A.N. Silmarillion based.
A.N. Heartfelt thanks to Keiliss for discussion, canon info and beta.
A.N. For other contributions much appreciated, thanks to: Mal for translations, Oshun for canon info, Enide for comments.

Summary: Finrod expects to hunt Morgoth and finds himself on a very different journey. He has company along the way.

Chapter Four

*** Lake Mithrim ***

With a place to rest at last, themselves on the north bank and their predecessors fled to the south bank, Finrod found himself dourly indifferent to his task, to mount a watch against trouble-seekers out for revenge while Fingolfin and Fingon approached Fëanor’s new camp with demands, reproaches and enquiries. So long as no weapons came into play, Finrod found it hard to care, until Glorfindel, by a look, reminded him of his duty.

The news of Fëanor’s death followed by Fingon’s venture into Dor Daedoloth in search of his cousin changed a stalemate of antipathy into one of appalled suspense. The upheavals of his reappearance brought all other concerns to a stand-still. The tale of Maedhros’ ordeal, Fingon’s quest and the glory of the great eagle’s coming bridged an impossible gulf. The crown’s bequeathment as Maedhros’ amends changed everything.

The latter had occasioned much palaver and ceremony, after which the capture by a troupe of guards of a bedraggled curiosity went unmarked by few save Finrod. The guards were spruce in fresh-washed garments in honour of the new King. Finrod, finally at leisure after a long stint of duty, was about to see to his own appearance, when they came bearing Calyaro in their midst. He looked ragged and shadows in his eyes matched his tired air.

“What has happened? And why do you bring him to me when it is not my watch?” Irritated, wanting only some peace in which to wash, eat and rest, Finrod had thought him long since back where he belonged. “Calyaro?”

It was, of course, one of the guards who answered. “We spied him to the north, camped – if you could call it that – by one of the willow creeks nearby, and brought him in. Glorfindel said you picked him up at Alqualondë and suggested we speak to you.”

Calyaro’s sojourn in the wild alone had clearly not suited him. As thin as he had been at the end of the crossing, time on Mithrim’s gentler shores should have begun to put that right, yet he looked no better fed. Mud-smeared from his creek-bed – perhaps trying to fish – he also looked wet, as well as dirty. His brown hair had not been immune, scraggled back into a bunched tail that did nothing to tidy it or protect it from knots.

Finrod sighed and gave up immediate ideas of grateful solitude. “What does he say for himself?”

One of the guard cuffed the detainee’s shoulder, not excessively, but insistently. “Well? Speak up for the Prince, you!” The guard’s irritated frustration suggested this was not his first attempt to encourage an explanation. Calyaro moved away but an outflung arm stopped him.

The guard shrugged. “He says nothing, as you see.”

“Just for a change,” Finrod said drily. He could order him bundled back south by the guards, but that would not tell them what he had been doing north of the lake. He remembered Fëanor’s look of utter disdain, and Maglor’s attempt to speak to him. Maglor would not have turned him away…

He could order them to question him at length. But as he looked him over he saw that the hands resting at Calyaro’s side were still discoloured. He had not stopped helping, back on the Ice, no matter how badly his hands deteriorated.

Obscurely, Finrod felt he owed him something after what they had gone through. Calyaro’s faint air of embarrassment, devoid of fear or guilt, decided Finrod. He had nothing to beware. He could at least question him personally. And he was sick of guards and pomp and the trappings of royal duty.

Abruptly he said, “Leave him with me. If there’s any problem, I’ll let you know.” The escort were dubious about leaving their find alone with the prince, but departed in obedience with only a few backward glances.

Finrod rummaged in his own supplies and fetched out the rarity of a spare shirt and tunic, old and worn, but decent. And a comb. These he handed over saying levelly, “You’ll have to tidy up. The King’s camp is not for vagrants.”

A nod suggested gratitude and Calyaro stood uncertainly before beginning a half-heartedly clumsy attempt with the comb. Finrod did not think he had seen him with a single possession save only the mandolin and the clothes on his back. It seemed a long way back to Tirion and Fëanor’s hall where he had visited his cousins and seen Calyaro, quietly elegant, stand in front of them all and play. He looked for that person now and could not find him. A moment of fierce regret for what had come upon them all swept over him. It was gone as quickly.

Finrod felt as weary as the other looked. With Fingon’s absence, and Turgon grieving, standing in for his father at his uncle’s side had meant more than formalities. Finrod soon learned to delegate in turn to his brothers and sister, parcelling out duties to oversee the layout of the camp, create shelter against storm, co-ordinate hunting, scout for suitable sites for settlements, and set a guard against the Enemy.

He was only glad that there were others who, like Glorfindel, served Fingolfin in the higher capacities of decision-making. Supervising routine grunt-work, he could cope with, no matter how tired he was.

He was under no illusions. Even their triumphant arrival at Thangorodrim had been daunting. Nothing in his life had remotely prepared him for seeking battle in cold blood. What were they to do against an enemy hidden away in such a fortress? Wait and watch, said his uncle. Naïvely, he had imagined the Vala, one against so many, might be quickly brought to a fight, even if it cost them dearly. The anticlimax had been appalling.

Calyaro had given up the pretence of unknotting his hair. He sat composedly, though eyeing him with some surprise, presumably over the wit-wandering stare. Finrod grimaced and decided he wanted a swim anyway, and he might just as well see his unwelcome flotsam cleaned up and fed before he questioned him. He needed to eat himself before he could dredge up any intelligence.

He got to his feet. “Come on.” Half a mile around the shore brought them to clear shallows where rock-pools held water warmed by the sun.

Calyaro seemed more than glad to scrub himself clean. The recent rains had rendered them all a little muddy. In Calyaro’s case, camping alone with no equipment had worsened the effect greatly. He repeatedly dipped under the ripples and kept attacking his hair with the comb, apparently determined to get out all the bits and shift the dirt. He emerged in a cascade of water, brown hair lankly forming its own waterfall and skin shining under the deluge. His grey eyes were lighter under the blue sky than Finrod had noticed before, and he was certainly in need of food, no surprise if he had been bow-less in his cold camp these last days on top of hard journeying. What *had* he been doing since their return to Mithrim?

While Calyaro sat in a warm pool to work at his hair, Finrod swam, cleaving the water with arms glad to stretch, body delighted to float among sun-sparked waves. When he was done, the luxurious novelty of sunning himself on the bank seduced him.

Idly lazing, clean and sun-drenched, he fell asleep.

End of Chapter Four
Tbc

Chapter Five

*** Lake Mithrim ***

He woke to a chill in the air. The sun was not yet set over the Mithrim range, but it would not be long before it disappeared and fog set in.

The sun’s reversal to an eastern rising had generated great puzzlement and not a little alarm, in turn allayed by the regularity of its new path. No-one had tired of seeing dawn transform ugly fog into a golden landscape. The children delighted in running at the few squirming patches that briefly survived, dispersing them with flailing arms. Meanwhile, it was the western horizon that turned orange as the sun’s low-slanting rays found their way through the mountain passes.

He looked around. Calyaro was sitting a way off, in easy line of sight, but not near enough to disturb. A hint of amusement on his face faded quickly but it had changed his appearance to something more familiar. He had been older than Finrod and all his immediate cousins, but not by much. Enough to be an adult while they were yet children, much younger than Glorfindel.

Seen from the eyes of childhood, he had always appeared assured and a little reserved. Calyaro had long been part of Fëanor’s household, employed to teach the children, especially Maglor. Later, he had stayed on, still playing for the household and their guests. Finrod, loving the music, had seen him as a quizzical presence to be respected – part of the background of life in Tirion, somewhat remote from his own orbit, but someone who might indulge a child’s request for favourite songs when he had the time and inclination. In hindsight, that reserve was probably only the measure of distance any tutor would need to adopt with seven strong-willed, intelligent and not always well-disposed pupils. At the time, his musical skill made him an object of considerable awe and his personal presence had added to that.

Finrod quirked his brows, annoyed to be the cause of amusement. He led the way to the royal enclave, more than ready to get to the bottom of his reappearance.

Once arrived he purloined a fowl from one of the cooking pits of the King’s guards. Fowl and fish seemed to be their interminable diet at the moment. No-one else was around, though he could hear Aredhel singing to Idril in their makeshift tent-cabin – a matter of branches interwoven, laid stones and a lining of blankets. The King had been furnished with a similar, if larger, arrangement and improvements to both happened all the time, as willow and hazel wands were cut and woven for matting or walls, and straight lengths of branch supplied to enlarge the structures.

Their most precious possessions now were not jewels but axe and saw, chisel, hammer, and spade – the means to find ore, smelt metal, and work wood. Already he had seen searches commence for flax and reeds and woodland vines with the provision of fibre in mind for rope, cloth and cord. If he hadn’t insisted on bringing along tools as well as swords…

He cut a drumstick from the charred, goose-type bird, sat on a split log and gestured to Calyaro to help himself. Hungry, Finrod ate, skin and all, uncaring that hot grease slipped over his hands and dripped onto the grass.

Where had Calyaro been? Why had he been lingering on the north shore? Methodically, Finrod scoured the bone clean, glad to eat before the night’s fogs thickened about the lake. The bitter miasmas irritated the lungs and spoiled taste, though moonrise would thin them down.

He had finished and Calyaro’s time had run out.

“This,” he said, conversationally, stretching out his legs, “is a fighting base. Not that Valar-forsaken hell-march which brought us here. So you can now account for yourself. Why were you skulking near our camp? Did you not return to your lords as I thought? I did think Maglor would have taken you in.”

Calyaro wiped his hands clean, though he looked as if he could have done with finishing his meal and eating three more like it. The brown hair, still damp, was bound back in better order, giving him an oddly unfamiliar appearance, neither member of court nor apparition of the wild. He looked younger and vulnerable in the thick linen shirt and the wool breeches that hung loose on him. The red hues showed up the pallor of his thin face. Had he spoken even one word since Alqualondé?

Sometimes, after the Ice swallowed someone and they could not thread rope down the contorted channels, they could still hear the lost one’s weakening cries. Finrod heard them still in nightmare. In the killing cold it had been gross foolishness, but two or three always stood vigil, offering words that carried uselessly away on the wind, while the rest went slowly on.

At times, it had been Calyaro who waited with him while Finrod called hoarsely down. When there was no longer a reply, Finrod would feel a hand on his shoulder to bring him away, the living touch augmenting Calyaro’s silent presence. They would walk away after the others into the white wilderness with only numbness for comfort.

He felt angry at the memory, as if he betrayed all the Telerin dead by his impulse to gentleness.

“Enough. I can hand you back south of the lake with a request royally endorsed that they keep you there. And before that, I’ll see to it that you give up this silence or answer to my guards’ persuasion.” The threat was ugly, and disturbed even himself considerably hearing it out loud. He not only meant it but could do it without compunction. He wondered just how much Alqualondë had changed him.

Calyaro moved one hand in negation. “I will not put your guards to that trouble.” The voice was not the hoarse mumble Finrod expected after his long withdrawal. The words were offered at the same pleasant pitch he remembered, though they emerged slowly. He met Finrod’s inspection steady-eyed.

“Where did I go? To see Maglor. Prince Maglor,” he amended. “Why did I return? I suppose I could have gone anywhere, but I am not one for travelling alone in the wilds.” A slight gesture might have been rueful deprecation of his earlier state. “Where I go does not matter, save only that I will no longer follow the oathsworn.” The amused, assured elder who watched him wake by the lake had vanished, leaving his expression blank and uninformative. That was all he said, delivered as if it were entirely sufficient.

Again, the impulse to anger rode Finrod. He was painfully reminded of Fingon. Both he presumed guilty at Alqualondë. Both had been silent on the matter thereafter, both performing later heroics without counting the cost to themselves.

The Haven’s slayings were not to be written off by such means. He ached for the chance to sit once more on the harbour wall and watch Hlápo fly past in his dory. He had not imagined such a physical feeling of hurt to be possible where there was no injury. It tore at his guts and left a gaping hole where his insides should be.

Calyaro made that subtle forestalling gesture again, palm up-turned, and with more difficulty added, “I went to ask Maglor – Prince Maglor – for his account of my lord Fëanor’s death.” He looked pensively at the twilit lake where thick, black tendrils of mist were settling, writhing like things alive. He shrugged. “He gave me a change of clothes, but as you saw they got rather mired in the rain. I can see why your guards were suspicious. I suppose I should have spoken to them.” The after-thought might have been intended as an apology.

“And this long silence?”

Calyaro went very still. “What we did – was not a thing we should have done.” He looked at Finrod with strained eyes. “Words did not seem sufficient for such a tale, for its grief and its guilt, and nothing else seemed worth saying. I will tell you how it was, if you want, though it can only cause you pain.”

Finrod gave him the slightest of nods.

Calyaro took on a distant look, as though he were seeing beyond the dim, tree-fringed waters stretching away in front of them. “Fëanor resolved on taking the ships ourselves. He was sure King Olwë could not stop so many of us. He said the Teleri could do little to prevent us, if we were determined. He denounced them for denying us passage in such a cause, and said they could build others to replace those we took…

“We made it to the ships easily, since we had been withdrawn out of their sight for a time. They did not know our intent, and thought we were come to argue. We pushed aboard past the sailors, and set about making sail, shoving them away when they would have stopped us. Some of us fell when they pushed back. Then, seeing us fall, they deliberately cast us down. Those in the water could not swim, but still the Teleri threw us off.”

Calyaro stopped and touched his tongue to dry lips. “That was when Fëanor ordered us to use our swords to prevent their attempt to stop us.”

Finrod, revulsed yet nonetheless riveted, held out a water-skin. A swallow, and Calyaro took up the tale again.

“We obeyed. But the rigging was unfamiliar to us and they found it easy to cast us down once they fetched bows and axes. They cut loose the ropes we stood on and the ropes we clung to, and tilted the spars to hang straight down. Those that did not fall, they picked off with arrows. Over the cries of the wounded, Fëanor ordered us to cut the archers down to protect those they threatened next – but he would not break off or surrender our claim so that we could help those who were drowning, or to tend the injured on deck.” Grey eyes, staring at Finrod, did not see him.

Finrod, horrified anew by the recital, believed the pain that cracked his voice.

“He ordered us – he ordered us to continue the fight when we stopped to help those who cried out, drowning or injured or about to fall.” He touched his tongue again to dry lips. “Then he cursed us for faint-hearted cowards and traitors. It was madness to persist after the first resistance but he would not listen. I argued with him, but in the end none of us refused him.” He touched the back of his hand to his cheek, as if in memory of a blow.

The spate of words had run dry on that last bald confession, swallowed by a silence filled with images neither cared to dwell on, of bodies strewn in angular heaps across railings and decks, and hanging dead in the rigging like obscene, tangled flags.

“It would have been the greater part of valour to defy him,” Finrod said. His dispassion belied his feelings. He longed to blame only Morgoth’s intrigues for that push and shove struggle that escalated into killings, but he could not. He held them all responsible. Fëanor, Calyaro, Fingon, and the rest.

Calyaro was looking at him with raw guilt and loss alike on his face, stripped by this telling of all semblance of his more usual calm. Perhaps, thought Finrod, the dead and the bereaved were not the only casualties of that fight.

Fëanor had burned too brightly, had gathered all manner of souls to his orbit and kept them revolving about him in his brilliance and his verve for life, though not always wisely or kindly. Passionate, energetic, inventive, consumed with curiosity and love for his family, Fëanor had been white fire that drew moths to their death even while the blaze consumed itself – leaving ashes and destruction in its wake.

“You know he was fond of that charge of cowardice. He used it as an accusation in every speech he made, before and after that particular piece of madness, against anyone who disagreed with him.” He took a deep breath, as if he had been shouting, though he only spoke quietly. “And I tell you this, when he called my father a coward, he *lied*.”

Words and raw feeling alike rang in the intense silence.

“I never said I followed him out of wisdom. He was not difficult to love.” For the first time, Calyaro avoided looking at him.

“And this makes you less responsible?” Finrod spoke with justice and princely authority. It was the weight of his anger that invested the reversal of their roles with harshness. Years of full adulthood in Tirion had not moved him out of a comfortable respect for Calyaro but Alqualondë and Finrod’s responsibilities erased all trace of it.

Calyaro made no answer to that but he winced.

“You went to see Maglor? Have you proof of it?”

“Only this.” He unwrapped the swathe of thick, oiled wool. The wrapping was new. From it, he drew forth the same instrument as before, as if it were a precious child. This time it emerged entire, the long swan-neck gracefully intact, the pegs in place, the body restored with paler patches. It gleamed with repeated polishing. “He bade his craftsman mend it in token of thanks for my service to his father.” He gave it up most reluctantly to the outstretched hand but did not for even a moment gainsay the demand.

Finrod turned the mandolin over in his hands. Only a musician, obsessively equipped, could have provided the seasoned wood for patches, carefully weathered and thinly honed, the matched pegs that held the strings fast, the glue that would bind and not fail under stress, and most extraordinary, the new strings. Rare and precious commodities indeed.

To give him camp-space would cost little, except that this singer threatened his calm. He was not ready to come alive again, not yet ready for grief. Calyaro reminded him of Fingon’s guilt, of rage and of dead boys. Yet he would not force even one such as this back to those who were bound by that oath, not against his will.

Something went out of him then, some ugly tension though his anger remained. “Take it.” He held out the mandolin. “Make yourself useful and you can stay.”

Calyaro, too, relaxed slightly. What had he feared? Living alone? Being bound to the oathsworn sons of his deceased lord? He looked as if was choosing words carefully, but in the end said simply, “Thank you, my lord.” He moved a hand, tilted his head, in the merest suggestion of a courtly bow.

Finrod made a weary gesture. “I do not want your thanks.” Or your court manners, he thought. “Just – earn your keep like the rest of us.” Preferably somewhere out of the way. “You can go – and take that bird with you. It needs eating. Tell the guards to see you furnished with somewhere to sleep.”

Finrod stared after the retreating figure and hoped the moon would rise soon. Silver-bathed, his dreams would be less vivid. He did not want to dream of Hlápo staring at him over Fingon’s shoulder, or watch a nightmare sword pulled free, leaving a boy dead who should have been flying on the wings of the wind.

End of Chapter Five
Tbc

Chapter Six

Finrod lay next to Galadriel, listening to his sibs and cousins talk in an unheard of evening of idleness. They – Fingon, Turgon, Glorfindel and all his siblings – were settling in to some serious drinking. They had planned this gathering with the King’s dispensation for the occasion before their imminent dispersal.

“Even so, surely the heavens should not move one way and then back again, as if they were uncertain.”

“No such thing. We moved, not the heavens,” Glorfindel said kindly, as if that explained it.

Finrod could always tell when Glorfindel was drunk. He would genially spout the most utter rubbish. His cousin chose that moment to look at him and he blushed, and then Glorfindel winked at him. Teasing Galadriel had long been a past-time he particularly enjoyed. So, not very drunk. And reading his mind. Finrod went back to perusing the sky, prepared to take bets on where – and when – the moon would rise tonight.

“No, the stars were moving… They always do, but they moved *differently*. You saw it yourself.” She tried to mimic with her hands the way the stars circled above them, dipping below the horizon. “The most southerly stopped appearing above the horizon. In the north, their paths straightened.” She made a circular motion with her finger in the air.

They all laughed at the impossible mimicry. With good-natured dignity, Glorfindel conceded, “I am not denying it. I was just agreeing with you that the heavens shouldn’t be so untidy as to wobble.”

Laughter met this but they all looked at the sky. Certainly, the moon seemed erratic and changeable. They had fast learned it did not mark the night’s beginning and end. Some thought this chaotic oddity meant it was of evil origin, leaving the world darkened, and others argued that this was ungrateful. Its light was fair and of great worth, and maybe it was only right that the stars still had the sky to themselves at times.

Rather than revisit another celestial debate, they touched for a while on military matters, arguing about Eithel Sirion as the site of a fortress, such as Fingolfin ordained, and where else to settle their strategic forces.

Tol Sirion, Dorthonion’s massive peaks and the length of the unexplored eastern slopes of the Ered Wethrin were all candidates. Turgon had another agenda, suggesting the mountains to the west of Mithrim – even the caves of Androth – as a stronghold. He wanted horses to explore Nevrast and started wheedling Fingon for the loan of one or two of the precious stallions Maedhros had given them.

Lazy jibes accompanied this from the others, knowing his preference for riding, attributing the idea to a mere excuse for a holiday. They all humoured Turgon’s whims, encouraging him to emerge from his paralysed shock, knowing that he sought a way of living with Elenwë’s loss for Idril’s sake. Turgon spoke of maintaining himself nearer the coast, where the sea’s writ ran strong and warmed the southern and western winds. He held that they must maintain a watch to seaward, their otherwise undefended back-gate, against a coastal sortie from the north.

“All those tracks we saw. We have no idea how many of them are in there but if they go north, as we did, and round, there is no reason they could not come down the coast…”

Fingon grandly granted the boon of the horses with a royal wave of his hand, and Turgon took the teasing in good part, knowing that when it came to approaching his father about the project, he had an ally in Glorfindel, who would not want to be tied to a building site if they could be riding the western plains.

In forming these idealized plans they knew well how their energy and time was in fact going to be spent in the foreseeable future. They would be fully taken up with the demands of building, strategic exploration, guard duty and patrolling, as well as all the minutiae demanded by the successful settlement of a host of people in a new land.

Huge groans went up when someone mentioned the word ‘drainage.’ Apparently even Fingon was not exempt. Fingolfin had strictly ordered their facilities carefully managed and tomorrow it was his elder son’s turn for the inspection in the woods.

“No problem. I shall delegate,” he said. “In fact, I already have. I came upon Finrod’s stray looking for a job and put him on to it.”

Only Finrod made no answer to that, the others reproaching Finrod in fun or sympathising with the absent Calyaro. The laughter was not unkind: everyone took turns at the digging save those of highest degree. They were all slightly curious about the addition to their camp. Fëanor’s musician spoke but little and did not touch his craft. They knew also that Finrod would not talk about him.

Fingon was looking at him in faint question. Finrod returned his regard levelly, in an exchange that needed no words. ‘Should we talk? Will you ever forgive me?’ ‘What would be the point of talking?’ And, far more painfully, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know how…’

Finrod let more raucous laughter ebb and flow around him, knowing it for a release of tension much needed, content to sit out the conversation. He had checked that Calyaro was provided for and occupied, and that he had found somewhere to sleep. It had seemed to be enough. Now, thinking of those hands, he felt uneasy. He took another drink, aware of Glorfindel’s eyes on him.

“Stop sitting on that bottle,” complained Fingon.

Finrod made sure to grin. “What, this one?” He drained it without bothering with his cup to general boos and hisses while Fingon threw his boot at him. Finrod caught the footwear and pretended to throw it into the stream running nearby. Meanwhile Glorfindel produced as if by grand conjury another bottle of precious liquor. He opened it, first offering it as if ceremonially to Galadriel, who promptly sat up straight against her bole and gave him a queen’s acknowledgement before filling her drinking horn to the brim and passing the bottle on.

In the end the party broke up when Aredhel and Galadriel went to find their tents, and Fingon sought his bedroll, saying he needed to attend his father at first light. Turgon left, ostensibly to look at maps, more probably to find another bottle in Fingolfin’s store that the King would not miss. Fëanor, or more likely one of his people, had had enough wit to offload the ships before they burned them, and Maedhros had been lavishing Fingon with such honorary gifts as crates of wine; Fingon had not refused them.

Glorfindel hooked his head at Orodreth and the two owlish youngest. They took the hint and mumbled good-night.

Glorfindel waited. Finrod stirred and sat up. “What?”

“I never said a word.”

“You don’t need to. I can feel it rolling off you. My head hurts.”

“Drink some water.”

Finrod held out his hand and Glorfindel put a water-skin into it. The silence stretched comfortably. Apart from the viscous smokes that appeared under cover of darkness, the lake and its environs were breathtakingly beautiful. The moon, having decided to rise, kept them free of noxious fumes tonight.

“I thought you were blessedly incapacitated.”

“I changed my plans.” Without his usual finesse but quietly, he added, “Do you miss her badly?”

Finrod squinted at him. “I’m drunk. I’m tired. I’ve got a fortress to plan in the morning. I’ve spent a foolish evening talking about sewage and planning a pleasure trip for Turgon round the coast on stallions worth a fortune in any jewels you care to name. Why now, Glorfindel?”

“Because I haven’t seen you relax since you came out of Alqualondë’s gates looking like a ghost. Because you were going to marry Amarië and you haven’t mentioned her name once. Because you’re too quiet by half, and when you think no-one is looking, you are tense as a strung bow. The rest of the time, you put on a show for us.”

Glorfindel looked at him and Finrod thought he was done, but he went on, “You have the look of one who is afraid, Aro, and you have never been fearful. It’s past time to talk about what’s bothering you.”

The deep voice rolled off the phrases inviting trust and confidence. Oh, to be young again, and have his cousin work his magic to right the ills of childhood, or at least comfort them.

Finrod fought off the spell. “What gives you the right to pry?”

“Aro – ” Disconcerted at the uncharacteristic attack, he pressed on. “Nothing does. Nothing except that I care and no-one else is going to ask. Have they? Have any of you discussed what happened? Do you think you will?”

Glorfindel’s arrows sank home. Despite himself, Finrod’s shoulders slumped. This was Glorfindel, after all.

“No. None of us will ever discuss it that I can imagine.” Odd, how he had never noticed that Glorfindel’s blue eyes looked as grey as Calyaro’s in the dark.

He contemplated the stars over the mountains and thought of Calyaro, patiently digging ditches tomorrow, obeying his edict to earn his place. He certainly hadn’t meant ditch-digging. Fingon could be such an ass. With a pang he nearly smiled at the phrase, a relic of their younger, more carefree days.

“What are you thinking?”

He’d forgotten his companion while he stared at the cloud-studded peaks. There *were* no answers that could lay some ghosts to rest.

Glorfindel asked a third time, “What’s eating away at you so badly? You seem as stricken as Turgon, and I don’t know why, unless it’s Amarië.”

Finrod turned his empty wine-cup between his hands. “Fingon was on the docks. I dream of him.”

He bent the rim of the leather cup, crushing it fiercely so the edges buckled and the leather began to split. “Morgoth, Fëanor. Even Manwë – I could be angry with any one of them. And I am. But being angry with Fingon feels wrong, like poison. I look at Galadriel, Turgon, even Idril – they don’t feel real. I keep expecting to see Elenwë and then I remember. I do my duty but nothing touches me. No-one does.

“I wonder if I can ever forgive Fingon, or forget… and then I dream of Hlápo’s face on the boy he was going to kill.”

That was when the tears spilled over and Finrod’s shoulders shook. This grief did not feel like a child’s sorrow, but hard, an adult’s serious look at what was and could never be changed, but when Glorfindel put an arm around him, Finrod did not push him away.

Glorfindel held him all that night. Together they stared across the lake, as black, stinking mists tried to thicken around them, only to be inexorably dispersed as clouds rolled aside from the moon’s gift of light.

In the cool, quiet of dawn he felt easier. Glorfindel had worked a little magic after all. Gradually, the stubborn mists burned off from the hollows of the grasslands and the long rays of the sun over the Ethel Wethrin hunted out the last lingering tendrils from the trees.

***

Finrod made his way down round the shore a short way, and then branched off into the trees. There were paths here, where so many of them came, laid with branches where it was muddy, and then neatly stoned areas set aside for their use. Fingolfin had thought hard about this, but with so many of them, there was no choice. Facilities they must have, and facilities he provided.

Even when Barad Sirion started to go up and the planned cavalry was ready to patrol Ard-galen, a large encampment would remain here. Finrod ignored the areas which were available to use that day. It was the thunk of the new digging that he followed, and sure enough, he came upon a few elves excavating a series of neat trenches. It was temporary work, and no-one looked too unhappy. Short rotations of a lot of people into the task took care of that.

“Calyaro.” His voice cut through the digging and the staccato talk. Dig – breath – speak, was the cheerful rhythm. Calyaro was working a little clumsily among the rest, slightly apart, not one of those talking. Someone nudged him, and hissed, “The Prince wants you.”

“Leave that.” He gestured to the spade.

Calyaro walked with him. Once they were out of the trees, a little grimly, Finrod said to him, “Show me your hands.”

He inspected the nearest, the left, oddly reminded of the repaired mandolin, as he looked at the scars. “You should have said something rather than take that job on. Have you got all the feeling back?” He pressed various places, watching the shake of the head. He would have expected the musician to care far more than he showed. The hand in his felt warm and the skin was whole, only marks and the numbness remaining.

“I’ll give orders exempting you from the duty.” He nodded at the woods. “Use more common sense another time and say something.” His feelings confused him. Usually, he felt nothing. Then he would feel a surge of some anger or grief, which would disappear again. With Calyaro there were other extremes. Their history on the Ice and their amiable relationship in Tirion were at odds with his present cold bitterness over the kinslaying. Compassion and anger made very uneasy bed-fellows, he was finding. “I’ll ask that you be found some less physical work. There’s plenty to do, depending on what you know, aside from music?” Everybody shared the burden of getting necessary work done in this new, large and still chaotic settlement.

“I can figure, draw – plans, not art – and I have knowledge of hunting weapons and the sword.”

Finrod let go of the hand. All the basic skills of any child educated in Tirion. Other arts – healing, metal-work, wood-work and music – were more specialized and their teaching had depended on aptitude, opportunity and interest.

“Barad Sirion is going to take a lot of labour of all sorts. I’ll send you as aide to one of the architects. You can be attached to the project and she will find some use for you. Wait until a healer has cleared you before taking on any physical work. Make sure you see one regularly. You know where to find them?”

“Yes.”

“Then see to it. I’ll leave word with the guard. They will take you over and introduce you.”

That done, he had discharged both duty and debt alike for their odd partnership on the Helcaraxë, and he could finally dismiss him from his mind, glad to free himself from the unwelcome bond to an ugly past.

He had a fortress to plan, and his uncle would want him to make a start on it. Today they finalised the movements of all those leaving on the King’s business and readied their gear for departure. Finrod was more than willing. If he could not forget the past, he could still see what tomorrow would bring.

End of Chapter Six
Tbc

Aro - short for Findaráto

By Stars' Light 4-6/14

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