Title: Silent Laughter
Prompt: 047: it's a cold day in a cruel world, I really wished I could have saved you; then who would save me from myself?
Author's Notes: Tolkien owns everything. I was tempted to do this as a Túrin/Finduilas drabble, but opted for Morwen's point of view out of curiousity. She's a hard nut to crack, but I thought she'd be vulnerable somewhere and I wanted to find it. I like monologues, but I need to be practicing them. We know very little about Lalaith and I also wanted to flesh out her character a bit.
Morwen bore a daughter also to Húrin, and she was named Urwen; but she was called Lalaith, which is Laughter, by all that knew her in her short life… And when Morwen came to him, Túrin said to her: 'I am no longer sick, and I wish to see Urwen; but why must I not say Lalaith any more?' 'Because Urwen is dead, and laughter is stilled in this house,' she answered.
- Narn I Hin Húrin
A house without laughter is a house stilled.
I always found it strange that my children should be so different in temper, yet it must be due to me that they were so. To Túrin, I gave my anger and my resolve and my pride, hoping they would stand him well. But you, Lalaith, you took something else from me. You had all my smiles, my songs, my laughter. I gave them freely, thinking them useless things, but still, you drained me. You drained me, and I was never at rest afterward. I was always so afraid to see you out in the world, and afraid to have you inside with me. A house without laughter is a house stilled – you wielded such terrible power over me, that I could not know my own mind with the fear of losing you. Was this your doing, in payment for my frozen heart?
I tried to stop you, I tried, I tried. All emotion I banished, trying to counter your terrible love. But for all my cold silence, I could not silence you – I could not stop your laughter echoing through the world, even to where he sat. He heard – and he sent back a greater silence than mine, to make you silent in your grave. Is this my atonement, that I should lose the laughter I had banished, and regret ever after?
So to Túrin I gave pride, to you, I gave laughter, but to Nienor? Nothing but a name – she was ever her father's child in mind and face, yet still she had my pride, our pride. I would look to her face and see other minds, both mine and yours, ever within her. But also both were we ever too proud, too rash, in our choices. We heard your laughter, and it mocked us.
And my end draws near, like my family's. Nienor is lost, Túrin is gone, and my husband shall find nothing but a broken house and a shadow on our name. But you, you remain still, dancing ever closer. I hear you on the wind, amid the murmur of grass and the song of water. It is time, almost, that I embrace laughter, for the ills can no more harm us. I will find you again, and I will laugh at you and with you, and I shall be free…
But his laugh I yet hear, echoing through the ages without stall.