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Chapter Text

“We take one of the Silmarils and return on the same boat.” 

Anairë eyes Nerdanel closely, then continues when she doesn’t have a measurable response. Or at least Nerdanel thinks she doesn’t have a response; she’s a bit too lost in shock and exhaustion to have her face change with the maelstrom of emotions in her mind.

“It will work. I’ve dreamt it.”

“Oh,” says Nerdanel, suddenly finding a well of viciousness in her that hasn’t been drained by the fatigue. “If you’ve dreamt it, then it will surely work.”

“Look at me,” says Anairë softly. “Look at me and tell me that I lie.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” says Nerdanel tiredly. But still, Anairë’s deception- the fact that she waited so orc-blooded long to tell them- doesn’t sit rightly with Nerdanel. “I think you dreamt it. I don’t think you know what that dream meant.”

“So kind of you,” she replies, and it’s by the hard edge to her words that Nerdanel knows her to be just as tired; a rested Anairë would never speak so, not even when provoked. It softens Nerdanel’s own rage a little, remembering everything they’ve been through together: if it’s true, and if Anairë has been having these dreams, then it’s just one more burden on her already-burdened soul. 

Nerdanel can blame her for not reacting well. She will blame Anairë for not reacting well. But the mitigating circumstances helps temper that anger.

“How much do you trust the dream?”

Anairë sags a little. “I know it,” she says. “And it makes sense, even if the dream had not come: the only light left of the Trees is within the Silmarils, and the Valar have always loved the Trees too well to be understood. They’ll let us in with one of the Silmarils. And I’m sure they’ll be curious to know what happened in Angband. Right now, the only three people who can tell them are the three of us.”

“That’s if the dolphin tokens don’t work,” says Eärwen.

She’s pressed a hand to her forehead and lain back, head against a tree trunk; she looks utterly exhausted. Nerdanel remembers the fires that burned down from the west- they’d been blue, blue as the ocean and the sky and Eärwen’s own eyes. 

But blue fire also burns the hottest. 

Seeing that from the west, flowing like a river of flame, had startled Nerdanel enough to pull out of the worst of her own fugue. It’d been that which saved her from pouring too much energy into the fires. Or: not too much, because Nerdanel had certainly pushed herself too hard even before the blue fire scared her out of it, but more than too much, more than her abilities until she’d have burned her own bones to ash from it.

“The Silmarils are my husband’s creation.” Nerdanel swallows. “And you’ve heard that blasted oath as well, Anairë. It’s my sons’ heirlooms, now. Not yours. Not the Valar’s.”

Not mine, either.

“I’m not planning to steal it,” says Anairë flatly. “It’s called borrowing. And one of the jewels, not all three; call it an assurance if your sons get jumpy. We’ll be back.”

“If the Valar try to take the Silmaril…”

“They won’t,” she says impatiently. “Because this isn’t the only bargaining chip we have. It’s the flashiest one; it’s the one we’ll need to show them until we can get within earshot. There’s other information we have, though. Information that will keep them… interested.”

“Like what?” asks Eärwen.

Nerdanel speaks before Anairë can. “Like the news of what happened here. The truth of how we stopped Morgoth.”

“And those tokens,” agrees Anairë.

“One to keep the Silmaril, and another to bring them to Angband,” says Eärwen quietly.

“We don’t offer the Silmaril as a bargaining chip,” says Anairë, lips quirking. “We start by telling them to lift the Doom. If there are people who wish to return to Aman- they ought to be allowed. We’ve served our time in abiding the Valar’s disagreements.”

“The Valar created Aman,” Nerdanel points out. “They’ve the right to decide who can live there.”

“Not when they promised us eternal life and then broke that promise,” says Anairë coolly. “They’re the ones who breached the contract first. We did it next, and did it worse with the Kinslaying- but their’s was the mistake of letting Morgoth go, and then not ensuring he was redeemed.” Her lips tip upwards further, into a mirthless smile, when Nerdanel checks herself, mouth half-open. “I was born to be a dancer, perhaps, but I was trained for this. Arguments. Convincing. Debates.”

Eärwen knocks her head back against the tree, making a hollow thunking sound. “If you wish to take one Silmaril to Aman, you’ll want to drop the other two off somewhere.”

Anairë breathes in slowly. “Not drop off,” she says. “I want to split up.”

“Split… up?”

“You’ll be necessary for the negotiations in Aman,” says Nerdanel. She looks into Anairë’s silver eyes, and sees quiet pity there. “Eärwen’s the only one who can steer that boat across the Belegaer.”

“It’s your son coming to meet us,” says Anairë softly. “He’ll be disappointed to see either Eärwen or myself in your position.”

“And you think none of the others will be disappointed?”

“It’s not just that,” says Eärwen. She would’ve sounded sardonic if there had been more emotion behind the words; as it is, it just sounds flat. “What do you think they’d do to us if they found us with two Silmarils and the third on its way to Aman? A knife to the throat would be the least of our issues.”

“You want me to meet everyone,” says Nerdanel. “You want me to tell them- but this is your Vala-forsaken plan, Anairë! I’ve aided you, I’ve abetted you, but! You must at least- at least- speak to your- your husband-”

“Nolofinwë will understand,” says Anairë, with the confidence of a woman who knows no such thing will happen but is also too lost in her delusions to admit it. “We’ve always understood that duty must come first.”

Blast it all to Mandos’ halls and back, but that’s a fair point. 

It’s also a snide commentary on Nerdanel and her own husband, but she’s not got the energy to fight now, after everything. 

“So you want me to lie,” Nerdanel says dully. 

“If we aren’t back in twenty years, you tell the truth,” affirms Anairë.

Eärwen laughs, shrilly. “Twenty years! You think it’ll take that long?”

“No. But it might. And if they’re holding us hostage- we’ll need some leverage. Twenty years.” Anairë’s lips twist. “Maitimo stood against Morgoth for thirty, yes? I don’t think the Valar in Aman are so cruel as that- but if they do- we’ll be able to hold for that long.”

Nerdanel sighs. “Fine. Fine. But at least- get some supplies from Maitimo. Before you go. It’s not like we have enough to last you all the way back to the boat.”

“I’d rather not,” says Eärwen.

“No,” agrees Anairë, and starts packing her bag right there, as if she plans to leave immediately.

“No,” says Nerdanel. Then, louder, “No?”

Anairë pauses, eyes fixed on her pack. “No,” she says quietly.

“Why would-” Then, Nerdanel’s brain manages to make the connection between the other two’s silence and their averted faces and the people that Nerdanel’s awaiting. And finally, finally, she feels something other than the numbness that always accompanies using too much Song in too short a time: rage, the heat of it growing until her face feels as red as her hair once used to be. “You’re afraid of him!”

“No,” says Eärwen slowly.

“Not of Maitimo,” says Anairë carefully. But she’s still not looking at Nerdanel, which means there’s more to be said. “But of what he is capable of? Yes. They all participated in the Kinslaying. They all…” 

“-none of them hesitated,” Eärwen finishes. “Not to kill, not for the jewels. If we are to keep the Silmarils from them, it is better that we not remain here. Better that the temptation should not be there at all.”

Anairë smiles, and it is sad, and it is small, and she is finally looking at Nerdanel. “You know this, Nerdanel. When you showed Maitimo what we were planning- you never mentioned the Silmarils. You know this. You were readying yourself for it even before we ever considered it.”

“Not this,” whispers Nerdanel. 

But… she’d avoided those memories which discussed the Silmarils, because she hadn’t known how Maitimo would react. Nerdanel’s not burdened by an oath to the Allfather and the two most powerful Vala; she cannot understand or predict Maitimo’s actions. 

And if Nerdanel cannot predict him, how can she ask Anairë or Eärwen to trust Maitimo?

“We’ll have to split up,” Anairë says again. She reaches out, and touches Nerdanel on her shoulder, gentle as the summer wind. “I am sorry for leaving you with this.”

“You both are risking more.”

“Ah, but I know where you’d rather be.”

Nerdanel closes her eyes briefly. Yes, she’d rather have an enemy she can work against, than the nebulous politics that Anairë’s abandoning her to. Nerdanel’s gone out of her way to avoid politics all her life; when Fëanáro made that impossible, she left him rather than letting him drag her into the public eye.

And now here she is, doing the exact opposite.

“I’m not so selfish as to ruin us now,” she whispers, and then stretches out so her toes rub against the sparse grass around them. “Fine. Fine. Have it your way. But you’re not leaving until dawn at the least.”

“The further we get-” begins Anairë.

“Maitimo is not the worst of evils in Beleriand,” says Nerdanel. She must remember the joys of the world. She must. The sun, the grass, the wind. Her sons, who are not monsters even if they are not the jewels that she remembers from Aman. If she loses her memories to her fear or her grief or her pain, then Morgoth has already won. “If you run too fast and are too weak to battle off some orcs- you’ll die before ever reaching the boat, much less Aman.”

“She has a point,” says Eärwen, who doesn’t look like she’ll be able to stand, much less run halfway across Beleriand.

“I don’t like it,” says Anairë slowly.

“I’ll keep it from him,” says Nerdanel flatly. She doesn’t look at either of the other two: just up, to the sky above them that’s slowly bleeding into the colors of twilight. It would be beautiful if the color didn’t remind her of fire and hurt. Her beautiful sons. Her beautiful, beautiful sons: what has she let them become, that their own aunts fear what they will do? “When we meet. I’ll delay. For as long as possible. I’m not sure how long that will get you- but it will be more than the hours you’re losing by resting tonight.”

Then she closes her eyes and leans back, and though Nerdanel does not sleep- she does not open them either, does not let herself look at anything other than the insides of her eyelids, not until the warmth of dawn pitches over her body once more.

…

(Thank you, says Eärwen. Anairë embraces Nerdanel wordlessly.

There are tears, quietly shed and just as quietly sniffed away. There are other words, useless words. There are gifts pressed into Nerdanel’s pack, meant for children that they will not see or husbands they will not meet. There are two Silmarils, shining, in the very bottom of Nerdanel’s pack. Then-

Then, there is silence.)

…

Nerdanel walks east, off of the mountain towards the rising sun. She pauses at dusk to eat some of the bread left in her pack, then sips from a stream and takes the time to wash some more of the dye from her hair. 

It will likely be another two days before Maitimo reaches her, if he’s left Himring and hasn’t stopped along the way.

Nerdanel will not have a better time than this. She uses the water to wash any flakes of blood off, and then cleans the knives in a small fire, and then she does what she has to do.

At least, she thinks grimly, the Eldar heal fast.

…

Only after that does she open her mind to him.

Maitimo’s mind is sharp and clean and panicked still, the fear running beneath the orderliness as riverwater beneath ice. 

Mother, he says.

I’m alive. Nerdanel has spent about twelve hours practicing shearing the emotion from her voice. It’s the only thing that keeps her from fainting. My son. Come to me.

It will be another day.

I think I can survive that, Nerdanel tells him, and lets herself orient on his mind, lets her feet take her towards him.

He laughs, dryly, and bleeds away; so he’s not in contact with her even if the bond is ever-close. Nerdanel breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth. One more day. 

One more day.

…

Anfauglith is rank with orcs.

Some of them are under local commanders, feeding off smaller orc-bands and foraging to survive. Others are running blind with panic, because the plume of fire that Nerdanel and Anairë and Eärwen set is still blazing against the horizon, because their master is- for all intents and purposes- dead. Surely whoever killed him is more dangerous than even the most powerful Vala.

If only they could see Nerdanel now: she’s not recovered fully yet, because she’s still too terrified to sleep properly, and whatever energy she regains from eating bread and berries is being used up to walk towards Maitimo and hide from the roving orc bands.

Nerdanel knows she’s making stupid decisions now.

It still isn’t stopping her from making them.

Like now, when a pack of four wargs are sniffing across the plain for food and she’s got nowhere to go: Nerdanel has a stone outcrop at her back, and her song of silence and obscurance is too flimsy a shield with her power so low to hide her from sight, much less sound and smell.

But Maitimo’s close. 

Not quite close enough as she’d like, but. Beggars, choosers, all of that. 

Nerdanel unsheathes her sword, not bothering to muffle the ringing sound. The wargs orient on her, and she settles into a proper battlestance, knees flexed, thighs apart, shoulders loose, sword high. The first warg to approach her tentatively is treated to a sword slash across its muzzle, and then a sword through its neck.

The second dies too quickly to realize where she is, and she uses the first warg’s corpse to fend off the third as the fourth attacks her from behind; Nerdanel keeps that at bay with her sword, snarls wordlessly, and then heaves, and drops the corpse onto the third warg before lopping the head off the fourth warg. The third dies swiftly, still pinned under its packmate’s body, when Nerdanel stabs it.

Then she straightens, and realizes that she’s managed to get the attention of the wargs’ masters.

That was not smart, she tells herself, but brings her sword up anyhow. This is not… smart.

If she had more energy, she’d take off running. Maitimo’s close, now, very close, and she can feel his mind bolstering her own like a bulwark. The smart thing to do would be to flee to him, and let his army take care of the orcs. But Nerdanel’s lost enough blood and enough sense to do very, very unwise things.

Twenty slavering, beastly orcs coming at her is not a battle she can win on her own. Nerdanel knows this. She also knows that she’d rather die here, like this, on her feet and snarling, than fleeing to her son and not making it.

Here lies Nerdanel, she thinks wryly. She who defeated Morgoth, but not his minions.

(Only later- days later, safe and warm- does Nerdanel realize that she’s broadcast this to literally everyone she’s connected with; she’s too tired to modulate it. It drives Maedhros to spur his horse into a gallop, which is what saves Nerdanel’s life. But it also reveals her presence to both Caranthir and Celegorm, who, in turn, send letters to their brothers asking questions.

Maglor, Amrod and Amras don’t know anything, and Curufin is notorious for his insensitivity to ósanwë. But the steward of Himring replies in Maedhros’ place, that Maedhros left in a rush three nights ago, on his swiftest horse, with forty other warriors, and would not say anything other than that he must go to Angband with immense urgency.

This, unsurprisingly, is deeply concerning to all of them.)

But right then, Nerdanel does not know any of those things. All she knows is that she’s got twenty orcs advancing on her, and she doesn’t even have access to the Silmarils- she’s bound those away well and good lest her sons see them before she’s ready- to scare them off, and she’s so tired that she can barely see straight. 

But Nerdanel has carved stone when more exhausted than this, and she hasn’t broken bones while doing so. And it was Nerdanel who insisted that they practice swordplay until the motions became even more instinctive than breathing. She can do this.

It all becomes a blur after that.

Nerdanel loses her sword at some point, and then knife after knife; she slashes and tosses and guts and spins, fast as a breath of wind, faster. Until she’s out of knives and she’s got nothing left but herself.

But herself and her fists.

Maitimo hung off Thangorodrim for thirty years. Fëanáro died before ever avenging Finwë. Arakáno- my sons- I will not-

It is not quite anger that spurs Nerdanel onwards. But it is something blazing and hot and bright, sharper even than her knives. It is not quite hate. It is not quite grief.

But it gives her energy, and when she reaches the first orc and breaks its wrists before breaking its neck, the others realize that she’s not quite dead yet.

And it’s at this point that Maitimo crests over the hill. Nerdanel’s in the process of shattering one orc’s kneecaps- one of them’s foregone their armor there, and she’s got good, strong thighs to give her feet that extra bit force that will leave the orc writhing and lamed forever. She doesn’t realize who’s there then; she’s too busy tearing herself out of an orc’s grasp. All Nerdanel knows is that there are other people, coming in at her back, and it’s dangerous.

But when she cracks her skull against the orc’s chin and it staggers backwards, Nerdanel stabs it with its own sword and turns to meet the beings there, and she stops.

Stops.

They’re elves. 

It’s Maitimo, on a horse, cleaving orc heads from their bodies and smiling vividly under the spray of black blood on his face. She’d recognize his hair anywhere. It’s her son, her son-

Nerdanel drops to her knees, and it saves her from the first swing of the orc that had been sneaking up behind her. The whistle of its steel startles her enough to turn around and cut its hamstrings with its fellow orc’s blade, but that’s it; there’s no other orcs coming after Nerdanel now, not when she’s proven to be too difficult a piece of prey. Not when they’re now far more focused on fleeing.

I will not meet Maitimo on my knees.

She grits her teeth and rises, wobbling. The orc-blade makes for a decent crutch, but the earth’s soggy. It had been soggy before Nerdanel ever walked on it, but the blood and other fluids soaking the ground now make it all a cold, uncomfortable slush. It’s both unpleasant to walk on and just plain difficult when Nerdanel’s balance is as shot as it is.

So instead she stands, and watches her son dispatch the rest of the orcs with his people, and smiles when he comes to meet her.

Maitimo slides off his horse and approaches slowly. He wears a helm, but his hair streams out from under it, bright as a banner. When he pulls it off, Nerdanel sees the scars carved into his face: the bones which Nolofinwë’s healers had tried to reset but hadn’t managed properly. There’s a redder scar, livid against his skin, that runs from the corner of his jaw down to his neck. His eyes, too, are not the bright stars that Nerdanel remembers from Aman; these are dimmer and bloodier, less molten silver and more a forged, honed blade.

“Mother,” he says hoarsely.

Nerdanel does not dare move her feet. But she holds out her arms, and waits for him to come, and when he surges forward to wrap himself around her-

-“Maitimo,” she cries, and clutches him through the armor, hard enough to dent the armor, tears scudding her face as clouds before the sun. “Oh, my son, my son-”

A hundred years and more. Grief and pain and the death of her husband and his father. Thirty years of torture. Words of fury, sent as arrows into tender flesh. A lifetime of hatred and loss. Nerdanel holds Maitimo, and cannot stop the hiccuping, howling joy sweeping through her bones.

…

It’s then that she collapses, of course, because the Valar really do hate her.

…

When Nerdanel wakes, she’s on a bed. This is such a novel concept to her- she hasn’t slept on anything other than stone for the past months in Beleriand, and the months before that had been spent on a rocking hammock because Eärwen had insisted that it was the only way to sleep on a boat- that she thinks she’s in Aman and is reaching for the cup of water that’s always on her bedside before the pain stings up her arms, and she hisses, memory and joy rushing through her.

Then she opens her eyes.

Maitimo is slumped at the side of the bed, his hair cascading over his face and shielding it from view. Nerdanel herself has been stripped of the armor she’d worn for months on end- her body feels strangely light- and she panics for a moment before realizing that her pack is set on the low table next to her.

“Ammë,” says Maitimo, voice cracking, and Nerdanel turns back to him. The sleep clears from his gaze a moment later and he blinks, before reaching out his- left, Nerdanel cannot help but notice- hand, and gripping her own. “I did not think this to be possible.”

“Seeing me again?” asks Nerdanel. “Or seeing me without hate in my eyes again?”

“You were very… insistent, the last time we met.”

“Insistent,” says Nerdanel, sucking on the inside of her teeth and disliking the sour taste of it; it’s probably from remnants of the orc blood, which is such a disgusting idea. “Call it what it was, Maitimo. It was not insistence; it was about as furious as I’ve ever been in my life. It was not insistence; it was cruelty.”

Maitimo’s throat works. “I go by Maedhros, now.”

“Maedhros.” Nerdanel looks at him, and lifts an eyebrow. “What does it mean?”

“It’s-” he shakes his head, “-Sindarin. And- does it need to mean something?”

“Sindarin. Truly, you have adapted.”

“Mother-”

“After your father refused the Vanyarin shift for so long, I’d think it would take you longer to do the same.”

“Well, Father’s not here.”

“Mmm. All the better for him. I tell you, it was one of the reasons why I had to leave Aman- the fool couldn’t give me more than a few years of peace, could he?”

The temper fades from Mait- Maedhros’ eyes, bleeding into something softer and more bewildered. “You left Aman because you couldn’t stand to have Father so near to you?”

“All I could think of was his damned fëa,” agrees Nerdanel peaceably. “In Mandos’ Halls. Just being so… annoyingly close.”

“Which led you to defy the Valar.”

“Which means that if he’d been alive, I’d never have come to Endórë.” Nerdanel lifts a shoulder. “But when Anairë was so certain she would come, and I had the best chance to leave Aman that I would ever get, I decided to take it.”

“Speaking of.” Maedhros pauses, and Nerdanel realizes that she’s probably still a little woozy from the exhaustion; tired enough, still, to make the first mistake in this dance. “Where is Anairë?”

“Aunt Anairë.”

He pales a little, though Nerdanel doesn’t know if it’s for the sharpness of her rebuke, that the rebuke occurred at all, or at the fact that he has a mother now, to rebuke him. 

“Fine. Aunt Anairë. And Aunt Eärwen. Where are they?”

“Gone.”

“Dead?” he asks sharply.

“No.” 

“They left you alone, then.” His face flushes a little now, anger clear on it; Nerdanel wonders if it’s only her that can read him so easily, or if it’s that Maedhros has chosen to have less control around his mother, or if it’s that he’s usually this bad at hiding his emotions and his reputation as a good politician is just Nolofinwë being his usual ebullient self. “Abandoned you to the orcs. If I’d been just a little later- if there was less-”

“I chose to walk east,” says Nerdanel calmly. “It was a choice, Maedhros, as every last step of this has been. They had another battle to fight.”

“Another battle,” says Maedhros flatly. “What other battle?”

“They wish to return to Aman.”

Maedhros chokes. “It’s impossible!”

“Well,” says Nerdanel, unable to resist. “I’m sure you’d think so.”

“Mother,” says Maedhros, aghast. “Mother. Do you know how many died trying the same? Turgon’s people- there are- I don’t even-”

“There are things you don’t understand.”

“Then explain them to me.”

“I’d prefer not to do it until there’s more people around,” says Nerdanel loftily. She sighs when she sees the stern light in his eyes, and then reaches out, and draws Maedhros into a deeper embrace. “I love you. I love you so, so much. And I cannot tell you how glad I am that you came.”

“But you won’t answer my questions,” he says, and still sounds cold.

Nerdanel sighs again. “No,” she says. “I will not.”

He smiles tightly at her and rises to his feet. “I’ll leave you to your rest, then, Amil.”

“And sleep where?” Nerdanel lifts her brows at him, and does not flinch away when he only glares. “On the ground? This is your tent, Maitimo; I would not displace you.”

“I would displace myself,” he grinds out, confirming that she’s right in her suspicions; the poor boy’s been housing her in his own tent, after he raced west to save her from sure death.

Nerdanel snorts. “Come to bed,” she says, affectionately, and watches her son twitch, looking both angry and tired and yearning, like she hasn’t seen in too, too long. “No, Maitimo. Come to bed. It’s cold enough here without having to deal with the weather by ourselves. And I’d much rather spend the night holding you than being alone. We can continue our argument in the morning, if you’d wish.”

He comes, and curls around her like a cat with too many limbs, long hair tickling over Nerdanel’s own. Makalaurë would have been sulky and Tyelkormo irritable; Carnistir would’ve already spent a good few minutes shouting at Nerdanel; Curufinwë would have refused her altogether; the Ambarussa would not have argued with her in the first place.

But Maitimo- Maedhros, Maedhros- is tall and silent and still, like a ghost given into flesh. 

“I forgot,” he grumbles, “how frustrating you can be.”

“Frustrating!” says Nerdanel, and pulls back, so she can see his face and run a hand down his jaw, over the ropy scar. So she can cup his face, which she bore and loved, which she can touch now, again, with gentleness and kindness. “Ah, my son, you’ll have to get better at your insults- I’ve spent too long hearing worse, and grown a thicker skin for it.”

“Who’d dare to insult you to your face?” 

“Your father,” says Nerdanel dryly, and doesn’t laugh at the sudden tension in his frame, though it’s a close thing. “And, of course, Eärwen.”

“You never did like her.”

“And she never liked me. The past months were hell on Anairë, I think. Listening to our constant bickering!”

“Once,” says Maedhros, blinking at her, “you wouldn’t have cared.”

Nerdanel leans forward, and presses a kiss to Maedhros’ brow, against cool, unscarred skin. When she pulls away, he’s looking at her like she’s struck him, or done something terrible, or perhaps just found the tenderest spot in his fëa that he did not know still existed.

“I’ve learned to pay attention to more important things now,” Nerdanel tells him.

Then, safe in his arms, covered in blankets, on a soft bed, Nerdanel lets herself drift off to sleep once again.

…

She wakes first; Maedhros has twisted away from her over the night, lying flat on his stomach and snoring into his elbow. It’s a sight that Nerdanel’s seen so many times- in Tirion, lit by silver and gold, her sons curled together like so many wolfpups, content and warm- that she has to swallow thrice to dislodge the lump in her throat.

Nerdanel turns away and stalks outside.

She cannot let herself be lost to memory. She will not let herself be lost to memory; Nerdanel has enough burdens not to let this one weigh her spine as well.

She climbs the stone outcrop that she’d had to her back instead, ignoring the guards that cluster at the base with wary looks. Nerdanel feels almost fine- not normal, but her reserves are back to at least above baseline- and so is her balance, and she knows her body far, far better than any other ever can.

Who was it who bore seven sons? Who was it who crafted and caressed and grew the fëa of seven sons, each shining and true and good, in their wombs?

None of them, that’s for certain.

The sun’s rays are warm on her cold limbs, and the wind ruffles Nerdanel’s hair, which has dried stiff from the orc blood matted in it. Nerdanel presses her palm to her left arm, not hard. Just enough to reassure herself.

“Mother,” says Mait- Maedhros. 

Nerdanel glances down, and waves him up. Maedhros obeys; he climbs up with quick, unconscious grace, and settles next to her, a line of warmth on the cold morning.

“I know this isn’t what you’re used to,” he says hesitantly. “The bedding, I mean. And the comfort. Himring isn’t much better- it’s very cold- but there are better lands- Estolad-”

“Not what I’m used to,” murmurs Nerdanel, and lets her nails dig into her arm, feels the blood damp the cloth further and wick it to her skin, before she lets go. “If I’m unused to it, ‘tis because I’ve spent the past months sleeping on cold stone and nothing softer. A bed is more comfort than I’ve had since leaving Aman.”

Maedhros’ lips twitch. “Not even on the boat?”

“Never travel with the Teleri,” Nerdanel tells him. “They insist on hammocks.”

He laughs, the sound bursting from him like he’s surprised to hear it himself. “I’d missed you, Ammë,” he says, after a moment. 

“I missed you,” Nerdanel replies. She feels the tears prick her eyes again. “All of you.”

“I can see that you’re hurt,” Maedhros says carefully. “You’re not fine. Will you tell me what’s hurting you? If it’s something that Morgoth did- you said you were going to Angband-”

“I did go to Angband.” Nerdanel looks away from Maitimo, to the mountains in the far distance, pale purple shading into invisibility, gleaming silver in the colorless morning light. “But it is not Morgoth that hurts me, Maedhros, not now.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s your father,” says Nerdanel wearily. “Your father. That is this pain, and we cannot fix it as you wish. There’s only one thing we can do: we must go, and find your brothers, and speak to them. I’ll only say this once, and I’ll only say it to all seven of you. Together. Do you understand me?”

Maedhros slowly tilts his head. “We can go to Maglor’s home. It isn’t anything much; not a fortress, not a city- but he’ll be there.”

“I saw Vinyamar, and was not entirely impressed,” Nerdanel tells him. “I’m not one to care for the architecture; that was always Nolofinwë’s brood.”

“Fingolfin’s,” Maedhros corrects.

“I have had other things on my mind than learning another language,” says Nerdanel dryly, rising to her feet. She manages to scrape up a smile, though it feels thin and worn on her face. “How long do you estimate it to take to reach Makalaurë?”

“A week?”

“A week.” Nerdanel sways, at the harsh blow of reality, and allows herself three breaths of bone-deep apprehension before she tamps it down. “Well. The earlier we get there, the better.”

And then she’ll have to wait for the others to come, and that will be another week, at the least- and-

No. 

Nerdanel has faced more difficult tasks. These lies and these smokescreens she shall build, however painful, however bloody, shall be built: Nerdanel knows enough to know her own determination. She can last.

She will last.

…

What neither Maedhros nor Nerdanel know is that Maedhros’ six brothers are currently in Himring, trying desperately to understand what’s happened to him. There’s no threatening letters on his desk to spur him to Angband; there’s no plans for invasion or imminent danger to spur him to leave Himring; it all seems, to all of them, like their eldest brother just went-

Well.

Mad.

One morning, Maedhros woke up, and fled Himring with his forty best warriors, and still hasn’t returned.

Finally, Caranthir offers to establish an ósanwë connection. Maedhros loathes it; he has ever since Fingon’s rescue. But surely these are extenuating circumstances! 

Maglor, who’d give a lot never to have the responsibility of wrangling the five of them again, agrees immediately, and they wait with bated breath for the result.

I’ll come to Himring, then, Maedhros replies, when Caranthir tells him what’s happening, but he sounds distracted. Are all of you there?

Yes, says Caranthir. I just told you that.

Don’t leave. He pauses, and for the first time in the conversation, Caranthir feels like he actually has Maedhros’ full attention. Caranthir, says Maedhros, and there’s a delicate, gentle warmth there that Caranthir hasn’t heard in- fuck, since Alqualondë. Which shouldn’t feel quite so long ago as it does. Moryo. It’s not bad news. In fact, it’s- it’s the best news we’ve had in a long time. In a really long time.

I think you should tell me what this news is, Caranthir says. You know how Curvo gets with surprises.

Curufin elbows him, hard, and Caranthir takes it the breathlessness in his lungs with all the stoicism of an elder, more world-wise brother. 

I don’t have permission, says Maedhros immediately, and then he sends a burst of warmth through their bond: the equivalent of a hug. I’ll see you soon.

“Er,” says Amrod, when Caranthir remains frozen, shocked by the abrupt slicing of their mental connection. “Permission? Who does he need permission from?” 

Who the hell can give Nelyo permission any longer?

“Now it’s getting interesting,” mutters Curufin.

Maglor swallows and rises to his feet. “If there’s something more going on, we’ll have to put a stop to it. Keep your wits about you, all of you. There’s a week; we need to get ready. If he’s really been taken in by Morgoth…”

“You wouldn’t,” says Caranthir flatly.

“Stop him?” Maglor swallows again. “Yes, I would. Not kill him. But- better we deal with it quietly. Send your people away, if you came with a retinue.” He eyes Caranthir until Caranthir acquiesces with an impatient jerk of his head. “And make any arrangements for an extended stay in Himring; it looks like we’ll need to keep an eye on our brother.”

“You,” says Curufin sweetly, leaning forward, “are not king, Kanafinwe.”

Maglor’s face pales, but his shoulders are set in the same angles as their mother’s would have been: immovable as stone. Immovable as those that make stone move.

“I do not need to be king to know sense,” he says coolly. “And I do not need to be king to know that if our brother is hurt, you will not stop at anything to keep him safe.” Maglor’s lips thin into blades of white against his face. “Do not question me again, Curufinwë. This is the time to stand together, not apart. Or would you have Fingon save Maedhros again, while we languish in comfort and snow?”

It’s a good blow, swiftly delivered and ruthlessly administered, and Curufin takes it with his usual response to irritating brothers- flushed cheeks, downturned eyes, pursed lips.

And silence, which is always a good thing.

“Any other questions?”

Celegorm exhales noisily. “How long do you think it’ll take?”

“To get Nelyo back to himself?” Maglor shrugs very evocatively, in that manner that only singers or trained performers can deliver. “Let’s say a month, and work from there. And, Celegorm?”

“Yes?”

“We are together, in this.”

He doesn’t say it as a question, but they all know it needs an answer. For a long moment, Caranthir waits, breathless, for Celegorm’s response; if he decides to support Curufin, then Caranthir’s going to support Maglor, and the twins are likely going to come to his side but it’s not absolute, and that means they’ll need to confine those two as well and only then-

Caranthir’s plans screech to a halt as Celegorm nods impatiently. 

“Yes,” he says. “Of course we are.”

…

Nerdanel starts singing to herself the moment that Himring comes into view, blurring out of sight and attention of those surrounding her. She can’t help it; the anxiety feeds the energy in her veins, and the jittery feeling of that is so inextricable from her anxiety that it’s not helping her control. Singing, little though it might be related to Nerdanel’s craft, is the easiest way of bleeding some of the energy off.

Which is why nobody sees her when she finally enters her son’s fortress.

Then Nerdanel sees her sons- they’re arrayed in the courtyard, though not all of them- and the shock of seeing their narrow, worn faces jolts her out of the song, enough for their gaze to fall on her.

Makalaurë, who’d started forward to greet Maedhros, stumbles to a dead halt. Someone chokes behind him, loud enough for Nerdanel to hear. Curufinwë, Nerdanel sees, has drawn a short sword, looking pale and wild-eyed.

I told you he was not ready to bear a sword, Nerdanel imagines telling Fëanáro, and the utter familiarity of that argument is enough to make her smile at her sons. Give it to him early enough and he’ll start thinking he can solve all his problems by waving steel at it. Manwë knows you do it enough without that excuse; Eru knows he’ll be worse.

“It’s good to see you again,” she says aloud.

“Ammë,” breathes Makalaurë. Then, louder, “Ammë-”

But before he can start towards her, Curufinwë drags him back, with a bruising grip. “Stay back,” he snarls. “Don’t-”

Nerdanel holds up her hands, ignoring the pain shooting down her left arm in favor of watching her son. “It’s been a long time, Curufinwë.”

“I don’t know who you are,” he hisses back at her. “I don’t know who you think you are!”

“Has your memory really gotten that bad?” asks Nerdanel.

“Don’t,” says Maedhros through gritted teeth, “provoke him.”

“I’ll do what I wish,” says Nerdanel haughtily, before pinning Curufinwë with a look that’s not precisely a glare.

Her moronic son keeps talking in Sindarin, like she can understand him. Like she’ll bother to pay attention to him.

“A trick,” she thinks he says, “by fucking Morgoth-”

“Oh, talk in Quenya,” she snaps back to him. “And use some of that intellect your father apparently gave you, Curufinwë. Do you really think that Morgoth would- what? I don’t even know what you think this trick is supposed to be!- lend my appearance to some poor elf?”

“Try to silence us- try to- to- frighten us into-”

“Quenya,” says Nerdanel loudly, before rolling her eyes at Maedhros. “Oh, stop glaring at me. I cannot understand him- it’s not my fault that he talks so quickly.”

“It’s the diplomacy you’re trampling into the ground that worries me,” Maedhros mutters back to her.

Nerdanel barely stops herself from rolling her eyes again. “I’ll learn Sindarin as soon as I stop having the weight of the world on my shoulders. And I’m sure that unless I go to Elwë’s court and start screaming in Quenya, he won’t hold me talking to my sons against me, yes?”

Maedhros has a look on his face like he’s unsure of that statement, but also doesn’t want to get called further into the discussion. 

“Perhaps,” says Makalaurë in a welcome distraction, leaning on Curufinwë with a heavy hand- Nerdanel suspects it’s to keep Curufinwë’s blade lowered, as much for support for himself, “we can continue this inside?”

“Yes,” says Nerdanel pleasantly, and ignores Maedhros’ suspicious look. He might well feel strongly about that; she certainly hasn’t been very open to him over this week. “I’m sure you have many questions.”

…

Inside, they walk to a councilroom. There’s a nice table there, and Nerdanel seats herself swiftly so she’s getting the sun on her back; she’s too cold nowadays, and it’s only going to get worse before it gets better. Better she has every advantage that she can get.

The others spill inside quickly after that, staring at her like she’s a ghost. 

Well. Nerdanel can understand that. Of course they must not have so much as dreamt that they’d see her ever again; not in this life, certainly. 

She takes the initial shocked silence to study them as much as she can: Makalaurë’s hair is shorter, and not done in full braids any longer; Tyelkormo’s face has a few scars like he’s thrown himself into a thicket of thorns and didn’t come out the victor; Carnistir stands prouder than she’s seen him since he returned from a clerkship in Vanyamar; Curufinwë, beneath his anger, looks like the richer air of Beleriand suits him more than Aman; the Ambarussa are quieter and stiller now, grown into themselves, watching her with careful eyes.

“Your hair,” says Umbarto suddenly. 

Nerdanel reaches up to finger a strand of it, grimacing. The others drift a little closer, and Nerdanel considers being concerned by the vaguely threatening air of it before dismissing it out of hand. These are her sons, Valar damn it all. She’ll not be afraid of them if it kills her.

“I know,” she says aloud. “It really doesn’t suit me at all, does it?”

“What did you do?” asks Makalaurë.

“I dyed it,” says Nerdanel. “Why, did you think it changed color on its own?”

Carnistir’s lips thin. “We heard rumors.”

“Of who?”

“Indis.”

“Grandmother Indis,” says Maedhros, before Nerdanel can correct him. When they all gawk at him and Nerdanel sits back, satisfied, he sighs. “She is… very concerned about proper titles.”

“Familial titles,” corrects Nerdanel. Then she turns back to Carnistir. “What rumors?”

“That her hair went white with grief,” says Curufinwë flatly.

Nerdanel snorts. “That might well have been a greater tragedy to everyone in Vanyamar than all else that happened,” she replies. “And we should all be glad that it didn’t happen, lest their wails deafen all of Aman. No, her hair didn’t change. And neither did mine, as it goes; I dyed it to keep a… lower profile. I certainly didn’t want rumors of three elleths running around Beleriand with silver and red and black hair.”

“Three elleths?” asks Tyelkormo.

“Anairë, Eärwen and I.”

The meeting fractures from there into smaller groups- Makalaurë’s speaking very quietly and very quickly to Maedhros; Carnistir, Tyelkormo and Curufinwë are interrogating her incredulously; the Ambarussa are going back and forth between both groups, and also discussing amongst themselves. They all sound so…

“And she’s…” whispers Makalaurë, barely audible in a lull in the conversation.

“Our mother,” says Maedhros firmly. “She’s a bit- ah- deranged. But she’s definitely our mother.”

Nerdanel leans forwards, catching his eye. “Deranged?”

Makalaurë flushes. “Ammë,” he says. “We just-”

“No, no,” says Nerdanel, enjoying herself. “Please, go ahead. I’d like to hear the ending.”

“You were saying that you were going to go into Angband,” says Maedhros, louder, now that everyone’s watching him. “Leave aside that it’s patently untrue-”

“-is it, though-”

“-but you’re clearly outside of Angband now, and alone, and-” he shakes his head, before turning to his brothers. “You should have seen her when I rode there: horseless, weaponless, she had three orcs holding her arms and she was managing to crush two of their kneecaps with her feet. Ammë, you looked like you were going mad.”

“And I told you that it wasn’t Angband that drove me mad,” says Nerdanel serenely. 

“You cannot blame our father for everything!” he explodes.

Nerdanel looks at him, and sees the hand that he presses flat against the table, hard enough to keep it from shaking. The others all fall silent; they look a little stunned. Maedhros himself is pale, but he keeps his eyes locked on hers, a mutinous kind of defiance in them.

“Fine,” she says, and lets the levity fade from her voice. “Fine. You’re right; there has been enough dancing around the truth. But if you think I didn’t tell you the truth of Angband- well, there’s only one way to convince you, isn’t there? I’ll have to show you.”

“Show us,” says Curufinwë, voice still flat as a sheared field of wheat. “Show us what?”

Nerdanel inclines her head. “Do me a favor.”

“You- we-” Caranthir sounds strangely choked. “We don’t-”

“-trust me? Yes, I understand.” 

Irritating though it is, Nerdanel does understand. 

And irritating it must be, because otherwise it will become hurtful; and Nerdanel cannot bear to think of her hurt now, when it all feels like a dense stone in her belly. She has enough stones in her bones. 

“It is nothing much that I ask for,” says Nerdanel calmly. “Go to the other side of the room: at the door. And whatever you see- whatever I do- you will not stop me. You will not call for your guards. You will not stop me.”

They pause. Then Umbarto asks, “If we do interfere?”

“Then I will die,” Nerdanel tells him. She rolls her eyes at Maedhros’ alarmed look. “Not immediately. But it will have to be done eventually, and it is painful enough that I’d rather it be done now than later. And if you interfere, the chances of me dying becomes… much higher. I know what I am doing; I do not think you do. Not unless one of has chosen a mastery in healing over this past century?”

Maedhros is the first to step back. The others follow him slowly, retreating to the door; Makalaurë is the last, and he steps towards Nerdanel. 

“Please,” he says, and his eyes are shining things, bright and brilliant as Telperion ever was. “If you die now- after-”

“I will not die,” Nerdanel tells him, and doesn’t quite dare to press a hand to his shoulder. 

But oh, oh, how her throat aches, and how she wishes she could throw herself into his arms, how she wishes they could trust her-

No. She’s so close. She’s almost done. 

She can do this.

“Do you remember my pack, Maedhros? The one that holds tokens and letters for your cousins?”

Maedhros swallows. “Yes,” he says.

“Did you look into it?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you find?”

“Letters. A few- other things.”

“Mmm.” Nerdanel nods. “I thought you might search there. And this- this is something that ought to be given to all seven of you equally; never to one more than the other, as you were all your father’s sons, as you were all loved, equally, and without greater favor or less. I would not have shown it to you if you were not accompanied by all of the others.”

“Ammë,” says Ambarussa. He wavers, a little, expression not quite so harsh as his brothers’. “What are you saying?”

“Watch,” says Nerdanel softly.

She lets the knife jammed up her sleeve- the last knife, the one that she hasn’t removed since the evening after leaving Anairë and Eärwen, slip into her palm. It’s not much of a knife, but it’s wickedly sharp and, above all else, clean. Maedhros jumps at the sight- there’s a reason why Nerdanel hasn’t removed her shirt in this past week, and it’s not only because she had no other clothes- and the others flinch.

Nerdanel presses it to the inside of her elbow, then pushes down.

Carnistir makes a sharp sound and strides forwards, but Nerdanel only glances up once and he stops, stricken. Tyelkormo gets farther; he grasps her wrist, ringing it in his fingers and effectively stopping her from moving, though he doesn’t allow his touch to alter the motion of her hand.

“Ammë,” he whispers. “Whatever this is-”

“-it’s necessary,” finishes Nerdanel. “I know my own hröa, Tyelkormo. Now remove your hand. If I faint, you may heal me. Otherwise step back.”

She waits until he lets go, and then continues opening up her own skin. She hears the catch in Tyelkormo’s throat when he realizes that she’s not just randomly slicing at it; there’s knotted thread there, holding her flesh together. 

Nerdanel hums a light song of healing- not enough to do anything other than dull the pain and slow the bloodflow- and focuses beyond everything else on extracting the gems she’d stuck inside of her arm the evening after leaving Eärwen and Anairë. It’s a delicate process, even more than when she first did it; then, Nerdanel had focused on shoving the gems in and then hiding the evidence as best as she could, but now she has to ensure the severed nerves and blood vessels all grow back as soon as she gets the jewels out.

Someone- Nerdanel thinks it’s Curufinwë- makes a ragged, pained sound when she nicks a proper artery and fresh blood gushes out. Nerdanel drowns it out and focuses- there, a little to the left, get the leverage and flip-

One jewel drops onto the council table, followed swiftly by the other.

The Silmarils are pink, shining white even through the slick of Nerdanel’s blood. She glances up once- to take in her sons’ faces, which range from surprise to confusion to shock to awe to disbelief- before focusing again on her healing. 

It’s a relief more than anything, the Silmarils being gone from her. 

When she’d first embedded them into her arm, Nerdanel had needed a method of keeping them safe that wasn’t just shoving them in her pack. She hadn’t had another person to keep watch as she slept; and Nerdanel was too damned tired not to sleep. The Silmarils gave her energy. Even when Nerdanel herself felt scraped thin, they gave her energy to go a little bit further, a little bit faster. They’d saved her life. She knows this. 

But when she had enough energy and had to appear normal in front of Maedhros, they lent her too much.

For a week now, Nerdanel’s felt like she was going to vibrate out of her skin. 

The pain in her arm now grounds her. It’s only after she’s sung the skin back- it’ll be raw and inflamed for a few more days, but Nerdanel’s no healer so she’ll take functionality over the looks that most other elves prize- that Nerdanel allows herself to sit down once more, and look at her sons.

None of them have moved.

“Well,” says Nerdanel. Her voice shakes a little, but that could be for the pain in her arm as much as the pain in her throat and lungs and heart. “They say that the longer the separation, the finer the gifts that ought to be given. I do hope you have something to match for the Silmarils.”

“I,” says Maedhros. “How?”

Nerdanel reaches out and rubs a glob of blood off the jewel’s surface, until it shines through even whiter and brighter. Makalaurë’s jaw is hanging open, quite unattractively, though she supposes she can give him a pass this once; there’s only family around, and if he’d been convinced of Nerdanel’s derangement-

“It’s a long story,” she says. “A very long one. And there are things I cannot tell you, because of the choices that we’ve made. That is to say, I will not tell you the how of it.”

“Why?” asks Carnistir.

“Because it would be a lie, and I’ve not enough blood in my veins right now to lie properly.”

Tyelkormo’s hand closes over her shoulder, and he runs a gentle hand over her forearm, ignoring the blood to touch the skin. She can feel his fëa trying to examine it, and she lets herself relax into his touch and the warmth of his skin.

Curufinwë’s still staring at the gems; he hasn’t looked away. 

“So,” says Nerdanel, glancing over the table to look at Maedhros, “when I say that I walked into Angband, I was not lying.”

“I can see that,” says Maedhros, before he collapses into a chair. “I don’t- how? Why? You didn’t tell me- when you were-”

“-of the Silmarils? Of course not.” Nerdanel sighs as Tyelkormo’s healing takes hold, and the pain fades into a cool kind of numbness. “Eärwen did, though, so you might hear something from Dorthonion, if you haven’t already. We had to choose what to do after- what happened in Angband.”

“What happened in Angband?”

Carnistir’s face flushes, but he doesn’t flinch; just glares furiously at the table, not looking Nerdanel in the eye. 

“We defeated Morgoth,” says Nerdanel plainly. “We stole the Silmarils from him, Eärwen and Anairë and I, and then watched Angband burn.”

Well. They’d set fire to Angband, if she’s being specific, but Nerdanel’s fairly certain that’s one of those pesky details that Anairë’s going to leverage for all that she’s worth. 

“You,” says Tyelkormo, voice so loud and close to her ear that Nerdanel flinches away. “You- you just- what the fuck-”

“We’ve stood watch for a hundred years and you just waltzed inside,” says Makalaurë.

Nerdanel threads her fingers through Tyelkormo’s hands and tightens her grip until he winces and settles down, though there’s still hectic spots of red high on his cheeks. “You should have thought of a better strategy, really,” she says, calm enough and cold enough to silence all seven of them. “Even if you hadn’t thought of it before- Findekáno’s rescue of Maedhros should have changed your approach. We cannot defeat Morgoth on scale or power or strength. But trickery and guile is not beyond us, and all seven of you have the blood of creativity running through you.” She smiles at Carnistir, and he smiles back reflexively before it freezes on his face. “Though it helped us, in the end. Morgoth watched you with great fervor, and never noticed the three elleths that snuck in to defeat him.”

“So we were a distraction,” says Tyelkormo, and Nerdanel turns to him, smiles, again, helplessly and wide as a sunrise.

“What a good distraction it was!” she exclaims, and then leans forwards and butts her face against his shoulder, smothering the laugh that threatens to rise up. “We could not have achieved it if you’d already sent people into his domain. If he was already watchful- we wouldn’t have been able to stop him at all, and in the end that is what matters, yes?”

“Stop him,” says Curufinwë quietly.

He doesn’t lilt it like a question, but it’s clearly not just a statement.

Nerdanel leans forwards, contorting herself across the table so she’s extending a hand to Curufinwë even as she doesn’t let go of Tyelkormo. “Do you have my pack?”

“Yes,” says Maedhros, and lifts it.

“Open it.”

He empties it out onto the table. Many things fall: little stones, feathers, beads and jewels. A packet of letters, neatly labelled. A braid of hair, white as polished silver and speckled with bits of dye like tarnish. And a rusting, heavy circlet, with three empty indents.

“Is that…”

“Yes,” Nerdanel answers Umbarto’s half-formed question. “Morgoth’s crown.”

“How’d you get it?” breathes Makalaurë.

Nerdanel lifts a shoulder. “Anairë shot an arrow that knocked it off his head.”

“No,” says Carnistir.

“Ammë,” says Curufinwë, and takes her hand. He’s shaking faintly; he’s gone completely white. Nerdanel lets her thumb run over the side of his wrist as comfortingly as she knows. “This is- this is everything. Everything our father would have-”

“-don’t,” says Maedhros, sharply, but the damage is done.

Nerdanel rises from her chair to make her way to Curufinwë, ignoring Tyelkormo’s hand on her waist or Maedhros’ entreaties. On the way, she considers all the emotions in her chest: the anger, the hurt, the grief, the love, the pity. She still hasn't decided which one will take precedence when she kneels before Curufinwë, but then she looks up into his eyes and there is nothing else that she can do, not as a mother: Nerdanel cups his face in her palms, her thumbs on the apples of his cheeks, her palms resting in the hollows. 

“Loved?” asks Nerdanel gently. “Oh, Curufinwë. If this is the measure of your father’s life and works, it is a pitiable measure indeed. There have been greater acts of courage that Arda has seen, and greater acts of creativity as well. If these gems were my own, I would cast them into flame for the pain that they’ve brought to my family.”

“But they are not,” he whispers. “They are not, because you left us.”

Nerdanel leans forwards, so she’s pressing her face to his knees, and she can bow her shoulders, let the misery and hurt swamp her for a long moment. “And so we come to it,” she says.

“You left,” says Curufinwë, and his voice doesn’t go higher with his anger but rather lower; colder, and harder, like the jutting spires of ice that Angarato had shown them of the Helcaraxë. “You walked away, and then you didn’t come back, and you told us that we’d deserve every grief heaped on our heads, and then you do this? How dare you. How dare you!”

“Because I love you,” says Nerdanel wearily. She leans back on her heels and looks up at him. “Do you think anger can take that love away? I was wrong to curse you. I was wrong. Is that what you wish me to say? I will say it now and a hundred times more: I was wrong. I knew I was wrong the moment my very fëa felt a wound like a whip across it and I heard of Maitimo’s capture.”

Someone inhales very loudly, and Nerdanel turns to look at Maedhros. She does not know what her face looks like, but she does not look away from her first son, the child that brought her this far, the child whose pain has driven her to destroy the very foundations of their world. And Maedhros looks back at her steadily, something cracking away across his face like a mask falling to pieces: some old, old fear driven back into the shadows from which it came.

“You were there,” he says lowly. “It wasn’t- I thought maybe it had been my imagination. My… dreams.”

“I wish I could have been there more often,” Nerdanel tells him.

His jaw trembles before he clenches it. Makalaurë places a hand on his shoulder, tugs him into his chest, and Nerdanel turns back to Curufinwë, satisfied that he isn’t alone.

“I could not imagine what those words ever meant,” Nerdanel says. “I had no understanding of that kind of cruelty or darkness. And, yes, Curufinwë, if the price of your flight from Aman had been separation alone, I would not have come. But it was not, was it? It was death and darkness and torture and pain, unending and unfathomable. If what you thought would happen- if the bargain you thought you were making- was held truly, I would have remained in Aman. But it was not. And I would not have abandoned any of you to that cruelty no matter what words I’d said.”

He looks down at her, with those eyes that look so similar to Fëanáro’s, and he says, “So you don’t regret leaving us.”

“I have said I was wrong.” Nerdanel shrugs, exaggerated. “But I think you were wrong, as well.”

“To do what? To seek vengeance?”

Nerdanel’s lips twist. “To be so stupid in seeking vengeance, yes.”

“If you’re so smart and successful,” says Umbarto, carefully, “then where’s the third Silmaril?”

“With Anairë and Eärwen,” replies Nerdanel, though she doesn’t look away from Curufinwë. “On its way to Aman, because what happened to Morgoth is… temporary. And novel. None of us know how long it will hold him. The official story- the one I will be telling your uncle and anyone else- is that a jealous Maia was prodded by our songs into acting, and we used the confusion to take the Silmarils and escape. To the seven of you, I say that it is a lie, but it is a lie you well let be, because there are other things that must be bargained for with the truth. Do you understand me?”

“That Silmaril is ours,” says Curufinwë quietly.

“And I would not keep it from you.” Nerdanel breathes in slowly, then out just as slowly. “It’s being used to lead your aunts back to Aman. As a key, and not a bargaining chip; that’s what I agreed to with Anairë when she left, and if nothing else, she holds to her promises. They will be back within twenty years.”

“Twenty years,” whispers Curufinwë.

He raises a hand to his cheek. Presses against the thin trail of tears there, and looks at the shine on his fingertips wonderingly. Nerdanel reaches up and places one hand on his other cheek, warm. She feels something in her own chest give way when he curls into it, and then launches himself forwards to embrace her so tightly some of the stitches in her arm give way. 

“I don’t know,” he says. Then, again and again, into her ear: “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know-”

“Yes,” Nerdanel whispers back. She feels someone else come from behind, and suddenly she’s sandwiched between two sons, and then there are others, at her side, in front and behind and to her sides, plastering themselves over her with tears and laughter and murmured, wordless sounds of comfort, and she clutches as many of them as close to her as she can.

“Yes,” says Nerdanel, and doesn’t know if any of them can even hear her, but it doesn’t matter, because: “Yes. I know, my boys. We’ll figure it out. We’ll figure this out together.”

Together, she thinks, and has never felt stronger.

…

…

They take off from Mount Taras within three months of leaving Angband. It’s a quick journey, made quicker by the fact that everyone’s very, very confused. There aren’t many orcs around; those that are remain disorganized and- while vicious enough in small groups- a rapidly decreasing population through the mountains.

Eärwen’s starting to worry about Anairë, though.

She’s been so focused on defeating Morgoth that she hadn’t focused on the aftermath; and an Anairë with a goal but no plan is an Anairë obsessed with creating a plan. 

An obsessed Anairë is not a healthy Anairë.

“We’ll manage,” Eärwen tells her once.

Anairë’s face goes rigid as marble. “No,” she says. “We won’t. Can’t you see? The things we’re planning to do… the Valar will never forgive us. We must rely on so much. I need- leverage. More leverage. And I’m trying to create leverage out of thin air like it’s something that’s possible!”

“You need to think about this.” Eärwen tugs the sail around, so they’re on a straighter course, and drops down to touch Anairë’s shoulder. “Not panic.” 

“I need Nerdanel,” says Anairë hopelessly, burying her face in her hands. “I need her. We pushed each other onwards when it came down to it- when we were afraid- and now I’m here alone- and it’s too much-”

“You have me,” murmurs Eärwen. “And you know that we shall do what must be done. Fear did not stop us then; it will not stop us now. You have me, Anairë. Let me help you.”

Slowly, slowly, Anairë looks up at her. There are tears in her eyes.

“I’ve been so unkind to you,” she whispers. “I- I was so angry, and then I- I hurt you. I blamed you. It was easy and it was simple, but it was so unfair to you- and- and-” she shakes her head, dropping it to slot against Eärwen’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

“I wouldn’t have come if not for you,” says Eärwen calmly. “I wouldn’t have been able to save my children if not for you. That is not something to apologize for.”

“But my anger is.”

“I won’t deny that,” says Eärwen, and pulls away so she can smile at Anairë, so the sting of her words can be lessened by the warmth of her face. “I love you, Anairë. I always have. Do you remember when they all left Aman? I held you back because I could not bear to lose you, too, after everyone else had disappeared. I could not have borne it. Not at all.”

“I’m glad you did it,” says Anairë. Eärwen frowns at her, and she smiles, thin and small. “I am. If I had followed Nolofinwë, I would not have known what I’m capable of. It was a terrible thing to do; but I cannot deny that I chose to stay as well. Nolofinwë didn’t come to me, but I didn’t chase after him either.” She swallows, and trembles, but continues still. “I cannot blame you for my own failures. Not any longer.”

Eärwen tips her forehead against Anairë’s, and feels her warmth, feels her strength, like the roaring surge of an underground river: unexpected but unmistakable. 

“Then let us forgive each other,” she says. “And let us do this, Anairë, this last thing: let us do it properly and goodly, and win what can be won!”

…

There is a story that Eärwen heard while in Endórë but not after reaching Aman, one that she hasn’t heard in all the ages since: of two stars that orbit one another, one white and small and dim and the other fair and gold and shining, never touching, forever dancing. The golden one loves the white star, and forever reaches out, forever offers more and more and more, until the white one takes on too much. The white star loves the golden one, and forever accepts, until the gold offers too much.

The white star explodes, too fierce, too heavy, too much. In the process, it kills the gold star, and all the stars around it, and does not even have the time to mourn.

This is a story told in a world before the elves knew Valar existed, before they knew what Maia were. It is a story of the dangers of love: of its consuming nature. There is no blame to be assigned, for the gold offered and the white took; not unless the blame is to both the gold and the white; but how can you blame someone for being in love? In a world of danger and grief and darkness, love all-consuming is as killing as a blade and the freezing winter.

Eärwen has never loved Arafinwë with the love of someone all-consuming. She does not think she loves Anairë that way, either, but-

But.

…

There are things that Eärwen will do for Anairë that she will never even consider for anyone else.

…

When they land in Aman, Eärwen swings off the boat to meet her father.

“Father,” she says quietly.

“King Olwë,” corrects her mother. There is a high flush on her cheeks: anger, raw as the sun’s rays. “You are not our daughter any longer.”

“No?” asks Eärwen. She steps forwards, head held high.

This is what Nerdanel will never understand of her: Eärwen has her own pride, and it is as unbending as adamant in her spine. Just because Eärwen does not scream to the stars for that pride, just because Eärwen does not fight and bleed and die for it does not mean it does not exist.

It is not anger that propels Eärwen forward, but it is pride. The pride of her people, the pride of her actions, the pride of her love. She will not be punished for doing the right thing. Not here, not now, not like this.

“Who buried our people, then?” she asks. “Who buried our brothers and wept for their deaths? Who organized the crops of a world without the Trees when you were lost to your grief? Who washed the blood from these sands with their own two hands?” Eärwen does not look away from her mother. “I am the princess of the Teleri, and I shall be such until my dying day. I am your daughter, and I have done what needs to be done because of it.”

“You defied the Valar,” says Olwë. 

“For my children,” replies Eärwen. “Of course I did. Of course I would, again and again. There is no law and no hate and no strife that could keep me from them.”

“Not even their own actions?” asks her mother.

Eärwen looks up at the stars, then back to her mother: her mother named Hyanda, named for the blades she’d once forged in Endórë to keep herself and her people alive, her mother, who’s ever been as sharp as steel and twice as cutting.

“If my brothers could return to you tomorrow, would you not do anything as well?”

“Not if it means killing people!”

“And who have we slain?” asks Anairë, stepping off the boat and matching Eärwen. In her hand is the Silmaril, and it shines so bright on the beach that all those gathered recoil in shock and terror. Hyanda and Olwë stare at it, disbelieving. “The thralls of Angamando, yes; we could not save them. I’ve been compiling lists of their names as we knew, but there was nothing we could have done to save them. And we have not hurt any other elf. Not any other being that did not try to kill us first. Tell me, Queen Hyanda: would you blame us for slaying orcs and balrogs? For trying to stop Morgoth himself?”

“I,” says Hyanda, face white. She’s never taken well to people proving her wrong, or being cornered, either physically or verbally. “I would not- I would not blame you for anything other than pride.”

Anairë’s face softens a little. “Is pride enough to disown your daughter, when you have raised her to be a daughter of kings? When she is your own heir?”

Before Hyanda can answer, Olwë speaks.

“Where did you get that?” he asks. 

“Morgoth’s own crown,” replies Eärwen. 

People gasp. Olwë’s face lifts to the horizon, as if looking for a storm of flame and fury to accompany them.

“He will not be following,” says Anairë flatly. “We ensured that. Even now, Nerdanel is in Beleriand with the two other jewels, providing distraction and explanation to my husband and his people.”

“You should have stayed there,” says Hyanda.

“Did you think I returned for you?” Eärwen returns, and takes no pleasure in the subtle, miserable flinch of her mother’s shoulders. “We came to speak to the Valar. There are things that must be done. If you could give us horses, it will aid us in leaving Alqualondë all the faster.”

Hyanda’s face tightens. “After everything you’ve done- after leaving- after-”

“Very well,” says Olwë wearily, and they both turn to him, surprised. He’s always left matters of family up to his wife; but then, Eärwen supposes that this is a matter of both family and state. “I wish to hear what you shall say to the Valar as well. Bring us horses! We ride to Máhanaxar tonight!”

No offer of food or rest. Her father’s got his own methods of showing anger, and while quieter than her mother’s, Eärwen knows them to be just as effective. 

Well, it matters not; Eärwen worries more for her reunion with Arafinwë, not her parents. Their reactions she’s been able to guess, but not her husband’s. And she has a feeling that locking him in her rooms after knocking him out had not been… the most diplomatic way of handling the situation.

Oh, who is Eärwen fooling?

She’d panicked, and now she must deal with the consequences. It won’t be easy. Of course it won’t be easy. 

She can only hope that their arguments- they’ll be private.

…

Arafinwë rides out to meet them when they’re close to Tirion, golden hair whipping behind him. When he sees Anairë and the Silmaril, his horse goes still for the briefest of moments. Then he spurs his horse into a gallop, into a sprint, and blows past Olwë and Anairë and everyone else to stop in front of her.

Eärwen’s throat hurts. “Husband,” she manages to force out.

His eyes are golden and shining, like the sun at dawn. Like the sun that had lit the sky the morning after defeating Morgoth: clean and fresh and beautiful. 

“Wife,” he says, and in full view of her parents, of his city, Arafinwë bends forward in his saddle and kisses Eärwen.

…

Later, she asks him how he could forgive her.

You forgave me for being imperfect, he says, in their tent, hands so warm on her own. Once, when I did more terrible things: when I thought to overlook terrible actions. How could I not search for that same forgiveness in my own heart?

You cannot forgive me simple because I forgave you!

No, says Arafinwë, with terrible, terrible gentleness. Understand me: I do not forgive you because you forgave me. I forgive you because you showed me that it is possible to forgive unforgivable actions.

…

The Valar await them at the Ring of Doom. 

It’s Anairë that insists on everyone but for the kings to leave. Eärwen lets her; it makes sense for Anairë to take the brunt of the dislike, particularly when she’s got everyone in her family already in Beleriand. Eärwen’s role here is to be the diplomat, made even easier by the truth that she wants to be more diplomatic than Anairë’s instincts.

“Manwë Sulimo,” says Eärwen, kneeling and bowing her head. “We come to beg you for aid.”

“Aid,” says Namo derisively. “You, who have violated our words and every decree?”

“One decree,” says Anairë coolly. “Your own Doom, my lord. But we are not the only ones who broke it: you did, as well, in allowing Eärwen and I to return.”

“You would rather we have left you to the sea?”

“No,” says Eärwen hastily, sending a sharp look to Anairë. Yes, fine, Anairë’s angry, and she should show that anger, but there is also such a thing as too much. “But we come to ask for aid. For Morgoth is stopped and held in chains of flame: but we do not know for how long such chains shall last, and we have no desire to watch his fury overtake all of Beleriand.”

“Is this why you are here?” asks Varda. “To ask for our aid? Or to take it from us?”

“We would wish for it to be given,” says Eärwen slowly. “We would wish for this to be done by free will on all sides.”

“And if it is not?” says Varda.

Eärwen looks up at her. “Then we shall try our best to get it,” she says quietly. “With whatever tools we have at our disposal. We left behind our children, Varda Elentári. I did not even get to see them. What we have sacrificed to leave Aman, and then to return-” she shakes her head. “You blame Anairë,” Eärwen tells them. “I can see it in your eyes: you blame her for her actions. But she has lost a child. Her youngest son, the youngest of all of Finwë’s grandchildren- dead, dead, and it was a death caused by Morgoth’s own armies.”

“They made their choices,” says Varda.

“A choice made with a sword to one’s throat is not a choice,” replies Anairë. She swallows, and her eyes are bright as melting, shining silver as she looks up at the queen. “A choice made in foolishness and despair, without knowing what those choices would bring- that is not a choice either. My son is dead. And it is for love of those left behind that I come here. To ask- and yes, to beg, if you ask it- for aid. To stop Morgoth.”

“How is it our responsibility?” says Vána. She tosses her hair back, then continues in a voice that whistles oddly, like a spring wind. “He is in Endórë. Not Aman.”

“He is your king’s brother,” Eärwen replies, a little reproachfully.

“And yet,” says Tulkas, “you ask our king to kill his brother.”

So.

For as much as Eärwen and Anairë had planned this, clearly the Valar know how to ambush a person as well. Or at least use their strengths: Vána’s innocence, Tulkas’ brashness, Varda’s arrogance. Eärwen pauses, and Anairë takes up the argument without missing a beat.

“Not kill,” says Anairë. “Imprison. We have not come here to ask for the impossible, my lord.”

“No,” says Manwë, speaking for the first time. “Though it seems that you have done the impossible yourself. Tell me, how did you defeat my brother, when even I would have had such difficulty?”

Eärwen turns to Anairë, who bites her lip and stands straighter, glancing around her: Ingwe and Arafinwë and Olwë are all clustered near to the door, listening intently. There are Maia hanging around them all, flickering over Varda’s head and fluttering over Vaire’s robes. 

“Well,” says Anairë. “It went something like this…”

…

They stay for a full moon’s turn in the end, bargaining and yanking diplomacy out of people that don’t particularly want to be diplomatic or helpful. Eärwen learns to be patient even when she wants nothing more than to scream; Anairë, she learns, for all her snappishness and general air of irritability, has an endless store of patience with regards to the actual minutiae of crafting treaties. 

On the day that they finally sign off on it, Eärwen thinks she’ll dance a jig, she’s that relieved.

“Up,” says Anairë, when she sees Eärwen slumped against a wall. “We have to go.”

“Go,” says Eärwen flatly. “Go where?”

“To convince your father to convey us all across the Belegaer.” Her lips twitch, taking in Eärwen’s dismay. “Yes, yes. Whoever said that being a queen would be easy has always been very wrong.”

“I hate you,” Eärwen groans, and rises, and lets Anairë usher her out of Máhanaxar and east, towards Tirion, towards Alqualondë, towards Beleriand.

…

Just before reaching Alqualondë, Eärwen tells Anairë, “Let me speak to my father.”

“Are you certain?” she asks.

Eärwen thinks of everything that she’s done. She thinks of Anairë’s determination and Nerdanel’s stubbornness, and she thinks of the willpower it had taken her to resist Morgoth’s freezing spell, the will and the grit that Eärwen’s held in her spine since she was born. It is not anger in her veins; it is not pride.

It is love.

Everything that they’ve given to this mission shall not be made in vain because of her father’s bullishness.

“Yes,” says Eärwen. “There are some truths that must be made clear here.”

…

She does not want to do this. Eärwen thinks that must be made clear, at least in her own head: she hates doing this. She loves her parents. She always has. Thinking that they do not love her- thinking that she’s been disowned- is a cold, terrible hollow in her chest.

But Eärwen is a mother herself, now, and has more things to fight for than just the love her parents bear for her.

“Father,” she says. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

“A favor,” says Olwë. “A favor? You come here, after everything that you’ve done, and wish to ask for a favor?”

“Yes,” says Eärwen.

“Have you no shame?”

“No,” says Eärwen, turning to her mother. “But I know that you do. Which is why I’m here, by myself, and not with Anairë, and not with anyone else. This is a conversation between the three of us.”

Her hair is braided as she’d done when walking into Angband: braided high and thick over her temples, then loosing into free streams of silver just below her shoulders. The Eldar had worn these braids on hunts and in danger and in times of battle. Eärwen had thought before walking into her father’s rooms: This is not the least of the battles I’ve fought over the past months, and she’d then braided beads of silver and stone flecked blue and green into her hair. Blue for her own eyes, and green for the flecks in Findaráto’s eyes, for the courage that she remembers in him; the courage that could lead him to defy his family, the courage that could lead him to become the greatest elf that Eärwen’s ever known.

“Eärwen-”

“Avahaira,” says Eärwen gently, and her mother falls silent, stricken. “Name me, Mother. Name me the name you gave me. I know that you keep thinking it.”

“Enough,” says Olwë. “I tire of this.”

“You tire?” asks Eärwen. “You tire?”

“Do you have something to say to me, Avahaira Dispossessed?”

“Yes,” says Eärwen. “For you do not know, and you have never wished to know, but there are things that must be said before you refuse to give us aid.”

“Like what?” asks Hyanda.

“Do you remember your commands to us, the day Fëanáro came to Alqualondë as king?”

Olwë stares at her. “I told your brothers that- I… wished for…”

“Peace,” finishes Eärwen. “You meant it as a command for Fëanáro. Peace, and not war. But it was not Fëanáro nor the Noldor that drew their weapons first: it was your son. It was my brother that chose war.”

“So what are you saying?”

“That you can choose to obey the word of the law and lose all the children that you have,” Eärwen tells her parents. “Or you can choose to obey the spirit of our love, of a parent’s love. Either you let me be your daughter and aid me as a queen of the Noldor and remain parents to all three of your children, or you disown me and thereby disown the sons who disobeyed you at the Kinslaying as well, and become parentless in one fell swoop.” She smiles, tight and thin, at her mother. “A kind welcome it would be, when they return to life, to know they’re not welcome in your home. In their home.”

Hyanda folds her hands over her chest. “What is to say that we don’t simply disown you and keep them?”

“Because I know you to be just,” says Eärwen, and stands as she did before Morgoth, shoulders high, neck stiff, muscles loose with anticipation, braids shining and bright as the stars that her people have ever loved. “Even if you are not kind.”

…

…

When Anairë had first come to Beleriand, she’d snuck in on a boat as quietly as she could manage. The second time she arrives at Beleriand, it’s on a fleet of boats of shining, beautiful white: with the Valar at her side and flying above her head.

This time, her husband has enough warning to gather at the coast with their family. 

Eärwen comes to her where she stands at the prow of the boat, hair whipping loosely about her face, gaze locked unerringly onto the rocky coast that’s still only coming into view, even for the Eldar. 

“You’ll stain your gown.”

“I’m fighting the urge to swim to shore,” replies Anairë, turning to Eärwen, though she doesn’t get down from the prow and only leans back against the railing. “Staining my gown’s the least of my worries right now.” She pauses, then says, “I’m uncertain if anything frightens me, actually, any longer- apart from my family. Of course.”

“Írissë is that terrifying, is she?” asks Eärwen, amused.

“She can be.”

“Mmm. Do you remember that time she stripped Angarato and Findaráto of their clothes and then tied them to the tallest tree in Tirion?”

Anairë snorts. “Because they refused to share their toy swords with her? I’ll never forget it.”

“The boys didn’t realize that screaming for help would bring more people than help!”

“Do you know how hard it was to punish her?” demands Anairë. “I had to stop laughing long enough to make her understand that tying her family to trees is unacceptable! And neither of our husbands were helpful! At all!”

“They were laughing very hard.”

“And so were you!”

Eärwen grins at her. “Little wonder you weren’t the favorite parent.”

“Oh, don’t think I won’t push you into the ocean,” says Anairë, and leans back, so she’s tipped half over the railing and her hair’s almost on the water. When she speaks, she has to shout for Eärwen to hear. “I’ve never been very impatient, in my life, but…” She swings up, and meets Eärwen’s gaze, and drops her voice, “-I feel like there’s lightning in my veins today.”

Eärwen’s gaze alights on her face, mirthful and shocked and unsurprised as only a friend of thousands of years could be. “Speak softly, lest the Ainur take exception.”

“The treaty signed and witnessed allows me to speak as I wish to those who already know.”

“Does it,” says Eärwen, folding her arms. “I wonder who wrote that clause.”

Anairë smiles, wide and toothed, back at her. “I wonder indeed.”

“You’re terrible.” Eärwen reaches out and touches her hair, damp at the ends and caked in salt. “Can you see Nolofinwë yet?”

“I caught a glimpse,” murmurs Anairë. She touches her own cheeks, where the muscles hurt from smiling too hard, from being unable to stop smiling. “He wears a crown- but it’s so much smaller than I’m used to! Lalwen hasn’t been taking care of his hair, has she?”

“As if Nolofinwë can’t take care of his own hair.”

“He can’t! I had to do it every morning, and let out the braids in the evening.”

Eärwen tilts her head. “Well, we knew that he was lazy about it- your hair certainly wasn’t very elaborate. Not even on the most important feast days.”

“He can’t,” stresses Anairë. “He manages to knot everything up and pulls out more hair than he braids. Do you think I haven’t tried to teach him? My husband’s about as good at braiding hair as he is bad at ruling.”

“With word-smithing like that,” says Eärwen, “it’s little wonder that you managed to convince the Valar to accede to your demands.”

Anairë rolls her eyes, and Eärwen laughs, loud and bright enough to make the seagulls on the deck startle.

…

The sky shines. 

And as the Valar dock in Beleriand on the swan ships of the Teleri, Anairë leaps off of the prow. The water comes up to her chest but she does not bother with pausing for that or the cold; only wades forwards, as swiftly as she can manage. She’s not even up to her thighs before Nolofinwë reaches her and crushes her to him.

She’s crying; Anairë can barely see him through the tears blurring her vision. The cold is stinging through her fingers, and the water is wicking the wool of her dress to her skin, and still all she can feel is the thud of Nolofinwë’s heart and the gasps in her own ears. Then Findekáno is there, scooping her up from the side, and so is Turukáno, and so is- is that-

“Írissë,” gasps Anairë, and twists in Nolofinwë’s hold to grip her daughter closer and closer. When she pulls away, Írissë’s eyes are shining, bright as the moon hanging above them.

“Amil,” she says, and, trembling, launches herself at Anairë so hard that Anairë stumbles and falls backwards into the sea.

Sputtering, they both come up, and Nolofinwë grabs her before anyone else comes up. 

“Please,” he says, but he’s grinning at her, and guiding her to land, and not looking away from her face. “I’ve only gotten you back moments earlier, Anairë. I’d rather not lose you now.”

“No,” says Írissë, looping her arms over Anairë’s shoulders and draping herself over her mother. “We’d rather keep you. For another month, at least.”

“Aredhel,” says Findekáno, and does something- Anairë isn’t certain of what- but he manages to dislodge Írissë and thereby curl over Anairë. “Don’t worry, Ammë. We’ll keep you for a little longer. You’ll always be welcome in Dor-lómin, even if your daughter kicks you out of Gondolin.”

“I see,” says Anairë. “Am I not allowed to live in my husband’s city, then?”

Turukáno snorts. “Your daughter’s got her father wrapped about all the knives he’s spent the past hundred years giving her, Ammë. If she manages to kick you out of Gondolin your best hope’s Fingon, not Father.”

“Oh, shut up,” says Írissë, but she’s laughing, and so are they all.

…

On the beach, after Anairë changes out of her soaking gown and into a fresher one, she meets Nerdanel. For a moment, they look at each other: they’ve both changed, in the year that they’ve been separated. 

There’s a light in Nerdanel’s eyes and a heaviness to her steps that Anairë doesn’t remember from Aman. A joy, Anairë thinks; a joy that they’d all almost forgotten. 

“It’s good to see you,” she says.

Nerdanel nods. “As it is to see you. Were the terms of the treaty… favorable?”

“As favorable as I could get them. Speaking of which-” Anairë digs out the Silmaril from the crown she’d discarded on the settee and tosses it to Nerdanel, “-this is yours, I believe?”

“Not mine. But I’ll get it to where it needs to go.” 

“Has it been very difficult for you?”

Nerdanel’s lips thin, but Anairë’s uncertain if it’s because she’s amused or because she’s angry. “It wasn’t pleasant, let’s put it that way. Speaking to my sons- they’ve changed. They’ve all changed. You need to be ready for that.”

“I didn’t see it now,” says Anairë softly.

Nerdanel shrugs. “Are you the same elleth as you were before you danced in front of Morgoth? Before you lost Arakáno?”

“No.”

“They’re different,” Nerdanel repeats. “They love you. As you love them. But it might not be the same as before. It will not be the same as before.”

Anairë nods slowly. “I think,” she says, surprised at herself, “I can live with that.”

“Anairë,” says Nerdanel. Then she smiles, slow and soft and gentle as Anairë has never seen before. “We did it. We did it.”

“Yes,” says Eärwen.

She approaches, holding a bottle of wine that Anairë’s never seen before; it splashes darker and thicker than any wine she’s seen from Aman in its bottle.

“From Doriath,” Eärwen explains, eyes glittering. “A gift from Artanis- it’s been so long since I had properly distilled spirits. When this is all over- after we’ve met with our family- we’re getting together and drinking this. You have one week, Anairë, before I kidnap you. Yes?”

“It’s not over,” says Anairë, a little helplessly. “We have- the Valar must reach Angband- must-”

“There will always be something,” says Eärwen quietly. “There will always be something more. Some balrog that escapes, some evil that must be cured.”

“If we forget to celebrate the triumphs,” says Nerdanel slowly, eyebrows arched, “are they truly as triumphant as we think? The grandest shield against Morgoth was not blood or fury, Anairë: it was love. You said it. You understood it. Let’s celebrate this, then, and let us celebrate again when Morgoth is put in chains, and let us celebrate again when the darkness of Angband is cleansed, and let us celebrate again when ever we wish it!” 

“Not tonight,” Eärwen puts in, when Anairë doesn’t gainsay them. “Tonight is for family. For the family we’ve missed for too long. But soon. Soon. I will not be put off!”

“No,” says Anairë, and reaches out.

In Angband, they had held hands before walking to doom and near-certain death, for the slender hope of saving their family. Anairë had not dared to look at her- her sisters’, really- faces then. Now she does not look away: she sees Nerdanel’s beautiful hair, washed out by moonlight into umber and coiling darkness; Eärwen’s shimmering silver. Nerdanel’s fierce eyes, and Eärwen’s calm gaze. The slip and slide of their bones beneath their skin, lovely as all the stars in the sky.

“I look forward to the future, then,” says Anairë, and holds their hands in her own, as tight as she dares. “I look forward to the future, as I celebrate the past.”

They laugh, and kiss, and separate to their individual families; but they will return as well, if not tonight then soon. Anairë is certain of that, down deep, deep, deep in her bones.