I own nothing.

The endless sheets of Ice, crashing against each other, breaking apart, leaving them unsure of where to walk in the dark with only the stars and pale Rána to give them light, they had just recently given way to mountains. Given way to mountains with high, cruel, jagged peaks. Given way to stones that could break away under unsteady feet just as easily as ice could. Given way to avalanches. The snowstorms and blistering winds were still there. In most respects, it was no better than the Ice. The Quendi starved still, died of cold and exhaustion, falling from great heights or buried beneath mounds of snow or rock.

It was no better than the Ice, in all respects but one.

"I take it you caught something this time, Irissë?"

After butchering the hart, she'd told her father and brothers that she was going to take a walk. (Take care, Irissë. –I will, Father.) Irissë was exhausted after the long hunt and longer struggle to bring the beast down (no longer was she possessed of the strength she'd had in Aman, when she was able to eat well and rest just as well), but she had no desire to lie down and sleep after eating. Her body was tired, but her mind was still very much awake. If she tried to rest, she would find none, and be left to lie awake in the dark, with darker waking dreams. Itarillë would have to make do without her for now.

Irissë nearly jumped at the sudden voice, so clearly addressing her, but when she realized who it was speaking, she was hardly surprised that she could be so startled. Artanis was perched on a large rock overlooking a steep cleft in the mountains, her gray cloak hood pushed down to reveal her gold-silver tresses, though decidedly lank and un-lovely after so long in the ravening wilderness. Still, Artanis retained her unearthly beauty, and the eerie stillness that made it so easy to mistake her for one of Nerdanel's sculptures back in Aman. It was easy for Artanis to startle people; it always had been.

She was looking down at her from atop her perch, unusually wide-eyed. More specifically, she was looking at the spots of fresh blood on Irissë's muddied skirt and sleeves, likely visible only because of Artanis's keen, far-seeing eyes. Irissë nodded slowly. "Yes." She narrowed her eyes. "How are you and your brothers eating?"

"Well enough," Artanis replied evenly, though her eyes were still wide and made the calmness seem almost like a joke. Irissë knew what that meant, took 'well enough' to mean that they were eating the same as everyone else in the host, which was to say, not well at all. She caught sight of Angaráto and Aikanáro walking slowly through the campfires, and got a glimpse of what Artanis, sitting as she was, did not reveal. The host as a whole was eating better now, but the sons of Arafinwë still looked as though they'd spent their whole lives begging for their bread in the streets of Tirion. Irissë resolved to make sure to bring one of them on her next hunting expedition. It had become unwritten law that you could not claim what someone else had caught, but at the very least if one of her cousins caught something, they'd be able to share it with their siblings.

A sharp gust of wind blew through the camp and Artanis's long, loose hair blew with it. Even filthy as it was (the same as the rest of them), Artanis's was the sort of fine, slippery hair that never stayed braided no matter how hard she tried to keep it out of her face. As it was now, she was having to constantly push it back to keep it out of her face, and that calm mask she'd put up gave way to brow-furrowed irritation. Irissë said nothing, staying still and not sure why.

Perhaps she'd sensed the as of yet unasked question on her cousin's lips.

"Sit with me?" And there it was, the question that was more startling than the moment that Artanis has revealed her presence, though this time all Irissë did was raise her eyebrows. When had Artanis ever really specially wanted her presence? When had she ever really specially wanted anyone's presence? Sans perhaps Findaráto or her parents, Irissë doubted that Artanis had ever really had need, and not simple want, for anyone.

All the same, Irissë found herself nodding, and clambering up onto the rock beside her cousin, readjusting her cloak hood once atop the boulder so it wouldn't be blown down by the wind. Perhaps Artanis could live with frostbitten ears, but Irissë would rather not have that to deal with on top of everything else. On that note…

"You should pull your cloak hood up."

"Hmm."

Oh well. It was worth a shot.

The sounds of hushed conversation punctuated by the occasional laugh or wail faded from the forefront of Irissë's mind, into the background. What filled her ears was the faint howling of a far-off wind, perhaps seeking to find the host once more, and the silence of the one who sat beside her now.

Long silences were not so unusual from Artanis; frankly, they weren't that unusual from Irissë either. In Aman, there had been whole days that would go by without Artanis ever murmuring a word. At times she made a game of it; Irissë had always found it an irritating game, with as little patience as she possessed for being ignored. But she'd grown all the more silent since the Darkening. Irissë had withered in the darkness and the cold, and now, she had the feeling that Artanis was doing the same.

Artanis, drooping, withering, like some delicate plant subjected to too great a warmth or cold? Irissë stared out into nothing, tried to imagine that, and couldn't. Ever since she was born, Artanis had seemed oddly indestructible. Remote, still and eerie, and thoroughly impossible to touch in harm. It wouldn't have been inappropriate to compare Artanis to a Maia. Her flesh was just a guise, easily enough discarded, showing starlight beneath, and her spirit could not be slain. Irissë tried to imagine Artanis lying down to die on the Ice, or on the stones, and couldn't. You can't kill a spirit. It's folly even to try.

And everyone else around Artanis was significantly more fragile. Even (perhaps especially) Irissë.

"Where did you learn to use a sword?" The tone Artanis took was unusually tentative. She was pulling at a loose thread on her ragged sleeve. Artanis had always favored billowing Telerin sleeves (and Irissë liked wide sleeves well enough during the summer), but Irissë doubted they were serving her well now; it looked as though she'd had to bind them up with cords to keep her arms from being exposed to the elements. Given that Irissë's much closer-fitting sleeves were so torn and ragged that she'd had to do the same thing, she didn't comment. "Findaráto and Aikanáro taught me, but I didn't think that your father or brothers would want to teach you."

Yours probably didn't want to teach you either, Irissë thought, but did not say. Artanis must have picked up on the thought, though, for she raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips—a decidedly steely look at odds with the tone of voice she'd used when speaking. "They didn't," Irissë finally answered, heavily. "They wouldn't." And how their rejections, their claims that it was no thing for her to know, had stung. "When they would practice, I would hide in a tree near where they liked to go and watch them."

Artanis stared at her, looking incredulous and, even more surprisingly, amused. "Did you really?" And unless Irissë was very much mistaken, Artanis sounded rather impressed as well. Perhaps she had thought that her straightforward cousin did not have it in her to do something so sneaky.

Laughter bubbled up in her throat. How long has it been since I last laughed? Irissë wondered wearily, for my laughter sounds hoarse and rusted even to my own ears. "Yes, I did. I had to take special care not to be noticed, especially not by Father or Turukáno, and I had a wonderful time thinking up things to say to Mother about just where I'd been when I would go and watch them. I got my sword from…"

Irissë faltered. The laughter died out of her eyes and mouth. Suddenly, she felt colder than she'd ever felt on the Ice sheets. More tired, more weary, more frustrated.

She had gone to Tyelkormo with her request, knowing that, if there was no one else who would keep her secrets, he would. There was a storm coming—they could all sense it—and even if her father and brothers wouldn't respect her need to be able to defend herself when it came, she knew that there were people in her family who did. Tyelkormo in turn had directed her to Curufinwë, and Irissë got the feeling that they'd been waiting for to come to them.

Curufinwë already had a sword ready, and he'd smirked knowingly as he presented it to her. A keen, gently-curved backsword it was, of middling length: I know you're not lacking for strength in your arms, cousin, but frankly you're too slim for a long-sword. This will serve you better. If you need any help…

The sword had Fëanáro's star worked into gold filigree on the hilt. Irissë had to wind cloth over the hilt to hide it, so if the sword was discovered her family wouldn't know where she'd gotten it; Fëanáro and Nolofinwë were already often enough at odds by that time, and she didn't want to make things any worse. At Alqualondë, at Araman, on the Ice as Elenwë sank, it took every ounce of self-control Irissë possessed not to lob the sword into the Sea and fall to her knees, to scream in rage and grief. Her sword was blooded, and so was she. The waters would not accept it; Irissë was sure of that.

"I got my sword from a blacksmith upon whose discretion I could rely," Irissë explained lamely. "I practiced in secret after that."

But not alone, as her words implied. Tyelkormo did tell someone else, and that someone was his oldest brother, who wouldn't let Irissë practice by herself—I'd rather not have to explain to Uncle that we let you cut your own arm off by accident, Maitimo explained. And if you do have to fight, we'd like to be sure you really can defend yourself.

Tyelkormo was always there. Curufinwë was there often, and Maitimo came occasionally to oversee things, when he had time. During those hours, they forgot the cloud that was falling over Tirion in the days before Fëanáro assaulted his brother and went with his father and sons into exile. Irissë's father and siblings would not teach her to defend herself with any device but the bow, so she looked to her cousins. And those same cousins left her here to die in the cold wastes of the north, to drown beneath the cruel waves of the ocean, and finally to struggle to breathe the thin air of the mountains. She didn't want to talk about them. She didn't even particularly want to think about them. But at times like this, they were among the only people she could think about.

Irissë scuffed her foot against the rock, frowning darkly. "My father and brothers wished to keep me from violence, but violence found me anyways," she muttered. And would have found me unawares, if it had been up to them.

To her credit, Artanis did not say the thing that her brothers likely would have said, that Irissë's kin had only wished to keep her safe, and thought that they could protect her without having to teach her to protect herself. Instead, she nodded, swallowing thickly and looking down. "Aye," she said quietly. "It found us."

She looked very young, all of a sudden.

Irissë looked away from her, drawing a deep breath. Violence had found them, that was true enough. Irissë had been with her brothers, at Alqualondë, and Artanis had gone ahead of her own family to join her uncle's. They'd both been there. They'd both fought. They'd both killed.

Are we all damned, then? Irissë wondered despairingly, running a hand through her hair beneath its cowl, staring up at the starry sky. Rána had waned down to almost nothing against; every time it did that, Irissë was terrified that it would vanish for good, and leave them drowning in darkness again. But was there not already darkness all around her, leaking out from within? How long would it be before that drowned her?

She had seen her cousins, loved like brothers, under attack by the Swan-Elves of Alqualondë. Irissë had not known why they were under attack. She'd not known who started the fight, or to what purpose. But she had been filled with such a fear and fury as she had never known, and she had sprung into the fray at the front, alongside Findekáno, drawing her sword and wetting it with blood, over and over again.

Irissë, daughter of Nolofinwë and Anairë, had killed and killed again in that endless, terrible night. Her hands were drenched with blood. Her ears were filled with screams. She'd not really grasped the enormity of what she did at the time. But the first time she slept after the massacre, her dreams were filled with screams and corpses and the grotesque fixed faces of the dead and dying. Dreams filled with glazed, glassy eyes.

And there was the face of her father after the massacre. Nolofinwë had not railed at her, at the danger she had put herself in nor the fact that she had killed others. He had not wept; his face was completely dry. He had not even asked her where she had gotten her sword, wiped clean of blood and hidden away back in its sheath about her waist. He'd not said a word. His face was gray and worn, his eyes shadowed. Nolofinwë stared at his daughter, enfolded her in his arms, and there they stood, all sound around them fading away, there they stood for a very long time.

I killed for you! she wanted to scream, though the only ones who would hear her would be the last people she wanted her words to reach. You taught me to fight! I killed for you! We can never go home; I can never go home, because of you! And you left me here! You left me to die on the Ice! How many of our people have died here, because of those burned ships! Elenwë and all the others, dead!

You left me…

She would not give up and die, not here. Irissë had gone too far, done too much, seen and lost too much, to give up here. For the sake of the living, for the sake of the dead even more, she had to keep going. She had to live long enough to see these unmapped lands Fëanáro had spoken of, to see Itarillë safely to adulthood, and perhaps punch her cousins in the face. But every day, it got harder, so much harder, to remember any trace of joy and peace of mind.

"Are we all damned, then?" The words slipped from her lips without thought, tired and dull, like a child dragging its feet after a long, wearying day.

Artanis tilted her head to one side, still looking unsure. "We have been struck with Lord Námo's Doom, never to return to Aman. I am not sure if that is the same as being damned, cousin."

Irissë glared at her. "You know what I mean, Artanis!"

Her cousin drew her cloak closer about her, her fine hair falling over her face, obscuring it from view. "Irissë… Once you have shed the blood of your kin… Once you have killed them… Nothing can change the fact that they died, or that you killed them. Their blood is on our hands for eternity. It is true that perhaps eventually the dead will be re-embodied, but all of the potential they had in this life is lost, because we have killed them. They suffered in death, and those who loved them and live suffer in life. Nothing can change that."

There were no words for how much that was not what Irissë had wanted to hear. She rubbed her forehead wearily. "So one instance of bloodshed, one instance of killing, and I'm damned for all eternity. Typical." She caught a glimpse of Artanis's unexpectedly rather dejected face through that caul of hair. Not sure how to respond to the sight of Artanis looking anything but calm and remotely confident, Irissë went on, brusque or awkward, she wasn't sure which, "Oh, don't look so glum. You're better than the rest of us. At least you didn't fall upon Quendi only trying to protect what was theirs."

No, she hadn't. Artanis had jumped into the chaos and blood of Alqualondë, drawing her sword nearly as quickly as Irissë and Findekáno, but it had not been to the defense of the Noldor. Instead, Artanis had leapt into the battle, and struck out against the invaders, defending her mother's kin. The aid she gave to the Teleri had not been enough to turn the tide of battle away against the invaders, but she had still saved many of the Swan-Elves' lives.

Terrible she had seemed that night, beautiful and terrible, more than any other. After a while, the Noldor would not go near this terrible princess with her horribly bright eyes and horribly keen sword. They fled her approach, finding no mercy when she cut them down.

How terrible she had seemed, to Irissë's eyes.

Artanis stared, brow drawn up, eyes huge in her face. "Am I better, Irissë?" she asked, voice horribly small. Like she wanted Irissë to say yes, and knew she wouldn't. "Am I any better? Am I not also a Kinslayer?"

Irissë heard the words behind those words, the words that Artanis could not bear to give voice to. I defended my mother's kin by slaying my father's.

How young she was. How afraid. Irissë didn't think she'd ever seen Artanis look so afraid, so unsure of herself, so vulnerable. How young she is, beneath her stillness, her calm, her far-seeing, deep-delving eyes. I'd nearly forgotten. But when had they ever had a conversation such as this? Irissë had to say, sorry now, that she and Artanis did not know each other very well. They were cousins, and that was all. They spoke, spoke on a regular basis, in fact, but those were merely words. They had never striven for depth when they spoke with one another.

Have you even shared these thoughts with your brothers? I have not, with mine.

But regardless of how well she did or did not know Artanis, Irissë could look at the face her cousin was showing her now, and know what she wanted. She reached out and patted Artanis's shoulder, still ill at ease with the motions of giving comfort even after months of caring for Itarillë after her mother's death. Or perhaps it was because this was one she'd never needed to comfort before. "It… It will be alright, I think." Irissë wasn't sure of that. "We just have to learn to live with it." And themselves.

Irissë—Aredhel
Itarillë—Idril
Artanis—Galadriel
Angaráto—Angrod
Aikanáro—Aegnor
Arafinwë—Finarfin
Findaráto—Finrod
Turukáno—Turgon
Tyelkormo—Celegorm
Curufinwë—Curufin
Fëanáro—Fëanor
Nolofinwë—Fingolfin
Maitimo—Maedhros
Findekáno—Fingon

Rána—the name among the Noldor given for the Moon, meaning 'The Wanderer'
Quendi—Elves (singular: Quendë)