It had been a hard spring. Aunt Beleth owned few sheep, but she sent her nieces to help her neighbors. Rían and Morwen had worn themselves ragged running errands for the shepherds who spent the nights in the hills during lambing. The year was warming now - the days lengthening, the fog burning off earlier, the leaves budding out. This late lamb was born into a softer world than its peers, but the umbilical came wrapped around its neck, and it had been too weak to stand. Beleth took it from a neighbor, to try nursing it to health by hand, and now it was dead.
Rían wept as she worked, wiping down every kitchen surface where mould might settle - the damp climate of Hithlum made for a steady fight against creeping mildew. Aunt Beleth came back into the kitchen, her hands streaked with lamb's blood and dog spittle, and washed herself in the butt of water beside the door. "Stop crying," she scolded. "Lambs die, as do all we mortals."
Rían nodded sadly. And she tried to stop, she did, but the image of the poor bug-eyed little thing wouldn't leave her. She thought of its long legs tangling around each other just the day before as it tried to get at the milk-soaked rag Beleth had nursed it with, how softly her aunt's gnarled hands had cradled the fleecy body, and then, with a quiet whimper, the sharp swift motions of the knife as her aunt dressed it for hound meat.
Beleth glared. "Sorry," said Rían, sniffling. Beleth sighed and took the wash cloth from her. "Go see to your cousin," she ordered, her tone sharp, and Rían took her leave thankfully.
Wiping her face, Rían knocked at the door of the small room she shared with her cousin. Morwen hated weeping, and her temper was already stretched thin by a feverish cold. There was no answer, so Rían pushed the wooden door open quietly. Morwen was awake, sitting upright in bed with brightly colored blankets wrapped round her shoulders, looking irritable. Her head turned at the hinges' creaking and her face softened as she saw Rían. It tightened again as Rían stepped into the slanted light coming through the window, and Morwen picked up something from the heaps of blankets and wrote on it.
A slate, Rían saw, as her cousin held it up. On it in Morwen's lovely flowing lettering was Wipe your nose. Rían hurriedly raised her shawl and rubbed, leaving glistening tracks on the knit fabric. The illness had swept through the Men of Dor-Lomin this spring shortly after the thaw came, but for most the symptoms had been mild. Rían had spent a few days sick herself, and the worst bit was the sore throat that made it painful to sing. Morwen came down with the sickness only a few days later, but being far too proud to admit to being ill, only made things worse for herself by ignoring it.
Her high cheekbones were flushed red, and her dark hair was sweaty and creeping out of its braids. Her voice was out but for a hissing whistle, so she had to use the slate to make herself understood. Rían shuddered just thinking of it. She set her wrist to Morwen's forehead. It still felt too hot. A bowl of water and a stack of clean rags sat on the rush-strewn floor beside the bed, but the pile looked no lower than it had when Rían left the room this morning. "Are you using the compresses?" she asked, skewering her cousin with her sternest look. (It wasn't very good, she knew, especially since she had both Morwen's and Beleth's glares to compare it against.)
Morwen rolled her eyes, and Rían knew it for a no. She took the top rag, soaked and wrung it, and pressed Morwen's shoulder to make her lay back down before placing the cloth across her forehead. "Sleep," she said. "If you want this to go by swiftly, sleep." She retrieved her embroidery from the chest at the bed's foot and sat down at Morwen's feet to keep watch and make sure her cousin did as she said.
Morwen 'hmmphed' grumpily, but closed her eyes. Rían bent her head to the skirt she'd been working on for weeks. It was nearly done, but every time she thought she was about finished, she saw a blank spot that could take another flower or two. As she worked, a bright beam of spring sunshine shone in through the window, setting all the dust motes to dancing. Chickens clucked and fussed outside the window, and somewhere a dove began to coo.
Rían's foot began to tap, and soon she was humming, and soon after that she was singing softly to herself. A song she made up on the spot about a sunbeam and a raincloud who danced together in the air… She slipped from song to song, always singing gently enough to avoid bothering Morwen. She sang a Sindarin hymn about the stars and the Power who made them, then an old, old song in Taliska about a girl who went into the forest to gather berries. Rían skipped over the middle verses, about the dark thing the girl saw hiding below the bushes, and went to the end, where the girl coming back saw the campfires burning between the trees and heard the folk laughing and talking.
She started a song she'd learned from a shepherd, about walking over the green hills and hearing the larks singing, but when she came to the verse about the lambs standing knock-kneed and waggy-tailed, she began to cry again. Morwen's foot moved, nudging her, and Rían jumped. She switched her needle from her right to left hand and hurriedly wiped her eyes. She heard the scrape and tap of chalk on stone, and looked up. Her cousin held up the slate. What's wrong?
"Nothing," Rían sniffed. Against her will, a hiccuping sob forced its way from her chest out her throat. "It's just, Aunt Beleth's lamb died. It hadn't even lived two days." Rían knew Morwen was not likely to sympathize, but all the same… "It's too sad. It shouldn't have had to die before it even had a chance to live."
Scrape, tap. Life's not fair. Don't waste time crying over it.
Rían nodded, looking down. She twirled the needle between her fingers, watching the light sparkle along it, unable to keep her mouth from trembling. The chickens outside squabbled over something, but the only sound inside their bedroom was Rían's wavering breaths and Morwen's slow ones. Her cousin's eyes were closed again. Had she fallen asleep?
Then, very, very faint, Rían heard a sound. Quiet, and scratchy, and off-key, Morwen was humming. Rían listened carefully until she recognized the tune, a simple lullaby of the House of Bëor. Morwen's left eye cracked open a bit, gleaming dark and feverish, and Rían smiled at her and lifted her voice to join the song.