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Chapter Text

Ending up in the woods isn't something Finduilas remembers, hands bloody and clutching at inlaid hilts, beautiful and slippery - the daggers she had stolen them from her father, an Age ago it felt, while they had lived happy and safe, before his brother's death and then his and the fear that fills her now, desperate to run - but she is now, chest burning and lungs screaming and tears pricking at her eyes, wetness on her cheeks. No, she can't, not now; she tries to force it to stop, to block off the flow, and it stems even as they still catch in her eyelashes and drip down, tiny streams. She can't waste the water, can't risk making enough noise to be found; she had never been a quiet crier and she's sure that she still isn't, everything falling away. Instead, she strangles any sound lurking within her throat and readjusts her grip on her knives, boots edging through the decaying mulch at her feet, half-aimless in the darkened forest. She can't turn back now, can't change directions without losing time, and she can't do that, not now, not if she doesn't want to die. There has to be something worthwhile here; she'll make sure that there will.

It would be good to know, just what had happened, exactly how screwed she was, and Finduilas reluctantly starts to think once again as her footing grows more steady, forces herself to memory. She cannot go into this blind, and she cannot indulge in the painless ignorance that she desperately needs, cannot afford the blindness, any potential of guidance, any ever-so-miniscule chance that there might be something left that matters now. Even still, they come to her as snapshots, frames instead of memories, the observation of a frightened mind. Horns blaring - a battering ram pounding against the gates, fear shooting through as she ran from her uncle's rooms, cold and abandoned, desperately scrambling for her things, grabbing anything she could take - running, screaming - the sounds of wings beating above her, a glance of red scales and burning eyes - the gardens, the wonderful hanging gardens, her uncle's favorite work, the place she would always go to play as a child, a feat of engineering surpassing any other outside Aman, burning in a plum of awful, ugly smoke - a lone orc, a lone goblin - stabbing and ripping and biting, unable to scramble up the melody that might save her, the words sticking to her throat, blocked off by desperation. More running. Terror.

The knives are bloody, she realizes, smeared with red. They're her father's knives; they're her father's knives, she cannot leave them like suc. He'll hate to see them like that, silver covered in gore, and he'll ask about it - he's known for ages that she took them but he's never brought them up, never admonished her for stealing them, but he's going to want to know what happened and he'll be so disappointed to hear it, will look down on her with that look where he knows she could do better but never voices it, because he's too soft on her, ineffectual, never managed to get her to stop her nighttime explorations and little rebellions and thefts, even though he should have, they were absolutely unbecoming of a young lady-

She has to wipe them off, Finduilas decides. She doesn't have any water with her, another desperate lack, so she must stop and wipes them on her breeches, a plain black set she was wearing because she didn't want anyone to know it was her, devoid of any flourish or embellishment and she remembers her court robes, her gaudy dresses - she will never see them again, because they were in the tower, the tower that burned, her home that is gone, and everything is gone, her uncle, her father, her family, everyone she's ever known, and now she's crying again, really crying now, tears slipping off her skin like water from a duck's feathers. Even so, she can't let his daggers - the last thing she has left of him, his last legacy, except for her, except for the necklace pressed tightly against her chest, which isn't really even his, so it really just is her, oh no, it is just her - stay stained. It just wouldn't be right.

Finduilas almost doesn't hear the snap of branches behind her, almost doesn't spin around to see what it is. The answer is orcs. A number of orcs, with grey skin and features hewn poorly of stone and spears. Not a fight she can win. Not alone, and not confused, and not without the call of Song on her lips. It would be better to try to reduce the damage than prevent it, at this point.

***

Finduilas gets caught. Of course she gets caught.

She gets caught, and she has nothing but vitriol for her captors. That earns her a beating, and the next night she feels like she is falling apart when they march on, bruised and bleeding. She learns, after that. She's always been a quick learner.

She learns to hold her tongue, to keep walking once she has reached her breaking point, to scarf down food and hold her tongue. How to deflect attention onto other people so that they take the lash instead, how to go without notice. How to be unobtrusive. She'd always been good at that part.

They don't know who she is, she thinks. She wears no finery, discarded as her city burned. To be honest, she doesn't think they know what she is - they've called her boy and girl both, and she holds that close to her chest, because that means that they don't know. They don't know who she is, because Finduilas knows how valuable prisoners are treated, and she cannot afford to be a valuable prisoner. She won't survive that, Finduilas knows, so she keeps her head down and mouth shut, no matter how much she wants to snark at every comment and scream at the sky and demand the Valar do something. She does none of that. Not now.

Finduilas is not without everything, however. She is able to keep her clothes, captors too busy with their swift march to think anything of it, and, with that, she is able to keep the ring sewn into the lining, and her uncle's brooch (wonderful when it came to locks; she had already tested her locks with it and found they did not hold up), and the chain that she hadn't even truly meant to steal, and the dagger she had been able to shove out of sight before they had sighted her. The other one is gone, spirited away by their orcs and probably placed in some macabre tribute pile - not somewhere that she knew, and not one where she could get it back from them.

Even so, a weapon and a tool is quite enough to make a break for it, and so Finduilas waits, waits for the perfect opportunity to run. And she gets it one day - orcs kept strange hours, awake during the night and asleep during the day, though there were always guards, most obviously - when her watcher tires and falls asleep, assured in its prisoner's compliance, because surely she had the will beaten out of her by now? And Finduilas had never made an incident since the first few days, so of course it was safe.

Finduilas, girl that she is, takes the opportunity. It is not a hard thing to free herself from the orcs' shoddy handwork, freed from the relentless bite of metalbut still she pricks herself a few times. Easily ignorable, if she managed it, and, if not, she had greater things to worry about. The manacles come off easier, a few flicks getting the pins to click open. Now she just has to leave.

Finduilas takes her knife in both hands and steps forward warily, keeping her eyes trained on the sleeping orc. No movement. They're near the back of the camp, just by the wilderness. She could just run and be done with this, if she wanted. It would be easier that way, Finduilas knew. Just a moment and then it'd be done.

Finduilas does not do that. Instead, she inches away, stepping cautiously, never looking away. She can't mess this up; she won't get another chance. She can't save the others either, not alone, not without having to fight through the entire camp. She got lucky - she has to take that chance. It would be a disgrace to throw it away. So she leaves carefully, not stopping until she is deeply into the woods, far enough away that they shouldn't be able to hear here. Only then does she start to run.

***

It is night by the time that she stops, breathless and gasping, choking on air. Her legs scream, blue and bruised, and she sings a few quiet notes of a rest-song once she gets her breath back. She must stop to do it, anxious as it makes her as she tries to relieve the ache. Finduilas has to be more careful now, in these shadowed woods; she is hardly strong enough to keep herself going now. She cannot fight in this state, and she knows it. Not that it ever was an option for her, really, not alone, not with such foes.

Regardless, Finduilas keeps going, slower no but still forcing herself forward. Her feet drag and her eyes slip closed when her attention wavers, refusing to open again without every effort she can muster. She hates this, but she cannot stop now.

Once she is safe - wherever, and whatever, that is - can Finduilas stop. Only then.

Safety is her childhood home, tall and beautiful and mighty, full of light and laughter and shine. Safety is her father's arms and her uncle's smile and her playmates, the other children who would run through the long, twisting passages of Nargothrond. She never knew Aman, had never seen the light of the Trees, has no memory of that place. Nargothrond is the only home she's ever known, Middle Earth no poor substitute for the greatness of Valinor but her entire life's grounds. There had never been any other, for her.

It was not that way for her father, she knew, nor her uncle (any of them, actually), nor their hosts. She is young in a way they are not, tethered to the land in a way they are not, off fighting a war for jewels she has never seen, made in a land she cannot even imagine in her mind. And, still, her home is slaughtered, everyone she knows killed or dragged away, herself unable to save them while preserving herself. It hardly seems fair to her, and she half wants to express that sentiment still, to yell at the sky and demand for it to be fixed, for the Valar to fix this terrible injustice; to let out all of the furious anger that has been stifled and stoked deep within her chest, hatred nestled in her ribcage. She half wants to pout, to cry.

Finduilas does none of that, because it would be unseemly, and she is still a princess, even disgraced. She should act like it. Safety, right now, is just any place that will take her in and not cut her up. She is a princess, but she cannot afford to be picky. Not unless she's decided that a surprise trip to Mandos and then Aman to make up for all that lost time, and she'd really rather not right now.

Thunder booms above, echoing and bone deep, pulling her out of her thoughts as she flinches. Finduilas glances up at the muddy, lightless sky and the clouds that crowd it, pressed so tightly together she cannot even make out the sky. It's going to rain soon, she knows. She'd rather not get caught up in a storm, but she doesn't have many options out here. Shelter - just even a little shelter - is probably the best she can hope for if she doesn't want to get soaked. And she doesn't, she really doesn't, truly. Especially not with the metal on her right now - it's all elvenmade, sure but it can still rust.

A water-droplet hits her face, sliding of her chin, and Finduilas scowls. She doesn't have no cloak, no coat or mantle, anything she might need, just the thin haphazard half-jacket she was wearing, and she should try to get out of the wet - because it was raining now, lightly, but she can still see it fall, can still feel it dripping onto her skin and hair - or risk getting sick. Being sick is just another thing on the list of stuff Finduilas cannot afford right now, if she wants to stay alive.

At least the rain might get the warg-hounds off her trail. Small mercies, Finduilas thinks, small mercies. And if she hid herself away in some small hole in the earth, the orcs might go right past her and she wouldn’t have to worry about them at all. Those cretins can hardly see through the rain any better than she can. The dark, they could deal with the dark; they could deal with it better than she could, yes, but not the rain.

A cry rips through the air and she spins, glancing around for the source of the noise and finding nothing. Lightning flashes in the darkened sky and lights the ground around Finduilas in a sudden burst of light before going dark again, but not before she spots the earthen hollow in the ground. Half a cave, half just dirt, obscured by the dying undergrowth, but Finduilas does see in it, and it looks dry enough for her to be able to stay in there. Maybe; she is not quite sure, cannot be at this distance.

Another sob rang out as thunder rumbled, but Finduilas had been expecting it this time, listening the best she could to where it was coming from. In front of her; the dirt mound. She's willing to bet it was from there, bet all of her meager inheritance, bet the lowest of her bottom dollars that she is right. But it is also seems the best place for her to stay - the only place, really, unless she wants to venture further and suffer or find herself a tree - and the shrieks had hardly seemed...frightening. They were earpiercing, yes, but in the way that an injured animal was; scared, and desperate, but not intending to be dangerous. Finduilas is good at not getting bitten. Well, she had been, once.

Fumbling in the dark, Finduilas starts forward, hands out in front of her and soaking hair dripping water down her collar, down her back. Well, she had thought that she wanted to give it a bath; this probably counted. A bit of soap would be helpful, probably, but she doesn't have any of that right now, and-

Finduilas could buy some when they got to some semblance of civilization. She has jewelry with her, hidden away, if not much; that should be enough to get herself what she needed and move on to elven-lands, to Doriath, where she could tell them what happened and get support and figure it out from there. She has the Nauglamír but- But she couldn’t be selling that. No matter how high the price was, no matter how desperate she might be. Maybe she could give it to Thingol as a present, a way to earn her place under his protection, but not before that. She couldn’t.

Thunder rips through the air again, great and booming, and Finduilas stumbles, sliding in the muck. Unthinking, her hands scramble, grasping for something to steady herself with. Dirt slides through her fingers, clumped together with the wet, and shock races through her, patting her way downward until she finds the opening to the almost-cave, hands brushing irritably against the silky, itchy, ferny undergrowth. Her wrists sting, but it doesn't matter. She's...closer, now. Closer to being safe.

She sings the first few bars of a light-song, motes of light blooming into existence before her. The thunder booms above still, unending and untroubled, and Finduilas knows she should not be heard, over that, the will of Manwë himself, but the thought of that slides out of her mind like water through a leaky sieve as she stops squeezing herself in, halts so abruptly she hardly even knows that she does it.

In the cave, there is a woman. A Mannish woman, recognizably, dark-haired and shivering with rounded ears and shorter limbs than Finduilas, backed into the corner. Tears streak her face - their cryer, then - and death sticks to her like stylish perfume, flowers pressed into a pulp and immortalized forever in their bottles, sung straight. She is also, noticeably, naked, and Finduilas feels her cheeks blush, has to glance away for a moment. When she looks back at the other girl, she hasn't moved. Well. That isn't a good sign.

"Hello?" Finduilas tries, reaching for the words that feel unfamiliar to her, the ones that she remembers her uncle teaching to her, full of good humor even as she stumbled over the foreign syllables, had to try again and again over the same word just to lose it in the end. Infuriating, yes, but does she not know it now? Or close enough. Taliska, she thinks that it was called. She wouldn't count on it; her memory isn't exactly a faultless thing at the moment.

Regardless, there is no reaction; at least, none that showed any understanding. The girl - and Finduilas knows that she was a girl, for she was young, if not by the standards of her race than Finduilas', for every Man was a child to the Eldar, no matter how old, as even the life of the oldest Man to ever live was but a moment to her people, and, yes, that included her but also this current moment for her absolutely fucking sucked - stared at her blankly, uncomprehending. There was no light in those eyes, Finduilas realized, just a shifting, writhing darkness. The mark of the Enemy, she had never gotten out or it hadn't mattered that she had, it was a trap, they knew who she was-

No. No. That was her paranoia speaking, the Enemy at work truly; she would not be important enough for that, an unimportant little man's daughter, already half-dead. It is real. Finduilas was...as safe as she could be. Not in any current danger at least. The other girl was afraid, afraid of her. The horror in her eyes was underscored by the abject terror that stared out at the elf, the way the girl was shaking, the way she had flinched at Finduilas' words. Something done to her, then. Finduilas could sympathize with that.

"Sorry, I just had to..." Finduilas trails off, hating the twisting confusion that has overtaken her tongue and strangled everything that she wanted to say. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you, but, uh, I needed somewhere to stay and this seemed dry enough. But everything's fine out there, safe, just really wet. The thunder's scary but it can't touch us."

Empty eyes watch her blindly, but the girl's shaking isn't as bad as it was before. She looks cold; there is little warmth in the place and Finduilas can feel the chill creeping through her clothes. Well, the other girl probably needs it more, so she could do to lose some.

Finduilas shucks off her jacket, rolling back her shoulders and tugging her wrists out of the dark sleeves, and sets it besides her before wiggling her way out of the loose breeches she often wore over her leggings. Spotted with wear-streaks and fraying, they are still better than nothing, and again, naked girl. Speaking of, Finduilas passes the clothes over to the dark-haired Man, who takes it with fingers eager to explore exactly what they are, brushing against every fine detail and button and stray bit of embroidery. "You looked cold, so I thought that might help. I've got extra."

The girl nods, pulling the jacket around her and stumbling her way through the buttons. Finduilas shifts away from the exit onto drier ground but not before grabbing a few stray grasses and branches from the world outside this little hollow in the womb of the earth, crude and unrefined. It'd just be a little thing, and they're hidden, and she wants to sleep, it will make it home-

A few notes make it through her huming before the greenery clutched in her hands begin to spark and burn, a tiny, frail flame with a thin stream of smoke, so small it could be put out with a bat of her hand. That should be enough. Finduilas sets it down and begins to curl up the best she can in the cramped space, trying to get comfortable. Her eyes slip closed and refuse to open, weighed down with lack and sorrow and stone.

"G'night," she slurs through a sleep-rasped tongue, and then she is gone at last, vanishing into the darkened night.

Chapter Text

The girl wakes disoriented. Blindly, she reaches, lungs heaving as her limbs spasm, drawing herself. It's not safe, it's not safe, she's dying, she's going to die, and none of it even matters-

With a gasp her eyes fly open, gone but her mind still fragmented, stilted, incomplete, grasping at the world around her, her memories, everything she can salvage; but her hands slip, wet and slimy, refusing to find the information with her mind. She tries to remember, remember anything before the murky twilight, but there is nothing before it. All she remembers is fear, and sound, too loud to be natural, to be safe, and the bone-deep terror that she was entrenched in. And then, a voice-

Her eyes fall upon the other person there with her, fair, scrunched into a little ball in the corner, eyes closed and drab hair obscuring half of their face. A faint dusting of freckles sprinkle across their face, and, aw, that is kind of cute. The bronzed skin, the fair hair, kindly lips smiling up at her even in their sleep - she does not know what to say of the vague warmth at the sight of it, besides a vague absence of pain, of hurt, of fear, of all that she knows so well. It is a concept she does not yet understand; there must be a word for it, but it would escape her even if she knew it.

But even more than that, it is clear that they were- not like her. Limbs too long and edges blurry, half-blending into the dirt surrounding them, face too sharp to belong to anything like her. Wrong, in a way. She still finds her interest piqued. Perhaps she would like to know why they were wrong, why they were making her feel this. Perhaps they would have answers for her, a place they might be, a name for them or an identity for her to take.

It is for that same damnable curiosity that drags her over the dirt-packed ground, dressed in too-big clothes - ones that do not belong to her, never had and she does not know why she is so certain of it -, over to them, examining the lines of their face. Unearthly, yes, wrong, but there is something beautiful to it, accented by the almost-humanity of the freckles, the dirty hair, the tiny little imperfections. Seeming humanity; an attempt at morality. The girl still isn't entirely sure if she has truly awakened, if she is still dreaming, if it is all one great dream or what shape they even should make, simply that it must be close to this unreality, for it seems so very odd! Someone like this to aid her, sent for some reason or other, someone so ethereal even in unawareness, in sleep. It simply is not right, even if she had not the words to explain why. None of it was right; nothing she could do would be.

Gathering her courage, she raises one shaking hand and brushes their hair away, out of their face. Her skin had hardly touched theirs' and she is already trembling with some fear she could not understand - that they would wake, that they would hurt her for even the implication that she was worthy to touch them, for it would not be right - but they do not stir under her hand. Still, she sits straighter and keeps her hands to herself as she watches, newly eyes tracing every inch of their face, their closed eyes, their sharp ears, their lips, their lips, their lips-

She scrambles backwards, scuttling, when they open their eyes, bright and a blueish-green (she thinks those are the right words, she thinks) that reminds her of a sea that she has never seen, waves that have never crashed over her, sand that never got stuck between her toes and shells she never found and seagulls that never crowed at her. For some reason, their lips quirk up at the image - of her fear, terror, the way things are ought to be, and she too can sympathize with that - before glancing to their side, checking something as they push themself up, onto their elbows, and go back to focus on her. "Like what you see?"

Their voice is rough, accented and brash, but understandable still as they half-mangle her native tongue in their mouth. She hardly remembers how to speak it herself, and knows even less of how much they will understand. But they are kind, they are holy, they must understand, she must beg them from mercy-

"I'm just joking." They sigh, pulling themself up even further so that they are sitting, just like she is. She feels the need to flatten herself down, to press herself against the earthen floor, though she does not; they are not equals, cannot speak eye-to-eye. They are something higher and she is not, a lower, feeble, squirming thing, not worthy of even their attentions, but, oh, she is so, so scared, and she must run even as she does not know what she is running from, and this might be her only chance- "Sorry. Do you have a name? Can you speak? You look better than before."

She forces words through her lips, relying on unwitting, unremembered impulse to answer. It does seem to work, for something comprehensible comes from her into the empty, rain-drenched air. "I don't remember it."

They frown, a tiny twist of their mouth, a breaking of their face's wholeness. "Everyone needs a name. Would you like one?"

She has no reason to so no, so she does not. The nod seems to be enough for them, for they go to think, sea-glass (she does not know what sea-glass is, but she knows that they look like that, whatever it must be) eyes drifting off of her face and onto the light seeping in through the half-veiled portal into the world outside of them. She feels far too scared to go out, to even look what was outside, but she can assume. The light is pretty, she thinks, a little golden-thing, so unlike the darkness that colored her memory.

"Níniel," they propose, thoughtful.

"I like it," she says - Níniel says, for she has a name now, for the first time that she can remember, and the thrill she feels at that realization is incomprehensible, unparalleled, a rush that she cannot put into words - and they smile at her, freckles wrinkling.

"Great. Well, you can call me Ereinion, if you wish. A little trade; to not give my own would be impolite, since I have something to call you now."

It is, in her opinion, extremely reasonable for them to not give her their name, but the name falls sugary on her tongue, some sweet confection for her to consume. It feels good, feels like forgiveness, acceleration, everything all at once coursing through her veins. It is too much almost; it feels like a dream, some dream she might have and wake up from disappointed, wanting. Níniel still isn't sure that it is not. "Ereinion."

Ereinion nods, pulling themself up to start rearranging their things. Their eyes leave her face, settling around the ground instead, and that same fear begins to crowd her vision, quiet terror and darkness resplendent. Níniel needs them to look again. "Yeah."

They have to look; a thought hits her and she opens her mouth again, pushing aside her attempt to sound out the name, to slide it around in her mouth, to feel its taste in her mouth. She just hopes that Ereinion will not take it poorly, tries to couch it in the softest voice she can manage, the least intrusive, even as she is greedy for their gaze, the way it dispels the wraiths crowding around her like crawling muddy things, darkening her vision. She is aware, strangely, that it is impolite, and she wishes that she could know anything else instead. How to deal with wraiths herself, perhaps, or what is sea-glass. "What are you?"

They grin, raising a hand to brush back their muddy hair and reveal one ear, sharply pointed. Another difference between the two of them, but Níniel hardly thinks that it is more obvious than the rest of them; their height, their eyes, the way that the air feels lighter near them, less weighed down by the world but still harder to breathe in, making her brain spin and world glimmer a thousand shimmering colors, stained-glass and jewelry. "I wasn't sure it was that obvious, but I'm an elf."

Ereinion does not seem offended, at least and they answered the question. They, also, notably, did not hurt Níniel. It should mean that the safety to ask more of the brutish questions that rise within her and find themselves on the tip of her tongue. "Are you man or woman?"

"Hah!" The elf laughed, and she startled at the sudden sound. "A good question. Let's go with man for now."

Níniel has never met an elf before, or that memory has been lost with everything else. Now she has. That feels important; elves are powerful, unearthly, they can help her- "Are you a lord?"

Ereinion shrugs. "I was. Right now, I'm just trying to get out of here alive."

"Where are you going?" Níniel had to leave too. Maybe they could go wherever he was going together, because Níniel had nowhere to go, could not remember enough to have a single place to strive for, let alone know how to get there. Maybe she could go with him.

"Doriath." Ereinion leans back against the solid earth, gaze wandering. Thinking, Níniel reminds herself, he's thinking. Remembering, maybe. Níniel knew what remembering felt like. "I know people there, and it's as safe as anything can be, now. The queen protects the whole city - whole domain, it's much more than just that, really - from Morgoth's grasp. As long we can get in, we're safe."

"We?" Ereinion came here alone, Níniel remembers. Thinks she remembers, pretends that she remembers, lies that she is sure. He came alone, spoke alone. There was no one else besides him now, and there was no sign that there was any other in the earth with them. He came alone.

"You and me," Ereinion answers, breaking through Níniel's thoughts without even a note, without even the awareness to know he is doing so. So easily he cuts through the worries, through the noise and strings; so easily he anchors her to this strange world she cannot escape. "I'm not just going to leave you here, you know? You could tell them all about me."

"Them?" Single words seem easier to Níniel, less overwhelming. Let Ereinion tire himself out speaking, with those strangely-pronounced letters and slurred words, but Níniel refuses to. It is hard enough to think, to see, to even try to remember; she has nothing left to waste on speech.

"The orcs," the elf dismisses with a wave of his hand. "I was captured by them, escaped, but I'd really rather not do that again, and I can't imagine you'd want to either. I'm willing to bet they're why you can't remember stuff. But, um, they should have moved on already during the rain, so we just have to be extra careful to make sure they don't notice us. Shouldn't be any issues."

Níniel says nothing. She hardly minds the silence, but Ereinion seems to, since he laughs and shakes himself. A hand goes to run through his hair and is caught by the tangles; he pulls back his hand looking almost sheepish. "But that's enough about me! Now, for you: man? Woman? Neither? A lord? A lady? Do you have those? Your destination? I know you are of the Edain, but not much else."

The list of questions feels almost overwhelming, falling onto Níniel like a cresting wave. She hardly even knows where to start. "A woman, I think." That feels right enough. It must be, for Ereinion is nodding, unsurprised, and waiting for her next answer. "I don't know who I am. Maybe. I don't where I'd go."

"So the memory stuff's recent," Ereinion comments. "Well, I guess we'll just have to figure it out as we go. But Doriath should take you in too; their king has a Man as his foster son, I think. Túrin? Yeah, Túrin. So I wouldn't see any reason you couldn't come."

Níniel nods. That sounds better than walking until she finds someone where she will be allowed to stay, sounds better than just hoping that her mind were clear and her memories will come into focus, the darkness will disappear and allow her to know who she once was. "Do you know how to get there?" 

"Not really." The elf brushes a lock of hair behind one elongated ear, looking almost apologetic. It does not work with the sharp lines of his face, the unnatural brightness with his eyes, the wrongness of it all. He does not have a face made for apologies, and Níniel doubts that any like him did. "Right now, the plan is to find the nearest town and get our hands on a map. I know where it is, just not where we are. Unfortunately. But once we're there, we should be in the clear."

"Okay." That sounded fine enough. Better than not going with him, at least, wandering lost and alone without even a name. "Okay."

***

The Sun almost blinds her when Finduilas steps out into the light, blending her sight into smears of white light before she is able to adjust. That just feels unfair - it was hardly dark in that place to begin, it wasn't like her eyes were just staring into the Void or something. Overarching trees dapple the ground, beech leaves catching the light and scattering it far below. Well, it certainly isn't overcast anymore. Probably for the best, honestly.

A gasp comes from behind her and she turns, finds Níniel wide-eyed and slack-jawed, staring up at the sun above. Ah. Right. The girl probably had never seen the sun before, with her strangeness, that coiling blindness, her lack of a name. Even so, it wasn't a wonderful idea, subjecting one's eyes to the searing light of Arien; her people had already learned that when they first appeared, she doesn't want to rediscover it now. Finduilas takes the girl's hand, jolts her into looking at the elf. "Hey, don't look directly at it, that's going to mess up your eyes."

"What is it?" Níniel murmurs. She says it like a prayer, like Anar is a holy thing, and She is, Finduilas knows She is, but she has never known a time without the sun's guidance, can barely conceive of one. She just is, to Finduilas, even as she knows of the Trees and their light and the Valar's creation. Níniel does not, and she asks like the answer could save her, reverence in every inch of her being. Maybe that is why the Valar no longer watch over them, Finduilas thinks. They have taken too much for granted, been too ungrateful, but Finduilas hardly thinks that her family and her father and her friends should have to die for that thanklessness, hardly thinks that it is deserved, that it is fair, and maybe the world isn't fair but they could make it fair, they made everything, they could make it fair if they wanted and now she wanted to scream, wanted to let it all out and maybe tear into something or someone or just the sky itself, wanted to get her hands dirty and her teeth bloody, and Níniel was still waiting for an answer. Screaming wouldn't count.

"That's the Sun," Finduilas tells her, wrestling that rage down and keeping it far away from her mouth, her tongue. It would be cruel to make Níniel deal with that, to take it out on her when she is innocent. "The Maia Arien, if you want. She passes through the sky every day, makes sure we have light. We'll be safer traveling under her, but She's too bright for us to really see her. A couple of my dad's friends didn't know that when She first came and never got their sight back, so try not to."

(Not that it mattered now, Finduilas realizes, they were probably dead, bloody bodies on a battlefield, armor warped and seared onto their skin, smoking and twisted by the dragonfire. She hadn't checked but she hadn't needed to to know)

Níniel's hand is cold and limp beneath her fingers and Finduilas wrenches herself out of the sudden emptiness that had taken her, back to the moment. They have to go if they'd rather not end up dead (or worse, and that's what Finduilas is truly scared of, not death but the denial of it, being trapped and constrained and used, used against her kin, used as a pawn, a thrall, with no way out, once they realize who she is, once her chance for an honest death has fled). She smiles reflexively at the girl, squeezes her hand. "Come on. See that there?"

She points at the disturbed ground before them, trampled undergrowth, ditches worn into the dirt even as the rain had washed any footprints away. They lead onward, where Finduilas had run towards before. Well, it's a good thing she stopped, then. "That's where the orcs are going. We're going the other direction and hoping that we find something, okay?"

The other girl is afraid, Finduilas can tell. Her voice is soft and eyes distant, glassy, looking up into the sky again even if thankfully she isn't staring into the sky again. "If we don't?"

"Then we keep looking until we find something." Finduilas knows that they'd be fucked, but she's hardly going to say that, hardly wants to admit it even to herself, for there is still hope in her heart and it still doesn't feel real, like this might be the end of her, the end of their line, for who else is there who is not dead? Better not to ponder it, to push the question to the corner of her mind and sit untouched, undisturbed, for as long as it can. She knows better than to expect it never be brought to light, pushed into her face like a taunt, the destruction of her world before her very eyes, but she can at least forestall the incident. At least try.

Finduilas was not the only one whose entire world was destroyed, not even the only one here whose was. Níniel's likely was too, or if not destroyed lost in the darkness of the enemy, along with her name and everything else she could not remember. Finduilas squeezes her hand again before the elf steps forward, tugging the Aftercomer along with her. "C'mon, let's go. We're wasting sunlight, sweetheart."

Chapter Text

Fading, orange-streaked sunlight glints off polished, painted wood and Finduilas hurries ahead, dragging Níniel after her. Neither of them is exceptionally well, exhaustion burrowing deep into their bones, from a day of walking and fear, jumping at every little sound and crack and rustle, laughing it off only to do it again; hiding whenever they heard hooves or feet or talk not from their own mouths, but the euphora at the sight of civilization is more than enough to reinvigorate the elf, hurling forward as the inn came into sight, the road leading into it, the far-off clearing with the paved bottom, lined with houses and buildings and the stray figure, locking up their shops, going home, just walking in the dying light. There, there, there! Fine. Unburned, unbarred, unharmed. Good. Just what they needed.

We're okay, she repeats in her mind, fingers flexing open and closed around one of her shirt's seams; self-soothing, she thinks she's heard that be called. Only from overhearing his father and his healers, sometimes his brother's advisors, but heard nevertheless. Not that it matters, now, but thinking makes her feel better, even as she knows it is pointless. Adrenaline is pumping in her veins and she can hardly bring herself to care. We're safe. We're fine. We're making it.

Níniel watches her warily and for a moment the guilt of making herself vulnerable - mad, like that uncle of hers, who was taken by the enemy and was never again the same - washes over Finduilas, settles heavily upon her soul for she cannot be allowed that, not when this girl is depending on her so much, flashes of soulless black eyes in her mind, devoid of anything near light, before being washed away by the tide of persistent, never-ending relief that has filled her from the moment that she saw anything that could possibly be hope. They will be fine. She just has to be sure; Finduilas can do that, so long as she does not think.

"Look," crows Finduilas, grinning, "look! We are here. Come!"

The other girl follows her more cautiously but she follows nevertheless, follows Finduilas down the wooded path she skips down to the blocky inn, sitting squatly at the end of a dirt path that only later shifts into cobblestone. Finduilas can hardly see straight in the dying light, blind faith spilling through her heart whole-heartedly, consuming her whole being, twisting the world into an orange-streaked collection of angles and pictures and sensations without any purpose. That won't do; it is not over yet. She must stay here, in this reality; she cannot allow this stanza of the Great Song to slip through her fingers like the wind and empty air. As she focuses the world begins to right itself, and she does not fall as she runs, thank Eru.

The door opens easily, unlocked as is the fashion, and they step inside, into the flickering yellow-tinted lantern-light and the roudiness all around them, bets and flagons and laughter, chattering and dancing with the flutter of fabric and skin, flashing teeth and twinkling eyes. Impossibly, expectantly loud, busy but without purpose, without any meaning to it. Finduilas honestly loves it, just a little. Níniel, however, winces at the noise, shrinking back, and so Finduilas leads her to the farthest, quietest table she can find in the room, tucked into a shadowed corner, and leads her to sit.

Finduilas does too, taking the brooch out from a pocket and beginning to turn it over in her hands, examining. It's her uncle's, yes, and she loves it, and there is so little she has left of him - of any of them, of anything from what she once was -, and it is useful, it has served her well in the past, but she does not need tools or memory right now. No reminders, no mementos. Now, she needs a roof over her head and a hot meal and a horse if she can get one, and she needs coin for any of that. Petty theft will only get her so far, and anything larger would be catastrophically risky. This is a better way, should she find a buyer.

Now that she thought about it, she had seen a smithy on their way into town, half-remembered in her joy-filled haze. That could be promising.

Even so, there was no reason to rob herself of an opportunity she didn't want to lose. Fair fingers make their way to the sturdy pin and spread, searching for the connecting spots between that and the gold platform. They find what they're looking for quickly enough, thin half-circles keeping the pin from slipping out. A quick hum of a breaking-song is enough to rid herself of those and she slips the brooch off before tucking the project into her pocket. Now, that was hardly very hard. The rest should follow.

Finished with what she wanted done, Finduilas stands. The web hidden underneath the cloth, heavy and hard, presses against her chest, digging into protesting skin she had just realized has bruised; Finduilas will have to do something about it eventually, get somewhere better to put it, but wearing it is not an option without dragging a target onto her and selling it would be…bad. A waste. Not something she could do. The brooch is a better compromise, and she’d probably get enough for it to get them through at least a couple days of comforts, maybe a week; enough to get back on the road ready to go farther. Hunger curls inside of her again and she winces, looking down at her companion, sitting obediently at the table. She doesn't know the last time Níniel ate, but Men need sustenance more often than the Eldar do, and for Finduilas to be growing hungry must mean it is unbearable. “I have to do something for a moment, so…stay here. If you want to order anything, just tell them to put it on your tab.”

Niniel nods, still casting her gaze around the room in wonderment, entranced by the light and people and sound. The ruddy lantern-light reflects in her eyes, impure but amazed nonetheless; it is a far departure from the darkness that had haunted her when Finduilas had first found the girl. As such, Finduilas finds that satisfying enough to slip away from the table and through the crowd, ducking under elbows and hands and heads, slipping quick fingers into pockets and out again with metal clasped in her grip, as she makes her way to the door, happy to get away from the noise. The darkening sky, dotted with stars even as the Sun has not yet completed her dip beneath the horizon, air crisp and fresh, is a familiar, relieving sight.

So is the forge, blazing away merrily in the dawning twilight. Finduilas starts towards that, keeping her strides even as her legs quiver, tired out by the running and walking, lacking of food and sleep uninhibited. She can fix all that, but she needs money to do that. This gives her money. She doesn’t care if the cobblestones are wobbling under her feets, rough and uneven, wouldn’t care if the Great Constrainer himself burst through the stone and turned it all to ash. She’d just die, then. She wouldn’t have to deal with this. But she doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want to die. She just doesn’t want to be a liability, doesn’t want to be used against the people she loves. Wants to be able to chose, and not have anyone die for that choice. For that, she needs to be in Doriath.

And suddenly the blacksmith’s is in front of Finduilas, burning brightly. The smooth metal handle is cold in her hand, contrasted by the blast of heat that hits her the moment she steps inside, blowing her hair aside and leaving her blinking. A hearth glows in the far corner of the room, dotted with chairs and pillows, an empty counter before the elf as she comes back to her senses. A small child - round without a single sharp edge in her, softer than Finduilas has ever seen before - has been plopped on a pillow in front of the fire, their attention drawn by the shut of the door behind the elf. Finduilas has been trying to soften, kinden herself even before she touched the door, but she tries even harder now, the gentlest smile on her face as she looks down at the young one. She will not allow herself to scare them. “Do you know who works here?”

The child looks at her, framed by long reddish locks of hair. Uncommon, even in elves. She wonders if they were named for it, wonders what their name is. The way they wrinkle their nose is cute. “My mami works here.”

Finduilas isn’t quite sure that it is right; she was never taught endearments, and she is quite sure that is one, but it seems close enough to the word for mother to count as the same. Even still, she doesn’t have anything to call the little one when they are being cute, which is always. She choices, quite intently, to ignore the fact that they will grow, and grow old, and one day die, if not cut down by the Enemy first before they even get a chance at a proper life, and pushes the impulse to peak far far away. She will not stay here long, and so she chooses to believe that they will stay this little forever and never perish. “Can you go get her?”

The child wavers for a moment, hesitating, before they get up off their cushion and toddle away, heading for the forge. Finduilas does not have to wait long for them to return, a tall, swarthy woman in tow. The blacksmith, likely. Remarkably almost taller than Finduilas herself, though off by a few inches and of sturdier build, all dense muscle where Finduilas is willowly, elegant, a reed in the wind. Not exactly common for the Aftercomers, that.

“What did you want me for?” the woman asks, setting her smudged leather gloves aside on the counter as her child retreats back to their cushion. Dark brown hair is pulled into a tight bun above her rounded ears, but Finduilas is still not able to push aside the similarities between the Edain and her second-cousin Curufin, a great smith in his own right. He’d make toys for her he would give whenever her parents and his siblings met, slipping them into her hands with what he would never admit was a smile and a murmur to not tell anyone where she got them. She never did.

But that was before. Before he led a coup against her uncle and gotten him killed. And that is why she is here, home smoking and herself begging, desperately in hope of sanctuary, Finrod's relic set upon the bargaining table, an acceptable loss in this unholy world that she now dwelt. Her fingers tremble as they take the brooch out of her pocket and hold it to the smith, glinting in the light. “How much can I get for this?”

The woman takes it and examines it carefully, holding it up to the light. “It’s solid gold. Melting it down would be good. And the scene?”

“Carved alabaster and tourmaline,” Finduilas answers. Her uncle had told her that, when he first gave it to her, what seems like an Age ago. Before. Her thoughts go in circles, revolving around that simple fact, flashing smiles overlaid atop a stolen corpse, struck down in the dark, flames rising up among the scent of water-lilies, perfume of a time long-lost. Finrod, alive. Finrod, dead. Alive. Dead. His hand, glimmering in the light as he pressed into her hand; his hand, lifeless among the blood. Before. Wolves. Before.

The smith hums, pulling her half-heartedly from those vulture-circling thoughts, soon to sink their claws into taunt corpse-flesh. “Your mother would like it,” she says to the child, off-handedly. “Can you fetch her?”

The child nods and scurries away, out a door leading deeper into the shop. Finduilas keeps pushing. “For the gold?”

"It's a fine metal." The woman sets it down on the counter in front of her. "Ninty pence should do the trick."

Ninty silver - Finduilas was pretty sure pence was silver, would make the most sense - was a lot, in this sort of town. Enough to keep them fed and cared for and well-supplied for more than a month. "It'd be easier to just round it up to a hundred at that point, wouldn't it? It's a better figure, and there are other buyers."

The Aftercomer scowls at her. "That is without considering the gemwork; that will raise the price." Finduilas raises an eyebrow, waiting. She's dealt with court before and spat in orcs' faces, though the latter not often; she learned better than that, after the first few times. She's not going to back down from a lady already halfway through her trip to dying, even if the woman is a couple inches taller than her. "Fine. An even one hundred."

Finduilas ducks her head, smoothing the satisfaction away from her smile like a cat in the cream, and by the time she is glancing up again, the door behind the counter is creaking open, the child running out. Following them is a shorter Edain with the same copper curls as her spawn, lightly tanned by the Sun and dark-eyed. A tinkling chandelier of gold drips down from blunt ears, half-hidden by the hair that falls across her blouse and down her back, almost reaching the tip of her child's head as they sneak behind her skirts, and there is a fond tilt to her lips, looking out at the smith. "Not scaring away our customers, I hope?"

Something in the darker-haired Man's demeanor has shifted with the arrival of this new woman, her face softening and shoulders drooping. "Of course not, Eith. I had something I wanted you to look at."

It is only then that the smaller, thinner Edain's gaze lands on Finduilas, and she watches the spark of shock sprint through the other woman. Straightening her back, this Eith draws herself up and places a faint touch on the child's shoulder before they are already moving away, out the door, leaving the three women alone in the room. It is then that the smith hands her the brooch, and she practically lights up at the gift. "Finely crafted, for sure. Beautifully made. Do you know what it's made of?"

"Tourmine and alabaster," the smith repeats. "Thoughts?"

"I quite like it. Good material, too." Eith turns it in her hand, looking over the different angles, before she looks up at Finduilas, much calmer than she was before. The faint brush of fear that had fallen over her before was gone, leaving a fair curved smile just beginning to bud in its place. "Is it elven-made?"

"It is," Finduilas confirms, unsurprised.

Eith nods, considering. "Twelve gold."

Finduilas blinks - twelve gold? twelve gold? - but not even the tall Edain seemed surprised, standing stone-faced even as Eith smiles expectantly at the elf, waiting for an answer. Ah. She hadn't expected that - hadn't expected the woman to name such a price, hadn't expected the smith not to object - but that was good, right? Really good. Ridiculously good. A price she couldn't turn down even if she hadn't wanted to sell the brooch, and she most certainly had, so she might as well. Might as well. "That seems a fair price."

"I am glad," Eith agrees, eyes as bright as the stars themselves as she smiles, pulling a pouch out of her dress. A moment later and she is counting out coins to give to the elf, the smith sitting by with her silver with more patience than Finduilas could have expected. She still did not entirely understand the two - were they intimate? The child, whose was it? If they were, who made the bread? But of Finduilas' business, it was little part, so she tried not to concern herself with it. She was here simply for the coin they could offer her, nothing more. Anything else was simply additional.

Finduilas takes the money thankfully, inclines her head at them because she does not know what to do. She smiles back at the beaming Eith and asks, almost nonsensically, "Do you know if you can buy dye near here?"

Eith laughs a little, at that. "Old Anniel sells some to cover up grays, down at the general store. Why?"

"A friend of mine could us some," Finduilas answers, grinning. "But thank you, and a good day to you."

"To you too!" Eith calls as Finduilas slips out of the shop and back under the midnight sky and diamond-bright stars, winking above her. Well, of course they were shining on her; it went so very well. Now she just has to get back and check on Níniel. Then it'll all be fine, good, great. Maybe she can rest, then. Perhaps she will. She really fucking should.

Chapter Text

Everything is very loud; that is the first thing Níniel notices, inarguable and unavoidable. She is not used to that, and neither is she used to the shining lights, the wavering figures, the thoughtless cheer on display in front of her; so many aspects, so many things, all different, all separate but part of the same, just simply so much. Níniel dares not to close her eyes to deprive herself of it for a moment, because the darkness is terrible, she hates and fears the absence in equal measure and thereby refuses to slide into it when she could have this instead and what if when she tries to open them again it is gone-

A thunk before her and Níniel is pulled out of her thoughts to look over at the table and the room spread before her and the boy now sitting across from her own spot, dashing and fair with a kindly smile. She does not know him. She knows very few, comparably, and very little, but she knows that he is not one of the things she knows. "Hi."

"Hi," Níniel imitates, looking him over. He has taken Ereinion's spot, hardly manages to fill even a fraction of the space the elf did, but she supposes that is fair - Ereinion did leave to do...something. He hadn't told her what. The thought of asking had not crossed her mind. Regardless, there's little she could have done about it, and even less now, should she be so inclined. She is not sure that she is. She is not used to being.

"Sorry, but you're not from around here, are you?" he asks, dark-eyed and bark-haired. She thinks they are about the same are, but she does know how old either of them is, so it is only an estimate. Níniel feels that is the best she can hope for often.

Back to the question. She does not think she is from "around here" - has no home to claim nor any homeland, nothing to return to, nothing remaining of that which she might have once been besides the tan of her skin and the tangles of her hair, catching on branches as she scrambled through the woods - and the boy does not seem to think she is either, so she is not. "No."

He hums, satisfied with that answer. "So you're a traveler?" Níniel nods. "Oh! Sorry, but, uh, what's your name? I forgot to ask earlier."

His cheeks are burning a deep red and for a moment Níniel feels she must be concerned before brushing the worry away. She knows little of the world or this place or people; it is not her place to fear, to imagine, and no pain has captured him truly. She thinks. He would tell her. Probably. "Níniel."

"Mine's Astor," he tells her. Astor. It feels sweet on her tongue.

"Astor," she repeats, slowly, rolling the syllabus around her mouth. It is a kind name, she thinks, with an end she can soften and mangle as she wishes. Rarely had she ever been given a name to curse, Níniel thinks. "Nice to meet you."

The boy grins again, bright and shiny. "You too." He pauses for a moment, considering. "That elf with you, before..."

"My guide," Níniel supplies, disliking the look in his eye. She does not know it but recognizes it somehow, beyond where her mind can stretch. "Ereinion, he told me."

He nods. "He seemed kind," the boy remarks, and Niniel can see a server heading towards them, conjured by some sign that she has missed. "Do you like traveling, mis- Níniel?"

Níniel considers, thinking it over. "I suppose. I fear I do not do it often," she offers with a shy smile. "This is more than an...outlier than anything else, really."

"I am sorry, about that," he tells her, comforting with bright eyes and sympathetic brows. "If there's anything we can do, to help you, just tell us. We'll try, we really will."

"You are too kind," Níniel says, for it feels right to say, here. "Truly, you are."

"I'm just trying to help," he repeats, and she is starting to like him, more than the minimum she is expected to. That's good. It feels good, to feel. It means she is not trapped in the dark, this little bundle of warmth curled beneath her breast. A hearth, she thinks. A hearth and a heart all in one, that is what it is.

She is too wrapped up in holding that heart-hearth close and marveling at its warmth, trying to memorize the feel of it, to hear the server's arrival, to hear the words exchanged and the meals ordered. She comes back to the world with concern lining her friend's face and one warm hand placed over hers, brown eyes shining down on her. "Are you okay?"

"I am," Níniel confirms. "It's just- it's all so much. It's- it's," she struggles, looking for the right word for it, and watches his brows furrow and mouth perse as she searches her mind for what to say and he's going to interrupt her so she has to figure this out now, "it's wonderful. Sub- sublime."

His eyebrows pop up back up at her words, whatever he was about to say forgotten but the concern vanished with it. "Yeah, it really is, isn't it? Especially if- I'm glad you like it."

She does. "I do."

The boy nods again. "Can I tell you about the town? It's not super interesting, but I don't have a bunch of travels to speak of and it might be helpful since you're staying here."

"Sure." Níniel's interested; she knows so little and she wants to know so much, anything to keep the shadows slipping around her at bay, to let her understand this strange world she finds herself in better and here she doesn't even have to ask, doesn't have to worry about being denied or Ereinion laughing her questions off. And without a price, besides her presence? Of course she would like to hear. Why would she not?

He brightens at that, once again, pink rising to his cheeks, and launches into a tale of Amath, the town they have found themselves within. Well, she has found herself in; the boy has forever lived there, and has more than enough to tell her of it. For a moment she wonders if Ereinion had it as his intention before she is swept away by the tide. Níniel is positively enthralled - no, no, that is not a good word, not a word she should say - by it, hanging off each word as more bubble up, spinning the web even greater as she watches. She loves it. Their meals come, porcelain bowls and wooden plates slipped onto their table as he continues to talk; she was ordered a soup of some kind, rich and earthy and filling, and he shows her shortly how to blow on it so it won't burn her mouth and how to dip chunks of the grainy bread that came with it in the soup to eat that way. It's good. Níniel is very hungry - she cannot remember eating, so the last time must have been before that happened but she does not even start to know when - and it is very good. He apologizes shortly for not getting her something heartier because he wanted to make sure she could have it and she waves it off; he did not have to get her food, even if he liked her, even if it did not cost much. He has no obligation to her; she has done nothing for him. There is no need, but Níniel is not complaining, either way. The soup is good, and she is less hungry than she was before, a blissful warmth filling the nawing absence that had been her stomach, her mind.

After they have finished and he has resumed his story, Níniel sees a flash of gold in the corner of her vision, watches it as the smear makes its way up to the bar. Dark clothes, bright fair hair, an unearthliness like no one else- Ereinion, obviously, back from whatever he had done. Níniel keeps listening to the tale but keeps an eye on the elf leaning across the counter and speaking to the barkeep; they are too far away to hear what is being said, not to mention the nest of noise this thing is, loud and raucous. Listening to him is better. Easier to focus on. But Ereinion's arrival is important, too. She does not want to go yet. She wants to listen. She wants to watch. She wants to see and find no darkness in her gaze. She does not, but she can watch, and she can listen. That is not so hard.

Ereinion finishes talking and slouches up again, heading over towards their table in the corner. Ah. That might be an issue, will it? The thought disappears as quickly as it came, the origin sliding through Níniel's fingers the moment she thinks to question it; she does not know where it came from, why she would think that. Why would it be an issue? But she knows better than to not trust her instincts when they surface, and Ereinion is at their table already, cutting off the end of his story. "Having fun?"

The boy tenses, staring up at the elf. Níniel wants him to keep talking, keep telling her his story. He will not, she knows not. He will not finish this tale; not tonight, and they will not be staying longer than that. "We were."

"No reason to stop, then," Ereinion answers, cat-eyed and sharp, examining. He gestures at the table, a stray wave. "There's enough room for all of us. Three chairs."

Astor glances back at Níniel, looking for - what, instruction? agreement? just checking that she's still there? - something, and she shrugs, indifferent to it all. Ereinion has had plenty of chances to hurt her, and has not, no matter what her instincts are telling her, no matter how unsettled her nerves are; Níniel wants to hear the end of the story. This seems a chance for this. Refusal will, more likely than not, just make a scene. Níniel does not know why, how she knows that, another thought that has come from nothing, no reason, no source but that seems right enough, but she knows that a scene would probably be bad, here. She likes it here. She does not want to leave, even though she knows they must, in the end. Ereinion has somewhere to go, and she does not, but that only means she can take his, and he feels competent enough to get them there. Níniel is not foolish enough to think that this is safe from the darkness, that those awful creatures that haunt her will not come to this place to burn, to destroy. They follow her, just as much as Ereinion is watching for orcs following him, and the only way Níniel knows to preserve herself is to be away when they come. They cannot stay somewhere that is not safe, not for long, not long enough for her monsters to catch up.

The boy does not seem to know any of that, not that she expects him too. Instead, he sighs, frowning. "Why not."

"Great," Ereinion smiles, draping himself over the one available chair by the table. "You were talking about?"

"Don't you have something better to do?" the boy asks, shifting his plate further away from the sprawled-out elf. "I thought Elves were musicians, primarily. Don't you have a song to sing or something?"

"I could," Ereinion answers vaguely, because Ereinion doesn't like giving straight answers except when making some sort of plan, Níniel's noticed. She mostly thinks it's obtuse, but. Well. Ereinion's an Elf. Elves were not bound by the same rules as Men- the same rules as whatever Níniel was, really. Ereinion had called her 'one of the Edain', before, but was that the same thing as a Man, or different? Níniel should ask, later, once this - whatever it is - has finished and Ereinion is in more of an asking mood. A talking mood. Something that will get him to be honest with his answers. "Why should I?"

The boy shrugs, face purposefully blank. Níniel can see that he hates this, but she still cannot understand why, entirely. He brought it up, and they can all stay here. There doesn't seem to be an issue, except her hindbrain cannot stop screaming that Ereinion is a threat, and perhaps that is it, perhaps that is after all. She does not think that Ereinion is a threat, intellectually, reasonably, but he does not know the Elf, and perhaps he is a threat to the Mannish boy; she does not know. "Maybe I'd like to see what you could do."

"I'd rather not." Ereinion idly brushes a hair out of his face, shinning gold against the half-darkened amber of his hand and Níniel wishes that she could capture that moment forever, could find the right words to describe it or paint to immortalize it, the unsettling beauty, the not-quite-rightness of it all, luminous, radiant but terrible in its grace. She wonders how her kin must look to the Elf, if this is what he is, if this is what he must be surrounded with all his life; Níniel imagines that they must look very brutish, then. Perhaps they do, to Ereinion's kind. Perhaps they do. She half would like to ask, but she will not, for she knows doing so would be...unfortunate. She certainly would not do it here. "I find there little to sing about, these days, that is not cruel or forlorn, despairing."

"And you will not sing of that?" the boy asks, keen-eyed, and Níniel watches Ereinion's mouth twist, bitter and unhappy. It does not look right, upon his face, but Níniel is not sure what does.

It is with a great severity that he next speaks, the bleakness weighing upon their shoulders in a way that makes it hard to breathe, hard to think; hard to think coherently, at least. Níniel has been trying to do that, as of lately. "I will not. There is too much grief in this world to add upon it more. But I just prefer not to, mostly," he adds, and the weight lifts and Níniel can breathe again, taking in great heaving breaths that fill her from the inside of out.

"So why are you here, then?" her Mannish companion asks from the other side of her, still skeptical.

Ereinion shrugs. "We are passing through. We will be gone soon, heading to a safer place than this."

He does not like the Elf, Níniel knows, but he is still interested. Níniel, personally, would like to leave, even if the interest persists. Her mind does not like her here, and her hands are slippery with nervous dew. "Where are you going?"

"Nowhere interesting," Ereinion answers. "Better to stay where one already has ties, but I fear I no longer have that option, and neither does Níniel, I believe. But we will only be staying a night or two; I have already arranged for rooms, here."

The boy nods, vaguely. "Good for you."

Ereinion smiles at that, sharp-teethed but glad, a soft pink rising to his cheeks. Flattered, then. And Elves could blush; perhaps Níniel should take note of that. "I do try. And it has been wonderful speaking to you, truly," the boy looks more confused at that than anything, and Níniel is beginning to think that Ereinion simply does not know he feels a danger to them, trapped underneath a predator's gaze, does not know that the Man does not like him, which is a thought Níniel does not know how to feel about, "but I fear we probably should go, if that is fine with Níniel..."

Him trailing off is probably an invitation, Níniel realizes. "It is fine," she confirms.

"Great," Ereinion laughs. "And truly, good sir, it has been wonderful meeting you. Perhaps our paths shall cross again, should Eru smile upon us."

"Perhaps they shall," the boy comments, vaguely, and Ereinion draws himself up to his full height, slouching off his chair. A smile upon his face, he holds out a hand towards Nínel, and she takes the hand offered to her, proud flesh cool to the touch beneath her uncertain fingers as Ereinion pulls her up. She can not help but grasp, but clutch, but cling to the Elf’s unmarredness even as she knows she is not, had perhaps never been, even before the darkness had taken her. It is wrong, she knows, but she could do nothing else. Even so, the Elf’s fingers are too long, too perfect within her hold, long nails almost clawlike in their gentle curves; unreal, untrue. Like everything Ereinion is; like everything Elves are. Nínel should know that by now, should not be surprised. She still is.

The boy is still watching them, Nínel notices, still watching them and she does not know how to feel about that. He does not feel like a threat, just perhaps peeved, but he is not happy for it; she hopes that they are not causing him pain, by doing this. But she can hardly focus on that, not with soft skin beneath her nails, not with a solid hand cradling her wrist even as Ereinion leads her up, reaching up to steady her again when she wobbles upon standing, legs weak. "C'mon," Ereinion tells her, helping her aside, leading her away from the table, the boy, across the crowd bar. "I already got us a room, remember?"

Nínel does remember, and delightes in that for a moment, delightes also in the movement, the touch, the colors playing across her face, across her sight.  She does not particularly want to leave, to leave this place of wonders, of so much to see and hear and touch. Taste, even, with the soup. But she supposes that she should, that she will have to. "Yes."

"Great," Ereinion smiles and a coppery key runs over his knuckles, slips between his fingers and out of sight again, the hand that is not holding her. "Great. Let's go up then."

Nínel follows him, half-reluctant to leave this world of amazement, of color, and of motion, of everything that is alive, the antithesis of the dark itself, but she does not dislike the softness with which he holds her hand, fingers weaving together and locking there, unable to be parted, and it is such a small thing but she loves it regardless. She loves it, more than she thought she would. Perhaps the person she had once been, before, had loved it just the same as Nínel does now. Perhaps she did not, perhaps she had not gotten enough to know. She will never know, now, so Nínel chooses that the girl she had once been had been affectionate, overburdened with love and not separated from those who would give it to her, never for long. Nínel chooses that she was happy, that she was loved, and refuses to think of a single thing that might turn her against that thought. She was loved; Nínel knows it, will not believe otherwise. She will never know, after all. She might as well give that past self that shares not even a name with her this one thing, this one nice thing. There is no reason not to.

She hardly realizes it when Ereinion releases her, coming to as he closes the door behind him, footfalls soft against the planks. Right, yes, the room. That is where they are now. Ereinion shifts back into sight with a sigh, sharing a tired glance with eyes like aquamarine, cerulescent, peacock feathers. Like the sea, Nínel thinks, and thinks to ask him what the sea looks like, if they will see it. Ereinion steps back into sight, smiling as he tucks the key into the pocket of a short cloak - Nínel hadn’t realized he had it, before, black blending into black, dark into dark because in the dark there was no difference, nothing that could save one from all that it brought, all that it wrought - and almost rosy-cheeked as he kneels down to light one of the lanterns cluttered at the center of the room, bathing the room in light. Released by the glow, Nínel is not able to stop herself from slipping back and pushing the door closed, sliding in with a click, the wood heavy and solid against her nervous fingers. When that is done, she turns to find Ereinion looking back at her, lips quirking up. “We have hot water here, or so I’ve been told. Want to try it out?”

“A bath?” Nínel asks, vaguely, the word familiar but not quite known. Whatever. She would find out, she was sure. It would be fine.

“Yeah,” Ereinion agrees. He steps away again, leading her away from the half-dim room, the plush carpets and beds, few scattered bare chairs and little tables, one small and round, rose-wood, the other two barely more than a sapling’s width, and pushes a cloth curtain aside to let her through a doorway that she had not realized was there, before. For a moment there is only darkness before a thin melody passes through the air and a candle-flame springs to life before her, Nínel startling at the sudden light as Ereinion draws his fingers away from the burning wick.

 It is easier to see, in this light and Nínel notes but for a moment the sparkling mirror reflecting the flame, the rough-hewed sink, before turning her mind and eyes to the centerpiece of the chamber, a great tub shaped into the wood, large and weighty, so vast that for a moment she can hardly breathe. Ereinion is still talking, regardless, unaware or unimpressed by its size, striding closer to the tub as he speaks. “...this is soap, I would assume. Smells nice; use it to get any dirt off and just anywhere you can, generally. Shampoo’s just the same, for your hair, and so is conditioner, just wash the shampoo out first before you put any of that in.”

His hands stray to a coppery pump near where the tub begins, the creature that it is, and more instructions - advice? Nínel cannot tell, often, with him - spill forth from his mouth. “Here, this is where the water comes from. See, watch me?" Opalescent fingernails crease as he sits upon the side and drags it down, pale liquid gushing forward. It falls graceful into the bath, washing over the sides and making itself into a crust upon the bottom as it stills, swirling in colors unknown, tints not extended to her. A circular little top sits resting at the bottom and Nínel wonders if that is how the thing drains, since the water must need to be gone once they are, or perhaps she is just a fool. It is a hard thing to tell, for one such as her.

"Push it down for more, if you want. I have gotten some clothes for you, though we can continue looking tomorrow for better ones - change into those once you have finished here.”

“And what of you?” Nínel asks. “What if I shall have need of you, or you of me? What then?”

“I think it would be better if I would stay,” Ereinion answers, unconcerned. "You are young, and so very much is new; I would think it wise to provide my aid. Just fr now, if that's what you would like, but I just..." His voice trails off, crushed glass shimmering in his eyes, dark and unhappy; Nínel never wants to see it again, that shattered hopeless hope, what she knows so very well reflected back at her in a way that leaves her shaking. "I don't think it would be safe. Everything's nice and fine but if someone would be to just slip they might not wake again. I don't want you dead, Nínel. I don't want to come in here and see a corpse." Again, his voice shakes. "I understand if you wanted to try, to- to leave, to not have to deal with it, but I promise, it can get better. We just have to- live to see it. I really don't want you dead, and it's a very selfish thing, but I won't let it happen if I can stop it. I hope you can respect that."

He softens again for a moment, smile settling below those winking stars scattered across his skin, those ocean-rolling eyes, that sun- that Sun-bright hair. “I promise you, Nínel, fair maiden, it shall be fine. You shall be fine, and I shall be fine, and we shall be well. Now take a bath, darling. It will be nice, and I will help you if it is not.”

Nínel does not particularly want to busy Ereinion with requests of her own, the even thought of it feeling, wrong, sacrilegious, profane, but that is what he asked of her, so she likely should, if the moment would arrive. For now, it did not, and she inclines her head, a little smile passing across her own lips of the thought of being here, in this place, and having full run of it! “It will be nice, I am sure.”

"That's what we like to hear," Ereinion says, but for all his summer-warm smiles his confidence is not in, some slight fear shining through. Nínel knows fear. She had not thought that one such as him, high and mighty Eldar with otherworldly minds and skin and hair, eyes shining so bright she can imagine a whole false life for herself, living along that sea, when she has not even seen as much as the coast, implanted into her mind by the simple siht of him, would, but apparently that was wrong. Ereion spoke; Ereinion breathed (she thinks, though she cannot be sure); Ereion thought and considered, ate and consumed. Mortal enough that terror could take him, darkened tendrals wrapping around his mind, his soul, knife-sharp smile and beaming eyes, embedding itself within his speech. "But shall we, my lady? I'd rather not let the water cool if I could."

Nínel nodded, turning in a short circle around her as she examines the room, freed from her expectation to listen. Ereinion does not move save to vacant her path as Nínel steps forward; even with the gloaming-elf's presence, eyes brighter than the moon washing across the waves, golden locks glowing bright with the Sun, it is not undark, so she takes the bubbling wax of the lightened candle carefully in one hand and passes the flame against another wick, another, and another, fingers growing hot from the touch but warm with the light inside, with the light she had lit, the darkness she had beat back.

Silence does not fit Ereinion as he raises his eyebrows at Nínel's turn, her slow and steady advance towards him in the brighter but still not total light, shadows deep and murmuring. "Help me," she says, plucking at her coat, the one she can not even try to remember how she had managed to pull it on, trapped inside that eternal darkness. "Help me get it off."

"As you wish," Ereinion says with a rakish smile that Nínel can not quite decipher, some implication lost on her; a want, an allowance, a desire? She cannotbe sure. Whatever the reason his thin nimble fingers are quick and light as they touch against her skin, glowing with an inner heat that Nínel must find herself lacking. They do not hesitate even as Nínel struggles out of her jacket, strips herself to the bone, and neither do they change, presence soft and light and never advancing more than they must. Nínel half-wants to take his hais hand in her own, press that burning warmth to her own skin and never let go, allow the heat to take even as she knows it will not burn; Ereinion had had every chance to hurt her, and has not. He, confusingly, is safe.

Nínel goes to set the  - her - his -clothes aside but Ereinion stops her, taking the bundle carefully from her arms to place the loose-fitting things besides the tub in a pile of black and gray. Her fingers raise to brush her hair out as Ereionion is turned, snagging on tangles and pulling her hand away the second they find themselves trapped, containing even as the cold hits her body, not cruel but still biting. She has known cold before, true cold, piercing flaying cold, and i is not this. For that she is quite glad, though she speaks of it not. There was no need when it was relief rather than pain, absence rather than presence; notable, for her, raised upon that thick smoky soup of darkness but not another, dancing in the light.

Ereinion turns back towards her a moment only after she steps over to the tub, gently reaching her fingers out into the water and biting down hard on a cry as she stumbles back, unprepared for the sudden, piercing, smoldering heat. Whoever told Ereinion of ‘hot water’ had not lied to him, Nínel admits unhappily. His laugh is a gentle chiming sound, the rustling of leaves as they fall, warm and fluttering, but his good humor is nothing in the face of her catlike dislike.

Still. Perhaps it will not be so bad after a moment to sit, she thinks. It is a ridiculously bad way to try to kill someone, Nínel knows, and she doubts Ereinion would, doubts he would here, most of all, so that cannot be the point. Doubts he would do all of this for that small amusement, however easy it falls upon him, hgh-spirited and fair, free from the world of which Nínel lives. Perhaps she just has to wait, for a moment. Perhaps it will be better, then, and she will be able to see what this is - the concept is not so bad, a way to rid cold from her bones once and for all, never to creep in again, and cold was just another tool of the darkness, another aspect, another facet of the same jewel. Nínel is not opposed to the concept, and so she sits next to the tub, kicking her feet and watching the water bubble and steam rise with wary eyes. Even the porcelain is warm beneath her fingers as she runs them across her the tub's surface, a lighter heat than that of the scorching, sweltering water, almost pleasant. Perhaps this will be what it is like, once it is cooler. Ereinion pointedly does not watch her.

She has waited long enough, Nínel realizes once the weave has slipped out from beneath her fingers, depositing her somewhere else, later though no time has passed, though she knows no time has passed. It will be too hot, or it will not be. She will not know unless she tries.

Gingerly, Nínel reaches out again, dipping the tips of her fingers into the basin again. No pain comes, just a gentle warmth, little more intense than the heat radiating from the porcelain she is perched on, and so she lowers her knuckles into the water, her fingers, her whole hand. It is a soft thing, almost, kind in its comfort; it is hard for Nínel to believe that it is the same stuff that had burned her. She reaches deeper, tipping over the tub as she immerses her arm fully, dark strands of hair trailing it into the warm water and dipping far below, distorted by the light. Cut off, cut off from the rest of her, cut off by the water’s edge, the horizon. She wonders if she will be able to get it back or if the curls will fall down onto the bottom of the tub, swirling in the abyss. But it won’t, Nínel knows; it will not, just a trick of the light. This will not harm her, she is sure enough; it is kind, and warm, and comforting, and for that she should like it, should get in already before it cools. Ereinion has not yet hurt her; it would make no sense to start now, not here. "Is it good?"

It is. Nínel nods, straightens in one abrupt motion, and almost tips into the tub as she flails, losing her footing, before she manages to stumble back onto the brief pale tiling and then onto the wood. She would rather not fall into the basin and slam into the porcelain so the wobbling aches within her will have a physical counterpart. Better to control it, than to slip. Cold hands catch her as she falls back, soft - the beginnings of callouses rub against her shoulders, a silent chill running through her burnished skin. Well. It was for the best that he had stayed, perhaps. Nínel does not want to crack her head open when she has only just begun to live.

Dark eyes flick upward, catching upon dandelion-stem green, crawling algae and softened waves, lapping at her fingers. Ereinion watches her behind long lashes, spider-legs making the color cool, the passion dim. Ereinon will not hurt her, Nínel tells herself. He will not, for he already would have. His hold is light and feathery, casting shivers across her naked skin, and yet barely touching her at all; a trap she can easily break out of, and a net easily broken. Oddly, she does not want to. But she must bathe.

With soft hands guiding her up, Nínel stands again, trembling on wobbly legs - a newborn fawn, matchstick legs, she thinks - as she faces down the bath again and steps over to its side again, taking a deep breath before lowering herself into the tub. The warm water laps at her skin, soft and tender, licking with many little tiny tongues, and she welcomes it, sitting quiet against the porcelain and letting the water run over her, filling her up inside, running up her veins, seeping into her bones. She closes her eyes, letting the Darkness take her for only a moment before splitting them open again, warmth suddenly too hot, burning, searing her bones from her skin, heaving, and finds herself faced with only the bath, the water, the wall across from her. She pants, for a moment, and then swallows, looking away, guilty for ruining this.

The Darkness is not here, not yet. It cannot hurt her. The water is warm, comforting. Vaguely, she hears the sounds of clattering, frigid hands reaching out to touch upon her skin, soon joined by a flowery scent as a chalky thing rubs against her skin. Soap, if Nínel must guess. Silty fragments unfurl within the tub when she cracks one eye open again, a blooming, chalky rose growing from the bath before cracking apart, covering all she can see in a thin coating of foggy opaqueness, details hard to make out. That is fine. It is not Dark, and so it is fine. It would not be hard to dismiss the vagueness of it all, to break through the line of fog and restore her full sight; Nínel could do it now, could do it whenever. Nothing would stop her.

The shampoo is a slimy shimmery honey-gold liquid that pulls and twists and stretches in Ereinion's hands, catching the light as he douses his fingers to run them through her hair, sticking the threads together with barely a touch. That should be fine - Nínel truly doubts that it was somehow combine into a monstrosity capable of destroying her, inefficient methods and doubts soon dismissed by the light, the bright, even as it is there is a strange wrongness in how cold it feels far from the bath though she knows it is not at all, even as it is soft and slippery as pond-lichen beneath her fingers. It is hard to be afraid, in the light of the room, in the warmth of the bath, far from the encroaching Dark, soft and satisfied and in awe all the same.

Her hair is rough against her skin, almost scratchy, matted with what feels like sweat, or perhaps Nínel is just extrapolating, taking her journey earlier and making a fact of it. She does not know; she does not need to know. Either way, the raven-shimmer is pliable beneath the Elf's touch, running her fingers through snags and pulling out again, slowly working itself softer as the syrup disappears into the darkness.

From what Nínel can remember, which is little, her hair is a nonfactor; a default state, a fact of nature. Here, though, she cannot stop her mind from wandering, from beginning to wonder. It’s long, longer than Ereinion’s for certain, thick with what she would think would be lushness if in better circumstances. Perhaps she was someone important; perhaps not. Perhaps the girl she once was had loved her hair, had cared for it carefully, but Nínel cannot keep that now, unknowing and not particularly willing. She does not feel anything, truly, when she looks down at herself, at her body, at once was more someone else’s than her own, nothing besides the desire to be happy and fit and clean, to be safe from any that can harm her. Her hair does not factor into that.

Regardless, Nínel tips her head back obediently when Ereinon guides her into the water to wash out the shampoo, face dipping beneath the surface for a moment before the breath is stolen from her lungs and she begins to panic, thrusting herself up, panting. It does not feel good, to drown, to have the Darkness crowding at her vision, circling around her. She does not like it. Ereinon, from the look upon his face, does not either. But the water is warm, and nice, and kind, and so Nínel leans back more carefully and dips the back of her neck into the warmth, dark locks swirling beneath her like thick black snakes. She looks up from that quickly, gaze snapping on the lantern she had set next to the bath, burning merielly, and takes a deep breath before tipping deeper, water rushing over her ears as noise hisses and crackles around her, the bubbling of the bath and creaking of the wooden planks and faint footsteps in another room suddenly gone, distorted, so very far away. But the warmth comes so easily now, lapping at her, swaddling her in the blanket it has become, and it is easy to close her eyes and shut it all out, not dark but light beneath her lids, focus on the sway of the water against her skin and the gentle float it has allowed her, to simply let it all drift away and leave in that tub, desperate scrambles for her memory and relief at finding it intact few and far between. It is good, to let go, here. It is good.

Gentle hands return again to the crown of her head, holding her kindly, and Nínel cracks her eyes open when she remembers the conditioner, blinking in the light. In texture, it is not, thick and grainy and white, gathering in clumps atop her tanned skin where it falls instead of pooling within the sanctuary of one's hands. Easy to squish, easy to squeeze and break apart, but Nínel does not quite have faith in the water’s ability to wash it away without outside interference, not compared to the thin laughing quicksilver before. Regardless, Nínel lets Ereionion slathers her hair with the chunks, rubbing them into her scalp with his knuckles in a way that seems half-apology, half-whisper, handling a thing that has before been broken, some pot that had fell and repaired and now one did not want to break agin. Nínel could not bring herself to mind.

Her calm has not been lost, has not been spoiled by her refusal of it, engagement in worldly things. It falls over her like the watery rice-thin veil against her skin, fair and reassuring, welcoming her back into the warmth, the water, the peace. Níniel does not close her eyes this time but watches the ceiling, the flickering wicks within her lanterns, black kelp-like strands of hair floating past her face, half-submerged. It is nice, to just…watch, and do nothing. Have to do nothing. Have nothing to do. Any of the above, truly; the differences between the three matter little to her, here, with the languid lavish tranquility of the bath.

Some time later - she does not know, finds it hard to keep track, here - the conditioner has begun to bleed from her hair into the water, casting it into a creamy pearl white. She reaches up and runs her hand through the darkness, some of the goopy substance coming with her. Different than the shampoo, then. That fact assumed, Níniel starts to work it out herself, squishing it out of the drowned locks she can reach in the pool and cupping water in her hands to spill upon the ones she cannot dip without going under. She does not particularly want to go under again. She does not like it.

She also does not like it when the water spilled down in to her eyes, a burning searing pain that made it impossible to keep them open as she flailed and Ereinion handed her a towel to rub it out. That is bad. She would quite like to avoid that, and she has half a mind to hold the fact that Ereinion did not warn her of this before against him, even if he did help, but she truly doubted there would be any point to the endeavor. Ereinion is the one who can get them to safety; Ereinion is the one making the plans. Níniel is not daft enough to think that any grudge on her side of things would affect a change besides endangering her. Nobody liked to be resented, even Níniel knows that, and she has gotten this far through being likable. Not a threat. It is good, to be both.

It is hard, to get out of the bath, to untangle herself from the warmth and stand, shivering, reaching back into that comfort just to dispel it by tugging out the plug blocking the drain. The tub groans as the water begins to siphon away, yearning, full of despair, and Níniel turns away, uncomfortable by its distress. A pile of clothes lies next to the sink; fresh, the ones that Ereinion had come back with, had apparently purchased deep in the dark of the town, not her old ones, cast discarded upon the floor. That should be the next step, shouldn’t it?

"Do you want help again?" Ereinion asks with eyes glittering. Nínel does not think that she needs it, shakes her head, and so he retracts with only a bow, leaving her alone. In the room. With the clothes that are not hers, that she knows not the owners of, besides guessing at Ereinion. That's fine. The Elf never seems to particularly care what she does, as long as she lives through it.

Níniel pads over to the sink and reaches out, burying her fingers in some soft cloth. She takes the first parcel, holding it up with the tips of her fingers; it is a tunic, light grayish-green, plain and muted but restrained, almost silken in its quality. As she holds it up in front of her in the mirror, Níniel can see it looks slightly too big for her, sharp with its contrast against her eyes. Well, okay, sure. She sets it aside and picks up the next garment.

It is breeches, smooth brown cotton and unassuming. No problem there; they, again, look a bit too long on her, but she can deal with that. A long flowy garment came next, the same linen as the tunic had been and undyed, easier to get into; a dress of some sort, perhaps for sleep? Fabric floods across the floor as she tries to heft it to where it would lay, should she wear it. Long, she got that.

Underclothes, hosen and cotehardie, is all that was left after that, and so Níniel slips her way into the nightdress, tying up the front. There; done. She glances up at the mirror - looks fine enough, even as her hair drips drips drips down her back, slipping down the back of the gown, light and plopping. Nínel doesn't mind. She does not think she has had such small concerns before. Not while she was herself, at least. Then again, she has only been herself for a matter of days, and none before that.

Chapter Text

Candlewicks flicker, one pale stick guttering out as Níniel glances over at it, pulling her gaze away from her reflection. The darkened eyes staring back at her were hard to pull away for, chilled hairs on the back of her neck raising in the half-dark, the gauntness that haunts her, always had. She should go. The unfamiliar cloth clings to her, billowing around her gooseflesh even as the water pulls it closer, even if it warms her, just the slightly. She should go. She is cold, and Ereinion had said they wanted to bathe, had he not? She should allow for that, after all that they've done. All they must still do, for her to live, and she must give them reason to want that - or, at least, not give them any chance to waver or doubt, no cracks for spiraling uncertainess to seep into like rainwater into the split ground. And that is if he would even doubt at all, if such a thing like Ereinion might doubt and not instead disappear at any sign of trouble, any way for her to not be worth the attempt.

She does not know that he is not her angel. However, she does not know that he is, and even angels must be fed. Even angels do not wish death, or the courting of the same. Most certainly not on a flimsy mortal's account.

Better not to give a reason. Níniel steps over to the door and pulls it open, glancing out into the fainter light with a wariness she cannot dismiss.

The Elf sits with his back to her, faintly illuminated by the lantern besides him. A halo glows bright where the lantern's light catches upon his ethereal locks, lighting his hair a bright glowing gold, glinting and glittering in the light. She cannot see his face, scratched clean by the darkness, null and void, but a hum slips from his lip as he bends over whatever he is looking at, soft, fleeting. A nursery rhyme, Níniel thinks, somewhat nonsensically; it is gentle, bouncing, yes, but she does not think she has ever heard this one before. She has not heard any one before, and yet her half-judgement feels right sitting upon her breast. She does not know why she thinks of it now, or how. She does not know, for most things. For all things.

Níniel approaches him with quiet feet, edging closer to the darkness, dancing around the edge of it. Along her arms, her hairs shiver and gooseskin prickles; she is not sure if it is from the cold that still clings to her, or the closeness. “Ereinion?”

The Elf startles, freezing for a moment before glancing back, finally turning into the light. One thing proven, then; one claim of reality, of presence. “Yes? Uh, Níniel?”

“I’m done,” she tells him, plainly, for she does not know much else to do, after disturbing that moment, ending that song, however bare it might be. She had not wanted it to end. “With the bath.”

“Good.” He raises his head to look at her and then laughs, notes graceful in his mouth. “Oh, sweet, that is not what you’re supposed to do.”

Níniel frowns, her skin beginning to itch as red rises to her cheeks, flushed. “What?”

“You’re dripping water everywhere,” Ereinion tells her, pushing himself up from the desk and stepping towards her. “Water damage is not a good idea, my dear. Let me braid it; it’ll trap the water from getting out and it’s good to do it while your hair’s wet. Wonderful curls in the morning, you shall have.”

It is takes only a moment after he finishes speaking that he blanches, turning from a glowing topas to paler amber, some sudden horror hitting him; but by then Níniel is already turning the idea over in her mind, picturing the Elf’s fingers carding through her hair, imagining the rest tucked happily out of sight, perhaps not dripping water down her spine. Touch is a form of affection, she knows, and Níniel yearns for it. “You can. I would like it.”

The shattered uncertain distress upon Ereinion’s face is surprising, startling even; a shattering of a perfect mirror, waves crashing underneath and twisting it into something conflicted, half-unsightly. Fiersome in its marred imperfection, in how it clashes against that same unearthly beauty he has. Still, some loveliness clings to him still, the crinkle of his gem-smooth cheeks, the dappled sunkisses across his skin. He manages to pull himself together before Níniel has enough time to capture it, to stumble across sublime and resplendent and terrible, and then the moment is gone. “If you would like it, my lady.”

Níniel is not a lady. Regardless, she does not protest as Erenion guides her to the desk-chair and props her up facing his past papers, now half brushed away. She touches the ink with reverent fingers - dark and inky but material, stubborn, undying, able to immortalize any moment it touches - before fingers start to run through her hair, dry against her wetness, brushing it back. “How was it?”

“Good,” Níniel answers, for she does not have the right word for it, to describe how it felt. “Warm. Will you?”

A laugh echoes behind her, nails short as they brush against her scalp. “Of course. I haven’t gotten the chance in, oh, I do not bother counting."

Níniel hums, considering, adding that to what she knows of the Elf, his past, the little snippets he is willing to tell her. Once a lord, no longer, has kin he is trying to reach, somewhere safer, the somewhere safer they are going. “What were you singing?”

“Oh!” Ereinion stops, halfway back to his chair. “It’s, uh, a little tune that my father taught me. I think it’s cute.” The hands lapse in their brushing, going slack and falling away from her hair for only a moment before, and Ereinion pauses. The next words are barely caught, muttered beneath his breath. “...reminds me of home.”

“Hm?” Ereinion has not often spoken of home, before, to her. Even now, Níniel is half-impressed he answered the question in the first place, is unsure if it foretells well. But it is more than she would get normally, and that may mean that he is in a telling mood; if he is, that would mean many more questions answered, many less things to doubt. Níniel would quite like that.

"Well, it doesn't matter now," the Elf dismisses, brushing past the point with a bright indifference. "But I suppose that does not stop me from remembering; a nursery tune, that was. Ditsies I know much of, though never from him - my father was quite a stern man, or at least he tried to, and had little time or mind for that sort of indulgence - and jaunts. I am happy with those, for they make me feel much the same."

The boy had mentioned music before, with Elves, and those Ereinion had refused he had not refuted the point. "And others?"

His fingers hault again, half-way through gathering her hair together to braid, just begining to seperate into different parts, but resume their work quickly as Ereinion begins to speak again, melancholy touching upon his tone. "Ballads, some. I used to have quite a fondness for them, yet it is hard to keep it, now. Purpose-songs; I have showed you enough of those already, I fear, but they are useful enough. And dirges, laments, of course, but I've never liked them much."

Níniel refuses to ask why; she already knows enough. She has never heard a dirge, but she would not think that she would be able to find any fondness for such either. "Purpose-songs?"

Ereinion snorts, drawing back. "Songs made for a certain effect; I forget that you people do not use them. Light-songs, marching-songs, searching-songs, the like. Of those, they are a song to create light where there is none, to go longer than one should, to find someone or something that is lost. We learn them as children, really. They make life much easier, dear, and it's good to have...contigencies."

The Elf's voice trails off even as his fingers brushed her dark locks into sections, beginning the braid outright. "Have you ever made your own?"

"Songs?" Ereinion asks, almost surprised. "Not truly, not much. I've certainly tried in the past, but, well, it is not an easy thing, especially with betters to compare yourself against. I never tried very hard."

Níniel does not speak, leaning her head back and focusing upon the hands within her hair, gentle yet purposeful, intent. Ereinion waits, too, and does not speak either. Instead, they sit in their silence, perhaps stewing, but it is hard to tell when the rhythm pulses softly through her, with the Elf braiding her hair and time slipping away from her easily, making barely an effort to hold onto it, tranquil as it is. It is nice. She cannot focus, cannot grasp anything truly, can only take the river take her and float along with it. It is nice.

Ereinion leans back, drawing his fingers from her with a soft breath and no small excitement. "Tad-ah."

Níniel glances down at her hair, pulled back to herself through the voice, and finds a braid awaiting her, dark and thick and lush, more intricate than she expected. She feels her eyebrows raise as she twists in the chair and looks back at Ereinion, expectant. "Thank you."

"Of course." Ereinion straightens, brushing himself off and stretching, catlike as his joints pop and ripple beneath his skin. He looks down at her with ocean aquamarine eyes, lazy but calm, satsified. "It's a very simple braid, you know, but we're hardly going to court tomorrow - like there is one, anymore." Words spoken in the hearth of grim mirth, an unwholesome glint dwelling in is eyes, before he pauses and something flickers, an apologetic smile going to warm her gaze instead as he corrects: "No, apologies, do not listen to what I say, for I speak too soon and without thinking. But still it is late; I am quite tired, as one might divine, and I am sure you are as well. Could do a lot better, if I wasn't."

Níniel nods, well aware of the fatigue creeping in her bones, curling around her heart. She is tired; he is tired. He could make a better braid, if he was not, but Níniel was content with that. These are all facts. What are not facts are those unhappinesses that flicker and flutter across the Elf's visage, that which she can not hope to pull at the edges of, can never hope to see truely; but neither is it her responsibility, tired and a passenger in this life, to wonder now. There are facts. She knows the facts. It is good to check, to reiterate. The satiny linen is soft against her skin. She should mention that, shouldn't she?

Ereinion seems to have taken the motion as evidence of her exhaustion, drawing her up gently with the same firm hands as he had made his braid with. "We should sleep, darling. Do you have any questions still?"

She did, a thin smile rising to her lips at the thought. It is late, Níniel is tired; it is hard to think, head stuffed full of cotton, but she still can, and it is a satsifying thing. "Nothing still held out their doors when you went out."

That certainly gets a reaction; Ereinion flushes a deep red, for a moment angry - furious, even - before draining way into shame. He looks away from her even as he holds her hand, even as he does not let her fall. Níniel appreciates that, the fact that he does not. “Well, I may have done a little bit of theft, simply because of that reason. Just a smidge.”

Níniel understands the problem; she just simply does not care. They should leave soon, and it is soft, and she likes to have it. Therefore, it is good that she does. “Yes?”

“And that’s commonly understood to be a bad thing, Níniel.” Ereinion sighs, another smile jumping up to encompass his face again, bright and cheery. He does that often, Níniel has noticed, hiding whatever pains him behind a mask of cheer or nonchalantness. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t have worried about your reaction, then.”

Chapter Text

Objectively, Finduilas is doing well. Well-ish. As well as someone could be doing, with what her life has devolved into.

First: they are safe, far from the Orcs that had sacked her home. They are among civilized folk, with these Edain, and Finduilas has a nice inn-room that must be quite fancy, for them; she likes that greatly, more for what it represents than anything else. Of money she has now, courtesy of that brooch and the blacksmith's companion, and that is a very good thing. They need supplies to reach Doriath, food and steeds and sorts, and it would be best to hold onto some themselves, so that tolls or bribes may be paid as needed; her kin had never liked the fact that those may exist, but she knew that they did and did not particularly want to fall victim to such a trap. She trusts in King Thingol and the witch-queen Melian, but she would rather have something to offer besides her continued existence. Her jewelry can provide that well enough, and she has the Nauglamír which shall not allow her to be turned away, but, well. It's family. It is all of her family that she has left; it would be a wrong thing to do, selling it so. Keeping her signet ring would be a step in the right direction, there, and she would rather not be forced to sell it, for it locks her actions down so greatly. Hopefully, she will not.

She tries to categorize all these things as the Sun begins to bleed into the room, light falling across the wooden floor and atop the bed, running across her face in streams of bright pastel radiance, making Níniel's hair shine with luster. The girl looks asleep enough, undisturbed by the sunlight and unmoving still as Finduilas even began to twist and sit up in the bed, fighting her way out of the sheets and laying still once she had accomplished that, glancing over at her companion. Níniel is pretty, for a Man, in a bit more of a harsh, blocky way as opposed to the grace Finduilas has been raised with, has been told to respect again and again; uncut stone rather than polished jewels, but shining nonetheless for the lack of delicacy. Dark hair spills out of her braid in little curls, half-contained by Finduilas' late-night handiwork, spreading against the Sun-dried white of the sheets behind her, and there is a peace that Finduilas had not before seen on her face, something in her cheeks, under her eyes, that makes her look softer, younger, happier in a way, unworried by the pains of the world. When Níniel is like this, Finduilas can forget, can forget how they met, how that is not even her name. How Finduilas does not even know what her name is, and that she does not know either. Can forget what it means, too.

Regardless. Finduilas shakes herself and rolls away, slipping out of bed and immediately regretting it; she is cold without the comfort of the blankets, without her swaddling. She pads across the floor, glancing back at the bed every few steps, whether to check on Níniel or to reconsider getting up, she is not sure. Nevertheless, she makes it across the room and grabs the coat she had procured less than legally, tugging it around her. That done, she heads towards the washroom, pushing the curtains aside to allow herself in before letting them fall so she can reach her day-clothing unheeded.

Her underclothes are already worn, hose and such, but she must continue for the plausible deniability; Finduilas is going as Ereinion, son of some minor (most certainly dead) elven lord, and not herself, daughter of the House of Finarfin, Noldor in a way that cannot be argued with. Less attention should be paid to her as such, and she can go back to being Finduilas once they have reached Doriath, safety.

From there, she must choose between her night-soaked breeches or ill-fitting trousers, too tight around her hips and loose around her thighs, falling far above her ankles, but, well, Finduilas didn't pay for them and therefore cannot complain. For now, she takes her own pants, clean enough from her prior efforts the past night and tighter-tailored, better fitting to her form which alone is ambiguous enough to hopely avoid questions, and tugs on a spare tunic, also stolen. They'll look for more today, she knows, has decided. Then goes the coat she had grabbed earlier - Finduilas' own, she thinks - and now she is left fully dressed, staring at herself in the mirror. Now she is left with only her hair.

To the Noldor - to all the Elves, maybe, but Finduilas only knows of the Noldor, the people she is from - hair is of great importance, long and lush and to be protected, to be maintained. Braided and elaborate, cut short only in disgrace or mourning. Finduilas is long used to combs, hands in her hair, sitting still as it is arranged, braided into great monstrosities of gem and pearl and ribbon, made ready for court. Her father had long done it, and then her uncle, when he wanted to an excuse to regale her with stories and songs, and then Gwindor, once practicing marriage-braids on each other, crowns and such, and then simple little things, after he had returned, sloppy half-made things created in the moments before his hands trembled so much that he had to pull away, to stop. She had tried to help him, then, tried to be positive and encouraging, to offer to give him hers and then make them as terribly as she could so that they could laugh at it together. It worked, most of the time. Sometimes it didn't.

Perhaps she should cut her hair short. Gwindor is dead now, Finduilas is half-sure, and so are Finrod and her father; all her family is, everyone that she knew is. Perhaps it is wrong that she has not done it yet, sinful and inconsiderate, but who is going to be upset by it? There is no one, and maybe that is reason enough to do it. Finduilas does not have shears or scissors, but that does not mean she can't. It would not be a clean cut, but does it truly need to be? That is not the point, to this. And it would likely help her blend in better, help sell her lie, if it were only shorter. Maybe just above the chin; that seems achievable, for her. It would work.

She still has her dagger. One of her father's set, another thing that is left of her, of who she once was before night had fallen and fire took it all; the hilt shines in the light, pearlescent rays playing around the handle, as Finduilas raises it and palms her mess of hair with her other hand, considering. Her family is dead, her life gone, destroyed in a flash - should she not mourn? Should she not do this, a silent protest to counterbalance the little she thinks of it, says of it, so that she might stand still and not meet those she has lost? Should she not at least do something, to show that she is not blind, even if it is only to herself? She is different now, Finduilas knows, and the name fits around her poorly, memories of an easier age sweet upon her tongue, childish, sugar bursting inside her mouth as she bit into peaches, plums, sweet sticky things that stain her hands. The stickiness forbids her from touching anything to not spoil it as well, and that will not suit her; better to lock the memories of who she once was away and set herself upon the present so that she might act, rather than be paralyzed and die for it.

There is no time in this world left to grieve. She was the last heir of her people, the last remnant of her kin, the only thing left of them that remains besides the trinkets she keeps; she shall not refuse her grief, but neither will she let herself die for it, because she needs to live. In defiance of it all, in defiance of what has been done to them, she needs to live, must not give Morgoth the victory that he so deeply wants, to leave none behind; she must live, as a reminder that his power is not complete. And if Finduilas does not want to die, all the better for it.

She is not sure if she can go back to Finduilas if she cuts this now. She is not sure that she wants to, the same way she does not know if it will ever be over. But hair grows back, and the time when she might be called upon to play that part again shall be so far that no one will know at all. Locks lengthened as the heart began to bloom again, and mourning was never supposed to last forever, for else one faded, and a new death was to be mourned. If Finduilas did this now, no one but she and the mirror and the air would know. And elvish hair was not the same as the Edain's; some use might yet come of it, and Finduilas truly doubts it will be the same if it stays upon her head.

It is freeing, when the blow comes. Gold parts like water for the blade, and her hand does not shake even as she flinches, inching back before she can catch herself. The cut is even enough, messy if one thought to look but fine from a distance, if not presentable than playing at it, and Finduilas forces the blade through once it pauses for her startle; she manages to grab a handful before it falls, and puts the dagger on the sink before her hands can chose to do any more. Finduilas does not like it so close to skin.

But she has cut it well enough, reaching halfway to her shoulders, well enough for grief and short enough that she will not have to braid it, and a mercy that is: she would not know which to chose, Finduilas thinks, and she has already thought far too much for this morning, even if the rest has refreshed her, cleared her eyes, which she half hates because now she can sob once more, tears replenshed long after they had run dry before. Finduilas would hate to cry before Níniel, for Níniel trusts her, and relies upon her judgement, and so Finduilas may not show the grief as plainly as she might like, even if the world would not punish her enough for thinking to dare. Her job done, Finduilas begins to gather her hair, scattered where it had fallen upon the wood, glimmering in the light, shining like the Sun. Finduilas had not thought it would still insist on doing that now.

A crash rings out from the other room and her hair is forgotten, Finduilas skidding onto the wooden planks as she looks. Níniel, on the floor surrounded by a bubble of white linen sheets, ebony against the snow, the bed stripped bare; evidently having fallen, even as she startles and twists around at the sound of Finduilas’ rush, pushing herself into a sitting position. The rest of the room; untouched, exactly as it was.

Finduilas has already established that Níniel is pretty; what she did not is that it was easy to mistake Níniel for dead. In the dark of the night, no living blush would raise to her skin, and her temperature would stabilize, would drop, still and unmoving through it all. The previous night had been the first Finduilas slept alongside her, and all through the night she would panic, wet hair pressed against her skin, turning Níniel over often to see her breathing, to check her pulse, for she would begin to wonder if she was cuddling a corpse. There had been none of that when Finduilas had awoke, no rictus or pallor of death, none of the mangling that accompanied the loss of breath, just a simple peace, a simple tranquility. She had thought it well, that Níniel had finally managed a softer, kinder rest, in the end, and had not wanted to wake her from such.

There is none of that now, but neither was there anything that Finduilas had feared; blood flushed red across her cheeks, dark eyes bright with the light of life, if not the way it is with Elves, with those who had been born under the light of the Two Trees. Lush darkness, obvious breath, the effort required for the wheel of life to spin and keep spinning evident. Still, there is some fear to her still, some impulsive urge to shrink away and be hidden, and so Finduilas keeps her distance. “Do you need any help?”

Hickory eyes watch her carefully from the impromptu nest. “Yes.”

Finduilas nods and steps closer, closing the distance between the two of them. She tries to keep her feet light, quiet, in some half-vain attempt to not spook the Edain; Níniel has already asked for her aid, is unlikely to back out now, but it is almost instinct, to her, at this point. The Elf squats when she offers Níniel a hand, and Níniel takes it (gladly? Finduilas cannot be sure). The skin is soft underneath her fingers, few callouses existing as she draws the girl up easily. “Did you get bruised?”

Níniel raises an eyebrow at the question, now beautifully lopsided, and Finduilas does not need her response voiced to understand. “Discolored skin that hurts. Got any of that?”

“I don’t think so,” the woman answers, and Finduilas suddenly notices that her hand is still clasped around one fair Elvish wrist, beginning to draw back. There is no need for it, Níniel now standing, but Níniel herself does not seem to think so, tightening her grip on Finduilas like iron. “Don’t go.”

“I’m not going to!” Finduilas laughs for a moment and gives up her struggling, allowing Níniel’s hold. She is not used to this, that desire; Elves do not do such, save for the smallest children, but Níniel is not an Elf. Finduilas will not expect her to be. “Okay, yes, you can, since you are well. But we should talk about the day, and what we want to do.”

“What is it?” Níniel asks, vaguely skeptical, vaguely interested. Curious; good, Finduilas can work with that.

“The main plan is to buy things,” the Elf answers. “We need supplies and provisions and that sort; I would like you to choose some things for yourself, too. I think it’d be nice.”

Níniel hums, agreeing. “And leave.”

“And leave, too,” Finduilas allows, scrambling a moment for Níniel’s line of reasoning, here. It is such a little thing to worry about, but she cannot help it; she had thought that Níniel was content, if not happy, here, satisfied, and has she been wrong? Does Níniel hate it, has hated it the whole time? Has she been so wrong at reading the girl that she has gone the absolutely opposite direction, and what else has she been wrong about? Does she truly know anything about Níniel, her wants and needs and all else? Could she be so wrong? “Do you not like it here?”

“I do!” Finduilas is almost taken aback by the force of Níniel’s insistence, sudden and unplaceable. Dark eyes snap up towards hers and Finduilas can see the fear there, wild and churning, as intense as it had been the first time they had met, in that blindness, that carve. “It’s just- we cannot stay. We cannot.”

 It would be unwise to; this is not a safe place, anymore, not since the fall of her home, and orcs are roaming these woods, prowling in the night. A town is a harder thing to hide and an easier thing to find than a stray few, and Finduilas would rather not be found. She is sure that Níniel wants the same, but the strength of the girl’s conviction is surprising, unexpected. Why, she would like to know. Perhaps Níniel knows more than she looks; perhaps Níniel knows something that Finduilas does not. “Why?”

“The Darkness,” Níniel hisses, shaky, unsteady, eyes flitting this way and that. “It’s coming.”

That certainly can’t be good. Finduilas takes the girl’s free hand in hers and guides Níniel to sit down. They are going to want to sit for this, she is sure; Níniel looks like she will faint, and Finduilas would not like that at all. It is hard to focus with her blood pulsing, demanding that she ask what this is, that she finds out now, that she finds a way to peel it from the Edain’s mind and know the truth, but she attempts. “What is the Darkness, then?”

There is something of a hunted deer, a beaten dog, frightened and desperate, in Níniel’s eyes, dark and haunted, fearful. A shadow not unalike the darkness that had lain itself over the girl’s eyes in her blindness lives there still, wine-dark. Something is twisting, malice-filled and stalking, not the storm-tossed sea but the monster lurking beneath, approaching with not but a darkened heart and a hungry maw. It is not in Finduilas’ nature to be afraid, to shy from the dark and flee to the light, certainly not of an Aftercomer with glancing eyes and a bitten lip, but she is, and cannot help it. There is something of the dark of her uncle’s death, in those wells of fear, bloodied teeth approaching with thundering steps, grinning in the night, no escape given, no attempt allowed; there is something of the blood of her father’s absence, the dreary battlefield and rivers running red; something of the refusal of her lover to aid her, the knowledge that no one will protect her, that she is alone.

But she is not; she is in an inn, another girl’s hands clasped in her own, waiting for her answer. Perfectly safe, perfectly together. Still, she cannot shake the darkness from her, not with Níniel’s eyes upon her, and Finduilas supposes that is the point. What she says simply is, “It is Before.”

 “Before?” Finduilas pries. “Before I found you?”

“Before,” Níniel repeats, but it sounds like an agreement. Finduilas takes it as such, even as the Edain’s mouth twists unhappily. “Before there was anything. Before I can remember.”

That tracks well enough. Still, Finduilas does not think that is all of it. “What is in it? Why is it coming; what does that mean, for us, for them?”

It is the first question that Níniel shudders at, and guilt wracks her as she squeezes Níniel’s hand in a way she hopes is comforting. When her voice comes, it is strained and pained, obviously forced, and no longer is she looking at Finduilas, eyes distant. “There are terrible things there, orcs and dragons and monsters, bulbous creatures with shiny eyes and blade-sharp legs, but I cannot see them, not truly. Just glimpses of them, the glint of their fangs and claws and swords, and they are after me, they are descending upon me, and I cannot run. I cannot move, I can hardly look away, but when I do, there is nothing, and that may be the worst thing of all, but I cannot tell. They come for me when I close my eyes and pursue still when the light comes.”

Ah. Elbereth, it is terrible, certainly undeserved, and Finduilas feels an awful thing for forcing Níniel to think of it, to speak of it, but she still must know. If Níniel was a thrall or that ilk, there would be little to explain, but Finduilas thinks her not; she looks unharmed, unscarred in her gauzy gown, if frightened and now ever-distant, far away in her mind. If night terrors, some malady making itself known in the unconscious mind, then it makes no sense for Níniel to have slept quiet through the night, cold and lifeless as she may have been. That is not as those haunted by such an act, well accustomed to Gwindor’s sleeping struggles, cries in the night that would wake them both, attempts to fight her off when she is simply trying to wake him; Finduilas thinks she would have preferred that, to this terrible dark silence. The Enemy is to blame, of course, but Finduilas cannot make sense of it regardless, and she must know. “They will not be allowed to take you; I will not. But what of them may trouble the people of this place, dear?”

“They are coming,” Níniel says, frozen. “They will come here and take all that is good, and I cannot let them find me. They are following, but they cannot win.”

Orcs and monsters, following the both of them into the little happy town; they are like to be the only ones standing when the storm moves on, should they be able to run. They should tell someone of the threat, most certainly, and they will, but, damn it, Finduilas wants to live. These are Men, these are Edain, these are Aftercomers; they will die regardless, eventually, wither away into nothingness, pained forgetfulness and the rot of those that live still. Finduilas is not one, needs not die. She can be forever, should she run, should she persevere; they are the leaves of fall, blown away in a sudden wind or dwindling into nothing as winter comes, and she the enduring evergreen, withstanding the turn of seasons, untouched save for if an axe is taken to her trunk. It would be better, more important, more essential, for her to live than them, her with so much time to live, no marked finish line or expiration date. It would be so much worse, for her to die for their sakes, those few lives that will be gone in the time it will take her to blink. If it comes as a choice between her and them, even the innkeeper and smith and her companion who had helped Finduilas so greatly, even the child, she will choose herself. It is only right, to do so. Finduilas knows that.

Níniel is an Edain too, an Aftercomer, but Finduilas has some affection for her despite it, an attachment even in the face of the obvious end. For Men, Níniel is young, Finduilas can guess, but to her, the girl is not, ever-present death creeping ever-closer. Finduilas has lived the course of Níniel's life again and again, five times, ten times, twenty times, and she is likely to exist long after the other's death, as long as it does not happen here. They die together, then, in pain, and that is something neither of them wants. As such, Finduilas will ignore it, for now.

Finduillas...likes Níniel. Wants good things for her, and it is a terrible revelation to have. In the beginning, it was the obligation that drove her, the crime that it would be to leave her alone and helpless in a world as cruel as their own, but now Finduilas would like to see her happy, truly, would like to see her old, dark hair shot through with gray and laugh-lines around her mouth. Would like to ease her suffering, distract her from the approaching end. Finduilas would like to do what she can to spare Níniel the pain that comes with existence, whenever she can. That had not been expected, not been part of the plan; Finduilas had just met her, has only known her for two days, perhaps a little more, and now she is willing to bury her hands in someone's chest again to save her companion the fear, the hurt.

But Níniel is here, now, and what ails her is not a physical thing that Finduilas can risk her life against, as foolish as it might be (as it is). "We will not stay," Finduilas reassures her. "Just today, maybe tonight, and then we'll be off."

The dark-eyed girl nods and, after a moment of consideration, releases Finduilas' wrist, allowing her to draw it back. Finduilas lets go of Níniel as well, taking it as the sign that it is, and she stands, drawing herself up gracefully. "You should change, and then we can go and get what we need from the markets. Then, we can leave, okay?"

"Where..." Níniel trails off, glancing around, and Finduilas laughs softly, drawing her attention again.

"I can go get the clothes," Finduilas supplies, offers; she makes sure that she is slow when she edges towards the washroom, for she does not want Níniel to think that she is leaving. "Just give me a minute, sweetheart."

They really should have made up a better place to put all their clothes - Finduilas really should have made up a better place, for it is still her plan, her work, her responsibility, and now that oversight is requiring her to run all over the place - but the washroom worked well enough. The candles Finduilas had lit on her last visit still flicker as she ducks under the curtain, glowing brightly, and she is able to grab the bundle of cloth left beside the sink without any trouble. The strands upon the floor she sweeps up well enough, shoved within her bag for another day - Finduilas is not the lady Luthien, does not claim to be, but it's no reason to abandon one of the few resources they have at their fingertips, even if it ends up with no use at all. Her hair looks lazy, of course, when she catches her own eye in the mirror, untidy without a braid, but Finduilas hardly thinks that anyone will be complaining about that, here, and neither can she take it back. Even if they do, Finduilas has more important business in this town and little obligation to care for whatever imaginary critic her mind conjures, even if made flesh. She did promise Níniel that they’d leave quickly, and her family knows not to go against an oath.

She shouldn’t even joke about that. Finduilas cringes, pushing her way through the boundary again so she can distract herself with pushing the clothes into Níniel’s waiting lap. She’s not making any oath; she knows better than that. To swear is to die, and Finduilas really does not want to die. She’d also rather that Níniel did not, and, well, those around oathsworn do not usually manage to get out any bit more intact than the fools that they loved. “You can change in the washroom, if you want. There’s probably a bit of my stuff in there, too, but you can just take that.”

“Thank you.” Dark lashes blink and then Níniel rises, holding the bundle against her chest. Finduilas is certain to get out of the path for the bathroom as Níniel wanders over, looking steady enough on her feet to not require assistance. Well, that’s nice.

The curtain falls again with a shch and Finduilas turns away, allowing her smile to fall. A hand snakes its way between her tunic and padded jupon, catching on the delicate web of gold underneath her fingernails. Finduilas does not trust the world enough to put the necklace in any sort of bag or thing that could be taken from her, even if it is only Níniel; she knows that greed can twist even the brightest hearts and Níniel, as wonderful as she is, does not have a good starting point, in comparison. She does not want that to happen to her companion, and she does not want to lose the Nauglir, not when it is the only thing she has left of her uncle. Of her father, she has her ring, and her knife reclaimed, and her own existence; of Finrod, there is little. She cannot lose it.

Even so, the almost-gambeson she has stolen still aids her, freeing her from the unpleasant darkened bruises she had found while stripping to take her bath, skin tender and unhappy as she prodded it, watching the purplish-blue flash white for a moment before fading back to black. Finduilas heals easily - thankfully, or else it would be a gamble if she could still walk, still run, still push forward and try to escape - but this will only compound over time, and she knows that the continuous abuse will become something worse, should she let it. With any luck, the padding should strip that worry from her at least somewhat, and perhaps allow her a few more layers to cut through before anything reaches her skin, though she would not rely on it.

A swish. Finduilas releases the hem of her tunic and she spins, setting a gentle smile onto her face to cover from that small secret of hers. It is already in position as Níniel pushes her way out of the curtained room, dressed in the loose chemise the elf had hoped would be acceptable enough without having to take more, whose absence could be discovered too easily. Okay - one theory proven, then, for that meant Níniel must still have some sort of impulse, some predecided memory stored in the mind or muscle alike, even if Finduilas still had to explain the celestial bodies to her. Perhaps it was the body, then, if that was the difference.

But that is a theory perhaps for later, some Noldor instinct to discover, to learn, even in the thick of- whatever this was. This doom, light as it may seem now, for was it not all gone? Was she herself not threatened? Was not Níniel? Were they not all? It is a less important thing, than their little tasks before her, those things with which they might struggle and triumph over, baby steps in their great plan to survive the fate the stars had set for them. And they - she - they - should go. Really, truly, they should. Even if Finduilas wanted to stay, she doubts that Níniel would let them.

Boots tap over wooden boards as Finduilas strides forward to meet the Edain girl, trailing a hand after her. Coins lay heavy in her cloak, trailing gold solid against her chest, but only one of those things feels of importance now, with their current needs. “We should go.”

Níniel nods, agreeing, and her gaze glances over the room, eyes roving across the ruffled sheets and notes splashed against the desk. Finduilas finds herself wincing too, looking at the disarray. “Yeah. I’ll clean this up in a minute and then we’ll be off, okay?”

“I can help,” the doe-eyed girl volunteers softly, slipping forward. Finduilas steps aside with a laugh - how they have grown, now with aid provided! - and over towards the desk, gathering up her papers with no longer inky fingers. They are maps, mostly, or attempts at such; she had never had much of a mind for that, and her memories are vague, indistinct things, focused more on her uncle’s splendor or the light’s brilliance or Gwindor, sneaking gazes at her in the night, than hangings upon the wall or weary travelers. The Quenya alphabet, symbols smeared across downy white in smudges of ink, from when she had feared that she would forget it altogether, the language of her forefathers, and then Sindarin, her mother’s tongue, more carefully controlled as Finduilas had gathered herself and beat down her pointless paranoia. She will not, simply from speaking this Mannish tongue, and has it not been something that Finrod had taught her too? Is it not something of his legacy she is carrying forward, another thing of her favorite father preserved? Is it not?

And is it not of something new as well, a creation of her own? Níniel gathers up their spare discarded belongings across the room, long-lashed and beautiful in that rugged way of Men, more robust than Finduilas could have ever imagined. She is competent, and capable enough, and aware, and those are all things Finduilas would not have believed for another half-century should she have been told two days ago. Men are not Elves; they change faster, twist faster, die like crackling autumn leaves falling in the wind, but perhaps there is some good in it, some truth to the gift bestowed upon them, no matter the curse it seems. A quicker change, a better healing, despair overtaken in a moment, these are all things impossible in the Elvish ways of Finduilas' youth. Thralls take centuries, scarred warriors decades, and, oh, Gwindor, her poor dear, it is such a very hard thing, to help. And her uncle Maedhros, Finduilas does not want to think about, tall and harsh and looming, but even if she did it would not be an equivalent thing - she does not even know for sure that Níniel has come from Morgoth's foul care, besides what can be assumed, but even if she would be right in that with only the half-hearted resistance of Níniel's continued health, she has no way to guess at how long, when, what it had been like before. She does not have to waste time thinking of why, for there was no point in asking why to anything the Enemy has ever done; the answer is a simple thing, a declaration of strength from the Constrainer. If he is not supposed to have it, then someone should have stopped him, and anything undefended is just another step towards domination of it all. Finduilas hates it, but she knows it true.

Enough looking; enough thinking. There will be plenty of time for that on the road. Long-limbed fingers pull the loose sheets together and knock them on the desk to straighten before drawing them up to her chest. The parchment and stolen ink slip into a satchel acquired in the night - Finduilas had made sure that it was unadorned and least loved, hands skimming over delicate beading and weaving and embroidery to settle upon this lesser crime - and she turns to her accomplice, standing pretty with their things folded the best she can, well-aware of their less than legal acquisition and patently unbothered by such. It is a stupid place to draw the line in the middle of whatever this has become, but Finduilas remembers life well enough before this happened to not be able to shake the habit. She probably should; it is unlikely to be the worst she'll do out in this place, desperate for life. "Just put them all in here and we'll be good to go."

She offers Níniel the bag and the girl takes it gladly, beginning to stuff the mostly-clothing into the space with a reserved enthusiasm, an eagerness to go that Finduilas already knows well of. Instead, she takes the opportunity to sweep through their couple of rooms - center-room, washroom, conjoining hallway - for anything they have not yet caught. There is nothing, and, when Finduilas returns, Níniel is bright-eyed and ready, satchel slung over one shoulder as her fingers brush and twist the leather of the straps, leaving imprints to fade away once abandoned, forgotten. "Great. Just follow me down, will you?"

Finduilas is not quite able to finish the question before Níniel ambles over towards her, an open challenge - for her - on her face. "Well then!"

She turns and swings the door open, key pressed tight into the skin of her hand; she's not going to drop it, Eru forbid. Finduilas waits for Níniel to pass through the doorway before she steps forward to lock it, fingers brushing against the girl's wrist as Níniel pulls the door closed and Finduilas takes the knob from her, soft and lovely. The door clicks closed with a satisfying chnk as she twists the teeth and slips the key onto one finger, spinning the metal around before catching it. Níniel watches her with unconcealed interest, and Finduilas takes it as a victory; perhaps there might be something more for her than she might think, but they first have to live. And to live, it'd probably be best if they'd just leave. To minimize the casualties, if nothing else.

"Come along, and let us see what life has in store!"

Chapter Text

Finduilas bows and waits for Níniel to pass through the doorway before she steps forward to lock it again. Her fingers brush against the girl's wrist as Níniel pulls the door closed and Finduilas takes the knob from her, soft and lovely. The door clicks closed with a satisfying chnk as she twists the teeth and slips the key onto one finger, spinning the metal around before catching it as the two of them climb down the stairs to descend into the bar, now emptied from the previous night's activities save for the barkeep cleaning glasses and a few huddled hungover figures in the corner, squinting even in the dim light.

Finduilas makes her way over to the bar, swagger in her steps as she leans over and drops the key next to the big bruiser. "It really is a great place, y'know. Many thanks."

"Pleasure doing business with ya," he tells her, gaze shifting from her face onto Níniel's without missing a beat. "Both of ya, then."

"You know what they say about more and merriness," Finduilas brushes off, drawing herself up from her languid place along the counter. "Now, would this fine establishment happen to have any breakfast..."

"Something like that." The bartender shrugged, indifferent. "Might take a little time; it's not a thing we get asked for a lot."

"I'm glad you're able to make an exception." A few shiny silvers gleam across the bar, spinning to a stop before the Man. "Enough for two, please."

He nods and she steps away, heading back to the table they had taken the previous night as Níniel trails after her. The chair creaks as Finduilas drops herself down into it, baby fat scraped off by her captivity but bones inarguable, and she waves a hand for Níniel to do the same, sitting straight. She hums as she produces a sheet of paper and her quill, spreading them across the wood. “We should probably make a list, shouldn’t we?”

Níniel follows her gaze with a vague intrigued confusion as Finduilas picked up her pen and began to jolt things down, turning the question over in her head. "Food, of course. Better clothes than all these -" Truly just a way to excuse it again, calm those stray worries once more for she really should not be doubting here "- and a bit of mail might not go unwarranted either. We should have enough for it, and it'd be good for our likelihood of being stabbed; I can only do so much myself, you know. Weapons - I'd like for you to be able to defend yourself, but that might be optimistic. Eh. Steeds too, if we can afford them, and packs for such."

Dark eyes look up to greet her, a faint hesitance in her eyes. "Will you steal all of that?"

"Well, I suppose you could argue it!" Finduilas lets out a laugh, bold and bright, and she must temper it so that the drunkards in the other corner of the room do not glance over towards them in its sound. "But no, I shall not. These are coins, true silver, and people have agreed to exchange things for them because the metal is a precious thing, yes? Most everyone here has already made that agreement, but no one talks about it, so you shalln't have people like me to tell you always. They've all still done it, so I can just walk up and offer them these coins so that they'll give their stuff to me, if we can agree on how many things I get and how many they do."

Níniel nods, considering. "Did you do something different in your lands?" she asks.

"Do the elves?" Finduilas has not thought of it a lot - taken the facts as granted and pried no deeper, for was that not how the world worked?  - but she recalls her father's reminsions on his own childhood, her uncle's offhanded comments, the land far across the ocean and alien to her that they had all grown in taken place in, a world away and more a dream than anything else, a fairytale.

Never anything real, anything reachable, anything with any substance, because she had not understood then that they were doomed she knew that they could not return, that she would never see the soft sandy beaches of pink coral and black sand, high reaching spirals of glory and grand libraries of all comprehensible lore, spring festivals and absent winters, Valar's favor eternal. Her father had never been a religious man - never while she lived, Finduilas must correct - but her uncle had been, seashells and pearls tucked behind his ears, soft hands leading her down to the holy places of the earth and bidding her to drink from the hallowed waters, passing a hand across her brow and whispering for his ocean-lord to protect her. Little good it had done, she supposes, little good for either of them; one dead in the darkness and the other running from such a fate, lost and helpless in a world that wished her not well.

But then she blinks and she is back at the inn, morning-bright and quiet save for the chink of spoons against plates, goblets back on the wooden tables; Níniel waiting for her to break the silence, one brow raised. For a brief moment Finduilas wonders where she has learned to do such, rushes through her memory to find expressions clarifying but always there, and did that mean it was innate behavior, not learned? But Níniel had undoubtedly been mimicking her - ah that same motion was from her, was it not? - and would that mean it would be both. But back on topic: it would not do long to leave the silence untouched too long, she thinks.

"Yes, we do." That works well enough. Finduilas gives herself a moment to think about it, leaning back in her chair and letting her eyes drift up and away, remembering. "It's much the same, really: goods and services for coin or grain or gem, whatever is in need. Gems most especially; we had always been great admirers of such, and a friendship with the dwarves was a thing easily made for it, our shared love of that beauty. But it had not always been so, or so I have been told.

"We elves - or at least those of my kind, proud and mighty and unlike the Wood-folk native to these lands, though they have great majesty too and my mother herself was one, shareth of their blood I do - did not always live here. Long ago, we crossed the Sundaring Seas to reach the Blessed Lands, wonderful isles I have heard much of, and there things were not the same as now. Darkness resided not in those lands of light, nor pain nor suffering, nor even death! And what need would there be to bartering for food when you need it not to live, or serving another when you could serve yourself just the same, or quarreling over land when it is endless? There would be none, no? And so there was not, and we did as we wished instead, wise and unbowing, unbending, joyous and happy.

"But there was trade, yes, still then, if not much of money or anything else of the sort. Artisans would trade their crafts, sculptors with painters, jewel-smiths with gardeners, and others secrets and tales alike."

Finduilas pauses for a moment, considering before throwing the thought aside. "Your people did not exist at that time, I think; too early. You came later. But they were wondrous days, I have long been assured, and many thought they would last forever."

"What happened?" Níniel's eyes are locked on her, every part the attentive audience, drinking the story in. "Why are you here, then?"

"I was not yet born then, my dear; it was a very long time ago." Finduilas sighs, eyes brightening as she hauled herself up, new life thrown into her words. "So that's all I've been told! Very different from how it is here, yes, a different time, and for that other question- oh thank you, just wonderful-"

Wooden plates slide onto the table before them, poached eggs of a strange gray hue, and Finduilas smiles at their server as they step away before returning her gaze to Níniel, clear and watching. "Well, bad things happened, and the Enemy came. But enough of the past! Better to eat now; lived-food is always better than waybread or rations, or so I've observed."

"Mm." Níniel hardly needs an encouragement - backing up her guesswork about Edain needs, more fragile than the siblings elder, everlasting - and Finduilas herself finds herself with little reason to pick at the food. It's good - better than anything they might get for the road, and she'd hazard to guess better than lembas too, though she thinks that is the hunger talking. It has been a while, Finduilas can admit, since she has gotten food, before this, and the meal the previous night was wonderful but not enough to fill that void of backbreaking days and hungry nights. That doesn't feel quite fair - eating at all should get rid of that lingering thing, or what else is the point? - but what can she do about it? Make sure she doesn't die now that she has the chance, and hopefully Níniel alongside her. It's hardly like she's in a position to inform the Allfather of his design flaws, after all, and that'd hardly be her first critique if she was. Probably death. And pain. Stupid fucking pain. Evil too, since that does seem to be a realm Eru should logically also have control over, her cavern-lessons be damned.

Heresy aside, the eggs are great - nicely fluffy, soft and easy to squish with the side of her spoon, strange unpronged instrument it is - and bread like honey in her mouth, void spinning in her stomach demanding more, more, more. There certainly is no lack of food, she's already shown the keeper of this establishment that she's able to cover her bill, and for that Finduilas is thankful, but her mind is already spinning, thoughts spilling out onto the paper before her when she can reach it to write of it in swirling black. They should go. They should make sure that they can go. She should have more than enough currency to buy herself what they might need - and err on the safe side, for Finduilas has no conception of what Edain require and when, and she's willing to bet that Níniel does not either - and leave. Weapons, some armor could not go unwarranted, cloth that she did not steal and therefore could not be hunted down for. And a warning, if they have the time, for Finduilas wants to be gone before the fall of Sun. There's nothing she can do about their presence, the orcs Finduilas may or may not have been able to lose, the darkness trailing after Níniel, but people could at least be told. Could at least prepare.

Could leave, maybe, though Finduilas truly doubts it. Doriath is no accessible place for the Aftercomers, and where else is there to go? Gondolin is an unknown, gates locked to the common folk and refusing to emerge; Morgoth's influence creeps across the land, leaving no place safe. Why go to another awful unknown to escape a threat when you will only run to another? Why flee the familiar and find death still in some foreign land? Finduilas would, but that as because she did not want to die, and she did not have to. They would.

Finduilas pushed her empty plate away from her and stretched, yawning as she cast a look at Níniel. Her own plate has been well-emptied, and the girl looks well enough; better than Finduilas has seen her on average. A gleam runs through the midnight braids, a lushness, a healthiness that Finduilas has not become accustomed to, has not had the chance to in the midst of Níniel's fear, of her own rushing blood and blinders set before her, safety desperate all her mind was able to focus upon. It was good. Health looked good upon her.

Pushing off of the table Finduilas stood, offering Níniel one fair hand. The girl took it, skin cold to the touch but pulse beating steadily beneath Finduilas' fingers; she ran her touch beneath it, readjusting, just to confirm, check once more. "We should go shopping, Níniel. Are you up for the market? There's going to be people."

Níniel offered her a shy smile, drawing herself up beneath Finduilas' touch. "I liked the tavern, last night. I like that. The noise."

Surprising, but Finduilas could imagine that. Something she had not had before, something she hadn't had the chance to have, before. Finduilas had always loved it, the attention, the bustle and sound and chaos, the mess of it all. She'd always loved messes, because what else could she be? What else might she want to be? And that was without even mentioning her choice in partners. "That's wonderful. Come along?"

Níniel followed as Finduilas bounded out of the tavern, a bit more spring injected into her step as the Sunlight spilled over her, the gentle warmth she had only known rarely, only in snippets as she aged, as she did foolish wonderful reckless things and basked in the light, as she drew Gwindor into her magnetic pull and sparkled beneath the Sun. The streets bustled with traffic and vendors, people draped in all different colors and cut of different cloth - mostly Edain, Finduilas noted, and put all the more glitter in her smile for it - a stark change from the half-empty roads of their arrival, watched over by darkened sky and brightened moon. Well, thank goodness! The people here wouldn't be exclusively local, and that only betters her chances at all she wants. Sure, every town will have swords and horses, but most aren't willing to part with those things, requiring every bit of help they might get to defend themselves from the onslaught, elven protection shattered a century before and Enemy existing long before that.

Finduilas sweeps through the crowd, Níniel never far behind her - and thank Eru for that, for Níniel's hand on her own, locked together in a tight wide-eyed embrace - and drops to look at this stall or that, pulling out her money-pouch for waybread and waterskins, things they both lack on their persons and must acquire before they can be gone. Not for the first time Finduilas must drag her eyes away from sparkling trinkets - glittering jewelry, little pins and golden chains, gems cut well and matching in her eyes, bringing out the life in Níniel's skin if only she would wear them - and move on, for while they do not lack now it is no insurance that they will not lack later, and Finduilas does  have a notable lack of any way to get more money, will lack it for the foreseeable future. She'd rather not waste it on useless little things she does not need. Not when there are important things at stake.

Again she visits the blacksmith, drawn into the storeroom and examining the swords upon the walls as Eith settles herself next to Níniel and chatters about her child, Níniel watching quiet and observing. A long-knife she chooses for herself and then Finduilas brings Níniel forward to sample what she might like, feeling the weight in her hands and settling upon an arming sword. Finduilas shoots the blacksmith a cheeky smile as she asks after leather and chain both, getting herself sent to the tanners herself with a sword in her arms and desperate need of a sheath. The tanner - the same man whose daughter hawked their wears outside, her own waterskin included - is happy to provide her with one, and then she is on her way, Níniel sending a longing glance after Eith's kid as they edge out the door. Finduilas makes sure to grab some packs for them as well, bartering with the leathermith over the one she had stolen until she is able to procure two more at a fair price. Thankfully, he doesn't recogonize it, and Finduilas is tugging Níniel away before he can have the chance.

From there it is to the tailors, golden smile on her face and breezing through the shop as Níniel follows at her heels, chattering about this or that. Their seamstress is glad to point out which of their wares can withstand the dusts and tears of travel, giggling only slightly when Finduilas asks after skirts and underclothes. She is pretty, Finduilas must admit, if only in a fragile flower-blossom way. Either way, Finduilas has no issue with fluttering her eyelashes at the girl, perhaps telling her a slight dramatizated account to make her gasp, some fairy-tale she learned when she was young, before she draws Níniel forward and asks her advice on this or that, what she might like, settles her hand upon the fabric and helps her brush it across the options, grimacing or emerging with a considering look at this or that. By the time they are done, Finduilas is a good twenty pence lighter and Níniel humming softly as she paws through their findings, soon to be squished into their packs. Practical things, mostly, work-a-day, quiet and uninteresting, the way they need. One exception.

Finduilas had not able stop herself just once, demons batting at her as she examins a green gown, simple but elegant, crisply made in the style of her youth, as she tears her eyes and walks away; as she returns, as she leaves, as she returns once more. It is not like she could appear before the king and queen in simple clothes, after all, not if she wanted to claim all she is owed. Not if she wants to stay, to live. It is only practical. She needs it, because if she despairs already, if she abandons any thought of life or success, any chance she might not end up dead, is she not already? No, Finduilas will not do the Enemy's work for him; she refuses on principle, and that means she must push onward, must not give up hope. Must not shake her head at her own vain foolishness, must not turn that knife upon herself. Must keep her head up high and think of sugar-spun balls, bright and bold courtyards, must give herself the little luxuries, the plans that spill out before her, the things she shall do when she is safe, when this is done. When she can chose what she shall do, when she can waste her time in indulgences, when she can feed the birds by the pond and scare them off and laugh, the dreams that come unbidden of bridle black, ducking from the ceremony to steal a kiss and chuckle at the fearless rebellion, that return to who she had been.

Finduilas is not allowed to give up hope, because it will spell Níniel's death. She does not want Níniel to die, and so she dreams, and smiles when she slides the coins upon the counter, bright and brilliant. Smiles as she sets her hand upon Níniel's shoulder and steers them both out, heading towards the stables. "Still doing well?"

Níniel offers her a little nod, slightest smile shining on her face even as her pupils loom large and amazed, starlike, trying to suck in all around her. "I am well."

"That's great," or so tells Finduilas. "You still want to go after we've gotten this all done."

It is not a question to Níniel, she can tell. It is not something that could even be considered, an idea too obsence to ever think. All the joy in the world could not change that iron-fast mind. It is a saddening thing to think that Finduilas can understand, that true they might need. That they might die, that some rules must be followed. Finduilas had never liked the thought of that, but neither did she want to cut the endless life of hers short. Some rules must be followed, and some people must be put first. "Don't worry, we'll leave. We'll be far from this place by daybreak."

That cheers her companion as Finduilas makes her way towards the stables, and the horses do as well, nussling at the girl's hand as she reaches out to touch their noses, flinching away from the touch before returning with a renewed confidence. Níniel's eyes follow her as Finduilas speaks to the stablemaster, as she pulls her coin-purse from her cloak and shows him a flash of gold, as the man's eyes glint at the sight and beckon her to walk with him. Easier without the rackat of the city, even dimmed as it is through wooden walls and distance both, for them to speak and exchange suggestions, prices too high and too low before they can settle on a healthy middle. Animals - of any sort - are not the sort to be sold casually, and not often, even pack mules and beasts of burden. For healthy riding horses, the cost is a steepily thing. Finduilas must send up a silent thanks to Eith for her generous donation of gold, but still they come to an agreement: the majority of coin to him, and two - quite honestly beautiful - horses, nothing as stately as those brought from the Blessed Lands but drawing close to those that Finduilas had found around her in her youth, spotted and free, reliable and unstumbling.

A rush of homesickness fills her at the sight of them, the smell of straw blossoming, and Finduilas must push tears away from her eyes; this is the best that she can want, for it is the best that she can have. She can never go home, for there is no home left for her, disappeared behind a veil of smoke and screams. She will never be a child again, running through her family's halls, fearless and carefree. She cannot go home. She cannot become that once more. But she can live. That's the most she can hope for, now, and she must do it, if only for this legacy of hers to not be abandoned, if only to give her kin something to smile upon in their tearing tapestries. Death cannot be a kind place, even if she knows enough to know it is sometimes a kindness. They'd appreciate something to smile about even if it was not, Finduilas knew.

Níniel has a bright smile upon her face when Finduilas returns, guiding their way to the steeds now their's by right. "Just one minute," she promises. "Just one more thing. You need not come."

Dark eyes flicker over to the horses, back up to Finduilas, lips pulled into a thin line. "I want to know."

"It's just telling whoever's in charge about us. What our presence here implies for them, even if we're about to be gone."

Finduilas watches her consider it, weighing the pros and cons, adding it up in the ledger of her mind. Those same dark eyes, downturned, hiding behind darker lashes, feather-light and beating against her rounded cheeks, warmed a lifetime in the Sun - a lifetime that she does not remember, and that Finduilas cannot provide.

The only thing she can give the girl is protection, and maybe security as well if she does not allow herself to slip, and ill-fitting clothes stolen in the night, a name that does not sit right atop her shoulders; not a life, not anything better than a lifeline. Another, perhaps, might be able to, some dashing knight with no need to conceal all they were, no taste of smoke or flame fluttering through their past, no cinders or ash catching in their hair, could be able to give Níniel the pleasant existence she might deserve, the care clammered for at her bedside as death creeped every-closer, might grieve at the funeral even after they had saved her, despite the pointlessness of it all; but not Finduilas. Not Finduilas, princess of Nargothrond; not Ereinion, fatherless and alone. Not any one of the endless names she could pull over herself like a mask, a veil, something to hide her, save her. Not Finduilas; never her. She is doomed to a painful life, a burning life, a desolate life with everything falling around her, and those that she loves will not be spared her fate; Gwindor sure wasn't. Someone could have saved Níniel but it would not be her.

Finally, Níniel glanced up, a stubborn cast to her sun-kissed visage, lurking in her brows, the tight of her mouth. "I would rather stay."

"Will you be fine by yourself?" Finduilas cannot be in two places at once, and, for all she cares for the girl, she has an obligation. She cannot leave these people to their fate without even making an effort to alert them to the danger that they are in, give them a chance to leave - Finduilas does not want deaths upon her conscious, does not want to have her hands dipped in innocent blood, no matter how far away she might be when the pact would be fulfilled, and if they chose to stay it could not be blaimed upon her, Their own choice, and not one Finduilas would be responsible for. It is not the one that she wants, but it is one she would be fine with.

"Yes." Unarguable, undeniable, sure. Leaving no room for argument in way that half surprises Finduilas in its confidence - not often does Níniel chose so clearly, not often does she know so truly, not often is she certain, but, well, it is understandable.

However fine she might have been before, it is not the same - attention paid and suspicion attended, to speak about the Darkness haunting her so? or even just hearing of it. Not well had Níniel reacted before, when they spoke; and it had been with Finduilas only. Truly, Finduilas did not want to push, and neither had she thought that Níniel would wish to go.

Silently, Finduilas had been hoping with a guilty heart that she wouldn't. Níniel's presence could bring...questions. Perhaps someone knew her, the her she had once been; it would not end well, in tears if not violence. And with a foreign, unnatural presence guiding it all, an easy scapegoat- no, it would not end well at all, not for any of them. Finduilas would rather keep her simple existence and state of freedom a secret until neither could be challenged any longer, thank you very much. That would throw a wrench in those plans, even if she wouldn't be particularly shocked by them. It would just make things...particularly harder to survive, and Finduilas very much wanted to survive, and wanted Níniel to survive as well. That was an achievable goal for her, or at least it should be. Not too much to ask for, living? Finduilas had made far worse demands in the past and gotten a good half of them fulfilled, though she knows not to flatter herself to the reasoning why behind that. They can live, as long as they play it right.

It is not as if they are in the wilderness, in some place foreign or dangerous, in some place frightening. Níniel seemed quite fine with the boy last night - familiar, even, though Finduilas knows Níniel meant nothing by it - so no fear of the villagers here have taken her; she shall be fine without Finduilas' watch, absolutely if it is just a moment. Finduilas is not foolish or vain enough to think that it shall be, but, well, obligation. Not Oath - she does not have a death wish, thank you very much - but still an obligation, something she should do. "Watch the horses. I'll return and then we shall be off."

Finduilas does not want to imagine so much, but she swears that she saw Níniel's lips curl into a smile as Finduilas goes. Well. She can indulge herself that much. Who's to stop her, over such a little thing?

Chapter Text

Níniel is not happy to see Ereinion go. In the orange shadows of the rafters, she watches the silhouette fade and ignores the clenching of her chest.

She does not want to go, cannot, not here; but he is a protector. Protectors are something to be wanted. Not to be thrown away. Ereinion would not leave her now, when he has been needlessly kind to her, but that did not mean something might not happen. The sun shines with a fury, blazing the shadows away, but that does not mean it is safe. Not all darkness escews hands or teeth. Not all. All to say: Níniel does not want that protection gone.

Something tugs at her head and Níniel freezes. Goes still, until she can feel that no jaws bite at her, or sink into her flesh. Then, in that terrible balance, Níniel tugs herself away and looks behind her. It had been her hair before, she realizes, before taking in the beast before her.

A mass of muscle and short hairy fur stares baleful at her behind a shield of timber. Perhaps that is what it wants - to take her hair to replace its own, chop it into bits and stick it back on - the teeth would certainly be big enough for that, peeking through as it bites at her, large and stained and grinding. She would not like to be between them, would not like to be made into a pulp or had the bones peeled out of her or-

Ereinion said it was a horse. Or, at least, Níniel thinks Ereinion said it was a horse. He said something like that, somewhere around here, about something, she must assume. This is a thing, somewhere around here, that he could have been speaking of, could be a horse. Níniel does not like horses, then. If this is what they are, vicious massive things waiting for her to slip so that it might strike, not even content with waiting until she is dead. She does not, and so she steps away, outside of its reach, eyeing the beast warily all the while. It is contained, and, well, here are people here, so its kind must not be able to run free, tearing apart any it might like. Even still, Níniel does not like it.

Unfortunately, there are things she does like. The thought of the town, loud and crass and so busy with bustling bodies that no one can be alone for even a moment, Níniel pushes away with stubby, bitten-down nails. She does not want to like it. There are no shadows here, little fear upon their faces. All she can find is the absence of her constant companions, of the loneliness and terror of howls and chases in the night; of hearts twisted like shattering glass breaking under the terror. There is something embedded in her chest, something dark and breaking and curdled like waters frothing black and skimmed wth green, that pains as she twists and twists and will not kill her. She is not as she should be. Perhaps she should be like them, like the people who hurry here. It is an easier thing than the blinding grace of Ereinion, easier to accept, simple and restrained.

And yet Níniel knows. Níniel knows of their kindred in the woods spreading like a fan to a flame to hunt. Níniel knows them, the mouths that speak just the same as they laugh and slaughter and invoke a name that - that she must tremble at, for else it must be much more dire. Níniel knows the crunch of branches as they tumble through, spears and swords drawn. Níniel knows that. It brings a darkening upon her when Ereinion speaks of her kindred, as if she were they. As if they were all the same together.

Ereinion knows of them. To think he might not would be a mercy, one undeserved. Ereinion knows. Perhaps she is as they are, in his and mighty eyes; perhaps he has thought to bring her back to goodness, coaxing with warm baths and food that does not run. Níniel can accept that. She does not want to, the cloying darkness climbing her throat at the thought of ever serving such a thing, but if it meant Ereinion would stay, she would. She doesn't want to be like that.

Níniel knows what will happen to the town. Ereinion thinks to warn them, and she thinks it hopelessly optomistic. It will happen. The dark shall come. And in this place - this place where people are happy, can afford to be - would one not want that? Want to keep it, greedily and selfishly? Níniel might. she did not have the choice.

Níniel does not want to die. But if she did - if she must - she trusts her shell to the snapping nibbling things in the waters and smooth pebbles in her hands, rather than the twisting things upon the woods. She does not want to, but it would be a kinder fate than that those which chase her endless might extend to her, and she knows well of it.

This beast is not a choice she would like. Níniel casts it a sideways gaze, and it returns it. Shaking herself of the curling fear, Níniel steps away - and pauses. Ereinion said to be in the stable. Ereionion would expect her to stay, presumably. Níniel does not want to.

She takes another step towards the doors. Near the stable is still the stable - it uses the same sounds placed together, slotted into almost the same arrangement. And Ereinion would not have to look for her then. And she would not have to stay.

Ereinion had listened to her about the Darkness. Had not done a single thing with the beasts, but he had shown no fear. Elves did not. And, if she were to say there was a monster there, might Ereinion not think to listen? He had before.

And it had been the thing to send him away. Perhaps he was not coming at all - perhaps it had only been a lie, this whole business. But there was no need for it. If he wished, he could leave at any moment. He was strong enough to override any need for deceit. So did that mean-

Níniel stepped towards the doors. The fiber underneath caught on her boots, flattened underfoot. Níniel walked out and sat upon the bunch next to the stable, breathing clearer as her chest began to untangle.

In the bright light she could think better now. A heaving freed her chest from the darkness nestling inside her lungs as she raised her eyes to the sky. Ereinion said not to do that. But Níniel wanted to. It was a very beautiful thing, somewhere between the glow between shadows and the darkening of a bruise. She quite liked it.

Settled, Níniel let her thoughts spool.

Warily, Níniel turns her gaze back to that monster, grand and baleful. It had not seemed, strangely, the same when she had been atopt it, driven by the Elf's request; it had felt right, somehow, her fingers slotting into place and poster straight, unwavering. Her nerves had not left her, that terrible hunting thing beneath her and her life hanging above it, at its mercy should it decide to act, in most any way at all, but they had not had to, for her flesh to act. For it to move without her mind, for her to cling; for Ereinion to laugh and turn to the stable-master to ask another favor of him.

Níniel does not know how to ride a horse. Níniel had not known what a horse was, before Ereinion had told her; had never seen a horse before, before that moment of recogining. But the girl she once was might have. Could have, at one time; had grown up atop those steeds, maybe, though Níniel might not know how one could stomach them. She would have known the name without being told, and how to treat such a thing so that they would not bite and she might be safe, and how to ride them without being told, and-

And she might have had someone to teach her. Someone, like Ereinion, who had bothered with the time, or like the father that the Elf had spoke of, who had taught him- She did not know if it was an Elvish thing, to inherit teachers soley by birth, to be brought into the world with them by their side, instinctual and expected. Perhaps it was, but, no, Astor had spoken of much the same, of his father and his mother and siblings of which she had gotten no definition but already knew, deep inside her brain, and Astor was no Elf. Níniel did not know much, but she knew that much - and no other person among the town was, but maybe they too had that same inborn right, that same that Níniel so dearly lacked. She had no father, no mother, no siblings in which to comfort her, none to teach her and be at her side upon her waking into this darkened terrible world, that might contain hope still if only to give it to all who were not Níniel, so she might watch and feel that lacking inside her heart, upon her soul.

But the girl she must once have would have had all that she lacked, and she would have had someone to teach her, to guide her up the steed and teach her how to fly. Would have had all that Níniel lacked; yes, she would. And now that girl was no more, and Níniel was all that was left. Níniel, and the shadows that haunt her, and the Darkness that follows in her footsteps.

And Ereinion. Ereinion, who is not here but shall return, who has done so much for her with any reason, who has insisted on doing more. Who has no need to take upon himself a ward, in this blasted earth that they live in, and yet has.

And there is Doriath.

Níniel thinks she would like to not be afraid. Níniel thinks she would like Doriath. Would, if it was the same that Ereinion spoke of, sparse comments and reassurances and drips of information, assured in his confidence. Níniel thinks she would like that very much, though she does not have much of a reference for it, though she may only think of how it might feel. If nothing else, Níniel would like to go there. Would like to reach it, just to see Ereinion's rightness of it all, to see how true the things Níniel thinks are, how much of it is simply the Darkness seeping into her mind, twisting it into shadowy knots and tangles of fear, flinching away from everything that comes close, any time the light touches her or does not, each time the night reaches out to take her. Níniel would like to know.

Níniel thinks on it for a very long time. When she draws back, it is to Ereinion's voice, smiling underneath the pink.

"Things did not go as terribly as they could," he says as he offers her a hand.  "Please, we've done all we need."

He's wearing gloves, now, paper-thin leather, and his smile shines like the Sun that glimmers on the locks that flutter in the sky. Níniel cannot feel the warmth of his hands, the racing hot-pulse; she might miss it but the look upon his face casts all the shadows away, racing like the wind and chattering in her ears. "We will go?'

"We can hardly stay." Ereinion shrugs as Níniel falls into step besides him. She does not release his hand. "And no good would it prove to us. Pray, come along with me."

"I wanted to go," Níniel tells him as if he would forget. As if his memory is anything less than flawless, so much more perfect that than the screaming wreck of hers. She can rely on his mind, maybe, if nothing else. Sometimes, her own is not something to trust. "Thank you for offering."

"Oh, how could I ever resist you?" asks the Elf with a dramatic sweep of his arm, curling around to look back at Níniel. In the light, he is a vision, bright and splended and gold; he is every opposite of the twisted things she has always known, those snarling things in the woods. It raises something warm in her, hot and bubbling up like the sun, scorching the upside of her throat. Níniel rather thinks she likes it. "Of course, Níniel. We'll be out of here by sundown."

They are, miraculously. Níniel watches the sky darken and feels her throat clench. Watches the woods rise up before her. At least she can not bring doom to any other here.