A Thousand Winds that Blow by StarSpray  

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Eleven

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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 That had been when Melian had departed and withdrawn her Girdle, setting the stage for the second attack.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.”