A/N: For my seventy-fifth fic on the Pit, I'd figured I'd put up one of my favorites to write. Not my characters, though I'll take the blame for what happened to Ivriniel. Another little one-off from "As Golden Leaves upon the Sea" written for the 50lyricsfanfic challenge on LJ, specifically, prompt 47: It's a cold day in a cruel world, I really wished I could have saved you; then who would save me from myself? One of these days I'll update; we swears, Precious, but I have to break down and rewrite the lost chapter first.


He asked her once, if she had ever cried for her sister.

Perhaps she had; she certainly didn't remember much about the days following the drowning. There was only the heavy seasonal rain that had continued to fall, as if to remind her that one girl, even one as influential and popular as Irviniel had been, didn't make a whit of difference to the world at large. But she had mattered to her siblings, and her friends, and the man who loved her. And she had chosen to wait for the last of these when Ulmo's lands were at their most inhospitable. Finduilas had never been sure that the man had deserved that sort of loyalty, but Irviniel had waited for him all the same. And for that, her sister deserved to be with the one she loved, even if the only place she could meet him again was under the waves.

He had held her close then, and Finduilas wondered if this was what drowning felt like.