A Thousand Winds that Blow by StarSpray  

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Nine

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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.