Author's Note: As promised, I've drawn and posted another illustration for this fic on my homepage! That actually makes three drawings so far, because in my Chapter 1 note I dishonorably neglected to mention my Maeglin character portrait that I'd already posted along with the picture I did mention. :)
Chapter 2: Remembering the Ice
That night in Gondolin, Turgon remembered. The crossing of the Helcaraxë might have been long ago, but to an Elvenking it was only a small part of his lifetime.
"Idril! My Idril! No!" With a slight splash, the young mother named Lindë leaped into the water as smoothly as a fish. Elenwë cried out in alarm and jumped in after them before Turgon realized what was happening.
Seeing his wife disappear into the dark water, Turgon froze in place like a statue. "Elenwë!" He wanted to dive in after her and the other two, but he dared not. The water was deep and cold, but the space between the ice floes was jagged, narrow, and constantly shifting. Turgon feared that if he jumped into the water, he might only crush or obstruct Elenwë and Lindë. His heart almost paralyzed by fear, he could only watch as they attempted to find and save the little girl who had just fallen in.
"There!" he called suddenly, pointing, as he spotted Idril's bright gold hair surfacing near one of the ice masses. The slender, yellow-haired Lindë quickly swam towards her small daughter, Elenwë a few strokes behind and fighting to keep up in the churning water.
A grief and fear that were at once raw and deeply, achingly familiar welled up in Turgon's soul. So many have died already... He knew that Idril's father had been among them. Do not let us lose the rest of that family! He could not even think about the danger to Elenwë.
In the freezing water, Lindë found her child and grabbed her with both hands. Exhausted by cold in spite of her usual strength, she seemed to channel all the power that remained in her slim body into that grip. To Turgon's horror, she and Idril sank beneath the surface even as Lindë kicked the water into a furious spray in her efforts to keep them afloat.
"Help me, Lady!" Lindë gasped as her head briefly popped above the water's surface. Then she submerged again, her hands still holding the tiny Idril aloft.
Elenwë kicked strongly towards her, even though she was obviously weighed down by her heavy, wet cloak. Reaching them, she took Idril from her mother's desperate hands and clasped the child to her own chest. Lindë slipped farther down beneath the water, and Turgon could dimly see her continuing to sink, unmoving, for several feet before she vanished.
Turgon's wife splashed towards him through the water, her movements so hampered by cold and by her heavy, clinging clothing that she was almost ungraceful. Reaching up as she neared the water's edge, she thrust Idril towards him. Instantly he reached out for the child.
Elenwë's eyes met Turgon's, burning as brightly as he had ever seen them. "Take her!" The second Idril was securely in his arms, Elenwë turned and dived under the water, arrowing down after the sinking Lindë. Turgon watched with his own breath unconsciously held in terrified sympathy.
Finally his wife's head broke the surface. She has holding Lindë against her with one arm, but the young mother's face was blue and still.
"No..." Turgon breathed, as he and several others reached out to help pull Elenwë and Lindë onto the ice. Anxiously he looked down at Lindë's cold, still form, then stepped aside in haste to let Galadriel near.
The radiant daughter of Finarfin, her face grim, knelt to examine Lindë. After a few seconds, she shook her head. "Her heart has stopped," she said. "Another one of our kinsfolk has gone to Mandos."
They were interrupted by a sudden fit of violent shivering from Elenwë. Aghast, Turgon turned to stare at his wife. "Beloved! Are you all right?"
Elenwë nodded, her arms wrapped around herself, as she continued to shiver wildly. Then, as Galadriel swifty turned from Lindë's lifeless form and came towards her, Elenwë gasped once and stopped shivering. Glancing up, Turgon saw Galadriel's face go very dark.
Gently, Galadriel put her arms around Elenwë as she knelt beside her on the hard ice. "Rest easy, my cousin's wife," she said. She appeared only to be giving comfort, but Turgon had seen the experienced healer at work many times and he knew that she was busy discovering all she could about Elenwë's condition.
"You have done a wonderful thing," she went on, "to rescue young Idril. She is a strong child, and she will come to no harm, thanks to you and her mother." Galadriel did not mention Lindë's death, but the sudden grief in Elenwë's eyes made it clear that she understood.
"I am glad... that dear Idril will live," Elenwë said softly. "Her laughter has been a wonder to all of us on this otherwise joyless crossing."
"Yes," Galadriel agreed. "You need not worry about her. In this one thing, the Valar have been merciful in spite of our rebellion." She eased her arms from around Elenwë and stood up. Turgon watched Galadriel's face, terrified of what he might be about to learn.
"I cannot help her," Galadriel said gently, looking at her cousin Turgon with grief in her wise eyes. "There is little enough heat left in my own body that I fear that, even if I could somehow give all of it to her, it would do her no good."
Turgon bowed his head, then quickly looked at Elenwë, not wanting to lose a second of the time in which he might still see her face.
Raising her head and her voice, Galadriel called to those who waited near. "Let us move a little away. We must make plans for the next stages of our journey." Even though the group included her uncle Fingolfin and several others who were her seniors, all of them obeyed Galadriel at once and without a word. Turgon, grateful through his intense sorrow, realized that she was giving him and Elenwë a last chance to speak to each other alone. Then he put Galadriel and all but one of the Eldalië completely out of his mind.
"Elenwë..." he said in anguish, dropping down to the ice by her side. Looking into her eyes, he could not continue for a moment. "My dear love..." he finally said helplessly.
Elenwë smiled faintly, taking his hand. "Beloved Turgon, best of Elven-princes!" She looked intently at him. "Do not be too sad! My life is less than a fair price for that of little Idril." She paused for a moment, seeming too weak to continue. "I only wish I had been able to purchase Lindë's, as well."
Turgon put his arms around her and held her tightly, tears running down his face and freezing on his skin as they went. "I cannot argue with you, my dear, but it is hard for me to accept the loss of you at any price." Then he realized that he could only be hurting her by talking this way. With an effort, he smiled and brightened his voice. "Thank you, Elenwë. Do not worry for me. I will be all right."
"I know you will," Elenwë said, her eyes alight with a fading but beautiful fire. "I fell in love with you for your strength as much as for your kind heart." Laughing with an effort, she added, "And your incredible good looks!"
Turning serious, as if she sensed that she did not have much time, Elenwë looked at the child Idril who was still in Turgon's arms. "She must not grow up alone," Elenwë said determinedly. "When I could not save Lindë, I became Idril's mother in my heart. I thought to raise her, but now I understand that I will not."
Turgon's heart twisted with a painful mix of emotions. "Do not fear," he told his wife, as he looked at the sweet, confused little face of young Idril. "It is not in your heart alone that Idril has become our child. I could not leave her to another's care now."
Elenwë sighed, seeming to relax as if she no longer had any worries in all the wide realms of Middle-earth or Valinor. Smiling gently, she looked up at Idril, then at her husband. "My beloved..." she said, as Turgon had a few minutes earlier. Then she let her body go completely limp, and Turgon knew her spirit was no longer housed in it.
"Mama?" Idril looked up at him questioningly, her blue eyes as bright as her golden hair.
Turgon, his heart breaking again, shook his head. "No, little one," he told her honestly. "There's only me now, and all the rest of our kin." Closing his arms tightly and protectively around her, he stood up and went to rejoin them.
"Elenwë is lost," Turgon said heavily. "As is young Lindë." He held up a hand, cradling the shivering, bright-haired little Idril in his other arm. "Here is my daughter. Let us speak no more of this."
Finrod and Galadriel, and Turgon's father Fingolfin and his other son and daughter, stood silently in front of the grieving lord. His brother Fingon, lips blue with cold like everyone else's, nodded sadly. Then all of them except Aredhel walked away, soberly returning to their other duties of trying to keep their people alive in this terrible crossing of the Ice.
Aredhel stepped close to her grieving brother and reached out to stroke the soft hair of the now-sleeping Idril. "Poor little dear," she said softly. "I'll do my best to help care for you now." Putting an arm around Turgon's shoulders, she looked into his eyes. "We have to survive," she said. "All of us. We must not let anyone else die."
We almost fulfilled Aredhel's not-quite-vow about that, Turgon thought, starting to draw his mind back from memory into the present. They had lost several others after that point, but most of the remaining Noldor had indeed survived the rest of the crossing.
And Idril is here. Turgon felt a joy in his heart that was enough to lessen the ancient sting of grief. I am glad that she and Aredhel have survived.
Author's Note: The character Lindë is made up by me. Her name is from the term 'lin-' (meaning 'sing') in the Silmarillion's name-components index, sometimes seen as 'lindë' (as in 'Ondolindë') in the text. I intend her name to mean "Song."
