An elleth is briefly reunited with her father at the end of the War of Wrath.
"Milady?" The attendant addressed her from near the tent's entrance, his voice unsure. Though she looked up at him from leaning over various maps, her only other reaction was to tent her fingers over one map. "There is a General here to see you."
"I am busy," she rasped, growing annoyed. That dratted King, she thought. Though he had not yet met many of the Lords and Ladies under his command, it did not stop the King (or, more likely, his lap-dog Círdan), from directing everyone around from a distance. The energetic young High-King had fought in one battle, and already he was ordering everyone around afterwards like he knew what he was doing. It didn't help that his one battle had been successful, but he failed to see that was only, only because of the Host of the Valar from Aman. Anyone else any more battle-hardened than their king would have realized it would have been hopeless otherwise.
As one of the eldest followers of Fëanor still alive, she had been officially "put in charge" (even though she already had been in function) of the remnants of the armies formerly belonging to her maternal cousins, an idea which the pup Celebrimbor had not yet overcome. She had been the wiser move for most of those elves would not have easily bowed to the will of, well, a Nolofinwëan commander (or a half-Sinda be he a grandson of Fëanor or not), to put it bluntly. They would not have trusted anyone else. She tried not to think it was her red hair that helped.
Messengers from this general or that one had been flooding in and out of her tent for the last three days since the last skirmishes had ended. The lack of conviction from many of the others was getting on her already frayed nerves. Yes, they had to do what the young king said. Yes, they were riding east tomorrow, she just wanted them to get it already. The land was going to be torn asunder and sunk. It was going to Not Exist. She was at the point where she wouldn't have minded leaving people behind. If they wanted to stay and Not Exist with their former farmland, that was entirely up to them. She didn't have the time to worry about everyone.
She stood up and turned to face the back of the tent, leaning her weight heavily on the nearest support beam. Calion, her second in charge, glanced up at her, worry clouding his face.
"Arrie?" Another ellon's voice drifted through her tent, following the sound of a pack hitting the ground, causing the elleth to freeze. After a few seconds, she reached backwards and grabbed the crutch that had been leaning against the map table and used it to help her turn back around. Her movement was awkward and halting. She met the ellon's eyes, and an identical set to her own stared back at her.
"Calion, if you would, I think we have done enough for today," her voice was flat and toneless, as if she were speaking through a memory. The elf bowed and left the tent, though the elleth continued to stare at the ellon who had moved further in to allow the other's egress.
"Aratariel?" He took a half-step forward, one hand coming up to reach for her, though he hesitated and stopped.
"Father."
He nodded. "I have tried to find you for days, I am glad to see you." He managed to step closer to her now, his motions fluid and strikingly graceful in comparison to hers as she tried to come from around the table. His eyes fell on the thick bandage wrapped around her thigh. "You are injured."
She brushed his hands away and rolled her eyes. "No worse than I have been before," she commented brusquely. "I am surprised to see you here." She gestured to one of the two chairs in the tent and sat down in the other. When her weight left her injured leg she sighed heavily. He sat down, his knees inches from hers.
"They called for everyone who could fight, Arrie."
"I do not use that name."
"Aratariel?"
"Arrie."
"Oh..."
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. "So you decided to finally take action?" She paused. "To go to war for something you believed in?"
He stared at the elleth who had once been his little girl. That Aratariel he barely recognized in the hawklike visage of the full-grown and battle-hardened elleth before him. No one else had that same combination of auburn hair and his light blue eyes, however. But no matter how he tried, his mind could not reconcile this elleth with his daughter; his daughter had never been hostile.
"Why are you here?"
He softened, wondering what he had expected from her. There was pain in her voice, though she tried to mask it. She had never fooled him. Even with centuries apart.
"To see you." He paused, his hand again reaching towards her, but falling short and cupping his kneecap. "Your mother was desperate I try to find you. Talk to you." The idea of her mother seemed to hit a chord deep within her, as her expression softened slightly, though not much. He looked away from her face, suddenly unable to bear the anger he could see had not left it since he had last seen her. "She watches for you and your brother in Mandos." Aratariel looked down and to the side. "She does not know whether she would rather see you there or not. She simply wishes to see the two of you safe." Aratariel paled, looking at her leg.
"I am safe, safe enough." She replied, the pretense dropping from her voice as she looked up at him. Her brother was long dead, and what did it mean if he had not been seen in Mandos? Her voice was flat and toneless again.
The ellon scooted forward in his chair and reached towards her again. He had caught her gaze when it fell on her leg at the mention of Mandos. He could guess her brother was dead, his poor son, and he could tell his other child was not out of danger. "Your leg, may I?" He paused, drawing his hand back yet again. "I have learned much in the way of healing." She met his eyes again, her gaze hard. "Was the wound poisoned?" His voice was soft, his hopes dashed at the falling reaction on her face. He asked if she had had it looked at by one of the battlefield healers, his voice barely above a whisper.
She shook her head, slowly. "There is not enough athelas for my soldiers, I will not take from them."
"You could die from this, or at the least lose the function of your leg." And then you will fade, he thought, realizing she must already know this.
"Mother will not see me in Mandos yet," she shrugged, a small glimmer of her bravado coming back. He bristled, despite knowing her bravado was false. "I have time enough."
"Time enough for what?" He questioned, his concern momentarily overcoming his annoyance with her clear cavalier treatment of her life. He suddenly could not stand the word enough.
"To travel far enough over to the East for my people to settle. I have no intention of dying before then."
"You would put yourself through such pain and suffering to show your stubbornness?"
"No!" She sat forward as best she could, binding and soreness notwithstanding. She glared at him, the malice he remembered when he had forbade her from joining her cousins returning. "Even after so long apart, Father, you still do not know me at all." She grimaced and her face flushed red from strain. "I will bear this for the people that depend upon me to lead them to safety. When they are safe, only then will I fade and die." She looked away, clearly unable to determine whether to continue to be hostile or whether it was easier to admit that the pain was getting to her.
"What of your husband?" He stopped. "Surely he would mind-"
She cut him off with a barking laugh, a bitter mockery of the carefree sound she used to make. "Husband? No, no husband. I am alone, Father, and have been. No ellon here would miss me."
He drew back, now frankly shocked by how forthright she was with this to him. She had resigned herself to death and that no one would miss her. Surely it was not so bad? "You do not sound like my daughter."
Done with laughing, she scoffed. "Oh, but you are just as my dear father ever was. Did you expect me to have lived through five centuries of war and depravity and remain unchanged?" She laughed again. "I have not lived happily in paradise all these years. You see me as I have become."
He simply looked at her until she calmed from her outburst, unsure of what else to do. This was not his daughter, but there were glimmers of her... He tried to think how she would have come to this, and realized he had meant to apologize to her long ago.
"I never paid you much attention, always more to your brother than you. I wished you to be other than you were, and always considered it a weakness that you spent so much time around your cousins. I never realized how strong you must truly have been to do that, and how strong you must have been to continue with that here. I was wrong." His daughter's head tilted sideways as she looked at him. "I apologize, Aratariel. I should have listened to you then." He reached and touched his fingers on her arm, the first contact between father and child in over five centuries. She did not pull her arm away as quickly as he had expected, but rather looked at his hand for a few seconds before shifting uncomfortably and causing his hand to drop. "I really am proud of you, my daughter," his eyes met hers. "You are being entirely selfless when I had thought you selfish."
"Thank you," she returned, her voice low and quiet.
He realized there was not much he could do for her. She simply did not need him for anything. He had always wanted her to need him, and she had not since she was very young. That was why they grew apart, he realized. He never let her need her father in her own way, and tried to frame her need for him in ways that would suit him. He had never understood her, and had truly never tried. He had hoped that in the time spent apart she would have changed and needed him again, as she had when she was small. That was a fruitless and naïve hope, he realized.
But there was one thing she needed from him that he could try to help her with now.
"Would you rather your leg be healed?" He paused, seeing her roll her eyes again. "Oh, of course you would," he blushed. "May I see to it? Please?"
She studied his face for a few moments, assessing him. He could see an inkling of his discernment peeking out of her character, and he felt a small bubble of pride well in his heart. Aratariel shuffled in the chair and grabbed her crutch in an attempt to stand, but her father was up in an instant, putting a gentle touch on her shoulder. She was certainly independent. "I need new bandages..." she murmured.
"I will get them," he stated, ignoring the second bubble of pride at her stubborn independence for favor of his dislike of her clear inability to allow others to help her. He did not think, until much later, it might have been he that she didn't want help from unless it was sincere and not pity. He asked where they were, keeping all disapproval out of his voice. His daughter pointed, and as he fetched them, he called outside of a clean bowl of water and a towel, which was brought almost immediately to the strange elf from Aman.
He knelt onto the mud beside her leg, observing the look of intense pain that had suffused over her face when she had closed her eyes while his back was turned. He touched her arm to let her know he was there, and the same almost predatory look came over her face. He shrank back slightly, not expecting such a concentrated look of pure anger, and though it disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared, it was replaced with a look of sheer exhaustion. He took it as her sign of trust in him to show both her physical and emotional weakness.
With gentle touches, he helped her place her foot on the other chair, and he was reminded of a similar situation from when she was, oh, the equivalent of a five year old. She had skinned her knee chasing after a rabbit and needed help to bandage it. His wife was busy caring for their infant son, and so he had needed to help Arrie. Having no idea what to do, he had bungled the bandage so much it had fallen off within minutes. Arrie hadn't cared, however, because her Ada had fixed her. She had been so very proud of him. He knew he wanted to become a healer after that and had truly started learning only after the Noldor had fled Aman. Arrie never knew it, then, and he doubted he would remember the incident from her childhood.
He reached for the ends of the bandage, his daughter's hands stopping him as a final look of panic overcame her features. "There are others who need your help more than I."
"And you are my daughter," he said in response, delicately grasping her hands and placing them on her stomach. "I will do what I can for you first. Please." He squeezed her fingers.
She looked troubled still but nodded. "It is not pretty, Father."
His gaze went from her hands to her leg, then her eyes. He gave her as comforting a smile as he could muster. "Let me tend to you, daughter." He stood up and kissed her on the forehead before reaching again to the bandages.
As soon as he unraveled the outer layer, the acrid smell of rotting tissue reached his nose. He tried not to make any noise or change his facial expression at all, but he truly could not help the sigh of worry when he saw the rest of her leg. The original gash, now very sloppily and poorly sewn "closed", went nearly from the very top of the inside of her thigh to the outside of her knee. Her skin was red and inflamed with alternating areas of dark and light pus. Deep purple streaks lined the edges of the wound, radiating outward from the injury.
Untreated as it was, she would barely live another two days, and likely with even the best treatment he could offer her in a tent with only the small bag of supplies he carried, she would still likely only live up to a week. He knew that was not time enough as she had said. The journey ahead of them was at least a fortnight to safety from the Valar's instruments.
"Aratariel," he mumbled worriedly, gently pressing on the edge of the wound. More dark and foul smelling pus appeared and ran down her leg and they both winced. "I... do not know if I can heal this..." his eyes met hers.
"If it is cleaned and re-bandaged-"
"That will only prolong-"
"That is all I need-"
"Even so you should not be traveling, horseback is not-"
"Father. Enough." She touched his shoulder, stopping his protests. The elleth looking at him was calm. "I know. I do not anticipate it getting better. If you can help me, that would be wonderful, but I will clean it and replace the bandage if not." She reached for the towel on the chair next to her foot, wincing as her hair fell onto her wound.
Something dawned on him, which he had not completely comprehended before when she had refused the help of battlefield-healers. "You did this yourself."
She gave him a look that clearly spoke 'and who else?'
He glanced at the wound again, staying her hands and wondering if he could get her to his ship. There had been a few deaths, he knew, and they had planned to bring back more to Aman more than had come to Beleriand. Perhaps Aratariel would...
"Father, please," she pled, her hands still caught in his.
His eyes snapped to her face. "I could heal it fully if you were to come with me."
Her brow furrowed in confusion. "Go where? How long? We are leaving tomorrow at dawn."
"Come to my ship," he knelt next to her and looked up at her eyes. "My ship. Well, the one I came here upon. We leave-"
She disentangled her hands and pushed herself back further, enough to have her foot come off of the other chair and hit the ground with a thunk. She hissed in pain and a rivulet of purple blood began coursing out of the wound at the pace of her rushing heartbeat. The ellon reached towards the bleed but she brushed his hands away. "No. I cannot. The Teleri would not accept me."
"Daughter please."
"I killed their families, Father. I will not ask for their help. I would not give it if the tables were reversed," her tone was bitter and angry with self-recrimination. She tried to move her leg again, but without the constriction provided by the bandage, the damaged muscles were uncoordinated and could not move how she wanted. It clearly caused her a lot of pain, for she had to take a few deep breaths before she spoke again, and her voice not entirely steady. "I must be here to help my people, Father." Her eyes were full of tears as she looked at him, perhaps conscious of his idea to have her bodily carried on board. "Please do what you can, if you will, but if not, I understand."
He felt his heart sink into his stomach at the look of pitiful honesty on her face and he laid a palm on her cheek. "You would rather die here in pain, than live in Aman? I can take you home, dear daughter. Think of your mother... aunts... grandparents."
Her tears fell warm down the side of his hand. "And I miss them all. I do. But if you take me aboard those ships, Father, I will not survive the journey back. Here, I can help. I owe these elves the last few days I can give them, and I would rather die proud and in pain than in cowardice and comfort."
He understood her then. Whether it was her words, the pleading look in her eyes, or what, but he understood her. The ellon leant forward and kissed her forehead again. He could not know everything she had done in Beleriand to be ashamed of, but with her last breaths she would atone as best she could.
"I will do what I can, my dear."
With that, he set to work clearing away the dead tissue and cleaning the rest as well as he could with the small set of supplies he had to hand. He tried to warn her when he knew it would be the most painful, so as to prepare herself and to try not to move. He felt another bubble of pride swell in his own chest when he felt her vice-like grip – her small hand was much stronger than it looked – clamp on to his shoulder or grasp at the cloth of his tunic. She never made more than a whimper, though the pain must have been beyond anything he could well imagine. Only once during this work did the thought of her clean, beautiful and perfect legs when she had been a baby cross his mind. Had he followed with those thoughts, he would not have been able to complete his work and so he pushed them away.
When at last he had done what he could, the wound looked markedly improved, if only because most of the dark gross bits had either been washed away or excised. He hoped that perhaps now with his help she would last a few more days than before, and perhaps it was enough. As he tied the endings of the new bandage on the top of her leg where she could easily reach it later, he kissed the butterfly-shaped knot.
Her eyes were filled with tears but she was smiling when she touched his face. "You remembered," her voice was shaking and she reached for his hands. "I did not know if you would remember that."
He smiled at her, feeling his own tears fall down his cheeks at seeing the elleth, truly now his little girl, sitting next to him. "Of course I remember, dear one," he felt a tear fall from his chain and hit their clasped hands. "It seems the only times I am a good father to you are when you are hurt."
She reached up and brushed a tear from his cheek. "Or just when I need you the most," she replied. She was still smiling though her lips were trembling. "If you will do me one more favor, Father?" She looked away from his eyes and at her pack of belongings. "In the front pouch of that bag is a book in a piece of waterproofed leather. Please take it back with you: it is a history of many of the good things that have happened since we came to Beleriand, or happy memories from... before. I kept it for myself, but I had never thought that you and Mother could see how happy we were, even for all the bad."
The ellon felt the lump at his throat grow even more painful. They both knew exactly what she was asking him. "I... I cannot take it..."
She smiled, a trace of the bitterness, though none of anger, returning to her face. "I would appreciate it if you did. I likely won't write in it or need it after a few more days. Beleriand, and I, even for all your help, are almost done." She looked at him, the strength still in her fëa almost overwhelming. "I would have you know I was never entirely alone or unhappy."
He looked to the side, away from the object in question, and nodded. "I brought you something as well, Aratariel. I made it for you... at home." He felt his voice break again. "I had hoped to find you, and that you would be able to... use it." He stood and walked to the front of the tent and picked up the bow he had leaned against the support. He handed it to her.
"Oh, Father..." she exclaimed, accepting it with excitement and forgetting, or ignoring, his statement. She studied the weapon carefully, examining it as a master from all the proper angles. With only a slight wince, she sat up and held it to her face in the appropriate stance, measuring its height and tension with a slight pluck of her finger on the string, finding it to be almost perfect for her height and weight when she was standing. He was proud to see she had not forgotten his teachings from when she was a child. She stilled and glanced at him after a few moments. "You just used a bow you built for me to fight in a war with?" He nodded as he looked at the carved wood before reaching forward and plucking the string again.
"This is your mother's hair," he commented, his voice distant as he thought of his wife and all he would have to tell her.
"Father, you could have hurt yourself. It is not strong enough for you."
"But I did not." He smiled and touched her hair, stroking it down her shoulder. "I am only sorry you may not..." He trailed off.
She tried to hand it back to him, her face falling again. "Give it to me when I see you in Aman, Father."
He studied her, and as he did, a heartening piece of foresight, the second ever he received, came to his mind. He pushed the bow away, refusing to take it. "May you defend yourself well with it, my child." He knelt next to her chair, watching as her face filled with confusion. "If it gives you something to live for, to shoot this when fully healed, then so be it. I would rather know you are alive and far away from me than know you had given up and gone to Mandos because you felt unnecessary.
"You have done well, Aratariel. I am very proud of you; do not give up on your life here just yet."
Aratariel studied her father and gave him a soft smile. "Will you help me up, Father?"
He blanched. She was, as always, very good at saying the things he did not expect. "You should not move, if you can avoid it."
"I haven't hugged my father in over five centuries, and if he has his way now, it likely won't be able to happen again for longer than that." He let out a small laugh and she felt him lift her under her arms and support her weight as they hugged. She had forgotten, in the years since Maitimo had... died, how truly nice it could be to feel short and small in someone's arms. Her father had been one of her few relatives taller than she and her brother. Aratariel tried to hid the grimace as he set her gently back on her own feet, though the pain was truly much improved due to his skill as a healer.
"It has been good to see you, Father, thank you." Aratariel spoke into his shoulder. "I thank you, more than you know."
He squeezed her closer to him, his little girl. "I am glad to have found you, and to have been able to help you." He pulled backwards enough to study her face. "You really have done well for yourself, and I can only hope your journey is far from done, my dear." His gaze wandered outside when an elf with a torch walked by the wall of the tent. The light of the day almost gone.
"You should go," Aratariel said quietly and with a strong tone of reluctance. She asked if he had come on horseback. When he shook his head, she offered her horse. "Take him if you wish to make it back to your camp before dark. Set him loose when you are safe and he will make his way back." When her father protested and offered to walk she told him, in no uncertain terms, she was in charge here and not to argue. She was laughing, however, helping his heart, which had only just returned to aching now that it was time to leave his only daughter to live or die.
He touched her cheek and kissed her forehead. "I think it best to say I hope not to see you too soon, Arrie, my daughter. You have much yet to live for."
She smiled to him, the type of warm and caring smile from his daughter that he would not soon forget. He left knowing he had done enough.
This is inspired by realizing families may have met one another during the WoW for the first time in centuries. This is also a part of a number of story lines I have floating in my head about this strong OC elleth. I see her as Nerdanel's niece and is of a similar age and very close to Maglor. Since they grew up together, she later became his advisor and second-in-command in Beleriand. Allthethings happened. She stayed alive and was stuck with holding together the frayed remnants of the Fëanorian elves in Middle-Earth, due to the strong sense of, well, egoism among the Noldor. We shall see.
To those of the P&P fandom who read these non-P&P fics and feel disappointed: I write to relax and where the muses take me, which at the moment is the Silmarillion/Tolkien fandom. As for OMD and AWAR, I'll get there; don't rush the magicwoman, you'll get lousy magic. And please don't leave reviews here asking for updates on other stories unless you leave a legitimate review of this one as well.
As ever, please let me know what you think.