remember his own name to nurse back to health. Daeron had not expected that. Before Celegorm—or Lossenol, as they were calling him now—had woken, Daeron had been scrambling to think of ways to convince him to leave himself and the twins alive. 

Now? Now he sat near the fire and watched Eluréd and Elurín curled up to sleep on either side of Celegorm Fëanorion, in spite of the warnings he had tried to give them to be wary—that the wounded stranger was a Noldo, that he had probably been among those who had attacked Menegroth, that he was dangerous. Elurín had just looked at him with eyes that should have had no place in the face of a six-year-old child and said, “Not to us.” And that was, apparently, that. It wasn't as though he could keep them in separate rooms—the flet wasn’t big enough, not if he wanted to keep them all from freezing to death.

If only he knew more of what had happened after his own departure from Doriath. Lúthien might have gone to Nargothrond, he thought, following Beren’s footsteps, and Celegorm had been there then—what might have passed between them if she had gone there, he couldn’t begin to guess. Celegorm had once had a hound that had followed him from Valinor—where was that hound now? Where were his brothers? If they were somehow able to track him down, would Daeron be able to convince them that he had saved Celegorm, that it was not his doing that he had lost all knowledge of who he was? Before they had attacked Doriath, Daeron would have been confident that he could—that Maglor, at least, would listen to him. They had fallen so quickly into friendship at the Mereth Aderthad, and surely Maglor would remember it as well as he did. 

The Mereth Aderthad was a very long time ago, now. The world had changed, and not for the better—so had Daeron. He had no confidence in his ability to convince anyone of anything, now—least of all Maglor with all the rest of his brothers behind him, the blood of Doriath staining their swords. 

What happened when Celegorm woke with his memories starting to return, or having returned all at once? What happened when he proved himself to be his father’s son, full of fire and rage—vengeful, perhaps, with Dior’s sons trapped there with him?

Daeron kept trying to think of what he knew about Celegorm, but it was very little, primarily just a brother’s fond description thanks to Maglor in their talks by the Pools of Ivrin. It had been Celegorm who led the Noldor to the Falas to break the siege there, when they had first come to Middle-earth—and that was no small thing, especially to Daeron, whose parents had been trapped there. His mother had not survived, but it had been Celegorm’s actions that saved his father’s life, even if it hadn’t made much of a difference in the end. Celegorm had ruled Himlad until the Bragollach, alongside his brother Curufin, and afterward of course they had found refuge in Nargothrond. And then Daeron had left Beleriand, and he did not even know whether Nargothrond still stood. He rather doubted it—he seemed to remember hearing some jumbled tale of a dragon—but couldn’t be certain. 

Tossing Celegorm out into the snow was out of the question. Daeron supposed he could try to find a way to recover the lost memories—but the mind was a fragile thing, and it was just as likely that he would make things worse rather than better. He could tell Celegorm who he thought he was, but he didn’t know enough to answer all of the questions that would arise. 

There was also, small though it was, a chance that Daeron was wrong. Any one of the Fëanorians’ followers might wear a pendant with that star. Silver hair was unusual but that did not mean no one else among the Noldor had it. Sometimes he mumbled names in his sleep, asking for Curvo or Cáno, perhaps Nelyo. Daeron did not know those names, but Curvo was very close to Curufin, the brother whose name was always paired with Celegorm’s. 

Even if he couldn’t be certain, it was better to go forward as though he was—to be as cautious as was possible while they were stuck in such close quarters. He could be kind, but he did not need to share more of himself than absolutely necessary—he did not need to make friends. As soon as he was well enough, perhaps come spring, Celegorm could make his way back west to wherever his brothers might be. Perhaps the Ents would be able to find out more, if Daeron asked them. Perhaps other Elves or even Men, might make their way to Ossiriand with news.

Perhaps it would all end in disaster. 

No, that wasn’t helpful. Daeron had to protect Eluréd and Elurín—he had to get them to safety, and he thought the Ents had the right of it. Beleriand was too dangerous, and the Enemy had not yet set his sights farther than the Ered Luin. If Daeron could get Lúthien’s grandchildren into Eriador, they would be safe. There would be other Elves there, perhaps still some who had lived in Ossiriand, who had been there when Beren and Lúthien had lived upon Tol Galen—surely they would take them in, raise the boys far better than Daeron could ever hope to.

He just had to get them through this winter first—a winter full of snowstorms and harsh winds that would have made travel impossible even if he had been alone. 

The days dragged on. On the rare clear days Daeron ventured out, sometimes, to see if he could hunt something or to try his hand at ice fishing in the pond nearby. The fishing was more successful than the hunting, but he disliked fishing even on warm summer days, and he hated to leave Celegorm alone with the twins, even though nothing ever happened.

Well, nothing but Eluréd and Elurín growing ever more fond of both of them. For his part, Celegorm—Lossenol, Daeron needed to remember to call him—seemed fond of them in turn. If he was impatient with his own slow recovery, he was very patient with the children. He could tell them apart, too, somehow, never once mistaking one for the other. Daeron was getting better at it, as he got to know them, but Lossenol had had no trouble from the start.

When Daeron returned one afternoon after several hours of fishing with two reasonably large fish that he’d caught just when he had been ready to give up, he found Eluréd and Elurín drawing on one of the walls with charcoal. He had been teaching them both his cirth and the Noldor’s tengwar, but they had abandoned that practice in favor of silly drawings. Lossenol was asleep, frowning slightly, and did not stir when Daeron came in. 

“Daeron?” Elurín came to throw his arms around Daeron’s neck as he sat down to get ready to cook the fish.

“Yes?”

“What happens when spring comes?”

“All of the snow will met, and the flowers will bloom, and—”

“No!” Elurín giggled. “I mean what are we going to do?”

“Oh.” Daeron set the fish aside and turned to wrap an arm around Elurín's waist. “I’m not really sure yet. I want to take you east, over the mountains.”

“Why?”

“I think it will be safer there. Spring will also bring danger—if it is hard for us to travel through this weather, it is also hard for the orcs, and that will change come spring.”

“Do you think anyone else got away? Do you think they’ll go over the mountains, too?”

“I don’t know,” Daeron said. “I suppose we’ll find out.”

“And Lossenol is coming with us, right?”

Daeron looked over at him; his eyes were both still closed, and he seemed to still be sleeping. “I don’t know,” he said after swallowing his first vehement no, of course not! “He is a Noldo, remember, Elurín, and—”

“No, he’s our Lossenol,” said Elurín. “We were all supposed to meet here together, and that means he has to come with us, wherever we go!”

Daeron turned to look at Elurín properly, and found his eyes shining with that disquieting look that suggested that he was not only speaking a child’s desires. “He might not want to,” Daeron said, unsure how to try to discourage these thoughts without being cruel. “When he can remember more, he will surely want to leave and find his own people again.” Which was, of course, also Daeron’s biggest fear. There was no way to hide his intentions to go east of the mountains—if things went wrong he would have to hope that his own ability to hide would keep them safe. He had fallen very far from the height of his power, but at least he knew that he could do that—no one could pierce the shadows he could sing up, except maybe someday Eluréd or Elurín themselves. 

“What if he doesn’t ever remember more?” asked Elurín. 

“He was still at Doriath, you know—”

“We didn't see him there. We don’t know what he did. Maybe he tried to help!”

That was a child’s wishful thinking. Daeron sighed, and carefully pried Elurín’s arms off so he could return to cooking their lunch. “We’ll see what springtime brings.”

When he glanced back toward Lossenol, he found his good eye open, though he couldn't tell how long he had been awake or if he had been listening. Sometimes it seemed that his mind went somewhere far away, or he just became entirely insensible of his surroundings for a while. When their eyes met, Daeron saw something shadowy lurking behind Lossenol’s. He didn’t know if it was the Oath or his Doom or something else, but it frightened him. Daeron looked away, trying to focus on the food and not the future. 

Once he had cooked the fish and given Eluréd and Elurín their portions, Daeron took Lossenol his, and helped him sit up. “What does it mean—that I’m a Noldo?” Lossenol asked, in that slow and halting way of his. 

“Do you not know?”

“N-no…” He made a face, one of frustration; as yet he was too weak to do much about it, but Daeron still felt uneasy. How much or how little would it take to tip frustration into anger? What would he do with that anger? “It feels like—like I should.”

“The Elves are not one unified people; there are many groups and kingdoms with shifting alliances. Your people are the Noldor, and mine are the Sindar.”

“But how do you know…?”

“Your eye tells it. You have seen the Light of Valinor—the Two Trees that are no more. I have known other Noldor—I know what it looks like.”

“But if—what was—what did I do? In—in Doriath?”

Daeron sat back on his heels. Lossenol met his gaze, something desperate in his face, as though he already had an inkling but did not want to be right. “I don’t know what happened there,” Daeron said finally. “I left many years ago. But there are very few Noldor these days who are friends of Doriath—and I believe a Silmaril was there, until this winter.” Lossenol’s expression did not change at the mention of the Silmaril. “Fëanor and his sons once swore a terrible oath—I do not know what exactly it binds them to, except to regain the Silmarils that Fëanor made at any cost. The Enemy—Morgoth, that my people call Bauglir—stole them, when he destroyed the Trees and slew Finwë, Fëanor’s father and the King of the Noldor. I fear one was retrieved, but not by Fëanor’s sons. And so as in Alqualondë they drew their swords upon Doriath.”

“Kinslayers,” Lossenol whispered.

“Yes.”

“You think I’m—”

“I cannot say with certainty what you have or have not done, but what else would have taken you to Doriath? You were not one who came with the children of Finarfin, who were Elu Thingol’s kin—I would have recognized you if that were so.”

“But I wouldn’t—I couldn’t—”

“You don’t know that,” Daeron said. 

“Then why—why are you—”

“Because I am not a kinslayer. When you remember who you are and why you have done what you’ve done—maybe you can explain it to me then too, because I do not understand it either. And when spring comes and you are strong enough, we will part ways. I do not know whether the Sons of Fëanor still hold Himring or Amon Ereb, but I can try to find out for you, and then you can make your way to wherever they are, if you wish.”

He left Lossenol’s side to clean the dishes, trying to ignore the way his hands shook and his heart beat too quickly in his chest. When he turned back he found that Lossenol had eaten his food before lying back down, with his back to the hearth. It was impossible to tell whether he was awake or not. 

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Kinslayer. The word echoed through his mind, like a curse. He kept staring at his hands, wondering whose blood had covered them, wondering if he had known those he went to kill. 

He didn’t want it to be true. But what reason would Daeron have to lie about it?

He could not imagine what would drive him to kill anything that wasn’t—that wasn’t an orc, in a battle, or an animal, on a hunt. 

Daeron was afraid of him. Lossenol didn’t think Daeron was very afraid for himself, but he hadn’t missed the way he had tried at first to discourage Eluréd and Elurín from speaking to him or including him in their games. Daeron always said it was because Lossenol was injured and needed to rest—but now the real reason was clear. 

What sort of monsters were the Noldor, that they would harm children?

What sort of monster was he?

He tried to focus on the names Daeron had invoked—Finwë, Silmaril, Fëanor. Valinor. Trees. He felt as though he should know them. He thought he at least recognized Morgoth Bauglir—he was the Enemy, the one who commanded the orcs and the balrogs and the dragons. 

He knew about orcs and balrogs—the latter filled him with a sort of horrible dread that he couldn’t quite understand.

Across the room Daeron was speaking to the twins, telling some sort of story that made them giggle. There was so much Lossenol didn’t know, but he was certain that protecting the twins was the most important thing—he didn’t know how he knew that, but it felt like something he had known all his life. It made him wonder if there were other children that his heart remembered even if his mind couldn’t, but when he tried to think more about it the pain in his head just got worse and worse. 

Eventually, he must have fallen asleep. The next thing he knew he was waking to a terrible wailing sound. When he tried to sit up, Daeron said, “It’s only the wind.”

“The wind?” he repeated. Beside him Eluréd and Elurín were curled up together, fast asleep. Daeron was awake, wrapped in blankets and leaning against the wall by the hearth. The fire had burned low, and his face was mostly in shadow, but for the starlit glimmer of his eyes. 

“Only the wind,” he said quietly. “Go back to sleep.”

He lay back down, but sleep would not return. Instead there was just a gnawing, aching loneliness that welled up in him and made his eyes burn with tears. The wind howled, and he could feel the flet shifting and flexing around and under him. He felt cold and small and he hated it—hated feeling so helpless, hated knowing that he was entirely reliant on someone else just to stay alive, that if something happened he would need to trust Daeron to protect him. Daeron who hated and feared him.

After a while he managed to swallow past the lump in his throat and find his voice. “Is there anything I could do that—that would let you trust me? That—that would make you believe I won’t hurt you? Or the children?”

Daeron didn’t answer for a long time. Lossenol thought he might have fallen asleep. Then he said, “I do trust that—as you are now. I do not trust that your priorities will not change quickly and drastically when you recover enough to remember.”

“I owe you my life,” Lossenol said, keeping his gaze on the shadowy ceiling. “That must count for something.”

“Many things should, but have been proven not to,” Daeron said. “You cannot make any promises right now that either of us can trust you to keep.”

“What if I never remember who I am?” Lossenol asked. “What if—what if it’s all just gone?”

“You don’t know—”

“What if I don’t want to remember who I am? I don’t—I don’t want to be who you—who you think I have been.”

“Whether you remember it or not, there is no changing the past.”

“But I can’t be tied to it if I don’t—”

“I am not going to debate the nature of one’s very self with you right now,” Daeron said. “You can make your future whatever you want—but whether you remember it or not, your past and your deeds have shaped you, and will continue to do so. Do not look to me for purpose or absolution—I cannot give you either.”

He didn’t think that was what he wanted, but he didn’t have the words for what he did want.

He fell asleep after a while, in spite of the howling wind. The storm did not abate by morning, and the sounds made everyone uneasy all day. Daeron finished carving small flutes for Eluréd and Elurín, and began to teach them how to play. Lossenol wasn’t sure if it was mere distraction or not, but both boys listened intently as Daeron explained how to hold the flutes and where to place their fingers, and the names of the different notes. When Daeron played, the music seemed to harmonize effortlessly with the howling wind, turning it all into something haunting and almost beautiful. 

By the next day the storm had passed, and Daeron disappeared sometime in the morning. He had still checked Lossenol’s various wounds with brisk and gentle efficiency, and made sure that he ate, and helped him start getting up and moving around so he could begin to rebuild his strength—and Lossenol didn’t understand why. When he returned it was empty-handed. Rather than going hunting or fishing, he had spoken to the Ents, who had somehow learned something of what was happening west of the River Gelion. When Eluréd asked how they knew, Daeron only shrugged. “I am sure Finglas would tell me if I asked, but I am also sure it would have taken the rest of the day at least, and I was already half-frozen.” He sat down by the fire with a sigh, and smiled when Elurín handed him a blanket. “Thank you!”

“Did you learn what happened to our parents? Or baby Elwing?” asked Elurín.

“No, I’m sorry. I think some escaped Doriath, and might be making their way down Sirion, but where they will go in the end or even if that is true, I can’t say. It sounds as though the Sons of Fëanor,” he added, glancing at Lossenol, “have indeed returned to Amon Ereb, and are holding the lands north and east of the Amdram against the Enemy in the north, though I imagine the storms this winter are helping them a great deal. The dwarves of Belegost have been making some sorties down the mountains, which sounds like good news—the dwarf road through the mountains is the quickest and easiest way over the Ered Luin.”

“But can we not go to the River Sirion, if that’s where everyone else is?” asked Eluréd. 

Daeron shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry. Maybe the Noldor and the dwarves can keep most orcs at bay, but we’ve already had some come through these woods over these last weeks, and it will only be worse elsewhere. Whatever pockets of resistance remain, Beleriand is nearly overrun. Those who remain must go west to the coast or east over the mountains, and we are much too far to try for the Sea. It will be safer in Eriador, at least for a little while.”

“Someday, maybe?” asked Elurín.

Daeron hesitated. He was very good at hiding what he felt, Lossenol thought, but that brief silence spoke volumes. “I don’t know,” Daeron said finally, choosing honesty over false reassurance. “I’m sorry—the world is growing very dark very quickly, and it has not been given to me to glimpse the future. All I can say for sure is that we are safe here, for now, and come springtime I hope that we can make it across the mountains. I had friends among the dwarves, once upon a time, and if we meet any perhaps they will remember my name and give us safe passage.” Eluréd and Elurín looked at each other. “What’s wrong?”

“It was dwarves that—that Ada went with our grandfather to fight, when they tried to steal the Nau—the Naugla—the big necklace with the Silmaril,” said Elurín. “Grandmother was very sad. That was when we went to Doriath.”

Daeron leaned back against the wall. “I have missed a great deal since I went away,” he murmured. “And Finglas did say something to me of dwarves…well—we’ll see what happens, I suppose. It is still the fastest and safest way to cross the mountains.” Then he frowned. “That necklace, Elurín—did you mean the Nauglamír?”

“Yes!” said Elurín, brightening. “That’s what it was called!”

“That belonged to Finrod Felagund. How in the world did it come to—never mind.” Daeron sighed. “Felagund is no more, and Nargothrond is likely fallen—I suppose it doesn’t much matter now how the Nauglamír came to Doriath.”

“Did you know him? Finrod Felagund?” Lossenol asked. 

“Yes.” Daeron didn’t look at him. “He was Elu Thingol’s nephew, through his mother, Eärwen of Alqualondë, and also a Prince of the Noldor, of Finwë’s line. From what I have heard—and I do not know if it is true, for I have heard only the most scattered and confused of rumors—he died aiding Beren and Lúthien in their quest.” 

There was Alqualondë again—as dark a name as Doriath now, even if Daeron would not or could not share the details of what had happened there. Lossenol looked away. 

“It was very pretty. The Nauglamír,” said Elurín, pronouncing the name carefully. “But Ada does not like to wear it.” He paused. “Did not like to wear it.” Daeron held out his arms upon hearing the correction, and both twins scrambled over to curl up on his lap. Though Daeron was always kind, this was the most openly affectionate Lossenol had yet seen him be. 

He turned away, and picked up one of the socks Daeron had shown him how to darn, because he needed something to do with his hands—to be sure he could still use his hands in such a way, Daeron had added. That grief—for Doriath and everyone who had once lived there—wasn’t one he could share, even if he wasn’t part of the reason they had to grieve in the first place. 

The days continued to drag on. Lossenol couldn’t remember any other winters, of course, but this one felt very long. He got stronger, little by little. Daeron sang songs of healing, and he paced around the small room once he could walk, slowly increasing how many minutes he could stay on his feet. In between he played games with the twins, and discovered that he was better than Daeron at braiding their hair, and slept a lot. His head still ached more often than not, but by the time Daeron came inside one day to announce that the Ents had departed and the sun felt almost warm, even that was improving.

“Does that mean we’re leaving?” Eluréd asked.

“Not yet, but soon,” said Daeron. “I do not want to be sleeping out in the open when it’s still so cold—not to mention we need to wait for the passes to clear of any snow—though the consequence of waiting for that to improve is to end up sleeping in mud. Either way, the journey north is unlikely to be pleasant, but we’ll manage.”

Lossenol had been trying not to ask too many questions, since Daeron couldn’t answer most of them and didn’t seem to want to answer the rest, but now he ventured, “And—how far from here to…”

“Amon Ereb? Many miles, but—”

“I thought we were going east, not west!” Eluréd protested. 

“We are,” Daeron said, “but—”

“But Lossenol has to come with us, too!”

Daeron knelt so he could look the twins in the face. “Lossenol has his own people who are doubtless looking for him,” he said. “They will be able to help him better than we can.”

“No, there’s no one looking for him,” said Eluréd, in a tone that sent a shiver down Lossenol’s spine. “There’s no one looking for any of us. That’s why we were all supposed to come here. Fladrif said he could feel it on the wind, that this place was where he was supposed to bring us. And Finglas brought Lossenol here too—because we all had to find each other!”

Before masking it, Daeron looked as unsettled as Lossenol felt. “How do you know that, Eluréd?” he asked. 

“I just do,” Eluréd said. 

“I do, too,” added Elurín.

Daeron breathed a sigh. “Well—Lossenol will come with us as far as the River Ascar and the Sarn Athrad. We’ll see what we see there, I suppose. Amon Ereb is closer than that, as the crow flies,” he added, glancing toward Lossenol, “a little ways south of here, and some miles west, but there is no other good place to cross the Gelion, certainly not on foot.”

“If I were one of the Fëanorians,” Lossenol said, “I’d send patrols to the Sarn Athrad anyway—if it’s that important, it needs to be protected.”

“I have also had that thought.”

“Lossenol has to come with us wherever we go,” Elurín insisted. He left Daeron to run over to Lossenol, wrapping his arms around his neck. “It’s important.”

“We’ll see what happens,” Lossenol said. It might be that there was no way to cross the Gelion at all, these days. It might be that the Fëanorians did not hold Amon Ereb—it might be that they found that orcs had overrun all the world and there was no safe place to go even east of the mountains. 

Whatever happened—if he had been as terrible as Daeron had said, Lossenol did not think he wanted to return to the west. He did not want to remember who he was. What he wanted was what the twins wanted—to stay with them. The only thing he could be certain of was that Eluréd and Elurín needed to be protected, and that was something he could do once he was strong enough, once he got his hands on new weapons, since it seemed he had lost all of his. It was his fault they had no one else. There was no making up for it—but he could at least see that they didn’t lose anything else. 

He didn’t say any of that out loud. Words were too hard still, trying to get them from his mind to his tongue. He just hugged Elurín instead, and then Eluréd when he came to join his brother. Daeron watched them with an unreadable expression before he got up to fetch more firewood. 

They left when most of the snow had melted, and Daeron was confident that Lossenol could make the journey to the Ascar. It would be slow going, because they had to move carefully and because Lossenol himself was slow, but once they started moving he found himself improving rapidly—he felt at home in the woods. He knew how to move through the trees unseen and unheard and he knew what they could forage for food this early in the year, and how to find animal tracks for hunting, and how to find a good place in the evening to make camp. Daeron let him try his bow, aiming at a tree stump when they stopped for an afternoon. It was frustrating to try to adjust to only having one eye, but it wasn’t impossible. He could do it, given enough time and practice—he could feel himself getting stronger, no longer helpless, no longer trapped by weather and weakness and pain. 

“Be careful,” Daeron said after a few days. They had made their camp hidden in a still-bare thicket that was still heavy enough to hide them, and Daeron had sung several songs that pulled the shadows in to hide them even further. Eluréd and Elurín were asleep, curled up in between them underneath both blankets and cloaks. “Does your head hurt?”

“Only a little, just now,” said Lossenol. “It didn’t hurt at all today.”

“You shouldn’t try to do too much too soon.”

“I know.” Lossenol glanced over at him, but it was hard to see through the shadows. “But you can’t really care whether or not I—”

“I worked very hard to keep you alive,” Daeron bit out, voice unusually hard, “and I would thank you for not throwing that effort all to the wind.”

“I’m not trying to,” Lossenol said. “I might not know much, but I know—know what it means that you—saved my life.” Speaking had been getting a little easier too, as his mind felt clearer out in the fresh and open air. He was tired, though, and that made it harder to think.

“Well—all right, then.” 

As they moved north they kept fairly close to the River Gelion. It flowed along south, and on its other side the lands opened up into plains rather than the woods of Ossiriand—though those were growing thinner too, with the trees more spaced out and less underbrush. It made both Daeron and Lossenol uneasy. Lossenol kept looking for signs of movement across the river—horsemen, perhaps Noldor on patrol—but never saw anything. On the eastern side he found tracks—heavy ones, familiar ones, and he knew them for orc tracks in the same way he knew without being taught how to use Daeron’s bow. “They’re fresh,” he said, as Daeron stepped up beside him. “A few days, at most.”

“We need to hurry,” Daeron said, and called to Eluréd and Elurín. 

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They came to the River Ascar, where it flowed into the Gelion, and found the lands empty and quiet. North of the Ascar the forests fell away—but not in a natural sort of way. There were signs of fires both old and new, and other kinds of destruction wrought by fighting and just by the passage of orcs and other fell creatures. The stillness made Daeron uneasy. 

Fording the Ascar was uneventful. It was a much smaller river than the Gelion; its current was not strong, and it was fairly shallow. Daeron and Lossenol carried the twins, and then Daeron turned back to frown at the water. “Is that—”

“Gold,” Lossenol said, also turning to look back. He set Eluréd down and splashed back into the river, heedless of the cold, and bent down to pick something up. It was a bracelet, wrought of gold in the shape of leaves and vines. 

When Lossenol handed it to him, Daeron nearly dropped it. He recognized it. “This—this was Queen Melian’s.” She had had many such pieces, some dwarf-made, others crafted by the goldsmiths of Doriath. “What is it doing here?”

“There’s more, scattered along the riverbed,” said Lossenol. “If it is from Doriath, isn’t it yours by right? Yours and…” He glanced at Eluréd and Elurín, who had come to peer curiously at the bracelet. 

“We don’t have time,” Daeron said. It was getting late already; evening still came early, and he felt horribly exposed. “And what would we do with any of it?” He gave the bracelet to Eluréd. It had been Melian’s, and it should go to her grandchildren. “We need to find a place to camp for tonight. And then tomorrow…” He looked at Lossenol, who was not very good at hiding his thoughts. He did not want to part from them, and Daeron feared that there would be a long and difficult argument about it before it was decided one way or the other—because he was growing increasingly reluctant to part from Lossenol, too. The world was so dangerous, and traveling alone with two young children…

Sudden noise from the north had Daeron and Lossenol spinning. Daeron’s heart leaped into his throat. “Daeron, your bow—” Lossenol began.

“Yes—” Daeron slipped the bow and quiver from his shoulder and handed them to Lossenol, who even one-eyed and not at his best was a better shot than he was. Then he grabbed for Eluréd and Elurín. “Come on!”

They ran, following the Ascar east, upstream—but they were too late. The orcs had spotted them, and gave chase. Lossenol paused once or twice to shoot at them, but there were too many and he did not have enough arrows. Daeron looked desperately for some place to cross the river again or to hide, or—

An arrow hit the ground near his feet and he nearly stumbled. “Daeron!” cried one of the twins.

“Run! Go! Don’t stop!” 

“There!” Lossenol caught up and grabbed one of the twins. “Those trees—” 

Daeron picked up the other twin and followed after Lossenol. More arrows flew past them, and once they reached the trees he heard several thud into the wood. “Up, up!” he said, lifting his twin into the branches of the nearest tree. “Fast as you can!”

“You next,” Lossenol said once the twins were in the tree, clambering up the branches like squirrels. “I can—”

The orcs caught up. Daeron had a knife, but he was no fighter. Lossenol was, but Daeron couldn't see what he was doing. He tried to run, maybe to lead the orcs away from Eluréd and Elurín, but something struck him in the back and he fell, hard. The ground was muddy, and he slipped in the leaves as he tried to get up—and then hands were on him, rough and strong and inescapable. Daeron opened his mouth and screamed, and the hands released him, but others took their place before he could do more than scramble halfway to his feet. When he tried to open his mouth again something was shoved into it, and his arms were yanked behind his back and tied with rough cords. Panic surged, and he kicked and twisted, everything falling out of his mind except the desperate animal need to get away—but he wasn't strong enough. He was just slung over someone’s shoulder, rough armor digging into his ribs, and then all of the orcs were running again, churning up the mud beneath them, jeering and snarling at each other as they went. 

It felt like hours before the orcs finally halted. It was hard to breathe, and Daeron could feel himself slipping in and out of consciousness as he was dumped unceremoniously onto the ground. His legs were taken and bound, and the cords around his arms were tightened. He couldn’t feel his fingers. Everything felt bruised. 

A hand gripped his hair, and Daeron opened his eyes to see an orc leering down at him. “He don’t seem all that special,” he was saying. “What are we going to all this trouble for, then? What are we doing with him?”

The answer came as a low growl: “We’re taking him back to the Dark Lord—you heard what they called him, didn’t you?”

“What’s his name got to do with anything?”

“The name Daeron has got a mighty large bounty on it,” said the orc that Daeron couldn’t see. His blood ran cold, and without thinking he tried to pull away, squirming helplessly in the mud.

The thought had never crossed his mind that the Enemy would take an interest in him—that he might have a price on his head, that he would be worth anything to Angband. What did that mean—

“—even higher than that horse lord, that other singer, Maglor. The Lord will be mighty pleased when we bring this one back to him. Best to keep him in one piece, lads. Like as not we’ll get the first chance at some real fun back home.”

Daeron made a pathetic noise, muffled through the gag, and all the orcs around him laughed. He closed his eyes as he was flung back onto the ground, landing hard enough to wrench something in his shoulder, which he couldn’t even try to relieve because of the way his arms were tied. Fear made breathing even more difficult, and he could feel tears burning behind his eyes. A part of him did not want to give the orcs the satisfaction of seeing him cry, but what did it matter really?

It was tempting, sometimes, to let his spirit fly from his body far away to the Halls of Mandos in the west. Daeron wondered if he could manage it now—if he could just let himself go before he ever came within sight of the gates of Angband. Let them do what they wanted with his body; as long as they didn’t have him, it didn’t matter.

He also wondered if he could escape, somehow, to get back to Eluréd and Elurín. But when he twisted his wrists he found it impossible, and when he opened his eyes he found orcs all around him, arguing with one another and paying him no heed—but that would change in an instant if he tried to move. They had been ordered to keep him in one piece, but there was an awful lot they could do to him that would keep to that directive. 

The tears escaped, and Daeron squeezed his eyes shut again. The only truly clear thought in his head was that he wanted to go home—that he wanted to wake up in his own bed to find that none of this had ever happened, that Doriath was still Eglador and the stars were still the only thing in the sky, and both of his parents were alive and there to assure him that everything would be all right. 

After a while the orcs lifted him up again, and carried him farther. They stopped as dawn neared, and Daeron found himself tossed to the ground again, like he was no more than a piece of baggage. This time his head struck something hard, and when he cried out the orcs laughed. Then one came over with a flask, and yanked Daeron up by the hair. “We take this out, you keep quiet,” he said, gesturing at the gag in his mouth, “or you’ll never make another sound again. Yeah?” Daeron nodded as best he could. The orc pulled the dirty rag out of his mouth, and before Daeron could do more than cough once he replaced it with the flask, pouring something bitter and burning down his throat. Daeron gagged and struggled, but it was swallow or inhale. Most of it spilled down his chin and chest, and when the orc was satisfied he stuffed the rag back into his mouth. 

Whatever was in the flask, it spread warmth from his stomach outward. Daeron did not feel stronger or more alert, but the hunger pangs he had been ignoring before abated. It wasn’t poison, whatever they had given him—it was surely nothing good, but it would keep him alive.

He didn’t listen to the orcs, who spoke mostly in their own language. But after a while one came over to kick at him, laughing when Daeron cried out. Others came to join in the fun—yanking on his hair, pinching his skin, landing blows that would leave terrible bruises but which did not break anything. They knew exactly where the line was and how close they could come to it without crossing over. Daeron wept and would have begged, if he could have spoken, even knowing it would just spur them on. This was a mere taste of what Angband would do to him, and the terror that clawed its way up his throat was a visceral, almost physical thing that hurt even more than the orcs’ fists. 

It went on like that—moving, stopping, intermittent beatings. It might have been days or weeks—it felt like years.

After one particularly vicious beating, they left him almost entirely unattended near the edge of the camp. There was no concern of his trying to escape—even if they untied him he wouldn’t be able to move. Daeron tried to breathe through his nose, but couldn’t—he was weeping too hard and his ribs were bruised and his lungs felt bruised. He was teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. If he could just fall into it and then simply never wake…

The tone of the noise around him changed. He struggled to open his eyes—and when he did he thought he must be dreaming, as a familiar face leaned over him, framed by soft brown hair. “Mmph!” Daeron tried to speak, but couldn’t do more than moan through the gag.

“Hello, Daeron,” said Menelas, who had once been Daeron’s playmate and friend, with whom he had climbed trees and run through the starlit woods, who had always been ready to laugh, who had been the first to hear Daeron’s beginning, faltering attempts at music and to encourage him to keep practicing—who had been on an errand to Dorthonion when the Dagor Bragollach had broken out, and then presumed dead when all the lands burned to ash and nothing was heard of him afterward. He looked almost entirely unharmed now, but for a strange, glassy look in his eyes. “It’s all right,” Menelas said, his soft and lilting voice kind and so familiar that a new wave of tears burned Daeron’s eyes.

This couldn’t be real. But when he looked past Menelas he saw the orcs—and he saw Men, all armed, as was Menelas, all clad in the dark armor used by the servants of Angband. Daeron didn’t understand it. Menelas could not be there—he could not be alive still, when the Bragollach was years ago and things had only gotten worse since. Not unless—

“I am going to take this out, but you mustn’t scream,” Menelas said as he reached for the gag. 

Once the gag was out of his mouth Daeron coughed, and tried to speak. “Men—Menelas, what—how—”

“Shh.” Menelas held up a flask. Daeron flinched way at first, but it was water, cool and sweet. “There’s no use struggling, you know. It will go better for you if you do not try to fight.”

“Fight what?” Daeron asked. “Menelas—”

“It’s only a matter of time before my Lord’s victory is complete,” Menelas said, and a chill swept down Daeron’s spine. “And he will remember those who served him faithfully, Daeron. He is far more generous than the Powers of the West—”

“Menelas, do you hear yourself?” 

Menelas smiled at him, and it was a terrible smile, flat, as though he were not speaking his own thoughts but only repeating a script—and yet at the same time he seemed to really believe it. “You’ll see,” he said. “Here, drink. Do not fear anymore—the orcs will not harm you again, not if you do as you are bid.”

Daeron had no choice but to do as he was told. Menelas did not untie him, though the Men who had arrived with him put themselves between them and the orcs, a promise of both protection and imprisonment. He let his head drop back onto the ground, staring up at the sky. They were near to the mountains, now—steep slopes rose up at their backs, and the woods were thicker here, offering protection and hiding both to those trying to escape the orcs, and to the orcs themselves. 

He tried not to think of Eluréd and Elurín. Such thoughts were dangerous—he spared himself only a few seconds to hope, desperately, that Lossenol had not been killed and that he could get them to safety. Even if he took them to Amon Ereb, it had to be better than what the orcs would do. Then he tried to put them out of his thoughts entirely. Menelas likely did not have the skill to pry into his mind, but they might meet others who could. Even before he had been beaten senseless, Daeron had not been at his best. He was not strong enough for this—to withstand whatever Morgoth himself might do. He would either be tossed to the orcs for them to have some real fun, or he would end up like Menelas, or maybe something worse. If he was lucky, he would just be killed. But he would keep the twins secret—he had to, whatever else happened.

If he was going to die, Daeron thought, he would rather die out in the open—not in the dark pits of Angband. He wanted the last thing he saw to be the sky. The stars, if he could, but even just the clean blue of day would be something.

The day wore on. Menelas brought him food, but Daeron refused to eat. Menelas asked about his companions—about the children that the orcs had seen in his company—but Daeron refused to answer, only relieved that none of the questions suggested that Menelas had any idea who those children really were. Finally, Menelas said, “You must eat, Daeron, or we will have to force you. You cannot come before our Lord’s throne fainting from hunger.”

“I will not come before it at all,” Daeron said.

“Yes, you will. Please do not be foolish.”

Daeron didn’t look at him. He kept his gaze on the little patches of clouds and sky that he could see through the tree branches overhead. He was cold and everything hurt and one of his oldest friends had been taken and subjugated and enthralled. His eyes burned again, and when he tried to blink the tears away they just fell. 

Then movement up the mountainside caught his attention. After a few seconds he saw it again—a brief glimpse of silver hair catching the sunshine before the figure disappeared into the tree-shadows. Daeron’s breath caught.

Menelas had left him alone; now he returned. “Daeron,” he said, a note of urgency in his voice now, “you must eat something. We are moving soon. Do not make this harder than it must be, please. For the sake of our ancient friendship, I wish to help you.”

A horrible feeling of bitterness welled up in his breast. For so many years he had been entirely alone—and now he was reunited with an old friend only for it to be worse than if he had really been dead. “I mourned you,” he whispered. 

“I know. I’m sorry. But we can—”

“If our ancient friendship means so much, untie me.”

“You know I cannot do that.”

Daeron turned his head so he could look into Menelas’ eyes. “Menelas,” he said, reaching out with what little power remained in him. “Hear me. Come back to yourself. Please.” For a moment the glassy-eyed look flickered, and Daeron glimpsed his real friend, drowning in a deep well of horror and pain and fear-unending, a spirit in tatters and yearning for release—any kind of release—but unable to reach for it. He had been kneeling over Daeron; now he fell entirely to his knees with a soft gasp, bowing his head. 

And then the moment passed, and Menelas looked up again, wrong-eyed and calm once more. He said nothing at first, and just picked up the rag again. Daeron pulled away but didn’t have the strength to fight it when he was gagged—far more securely this time, with the rag not just stuffed into his mouth but tied around his head. “Do not do that again,” Menelas said finally, and something about those words in his soft voice was more horrible than anything else Daeron had yet endured. Then he sat back and made a gesture, and an orc approached. Daeron looked past him and saw that the camp was being packed up; they were moving on, and soon they would leave the mountains behind and cross into the Anfauglith—and then to Angband. He did not dare turn to look for another glimpse of silver hair, or to really let himself believe it had been more than his imagination. 

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A blade caught Lossenol across his ribs as he tried to twist out of the way—not deep, but ugly and painful—and it took him only a second to take in the situation and then to let himself fall to the ground, going limp. It meant he could not stop them from hauling Daeron away—but two against at least a dozen was never going to turn out well, and he made himself keep still, even when an iron-shot foot slammed into his back. A few orcs lingered, arguing under the tree where Eluréd and Elurín had taken shelter, but in the end decided that a pair of children weren’t worth the effort. 

Once it was quiet, Lossenol could hear both Eluréd and Elurín weeping. He made himself stay still until he was absolutely sure the orcs were gone, and then he rolled over, unable to suppress a groan. 

“Lossenol!”

“I’m here.” He put a hand to his side and grimaced when it came away bloody. The wound hurt, but he didn’t think it was poisoned. Orc poisons worked very fast—another thing he knew without knowing how he knew. When he looked around he saw one dead orc and signs of a fierce struggle—his own and Daeron’s—and a clear trail leading away. Dread rose up and threatened to crowd out every other thought, and he forced it down, forced himself to breathe, to get to his feet, leaning against the tree. His back hurt, too. 

They had taken Daeron alive. That meant that he could get him back. He let that thought settle in his mind, and felt suddenly much calmer, felt more clear-headed than he had in months. He could do this. 

“Can you climb down?” he called up to the twins. “I can’t come get you, and we need to move.”

Two tear-stained faces peered back down at him. “They took Daeron,” Elurín said.

“I know, and we can’t—can’t get him back until you come down.”

This had them both scrambling down the tree. Lossenol caught first Elurín, and then Eluréd, and then he opened the pack that Daeron had dropped and the orcs had, luckily, not taken, to pull out a roll of bandages. They were old and stained, but clean. “Help me with these, please?” he asked, pulling up his shirt. “Just wrap them around—not too tight—just like that.”

“Do you need stitches?” Elurín asked as he and Eluréd tied off the bandages.

“It looks worse than it is,” said Lossenol. “I’ll have a nasty scar once it heals, but I’ve already got a collection of those, so one more doesn’t much matter.” He wiped his hands on his already-ruined shirt as best he could, and then hugged both of the twins close. “You’re all right? You’re not hurt?”

“No,” said Eluréd. “But Daeron…”

“I know. I’m going to get him back, but that means I’m going to have to leave you—so we have to catch up to them and then find a place for you two to hide.”

“But what if they catch you, too?” Elurín cried.

“They won’t,” said Lossenol. “I’m—look, I don’t know who I am but I know what I’m good at.” He tilted their chins up so he could meet their gazes. “I need you both to trust me, all right? I promise, I’m going to rescue Daeron, and then I’m going to get all of us over the mountains to some place safe, where the orcs will never find us.”

“We trust you,” they chorused without hesitation, in spite of the fear. 

“Thank you,” he said. “Now we have to move fast.” Two children were never going to be able to catch up with the orcs, but they would have the advantage of moving in daylight too, when the orcs needed to stop and hide from the sun. If Lossenol could find a safe place to leave them, hidden and out of the way, he could make up the difference on his own, and—

Well, he’d need to find them first, and then figure out a plan. This would all be easier if he were not still recovering from that winter’s injuries, on top of this new one. 

Before they left, he went to the orc’s body. He needed weapons, having only Daeron’s bow. The orc carried an ugly knife that Lossenol didn’t like the look of, but hooked to his belt anyway, and a sword that was badly made and already notched that he left behind. “Come on,” he said to the twins, and took their hands. 

They went as quickly as they could—quicker than Lossenol had expected—but had to stop frequently for the twins to rest and catch their breath—and for him, too. His back ached where the orc had kicked him, and his side burned with every breath. At least the trail wasn’t hard to follow, and the orcs did not seem to be in a great hurry. They also did not go straight north—they went east, toward the mountains, where the lands were still wooded and there was more shelter. It made sense, and it also meant they were going more slowly than they might have over open ground. Over the next few days, Lossenol left Eluréd and Elurín hidden in a tree or in a thicket or bramble in the mornings, and went ahead, coming back for them in the afternoons when he had a better sense of where to go and what shortcuts might be taken. In this way he finally caught up and was able to count the orcs and even to get close enough to hear some of what they said—though he understood very little, since for the most part they spoke in their own language. 

He also saw what they did to Daeron—beatings, mostly, keeping him bound and bruised and weak enough that he couldn’t even think about escaping or fighting back. That they hadn’t done anything worse was both encouraging and frightening. It meant they wanted him alive—and it meant they had plans for when they brought him to Angband. 

If Lossenol didn’t stage a rescue before they left the woodlands, Daeron would be lost forever.

He also saw when the Men arrived—and with them an Elf. Lossenol frowned as he watched the Elf kneel beside Daeron, speaking to him and treating him with what, at a distance, looked like gentle kindness. It couldn’t be, though—not judging by the way that Daeron recoiled. 

Lossenol watched for another day, trying desperately to think of something—anything—and then made himself pause and look around. He had climbed a steep slope above the orcs’ camp, and several times he’d feared that he would be caught when bits of earth had dislodged under his feet and gone sliding down. When he pressed his hands to the earth he could feel the instability. It wouldn’t take much to cause a landslide. 

He just needed a way to trigger it, and a way to get Daeron out of the way beforehand. His mind raced as he carefully moved through the trees. In short order he had a plan more or less cobbled together. It was rough and it was risky, but he was almost certain it would work. He slipped away to find Eluréd and Elurín, and led them even higher up the mountain, to where he’d found a small cave tucked among some rocks, hidden from view until one came right up to it, where the ground was firmer, and they would be out of danger. Then he told them the plan, because he couldn’t trigger the landslide himself—but a sturdy limb he cut from a nearby tree and a teetering boulder would do the trick. 

“When I whistle, use this to get that rock rolling,” he told them, shoving the end of the stick under the boulder he’d chosen. “You just have to push it down—both of you at once should be strong enough. But not before the whistle! All right? And once it’s moving, run as fast as you can back to the cave. Don’t look back, all right? We don’t want you to come tumbling down the mountain.”

“But what about you?” Eluréd asked.

“By the time you hear me whistle, I’ll have Daeron and we’ll be out of the way,” Lossenol said. 

“How will we know it’s your whistle?”

“You’ll know—it’ll be loud, otherwise I’d show you now.” Lossenol crouched in front of them. “It might take me some time to get Daeron back up here afterward. The orcs have not been kind to him, and it will be a hard climb. When we do get close, I’ll whistle again, this time like a lark.” He demonstrated this for them. “Can you whistle that back to me?” He had them each do it three times until he was satisfied that they would remember how. “Good. Only answer when you hear that whistle—even if you hear our voices, wait for the whistle. That’s important. Got it?”

“Got it,” said Eluréd.

Elurín threw his arms around Lossenol. “Please be careful!”

“I’ll be as careful as I can. I promise.”

By the time he got back to where he could see the camp, they were starting to prepare to move on. No time to waste. Carefully, Lossenol crept around to the side of the campsite where packs and supplies had been tossed into a haphazard pile, right up against some brambles. No one was watching it—they had no one on watch at all, in fact, thinking themselves entirely isolated and safe. More fools them, Lossenol thought as he pulled up his hood and moved very carefully through the bushes until he could rifle through the bags without being seen, ignoring the thorns that scratched his skin and caught on his clothes. Across the campsite, Daeron lay unmoving; the Elf stood nearby speaking with one of the Men. The orcs were fighting about something—the air was full of snarls and curses. 

Finally, Lossenol discovered a flask. When he opened it the sharp smell of alcohol greeted him. He quickly poured it over the bag and then pulled out his own flint to strike some sparks. That was a risk—someone might hear—but the orcs were loud enough that no one noticed, and when the flames caught Lossenol slipped back into the underbrush. It took only a moment for someone to notice the fire as it started to smoke. Lossenol grabbed a branch and threw it away into the woods; it hit a tree with a loud crack! and he hurried away around to the other side of the camp as several orcs ran to investigate the noise. Everyone else scrambled to put out the fire. 

Well, everyone but the Elf. He had gone to kneel beside Daeron, very still and silent. Lossenol held his breath as he crept ever closer, trying to see if Daeron was awake—he had to be alive, or else they wouldn’t bother guarding him, wouldn’t bother binding him. There was no way to grab him and just run, not with someone right there to trip him up. 

The obvious thing to do was to kill the Elf—he was working with the Enemy, he was holding Daeron captive. Lossenol was already a kinslayer, and this would be far more justified than Doriath. He found, though, that he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not remembering the look Daeron had given him after that word had first been spoken aloud between them. 

Daeron finally moved, struggling to sit up. He was gagged and bound so tightly that he could barely do more than lift his head. The Elf rose to his feet, turned toward the fire but did not leave Daeron’s side. That made things harder. Lossenol crept forward, moving slowly. The Elf was called forward to help with something—they all spoke the language of the orcs and Lossenol didn’t know what was said—and that gave him his chance. He darted out of the bushes and shoved the Elf from behind, so he crashed into the nearest Men and tripped up an orc, who fell into another, until half the camp was on the ground or trying not to fall. Then Lossenol hauled Daeron up and over his shoulder, and ran, whistling loud and sharply as he went. Instead of moving to the side he went straight up the mountain, knowing they would be pursued. After a minute or so the ground started to shake, and only then did Lossenol slow down. He looked back to see a fight breaking out between orcs who had their bows out and others who clearly didn’t want them to shoot, while the rest gave chase. The Elf stood very still in the midst of the camp, watchful and somehow far more frightening than even the biggest of the orcs. 

Then the shaking worsened, and Lossenol caught a glimpse of the orcs faltering in their pursuit just before he threw himself and Daeron to the base of the biggest and closest tree. Daeron cried out, eyes wide and very frightened—they only got wider when he saw Lossenol’s face. Lossenol pulled the gag free, and Daeron choked out, “Loss—”

“Hang on.” Lossenol rolled over to cover Daeron with his own body as the first boulders went tumbling past, followed by a great mass of earth—rocks, soil, trees and broken branches, as though someone had scooped away a chunk of the mountain itself. Over the din he couldn’t hear what was happening below, but he hoped the enemy was too slow to escape. The tree shuddered as the landslide hit and parted around it; they were showered with dirt and small stones and twigs, but the worst of it passed by on either side.

It seemed like hours passed before the shaking stopped, and it grew quiet. Lossenol carefully raised himself up to look around; a small shower of pine needles and dirt fell from his shoulders with the movement. He saw no sign of the orcs—or of anyone or anything else. After listening hard for a minute, he pulled out the knife he’d taken from the dead orc, and set about cutting Daeron’s bonds. Daeron made a strangled sort of noise before biting his lip as blood flowed back down his arms and legs. “How bad did they hurt you?” Lossenol asked.

“What? No, the—the twins—”

“They’re fine. Who do you think started the landslide?”

“You had them—” Daeron’s voice rose in pitch, but he couldn’t finish the sentence before he started coughing. 

“They’re fine,” Lossenol repeated. “By now they’re well hidden, and waiting for us. Is anything broken?” He ran his hands over Daeron’s limbs, and felt for his ribs. Daeron flinched away, clearly biting back sounds of pain, but nothing seemed broken. It was hard to tell what was dirt and what was bruising, though.

“I’m—no—I don’t—” Daeron sucked in a breath, and struggled to his knees, and then to his feet, looking down the slope. Lossenol rose to catch him when he swayed. “Menelas—”

“Who?”

“He…” Daeron stared down the hillside, at the swath of earth and stone and trees that now covered the campsite. There was no sign of anyone else; nothing moved, and it was very quiet. “He was my friend,” he whispered hoarsely.

“He knows who you are,” said Lossenol. “If he’s not buried under that—” He gestured toward the debris— “he’ll be taking word of you back to—to Angband, won’t he?”

“He…” Daeron closed his eyes. “Yes.”

“Then we need to move. Now. Can you walk, do you think?”

“I have to, don’t I?” Daeron turned to him, and his gaze dropped to Lossenol’s chest. “You’re bleeding—”

“Am I?” Lossenol glanced down. “No, that’s old. I’m fine. Come on.” They were near the edge of the debris field, but had to move carefully to get free of it entirely without causing another miniature slide. Lossenol kept hold of Daeron, who moved stiffly, teeth gritted and eyes bright with tears that he didn’t let fall. Once they were on solid ground, he breathed a sigh, and glanced around. In the distance, down the hill, he heard something that sounded like tree branches breaking. “Come on,” he said, reaching for Daeron’s hand. 

Daeron’s grip was tight. Neither of them spoke as they moved through the wood, going more slowly than they needed to, but as fast as Daeron was able. Lossenol made sure they left no trail to follow, and when Daeron stumbled for the third time he stopped and, ignoring Daeron’s protests, hoisted him onto his back. Whether or not any orcs had survived, he didn’t want to take any chances. 

Eventually, though, he had to stop before he fell over himself. It was very late by then; there was no moon, and clouds obscured the stars. It was also very cold, especially as they got higher up the mountain, and Daeron couldn’t seem to stop shivering. Lossenol wrapped his cloak around them both, and tucked Daeron up against his chest, arms and legs around him to try to share as much warmth as he could. Daeron slept, dragged down by exhaustion, but Lossenol only dozed, waking at the slightest noise or shift in the wind. 

Dawn came, and he roused Daeron. “Sorry,” he whispered as Daeron whimpered, his body gone stiff after a few hours unmoving. “We need to keep going. Eluréd and Elurín are waiting.” Daeron nodded, and though he hissed through clenched teeth when he got to his feet, he said nothing, and followed after Lossenol without complaint. It got even colder as they went; the wind picked up, sharp and smelling of snow as it swept down the mountainside.

Finally, after several more hours, they drew near to the cave where Lossenol had left the twins. He whistled the lark’s song, and after a minute heard an answer. “It’s us,” he called then, and both Eluréd and Elurín ran out to meet them. Daeron grunted when Eluréd threw his arms around his waist, and would have fallen if Lossenol hadn’t caught him. “Careful,” Lossenol said. “Let’s get inside, out of the wind. The landslide was perfect.”

“Daeron, what happened do you?” Elurín asked, looking wide-eyed at how battered and dirty Daeron was, covered in mud and bruises with his hair all in a tangle. 

“I’m all right,” Daeron said. He stumbled into the cave and sank to the ground, and immediately both twins latched onto him, in tears of mingled fear and relief. 

Lossenol set about starting a fire, and then carefully pried the twins off. “Can you go fetch water from the stream we found?” he asked them. “I don’t know about Daeron, but I’m filthy, and want to wash off.”

The twins took the pot and the water skins and ran off to fill them. It was very close by, so Lossenol didn’t do more than move to the cave’s entrance to watch for their return. As soon as the twins were out of sight Daeron seemed to crumple, slumping against the wall and curling into himself. “Do you want me to make willow bark tea first?” Lossenol asked.

“No,” Daeron sighed. “There isn’t enough left—”

“We can find more. I’m sure there are willows somewhere on the other side of the mountains.”

Daeron closed his eyes. “You should—”

“I’m not leaving you,” Lossenol said. “Especially not now.”

“You’ll regret it,” Daeron said quietly. “Someday.”

“No, I won’t.”

“You’ll wake up one day and remember who you really are, and then—”

“Do you want me to leave?”

Daeron didn’t answer for several minutes. Then, as Eluréd and Elurín came into view, carrying the pot full of water very carefully, he admitted very softly, “No, I don’t.”

“Then it’s settled,” Lossenol said, and stepped out of the cave to help the twins with the water. 

The rest of the day was spent getting clean and getting rest. Lossenol brewed some willow bark in spite of Daeron’s protests. Daeron drank it, cleaned himself as best he could with the twins’ help, and let Lossenol comb as much of the dirt and grime out of his hair as was possible. 

Now that they were all together again and safe, Eluréd and Elurín cheered up swiftly—but they did not leave Daeron’s side for more than a few minutes at a time, and when they fell asleep it was tucked up against him. Daeron looked at them with an expression Lossenol couldn’t decipher before he sighed and looked up. His face had escaped most of the beatings, which had been a relief to discover—Lossenol was very familiar with the effects of head injuries, and was glad Daeron didn’t seem to be suffering from any of them. 

“What I meant earlier,” Daeron said, sounding a little more like himself, “wasn’t—it’s not that I think you’ll regret staying with us. It’s that—that you’ll regret leaving your own kin behind. That you’ll regret not even trying to find a way to remember. Maybe you won’t ever wake up with those memories returned, but maybe you will, and…”

Lossenol shrugged. “They probably think I’m dead, anyway,” he said, “if any of them are alive themselves. Isn’t it my own choice to make—my life, my mind, my body?”

“It’s the sort of choice that shouldn't be made without knowing all the facts,” Daeron said, “but…of course, that’s the problem.”

“Is there anything about me you know, that you haven’t told me?”

Daeron didn’t answer right away. He looked at Lossenol in that way that seemed as though his dark eyes saw far more than what lay on the surface. “There’s something—there’s some shadow that lies over you,” he said finally. “I don’t know what it is, but it frightens me.”

“Frightens you how?”

“I don’t think it makes you a threat—not to us. But it’s…I don’t know. It brings to mind Melian’s Girdle—the parts of it we were always warned to stay away from in the north, where her power met Gorthaur’s, and made the forest a terrible and strange place. It’s not—it’s not frightening exactly like that, but it’s strange. I don’t know what it means. Someone among the Noldor might—a real healer, with more knowledge and skill than me.”

“I still don’t want to know—and that makes me want to know even less.”

Daeron sighed. “It’s your choice. But when we come upon others in Eriador—we’ll need to tell them something. There is no hiding that you are a Noldo from the West, but we can’t risk it being known that you were likely a follower of Fëanor’s sons—or that you do not remember. I doubt anyone will care much if you say you do not wish to speak of your past, but there should be something—maybe say that you followed Finrod, or perhaps Aegnor or Angrod. A follower of Elu Thingol’s kinsmen will be received better.”

“So. Lie.”

“Do you have a better idea? Does it matter, if it’s only to strangers who we most likely will not spend more than a few days or weeks among?”

“What of you, or the twins?”

“If we find people that I have known before—I hope we can find Laegrim who once lived near Tol Galen, who knew Lúthien when she lived there—then giving them a false name would be pointless. But if we meet strangers, I will no longer use the name Daeron. Eluréd and Elurín will need new names, too—it cannot get back to Angband that Dior’s sons still live.”

“Or you.”

“Or me.” Daeron looked away, strands of hair falling forward to partly obscure his face. “There’s…there is a price on my head. I didn’t know that, before.”

“Why?”

“I was once a very mighty singer—or at the least I had that reputation. I suppose it shouldn’t be so surprising. I just…I’m no warrior. I have sung songs of hiding and protection, but by their nature I would not have expected word of that to get back to Angband. I don’t know.” His voice shook slightly. “There are some who have been taken to Angband and escaped, and remained themselves. If I was ever strong enough for such a feat, I am no longer. If you hadn’t…”

A chill went down Lossenol’s spine at the thought of Daeron turning into something like what his friend Menelas had become. “They won’t have you, Daeron. Go to sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

“You still need rest, too.”

“Not as much as you do right now.”

Daeron made a small sound that might have been laughter, except it was bitter and exhausted. “What a pair we make.” But he lay down, careful not to jostle the twins, and closed his eyes.

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Daeron woke with a start, expecting to find an orc leaning over him, expecting cold, more pain, more—

There was none of that. It was late morning, and he lay bundled up in blankets in a small cave. Outside birds were singing. Or no—not birds. He tried to sit up, but found it nearly impossible to move. His entire body felt like one massive bruise, and it was only with effort that he even rolled over onto his side. From there, he could see Lossenol sitting just outside in the sunshine, teaching Eluréd and Elurín bird calls. Closer at hand a fire was burning low and warm. Daeron closed his eyes. He didn’t fall asleep again, but his thoughts drifted, weary and slow. There was something comforting in hearing Elurín giggle when Eluréd fumbled a sequence of notes, and the quiet rumble of Lossenol’s voice—such a contrast to the harsh laughter of the orcs. And the soft tones of Menelas. Daeron opened his eyes again as a few tears escaped, slipping over the bridge of his nose to soak into the blanket underneath him. He could not allow himself to dwell on such things. Menelas was gone—if he was not dead he was still far out of reach, and there was nothing Daeron could do now but mourn for him all over again. But not yet—it wasn’t safe.

They could not linger, but Lossenol refused to even consider moving until Daeron was able to get to his feet without help. Daeron wanted to argue, but it was hard when even the smallest of movements hurt. Lossenol disappeared several times a day to scout down the mountain, and every time he returned with assurances that they were alone. One night it snowed, just a light dusting, and Daeron woke shivering even tucked under all their blankets and cloaks, all four of them huddled together in the back of the small cave far out of the wind. 

As soon as Daeron could get up and move around without having to lean on something, though, he insisted they leave. It still hurt, and they couldn’t go very fast, but at least they were moving—going back south, picking their way through the mountain slopes rather than trying to find flat ground or a road. After some days they finally drew near the passes, where they would need to descend from the hills and cross the mountains through the dwarf roads. Passing out into the open filled Daeron with dread, but as far as any of them could tell it was all quiet. 

“All right,” Lossenol said as the road finally came into view, and they prepared to leave the shelter of the trees, “everyone remember not to use real names if we meet anyone else—except me, I suppose, since my name’s brand new anyway. Eluréd is Pínfileg and Elurín is Pínamrent. What about you, Daeron?” Lossenol had come up with Eluréd and Elurín’s names over the last few days, since he had been teaching them the tongues of birds whenever they stopped to rest—and because their singing voices were, Lossenol said, as lovely as those of songbirds. Daeron was just glad he had chosen sparrows and larks, rather than nightingales. 

He sighed. In the past he had used his father’s name, Caladorn, when he felt he needed to, but that seemed too dangerous now. “Oh, I don’t know. Torrandir, I suppose—I’ve been wandering the forests for years now. It’s as good a name as any.”

The names turned out not to be needed. The mountain passes were quiet, which made Daeron just as nervous as he would have been had they been full of other travelers. There were signs of recent fighting on the western slopes, but when Lossenol paused to try to read those signs, he said that the orcs had been driven back west. He took the time to show Eluréd and Elurín how to read a little of what he could in the footprints and scuff marks on the stone. It meant very little to Daeron, who had always relied on luck more than tracking when he attempted to hunt, and knew nothing at all of battle or how to read the aftermath. The twins were sharp-eyed and quick to learn, and Daeron could almost see the skilled and fierce hunters they might one day grow into.

After only a day or so, the land sloped down again, and they found themselves, at last, through the mountains and in Eriador. Free of the narrow paths and the towering and sheer cliffs on either side, with the Ered Luin between him and Beleriand, Daeron felt like he could breathe again. “Where to now?” Lossenol asked.

“I’m not entirely sure.” Daeron looked around. They were high enough still that the land stretched out before them, an unbroken forest as far as the eye could see. The road disappeared into it, and led, Daeron had been told once, all the way to the distant Misty Mountains and the way to the great dwarf city of Khazad-dûm. He did not want to go that far, but… “I had hoped to find some Elves who once lived in Ossiriand who might be lingering near the mountains,” he said. “There used to be a village some days’ walk north of here—but when I was last there they were speaking of moving on, going back east to rejoin Lenwë’s people, and I don’t know if they will still be there.”

“It’s a place to go, anyway,” said Lossenol, “and even if we find it empty, we might find it a good place to stay a while.”

“Yes, maybe.”

“What would we find if we followed the road?” asked Eluréd, slipping his hand into Daeron’s as they made their way down the mountain. 

“Some small kingdoms of Men—the land opens up a little, with downs and good pastureland and some small rivers, and many Men settled there rather than continuing west as the Edain did. I have not gone that way in some time, though, and I do not know what sort of welcome we would receive if we went there now.”

By then Daeron’s various hurts were mostly healed—the bruises had been bad, but they were still only bruises—and he could keep up with Lossenol and the twins with relative ease. The soreness remained, and fear still dogged his heels, though, and his dreams were dark and terrible—all full of people he had once known, their faces now distorted and frightening, all of them reaching out to him with too-long fingers and promises of horror in the dark. They left him tired and jumpy, flinching at sudden movements and sometimes snapping at the twins or at Lossenol. 

The third time he answered too sharply, Daeron watched Elurín’s eyes fill with tears and felt like a monster; he dropped to his knees and held out his arms. “Oh, I’m sorry—I’m sorry, Elurín, I didn’t mean it.” Elurín threw his arms around Daeron, burying his face in his shoulder. 

“Let’s stop here today,” Lossenol said after a moment. He glanced around, and dropped the pack onto the ground beside Daeron before pulling out the bow. “I’m going to see if I can get lucky.”

“Be careful,” Daeron said.

“Of course.”

Once Lossenol was gone, Daeron rubbed Elurín’s back and let him go. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I’m not upset with either of you, I promise.”

“Why are you upset?” Elurín asked, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

So many reasons. “I’m tired,” Daeron said, “and afraid, and worried—worried that we won’t be able to find Medlinel and her people, mostly.”

“Who is Medlinel?”

“Her brother was Denethor, a king of the Laegrim long ago. He died, and they took no king thereafter, but Medlinel was once a student of your grandmother Melian, and she is very wise and a leader among them, and I’m sure she knows far better than I do how best to take care of you—”

“What does that mean?” Eluréd demanded. 

Oh no. Daeron closed his eyes for a moment. He hadn’t meant to let that slip—he really was tired. “I just—”

“You aren’t going to leave us!” Elurín cried. 

“Elurín—”

“Daeron, you can’t!”

“I’m not! No one’s going anywhere—I misspoke, I’m sorry.” Daeron got to his feet, wincing. “Come on, we need to get a fire started so we can cook whatever Lossenol brings back. Which one of you can tell me the Quenya word for fire?” The Quenya lessons had started as a way to pass the time as they traveled, now that they could let their guard down a little. It also let Daeron practice his own rusty Quenya, which made Lossenol laugh every time he mispronounced a word. Now, however, the twins only answered his questions half-heartedly, and once the fire was started and their little camp made, they climbed onto his lap and refused to move even when Lossenol returned with a couple of small rabbits. 

“What’s the matter?” Lossenol asked as he sat down to skin and clean the game. 

“Daeron wants to leave us,” Eluréd said without lifting his face from Daeron’s shirt. Lossenol looked up sharply. 

“I don’t,” Daeron said.

Like the twins, Lossenol didn’t seem to believe him. “Is that why you want to find the Laegrim?”

It had been, but it wasn’t anymore. “It’s—I—”

“Daeron—”

“I’m not going to argue about it right now,” Daeron snapped. Lossenol closed his mouth and returned to preparing the rabbits. Eluréd and Elurín also fell silent, and clung to him even tighter as though afraid he would get up and disappear then and there. Daeron rubbed their backs and wondered how he had become someone who would be missed if he disappeared. He wondered what Lúthien would say if she could see him then, and quickly pushed that thought away. 

Even when the food was ready the twins were reluctant to let go, but after they ate Daeron was able to get out the flutes and distract them for a while with a music lesson. Lossenol disappeared into the woods again, only returning in the veining when Daeron was preparing to sing up enchantments to keep them hidden so they could all sleep without needing to keep watch. 

After Eluréd and Elurín fell asleep, Lossenol said, “When were you going to share your plans to leave?”

“I wasn’t, because I have none.” Daeron turned his flute over in his hands without looking up. “That was—before the orcs, I did mean to—to find Medlinel and her people and leave the twins with them. I still want to find her if we can, but not for that. Though it would probably be the wisest course—”

“You were going to just—leave them with strangers?”

“They wouldn’t have been strangers. They were born in Ossiriand, and—”

“And left it when they were very small. Daeron—”

“I don’t know the first thing about raising children,” Daeron said sharply, struggling to keep his voice low. “And—and there is a price on my head, Lossenol. It doesn’t matter how far away get get—”

“It does matter,” said Lossenol. “Where do I fall into these plans of yours?”

“I told you, it isn’t my plan any longer—”

“You just said you think it would be wiser.”

“It would be. I just—” Daeron dropped his flute and covered his face. “I hadn’t thought about it,” he said into his palms. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve been guessing ever since Finglas brought you to me. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I already told you I’m not going back to the Fëanorians. What would you expect me to do if you just slipped away? What were you planning to do when you left? Where would you go?”

“I don’t know,” Daeron said, though the answer was probably that he would have disappeared into the deepest woods of Eriador, found a quiet spot where no one would ever find him, and just let himself fade away. “I just—they deserve to be safe and cared for by people who know how, and—”

“Don’t they deserve not to lose anyone else?” Lossenol asked softly. “You and I have both chosen to walk away from our own lives. They haven’t. They’ve lost everything, Daeron, and they almost lost you once already.”

“They’d forget soon enough—”

“No, they wouldn’t. But say you’re right. Say it would be better for this Medlinel to take them in, whoever she is. Why does it have to be you or her? Why could you not stay too?”

“Besides the fact that there is a price on my head?”

“You said this was your plan before you ever knew about that.”

Daeron lowered his hands to his lap. He was so tired, and his head ached, and he wanted to go home—back to a home that had not existed since long before he had left Doriath for the last time. “I am not welcome among Medlinel’s people,” Daeron said after a moment. “Many of them used to come and go from Doriath—when it was Eglador still, before the Girdle—and they knew Lúthien. They must have known her also when she and Beren lived on Tol Galen in Ossiriand. I—the role I played in Lúthien’s tale—I made so many mistakes, and they have not forgotten. I’ve traded with them once or twice—well, once I threw myself upon their charity, during a bad winter—but only when I had to, and they made their feelings quite clear then. They were kind but not welcoming. Not to me.”

“You think their opinion won’t change when you turn up with Eluréd and Elurín?”

“Medlinel knew me of old in Eglador, when she came to learn all that Melian would teach her. I was still young then, and she thought me foolish and frivolous, and now she thinks me foolish and treacherous—she’s probably right, at least that I’m foolish. And—” Daeron broke off.

“And?”

He shook his head. “I just—if we don’t find her then all of this is pointless anyway. I know Eluréd and Elurín believe we four were meant to find one another, but I cannot help but feel that it will end badly, sooner or later. As I said, my plan when we left the flet was to bring the twins to Medlinel if I could, and to leave them in safety. You, I thought, would part with us at the Sarn Athrad. That is not what I want, now, but—there is still a price on my head, and for all we know there is one on yours too—your people have not only been kinslayers, you have fought bravely for centuries in the north—and—and is it not better to endure a little heartache now than suffer much worse heartbreak in the future?”

“I thought you were not given to foresight.”

“I’m not, usually, but…” There was still a war raging on the other side of the mountains, even if where they sat all was quiet and peaceful, with crickets in the bushes and spring’s new growth beginning to adorn the tree branches overhead. The future remained dark, hope dwindling a little more with each passing year. And, someday, Lossenol might learn that Daeron had not been honest with him about what he knew or guessed. Maybe Lossenol did not want to know—but if he ever did remember, Daeron did not think Celegorm would be forgiving.

Lossenol sighed and tossed a stick onto the fire. In the flickering light the scars on his face stood out, and his good eye glinted with ancient Treelight. “Say you’re right about the rest,” he said after a moment. “Say this all ends terribly, someday. You’re probably right. Doesn’t that just mean we should hold onto what we have now for as long as we can?”

“The Shadow is growing,” Daeron whispered. “It will someday reach beyond the mountains, maybe even beyond the Misty Mountains—”

“I don’t know about you, but if and when that happens I intend to go down fighting.”

“I’m no fighter.”

“There’s a reason the Enemy’s put a price on your head. I think you’re not nearly as diminished as you say you are. I think you could sing down the mountains if you tried.”

Daeron didn’t know what to do with that kind of confidence, that kind of faith. “I think I am a better judge of my own strength than you,” he said. 

Lossenol shrugged. “All I know is—you don’t argue when someone tells you something the way those two do sometimes. With that look in their eyes. When they say the four of us were meant to find one another, I don’t think it’s meant to be only for a season or two.”

It was the same look Lúthien had had in her eyes when she had told Daeron she intended to leave Doriath, to go after Beren. He hadn’t listened, then—fear had ruled him, for her and for them all. Now he looked at Eluréd and Elurín, curled up together under a blanket, and felt that same fear. It twisted around his heart and lungs like vines, constricting, making it hard to breathe, hard to think. But he had learned from his mistakes—he knew better now than to disregard such foresight, even if it was mingled with the desires and fears of lost children. 

Children who love you, a little voice in the back of his mind that sounded a little like Menelas—the real Menelas, the friend of his fondest memories—pointed out. 

He knew what he wanted—but just because they all wanted the same thing didn’t mean it was possible, or that it was wise. His grip on life had been tenuous for years, even before Finglas had turned his entire world upside down in just a few words, even before the orcs had revealed just how much Morgoth himself desired his capture. Having a reason to cling to life wasn’t always enough—especially not when it might be better, safer for everyone, if he stopped trying.

He just didn’t know how to explain that to Lossenol. It wasn’t even that Daeron didn’t trust him, because he did—or he would as long as his memories remained lost and the Oath slept. It was just—he was so full of life, even after such terrible injuries and the loss of everything he had known. What could he understand of fading, really? 

He would have to find a way to explain sooner or later, but for now he just shook his head again. “I don’t want to leave them, and I’m not going to. I just don’t know anymore whether what I want to do is the same as what I should. But—even aside from all of that, there is another reason I want to seek out Medlinel, if we can.”

“What is it?”

“I know you say you do not want to recover your memory—but I’m afraid that it isn’t only lost because you were injured. If there is something else at work—like that shadow I told you about before, I mean—she might be able to tell what it is, and if it poses some other danger to you that I cannot see. Maybe she’ll be able to help.”

“If she will not welcome you, she certainly won’t welcome me. I don’t want a stranger looking into my mind, anyway.”

“I was a stranger when I first did it,” Daeron pointed out.

“And I was half dead,” Lossenol retorted.

“And if I told you she was someone you could trust?”

Lossenol tossed another stick onto the fire, and then pushed his hair out of his face. “Nothing you’ve said of her suggests she’s someone I can trust.”

“Just because she doesn’t like me doesn’t mean she’s not trustworthy. She is a healer. She learned from Melian herself.”

“Well, like you said—all of this only means anything if we find her in the first place. You should go to—to sleep.”

“So should you,” Daeron said as he reached for his blanket. “Your words are slurring.” Lossenol grimaced, but didn’t argue. They were all tired. 

That night, Daeron’s dreams were full of starlit memories of Eglador, of old friends and of his parents, when they had all been so happy—even him. He woke in the morning with tears on his face and a heavy feeling in his limbs that took a very long time to shake off. 

The village he remembered visiting once or twice in recent years was not tucked up against the mountains, but farther east. The woods were thick and wild, and there were few landmarks to go by, but at last they came to the banks of a familiar river. “I think this called the Lhûn,” Daeron said. “The village I want to find shouldn’t be far now.”

“I haven’t seen any signs of people, Elves or Men,” Lossenol said. “I think your friends might have moved on.”

“It’s more likely than not,” said Daeron, “but I still want to find it. And if we go a little farther north and east, across the river, we’ll come to some hills, and beyond them a wide lake—though if that has a name, I haven’t heard it.”

They followed the river’s course north, and soon came to the site of the village. It was, as Daeron had expected but not as he had hoped, empty. There were no signs that the Elves who had built it left in a hurry; nothing of great value had been left behind, and there was no evidence of a fight or of any kind of disaster. The houses all still stood, both in the trees and on the ground. “When last I came this way, a handful of years ago, Medlinel said they were thinking of returning east past the Misty Mountains,” Daeron said, “to rejoin her father’s people.”

“Do you want to follow?” Lossenol asked.

“No. Not yet, anyway. Let’s take advantage of solid walls and roofs for a while.”

“Not a flet,” said Lossenol as Eluréd and Elurín ran off to explore. “If trouble comes we can retreat to one, but I don’t want to always be having to climb things.”

They found a small house with two bedrooms that still had mattresses on the bed frames, though they needed to be patched and refilled—probably why they had been left behind in the first place. There were other pieces of furniture—things too big to travel with—and that made it even easier to settle in. It wasn’t until they had actually finished fixing up the house and the mattresses that Daeron realized he and Lossenol had just agreed to share a bed. 

That in itself didn’t mean much. They’d been living out of each other’s pockets and sleeping next to one another for months now—but it felt different, now that they had a choice. “What’s wrong?” Lossenol asked as he tossed their blankets onto the bed. 

“You know this doesn’t mean…” Daeron gestured at the bed, feeling his cheeks grow warm. “It’s…”

Lossenol looked amused. “You’re very pretty, Daeron, but I’m afraid all I want to do in this bed is sleep, if it’s all the same to you.”

Daeron’s face felt burning hot. “I—well. Good.”

“It just makes sense to share—we’ve only got so many blankets, and in winter it will be warmer.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“I’m not going to try to ravish you in the middle of the night or something, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Before Daeron could answer, Eluréd asked, poking his head through the door, “What’s ravish?”

“Sweet stars above,” Daeron groaned, burying his face in his hands. 

“A root vegetable,” Lossenol said at the same time. 

“What are you going to do with a root vegetable in the middle of the night?”

“Nothing—that’s what I was saying.”

“Radish,” Daeron said into his palms. “That’s the root vegetable, Eluréd—a radish.”

“So what’s a—”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Daeron said firmly, turning to usher Eluréd out of the bedroom. Lossenol’s laughter followed them. “Come on. I need to sing up a Girdle, and I might as well start teaching you two how to do it. Where’s Elurín?”

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It was easy to settle into a routine once they found the empty village. Daeron’s enchanted Girdle wouldn’t keep anyone out, like Melian’s of old, but it would let him know, at least, when someone was approaching. Still, it was nice to be able to sleep through the night without fear, and with sturdy walls and a roof over their heads—and in a real bed, however odd Daeron seemed to feel about sharing it. 

Daeron found old gardens, which had some vegetables growing from seeds dropped or left behind—though no radishes, which Lossenol pretended to be more disappointed about than he really was just to see Daeron roll his eyes while the twins giggled. Lossenol hunted and foraged and wished for a sword and a better knife than the one he’d stolen off the dead orc. “You said there are Men living not far from here?” he asked Daeron one afternoon. 

“Well, relatively close, I suppose. South of here, near the dwarf road, and farther east. Why?”

“Do you think they’d trade with Elves?”

“Oh, certainly. I’ve traded with them before, and I’m sure the Laegrim did too,” Daeron said. He sat cross-legged in the sunshine, mending Elurín’s cloak. “A few songs for a place to sleep and some food—that sort of thing, at least for me. I don’t know what we have to trade, though. Except more songs—but I’m not in much of a state to sing anything particularly useful to anyone else.”

“Well, nothing right now—but in the future we might. I want proper weapons. How about that lake you were talking about—is that closer, are there people living there?”

“It is much closer than the kingdoms by the downs, and there might be settlements, but it’s been some time since I ventured there.”

“How long were you wandering around alone?”

Daeron shrugged. “I never counted the years. I left Doriath when Lúthien did, but I don’t know when she came back, or when she settled in Ossiriand, or—or when she died.” He kept his gaze on his needle and thread. “A few decades, at least,” he said finally, after apparently doing some silent calculations. “Almost all of that time I was alone. I did not want to be among other people, and only sought them out when I needed to. These last few months have been the longest I’ve spent with anyone in years.”

Lossenol sat down beside him. Eluréd and Elurín were playing a game nearby—something with sticks and pebbles and a lot of giggling. “Why?” he asked. “Why leave Doriath in the first place?”

“I was trying to follow Lúthien. I got turned around in the Girdle and—she went west, and I stumbled out of Region in the east. There wasn’t really anything keeping me there, so…I just started walking and didn’t look back.”

“You had no other friends? No family?”

Daeron paused in his stitching. “I had friends,” he said softly. “Mablung, Beleg—others besides. But I had withdrawn from them long before I left, and I doubt I was missed.”

“But your family—”

“Dead. Long ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

Spring brought flowers and birdsong, and the days grew ever longer and warmer. By day Eluréd and Elurín were as happy as Lossenol thought two young children could be, full of insatiable curiosity, with questions about everything from the birds they found nesting in the trees to the stories behind the constellations that Daeron pointed out to them in the evenings. At night though, now that they were not weary from travel, they were often plagued by nightmares, and even if Lossenol had wanted to ravish Daeron in the middle of the night it would have been impossible, with the twins crawling under the blankets with them more nights than not. 

For all that they were well on their way to actually building a life, though, it still felt like Daeron was determined to remain mostly a stranger. He kept himself at arm’s length—or tried to, with less and less success as time went on—even from the twins, though it was obvious to Lossenol that he loved them just as much as they loved him. 

It didn’t make any sense. If you loved someone, you kept them close. If you loved someone you didn’t try to separate yourselves or send them away, not unless there was absolutely no other choice. Lossenol felt that deep in his bones, where an ache of guilt over choosing to turn his back on his own past also resided. He didn’t need Daeron to tell him that leaving his past behind meant leaving people he cared about—only it was hard to feel that bad about it when he didn’t remember them, when a part of him was certain that they were all dead. It was harder still to feel bad about it when he had three other people that he also cared about, more and more every day, who were right there, who needed him as much as he needed them.

He still didn’t understand why Daeron was trying to keep himself so separate. 

Daeron started singing healing songs again, once they were settled. Lossenol’s headaches abated almost entirely after a few months, and as spring marched on toward summer his troubles with speaking mostly went away too except when he was tired.

Sometimes he still got lost, though—lost in his own head, losing time, sometimes wandering away. He never went far before he either came back to himself or Daeron caught him, but it was alarming every time. “You always go west, have you noticed?” Daeron asked one summer afternoon after Lossenol had come out of it by walking into a low-hanging tree branch, smacking himself in the face and discovering he knew a lot of colorful words in several Mannish languages, none of which he could teach Eluréd and Elurín yet.

His face was now scratched up, especially around his good eye, and he lay on the grass beside Daeron, head aching dully. “Does that mean something?” he asked, hearing the words slur a little and hating it. 

“Well. You know what you’ve likely left behind. There is a part of you that remembers, and wants to return.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me again?”

“No, of course not,” Daeron sighed. “But you know what I think about it. And you’ll have nightmares later.”

“I know.” He always did, after he tried to wander off. They were full of both darkness and of blinding light, and words he either couldn’t understand or couldn’t fully remember when he woke. It always felt like he couldn’t breathe afterward, like there was something around his neck trying to choke him. 

They all had nightmares every so often—Daeron tossed and turned almost every night, though he never shared what it was he dreamed of. Lossenol could guess—the bruises had faded, but the memory of the orcs hadn’t. There were also other things in his past that weighed on him that he wouldn’t speak of—like what had actually happened between him and Lúthien—and Lossenol didn’t know yet how far he could pry before Daeron actually lost his temper. 

Daeron leaned over to examine the scrapes and small bruises around Lossenol’s eye. “Well, at least you can still see,” he said. “Do try not to damage this eye—I’m not that skilled a healer.”

“It’s not my fault that tree was there,” Lossenol said, hoping to get a smile. He was disappointed. “I’m—fine.”

“You aren’t,” Daeron said.

“I’m as fine as someone can be who almost—almost died in a cave-in and then got rescued by an Ent and nursed back to health by a grumpy hermit.”

That did get a smile, small and fleeting. “All right, I’ll grant you that. I wish I knew what caused this.”

“The part of me that remembers and wants to return, you said.”

“Yes, but—what wakes it? There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason. I—” Daeron stopped suddenly, lifting his head and turning toward the southeast. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Someone’s coming,” Daeron said, sounding rather surprised. “I didn’t really think anyone would—where are the twins?”

“Here we are!” Eluréd and Elurín came running up. “What’s wrong with Lossenol?”

“I walked into a tree,” said Lossenol without moving. 

“What did you do that for?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose. The tree moved in front of me.”

“That’s silly,” said Eluréd as he sat down on Lossenol’s stomach, making him grunt. “Trees don’t move.”

Lossenol reached up to tickle him. “This one did.”

“Someone’s coming,” Daeron interrupted, getting to his feet, “and if it isn’t someone I know, you mustn’t use your real names. Pínfileg and Pínamrent, all right?”

“And you’re Torrandir,” said Elurín as he wrapped himself around Daeron’s leg. 

“Yes.”

“Can you tell if they’re friendly or not?” Lossenol asked, finally sitting up. He wrapped his arm around Eluréd, keeping him on his lap. 

“Friendly—Elves, anyway,” said Daeron, “and they’re not coming from the west.” As he spoke a trio of figures appeared moving up the overgrown path leading away from the village toward the south, carrying bows and clad in hunting gear. Lossenol got to his feet and picked up Eluréd. Daeron remained unmoving, hand on Elurín’s shoulder. The figures halted upon seeing them, before continuing forward. Once they were close enough that they could all speak without raising their voices Daeron said, “Well met, Medlinel. I thought you had taken your people east.”

“Daeron, is that you?” Medlinel strode forward. So this was who Daeron had wanted to find. She was not a tall woman, but she had a kind of presence about her that made her seem so, dark-haired and stern-faced, with a thin scar tracing from her right temple down to her chin, pale against her dark skin. She glanced at Lossenol and her stern expression turned to a deep frown before she turned back to Daeron. “What are you doing here—who—who are these children?” The way she asked made Lossenol think she already knew the answer, and he tightened his arms around Eluréd without thinking.

“These are Eluréd and Elurín, the sons of Dior Eluchíl,” Daeron said as Elurín moved behind him, and Eluréd turned to hide his face in Lossenol’s shoulder. “The Ent Fladrif brought them out of Doriath this past winter.”

“And him?” Medlinel tilted her head toward Lossenol, not looking at him again.

“This is Lossenol,” Daeron said, and offered no further explanation. “What brings you back here, Medlinel? Were you not going to rejoin your father’s people east of the Misty Mountains?”

“Yes, and my people are still on their way—we left here early this spring, as soon as the ice thawed—but troubling rumors reached us of the goings on in the west, and I wanted to know more. And here you are, it seems, brought to this place in good time to tell me of it all.”

“I can tell you very little,” said Daeron. “I know Doriath has fallen, but little else. Orcs roam Ossiriand, all the way down the Gelion; the Ents believe a remnant of Doriath’s people made their way down Sirion in the west, but I cannot say whether or not that is true.”

“How can Doriath have fallen?” asked one of Medlinel’s companions as the other gasped, covering her mouth in shock at the news. “What of the Girdle?”

“Melian is gone,” said Daeron. “I had hoped to learn more from you, if our paths crossed.”

“It seems we’re all far too ignorant of what goes on west of the Ered Luin,” said Medlinel. “But how did you fall into the company of one of the Golodhrim, Daeron?”

“Chance,” said Daeron, as Lossenol tried not to bristle at being spoken of as though he weren’t standing right there. “He was injured and needed help. I gave it—and it is safer in these days not to travel alone.”

Medlinel looked hard at him, as though trying to read in Daeron’s eyes whatever it was he was not saying. Daeron met her gaze, seemingly entirely calm and at ease. All the doubts and fears that Lossenol knew burdened him were invisible now; he seemed entirely self-assured. Belatedly, Lossenol recognized the look—it was the one he’d worn day in and day out in those early weeks in the flet, when he had been trying to keep them all alive by himself. Only now, after getting a glimpse of what was really happening underneath that mask, did Lossenol recognize it for what it was. Finally, Medlinel said, “I would speak with you privately, Daeron.”

“Of course.” Daeron gestured toward the house they’d been staying in, and then knelt to say something to Elurín before following Medlinel inside. Elurín let go of Daeron only reluctantly, and then turned to latch onto Lossenol instead.

“Come on, songbirds,” said Lossenol, “let’s go see if we can catch some fish, huh?” He didn't want to stay in the company of Medlinel’s companions, who looked at him with wary suspicion, and he wasn’t sure he could speak to them with as much courtesy as Daeron could. They would doubtless follow and watch, but as long as they stayed out of sight Lossenol didn’t much care. His head still hurt a little, but at least fishing didn’t require a lot of thinking.

“Is Daeron going to try to make us go away with them?” Eluréd asked as Lossenol set him down by the riverbank.

“I think he is going to ask you to go,” Lossenol said, “and I think Medlinel might have some strong opinions about it, but no one will make you.”

“Promise?” Elurín asked.

“It’s not my place to make that kind of promise,” said Lossenol. He had thought the matter settled, but that was before Medlinel had arrived, and he didn’t know now what she would say or if she would make Daeron doubt himself again. “But—hey, c’mere.” He knelt down and wrapped an arm around each of the twins. “Listen to me, all right? Daeron wants to keep you safe. That’s why he might ask you to go farther east with Medlinel. Her people knew your grandparents, and they’ve got better clothes, and more weapons, and there’s more of them—you won’t ever be left alone, and they’ll be able to protect you and teach you better than just Daeron and me.”

“But we don’t want to go with them,” Eluréd said.

“I know, and I’m not trying to talk you into it. What I mean is, it’s not because Daeron doesn’t care about you. It’s because he does, very very much.”

“What about you?”

“Of course I care about you, too. If it were only up to me we wouldn’t be talking about this at all. But I also don’t know what I’m doing—I barely know who I am, and—” Lossenol took a breath, and lowered his voice, just in case those other Elves were close enough to be listening. “I don’t remember what I did, but I know I did some very bad things. I might have to pay for it someday, one way or another, and—”

“That’s not fair, if you can’t even remember,” protested Eluréd.

“I still did it, even if I can’t remember it now,” said Lossenol. “Whatever happens, I’m going to do my best to protect you, but that might someday mean we have to part ways. There might be many reasons it will be the best thing, but it will never be because I want to leave you.” He tugged gently on one of Eluréd’s braids. “It’s important that you understand this.”

“We still don’t want to leave you now,” said Eluréd. “We’re not supposed to.”

“Are you saying that because you don’t want to, or for some other reason?”

“Both!” said Eluréd. “We just know it. It’s important.”

“I believe you,” Lossenol said, because Eluréd was looking at him with eyes that seemed to see even more than Daeron’s sometimes did. Elurín, too. Daeron had explained their parentage, once—that their great-grandmother was Melian the Maia, who had forsaken the Blessed Realm for the sake of Elu Thingol. Lossenol supposed he had to have known Maiar himself, once upon a time—he knew what they were anyway, without needing to be told—and the idea of marrying one sent shivers down his spine. Eluréd and Elurín were halfelven, children of Elves and Men—but they were descended of Melian too, and no one could know what that really meant. 

Even Eluréd and Elurín couldn’t know what the future held—not for sure. All that was certain was that the world was a dangerous place, and growing ever darker. A part of Lossenol was determined to make up at least in part for the terrible things he’d done by keeping them safe. The rest of him just wanted to keep them safe because they were children, and because he did care about them, whatever blood flowed in their veins. It was true that he didn’t really know what he was doing, but it felt familiar—teaching them to do things, teasing them, loving them. He’d loved someone else like this once. Something told him, though, that he’d lost whoever it was—another reason he didn't want his memories back. He didn’t want to feel the full force of that grief. It was easier if it just stayed quiet, tucked down in the very depths of his heart where it only ached a little bit, instead of rising up like the tide to drown him.

“Come on,” he said, getting to his feet. “Let’s see if we can’t catch some fish.”

Daeron came to join them some time later, after they’d caught several large fish that would feed all seven of them that night. “Medlinel is willing to try to help you regain your memories,” he said to Lossenol, crouching down next to him as Eluréd and Elurín went to clean their hands in the river. “Or at least to find out what’s keeping them locked away—or if I’m even right in the first place, and that’s what’s happening, and they aren’t really just lost forever because of your injuries.”

“I’m not sure I trust her with whatever is in my head,” Lossenol said.

“She is a healer. She won’t harm you—I’m vouching for her.”

“And if I still don’t want to remember?”

“She can at least see if it is possible—and if there is anything I missed, she might be able to fix it. She is a far more skilled healer than I can ever hope to be.”

Lossenol sighed, thinking of what Daeron had said on the mountain—of the shadows he could see that reminded him of Melian’s Girdle, the ones that scared him. “You really want me to let her look into my mind?”

“I want to be sure that you’re as fully healed as you can be—the memories are a secondary concern.”

“All right, then. And the twins?”

“She wants to take them east with her. I told her they would refuse. She replied that they are six years old and not very heavy.”

“I’d like to see her try to carry them far, if they don’t want to go,” Lossenol said. 

“I told her that, too.” Daeron sighed. “She isn't wrong, though.” He looked over to where Eluréd and Elurín were whispering together, hands up to hide their mouths. “What do you think they’re scheming about?”

“Some way to convince you not to send them away, probably,” Lossenol said. He finished cleaning the last fish, and got to his feet to dispose of the guts and bones.

“Eluréd, Elurín,” Daeron called. The twins came running, throwing themselves into Daeron’s arms. Lossenol didn’t hear what he said to them, but he saw him kiss their foreheads, and saw the twins smile.

Back at the village, Medlinel’s companions took the fish to cook, with smiles that seemed genuine, while Medlinel herself waited by the door to the house. She was not smiling. “Come on,” Daeron said, and pulled Lossenol over to her. 

“I hear you do not remember your right name,” Medlinel said, looking Lossenol up and down.

“I don’t remember anything,” Lossenol said after a moment, glancing at Daeron, who gave him a slight nod.

“Come inside, then. Let me take a look at you. What of new memories? Have you any trouble forming them?”

“I don’t think so,” said Lossenol as he followed her. He hadn’t even thought to worry about that. 

“I’ve noticed no gaps,” Daeron added, to Lossenol’s relief. He hadn’t been sure whether Daeron would follow or if he would leave them alone. “He still gets headaches, and at times speech is difficult.”

“Mostly when I’m tired,” Lossenol said. 

“And sometimes he seems to get lost in his own mind, and does not remember what he did afterward,” Daeron said after a moment. “Like sleepwalking, but it has only happened when he is awake.”

“Hmm.” Medlinel led them into the bedroom, and then said briskly, “All right, clothes off. I can’t do anything if I can’t see it.”

Lossenol wasn’t usually bashful, but he felt his face heat up as he pulled off his shirt and then his pants. Maybe it was because he was fully aware this time, and Medlinel was a stranger—he hadn’t even been conscious when Daeron had originally stripped him to tend his wounds. As he tossed the clothes aside, Medlinel gestured toward the bed, and he sat. She was just tall enough that she needed to lean down to take a closer look at his face. He could almost feel the weight of her gaze as she examined the scars and his bad eye, and then down the rest of his body, taking in the new scars as well as old ones, prodding a little with her fingers at the healed gash over his ribs that he’d gotten from the orcs. She asked a few more questions about aches and pains and things, all of which he could answer himself, and then she straightened. 

“Well, everything seems as healed as it can be—quite well, against all odds—though I haven’t yet looked properly at your head. You need not continue to feel bad about the eye, Daeron—no one could have saved it. You said it was a cave-in that did all this?”

“Almost all. That is what the Ent Finglas told me,” said Daeron. He had stayed near the door, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. 

“You’re lucky you survived the trek from Doriath to the Gelion,” Medlinel told Lossenol.

“I know,” he said.

“Luckier still that the damage to your mind seems to be minimal, aside from your memory. Now let me see.” Medlinel tilted his chin up until their eyes met. Hers were brown and, like Daeron’s, lit with ancient starlight. Lossenol did not want her to see whatever was inside his mind, but he tried to relax, and did not let himself look away. “Yes, I can see—it was very bad, but again, Daeron, you did well. The title of mighty singer is well-earned, even if you do not have all of a healer’s knowledge.” To Lossenol she said, “The headaches may never go away entirely, nor the difficulty with speech, but it sounds as though the latter is at least only a mild inconvenience sometimes—you certainly sound fine, to my ears. But what’s…”

She frowned, looking hard into his eyes for a few seconds, and spoke a few words—and pain lanced through his skull like a knife had been driven through his bad eye. He jerked back without thinking, hands flying to his face when even the relative dimness of the bedroom became too much. He heard Daeron exclaim something, but couldn’t understand anything through the blinding, searing pain. 

And then he wasn’t in the bedroom anymore he was in an enormous hall with ceilings so high they vanished into the shadows; something was burning, people were screaming—someone grabbed his shoulder and bright grey eyes under a sweat-dampened tangle of dark hair bored into his and a voice spoke, gasping and half-snarling, that made the air shiver around him. “Death is too—”

Familiar hands took hold of his head, on either temple, and Daeron’s voice murmured a few quiet words, half-chanting them, and he was back in the bedroom, dark now that someone had closed the window shutters. He was shaking all over, sick and confused. The pain started to ebb, and then Daeron helped Lossenol to lay down. “I’ll be back soon, just try to rest.”

“You said she—w-wouldn’t—”

“It wasn’t on purpose. Just lay still. Keep your eyes closed.” Daeron drew a blanket up over him, and left.

The pain faded very slowly, leaving Lossenol feeling sick and weak. He felt, too, the return of that terrible sense of emptiness that he had, for months now, been able to ignore—that panicky sense that without any knowledge of his past he was no one, that he could never be anyone, that he was just an empty shell pretending to be a person…

Eventually, Daeron returned. “Lossenol?”

“I’m n-not letting her near me—a—again.”

“I’m sorry.” Daeron sat on the bed beside him. “She was as alarmed as I was—I’m so sorry, I never expected it to hurt you like that. I should have. Can you get up and get dressed?” He helped Lossenol sit up and put on his shirt, but he couldn’t try to stand without the room pitching and spinning around him. “Here, drink this—it’s just water.” Daeron helped him hold the cup as he sipped at it, though his stomach rebelled and he couldn’t do more than that. “Lie back down,” Daeron said. “Do you want me to sing you to sleep so you can get some proper rest?”

“Will it hurt?”

“I don’t think so. I’m not doing anything like Medlinel tried.”

Lossenol breathed out, and felt tears gathering in his eyes. He didn’t want to cry, and squeezed them shut again. “All right,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry, Lossenol,” Daeron said a third time. He stroked his hair back out of his face. “I truly did not think it would hurt just for her to look.” He began to sing, his voice soft and familiar, bringing sleep with it like drawing up another blanket. Lossenol didn’t fight it, and finally, as sleep overtook him, the strange vision faded out of his mind, and his head stopped hurting. 

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As he fell asleep, a few tears escaped in spite of Lossenol’s efforts. Daeron wiped them away, and then went back out to where Medlinel waited in the front room. “I always knew you were strange, Daeron,” she said, turning from the window to frown at him as he shut the bedroom door, “but this particular choice of lover is beyond—”

“He isn’t my lover,” Daeron sighed. “What were you trying to do that hurt him so?”

“There is something in him—surely you’ve seen it? It brings to mind the Girdle. I wanted to see what it was.”

“Yes, I’ve seen it. I do not know what it is either, and it is beyond my skills find out. That’s why I wanted you to look. Do you think that is what keeps his memory locked away?”

“Yes. His injuries were bad, but there is nothing else there I could find that would explain such a complete erasure. You say you are no great healer, but you did your work well, especially considering the circumstances.” Medlinel paused. “It was done on purpose, I think—though it is clumsily done and I’m not sure the real intention was to seal away his memory. Without a closer look I can’t guess what the intention was, and I doubt he’ll let me in again.”

“He won’t.”

“As far as I can tell it poses no other danger, to him or to anyone else. There is something else, though—something I did not try to touch. Something dark. A heavy doom lies over him—”

“We’ve all heard of the Doom of Mandos,” said Daeron. “I’ve known all along he is a Noldo.”

“A kinslayer, Daeron? That is who you’ve taken to your bed, who you have allowed near Lúthien’s grandchildren—”

“I told you how we were all brought together,” Daeron snapped. “It’s not a matter of allowing—what was I supposed to do? Leave him to bleed out in the snow and make myself a kinslayer in turn? What would you have done?”

“I would not have been alone,” Medlinel snapped back. “I would have at least kept him away from the children until he could be sent back to his own people on his own two feet!”

“I tried to tell him, but—”

“And you could not just slip away, take the children and disappear into the twilight? You, Daeron, with all your skill in shadows and in hiding? For all you know, you have one of the Sons of Fëanor in your bed, not just one of their followers!”

“It’s not like that—”

“Why do you defend him?”

Daeron balled his hands into fists, fingernails digging into his palms. He let the sharp pain of it ground him. “I am not defending him—not what he may or may not have done—do not interrupt!” he said sharply when Medlinel opened her mouth. He hadn’t meant to make it a command, but her mouth snapped shut, and he couldn’t regret it when he saw the way her eyes widened a little. Let her be reminded that he was not powerless. “I do not know who he was, before, but he has neither said nor done anything since he woke in Ossiriand to threaten either me or the children. He saved my life, Medlinel—at great risk to his own, and he didn’t have to. He is also not entirely ignorant—I told him of Alqualondë, and what I must guess happened in Doriath. His horror at it was not feigned. Whatever he was, it is not what he is now.”

“And when that veil is lifted from him?” Medlinel asked, not gently but more quietly. “What do you think he’ll do then?”

“I think he will remember what I have done.” Daeron would never admit to Medlinel that he thought she was right, though he knew she hadn’t really been serious—that it was one of Fëanor’s own sons in the next room. If Lossenol did wake up in the morning answering to the name of Celegorm—well. Surely that would not erase what had happened over the winter or that spring. Surely it would not erase all the affection he had for Eluréd and Elurín. 

There was, however, still the Oath. Daeron feared its awakening more than anything else, because he did not know what it would drive Celegorm to do whether he really wanted to do it or not. It wasn’t something he could plan for either, because he didn’t know enough about it—he didn’t know enough about anything. 

Medlinel looked at him with a strange expression on her face—a mixture of pity and resignation and something Daeron wanted to call disgust. He hated it. They had never been friends, he and Medlinel. She had come to Eglador to learn whatever Melian could teach her, and while he had also learned much of Melian he was much younger, and Medlinel had very obviously thought him foolish and frivolous. In turn he had thought her too grim, and so they had mostly ignored one another. Now he suspected she thought him rather pathetic, and he had just enough of his old pride left to despise her a little for it. 

Finally, Medlinel asked, sounding a little incredulous, “Daeron, are you in love with him?”

“What?”

“It’s one thing to take him to bed, but to fall in love—he’s a kinslayer!”

“I am not—oh, believe what you will. I don’t care.” No one had ever believed him when he had tried to say he wasn’t in love with Lúthien, either. As though it was impossible to love someone without wanting to take them to bed—or that you could share a bed with someone and do nothing more than sleep, just because it was a comfort to have another body beside you, someone else’s breathing to break the silence of the night’s darkest and loneliest hours. 

If Daeron loved anyone these days, he loved Eluréd and Elurín. He liked Lossenol, though, and he was grateful beyond words for both his company and for his skills, even if that wasn’t quite enough yet to banish the fear—and he couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. 

He left the house, and Medlinel followed. They couldn’t continue whatever that conversation had turned into in front of Eluréd and Elurín, and Daeron was very glad to sit in the grass and let them tumble over his lap. “Where’s Lossenol?” Eluréd asked.

“Resting. His head aches.”

Eluréd immediately turned to glare at Medlinel, who glanced at them only briefly before going to talk to her companions. “What did she do?”

“Nothing, Eluréd—she’s a healer, and she would never harm someone like that on purpose. It’s only that sometimes healing hurts, however careful we are. You know that Medlinel was once a student of your grandmother Melian? She could teach you much—”

“Not as much as you,” said Elurín.

“She can teach you different things than I can,” Daeron said. 

“Lossenol said you’d try to convince us to go away with her, but we won’t,” said Eluréd. “And if you try to leave we’ll just follow you—we know how! Lossenol’s been teaching us!”

Lossenol had been teaching them the rudiments of tracking, but they were a long way from being able to follow Daeron. He believed that they would try, though, and he sighed. “I’m not going to leave, songbirds,” he said softly. “And I’m not going to try to make you leave either. But while they are here, do not spurn Medlinel’s teaching, or her friendship. She was friends with your grandmother Lúthien, too, you know.”

“I don’t care,” Eluréd muttered, and pressed his face into Daeron’s shoulder. “She doesn’t like you.”

“That doesn’t make her a bad person,” Daeron said, though of course it did in the eyes of a six-year-old child, and nothing he said would convince either Eluréd or Elurín otherwise. “Please be polite, though—for me?”

“Fine,” they both sighed, as dramatic as Lúthien had been at their age when someone had needed to cajole her into doing something she didn’t want to do. 

Daeron couldn’t help but smile, in spite of the ache the memory brought with it. “Thank you,” he said.

Lossenol did not wake the rest of the day. Medlinel and her companions—Bronwel and Ifreth, neither of whom Daeron had met before—retreated to another one of the houses to sleep that night. They chose one of the bigger ones, which Daeron thought must have been Medlinel’s before they had left. He put Eluréd and Elurín to bed, singing them to sleep in hopes that they would have a quiet night, free of nightmares. 

He was tired but not yet willing to go to bed himself, and after making sure Lossenol was still asleep he slipped outside and climbed a nearby tree. It was very tall, and when he reached the highest branches he could see the open sky above, brilliant with stars. He leaned against the trunk and stared up at them. Once again, he did not know what to do. Medlinel would have him take Eluréd and Elurín and go with her into the east, leaving Lossenol behind. His own inclination had been, at least in the beginning, to make sure Lossenol and the twins were somewhere safe—Lossenol on his way to his own people and the twins with those who could care for them better than Daeron could—and to slip away, returning to his own lonely wanderings. Now all that had long gone by the wayside, and he didn’t know what he should do instead. By day it was easy, mostly, to ignore the grief that gnawed at his heart, but there alone under the stars he felt so very small and so very alone. Someday that grief would rise up and overwhelm him as it almost had in Ossiriand, and all Daeron could think of as he sat and watched the stars all blur together as he failed to hold back tears was his own father. 

All of Daeron’s life, Caladorn had been a bright and merry presence. So had Daeron’s mother, Togamel, though she was fiercer than her husband, much quicker to take up arms than he. She had also had friends and kin among the Falathrim, and had happened to be visiting there when Morgoth had returned to Middle-earth—both of them had been there when the orcs had laid siege to the havens. Daeron had remained at home, and his first taste of real terror had been in those long weeks and months of waiting for news—for any word of them at all, good or bad, as word came back from Amon Ereb of Denethor’s fall, and from elsewhere of orcs overrunning Beleriand; it had felt like the whole world was ending, until they learned of the coming of the Noldor and their swift and decisive victory against the armies of Angband. He did not know exactly how his mother had died, but he was sure that she had gone down fighting. His father had never recovered from the horrors of that siege, or the grief. He had returned wounded and deeply changed to Doriath, and lingered there for some years, clinging to life for Daeron’s sake, but in the end it had all just been too much to bear. 

It had been Daeron who found him one morning, in autumn, not long after the sun had first risen to give them mornings—his body limp and cold in his bed, his spirit unable to continue on in a world where Togamel was not. Daeron still did not know how he had not followed his father in those weeks and months afterward, when the new-risen sun had seemed to turn black and all the newly revealed colors had seemed to leach out of the world. He hardly remembered those days, or even much of the years that followed. 

Well. He remembered Menelas, his soft-spoken friend who had rarely left his side, who had wept with him and sang quiet songs and refused to let his world fall entirely silent and dark. He remembered Lúthien’s presence too, bright and blazing and impossible ignore, and Mablung—another dear friend—all of them determined that he would not follow his father. And he hadn’t, somehow. Maybe Melian had done something too; he had never asked. By the time the Mereth Aderthad had come around he had been recovered enough to put on a smile and to even really enjoy himself once he and Mablung reached Ivrin.

They were all lost to him now. Somehow Daeron had outlived both Lúthien and Mablung. And Menelas was…well, he might also be dead, but if not he was worse than dead. 

He wasn’t alone anymore—but Caladorn had not been alone either. It had not been enough, in the end. Someday it might not be enough for Daeron, either, and all he could think as he watched the stars and let the tears fall, was that he did not want either Eluréd or Elurín to find him when despair claimed him at last. 

When he returned to the ground he found Lossenol just coming outside, rubbing his good eye, hair still sleep-tousled. “How’s your head?” Daeron asked, trying to wipe his own face clean before Lossenol noticed.

“All right now.” Lossenol frowned at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing—”

“But—d-did something happen?”

“No.” Daeron shook his head, and went to slip past Lossenol. “You should eat. I’m going to bed.”

“Daeron—”

“I’m fine. Please eat something.”

Daeron went to bed, but couldn’t sleep. He lay and stared at the dark ceiling, the grief still knotted inside his chest so that it was almost a physical ache underneath his ribs. Lossenol returned after a short while, and that made it a little easier to breathe—having a living person, a friend, right there—and Daeron closed his eyes, hoped he seemed asleep. If Lossenol could tell that he wasn’t, he didn’t say anything. He just settled back into bed. Daeron wasn't sure when either of them fell asleep for real. 

The next morning Ifreth departed, heading west to try to find what news she could. In the meantime, Medlinel seemed to decide that Daeron should know what had happened in between his departure from Doriath and Húrin’s bringing the Nauglamír to Thingol, which had happened just before she and her people had bid Lúthien and Beren farewell and departed from Ossiriand for the east. There were no songs for any of it, but Medlinel was a skilled speaker and storyteller—and she was kind enough to tell it all to him alone, out of the hearing of Eluréd and Elurín. Thus he heard the details of Lúthien’s quest that had escaped him before—all that went on in Nargothrond, and Finrod’s fall, and Celegorm and Curufin’s machinations—and then the disaster of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and then Túrin’s coming to Doriath, and later his going to Nargothrond, and its fall to Glaurung…

It was terrible. He listened and concentrated on just breathing and hated himself a little more with each word—for having left, for not having been there, even though there was still nothing he could have done. The tides of fate were inexorable and inescapable, and Doriath had been caught in the Doom of the Noldor, and even at the height of his power there were no songs he could have sung that would have stopped it.

Hardest of all was hearing of Celegorm and Curufin, of the way they had so deftly turned all of Nargothrond against Finrod—Finrod Felagund, shining and golden and open-hearted, who had taught Daeron Quenya with infinite patience in those years before Thingol instituted the Ban, who had been so determined to befriend anyone and everyone, who Daeron had liked, best of all Thingol’s strange and bright-eyed kinsmen—and the way they had ensnared Lúthien—Lúthien!—all just to gain what power they could. He supposed it might have served the Oath well, to unite the Noldor and the Sindar in that way, but it would not have worked. Lúthien would have never agreed, nor Thingol, and it would have only brought about more and worse kinslayings until there were none left to try for the Silmarils at all. 

When she finished, Medlinel looked at him. “You still wish to keep company with one who served the Sons of Fëanor?” she asked.

“That is none of your concern,” Daeron said, able to keep his voice even only because of many long years of practice. 

“It is my concern if he poses a danger to my people—or to the children.”

Outside, Daeron could hear Lossenol laughing with Eluréd and Elurín. It seemed impossible to imagine him having raised his voice in Nargothrond’s grand hall, or to have tricked Lúthien into captivity, or—

The thought came to him that it had once been impossible to imagine Elu Thingol ordering Lúthien’s imprisonment, too. 

Daeron had not been in Nargothrond, and the only one who could tell him what had really happened did not remember it. “Unless you are hiding the Silmaril,” he said aloud, “I do not think any of Fëanor’s sons, or their followers, pose a danger to you. Clearly, we do not have it. Therefore they should not be a threat.”

“And to Eluréd and Elurín? You think they might not be vengeful?”

“I do not think Lossenol is.”

“Perhaps only because he does not remember how to want such things.”

He isn’t, I know he isn’t, he would never hurt them no matter what— “A good thing, then, that he neither remembers nor wants to remember.”

Medlinel’s expression was very grave as she met Daeron’s gaze. “He will someday, Daeron. How or when or why, I cannot say. But he will, and you must beware. He is dangerous.”

“So am I.”

“Are you so insistent on remaining with him because I am the one advising against it?” Medlinel demanded. “We have never been friends, you and I, but I am trying to help you!”

“I know that,” said Daeron, “but—I was called back west of the Ered Luin for a reason. Finglas and Fladrif brought both Lossenol and Eluréd and Elurín to the precise place I had chosen to winter in Ossiriand—of all the places they could have crossed the Gelion, it was there. Do you think that is mere chance? The twins don’t think so, and—”

“They aren’t even seven years old yet!”

“They are Melian’s children,” Daeron said. “I have tried to tell them it would be better if they went with you, but they won’t hear it, and—they’ve lost everyone else already. The more I think on it—I cannot take Lossenol from them too. They were the ones to give him his name.”

“And when Ifreth returns to tell us all she could learn of Doriath’s final sacking?”

“I don’t need all of the details to know it was terrible. I’ve known all along, Medlinel.”

“You are playing with fire, Daeron.”

“I know that, too—and I will make sure that I am the only one who is burned if it all goes wrong.”

Medlinel left the house. As soon as the door shut Daeron fled to the bedroom, where he could close that door too and slide to the floor and let go of his self control for a little while. His tears the night before had been quiet, just the grief making itself known; now the horror of it all seemed to take his entire body in an icy grip and it wouldn’t let go, and he shook and sobbed until he couldn’t breathe—for Thingol, for Finrod, and Mablung, and Lúthien, and Orodreth, and Beleg—for Doriath. Even for Celegorm, who had lost everything including himself, even before his memories had been locked away—surely the way Lossenol first reached for kindness was proof that he had not always been what he became, that he had not always been someone who would betray his kin and commit kidnapping and murder just to get a little closer to jewels no one could ever attain.

He might not even be Celegorm, Daeron thought, but he knew he was only fooling himself. 

Once he could compose himself, Daeron slipped out of the house and went to the river to wash his face, trying to erase all traces of tears. As he dried off with the hem of his shirt, Lossenol appeared and sat beside him. “Where are the twins?” Daeron asked.

“Bronwel’s showing them how to weave baskets out of grass. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing—”

“Please don’t lie to me. You aren’t very good at it.”

“I used to be,” Daeron muttered. He rested his arms on his knees and stared at the water. Lossenol sat quietly and waited. He couldn’t stop thinking of Lúthien locked up in Nargothrond—brought there by fair words and false promises, entirely believable right until the lock clicked shut behind her. 

Lossenol was also full of fair words and promises. But Daeron had been on his guard from the start—he was not as foolish as Medlinel thought him. He would be able to catch a lie, surely. It wasn’t as though Lossenol had staged all of his injuries, or his panic when he realized he could not remember his own name. None of that had been feigned—no one was that good an actor, nor that devious a schemer. The shadows hovering behind his eyes were real. 

He had saved Daeron’s life, when it would have been both safer and smarter not to even try. Lossenol had done that—Daeron did not think Celegorm would have.

And there was danger in that, too—in thinking of them as separate people when they weren’t.

Finally, he said, “I just—there was much I did not know. And now I do.”

“About what?”

“What happened after I left. I…I knew that everyone I had known was gone, but I did not know how it had all happened. I still don’t know how Thingol died, but…I know the things that led to it.”

“I’m sorry,” Lossenol said quietly. “Both that it happened and…for whatever part I played.”

“Thank you.”

“I know it doesn’t mean very much.”

Daeron wondered what Lúthien would say if she could see them now. He wondered what his parents would think. Aloud he said, “It means a lot—at least to me. You know Medlinel thinks we’re lovers.”

“Is that why she keeps glaring at me?”

“Part of it, probably.”

“I assume you told her we aren’t.”

“Yes, but she didn’t believe me.”

He saw Lossenol shrug out of the corner of his eye. “Does it matter what she thinks? She’s not staying—and I don’t think any of us are going with her when she leaves.”

Daeron sighed. “No, we aren’t. And it doesn’t matter. It’s just…frustrating. No one ever believes me about that sort of thing.”

“That’s stupid,” said Lossenol. “Who would know your heart better than you?”

“Well—it’s not that no one ever believed me, just most people,” Daeron said. “Menelas—” He choked on the name, and had to press the heels of his palms into his eyes to stop the tears from escaping anew. 

Lossenol leaned over just so his shoulder bumped against Daeron’s. “I’m sorry,” he said, very softly. Without thinking, Daeron leaned back, letting his hands fall back onto his knees, and his head drop onto Lossenol’s shoulder. He couldn’t bring himself to care anymore what Lúthien would think—or Thingol, or his parents, or anyone else. They weren’t there; he was, and he was so tired of doubting everything he chose to do, even if it did someday come crashing down around him.

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Ifreth returned after two weeks, having gotten news from the dwarves who guarded the pass through the mountains. “Doriath is fallen,” she confirmed gravely. “The Sons of Fëanor came like wolves in the dead of winter—but it is not known that they retrieved the Silmaril they sought, and they lost three of their number. Celegorm, Curufin, and Caranthir fell in Menegroth, the Dwarves say. The rest have retreated to Amon Ereb, and have been fighting hard to keep the lands between the Amdram and the Gelion clear.”

“They are too few,” Daeron murmured. “Orcs still roam Ossiriand.” He was carving something, and did not lift his gaze. He’d been carving a lot lately—little charms that he hummed songs to while finishing, and wooden beads, and a few simple wooden flutes and sets of pipes, two of which he’d given to the twins. Lossenol didn’t know what he intended to do with the rest. 

It felt—something felt wrong, about listening to this news. The names should have meant something, but they didn’t, except that they did, only he didn’t know why.

Lossenol had followed them, those brothers, and now they were dead. Once he had thought them worthy of his loyalty—once, maybe they had deserved it. They had led him into terrible deeds; he did not want to return to their service. So why did he want to start screaming at the thought that they were gone?

He did not scream. Instead he leaned against a tree stump and listened to Ifreth answer Medlinel’s questions. The Fëanorians had been the second group to sack Menegroth, Ifreth told them. Dwarves from Nogrod had done it first, slaying Thingol for the Silmaril they’d set into the Nauglamír. That had been when Melian had departed and withdrawn her Girdle, setting the stage for the second attack. Daeron’s hands fell still as he listened to that tale, and Lossenol saw him close his eyes and take a deep, shuddering breath—but he did not otherwise react.

There was very little else to be said—the world was dark and growing darker. That was nothing new. His head ached dully; that was nothing new, either. Daeron sat beside him, shoulder to shoulder, and that was new. Lossenol kept his arms crossed over his chest and kept his gaze on the fire, and pretended he wasn’t leaning quite as hard against Daeron as he was. Eluréd and Elurín were nearby, playing one of their games, talking to one another in half sentences and made-up words. It was a beautiful summer day, with clouds drifting lazily across the sky. The world was dark but their little piece of it remained an island of sunlight—for now. 

The news kept circling in his mind like carrion birds, making his head hurt a little more every time. Celegorm, Curufin, and Caranthir fell in Menegroth. Celegorm, Curufin, Caranthir…

“What are we going to do?” he asked Daeron later that night. “I mean—we found Medlinel, and your plan to send the twins with her isn’t going to happen, but…”

Daeron sighed as he pulled a comb through his hair. “I don’t know.” He sat on the bed facing away from Lossenol. “We could stay here, I suppose. I mean—I know we intended to stay, but we haven’t spoken of how long. It’s close enough to the mountains that we can get news, as Ifreth did, and maybe do some trade with the Dwarves sometimes. It’s close to the lake, too, and Bronwel told me there is a settlement at the southern end of it—of Men and Elves—that we might also befriend. We cannot stay forever, but…for now, it should be safe.” He did not suggest that they go to join the people by the lake. Lossenol was relieved; the four of them had too many secrets, and it would be harder to keep them if they tried to join with some larger group. They might not have a choice in the coming years, but while they did have one, he would prefer to remain separate.

“It might be that the Dwarves will need help in keeping the passes clear,” Lossenol said, thoughts lingering on what the future might hold. 

Daeron turned to look at him. “You want to go back and fight?”

“I think—I think that’s all I’m really good at. Fighting and hunting.”

“That’s not true.”

“But I am good at those things, and—if I can help others escape like we did, shouldn’t I try?”

“Yes,” Daeron said after a moment, still looking at him, brow slightly furrowed, “but—you still wander, sometimes. I might have a song that will make it stop, but I don’t know for sure that it will work and I’m not yet ready to try singing it. You shouldn’t go alone, and we can’t both go.”

“I don’t mean I want to pack up and go now. I wouldn’t be useful to anyone now. Just—eventually.” Eventually it would come to fighting whether they wanted to or not. They needed to get ready for it.

“You also don’t have a sword.”

“I could get one. Maybe the Dwarves will make me one, if I can convince them I can be helpful.”

Daeron hesitated for a moment before saying, “You also should not overestimate yourself. I do not mean to doubt your skill, for I know firsthand what you can do, but—there might be effects of your injuries you haven’t yet noticed, in your mind or in your body. I can’t say what they might be, because I didn’t know you before, but…”

“I’ll be careful.” Lossenol finished braiding his own hair and slipped under the blankets. Then he said, as Daeron joined him, “The twins need to learn, too.”

“Learn what?”

“To fight, Daeron.”

Daeron raised himself up onto his arm. “Lossenol, they’re only six years old!”

“I’m not saying they need to be battle ready by ten—but keeping them safe means teaching them to keep themselves safe.”

“I am teaching them that,” Daeron said. 

“There are going to be times when they can’t use what you teach them,” Lossenol said quietly. “The earlier they start—the better they’ll be, when the time comes.”

Daeron seemed to want to argue, but after a moment he just sighed and lay back down, rolling onto his back. “I know. You’re right. I just—I hate it.”

“I’m not saying it because I like it.”

“I know that, too.”

The next day Lossenol saw Daeron speaking to Medlinel, and then the day after that he packed up the things he had been carving, and left with her and Ifreth, heading not west but east and south. “I’ll be back soon, I promise,” he told the twins, kneeling to kiss them when they protested. “If we’re going to stay here, though, we need to introduce ourselves to our closest neighbors. Medlinel knows the folk who dwell by the lake, so she’s going to introduce me.”

“Can’t we come too?” Elurín asked.

“Not this time. When you’re a little older. Just mind Lossenol, and don’t wander off, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Yes, Daeron,” they chorused. 

“Be careful,” Lossenol said when Daeron straightened.

“You too.”

Bronwel remained behind. She did not regard Lossenol with quite as much suspicion as both Ifreth and Medlinel; he thought she might be younger than they were. She had also endeared herself to Eluréd and Elurín by teaching them many new games. Lossenol left them with her to play one such game, and went out into the woods. He didn’t have knives or swords to start teaching them, but he could make staffs. It was a simple matter, finding branches that he could cut to the right length, and he took them back home to strip of bark and twigs while keeping an eye on Eluréd and Elurín and Bronwel. 

That night he put the twins to bed in their own room, but wasn’t surprised when in less than an hour they climbed into bed with him. “Daeron’s really coming back, right?” Eluréd whispered as Lossenol straightened the blankets over the three of them.

“Yes, of course. He promised he would.”

“And it’s not dangerous, where he’s going?”

“No, I don’t think it’s dangerous at all.”

“Can we sleep with you at night until he comes back?”

Lossenol laughed and kissed Eluréd’s forehead, and then Elurín’s. “You’re in here most nights anyway. Of course you can.” 

He had the staffs ready in two days, and when Bronwel went off to hunt, Lossenol presented them to Eluréd and Elurín. “You’re going to need to learn how to defend yourselves,” he told them, “and we’re going to start with these.”

“With sticks?” asked Eluréd skeptically.

“Someday they might be spears,” Lossenol said, “but you can do plenty with just a stick like this.”

“But Daeron is teaching us songs to protect ourselves,” said Elurín.

“And he’s going to keep teaching you,” Lossenol said, “but someday you might not be able to use songs—it might be too risky to make any noise, or you might injure your voice, or any number of things. And even if none of that ever happens, it’s better to be prepared for something that never comes to pass, than to not prepare yourself and then meet disaster. The more you know, the better. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” said Eluréd after a moment.

“It might also be fun,” Lossenol offered, reaching up to tug on Eluréd’s braid. “Whatever you might need to do in the future—that’s still a long way off. Today I’m just going to show you how to hold them, and one or two very simple swings and blocks, all right? It’s a little like dancing—there are steps to learn and patterns to follow.”

They spent half an hour at it that day. Lossenol wasn’t entirely confident in his skills as a teacher—not when he couldn’t be entirely confident in his skills in general—but Eluréd and Elurín were quick learners, and though they were still young and easily distracted, by the time Lossenol took the sticks back and agreed to go down to throw rocks in the river, he felt a little more sure of himself—and very sure that someday both Eluréd and Elurín would be formidable, in every possible way. 

Meanwhile, Bronwel proved much more willing than Medlinel or Ifreth to take Lossenol as he was—to talk to him as though they could be friends, and not treat him as though he was going to attack the moment her back was turned. It was nice, though he felt odd and uncomfortable trying to talk to her in return. She drew a map for them of the lands between the Ered Luin and the lake beyond the hills east of the River Lhûn, and south past the dwarf roads, marking places that were good for hunting or fishing, and she taught the twins a great deal that Lossenol didn’t think he could about the plants around them and what many were good for, and which ones to avoid. 

She also, apparently, decided that they were good enough friends that she could ask, only a few days after they had been left alone, “So—you and Daeron?”

Lossenol paused in the midst of stirring the cooking fire they’d been using since Medlinel, Ifreth, and Bronwel had arrived, in a fire pit dug outside in between the houses. “What about me and Daeron?”

Bronwel was kneading dough for some sort of flatbread, and didn’t pause as she spoke. “Medlinel thinks you’re lovers, but says Daeron denies it. On the one hand, I don’t see the point of denial if it’s true, but on the other hand…”

“There is no other hand. Why not just take Daeron at his word?”

“Is it common among the Noldor to share a bed with mere friends?”

Mere friends seemed like a disservice to the word—and to whatever he and Daeron were swiftly on their way to becoming. Not lovers, certainly—something closer to family than anything else. “Do the Laegrim only share a bed with a lover or a spouse, even when it is more practical? We only have so many blankets.”

“That’s fair,” Bronwel laughed. “Though you can always get more, you know. So if you aren’t lovers—”

“We aren’t,” Lossenol said. 

“Would you look elsewhere?”

Lossenol blinked at her. “For what?” She raised an eyebrow, and he felt his whole face get hot—and then felt his fingers heating up, because he hadn’t moved his stick and it had caught fire. He dropped it into the flames. “Oh. Um. Why…?”

“You’re not very good at this, are you?” Bronwel laughed again. It didn’t sound unkind, and Lossenol felt like this—whatever this was—should have been something he was good at. Maybe if he could remember ever speaking to any other person besides Daeron or the twins, he would be. “It’s all right,” Bronwel said, taking pity on him. “Just know that I don’t find it alarming that you are a Noldo with that strange light in your eye.”

“I’m also not that—I mean—I don’t—I’m going to see what Eluréd and Elurín are up to.” Lossenol fled, and found the twins climbing a nearby tree to try to see into a bird’s nest. That was much safer than trying to decide whether or not he even wanted to look elsewhere, as Bronwel had put it, when there were so many other more important things to worry about. She didn’t so much as hint at such a thing again, to his relief. 

Finally, Daeron returned with Medlinel and Ifreth, and he did not come back empty handed. He had seeds to plant the next year, and food to add to their stores, some bundles of fabric—and a sword, plus two smaller ones, with dulled blades clearly meant for teaching children. “What did you trade for all this?” Lossenol asked him. 

“The flutes that I made, and some songs—but the cloth and the seeds were gifts. Medlinel knows the people by the lake—they call it Nenuial, by the way—and she spoke for us.”

“I thought she didn’t like you. She definitely doesn’t like me.”

“For the twins’ sake,” Daeron said, shrugging. He still looked satisfied—quietly pleased with how the visit had gone. “And now we have friends among the folk who live near the southern edge of the lake, who are happy to know that Elves dwell again near the river. They also have some dealings with the dwarves, though not as much now as of old. Is this sword suitable? I know very little of such things. The smith gave it to me as a favor to Medlinel, who from what I gather saved his life once.”

Lossenol hefted the sword. It was not dwarf-made, but it was well made, with good balance and a sharp blade. “Yes,” he said. It wasn’t perfect, but a good sword was a good sword, and this would slay orcs just as well as one he might make himself. 

The thought made him pause for a moment. Did he know how to make a sword?

“Good,” Daeron was saying. “How did you fare here while I was gone?”

“Fine,” Lossenol said. “Nothing really happened, except I started teaching the boys how to fight with staffs.”

“And you’re all right?” Daeron asked. 

“Yes.”

“No—no wandering, no headaches?”

“No wandering. I woke up with a headache yesterday, but it was gone in an hour. I’m fine, really. Are you all right?”

A little bit of tension that Lossenol hadn’t even noticed before eased out of Daeron’s shoulders. “All right. Good. I’m all right—just glad to be back.”

“I missed you, though,” Lossenol offered after a moment. 

This earned him a smile, one that almost reached Daeron’s eyes. “I missed you too.”

Medlinel, Bronwel, and Ifreth did not linger much longer; they wanted to catch up to the rest of their people, and they did not intend to return. Medlinel and Daeron had words once more, and Lossenol suspected that Medlinel also tried to speak to the twins again—but Eluréd and Elurín were steadfast in their refusal to be parted from Daeron or Lossenol, let alone both of them at once, and so eventually they were left alone again, just the four of them in the woods. Lossenol couldn’t really feel sorry for it, and he didn’t think Daeron did either.

He started getting up early in the mornings—well, they all did, because there were chores to do, and Daeron started to insist on maintaining a routine of lessons for the twins, apparently modeled more or less on his own childhood education—and took his new sword out to the riverbank where there was plenty of room to practice. His body remembered what to do—how to hold it, how to swing it—but he still had a long way to go to recover all the strength he’d lost in the cave-in and his recovery over the winter.

“Are we going to have to learn that too?” Elurín asked one morning when Lossenol returned with his sword, still sweaty and with aching arms. 

“Eventually,” said Lossenol. “We’ve got swords for you to get started with.”

“Does Daeron have to learn it?” Eluréd asked.

“If he doesn’t already know, he should,” said Lossenol, glancing at Daeron. 

“I did learn, long ago, and Mablung very soon despaired of me,” Daeron said, speaking lightly but without a smile. “I’m a little better with a bow—good enough to hunt with success more than half the time—and I know more or less how to use a knife. But my primary—well, my power lies in my voice, though I have not often used it as a weapon. I could, and I will teach you how,” he added to the twins, “because you must know how to use and to control your power, Melian’s children, but it is not to be used lightly—not to cause harm. Only when you have no other choice.”

“Yes, Daeron,” they chorused solemnly. 

“Can you use a stick?” Lossenol asked, and tossed the staff he’d made for himself over to Daeron. 

Daeron caught it, frowning. “No?”

“Then I’ll teach you along with the songbirds.”

“Oh, but—”

“It’s better to be prepared for something that never comes to pass, than to not prepare yourself and then meet disaster,” Eluréd recited. Daeron narrowed his eyes at him, and Lossenol couldn’t help but laugh.

Elurín added, “Lossenol says it’s a little like dancing, except it’s really not.”

“It will be,” said Lossenol, “when you’re a little bigger and able to spar with each other properly.” He held out his hand, and Daeron handed the staff back. “Or when I teach you some of the more complicated forms.”

“Spear dancing was not practiced much in Doriath, but I have seen it before,” said Daeron. “It was very fierce—but also very beautiful.”

“No, I can’t teach you that,” said Lossenol when the twins turned to him with wide and hopeful eyes. “Sorry, songbirds.”

“Because we’re too little, or because you don’t know how?” Eluréd asked.

“Both. Come on—you need to practice at least a little bit every day.”

After their practice with the staffs, Daeron set the twins practicing cirth, and Lossenol went to hunt down a branch that could be made into a proper staff for Daeron, who eyed it warily when Lossenol sat down to start stripping away the bark and smaller twigs and leaves. “I’m not going to be any better with that than I am a sword,” he said.

“You might be. Different skills.”

“I’m not a warrior, Lossenol. I’m a singer.”

“Even singers need to be able to defend themselves.”

Daeron glanced at him, expression unreadable. “You mean, if I had been able to defend myself better those orcs wouldn’t have—”

“No,” Lossenol said. “Of course not. We were caught off guard and outnumbered and didn’t have enough weapons between us, anyway. We got lucky that neither of us actually died. But we can be better prepared for next time.” Because there would be a next time—it would be foolish to pretend otherwise. If their luck held, they wouldn’t encounter any more orcs until the twins were old enough to wield their own swords, but Lossenol knew better than to count on that. 

So did Daeron. He sighed. “All right, fine—but you aren’t allowed to make fun of me when I never get any better.”

“You don’t need to be good, you just need to be able to crack an orc’s skull if you have to.”

“Well.” Daeron grimaced. “Maybe.” 

The summer passed in lazy peacefulness. The twins turned seven years old at Midsummer, and they feasted on blackberries and wild strawberries in celebration. Lossenol trained himself hard, trying to learn how to account for being entirely blind on his left side as well as regaining the strength he’d lost, and trained the twins more gently. He cajoled Daeron into taking up his own staff, but not every day; Daeron only engaged with him half-heartedly as it was. When he said he was not a warrior, he meant he did not have the heart or the stomach for it. If the Shadow was not looming ever larger on the other side of the mountains, and if Daeron did not have a price on his head in Angband, Lossenol might have let it go—but it was looming, and there was a price, and so he pushed. In response, Daeron only grew more reluctant.

Once in the autumn, when they were about to get into a real argument over it, Daeron spoke a word that had Lossenol on his knees a second later, head spinning. “When I am not run ragged by a lean winter and having used all my strength in healing,” Daeron snapped, almost inaudible through the ringing in Lossenol’s ears, “I am more than capable of defending myself without a stick or a sword!”

Lossenol shook his head and staggered to his feet. “You can’t count on never being run ragged like that again, Daeron!”

“I can make sure that I never—”

“And when something happens and you can’t use your voice—why are you so resistant to learning to defend yourself?”

“I’m not, I just already know how!” Daeron stalked away, vanishing into the trees. Lossenol would have given chase if he weren’t still dizzy, but instead he went to sit down on the bench they’d put by the door of their house, and leaned back against the sun warmed wall, eyes closed, and waited for the effects of whatever Daeron had done to pass. 

After a minute he heard the door open, and opened his eye to find Eluréd and Elurín peering out, looking apprehensive. “It’s all right,” he said. 

“Is Daeron angry?”

“Just at me—he won’t be angry at you.”

Daeron did not seem angry at all when he returned, though he wouldn't look directly at Lossenol. He had smiles for the twins, and engaged them after dinner with their flutes, and spoke of making or finding drums for them to learn to play next. 

Later that night, when they were alone, Lossenol said, “Want to tell me what that was all about, earlier?”

“Was it not obvious?” Daeron asked, suddenly stiff and cold again. 

“I hit my head very hard last year,” Lossenol said mildly. “I think I might be a bit stupid now. Maybe you can explain more plainly?”

“Oh, don’t,” Daeron sighed. “I don’t want to fight.”

“Yes, I know. That’s the whole problem.”

“I’m not good at it and I hate it—and I have other weapons at my disposal, better ones than a stick.”

“And if you’re disarmed?” Lossenol asked quietly. “Or unable to use your voice, for whatever reason?”

“Then I run.”

“And if you are disarmed and overpowered?”

“Then I hope that I die before the enemy realizes who I am and drags me back to Angband.”

This was going nowhere. Lossenol rubbed his hands over his face and took a breath so his next words didn’t come out as a growl, wondering if Daeron realized what he was actually saying, and then asked, “And if you’re disarmed and overpowered and the twins are there? If I’m there, and I’m relying on you to cover my left side?” He gestured at his face, at the scars and the sightless eye he still didn’t know how he was going to compensate for in a real fight. “I don’t want you to like it, Daeron. I need you to stay alive.” Daeron had no argument for that—Lossenol could tell by the way he glared. “You’re the one that keeps saying the Shadow will cross the mountains eventually—”

“And when it does, whether or not I can bash someone’s skull in with a staff won’t make the slightest difference.”

“It will make a difference to Eluréd and Elurín! They keep saying we were meant to find one another, but what if we were just meant to protect them? There’s no one else like them in the world! I don’t know very much, but I don’t need to, to understand that they’re important.”

“They would be important even if they were not of Lúthien’s line,” Daeron said quietly.

“Yes, of course, but you know what I mean.” Privately, Lossenol also thought Daeron was important—he was a mighty singer, Melian’s student, one of the last survivors of Doriath. Of the four of them, it was Lossenol who wasn’t special in some way, aside from somehow surviving a battle and a cave-in long enough for an Ent to find. If he had been saved for a reason, he thought it must be to keep Daeron and the twins alive. Whether it would really make a difference against the might of Angband—who knew? He would still rather go down fighting than not do anything at all. And part of protecting them meant teaching them to protect themselves—even if Daeron didn’t want to.

Daeron turned away and banked the fire. Without looking at Lossenol he said, “Fine. I’ll try. And I’m—I’m sorry. This time of year is always…”

“Always what?”

“It’s the fading of the year—it just puts me on edge. It always has, and I am out of practice at hiding it. I’ll get better.”

“You don’t have to hide it. I don’t mind if you snap at me sometimes,” Lossenol said.

“Well, I do. You don’t deserve it.”

“Honestly, it’s the least of what I deserve, if—”

“No, it isn’t. I think you have already paid quite dearly for your actions in Doriath, and you do not deserve to have me lose my temper for no reason.”

Lossenol shrugged, even though Daeron was still turned away and couldn’t see him. “Just as long as you don’t use that one word on me again, it’s fine. Could you teach me that word?”

At this Daeron turned back to him, gaze assessing. “It’s not just the word, but the power behind it,” he said.

“Is that something you can learn, or…?”

“Yes and no. I don’t know if you have the same kind of innate power that I do—that’s just something you’re born with—but I can teach you to use what power you do have. Everyone has at least a little.”

“Good enough for me,” said Lossenol. “And for what it’s worth, that’s how weapons training is too.”

Daeron rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, you’ve made your point. I won’t argue about it again, I promise.”

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Daeron hated the fall. Not the beginning—that was always beautiful, especially in these woods full of oak and ash and maple. But the later months, as the days grew short and cold and all the brilliant colors faded to browns…it was as though the whole world was fading, and it made him keenly aware of his own danger. It helped a little to have things to do—to have a routine that required him to get up in the morning, that would not allow him to just huddle under the blankets all day no matter how much he wanted to. 

He was so tired, though, and as the days dragged on it just got worse, and his heart ached more and more, until one morning he tried to get up and just couldn’t. The thought of leaving the warmth of his bed was unbearable, and he couldn’t make himself remember why it was important that he did not just go to sleep and not wake up again.

Was this how his father had felt? Daeron kept his eyes closed and tried not to think about his father—or his mother, whose body he had never seen, whose grave he had never gotten to visit—and failed. He kept thinking he heard their laughter somewhere in the distance, and he couldn’t quite tell if it was a dream or a summons.

“Daeron?” Lossenol’s hand was warm and dry on his face, callouses catching on his hair as he brushed it back out of his eyes. “Daeron, what’s wrong?”

“Mm…” Daeron opened his eyes with effort. “Just…tired.”

“This seems like more than just tired.” Lossenol’s brow furrowed, pulling on the skin around the scars across his left eye. “You’ve been off for days. Are you hurt? Should I try to find a healer?”

“No—no. Just…” Daeron managed to sit up, but he felt so heavy—heavy and empty at the same time. “I’m sorry.”

“You said this time of year puts you on edge,” Lossenol said after a moment. In spite of what he had said before, he was not stupid, and Daeron should have realized that he would make the connection. “This seems worse.”

“I’m…” Daeron rubbed his eyes. “I have suffered bouts of this—whatever it is, for many years now. It’s been getting worse, especially at this time of year. I don’t—” know why I didn’t succumb to this fading years ago, he couldn’t make himself say.

“Is there anything that helps?”

“Not really. It…will pass.” Hopefully. Maybe. It felt worse than ever that year, after everything that had happened. He’d started dreaming of the orcs again. 

“Hm. Come on, get up.” Lossenol pulled him out of bed, and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. “Just come sit by the fire. You don’t have to do anything, but you’ve been alone every other time, and now you aren’t—that will help.”

“But—”

“Come on.”

A very short while later Daeron found himself seated by the fire, which crackled merrily on the hearth, with a cup of something steaming and sweetly herbal in his hands, while Lossenol told Eluréd and Elurín that they could comb out and braid Daeron’s hair for him that morning. “I really don’t need—” Daeron began, but there wasn’t any getting out of it, and he just had to surrender to four small hands pulling a little too hard on his hair as they wove crooked braids into it. As they did, Lossenol began a simple Quenya lesson, mostly just teaching them new words, while he did something with some animal skins that he had been treating over the last few weeks. Daeron knew very little about turning furs or skins into something usable, but Lossenol was determined that they would all stay warm that winter. 

Daeron just sat and sipped his tea and watched the flames, letting the chatter wash over him without really listening to any of it. He thought of the food stores they had set aside, and wondered if they would be enough. They had run out of the twins’ lembas long ago, and that was something Melian had never taught Daeron. It was the province of queens and matriarchs, at least in Doriath, and from what he had learned of the Noldor it seemed the same traditions had held true in Valinor. 

It was another argument in favor of sending the twins with Medlinel and her people, but that chance had passed, and Daeron thought it would take a lot more than another lean winter to make them agree anyway. It wouldn’t be as hard as the last winter—they were safe enough from orcs, he thought, and they had a far sturdier shelter now than the flet had been. Not to mention, Lossenol was still with them and almost fully recovered from his injuries except for some lingering weakness in his left shoulder. That would make everything easier, from hunting to keeping themselves stocked with firewood. 

He knew all of that, but it was still too easy to look ahead to the coldest and harshest months and feel like spring would never come. 

The rest of the autumn passed similarly. Some days were easier than others. Every day, Lossenol made sure Daeron wasn’t alone—though he never tried to make false promises or to act more cheerful than he really felt in an attempt to raise Daeron’s spirits the way some of his friends had in Doriath, which he appreciated. The twins also stayed close, curling up beside him and asking for stories that forced him to think of things outside himself. It did help, to not be alone—it was enough, at least for now.

“You seem like you’ve done this before,” Daeron remarked one evening. 

“Done what? Sew something?” Lossenol was patching his cloak, needle flashing in the firelight, swift and sure.

“Well—yes, that’s obvious. But I meant taking care of someone like me.”

Lossenol shrugged without looking up. “Maybe I did. I don’t remember. Is it helping?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what caused it?”

“Not in general. I’ve always been more prone to melancholy than most—my music has always moved the audience to tears more easily than to laughter—though it only got really bad after my parents died, and then worse after I left Doriath. But this year, it’s…I’ve had time now to—to really realize what it means. That there’s really no one left. It feels…”

When Daeron didn’t go on, Lossenol said, very quietly, “Like there’s this great empty space inside you—like something important was torn out, and all you can do now is hope the bleeding someday stops?”

Daeron blinked. “Yes. That’s—if you feel it too, how—?”

“If I go back and I find out what exactly it is I’m missing—who it is I loved and who is almost certainly dead, now—I don’t think I’d survive it. I don’t think it would be slow, but I know it would hurt. And that’s on top of finding out what exactly it is I did. Whoever I was, whatever I had, I like who I am now, and I never want to go back.”

“You could still be who you are now, even if you remembered,” Daeron said quietly, though he wasn’t sure that was really true. The Oath seemed to sleep, with the memory of it locked away, but of course it would waken with a vengeance if that changed. Daeron didn’t even know if the Oath held that kind of power in truth or if they all just believed that it did, and maybe it didn’t matter. The result was the same. 

Lossenol seemed to sense something similar, even if he couldn’t put it into words. He just shook his head. “I don’t think I could. But I also don’t—I really do think—whatever was there, as long as I don’t remember, I can keep the wound closed. If I do remember—it would kill me, and I don’t want to die.” He hadn’t sounded so bleak since those early days after he woke up in the flet. 

Daeron moved before he could even think about it, leaning over to wrap his arms around Lossenol and dropping his head onto his shoulder. For a moment Lossenol froze, but very quickly dropped his mending to return the embrace. “I’m sorry,” Daeron whispered. 

“Me too,” Lossenol whispered back.

Neither of them moved for a long time. Daeron couldn’t remember the last time someone had held him or he had held someone else like this—just after the Dagor Bragollach, most likely, but he couldn’t recall who. 

Finally, Lossenol loosened his grip, and Daeron drew back. “We should go to bed,” said Lossenol as he reached for his mending to put it away in a basket Elurín had made. “It’s late.”

Once they were in bed, Daeron rolled over and whispered, before he could talk himself out of it, “Lossenol?”

“Mm?”

“Can we—I still don’t want you to ravish me, but—”

“Good, because I still don’t want to.” Lossenol rolled over and wrapped an arm around Daeron again, tugging him in closer. “Is this all right?”

“Yes.” Daeron sighed and closed his eyes. Under his ear he could hear Lossenol’s heartbeat, strong and steady; his arms were very warm. “Thank you.”

He slept better that night than he had in ages, and woke feeling more rested than he had in years. 

The winter passed quietly. Daeron felt more like himself as he got used to the bare branches and the frost decorating the windows, and found new appreciation for the stark, harsh sort of beauty that winter brought with it as he saw it anew through Eluréd and Elurín’s eyes, for they were delighted with everything.

Once Lossenol was assured that Daeron would still be there when he returned, he made a journey of his own back west to the mountains. Daeron wanted to ask him not to, but they did need to establish some kind of relationship with the Dwarves there, and they needed to know something of what was happening in Beleriand.

The twins were as unhappy when Lossenol left as they had been when Daeron had, only this time they did not have as much to distract them, and the cold weather brought with it constant reminders of the disasters of last winter. Their nightmares came back, and more than once Eluréd broke down in tears, fearing that something would happen and Lossenol would not return and they would never know what had happened to him—just as they were likely never to learn what had happened to their parents or their little sister Elwing. There was very little Daeron could say to reassure them. He had his own fears—Lossenol had not lost himself and tried to wander off in many months, not since Medlinel had looked into his mind, but Daeron had not forgotten it. He had a faint suspicion that it was the Oath trying to wake up, and he feared what might happen if Lossenol heard something of the Silmaril while he spoke to the Dwarves. He had been working on a song of his own that might send it to an even deeper sleep—but it might have the opposite effect if he got it wrong, and so he hadn’t dared to try it yet.

No one’s fears came to fruition. After three weeks Lossenol returned with several bundles that turned out to be cloth—wool, much of it thick and soft and perfect for winter clothes—and a dwarf-made knife that he seemed very pleased with. The dwarves of Belegost still remembered their alliance with the Noldor, and had been generous. “They’re glad to know we’re here,” he told Daeron, “and they said they would send other Elves our way should they cross the mountains—Kóri said it’s likely to come to heavy fighting in the future, and they’ll be glad of Elves they can call upon, no matter how few our numbers.”

“I thought the Dwarves didn’t like us,” said Elurín. He and Eluréd had attached themselves to Lossenol upon his return and had yet to leave his lap.

“I asked about that,” Lossenol said. “I spoke to Dwarves from Belegost that man the outposts on the eastern slopes—only a few at a time, since all the real danger is in the west. It’s Nogrod that quarreled with Doriath, you remember? I think Ifreth found that out. Both cities are working to keep the passes clear for any refugees coming out of Beleriand and to protect their cities, but they’re stretched thin and they don’t know how much longer they can hold out. Neither one is going to be picky about allies.”

“What will they do if they cannot stay in their mountains?” asked Elurín. 

“Kóri said they would try to flee east, to Khazad-dûm. He’s never seen it, but he claims its bigger than any other Dwarvish city ever built, and is ruled by Durin the Deathless—whatever that means, it sounds as though he is very old—and that it will never fall to any Enemy. I don’t know who Durin is, and I did not ask.”

“I know little Dwarf lore, myself,” Daeron said when the twins turned to him. “They keep their most important stories secret, just as they do not share their language with outsiders, choosing to learn ours instead. But Durin is, I believe, the name of one of the Seven Fathers, who woke long ago beneath the stars sometime after the Elves awoke by Cuiviénen—perhaps after the Great Journey, I don’t know. It was well after our people settled in Eglador that the Dwarves first came to Beleriand. I don’t think the Dwarves know themselves when they woke. I can say nothing one way or another of Khazad-dûm or who rules it now—I have not gone that far east.”

“Have you known many Dwarves?” asked Eluréd.

“Once upon a time. They helped us to delve Menegroth long ago—and they were the ones who most appreciated my runes when I first made them. There was little call for writing things down, the Elves thought then, for our memories are long.”

“Why make them in the first place?” Lossenol asked.

“I wanted a way to learn and to teach that did not depend upon speaking to others face to face. How much easier it would be, I thought, to share my songs if I could just write them down and send the copies to the Falas, or to Mithrim, or wherever I wished! And writers there could do the same, and I could read their work in the comfort of my own home in Eglador! There are other uses too—leaving signs in the wood, warnings or directions, or—oh, all sorts of things. I also just wanted to add another element to my songs—that they might be as lovely to look at as they were to listen to—and it was a challenge, to take sounds and turn them into something tangible. The Dwarves took to them immediately, especially since I designed them to be easy to both write and to carve. The Noldor in the west made their own letters, maybe even as I was designing mine, I don’t know—and it seems to have caught on much more widely there. Even among the Sindar, the Tengwar are agreed to be much lovelier to look at than the Cirth.”

“That’s not true!” said Elurín.

Daeron laughed. “Thank you! But it’s all right, I don’t mind. They were made in different places by different minds, and these days they serve different purposes.”

“Will you use your right name when we have dealings with the Dwarves?” Lossenol asked. 

“I don’t know yet, but probably not. I doubt there are any left who I once knew—Dwarves are long-lived, but still mortal, unless one’s name is Durin the Deathless it seems, and it sounds as though they’ve lost many to the war. Did you not speak of us to them?”

“I did, but I didn’t use names. They seemed to understand.”

Daeron was not as good at sewing as Lossenol was, but if his stitches were not pretty they were strong, and as he made new clothes for them all he hummed songs of strength and warmth and comfort, feeling them sink into the cloth and thread, and finding more satisfaction in both the singing and the making than he had in a long time. Lossenol made fur-lined hats and mittens for them all. There was far less snow on the eastern side of the mountains, at least that year, and so when it did come it was more of a chance for play and pleasure than anything else. The twins made little snow fortresses to hide in, and populated the village with snow-people with sticks for arms and stones for eyes and mouths. As their Quenya lessons progressed, Lossenol earned a nickname: Lossë, a word for snow, which the twins were delighted to find was so similar to Sindarin’s loss. 

Since permission had been granted, Lossenol grew increasingly tactile, often slouching against Daeron or slinging an arm over his shoulder as they stood or walked somewhere. It was all purely friendly, but also intimate—intimate in the way of family, of brothers or dear friends. It was nice. It made it easier to hold himself in the present, to remember that that he both could and wanted to stay alive and himself, rather than fading way into the winter woods.

Daeron tried to recall if Maglor and Maedhros had behaved in the same way, but couldn’t. Of course, they had been at a very public event, even if it was not quite as formal as it might have been. But he thought he remembered Maglor, at least, often reaching out to Maedhros, laying a hand on his arm or bumping their elbows together. Certainly they were always looking at one another, sharing laughter or having entire conversations in the space of a glance. Then he thought—perhaps Lossenol was a glimpse of Celegorm as he had once been in his happier youth, surrounded by brothers and cousins and friends. And then, of course, he wondered what all of his brothers had been like. He wondered what Fëanor had been like before it all went wrong—brilliant, of course, one of the mightiest born of all the Eldar, or so it was said, but all the actual tales Daeron had heard of him spoke of someone fey and fell, fierce and proud and terrible. 

So his sons had been too—at least Celegorm and Curufin, in Nargothrond. But they could not have all always been that way. Daeron wondered how it was that someone could fall so far.

“What are you thinking about?” Lossenol asked, dropping down beside Daeron in front of the fire. “You look very serious.”

“Oh—nothing in particular. I’m just sick of the cold.”

“I heard ice cracking up the river somewhere today. It won’t be long now before spring comes.”

“How long before it never comes again at all?” Daeron murmured without thinking. 

“That’s cheerful.”

“Sorry.”

Lossenol glanced at him, expression serious. “Speaking of cheerful things,” he said, “I keep dreaming about light. I don’t know what it means, but it—it frightens me more than the dark.”

“What kind of light?”

“I don’t know. Maybe—you said I had seen the Trees? Across the Sea? Maybe it’s that. It feels familiar, and it’s beautiful, but it also…hurts.”

“Maybe it is the Silmarils you dream of,” Daeron said carefully. Lossenol grimaced and looked away, but the mere mention of them didn’t seem to have stirred the Oath. “I’ve never seen one, but they are said to be very beautiful—they’re all that’s left of the Trees’ light, now, so I suppose it’s really more or less the same, whether you dream of one or the other. I can only imagine that is why Elu Thingol chose to keep it after Beren gave it to him—he had seen the Trees once, too. It was foolish—but, oh, I don’t know. That Light was what all our people crossed the world for, even if some of us never finished the Journey. It doesn’t surprise me that you would dream of it, or that it would be painful in its beauty. Fate seems to bend strangely around them too, if that makes sense—even when they aren’t present. I could feel it before I left, though I did not know what it meant.”

“I wish I wasn’t dreaming of it. I hate it. But how could you feel it?”

“I don’t really know. It was like hearing a key change in a song. At the time it felt discordant and wrong. I don’t know anymore if it was only my fear that made it seem so. There’s…there is an echo of the Great Music in all the waters of the world. You have probably heard bits of it here and there—most Elves can. If you know how to listen, you can hear more. Sometimes—it used to allow me to understand better what was happening, or what might happen in the future. But when Beren came I didn’t stop to listen—I was too afraid of how different the Esgalduin suddenly sounded.” He hadn’t tried to listen in the years since, either. Sometimes he thought about going to spend a few hours learning what the Lhûn might tell him, but he never did.

“Why did you leave, though? I don’t think you’ve ever actually explained what you did that was so bad.”

Daeron breathed a sigh, and moved over so he could lean against Lossenol, grateful for the arm that immediately came up to wrap around his own shoulders. In the other room Eluréd and Elurín laughed, busy at some game of their own invention. “I saw Lúthien with Beren in the woods, and I heard the change. He brought Doom on his heels, and I was afraid for her. So I went to Thingol, and I told him of Beren—who should not have been able to pass through the Girdle, let alone unnoticed. He was angry, and when Lúthien brought Beren before him he demanded a Silmaril as a bride price. It was not his to demand, and—really he just wanted Beren to leave and to never return, in spite of the fact that he had promised Lúthien he would not harm him. The Silmarils were all then still in the Enemy’s crown, impossible to retrieve, or so we all thought.”

“I don’t think I like Thingol much,” Lossenol said.

There was much Daeron could say in Thingol’s defense. He had been something like an uncle—a teacher, a kind and steady presence—as well as Daeron’s king, all his life, for Daeron’s parents had been friends and fierce supporters of his by Cuiviénen, before and during the Great Journey, and then afterward, when Eglador had been established. And of course he had been Melian’s student for many years—he had loved them both, just as much as he had loved Lúthien. There was also nothing he could say in Thingol’s defense, because he had acted foolishly and even cruelly, when he should have listened to Lúthien or at least to Melian. “He was as afraid as I was, I think,” Daeron said. “I don’t mean to defend what he did, or what I did, because I knew Lúthien better than almost anyone and I too should have let her make her own choices in her own time. I should have spoken to her, rather than running to her father. But I did go to him—twice. Because Lúthien grew determined to go after Beren, and when she told me of her plans I betrayed her trust. It was still just fear—fear that she would make it all the way to Angband and then not be able to get out again. That was the worst thing I did, because by then I knew more, and she had trusted me, and I betrayed her—she could forgive me before, but not after that. When I left Doriath it was in an attempt to follow her, to try to make up for it somehow, though I really don’t know what I would have done if I’d managed to find her. But the Girdle caught me and turned me around and spit me out in the east, and…”

“You didn’t want to go back?”

Lúthien had been so angry. She didn’t get angry like her father—he had never actually seen her with such fury in her eyes, cold as ice and frighteningly dark, voice gone low and dangerously quiet. And everyone knew that he had been the one to inform Thingol, at least the first time. Mablung had probably known, at least, that it had been him the second time too. “I don’t think I would have been welcomed back,” he said quietly. “And I thought…then I still trusted that the Girdle would hold. That—that it would be there, if I ever changed my mind.” It had been as foolish a belief as any of his others, then. He’d known that Doom had wound its way through the trees, following on Beren’s heels—that it was only a matter of time.

It had just seemed so impossible that Menegroth would fall. That Melian would leave, that Thingol could possibly be slain. 

He felt Lossenol take a breath and said, “Don’t apologize. You already have, and—if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. Even if the Oath had never been sworn and no blood of kin had ever been spilled—there is still the Shadow in the north.”

“If it weren’t for the kinslayings and the Doom of Mandos,” Lossenol said, voice barely above a whisper, “there might be a chance of winning.”

“I don’t think so. Not unless the Powers in the West choose to act—which they could have done by now, if they really cared.” Daeron heard the bitterness in his voice, but didn’t know how to quell it. He wondered if Melian had returned there—if she had tried to plead before the Valar, or if she knew that it wasn’t even worth trying. Maybe she just wanted to await Thingol outside the doors of Mandos and did not care anymore what she had left behind. Maybe grief had done to her whatever it was the Maiar suffered rather than fading and death.

He lifted his head, but didn’t pull away. “I have songs that can chase away dreams, if you’d like a night of uninterrupted rest.”

“That…would be nice. Thank you.”

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