A Thousand Winds that Blow by StarSpray  

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Eighteen

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Elurín and Nellas did not return home that night. Lossenol slept until morning, and when Daeron looked into his good eye, it was normal. The shadows were there but no longer crowding everything else out. The Oath had returned to sleep. He thought it would stay that way, for it was clear that the Silmaril was now out of anyone’s reach. He hoped it would stay that way—it wasn’t even about protecting Eluréd and Elurín anymore, for they could protect themselves, and by now he didn’t think even the Oath could drive Lossenol to harm any of them. It hurt Lossenol, though, and if it woke fully it would probably get him killed, or worse. Daeron was determined not to let that happen.

For now, though, the danger had passed. “How are you feeling?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed as Lossenol sat up. “You were dreaming just before you woke. Do you remember what about?” He’d been mumbling in Quenya, sounding distressed. 

“Not really…I…” Lossenol rubbed his face. “I woke up wanting my father? But I don’t remember my father…”

“But of course you had one,” Daeron said. “Of course you loved him, even if you can’t remember.” Whatever Fëanor had become by the end, surely he had not always been that way—Daeron couldn’t imagine Lossenol becoming who he was if he had not had parents who loved him, whatever had happened later. It made the Oath all the more cruel. What a terrible thing Fëanor had chained his children to. “I’m sorry, Lossë.”

“Not your fault.”

“No, just—I understand. I miss my parents too.” He hesitated, and then said, “I owe you and your people a debt of gratitude, you know. My parents were both at the Falas when it was besieged, and it was the Noldor who broke it.” It was Lossenol himself, if Daeron recalled the stories right—it had been forces led by Celegorm son of Fëanor who had broken and scattered the orcs. “My mother was slain, but your arrival allowed my father to return home.”

“But he still died.”

“He did, but—I had more time with him than I would have otherwise, and I will be forever grateful for that. And many others survived.”

“I just…whatever’s happening…” Lossenol leaned forward until his head dropped onto Daeron’s shoulder. “I’m so scared,” he whispered.

“Me too,” Daeron whispered back. 

They found Eluréd outside with the goats, but clearly only going through the motions, his gaze continually straying north, toward the woods where Elurín had disappeared. “He was so angry,” he said when Daeron stepped up beside him. “He’s never been angry at me like that.”

“It isn’t your fault, Eluréd,” said Daeron. “He’ll come around and remember it.”

“I wish I wasn’t shown such things,” Eluréd said. “I wish…” He wiped at his face, turning away. “Someone should go to the Dwarves. See what they have learned.”

“Someone will, but…” Daeron sighed. “I know I said last night that they might have news, but like as not it will only be what one of their foresighted or wise ones have been shown. Lossë was there only a month ago, and there was no real news out of the west. Waiting a little while might make it more likely that we actually learn something from them.” The Sons of Fëanor had been the Dwarves’ primary source of news for decades, but they had vanished from Amon Ereb a few years before, and if they had returned they had sent no one any farther east, and no one else dared venture too far west of the Gelion. Sometimes ravens—long the friends of Dwarves—or other birds brought news, but that was always scattered and not always reliable. “Whatever this new star means, it will take time for any of it to reach either the Ered Luin or us. Especially anything out of Sirion. For now I don’t think there is anything more we can do but wait—at least for Elurín to come back home.”

“Did you see the Sickle last night?” Eluréd asked after a moment. 

“No.” He hadn’t even thought to look for other stars. “Was it different?”

“It was brighter—brighter than I have ever seen it. You said once that Elbereth hung it in the northern sky as a warning to the Enemy.”

“So she did.”

“That must mean they are going to act. Doesn’t it?”

“Maybe. But even the Valar cannot act in an instant.”

Nellas finally brought Elurín back as the sun rose toward noon. She looked frustrated, and he was still glowering. “Elurín,” Eluréd began, but he just walked past him and disappeared inside. 

“Give him time,” Nellas said. “Is Lossenol all right?”

“Yes,” said Daeron, not liking how Eluréd seemed to shrink into himself, but not really sure there was anything he could do about it.

Lossenol seemed to disagree. He had watched the exchange from where he sat sharpening knives near the door, and now he went inside. Almost immediately Daeron heard raised voices. “I don’t think that’s helpful,” Nellas said, frowning.

“That’s Elurín, not Lossë,” said Daeron. “Come on. It’s nearly lunchtime, and I’d wager neither Elurín nor you, Nellas, have eaten very much since yesterday.”

“Not much, no,” Nellas agreed, sighing. 

They prepared lunch, and by that time Lossenol had given up and come out, looking even more frustrated than Nellas. Daeron took his turn, carrying a plate inside. He found Elurín by the window in the bedroom he shared with Eluréd. They had stopped sharing a bed but still shared the space, never able to sleep well if they were apart. The walls were covered in drawings, added to little by little over the years from the first days of their coming there and now reaching nearly to the ceiling—birds, trees, flowers, scribbles in tengwar and cirth. Daeron set the plate down on the windowsill, and then sat facing Elurín. “Do you wish to speak of it?” he asked.

“No,” said Elurín without looking at him. 

“Will you listen to what I have to say?”

“Lossenol already said it.”

“I don’t know what Lossenol said. I rather doubt it is the same as what I want to tell you.”

Elurín sighed, and lowered his head into his arms. “Fine.” 

Daeron sighed too, and looked down at his hands, clasped loosely on his lap. “I never had siblings,” he said, “and both of my parents are dead—they died long ago, when the Enemy first returned to these lands. But I had dear friends from my earliest childhood who were nearly brothers and sisters to me. Lúthien was one. It is one of the greatest regrets of my life that I was unable to make things right with her before we both left Doriath. It was one of the worst moments of my life to learn what had befallen my home, and everyone there who I still cared for, to know that I was truly all alone in the world. I don’t know what has happened to your sister, but you have your brother right here, and it is not his doing—it is not his fault that he was shown something, and he is as heartbroken as you are.”

“But he’s wrong,” Elurín said without raising his head.

“Maybe he is. Foresight is a strange thing, and maybe he is mistaken in what he saw, maybe what he has been shown is a future that may not come to pass. I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. Whether he’s right or he is wrong, whether Elwing remains at the Mouths of Sirion or whether she is in Mandos or somehow across the Sea in Valinor or somewhere else entirely—something has happened, and his heart hurts just as much as yours. He needs you, and whether you wish to admit it right now or not, you need him. If you need space, or time, of course you must take it and no one here will try to stop you. But make peace with Eluréd first. Do not make him keep wondering whether or not he has lost both his sister and his brother in one fell swoop.”

Elurín did not answer for a long time. Daeron waited. Outside in the trees a nightingale trilled. The breeze carried the scent of niphredil and eglantine through the window. Finally, Elurín said, “I don’t think I have ever been so angry. Just—whatever happened, it had to be them, right? The Fëanorians. They came to Doriath and—and Elwing had the Silmaril, so they didn’t get it then, and…”

“I don’t know,” Daeron said. “All any of us can say for certain is that they still haven’t got it—they could not have put it into the sky as a new star for us all to see.”

“I still hate them.”

“Don’t say that.”

“But I do—they killed Adar and Naneth and destroyed our home, and—and they stole our sister away from us, all for a stupid jewel…”

And one of them loves you more than life itself, Daeron thought. Aloud he said, “Hatred is poison, Elurín. I cannot tell you how to let it go, but please try. Do not cling to it. They are out of your reach and the only one you will harm with this is yourself.”

“I don’t care—”

“I do. Eluréd does. And Lossë, and Nellas.” Daeron rose, and leaned over to kiss the back of Elurín’s head. “I can never replace your parents, nor do I wish to, but I love you—I love you so much. Please do not make me watch you go down such a dark road.”

Elurín did not emerge from his room that afternoon. Eluréd was reluctant to go into it that night, so Daeron stayed up with him when Lossenol went to sleep early. When they were alone, Eluréd breathed a shuddering sigh and slumped over until he lay with his head pillowed in Daeron’s lap, staring at the flames on the hearth. “What did Elurín say, earlier?”

“He’s angry. Not with you, not really, but he has nowhere else to direct it.”

“I don’t feel angry,” Eluréd said after a moment. “Should I?”

“There’s no right or wrong way to feel, I think,” Daeron said as he stroked his hair. Eluréd was quieter than Elurín, more thoughtful and more prone to tears than temper. They both took after Lúthien—and Melian—with shadow-dark hair and soft grey eyes, but Elurín had more of Thingol’s temperament, though he was still young and, with few reasons until now to get so angry, had not yet learned fully how to rein in his temper.

“The worst part is…we knew that Elwing had made it, but she never knew about us. I know why, but she—she probably thought that we were dead. That she was all alone.”

“If I could have gotten you to Sirion, I would have,” Daeron said. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t.”

“We were not meant to go there,” Eluréd said. “I know that. I just—”

“It’s easier to feel at peace with it when all is going well,” Daeron said. “I know.”

“Do you think she’s dead?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible, but—well. Lúthien did so many impossible things, and Elwing is as much her grandchild as you are. It would not surprise me to learn that she found a way through the enchantments of the Valar through sheer force of will, and broke all their hearts with her songs, as Lúthien once moved the heart of Mandos. That Silmaril found its way to the Valar’s hands somehow, Eluréd. Do not give up hope yet.”

“I still want to visit Goldberry and Iarwain, but I’m not sure Elurín does.”

“We’ll ask him in the morning, or whenever he decides to rejoin us. If he doesn’t, then I or Lossenol will go with you—and Nellas will surely wish to go too.”

Elurín opened their bedroom door then, and leaned on it as he looked out. “Eluréd?”

“Yes?” Eluréd sat up. 

“Can you—I’m sorry. I’m—”

Eluréd immediately rose to his feet and ran to his brother. The door swung shut behind them, and Daeron breathed a sigh of relief. He banked the fire and tidied up a few things, feeling the absurdity of such domestic chores while the world was preparing to change forever, and then he went to bed. “Did they make up?” Lossenol asked. 

“I thought you were asleep,” Daeron said as he slipped under the blankets.

“Tried. Can’t. The songbirds?”

“Elurín apologized—they’ll be all right. Does your head hurt?”

Lossenol sighed. “No.” He rolled over so he and Daeron were facing each other. His good eye glinted in the darkness of the bedroom. “It was my people that drove…whatever happened.”

“I know Elurín thinks that, but we can’t know for sure.”

“Who else? If it has to do with the Silmaril, it has to do with the Fëanorians.”

“But it has nothing to do with you,” Daeron said. “You have been here, with us. And whatever happened, that Silmaril is now out of anyone’s reach.”

“So why did it hurt so much just to see it?”

“I don’t know,” Daeron said. The lie tasted bitter on his tongue. “Maybe just—its Light is familiar to you. The Light of the Trees, I mean. If you wanted to try to—”

“I don’t. I just—I don’t know what I want, except for the past to stay there.”

“I’m sorry,” Daeron whispered. He reached for Lossenol, who rolled over to press his face into Daeron’s chest, shaking with the effort of trying not to cry. “What is it you’re afraid of?”

“Hurting the twins,” Lossenol whispered. “Hurting you.”

“You aren’t going to hurt us.”

“I already have. And something from my past might, in the future. It—”

“We all know that you love us and you won’t ever harm us,” Daeron said. “Whether something else from your past—or mine, for that matter—comes across the mountains, that is beyond our control. We’ll deal with it if and when it happens—together.” 

They were both silent for a while. Through the wall Daeron could hear Eluréd and Elurín’s voices, quiet and muffled—a good sign, he thought—and outside he heard the wind rush through the trees. Finally Lossenol asked, “What from your past would be so bad?”

Daeron sighed. “Menelas,” he said softly. “Or someone like him. Or just—not anyone enthralled, just someone else from Doriath.”

“Wouldn’t they be pleased to see you? And the twins?”

“Maybe. I suppose it would depend on who it was.” Everyone he had once called a friend was dead—that left those who had been only acquaintances and whose opinion he couldn’t be sure of. He thought suddenly of Celeborn, who had wed Galadriel of the Noldor—Galadriel with her bright and piercing gaze, who would recognize Lossenol in an instant were chance to bring them together again. “My fear is that if Eluréd and Elurín are discovered to be alive, someone would try to crown one of them—to restore the kingship of the Sindar in, oh I don’t know, either in alliance or opposition to the kingship of the Noldor, I can’t possibly guess which. I don’t want that for them.”

“They could do it,” Lossenol said.

“Of course they could—but we’ve worked so hard to keep them hidden, and revealing themselves in that way would put them in even more danger than if the Enemy found them here while looking for me. I know it’s not likely to happen, but…”

“But it’s not impossible.”

“No. And I don’t think it’s what they want either.”

By the next morning Eluréd and Elurín were back on speaking terms—even more than usual, sticking together as they hadn’t since they were children, always within arm’s reach of one another. They were all in quiet, pensive moods, and Daeron kept pausing to extend his senses to his Girdle. He felt nothing, of course, except for that tingling sense of the world on a precipice. What kind of precipice, he couldn’t guess. 

A week after they first saw the Silmaril in the sky, Eluréd brought up going to visit Iarwain and Goldberry again. Nellas immediately brightened at the idea.

“You go,” Lossenol said when Daeron looked at him. “I’m going to go see what Kóri thinks of this new star.”

“You’re going alone?” Daeron asked. 

“I go alone all the time. I’ll be fine.” 

“Does your head still ache?” Eluréd asked him. 

“Not at all.” Lossenol leaned over to tug on Eluréd’s braid. “I’m fine now, birdies, I promise.” 

They all left the next morning, Lossenol for the west and the rest of them for the south. Goldberry did not roam as widely as Iarwain did, preferring her lily pools along the banks of the little willow-lined river she called home. It was some days’ journey from their home by the Lhûn, over the hills and south of the lake, close to the dwarf road. When they came to the little river they found Goldberry sitting by one of the lily pools, singing as she combed her long golden hair. When she saw them she smiled brightly and leaped to her feet. “Nellas, it has been too long!”

“It has!” Nellas embraced her. “Oh, it’s so good to see you!”

“And you!” Goldberry held out her hands to the rest of them and kissed them all in greeting. “Welcome! No Lossenol this time?”

“No, he has gone on an errand of his own,” said Daeron. 

“And you have come, I think,” Goldberry said, her smile turning knowing, “to speak of the new star that has appeared in the gloaming. I have seen it—it is very beautiful, is it not?”

“It is a Silmaril,” said Elurín.

“It is a sign,” Goldberry replied. 

“Of what, though?” asked Elurín. “Do you know?”

“Perhaps a little,” said Goldberry, “and Iarwain might know more. I have listened to what the rivers tell me, and I have been thinking of following them down to the Sea where Uinen might speak more with me. Though that is never certain, for she comes seldom to the shallow waters. I would ask Ossë, but he delights in riddles and never gives me a plain answer when he can give one full of eddies and strange currents instead.”

“What can you tell us now?” asked Daeron. 

Goldberry led the way upstream to a flower-strewn meadow, where they could sit on blankets in the sunshine and eat berries and cream and drink clear spring water that tasted better than the finest wines Doriath had ever produced. As she handed a basket of raspberries to Nellas, Goldberry said, “You must have guessed already that the Valar have put this new star into the sky. It is a sign to all of us in these lands that they are not idle, and that there is yet hope. Estel, I mean, though perhaps amdir too.”

One was so much harder to hold onto than the other. “But do you know what they are doing, if they are not idle?” asked Elurín. 

“Were I to guess? Preparing for war.” Goldberry pointed to the north, where there was nothing but blue sky and white fluffy clouds at the moment, but where later that night the Sickle could be seen, blazing brightly. “So they came once to Utumno, so they will come again to Angband—and as the world changed then, it will change again. Lands will sink and rise and the seas will change their shapes.”

Eluréd and Elurín exchanged a glance, and Daeron swallowed a sigh. Thus far it was nothing they had not already guessed for themselves, though they had not spoken of what might happen to the world itself. Then Elurín asked, “Have you heard in the rivers how the Silmaril came to the hands of the Valar?”

“No,” said Goldberry. “But Iarwain may know. He hearkens to the winds and to the rains as well, and to the eagles that circle so high in the air even elven eyes might not see them. Iarwain can see them—and he can hear what they call to one another.”

“Where is Iarwain?” asked Eluréd. 

At this Goldberry laughed. “Here, there, anywhere! He is not here, and that is all I can tell you.”

Iarwain did not make an appearance that day, but he arrived the next morning, laughing as he danced up the path from the river. Daeron sighed, and Eluréd grinned at him. “He’s not that bad, Ada.”

When asked what he knew of the new star in the sky, Iarwain stopped and turned toward the west, though it was the middle of the morning and no stars at all could be seen. “War is coming, and armies are mustering,” he said after a moment, unusually serious. “The western lands will be greatly changed when all is over. But the Song goes on, and the winds still blow and the sun still shines. The seasons will turn and the rivers flow down to the Sea.”

“You think the Valar will be victorious, then?” asked Elurín. 

“Melkor is not so mighty as he once was,” said Goldberry, and Iarwain nodded. “In himself, I mean. He has put so much of himself into the earth—into the stones and the air. He has marked it forever, and it will be the work of all our many lifetimes to heal it. But someday soon his throne will sit empty and the towers of his fortress will crumble into the Sea. What will become of him, I cannot say. That is for the Valar to decide.”

“Much is dark on the horizon,” said Iarwain. “I cannot see what lies past the mountains; I know little of what has been happening, of how the rivers flow and all the dark winds blow. All I can say is that Light always returns, when it is chased away. So it was when the Valar first came and Varda lit the first stars to shine in the dark before everything, and so it was when the Lamps were toppled, and so it was when the Trees were withered. The Shadows of Melkor, that you call Morgoth, might seek to hide the Sun and Moon, yet they are far out of his reach, and here we sit in bright summer sunshine! The Shadow does not last, whatever form it takes.”