Fic A Day, Day 10 - The Morning After

[grundyscribbling]

Title: The Morning After
Author: Grundy
Rating: FR13
Crossover: LotR/Silmarillion
Disclaimer: All belongs to Whedon & Tolkien. No money is being made here, it's all in good fun.
Summary: Anariel has made it through another night of unpleasant dreams.
Word Count: 1250
Note: Not entirely happy with this, but out of time. (May rewrite/polish before posting elsewhere.)

 

Anariel woke with the sun.

She needed only a moment to orient herself this time – she wasn’t sure if it was a good sign or a bad one that it was getting easier. Still in Lorien. Still probably not allowed to do anything that might be construed as exercise. But she had to do something other than just lay around.

She couldn’t hear anyone, so decided that meant no one could stop her from swimming.

The mild shock of the water helped her feel fully awake, but it was the movement that she really needed.

The night had been both better and worse than she thought.

First, the memories happened by person. She hadn’t really been sure before, since her parents had been begotten so far apart, her father in the First Age, her mother in the Second – and by the Second Age, everything was just vague impressions, probably whatever Morgoth could glean from Sauron. (Also, her father evidently didn’t rate until the very tail end of the First Age except as a minor annoyance as a reminder of Lúthien – aka, that brat Morgoth preferred not to think about. Epic case of sore loserdom there, to the point she was actually sorry she wouldn’t get to ‘remember’ Lúthien. Girl had to have done something right that the biggest Bad of all did not eant to talk about it.)

But there had been one section that was clearly Grandmother, and another that was clearly Finrod. Which on the one hand, yay not getting that kaleidoscope effect again. But on the other, seeing the First Kinslaying twice hadn’t been fun, and she was probably going to get to see a lot more of it, considering how many Noldor – and Lindar – had been involved in it. (Though, yay for Grandmother kicking Celegorm’s stabbity butt. That part hadn’t been entirely terrible.)

The Grinding Ice had also not been happy fun times, and was another thing she was going to get to relive again and again. She wondered if there was a subtle way to find out just how many people had started the crossing, or if knowing how many more times she had to see it would just make the experience that much worse.

But she was puzzled at how little she’d seen of Grandmother after the Ice. Either the Girdle and whatever protection had been on Nargothrond were a lot more powerful than she’d realized, or there was something else at work. Could Grandmother have been that good at shielding herself, even before Nenya?

She’d caught only glimpses here and there. Being sent to Doriath the first time – but only until they reached the borders. A few confusing glimpses of excursions from Doriath that didn’t seem to go anywhere in particular. A trip from Doriath to Hithlum alone, and from there to someplace with a nice little pond – which Anariel had spent some quality time splashing around in while Grandmother and Curufin had a long boozy heart-to-heart she had decided fairly quickly she did not want to listen in on. It had ended with both of them drunk as skunks and stumbling off to hopefully better dreams than she was stuck with.

She was taking a solid ‘you can’t make me look, so there’ attitude to most of the memories to the greatest degree possible. (Hey, it’s her head, so it’s not like anyone else could see how petty and childish she was being. And it wasn’t like most of this stuff was useful. Hearing about Grandmother and Curufin’s personal lives? No thank you.) She’d tried seeing how far away from whoever the memories were centered around she could get, and the answer was ‘not far enough’. Within earshot, though occasionally she could manage ‘out of sight’.  

She was just lucky the Grandmother and Curufin talk had happened next to a pond deep enough for her to duck under in. After they fell asleep, she’d spent a thoroughly bored night doing handstands, roundoffs, walking on her hands, and in general doing lots of things she would do while she was awake if it wouldn’t upset everyone.

But after that, there was really nothing else until the Second Kinslaying, and then only the part where Grandmother had nearly bled to death in the forest before she was found. (Annoyingly, the memory cut off before that point, probably because Morgoth was irritated she’d survived.) After that, Grandmother vanished again on the way to Sirion and that was that.

It took her a good half hour of looping around the lake before the common element hit her – literally, as it happened, since she missed a breath. Water. The pond. The Narog. Esgalduin. Sirion – and beyond that, the Sea itself.

Her grandfather’s words were still holding true – she wasn’t fighting alone. She never had been. Ulmo had never abandoned the elves.

And…

Grandmother, she thought peremptorily.

It only took a moment. There was a chorus of nightengales, and then Melian was in the water with her.

You chose caverns by a river for a reason, Anariel said.

Clever little chick, Melian smiled. Yes. It wasn’t just the Girdle. Just as it wasn’t just Lúthien at Tol-in-Gaurhoth, or Finderato’s work alone that protected his kingdom, or chance and song that made the Havens of Sirion so difficult to find. Why do you think on this now?

Anariel blew bubbles underwater, and Melian laughed.

 

Very well, little sunbird. Yes, the Lord of the Waters helped. Doriath would not have held as long as it did, with or without me, were it not for the rivers. Did you have any other questions, or should I leave you to your swim?

Anariel thought for a second.

Not right now. Maybe later. I want to think about the First Age again now that I know.

And Tol-in-Gaurhoth in particular, though she tried not to let her maia grandmother catch that.

Do not stay in this water too long, was Melian’s parting thought. You still have a hroä and the chill will undo all the good work of resting these past weeks.

Ok.

Such an odd word to mean ‘yes, grandmother’.

She waited until she was sure Melian’s attention had fully withdrawn before she turned her mind back to what she had seen of Uncle Finrod. Much like Grandmother, he had vanished for what must have been years at a time, visible only when he ranged far enough from the rivers – though ‘far enough’ in his case seemed to be nearer to the water than it had been for Grandmother.

But in the end, even proximity to Sirion hadn’t been enough to save him. The power in the water could help keep him alive long enough to protect Beren, but it wasn’t enough to let him win a fight against Sauron. The last days had been every bit as ugly as she’d expected. Even without the Slayer, elven bodies and minds could stand up to abuse that would have killed Men.

She wouldn’t be mentioning to anyone that she knew all of it. Not even Finrod. It felt like a terrible invasion of his privacy to have seen everything she had, even if it wasn’t part of some elaborate last-ditch attempt by Morgoth to keep torturing her.

 Dumbass really had missed the key fact that hurting her family just made her mad. It really didn’t matter how long it took for him to worm his way back into Arda. She was going to be there whenever he did, just waiting to hit him.

 

Comments

[sulien]

Actually, I would say this chapter works very well as it is and I very much enjoyed it. Thanks for writing and sharing, especially with real life being what it is. :)

[lferion]

That’s very interesting about the water! And I kind of love how Anariel ducks out on the Galadriel-Curufin bit.