A/N: The story was written for the Silmarillion Whump Bingo collection at ao3.
Prompt: Panic Attack
Additional prompt: Tears of Fear
Throughout the narrative I use characters' names in Quenya for Aman and in Sindarin for Middle-earth. All other Elvish words, including names in dialogs, are given either in Quenya or Sindarin, depending on which language is intended to be used at the moment.
Here with you
1.
Seems like half of the city had the same idea, thought Findaráto with a smile, adjusting his hold on Artanis, who was bouncing with excitement on his shoulders, the white, blue and yellow wreath he had bought and offered her with a courtly bow that made her giggle engulfing them both in a scent both sweet and fresh.
The day was singularly beautiful, the very first truly summery day, even though it was still almost a month shy of the Gates. The white walls shone brightly, flowers in rooftop gardens and on windowsills rivaling in their multitude of vibrant colors the awnings of the stands which had rose up in all possible places, offering shiny trinkets and baubles, early fruit and one-bite confections in all shapes and forms imaginable, and – to the special delight of all children – sherbets and ice-cream made with ice brought down from the Pelóri. The great marketplace of Tirion was bustling with people, some on an errand, others merely taking pleasure in being outdoors on such a day.
Findaráto made for the great fountain in the center of the square, where a group of children was playing, chasing and splashing each other with joyful screams, and took Artanis off to allow her to wash her hands, sticky from the ice-cream she had just finished.
As they continued their walk, Artanis was prattling happily about the pretty sparkly fish that lived in the fountain. Suddenly Findaráto spotted Ñolyano amid the crowds and with an apologetic "Just a moment, all right, Tárinya?" he pulled Artanis by the hand round the nearest stall, waving and crying, "Ñolyano, what a surprise!" Finally reaching where Ñolyano was standing leaning against a wall, he clapped him on the shoulder. "Long time no see, eh, my friend? You must tell me all that have you been up to lately."
Ñolyano laughed and, pushing off the wall to stand properly, said, "Very well. Just remember if I bore you to tears, it has been you who insisted." And he delved into an animated discourse of the properties of wood from different areas of Aman for producing instruments of desired pitch.
"Have you experimented with–" Suddenly remembering Artanis, Findaráto broke mid-sentence and smiled apologetically at Ñolyano. "Perhaps you could walk with me? I guess I shall offer her some treat, she's been surprisingly patient." He started to turn towards his sister. "Tárinya, would you like– Artanis? Artanis, where are you?! Oh Sweet Lady…"
"Where could she go?" asked Ñolyano disbelievingly. "You were holding her hand, weren't you?"
"Well, I felt her tugging at my hand," explained Findaráto sheepishly, "so I let her go… Artanis!" He looked around wildly with a quickly-mounting concern.
The joyful crowds, which had delighted him but a short time ago, would surely prove detrimental to finding his sister quickly. "Artanis!" he called, standing on tiptoe to look around.
After several terrifying minutes of pressing to and fro, calling Aratnis's name, Findaráto and Ñolyano heard terrible crying somewhere to their left and, pushing through the crowd, were met by the sight of Artanis, red-faced and crying hysterically, a motherly-looking woman crouching bedside her and crooning softly in an attempt to calm her.
The moment Artanis saw them, she wrenched free from the woman's arms and ran straight towards them. Findaráto squatted and soon found his arms full of a trembling girl, his neck in a vice-like grip, grubby fingers tangled in his hair. "Ingo!"
"Shhhh, Tárillenya, I'm here, I have you now, love." He rubbed her back, holding her close, and tried to gently disentangle himself.
"You are this poor girl's brother, young man?" Findaráto looked up into the now stern face of the woman he had seen with Artanis. "Be glad you are not one of my sons, or you would have found yourself with very little to distract you from your duties for at least a year." She sniffed primly, her mouth set into a thin line. "Well, take better care of her in the future."
Findaráto nodded meekly, equally glad and surprised they were not recognized. "Thank you, Mistress, I will." The woman left them then, and he turned his attention back to his sister. "Artanis, you gave me quite a fright. What happened?" he asked, supporting himself with one knee, for the girl still would not let go.
"Oh, Findo," she sobbed into his shoulder and he placed a soothing hand on the back of her head, straightening her now lopsided wreath. "There was this beautiful butterfly, and I wanted to see it, but it was so quick and… I ran after it and– and– it wasn't here, and you weren't here and– and–" And she started to cry again.
Resigning himself to making a spectacle for the good people of Tirion for a little longer, Findaráto yanked his hair from Artanis's fingers with a hiss and, his mouth right beside her little ear, murmured, "I'm so sorry, little sister, but please don't– don't cry, you have nothing to fear. Shhhh, Tárillenya, I'm here with you now, I always will…" He continued for several long minutes, repeating his assurances and making soothing noises until Artanis's sobs ceased and he felt her sag slightly in his arms. By now his whole body was aflame, but when he tried once again to gently disentangle himself, Artanis's little arms squeezed his neck convulsively and so Findaráto shifted his hold on her with a sigh and rising, lifted her up.
"I guess she's had enough adventures for one day," he said apologetically to Ñolyano, who had been standing patiently beside all this time. "I am sorry, we must see each other again soon, but for now I'm afraid I'd better take her home." And with that he started to weave his way out of the market-place, pressing through the throng of people with a constant string of 'excuse-me's and 'sorry's, and squeezing between the colorful stalls.
At first Artanis kept her face hidden into the crook of his neck, but soon, her fear forgotten, she started to squirm and look around in delight, and finally, pointing to one of the stalls, where a pretty silver-haired girl was smiling from over her father's confections, she said slyly, "If you get me more ice-cream I promise I won't tell Mama a thing."
2.
The last remove eaten, Galadriel rose from her canopied chair and, moving to take Finrod's proffered hand, let herself be led out of the feasting hall and into an adjacent one, which had been left empty to accommodate dancing. All the guests followed suit, with Celeborn, who had been left wife-less due to her filling in the role of the Lady of Nargothrond, courteously offering his arm to a delighted lady… Emerthedis, Galadriel thought was her name.
The tall, filigree-covered door was thrown open and they stepped into the white-walled splendor of a high-vaulted chamber, perhaps the grandest of all in the entire city. Trumpets played a fanfare and all present bowed while Finrod led her inside amid multicolored patches of light cast by crystal lamps hidden skillfully in niches behind the tall stained windows. Between them vines were twisting around pilasters and flowers bloomed in capitals and the entire chamber, though hidden deep beneath the ground, reminded Galadriel strongly of the halls of both their grandfathers, the dead one and the betrayed one, and breath caught in her throat.
"Beautiful, is it not?" Finrod stopped a few paces before the dais, where carved chairs were prepared for them both on the highest step. "But would you spare me a dance, little sister?" he asked, leaning towards her. "I promise not to pester you anymore after that one."
Galadriel inclined her head, even as everybody who wished to dance took place around them and Finrod gestured for the musicians to begin.
"You know," she said playfully, when one of the figures brought them close to each other, "you wouldn't need to pester me at all if you found yourself a wife. Just look at you" – a whirl and she was now behind his back – "all grown and kingly, yet still dancing with your little sister."
Finrod's own whirl, which brought them back face to face, was unusually clumsy and she looked at him surprised. The dance would have her now step a few paces back for yet another whirl and a curtsy before moving right to change her partner, but Finrod was staring blankly ahead.
"Brother?" she asked uncertainly and when Finrod still did not respond, she put her arm round his waist and gently led him off the dancing floor and into one of the alcoves that lined the wall opposite to the entrance, smiling apologetically at Derthedir, who was to be her next partner.
Finrod collapsed onto a bench carved into the alcove's wall and Galadriel perched next to him. "You are still pining for Amárië, aren't you? Oh Findo, I'm sorry, this was thoughtless of me."
"Darkness," whispered Finrod hoarsely. "So much darkness."
"What are you talking about?"
"I saw death and destruction and… terrible darkness."
Now more alarmed than ever, Galadriel cupped his cheek and stared intently into his face, ashen-grey amid all the jewels lining his collar and plaited into his hair. "You mean, you have Seen?"
With a strangled sob Finrod threw his arms around her neck, pressing convulsively, the rings on his fingers catching painfully in her hair, his tears wetting her shoulder through the fine silk of her gown, his breath rugged and hot against her neck.
"I cannot marry, never… ever for I am not… a free man." Here Galadriel, who had mechanically put her arms around her brother's shivering form, thought initially he referred to his estranged fiancée and was both surprised and dismayed by such an outburst, but he continued, "Nargothrond shall fall and we shall die. We are all Doomed. And I… most of all." He shuddered violently and Galadriel could feel his heart racing where his body was pressed against her. "I shall die for an oath, all mine with me. Darkness is my fate, and death, and destruction, and... nothing but ruin in my wake."
Cold dread gripped Galadriel's heart – to lose any more of the family would be hard to bear, but losing Finrod… She shuddered, her arms instinctively pressing him closer to her, as if to prevent fate from snatching him away this very instant. "Ingoldo…" she whispered, not daring to move even though his shoulder prevented her from breathing properly and, her mouth barely inches from his ear, she started to sing in a small, shaky voice the very first song that sprang to her mind. It told of stars, and sea, and a safe return, and since her earliest memories she had always associated it with falling asleep in Finrod's patient embrace.
The lullaby ended, but Finrod, though no longer sobbing, still would not let go of her. Galadriel moved her hand from where it was holding him tight to stroke his head and guide it to rest on her shoulder, both of them heedless for the time of the hard gold of his circlet pressing into the soft flesh.
"Ai, hannonya–" Galadriel traced his jaw with feather-light fingers. Finrod still clung to her with both his arms, but at least his face had lost some of its stricken expression and he nestled into the crook of her neck. "Dearest brother, don't you dare despair." Her words were a command, but to her own ears lacked the usual masterfulness. "Foresight is not absolute, and the future – ours to shape. Was it not the very reason for which we dared the Ice? To forge our own destinies? What you have Seen may well be a warning. Or… or a phantasm sent specifically to torment you."
"By… by the Enemy, you mean?"
"Perhaps." Or by them, she thought viciously, though she preferred not to share her sentiment with her brother. "Regardless, nothing is set in stone. The Enemy is powerful, that is true," she continued with growing confidence, "but we have defeated him twice, and he may well grow to rue the day he moved against us. What we need is allies, and I think–" She gasped as a vision of her own engulfed her mind, a vogue figure offering his sword to Finrod on upraised palms. A Dwarf? An Avar? She could not tell, but suddenly, her path stretched clearly before her. "I shall find you more swords, brother. I shall go east, over the mountains, for out of east, help shall come."
As if recognizing the tone of her voice, Finrod finally moved out of her embrace to look at her, despair slowly leaving his eyes. "Thank you, Tárinya. But look, I have ruined your dress. What a fine king I make." He twisted his lips in a brave attempt at humor, but Galadriel would not be deceived.
"A very fine one indeed," she said sincerely, then added, "Only… a bit rumpled." She reached, smiling warmly despite the chill in her heart, to straighten the circlet upon his brow and, cupping his face in both her hands, brushed away his tears with her thumbs. Then, moved by a sudden impulse she could not quite name, she leaned and kissed both his eyes softly. "I will not let him have you, ever."
October 12th–28rd, 2018
NOTES
Tárinya means 'my queen' in Quenya and is, in my verse, a childhood epessë that Finrod gave Galadriel, referencing her role in a make-believe game he played with her. Much later it became a sort of a terrible pun on Altáriel, the Quenya form of her best-known epessë. The association was made solely on the similarity of sounds, Altáriel famously meaning 'maiden crowned with a garland of bright radiance' (Quenya via eldamo org).
Ingo is a hypothetical diminutive of Q. Ingoldo, which is of course the mother name Finrod shared with his father. It is said that he was usually called [so] by his brothers and sister who esteemed him and loved him (The Shibboleth of Fëanor, PoMe).
Q. Tárillenya 'my little queen', tári+llë+nya 'queen' + diminutive suffix + possessive suffix; constructed by me (via eldamo org).
Q. Hannonya is a colloquial diminutive for háno 'brother' with possessive suffix –nya, 'my' (via eldamo org).
A/N: Thanks for reading. Good or bad, I'd love to know what you think.