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Chapter Text

Once, there was little that Nemmírie loved more than her father and her uncles.

The moments when she had balanced atop Uncle Maitimo’s shoulders, his broad hands wrapped around her legs to steady her body and the gentle fondness of his silver blue eyes as he gazed up at her, were long past. The hours she had spent in the forests of Aman with Uncle Tyelkormo as he merrily, patiently taught her how to knock an arrow and draw a bow despite her father’s halfhearted protests that it was no place for a one as young as her, would not return. The endeared grins lightening Uncle Carnistir’s face as she happily dug into the honeycomb scones that he would bake for her every moon had not been seen since they left Aman, hundreds of years ago. The animated frenzy of Uncle Atarinkë’s hands as he explained to her the process with which he had created the necklace for Aunt Morilindel was replaced by practiced gestures rigid with cold discipline. Uncle Ambarto and Uncle Ambarussa were hardly older than Nemmírie herself, and with them she remembered racing through the lush green plains of the Undying lands, laughing and calling to each other over the wind and the thundering of their horses’ hooves against the rich, packed dirt.

And her father. Oh, she had many memories with him. From her childhood days, when he would smile and put off his composition and his music sheets and his instruments to read to her for hours at her insistence. When he would hold her hand in his long, elegant fingers at the many gatherings between the nobility, the musical timbre of his gentle laugh drifting in her ears whenever she hid behind his robes out of shyness upon being introduced to someone new. How he beamed so brightly when she performed her first song at one of the balls, in front of King Ingwë and King Olwë and King Finwë.

When she had arrived at Endórë with the rest of Nolofinwë’s host, her skin cracked from hellish cold, her lips as grey as the cloudy sky, he had restrained the cry she could see was threatening to rip from his throat, held her close, kissed her forehead, and comforted her, and she had never known better reassurance than the sturdy warmth of his embrace. And that was why it had been all the more jarring when it came her turn, when Uncle Maitimo had been returned to them, unconscious, haggard, bruised and tattered and a bloody stump with bone protruding from gushing red in place of a hand, and it had been she who took her father’s hand and tried to hush him as he sobbed and shook with relief and guilt and pain.

Never would she have the innocent bliss, the sweet crisp air, the gentle lull, of the Aman of her childhood again, but it had been alright. Her affection for her father and her uncles held strong. Strong enough for her to make the decision to follow them from Valinórë, apologizing to her stone-faced mother. Strong enough for her to beat down the sudden horror and doubt twisting like some cruel snake inside her when she heard news of just what had occurred at Alqualondë, at least in part at the hands of those very uncles and that very father.

Strong enough that she had willingly rejoined them upon setting foot in the east, even after the knowledge that they had been complicit in the burning of the ships, that if any of them had spoken a word to Grandfather then perhaps she would not have had to wade through snow and ice as high as her shoulders, her skin turning rough and brittle from the sheer temperature. That Elenwë would not have had to die, that Itarillë would not have had to face the bleak, cold wasteland stretching in front of them without the arms of her mother to hold her.

If only her father, or her uncles, might have done something to prevent the burning of the ships.

Strong enough that she was still here, now. Her confusion, her regret, her longing, her anger, her frustration, her terror – not any of them, individual or combined, had been enough to cleave her from the side of her father, from the sides of her uncles. No matter if hesitation or uncertainty or confusion had stayed her hand, as they said and did things, unpleasant things, that in Aman she never would have believed they were capable of.

And yet, this—

“It is decided, then. We attack two dawns from today.” Uncle Maitimo’s voice was devoid of anything. His eyes were bright and terribly blank, his back straight and his chin high. “And we will obtain the Silmaril. Dior Eluchíl refused to hand it over, and his people have brought it on themselves.”

—this, she could not brush off.

Nemmírie’s stomach twisted. Without her realizing, her breathing had quickened, and crescent-shaped marks on her palms stung where her nails had dug into her skin.

“It is ours,” Uncle Tyelkormo sneered in agreement. “Dior Eluchíl shall pay the price for his arrogance.” He was practically snarling as he spoke, his silvery eyes narrowed in feral hunger. Nemmírie, standing not three meters from him, mustered all her willpower not to flinch in terror. All of them had changed since they left the Undying Lands behind, growing colder and harder and sharper, but too suddenly, and too, too clearly, the abyss that yawned between who Uncle Tyelkormo had been and who he was now was forced into Nemmírie’s senses like a particularly rancid carcass.

“And if they resist?” Uncle Ambarussa asked. “Even if we catch them unawares, there is no doubt there will be guards posted.”

“It will be too late by then,” Uncle Atarinkë pointed out. “No matter how fast their scouts are, Doriath will never have time to muster a sufficient military force. It should not be too great a feat to take out what soldiers that they can assemble.”

“Indeed.” Uncle Tyelkormo smiled, a vicious bearing of his teeth that held not a single hint of mirth. “And we will make sure to let any who would keep what is ours from us know what our oath means. On no uncertain terms.”

Nemmírie was frozen.

She knew what he meant, of course. What exactly it was that Uncle Maitimo was saying the people of Doriath had brought upon themselves, and how exactly Uncle Tyelkormo declared they would show Middle Earth what their oath meant, she understood well enough. He had said, when Dior Eluchíl had given no response to the correspondence demanding that the Silmaril be handed over, what this might come to. Uncle Tyelkormo had outright urged them to battle when their second message had gone unanswered. And Nemmírie had fought in enough battles for the image to easily conjure itself into her mind, flames and blood and screams and pain everywhere, splatted over the landscape like paint.

But she had thought, she had hoped, told herself time and time and time again, that her uncles and her father would do no such thing. They could not. What she had fought in the past were soldiers. Armies. Her uncles and her father had fought warriors. Now, what they were talking about was a kingdom. Of soldiers, yes, but also children, of civilians, of those who knew nothing of violence or battle but from tales meant to glorify. They could not consider it. Not them. Not her kin, whom she loved and who loved her.

They were speaking of killing innocents. Of a massacre.

“No,” she said.

All eyes turned to her, of varying shades of silver and blue and blue-grey and silver-blue. No two pairs were exactly the same, but Nemmírie saw also that no two pair differed in the utter coldness behind them.

“Nemmírie.” Her father was the first to speak, the ice in his gaze thawing a little as he gazed at her with affection. It made her shake to imagine that there had been any ice at all. “You do not have to take part, if you do not want to.”

“Nonsense,” Uncle Atarinkë cut in. “She is as much the house of Atar as any of us. Do not coddle her like a child, Makalaurë.”

Her father glared at his brother.

“Lay off of our niece.” Uncle Tyelkormo’s eyes were too wild and too gleeful, even as he smiled at Nemmírie. “Worry not, Nemmírie. Káno is right; you have no need to be part of the battle.” He ruffled her hair with his large hand, the same way he had millions of other times before, and never had Nemmírie fëa spiked in absolute terror as it did then.  

“You cannot,” she all but gasped, disbelieving. How could they think that that was the problem, that she could possibly sit this one out as children and men and women who had never even been in a true battle were slaughtered at the swords of her uncles, the sword of her father? “You are all saying we will attack innocent people. We will kill them. How can you even think of doing such a thing?”

Uncle Tyelkormo’s hand withdrew.

“They withheld the Silmaril from us.” Uncle Maitimo’s tone was flat. “We gave Dior Eluchíl enough chances.”

“No.” Nemmírie shook her head. “No. You cannot possibly say the Silmaril, even a Silmaril, is reason enough to do this. You cannot possibly think that. How can you…?” How could the thought even enter their minds? These were her uncles, this was her father. They were her kin. She had grown up with their presence in her life. They had taught her so much, protected her, fought with her. Comforted and reassured her. Not them – her family. She had seen them do many hard-hearted things, make many ruthless decisions, that had sent shivers down her spine, but they could not be thinking to do this. They could not be like this.

“You know exactly how.” Uncle Carnistir, who had so far been silent, spoke, his voice harsh and impatient. “It is the reason we are here. We swore to the Allfather, with Manwë and Varda as our witnesses, that we would not rest until we have the Silmarils.”

She couldn’t believe it.

“So that oath means more than the lives of people?” Nemmírie could not keep her voice from rising. Whether it was because she was angry, in disbelief, heartbroken, or petrified down to her core she did not know. “It does not matter that you will put your blade through those who have no hope of resisting – those who have never wronged you, who do not even know your faces – so long as the Silmaril is back in your hands? Is that what you are telling me, Uncle?”

“Nemmírie, you do not know what you—”

There was no willingness in her to hear her father or anyone else speak. “Yes – it sounds as if that is what you would have me believe. And yet, something is inconsistent. If the Silmarils mean so much, if your oath means so much, why did you not attempt to take it when it was in Lúthien Tinúviel’s possession? Why wait until her death? Does your oath plummet in priority when you are afraid to incur the wrath of the keeper of a Silmaril, and soar to the height of importance when you think you have an easy fight ahead?”

“Be quiet, Nemmírie.” Uncle Maitimo’s voice cracked like a whip, with all the authority of one who was once the high king of the Noldor, and with all the authority of the one who was now the patriarch of the House of Fëanáro. He was her uncle no longer, but the head of her family, demanding her obedience. “That is enough. We will do what we must.”

“No.” And yet, Nemmírie shook her head. She would not be cowed, and she would not back down on this. “Alqualondë may have been an accident. I told myself that it must have been an accident, to save my trust in you. But you intend to do this. You are planning to do it. This is not doing what you must, it is choosing. You are choosing to put—” She faltered. Foolishly, it was not until then, that very moment, that the full weight of what her uncles and her father were prepared and willing to do crashed down onto her. She could not bear what she understood with such clarity; they were choosing to put their desire to obtain the Silmaril, that accursed oath, over other people. Over other lives.

And they had already decided. All of them gazed at her, but she could see only glacial resolve in their eyes. They knew what she was trying to tell them. They had thought about it all already, had been thinking about it ever since Uncle Tyelkormo brought up that they would have to fight. And their choice remained the same.

And, even though they had the exact same faces as the family she had grown up with and loved dearly, Nemmírie wondered how it was only now that she saw – they were completely different people. This was not the uncle who had hoisted her onto his shoulders when she was the child, not the uncle who had so gladly taught her how to shoot a bow, not the uncle who had been so fond of baking her sweets at her begging. Not the uncle who had loved so much to explain to her the process that underlay his great passion, not the uncles with whom she had journeyed through windswept fields with smiles on their faces.

And this was not her father.

She had been blind all this time, after all. Her affection for her family had turned her into a simpleton, blind, deaf, dumb, so utterly thoughtless and half-witted, so utterly idiotic, as to try to convince herself that they were still the men that she loved and respected and cherished. Telperinquar had been right, when he repudiated Uncle Atarinkë and Uncle Tyelkormo for what they had done to Findaráto, to Lúthien Tinúviel and Beren Erchamion. He had been right, when he had said to her that He is not my father, and they are not my uncles.

“We will attack Doriath and reclaim the Silmaril.” Uncle Maitimo’s tone brooked no argument – and Nemmírie did not intend to give one. She understood what she should have understood long ago. “This will not change, no matter what you say.”

“You are right.” She thought she might cry, but her words did not break and her eyes remained dry. “March on Doriath, Uncle. Take back the Silmaril, kill those in your way, rejoice at your victory. I will have no part in it, or in any of your slaughters.” She stood sharply, her chair jerking back and clattering down against the ground from the force of the movement.

“Yelya.” Her father rose with her, catching her forearm in a grip that was both desperate and pleading. Almost before she was conscious of what she was doing, Nemmírie clasped his hand and ripped it from her, flinging it away. She did not look for his reaction.

There was silence from the tent and from her uncles as she stormed from the meeting, heading for her own accommodation. Somewhere in the corner of her consciousness, she thanked the Valar that it was night, that most of the camp was sound asleep.

Her head was pounding, her chest hurt, and she felt unsteady, like the ground beneath her feet itself was no longer stable.

Disgust. Disgust. That she had called this camp home because her uncles and her father were here, that she had fought beside them and trusted them and believed in their cause, that she had justified them in her mind… it was repulsive. Tears threatened to spill down her face – tears of frustration, resentment, devastation, shock. To think that, the dawn after this coming one, her uncles and her father would ambush Doriath and kill its people, all for a pretty trinket. To think that they were willing.

She didn’t know what to think anymore.

Nemmírie drew close to her tent. She shoved its flaps aside and, pacing, began to blindly shove what caught her eye into her traveling satchel. Water… a slice of lembas… a spare tunic… her arm guards… the pieces of her breastplate… a book that her mother had given her which she had brought from Aman. Her hands, as if determined to be defiant to the end, plucked up three more books from her desk – the first a gift from Uncle Tyelkormo, the second a gift from Uncle Maitimo, the third from her father – but it took only a second for Nemmírie to identify whom she had received them from. Abhorrence tore through her as Manwë’s lightning tore through the sky, and she flung the books aside, hearing them scatter over the ground with enough force for their pages to rip and rend. She did not even want to look back at them.

She slung her bow and quiver with some arrows left around her shoulders, strapped her sword and daggers to her belt, and fumbled through her wardrobe for a traveling cloak. No sooner had her fingers closed around its coarse fabric that she threw it over herself, hands stuttering in her haste to do the clasp.

By the time she had thrust her slippers off and was forcing her feet into her boots, Nemmírie’s teeth were clenched, every fiber of her body burning as if she had plummeted into the fires of Aulë’s forge. Finally, the shoes were properly on, and she burst from the tent, nearly knocking a brazier over in her haste for the gate. She hoped no one saw her. No doubt then that there would be whispers about what it was that had made Lord Makalaurë’s daughter so incensed.

Makalaurë’s daughter. She did not want to think about it. The house she belonged to. The beasts to whom her blood tied her.

Horrible. Repugnant. Disgusting. Loathsome.

“Nemmírie!”

It was her father.

For a long, long instant, Nemmírie longed to simply run. She was not sure she could stomach facing him, let alone converse with him. It would be so easy to just flee, to just close the little ways left between the gates and herself, throw them open and hurtle into the forests beyond, never having to lay eyes on them again.

But she stopped. Waited. She did not turn around, though – if she had, she knew she would have continued on her way instantly.

Her father’s hand landed on her shoulder.

~

Makalaurë knew what fear was.

It was the uncertainty that had gripped him as he first stared across the expanse of Middle Earth stretching out before him, wild and unwelcoming, so different from the gentle slopes and blue skies of Valinórë. It was the thick nothingness that settled over his mind like a gentle and deadly blanket as he stared at the pile of embers where once the body of his father had lain. It was the cold that chilled him down to the bone as it dawned on him that his brother was gone, taken by the forces of Morikotto. It was the hot, helpless flames that seized his body as he watched Glaurung the Worm rampage across his lands, trampling his people underfoot as if they were insects. It was the terrible lightheadedness that came over him when he heard the word that his uncle was now no more than a swollen bag of blood littered with shattered bone and crushed masses of muscle. It was the despair that dug into his skin, took root inside his veins, and crept into his heart as he beheld the wretched state of he and his brothers and the Eldar after Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the body of Findekáno, his cousin, with the blade of Osombauko’s axe buried so deeply in its neck that the head was nearly severed.

But none of it, none of it, held a candle to the terror that tore into his fëa as he saw his daughter streaking across camp, dressed and geared for nothing less than a departure. She intended to go. She intended to leave.

He could not let her leave.

“Nemmírie!”

If he had had the presence of mind, or if he had been in an appropriate situation, he would have laughed. Kanafinwë, “strong-voiced Finwë,” his father had named him. If only Fëanáro had heard him now, his anguished cry of his daughter’s name as brittle and strung and desperate as a leaf being tossed about in the wind.

Upon hearing his call, Nemmírie stopped abruptly. That, at least, gave Makalaurë hope, and he closed the distance between them to grip her shoulder, praying she would not thrust him off like she had earlier.

She did not. Instead, she allowed him to turn her around to face him, her body stiff and unyielding and betraying her reluctance to listen. When their eyes met, his breath faltered.

Eru. With her silvery hair, her pale white skin and violet-blue eyes flared wide with hot wrath, she was the spitting image of Surumë when he had last parted with her. Longing consumed him with terrifying swiftness, rendering him unable to speak and feeding like oil stoking a fire into the fear lashing at his heart that his daughter might truly leave.

“Please, just listen to me.”

“There is nothing you can say that is worth hearing.” Nemmírie jerked away from him as if being too close to him burned. “I do not wish to listen to your excuses.”

“We swore—”

“Do not,” she snarled. “Do not use that as your justification. No one had an answer when I asked why you did not attempt to take back the Silmaril while Lúthien Tinúviel was alive. Why you attack only now, with the element of surprise, after Doriath has lost such a powerful defense. Why you waited, even though you strut about and proclaim the cruciality of the oath to all who can hear. Do you have an explanation?”

Makalaurë could not reply. The laugh that dragged from Nemmírie’s throat was full of scorn.

“How?” She flung her arms out, disappointment and incredulity and revulsion warping her features. “I don’t understand. I will not understand. How can you and your brothers say that what you are planning is for the Silmaril? How can you fathom the idea of killing innocents for something so trite?”

The oath – their oath, trite. Never did Makalaurë think he would hear those two things in reference to each other.

His daughter would not know, of course. She had not sworn the oath, she had not even been there when he and his brothers swore the oath. When they pledged to the Father of all that they would reclaim their father’s gems, and would not rest until they had. And that if they did not, the everlasting darkness awaited them.

And yet, how could he explain that to her? How could he possibly make her feel the dreadful weight in the air as they had spoken those words? The finality that had smothered all of them the instant that their oath was taken?

How could he convince her to stay?

“You do not understand,” he tried. Pleaded. “When we swore the oath, we knew for certain – we are doomed if we renege on our word. We have no choice.”

“Doomed?” His daughter spat. The syllable held such spite that Makalaurë had to fight not to take a step back. “Why, what will happen? Will you, perhaps, die?”

He went silent. Nemmírie was glaring at him, her eyes burning, her lips twisted with indignation and anger. But at his lack of reply, she stilled.

“Do not tell me,” she said, quietly, “that you truly will die?”

Makalaurë faltered. What was he to tell her? Most likely? I believe so? Yes? How could he tell her that he and her uncles had all made such a vow in such a hasty, careless, entirely irresponsible manner? Thinking not of their mother or their wives or their children? How could he tell her that he had not thought of her when he swore the oath?

But he saw a glimmer of hope. It made him feel dirty, wretched, that the moment came across to him as an opportunity – but he had already made many decisions that left him feeling low and detestable. What, then, was one more, if it meant he could convince his daughter to reconsider? If he could keep her by his side?

“…Yes.” He gazed into her eyes, which so resembled his wife’s. “We will die.”

Nemmírie stared. Her eyes were still wide – not with fury or resentment now, but with shock. Her lips parted slightly, eyebrows dipping downwards in disbelief. She searched his face; Makalaurë did not look away, begging to Ilúvatar that she saw his sincerity.

Please, yelya. Do not go. Do not leave me.

She relaxed, her features smoothing out into calm once again. The claws that were gripping at Makalaurë’s throat loosened; relief began to spill in through the gaps. Thank the Valar. Thank Eru. She had listened. She was reconsidering, she was—

“Then die.”

Her voice was flat. Eyes cold, face blank. And Makalaurë’s world tilted under his feet.

“You and your brothers were thoughtless. You and your brothers swore that oath, and chose to gamble your lives. Yet you stand here and expect me to accept that you have no choice but to kill innocents because of your foolishness?” she snarled. “I will not. You say you have no choice, but that is a lie. You have every choice – and you are all choosing to drag others into your mistakes. All you are telling me is that you are willing to kill the helpless to save yourselves.” Her voice rose, laced with bitterness and derision. “You make me sick.”  

Makalaurë thought he might have collapsed to his knees then, but the fog cleared and he was somehow still standing on his own two feet. “Nemmírie—”

“I am leaving.”

And then – he was weary, worn, rent, and frayed, but he was yet still the son of Curufinwë Fëanáro, because Makalaurë was suddenly angry. Furious. At his daughter, for saying such things, for saying she was leaving, even if some part of him whispered, savagely, that she was right. Furious at his father, for turning that overwhelming, searing gaze on him when it came his turn to choose whether or not to swear before Manwë and Varda. Furious at his brothers, for pledging themselves so and in turn convincing him to do the same.

And he hated himself, for taking the oath at all.

“You cannot,” he hissed. You cannot. You will not.

She turned away, paying no need to his words. He lashed out, gripping her shoulders harshly and spinning her around once more to face him. His daughter did not flinch.

“Do not try to keep me here.” There was no doubt in her voice, Makalaurë realized, dread threatening to choke him, slithering into his mouth and nose and down his throat, filling his lungs with thick, soupy blackness. “I will try to leave, again and again, and we will all be unhappy.”

“Do not be absurd.” Makalaurë spoke around the stone in his throat, digging his fingers into her shoulders. “Where else will you go? All of your kin, all those close to you, are right here. You will be alone.”

“Perhaps. But I would rather live as a solitary wretch than count myself among the likes of you. Never will I hold company with cowards. With murderers.” Nemmírie glared at him, disgust simmering behind her irises, and Makalaurë’s heart strained and shrieked and shuddered under the agony.

“Let me go.” She thrust his hands from her shoulders, her nails digging carelessly into his skin. Shaken under the sheer potency of her glower, the utter adamance in her desire to get away from him, he allowed his fingers to slacken their grip and slide from her. She spun around without an ounce of hesitation, the end of her pale braid slapping against his tunic as she did so.

No.

Snarling, Makalaurë lurched forward and caught her forearm once more. He would make her stay, even if she hated him in the moment for it. Even if she cursed his name and screamed at him and refused to look his way again. He would not, could not, allow his daughter to just leave. “Do not dare turn away from m—”

 She punched him.

The fist connected with his nose and mouth, white-hot pain exploding in his skull as his head was lurched backwards from the force of her strike. Makalaurë found himself on the ground, blades of grass sharp under his palms, not so much because of the weight of the attack but because of the sheer shock that had caused his legs to give out from under him. His entire face was throbbing, pulsing with heat, but what was most distracting was the utter blankness of his mind. The only notion that it seemed he was capable of processing was that his daughter had struck him.

“Do not dare touch me,” Nemmírie spat. “Do not even look at me. I would sooner rip out my own throat than have association with you, butcher. Kinslayer.”

Footsteps. Makalaurë still could not think.

She hit him. Nemmírie had punched him.

The footsteps grew fainter. He raised a hand to his nose, gingerly touching his fingers to the heated flesh. It would swell, no doubt. The tang of blood was already filling his taste and smell, and he could feel it damp on his skin and his face, trickling slowly down his chin and dripping onto the dirt. The flexing of his throat as he swallowed was painful.

He could hear footsteps no longer.

Makalaurë’s eyes snapped open. No footsteps. He could not hear his daughter’s footsteps. Battling through the haze of discomfort and, more importantly, through the stupor, he raised his head, searching for any signs of Nemmírie, of a glimpse of dark fabric or a flash of blue-violet eyes or a lock of silvery hair. But all that met his gaze was the empty space where she had been standing not a few moments ago, and an open gate flung wide towards the surrounding forests. There was not a hint of movement that might indicate which direction she had gone.

Makalaurë’s fingers scrabbled against the ground, soil digging underneath his nails, as he struggled to regain his footing. No. No, no. No—

Then die.

He swayed, his palm slapping harshly against the dirt, stone cutting into the epidermis. More blood leaked from his face down into the grass, Makalaurë’s gaze fixating on the dark crimson droplets as they rolled down the green blades and melted into black soil. Vaguely, he wondered if he had hit his head at some point on his way down, because he could not hear anything but for the ringing in his ears.  

You make me sick.

Something else dripped onto the ground, mixing with blood to sink downwards towards the earth’s cold depths. Clear, hot liquid, the sharp sting of salt against his tongue. The blurring of his vision and the tightness of his throat. The ache in his chest.

Coward. Murderer.

They were all words that he had heard before. All words that had been directed at him before, all words that he had directed at himself before, piercing his skin and sinking into his bones and gripping his muscles like talons. Yet all of that could not compare.

Makalaurë knew what pain was.

It was the weight that pressed his body into the ground as his mother embraced him for the last time and he buried his face in her lovely russet tresses to hide the tears threatening his composure. It was the cleaving of his heart as Surumë glared at him with blazing fury, her mouth twisted in a sneer and her beautiful indigo eyes skewering holes straight through his flesh, her hands shoving him away and slapping at his face and chest when he attempted to speak any further word to her. It was the stream of nostalgia and stark disbelief and memories from his childhood as his father’s body burst into flame and burned itself to cinders as he and his brothers could do nothing but stare. It was the horrific numbness that enveloped his body as he struggled against writhing masses of Orcs, helpless as Maitimo was borne further and further away by the forces of Morikotto, cursing and shouting and fighting the entire way. It was the hopeless frustration at himself that drove his limbs forward and forced tears from his eyes as he fled from the flaming, smoking ruin that had once been his lands in the wake of Dagor Bragollach.

It was the gruesome self-loathing that tore at his innards when Findekáno dismounted from the back of Thorondor, Maitimo’s bruised and broken and pitiful form dangling from his shoulder, blood spilling from the protruding stump where his hand had once been. The tremble that shook his limbs when his cousin’s back was torn open by Osombauko's searing hot whip and the demon’s axe buried in his throat.

But this. This, it was something else in its entirety – agony which he could have never dreamed existed, agony that even the will of the Allfather could not rain down onto him if He tried. His body seized and convulsed, his fëa lashed and cracked, venom seeping into his veins, drying his blood and scorching his tissue from the inside out, and Nemmírie, Nemmírie hated him. His beautiful daughter, with all her willfulness and fire and free spirit, whom he had cradled in his arms and sung to sleep and held her hand as she took her first, wobbling step – she hated him.

Butcher. Kinslayer. I would sooner rip out my own throat than have association with you.

A dreadfully strangled sound, somewhere between a howl and a sob, dragged itself from his throat, scraping against his vocal cords and his windpipe. It hurt, it stung, it burned, and Makalaurë wondered if he would ever be able to speak again. If he would ever be able to breathe again.

Nemmírie was gone. Nemmírie hated him. He had lost her.

His heart warped and groaned and twisted, and it screamed.

Chapter Text

Not three days ago, Nemmírie had called her father a murderer and a kinslayer. Now, she could call herself a hypocrite.

She could not remember the name of this one as she ran him through with the blade of her sword, but she did recall seeing his face several times around the camp. He had always bowed his head to her, always addressed her as “my lady”, and had never been anything but courteous and kind and friendly.

And Nemmírie had burst into the hall to see him raising his spear over a pregnant Iathrim elf. She had not hesitated after that.

It was too late, she cursed bitterly as she rushed into the next chamber. Then again, she had only her own foolishness and indecision to blame; if only she had come to Doriath with her warning a little bit earlier—

Of course, she had accounted for her uncles and her father to reschedule their attack when the night was younger, now that she was out and about and clearly in opposition to their plan. They had originally been intending to attack at dawn, and so, Nemmírie had concluded that they might position the assault a few hours earlier; with the state that she knew their forces to be in, it was the best they could do without losing too much military power in their haste.

After a day of toiling in a puddle of frustration and hesitation and anger, she had decided that, as long as she knew about this crime that her family was intending to commit, she could not just do nothing. So Nemmírie had ridden for Doriath, seeking an audience with Dior. Even if she ended up skewered by an Iathrim elf for intruding on their kingdom, she could have perhaps given them a warning with her last breath. At the very least, they would be more prepared than they would have been if they knew nothing.

With the time she was making, she had been confident that she could reach Doriath by evening, and communicate to them her message: The Sons of Fëanor plan to attack this kingdom sometime tonight. Please do something.

But her uncles and father had acted even faster than she had expected, and by the time she arrived, it was too eerily quiet in the forest, and the Thousand Caves were already under assault.

Nemmírie might have cried at the sight, at what the beautiful stronghold that had stood strong against even Morikotto had been reduced to, but, more than that – much more than that – what her uncles and father had been reduced to. Screams. Smoke. Ash. Blood. Death. And it was all their doing.

But she had not the time for tears, not when there was even a remote chance that she might save someone. To make at least the slightest amends for her blindness and complacency when it came to the throng of barbarians, the gaggle of murderers, that she had, just days ago, adored and cherished so much that her heart had ached with the intensity of it.

(Her chest ached now too, but for reasons entirely different.)

She spurred her stallion, Súretal, forward – stolen straight from the stables when her father and uncles had been asleep, taken as the horrible whisper that she ought to drive a blade through their chests before they did something so heinous prickled at her ears – and galloped into Doriath. It was only a matter of minutes before it became too dense for him to progress further without the danger of his hoof getting caught on a root or a vine, so she dismounted, left him tied to a tree, and continued on foot.

Nemmírie had long since accomplished being able to navigate deftly through the dense undergrowth and the thicket of leaves and thorns, without losing her footing. But when her mind began to drift back to how joyfully she had practiced leaping from root to stone, ducking beneath and between branches and cobwebs, brushing through bushes and creepers, she quickly brought herself back to the present. Because it had always been thanks to Uncle Tyelkormo that she in her youth had had the opportunity to go cavorting through dense forests so much, so often, and now…

Well – there was no use in thinking about it now.

Upon her arrival at the Thousand Caves, she had pushed down her desire to simply sit on the ground and weep, and had charged inside, trying to keep her hands from shaking.

Because, she knew, if she was really going to do what she desired to do – if she was really going to save someone – then others would have to be at the end of her blade. Others who, just days ago, were her comrades and companions.

She didn’t know if she could do it.

But then – when she saw two Noldorin elves whom she recognized, Imbelossie and Vailimo, sword and lance respectively in hand and bearing down upon a young Iathrim elf with brown eyes and russet hair – her hesitation had been gone. A second before Vailimo’s lance had ripped through the auburn-haired elf’s throat, Nemmírie parried the thrust with her sword, sent him stumbling backwards with a kick to the face, and ducked under the swing of Imbelossie’s blade before cutting through her abdomen.

Imbelossie collapsed.

“Lady Nemmírie,” the dark-haired woman beamed, slowing her horse, “you ride faster than I could have anticipated.”

“Thank Uncle Tyelko for that,” Nemmírie replied, smiling. “Much to Atar’s horror, he taught me to ride when I was quite young.”

Imbelossie laughed. “I can imagine it,” she replied. “But I am sure that Lord Kanafinwë is, in hindsight, grateful for Lord Turkafinwë’s insistence.” 

Nemmírie did not know who was more disappointing, or more despicable. Imbelossie, for her very clear intention to kill such a young elf, one who had never before wronged her – or Nemmírie herself, for driving a blade through her body regardless. She only knew that she would not permit the faultless, the blameless, to simply be slaughtered like animals because of the terrible selfishness of her father and uncles. Not if she could help it.

Vailimo had regained his wherewithal after her strike to his face, but the sight of Nemmírie, the realization that she had just killed Imbelossie, seemed to have stolen his wits away again. He stared at her, eyes wide and not even seeming to comprehend the blood that was trickling from his nose, the slight unnatural twist of its bridge.

“You—”

“Are you going to kill them?” Nemmírie hissed.

Vailimo blinked, still stupefied. “My lady?”

“The Iathrim,” she gestured behind her, sensing the russet-haired elf huddled in her shadow, afraid and unsure of what was happening. “Are you going to kill them?”

His green eyes hardened. “My lady, I am a servant of the House of Fëanáro.”

If circumstances were different, Nemmírie might have spat back “And I am a princess of that house.” She had no fondness for flaunting her position, but if it meant she could accomplish what needed to be accomplished, she was not above doing just that.

Now, though… no longer, no longer did she want to associate herself with it, with the House of Fëanáro and with her title as a princess among the Noldor. The thought of proclaiming aloud that her blood linked her to such self-centered weaklings, such monsters, made her skin crawl with disgust.

“And the House of Fëanáro is wrong,” she hissed, instead. “There is no justification for slaughtering innocents in pursuit of something as insipid as jewels.”

“The oath—”

“No,” Nemmírie snapped. If any other elf spoke about the oath again and called it their reasoning, she might just rip their throat out. “No, do not bring that thing up. You did not even swear anything, Vailimo. Only my uncles and my father, in their stupidity and weakness and cowardice, are bound. So why are you doing this?” How are you doing this? How can you do this?

Vailimo looked utterly taken aback by her words. “Lady Nemmírie, did you leave because—”

“Because I will not abide by fiends,” Nemmírie finished, unwilling to hear any mention of her detestable kin, who were no doubt rampaging and killing the blameless Iathrim at this very moment. “And I cannot understand how you can bring yourself to do it.”

“My lady, I am loyal,” Vailimo said, with more insistence than she had anticipated. Nemmírie blinked, stared at him. Despised the familiarity that was welling up inside of her. “Regardless of my feelings, I am a servant of the House of Fëanáro, and your uncles and your father are my lords. I could not possibly—”

“Loyal!” Nemmírie shouted. Her skin crawled. She felt as if she were talking to a reflection of herself, talking to the despicable, oblivious fool that she had been not two days ago. My family. My uncles, my father. I love them. I am loyal to them. “Don’t make me laugh. You aren’t loyal, Vailimo. You are blind, and malleable, and easy to manipulate.” As easy to manipulate as I was. How could she have simply ignored what she knew was wrong? How could she have stood by and allowed the monsters that made up her family commit such heinous and unscrupulous acts?

Why had she not said something before? Why had she not spoken against them, turned her back on them, as she ought to have, the way Tyelpë had done? He is not my father, her cousin had said, and they are not my uncles. He had looked at her, Nemmírie remembered, looked at her with eyes that so resembled Uncle Atarinkë’s. “Mírie, I can’t bear to look at them. What Atar and Uncle Tyelkormo did to Findaráto, I can’t understand how they could do it.”

“They just,” Nemmírie had tried, desperately, foolishly, “they just wished to unite us with the Sindar, Tyelpë. They just wanted us to have a better chance against Morikotto, they—”

“And so they send their cousin to his death?” he cried. “They deliberately turn his people against him? Allow him to die? Plot to take over his kingdom once the news of his death came? All of this, to give us a better chance against Morikotto?” A laugh, short and harsh and without mirth. “That is what they said, too. Do they expect me to believe that? Do you expect me to believe that?”

She had not had anything to say to that. She could not say anything to that, not when her heartbeat thundered against her chest and her blood roared in her ears. He is right, they all said. Tyelpë is right.

Her cousin shook his head, bitter disappointment contaminating his silver-grey gaze. “I won’t overlook this,” he said. “I can’t, I can’t.”

“They’re your family,” Nemmírie murmured, desperate to make him hear her. “You can’t just… leave them. Please – please come with us. We’re going to Amon Ereb, you can speak to Uncle Atarinkë on the way. Ask him and Uncle Tyelko to explain wh—”

“No.” Tyelpë shook his head, fury blazing in his eyes. “I won’t look at them. What they did, it is – to Findaráto… and the way they treated Artaresto… I will not see them again. Tell Atar—” his voice broke, and he lowered his stare to the ground. Nemmírie saw that his shoulders were shaking.

“Tell him that we will never understand each other. That I do not wish to hear from him.”

She stared, wordless, in disbelief but also in something that was blood-chillingly close to understanding. “Tyelpë—”

“I cannot stand it anymore,” her cousin whispered, fingers twisted into trembling fists. “For how long can you, Mírie? How much longer?”

“Too long,” Nemmírie hissed under her breath, glaring at Vailimo. I stood it for far too long, Tyelpë. Her cousin was younger than her by the better part of a century, but it was she who was the puppet, the simpleton, the half-wit and the cur.

Vailimo’s gaze flickered downwards. Nemmírie followed it; Imbelossie, unmoving and bleeding out on the floor at her feet. A gaping hole in her abdomen, Nemmírie’s sword dripping with her blood. She swallowed, her head spinning, and nausea threatened to overtake her body.

I…

It was hardly her first time taking a life. Nemmírie was long past being able to remember the number of Orcs that she had killed, and even if she wanted to, she would no longer be able to forget the resistance of muscle and flesh and tendon as metal pierced through it. The soundless hiss of an arrow and then the ensuing splat as it buried its point into an eye. The spray of hot blood against her face and chest and neck and arms.

But this – this was not the same. The blood that was staining her tunic and her cloak was not black and rancid and watery, but warm and salty and red. And thick.

Imbelossie’s blood. Not an Orc’s.

“How can you turn your blade on us like this, Lady Nemmírie?” Vailimo was deathly pale, save for the blood dripping from his nose where she had kicked him. He looked shaken all over again, like it had only now sunk into him that Imbelossie was dead, at Nemmírie’s hand. “Even if – even if you disagreed with us, how can you kill Imbelossie so… so easily, so casually?”

I…

He was right, Nemmírie thought. Regardless of anything, regardless of if she was determined never to stand with her father and her uncles again, she had still killed Imbelossie. One who had once been her comrade, and Nemmírie had run her through with her sword. Without even thinking.

She glanced behind her. The Iathrim elf, she realized, the Iathrim elf that Vailimo and Imbelossie had been targeting was gone, a streak of his russet hair disappearing through one of the exits.

He had escaped.

How far he would get, Nemmírie didn’t know. But for now… for now, he was alive. For now, the unfair and cruel and violent death of one who was blameless in all this, it had been prevented.

Her eyes returned to Vailimo. How can you kill Imbelossie so… so easily, so casually?

“Because I won’t allow it,” Nemmírie said, quietly. “I will never allow the Fëanárioni to rampage about, killing innocents like this. Imbelossie got in the way of that. And if you get in my way, Vailimo, I’ll kill you too.”

Vailimo looked dumbstruck. Each one of his eyes were as round as the full moon, his lips were parted in an “o” shape as he gaped at her, looking rather like a fish that had been forcefully pulled out of its water. It would have been an amusing expression, truly, had Nemmírie’s knees been threatening to fold under her, her head screaming its desire to split clean open.

She wanted to cry, but she meant every word she had said. There was no longer room for compromise in her heart. The Fëanárioni – her father, her uncles – she would oppose them, actively. Letting them have their way, letting them slaughter innocents left and right and in the end reclaim what they had done it for, succeed in achieving their goal – she could not stand by and watch that happen.

And if she came face to face with one of her uncles, or with her father, then she – then she would—

Nemmírie spun around, leaving Vailimo there and charging deeper into the Thousand Caves. She heard no sounds of pursuit, knew she was not in any danger from him, and she didn’t want – she did not want to kill him. She didn’t want to kill anyone, of course she didn’t want to kill anyone, but if the Noldor tried to harm the Iathrim…

If they tried it…

A few hours had passed since then. Nemmírie realized, just now, that she had never actually finished that train of thought. The blood now soaking her blade and staining her clothes, though, they were more than clear enough an answer.

It felt a bit surreal, truthfully. Like she was some spawn of Morikotto, materializing from the darkness make corpses and prey of the elves, to leave a trail of bodies and blood behind her like she had done in earnest. The fact that she had chosen to put the hood of her cloak up to obscure her face only added to the ridiculous, childish feeling. A little like when she and her cousins would play pretend on the occasions that they were all in the same place, earning amusement from their fathers and exasperation from their mothers.

Heh. Nemmírie could not help finding the situation a little funny. Her father, he certainly would not be laughing now, would he? Gazing at the sight of her sword drenched with the blood of his followers, and his brothers’ followers? Watching as she ushered any Iathrim escapees away from the advancing groups of Noldorin soldiers? She could only imagine it, how scandalized and horrified he would be.

How many of Doriath’s elves had she stumbled across, now, their bodies bloodied and torn and strewn across the pale stone?

How many Noldor had she killed, now? She had lost count, could no longer recall all the names that had flashed through her mind as she ran them through or cut them down with her blade, but with the number it had been, it was a bit of a wonder that she hadn’t run into her father or one of her uncles, by now.

The relief she felt at that fact, as much as she tried to ignore it, angered her – even more because she was not sure what that relief was for. Merely because she knew how deadly all of them were, and the thought of opposing them on the battlefield frightened her? In all honesty, Nemmírie thought, it might be less shameful if it were just that.

But it did not feel like that was the case. And that was what disgusted her, made her furious. It felt, instead, like her relief was because she did not want to see, was not sure that she could bear to see, the look in their eyes when they saw her – her blade and her tunic and her cloak and her face stained with the blood of the Noldor, her body poised in preparation to thwart them to the very last. She was afraid to find out what sort of feeling it would be, to have the uncles that had gazed at her with such affection for as long as she could remember, now harden their hearts against her.

Even though I have already resolved to harden my hearts against them. For a moment, Nemmírie was speechless; she stared bitterly at her sword, at the blood dripping down the metal. How pathetic was that? To turn away from someone, yet still feel afraid of having the sentiment returned back to her?

Her uncles – and her father… her father, Atar, if she met him, saw how he would look at her…

But it didn’t matter.

And if you get in my way, Vailimo, I’ll kill you too. She had spoken those words, and she had made good on them – slicing through the Noldor, the many that she had once fought beside – the many that she had not two days ago believed she would always fight beside – left and right. It might have been because she could not stomach what they were doing, and it might be because their actions were unforgivable – but she had still killed them. She had still killed.

I still killed.

A terrified scream shook her from her thoughts. Nemmírie returned to reality, rounded one of the many winding corners of the Thousand Caves, and the sight that made her eyes had all uncertainty flying from her mind. It was a Noldorin elf, she could tell from the attire and the style of braid that his black hair was plaited into, brandishing a sword over one of the Iathrim, with long dark tresses and caramel skin and green eyes wide with horror. He rolled aside just as the Noldo’s blade cleaved into the spot where his head had been, but the movement was not fast enough to avoid getting a deep slice across his face. Blood spilled out, and the Iathrim cried out as some of it leaked into his eyes, blinding him.

The Noldo seized the opportunity. He slashed down again, this time to slit the Iathrim’s throat with one clean slice of his sword. And if Nemmírie had been a hair of a second slower, intercepting the attack with her own blade, the Iathrim’s lifeblood, she imagined, would be leaking out onto the stone right at this very moment. Gritting her teeth at the thought, she twisted her wrist, the momentum and sharpness of the sudden direction change wrestling the hilt of the Noldo’s sword out of his hand.

Their gazes met, purple on inky blue.

Aicarosse’s eyes widened; Nemmírie saw recognition there, swiftly fallowed by darkness – anger, betrayal, hatred, disappointment. They had, after all, spent the majority of the later parts of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad holding hands, grabbing at the other’s arms, dragging each other forward through the fire and smoke and screams. He must have been quite incensed when he heard that she had chosen to leave.

And he, too, was willingly partaking in this, it seemed.

Aicarosse clenched his jaw. “You—”

Nemmírie cut his throat. She did not flinch, even as red blood, hot and thick and salty, sprayed over her face and clothes and stained the tangled tresses of her hair. And she did not stop to look at him, growing stiff and cold on the ground, as she glanced around to make sure no other Noldor were in the vicinity. She still did not even glance at the body when her heel inadvertently knocked against an outstretched, limp hand as she knelt next to the Iathrim elf, looking at him in sympathy as he flinched away from her in wariness.

Nemmírie asked him if he was alright. She tore off a hem of her cloak, did the best she could to wrap the cut on his face left by Aicarosse’s sword. When the flow of blood was stemmed, she helped him stand. Asked him if he knew a safe place to hide, or a nearby way to get out. When he nodded, she told him to go there quickly. To run.

And the entire time, the lump in her throat, the tremble in her hand, the faintness in her head, she forced them all down, down and away, because she had no reason – no right – to mourn her own victims.

Even if they were doing something abhorrent, she had still killed them. I killed.

But she had already taken those lives. And if she stopped now, if she allowed the horror at her own actions, looming around her neck, strangling, to weaken her knees, then that would have been for nothing. Those lives – they would have been lost in vain, and she might as well have never resolved to stand against the Fëanárioni in the first place.

Nemmírie would not allow them to just do what they liked. I won’t overlook this, she remembered Tyelpë saying to her, his pale eyes blazing. I can’t, I can’t.

He was right, back then. He couldn’t forgive what his father and Uncle Tyelko had done, and neither could Nemmírie simply let this be. She could not. She couldn’t. How could she ever turn her eyes the other way, act like this perversion was none of her business now that she had split from the House of Fëanáro? It would be the height of irresponsibility – the height of cowardice.

This massacre, she had a part in it now. From the moment she had heard that it was within intention, she could never have kept herself from being tangled in.

And if she had come this far, she might as well go the full way.

They want the Silmaril, Nemmírie thought, those who were once her family flitting through her mind, against her will. The tired, ever-so-slight drop in Uncle Maitimo’s grin. The odd glassy sheen in Uncle Tyelkormo’s grey-blue eyes. The heaviness of Uncle Carnistir’s brow, from Great-Grandfather. The stern set of Uncle Atarinkë’s mouth, like Grandfather. The faint upward curve of Uncle Ambarussa’s nose, which resembled Grandmother.

Uncle Ambarto. Even though he had not been here with them for a long time, she could see him, too. The way that one strand of russet hair was always spilling over his forehead.

And her father. The soft arch of his defined, dark brows. The mild upturn of his almond-shaped eyes. The highness of his cheekbones. The warmth in his gaze, as he looked at her.

She had not realized before how well she knew their faces. Well, Nemmírie thought, just as well – perhaps she would recognize them faster, if ever they were in the same vicinity.

They want the Silmaril. They had done all this, for the Silmaril. The Iathrim she could not save, the many, many lives that had been lost helplessly, unable to defend themselves – the one with curled, dark brown hair and skin so pale that the blood bubbling from between her lips looked almost fake against it; the one with strikingly beautiful eyes, a peculiar shade of hazel, eyes that were full of tears and open and staring in the vacancy of death – they were dead because of her uncles and her father, because they wanted the Silmaril and they were willing to go these lengths to retrieve it.

And Nemmírie did not intend to let them have their way.