Aman, Year of the Trees 1495
The high feast had begun in such beauty. The bounty of Yavanna had been great and there had been much joy. Envandiel had been even glad to leave the workbenches of Tirion and her crafts, and Tarannon her brother to leave the forest hunts to come for the joyous feast. And for the first time in twelve long years, Feanor himself showed his face under the light of the Trees.
He was, after all, the finest of the craft that had ever been despite his rashness and dark manners, and she had strained for a glimpse. Her king, Fingolfin, met his wayward brother in forgiveness and the mingled lights of Telperion and Laurelin shone and all was nearly perfect.
Yet that moment did not last.
Darkness came.
The trees, devoured.
Black fog.
The evil of Morgoth.
Her heart raged, along with all in the Blessed Realm, and she was filled with sorrow.
Perhaps that is why the master craftsman’s words seemed so true in the days soon after.
Perhaps the sorrow blinded them.
Perhaps the darkness hid wisdom.
She would never be quite sure in the days after.
She would often wonder.
Yet to leave this bitterly changed land, to see new fresh lands and perhaps reclaim some of the lost beauty… to seek vengeance against the dark enemy… to flee this bitter darkness that felt yet darker in the loss of light… and the fiery words held such passion, stirred feelings beyond the overwhelming grief.
To think that such was what she knew then as grief.
There had been fights, bitter words. Tarannon was determined to go, she less so. Yet even then the speeches given had grown resolve in her heart, and when their father cast them forth declaring them no longer his, there was no turning back.
Preparations were hasty.
She stayed near the end of the host, her eyes turned back in sadness as she strained for final glimpses of her home, of the lamp of the city, the Mindon Eldalieva. Tarannon rode ahead, his voice animated as he spoke with those of Fingon’s host and the other hunters, gleefully dreaming of the lands ahead.
Yet her heart quailed within her.
When they arrived at the home of the Teleri in Aqualonde, she had thought with hope to see the beauty of their homes of pearl and diamond. Yet the end of that host arrived to a sight of horror and sorrow.
Tarannon shook and looked at her with horror in his eyes and blood on his hands when the truth became known.
“I thought they attacked first. I swear.”
Grief deepened, and sorrow.
There was no turning back.
The journey north after that fateful day was cold, and the chill of sea spray felt like ice.
What knew she of ice then?
And then the messenger came.
The light of the torches gleamed around them. She took Tarannon’s hand but in the light of the torches his hands reflected red, bloodstained.
The messenger’s voice that would have once seemed fair and awe-inspiring now was awful and weighted with doom.
“Tears unnumbered ye shall shed; and the Valar will fence Valinor against you, and shut you out, so that not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains. On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East, and upon all that will follow them it shall be laid also. Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass. The Dispossessed shall they be for ever.
Ye have spilled the blood of your kindred unrighteously and have stained the land of Aman. For blood ye shall render blood, and beyond Aman ye shall dwell in Death's shadow. For though Eru appointed to you to die not in Eä, and no sickness may assail you, yet slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief; and your houseless spirits shall come then to Mandos. There long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies, and find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you. And those that endure in Middle-earth and come not to Mandos shall grow weary of the world as with a great burden, and shall wane, and become as shadows of regret before the younger race that cometh after. The Valar have spoken.”*
Many turned back.
Finarfin and many of his host, and many of those around her. Her heart yearned to return and for this horror to all be a nightmare from which she could wake.
Yet her own brother had shed blood.
And his heart was yet bold, flamed with the same fire that yet burned in Fingon and Turgon and many of the others.
So she remained and set her face eastward.
Yet even in the night they were betrayed and the nightmare deepened.
Red light awoke them on the horizon.
The blood-won ships burned in blood-red flame.
They were betrayed.
There was only one way forward.
She pulled her cloak tighter and took the hand of her young brother.
Much sorrow lay past.
Much lay ahead.
The ice awaited.
The travel was long and gruelling. Uncounted days (months? years?) later, she stood beside a grave, little more than a cairn in the icy wasteland. Sobs racked her body and she drew her cloak tighter.
Someone placed a hand on her shoulder. “We must keep moving.”
She nodded, swallowing. “Give me one moment more, I pray thee.”
The Elf moved away, rejoining the others in the slowly dwindling camp.
Envandiel knelt before her brother’s grave, resting one hand on the stones. “I swear to thee, Tarannon, my brother, I shall not rest or return to the lands we have left until I have seen this new world. I shall make the journeys you never shall, see the forests you would have loved, and one day, I swear by the Valar, I shall return and tell you of all I have seen.”
She rose and stood for a moment more, tears turning to ice at her feet. Then she set her face forward again.
* From the Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien, "Of the Flight of the Noldor"
