A Thousand Winds that Blow by StarSpray  

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Twenty Eight

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They did not travel immediately to Goldberry’s riverside home. Instead they went further east, seeking old friends at the still small but growing village on a hill, just past the place where the Dwarf road split, one branch going south and the other continuing east. They found Hendaras and Elenel there, in the midst of packing their things. “When are you leaving?” Daeron asked.

“Soon,” Elenel said with a small, sad smile. “Mithon is ill—and old. We will stay until he accepts the Gift of Men, and then—well, we’ve heard that anyone might take ship now, if they wish.”

“You heard right, though it may be some time before there are ships enough to bear all who wish to go. The ships that brought the armies out of the West will have all departed by the time you reach the new Havens they are building.”

“That’s all right. We aren’t in that much of a hurry, just—oh, it’s hard.”

“I know.”

Elenel glanced at him, then, smile slanting a little. “And I hear that we are not to call you Torrandir anymore.”

Daeron smiled back. “I’d almost forgotten that name. I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“No, I understand. But we had both heard of you before, and it was a little shocking to hear from Mithon that our quiet friend was none other than Daeron of Doriath.”

“It just wasn’t worth hiding anymore, by the time the war began,” said Daeron. 

“And is Lossenol going to reveal himself to be, oh, I don’t know, Beleg Strongbow, or something?”

Daeron kept his smile on his face, and shook his head. “No, Lossë is only Lossë. But—well, there’s no reason to hide them anymore either. Pínfileg and Pínamrent are in truth Eluréd and Elurín.”

Elenel had been kneading bread dough, while Daeron sat across from her in the sunny kitchen with late-blooming roses peeping in at the window. Now she paused and stared at him. “Dior’s sons?” she asked. “The ones—the ones that were left for dead in the woods?”

“Yes, Dior’s sons. An Ent brought them out of Doriath, and came upon Lossenol and me in Ossiriand. And—yes, this is known now to their kin who survived, including Elwing’s sons.”

“Good heavens,” Elenel said, shaking her head as she returned to her kneading. “Are you sure Lossenol isn’t hiding some great secret of his own?”

“Yes, quite sure.” It felt like a lie, and Daeron hated it, but it was true, after a fashion. Lossenol was not keeping the secret of his identity. Daeron was. 

It was getting harder now to justify, since the Oath was over. Daeron could see its absence in Lossenol’s good eye, though the shadows of whatever had happened in Doriath remained, locking away all of his memories. It was such a relief to know that it would not trouble him—or anyone—any longer that Daeron sometimes felt a little dizzy just thinking about it. But it meant there was no good reason now to keep hiding the truth.

Well. There was one good reason—Lossenol believed that to remember would be to awaken such a storm of grief that he might die from it. And that would be more true now than it had ever been, with his last two brothers lost and most likely dead. The lands west of the mountains were still shifting and changing, rents opening and closing, magma welling up and spilling into the Sea. They couldn’t feel the tremors now so far from the coast, but they had happened often enough while they had tarried in the camp. Daeron worried for Elrond and Elros as they tried to find Maglor and Maedhros, but he worried most what it would do to Lossenol if he ever remembered—if he realized how close he had been without knowing it. 

Maybe someday he would decide that he was ready to face his past—and Daeron hoped he would be able to help him without revealing what he had known all along—but as long as he wanted to remain ignorant, Daeron was only too happy to go along with it. 

Eluréd and Elurín spent their visit with Mithon, saying their farewells. He was ill and old, his dark hair thinned and grey, but his eyes were still bright and he was ready to smile and laugh, and still delighted in his daughters and his grandchildren. His family had put down roots in that village, and Daeron thought that they would be meeting his descendants for many, many years to come whenever they passed through. Mourning him, Daeron thought, would be very different from mourning Menelas—or even the boy that Lossenol had killed years before, far from home and still so young. Mithon had been rescued from the ashes of war and had lived a long and full life, and would go to his rest unafraid and knowing that the world he left behind was far brighter than it had been when he had been born, a world in which his children, and their children, and their children’s children would never know fear. 

“I think I understand, a little, why Elros chose as he did,” he found himself saying as they left the village, heading back west toward the little river valley where Goldberry awaited them. 

“We both understand too,” said Elurín. Eluréd had ventured ahead with Lossenol, collecting leaves and grasses to weave together as he walked, both of them laughing at something. “And it’s—I might have chosen alike, and gone with Elros, and been content with it, except that I can’t bear the thought of never seeing my sister again.”

Daeron looked at him. “I hope you won’t come to regret your choice, birdie,” he said. “I have already lived a very long time, and—the weight of it can be very heavy at times.”

“I know—I won’t regret it. In choosing this life I am not rejecting that part of myself. I am not an Elf, as you are, just as Elros is not a Man, as Mithon is. We are Peredhil, and that’s something—I don’t know. It’s neither one nor the other, but it’s both at once. Whatever we chose, we would be forever in some in-between space. I don’t know why Elros chose as he did, or Elrond, but I don’t think Eluréd and I making our choices for love of our sister and our mother and each other is wrong.”

“I don’t think there is a wrong choice, or a wrong reason,” Daeron said, “but I can only speak as an outsider—and, selfishly, as someone who is very glad that you made the choice you did.”

Elurín smiled at him, with Beren’s smile under Lúthien’s eyes that shone with a light that came from Melian. “I know. It was also for you, you know—you and Atya Lossë.”

Daeron reached out to squeeze his hand. He would have accepted and supported whatever choice either Eluréd or Elurín made, but he could not deny that he was grateful beyond words to avoid this particular heartbreak. 

Goldberry and Iarwain greeted them joyfully, and welcomed them to their cozy little house between the hills and the river. By then autumn was getting on, and Daeron was aware of both Lossenol and the twins watching him carefully. And he did feel tired, disliking the fading colors and the shorter days—but it wasn’t as oppressive as it had once been. Nellas’ departure and Menelas’ death had hit hard, but he had now both time and space and safety to miss and mourn them properly—and he had hope, now, that those partings were not forever. 

“There are still shadows lying upon Lossenol, you know,” Goldberry said to him one sunny afternoon. They sat on the roof of the house; Lossenol and the twins had gone fishing in the river, and Iarwain had bounded off over the hills that morning, singing as he went. 

“I know. And he knows.” Daeron watched a flock of geese fly overhead, pointing southward like an arrow, and listened to them calling to one another. “Is is what keeps his memories from him—but he doesn’t want them back.”

“He might, someday.”

“When last someone tried to interfere it hurt him badly.”

“Mm.” Goldberry crossed her legs and looked at Daeron, her blue eyes soft and kind but serious. “Best beware, Daeron. Lost things, even memories, have a way of seeing themselves found. Beware too of the Sea—it washes everything clean in time, even curses.”

“Curses?” Daeron looked at her, a chill going down his spine. “Is that what you would call it? Lossë thinks it a blessing.”

“I have looked into his eyes, and I think this was a thing laid over him with ill intentions—it was meant to hurt, though maybe it is an ill that has turned to good instead, as such things sometimes do, as all the Music bends back toward Ilúvatar’s purposes.” Then she smiled, and reached for his hand. “But you know him best, and you are both wise and powerful in your own turn.”

“He knows that I will help him, if he changes his mind,” Daeron said. “But I do not think he will—at least, not for a very long time. Grief awaits him in the knowing.”

“Grief is inescapable—but even in the darkest depths of it hope may be found.”

Lossenol came back from the river then, drenched and laughing as he chased after Eluréd, who had pushed him into the water. Daeron watched them and couldn’t decide whether he wished Goldberry had remained silent, or whether he was grateful for her counsel.

“We are not really that far, as the crow flies, from that flet in Ossiriand,” he remarked to Lossenol one evening some weeks later, as they listened to Iarwain outside singing to the gathering frost, and to Eluréd and Elurín bickering amiably in their bedroom next door. “But it feels like we have come a very long way.” He sat by the hearth with a knife and a bit of wood in his hands, finally carving himself a new flute. Lossenol lay beside him on the rug, sprawled out catlike in the warmth.

“It’s been a long time. I used to wonder if you regretted it.”

“No,” Daeron said. “No, never—not even once. Even if we had parted ways at the Sarn Athrad—I think I would have regretted that, but nothing else. Meeting you saved my life—and I don’t mean when you rescued me from the orcs.” 

Lossenol folded his arms behind his head, and then looked at Daeron with a grin. “I told you we’d make it to the other side, all of us together.”

“Yes, you did—and you were right and I was wrong. Though…” Daeron hesitated, reluctant to bring any shadow back into their lives. But it needed to be said. “I never heard that Sauron Gorthaur was found. He may still be out there somewhere—and he hates the line of Lúthien.”

“He’ll hate you too.”

“Yes, but…”

“Wherever he’s gone, he’s nothing without his master, and all of us will only get stronger as time goes on. And next time—if there is a next time—it will be the four of us together, at full strength.”

“I think I knew that,” Daeron murmured. “But I also needed to hear someone else say it.”

“You have been called the mightiest singer among the Elves for good reason. Even if you lost some of that strength before, I think you’ve gotten it back now.”

“Maybe. Maybe I’m not the best person to judge my own strength anymore. I hope I won’t ever need to prove it one way or the other.” Daeron finished carving the flute, and brushed the shavings into the fireplace. Then he leaned over to kiss Lossenol’s forehead. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Just—everything.”

“Daeron, Lossë—come outside with us!” Eluréd and Elurín came in to pull them both up. “The stars are bright, and it’s so quiet you can hear the echoes of the Music in the river even from here. Come sing with us!”

“Yes, all right.” Daeron rose as Lossenol, already laughing, sprang to his feet. “New songs or old songs?”

“New songs, of course!”