I own nothing.
The wind whistled over the slopes of Mount Taras, through the empty streets. The romantic in Fingolfin would have liked to comment that Vinyamar looked like a city at rest, ready to spring back into life at any moment. But the romantic in him was not blind, and it had been shrinking over the decades, bit by bit. The city was falling to ruin, eroded by harsh ocean winds. The house his son and daughter and granddaughter had lived in was covered in ivy and moss, so thickly carpeted that he had to strain to find the door. Even when he did find it, Fingolfin did not open it. He wouldn't have even the slightest idea of where to look to find the chambers in which his children and granddaughter had lived.
Fingolfin had never been here before. He had never visited the city his second son built, not in all the time that it was actually inhabited. There was too much to do in Hithlum, too many territory lines to smooth out, too many bruised egos to soothe, too many local communities in need of appeasement and reassurance, too many nephews to keep in line. Turgon had visited him a few times; he'd only seen Aredhel and Idril once.
Every time Turgon visited, he seemed further and further away, more like a stranger than Fingolfin's son. Where he grew to knew Fingon better the longer they held Hithlum together, and where his knowledge of Arakáno would never shift, it seemed like he knew Turgon the less the longer they were apart. He grew more shut-off, more inclined to deal with his own affairs without the guidance of his father and view Fingolfin's guidance as interference.
Fingolfin wasn't sure how to stop this, so he didn't try. Turgon was not his heir, and had his own lands to rule, far from where his father lived. Perhaps it was only natural, that Fingolfin should be, if not nurturing, at least supporting a greater degree of independence in him. But this estrangement from his second son, his youngest surviving son, it still hurt him. He still did nothing to stop it, and told himself that it was natural for his grown son, his grown son who was not his heir, to make his own path and seek his own fate, and that if it took Turgon down a different path from him, so be it.
And now, they were gone, all three of them, without warning, without telling him where he could find them, where he could send letters, without saying goodbye.
He didn't know why Turgon had left, and he didn't know why Aredhel and Idril had followed him. Well, to be honest, Fingolfin supposed he did know why his daughter and granddaughter had followed Turgon to wherever it was he had taken his people. Idril followed her father, because this was only proper behavior for a daughter. Aredhel had followed her brother, just as she had since they left Aman, cleaving more to Turgon than she did to her own father.
Maybe it made him angry, that they had left, without warning, without telling him where they were going, without saying goodbye. No, Fingolfin admitted to himself, as he walked these empty streets alone, he was certainly angry. Turgon couldn't just pick up and move, his household and his entire people, without giving warning.
Given that none of his kin had seen or heard from him, Aredhel, Idril or any of the former inhabitants of Vinyamar since they left, and Thingol hadn't written to complain, it seemed as though Turgon had found some land that no one else knew about, and wasn't claimed by any of the Noldor or the Sindar, or any among the Laiquendi who actually had the will to complain. But they had had so much trouble when they first started moving south out of Mithrim, with Thingol insisting that the entirety of Beleriand was his and that they couldn't stay. Had Turgon completely forgotten how much trouble they'd had from Doriath? It appeared to be that only by chance had he found land that wasn't already claimed by someone else. If he had moved his people to a land claimed by one of his cousins, or worse yet by the Sindar or Laiquendi, it could have reignited tensions all over again, led to border disputes, maybe even war. It was only by good fortune that Turgon had avoided provoking such a thing.
How long must he have been planning this, to be able move so many people, so quickly? How carefully must he have planned it, to be able to move them without any of us noticing until months later? And why, why would he do this? Why would Irissë go along with it, and say nothing to me? Why would Turukáno's lords go along with it? How did he manage to induce every one of his people to keep this secret?
Angry, yes. Fingolfin supposed that he was angry. But more than that…
And where have you gone?
More than that, he was worried, and left to wonder if he would ever see any of them again, doubting it more with each year that passed them by.
These streets were empty, and silent. Beaten down by the harsh coastal winds and the harsher coastal storms, the stones of the city were beginning to crumble. Fingolfin could not count on both hands the number of times he had come on houses or shops with caved-in roofs or collapsed walls. All he could hear was the wind blowing through the empty streets.
He imagined that there were people here. Insubstantial, hazy, given life nowhere but in his mind, they moved past him without even seeing him. And somewhere… Somewhere, in that crowd, a child with pale hair was running in the street, shrieking with laughter that sounded like bells.
Idril had grown up in this city, his only grandchild, whom he'd not laid eyes on since she was a little girl. It was probably Aredhel who looked after her most of the time. Somehow, Fingolfin couldn't imagine Turgon letting his sister sit on his council. To be totally excluded from the running of the land was likely not what Aredhel had wanted, but it would have been the lot she was left with anyways, and it seemed unlikely that Turgon would just let her roam at will in Nevrast as she had in Aman, so she would have needed to find something else to fill up her hours. She had already taken charge of Idril, on the Helcaraxë after Elenwë died, and at the shores of Lake Mithrim. Had she done so again, in Vinyamar? Turgon certainly wouldn't have had time; Fingolfin had never had time for any of his family after taking over the running of Tirion when his father left with Fëanor into exile.
Idril playing happily, Turgon presiding over council, Aredhel staring moodily on all that was denied to her. This they had done while they were here. And where were they now?
As far as Fingolfin knew, neither his son nor his daughter had told anyone of where they were going. Turgon had not told Fingon, or Finrod. Aredhel had not told Galadriel, or Celegorm or Curufin. At the very least, if they had told these people, they certainly weren't talking themselves. So they had even cut themselves off from the family members with whom, aside from each other, they were closest… And they had cut themselves off from their own father.
It was like they were dead, almost.
Fingolfin knew that Turgon, Aredhel and Idril weren't dead. They weren't like Arakáno, moldering in the ground, never to return to life. But if he couldn't see them, if he couldn't hold them or talk to them or even receive letters from them, wasn't that more or less the same as all three of them having died? The result was the same: Fingolfin would not see any of them again, and he was left with only memories. His family was shrinking all the time.
All he was left with was this city, falling into ruin, and this house, so covered in choking ivy that he could barely find the door to let himself in. It was as though none of them had ever been here to start with, and Vinyamar had simply sprung up out of the earth of its own accord, like a plant sprouting from a seed.
Now if only his lost children could spring from the earth in front of him the same way.
Arakáno—Argon
Irissë—Aredhel
Turukáno—Turgon
Laiquendi—Green-Elves, a division of the Teleri (singular: Laiquendë) (Quenya)