(Appendix III, B)

) 1744 years before

Though he would have appeared unspeakably different to the subtler senses and perceptions, Sauron did not actually look all that different – in even in his black, spiked armor, even with something that resembled lava more than gold glistening on his finger, even with a wide, brazen smirk splitting open his once controlled, unassuming face.

He was simply no longer bothering to hide what he truly was, as an incarnate might chose to walk around in comfy slippers and a dressing gown in the comfort of his home, but all the best lies start from a grain of truth.

His touch was heat, his gaze was madness, his voice was terror – but it was still the same voice, as far as the mere sound was concerned – his dreadful face still retained the same features, the sight unchanged though its meaning had completely flipped, exuding fear and wrongness rather than comfort and beauty. To some extent, this was probably what he actually looked like, in the same way that Melian had been renowned as the most beautiful of her kind, some innate tendency in how he would manifest himself, a characteristic, personal imprint left on the matter beneath his command, like one's personal handwriting. He was as impeccably meticulous with his torments as he used to be with his work.

Who would have come to expect that the abomination that destroyed King Felagund really would have that sort of mousy, nondescript face? No wonder Almaren had fallen. He must have slipped beneath notice until the lamps came crashing down all around them.

But of course he had, of course he did – he didn't begin as this incarnation of heavy boots pressed down on people's faces, nothing ever did.

Celebrimbor of all people should have known this. He knew it very well.

Sometimes, his tormentor would even speak in that same old way that he used to, as if to demonstrate how he could slip the act on and off like a glove and yet feel nothing, mocking him in that flattering, nonthreatening tone even as his fingers burned his bare, haggard flesh like a metal brand.

He could no longer say how much time had passed. It was always dark here, and the beasts never slept. It was a meager collection compared to the large and varied bestiary of the first age, but it had been enough.

The only indication that remained of the passing of nights and days was the steady withering of his much-maltreated body, the dwindling of his flesh, the strength pouring out of the tried, muscular arms he used to have.

In the end, it did not matter. He would never leave this place -

Sauron had taken the most particular pleasure in breaking the gemsmith's prized hands.

Sometimes he began to look forward to his visits – at least they brought an end to the dreadful anticipation. He made a habit of showing up just as his captives were beginning to believe that the waiting was worse than the actual torture, and made sport of quickly proving them wrong.

But most of all, the distant traces of beauty that remained in his face and his voice were the only beautiful things in all this wretched hive, the only shining thing.

Even his hands mimicked the appearance of a caress as they left scorch marks on the prisoner's emaciated chest.

"Oh you poor, poor thing… Such a pathetic end for the illustrious house of Feanor. Such a disappointment… you know, your uncle Maedhros didn't scream half as much.

You know, your father might have been a little hasty when he named you Curufinwe the Third.

But oh right. You prefer Telperinquar. You like to be subtle when you brag about how great you are, don't you? Like that makes you sooo much better…

Then again, it's a bit of a tautology, isn't it? 'Curufinwe'. Tough act to follow, too.

You could never quite match up to the first one, now could you? And after you worked so, so hard and risked so, so much… You've wanted it so, so much, didn't you? Although you wouldn't admit it. You lot pride yourselves so much on your achievements, your ever-increasing knowledge… Namo probably thought he was doing you a favor by telling you that the best of you had already come and gone.

But hey! At least you've definitely outdone the second Curufinwe. You actually succeeded at taking over someone else's realm! Couldn't have done it better myself."

Burnt-out and thoroughly humiliated, the prisoner remained silent. But his tormentor would not be satisfied with that:

"Oh come on. Why do you keep resisting? What could you possibly have to gain?

Your armies have fallen. Your treasure is taken. I have left your cities in dust and returned your empire to the dirt. Look at yourself! Lord of nothing. All alone in this world after all your kin have departed from it. A pathetic afterglow, a pale shadow of the glory that once was, dreaming of its bygone days. The last of the Feanorians – and now you shall be the last forever.

Your time has ran out.

You will never see the sun ever again.

Never again shall you lay hand on anything that you love, never know happiness… Never shall you create again. unless you do me a little favor. Come on. Why not? After all, you've already helped me so, so much!"

He held the shining, tantalizing thing on his fingers into his prisoner's aching face. Chained to the wall as he was, the elf could not do much to recoil from the heat. So instead, he held firm where he was, bearing both insult and injury with gritted teeth. He could do little about the pained whimpers that escaped him.

"I mean it, you know. I couldn't have done this without you. You've been such a big help! Your whole family has been, with all your rebellion and your silly oaths and all the nifty little trinkets you made just so they could fall into our arms. All your little infighting did more for us than any orc or werewolf, you went clamoring about how you were going to be all independent and all you did was dance on the palm of our hands! But I suppose you must understand your old grandfather a little better now, after all this. Not everyone who is working for our side knows they are working for our side. And your father! Such a helpful fellow, how thoughtful of him to deliver Felagund right into our arms – and he dealt with Doriath, when none of ours could ever breach it!

And now, thanks to you and your clever hands, I shall bend all of Middle Earth to my will!

But I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

After all, we are alike, you and I. There's no place in the great, sanctimonious harmony of this world for either of us. And you must have known it. You always did, for all that you tried to hide it, to be a nice little good boy and play along, but deep inside, you know what you are.

You're one of ours. You've always been one of ours, since long before you were even conceived, before your father's father was even thought of.

Poor Manwe. He didn't want to accept that his nice little plan had gone awry, so he thought he could salvage things by bringing you lot to Valinor… as if he didn't know that your ancestors were formed from the tainted earth. You ate its tainted beasts and drank its tainted waters. They should have known that there would be someone like Miriel Serinde among you… that you should bring the taint with you, and none more so than you and all your wretched house!

Do you really think that Galadriel didn't know you for what you were? She was just humoring you out of pity. Because you try so, so hard. Because it's the wise and noble thing to do. But in your heart, you must have known that you disgust her. She's repulsed by you and your tainted, prideful nature. How could she not be? Every time she looks at you, it's like she is staring into the face of her brother's killer – she must be telling herself all the time how you can't help looking like her least favorite person in the world. That's all anyone is ever going to see while looking at you. What do you owe them? What have they ever done for you? Will any of them save them now? You know you will never belong to them, so you might as well take my hand..."

This was usually the point where your average prisoner would break down. Sauron had his 'no one will ever accept you' ploys down to an art – he'd already made it work on a Finwean prince once before and reaped the blueprints of Gondolin in return, so all in all he was fairly confident that he was going to get his prize.

He did not at all expect what happened next. It's not like he did not suspect that the Lord of Eregion would prove stubborn; He had come to know him very well over these past years, but he was still not prepared to see the chained elf breaking out in mad, mirthless laughter, straight into his face.

"Is that really what you think? That we're alike?"

Celebrimbor could have cried from the absurdity. "I suppose you might think that. But I know better. The one who killed Finrod is you. A shadow and a remnant, left all alone, that's you. You're the pitiful remnant. The one who's trying to match up to a bygone past, the one whose works will all come to naught, is you. You're nothing without your master, and he isn't going to come back no matter how much you dress like him. You're the one who knows that you can never match up to the previous Dark Lord. That's you. All this time… all this time I thought I needed you. I'll give you that. You made me an offer I couldn't refuse. But you did that because you were the one who needed me. The pitiful one is you. You can no longer make anything of your own! How futile that must feel, how meaningless..."

"Spoken boldly for a man in chains."

"Is it? What are you going to do, kill me? You'll do that anyways. You've said it yourself: I've nothing left to lose. The line of Miriel ends with me. But you know, there's more than one way to have a legacy. They still use our inventions. Grandfather's lamps, his letters… his work still shines up in the star for everyone to see. And as for mine, I shall consider myself more than satisfied if it proves to be your undoing. You say yu couldn't have done it without me – well, I couldn't have done it without you. But I've done it, though it cost me everything. I've done it. Not without sorrow, and only in some measure, but I did gain what I wanted… maybe not for myself, but for the world. For the high king. For Elrond. For Lady Galadriel. Now our realms shall endure long enough for you to be dealt with. I will not reap the fruits of it, but I have laid the groundwork all the same.

It will not be my hand that does it, it may not even be anyone I know. For all I know the one who will deal you the last blow will not even be born for a long, long time, but even so, when your end comes, I shall be avenged on you. I shall be avenged for Kind Felagund, and for all that you and your ilk have done to my family. Enjoy your time while it lasts, Thauron!"

"Quit spewing nonsense, you insect!"

Such were the Maia's words, but at least in some ways, the fallen elf lord must have guessed all too near: Thus far his ministrations had been careful and meticulous, calculated with diabolic precision to cause the most possible pain while keeping the release of death just out of reach, to damage everything but the receptacle that held the valuable information.

But he'd spent too long in that bond, too long welding the spirit that he was to this particular heap of matter – He'd gotten so used to it that his response could have passed for an instinct, an impulse that traveled along his limbs by itself before his rational thought could will it.

So absorbed was he in this momentary lapse of animal rage that he kicked his quarry once or twice more for good measure with the hard, spiky boots before he noticed his error – and once he did, he bent all his necromantic arts to hold the fleeing spirit in its leaky vessel, but it was too late, and Mandos had him.

The grandson of Feanor had escaped him at last, by the only road still open to it.

"Never mind", the dark lord told himself, arguing to his reflection in the steel that this didn't matter as a way to master the reins of his temper. He'd send for some of the orcs to skewer the blacksmith's discarded flesh – they'd get some use of it yet, possibly more use than there would have been in continuing to interrogate that insufferably stubborn elf.

It's not for nothing that the line of Miriel was known for its great obstinacy.

) 1742 years before

They were besieged in a narrow valley:

The troops of Gil-Galad, the survivors of Eregion, and whatever fractions of Durin's and Amdir's armies that had not managed to flee any other way.

Through the ages, the rushing river had cloven its way through the rocks, leaving a valley of manageable size with only mercifully few entrances for the defenders to clog with fortifications.

In any other circumstance it would have been accounted as a marvel, especially by beings so dedicated to beauty – it was exactly the sort of peaceful, enclosed place that would invite you to forget all about time, and even in these dire straits, its new inhabitants must have thought this a relief. No doubt that Elrond had considered this, along with many other things, when choosing this place to retreat to.

With the foe hot on their tails and a siege imminent, the disparate band of survivors had quickly coalesced around him – he was a cool head in a crisis, sober yet understanding in such a way that next to no one had a pretext to resent his orders. Though time was exceedingly short and the desperate group of diverse survivors ripe for strife or panic, he directed the fortification of the valley with care, caution and foresight.

It is likely that other comparisons prevailed in different circles, but favorable comparisons to the leadership of Gondolin were abundant among the older members of the Noldorin contingent which Tincfael largely stayed with, just another weathered refugee among many. Privately, she didn't find him nearly as thick-headed, sanctimonious or insufferable as any of his forebears, though she couldn't say which part of the family tree he might have picked this up from.

But for the most part, his resolute, judicious leadership was only relevant to her insofar as it was sure to keep her busy – with the need to erect as close as a fully functional stronghold as they could with the armies of Mordor hot in pursuit and expected to arrive any day, Tincfael's skills were in high demand, for there was no shortage of opportunities where a former apprentice of Feanor might prove highly useful, and she was greatful for each and every of them: The work kept her hands busy and her mind occupied, blissfully distracted from such a sight as she had witnessed and committed to the long and pristine memory of the Eldar.

Given the choice, she would have chosen not to look, but the scene robbed her of all wits and before she could think, the image had burned itself into her soul for all eternity.

She would of course have been aware that what she got to see was only the tip of the iceberg, merely evidence of the last leg of a much longer, torturous journey. In a way, it ought to be a relief if you thought about it rationally: Her son wasn't in there anymore when she got to see that opened, pierced lump of flesh impaled on Sauron's banners. He was finally free at long last – but it was plain to see what had preceded it. Never mind living through it – just the sight, thought and understanding of it felt like it could have soured the reminder of eternity.

She had grown him on her bloodstream, nurtured him on her breast and fed his growing soul and emergent mind with songs and stories… and there he was, decaying on a pike.

She would rather that she had never seen him again; Oh, that she had been left wondering, or with the luxury to curse herself for lacking the strength to face that sight.

"We are going to hold a prayer for him," Elrond once told her when neither of them could found anything much to occupy themselves with, addressing her from behind as she was working. She supposed that the ceremony would be thought to concern all survivors of Eregion, or at least such of them who chose to remember their ill-fated leader in a merciful light - though she could not say why the lord of this encampment should see the need to approach her in person. Formality, perhaps, or simply a result of having spent all his time far away in Gil-Galad's realm, knowing little enough of Eregion to suppose that she would have held some special honored position.

She wasn't granted it then, and she'd find no pleasure in seizing it now: "You go and pray, scion of Gondolin, son of Earendil the Blessed. Your father's line was beloved of the Lord of the Waters; One of your foremothers is said to have moved Mandos himself. Maybe he'll listen to you – He has assured us that all our house would be pursued by doom to the ends of the earth, but perhaps the powers shall have pity on my son on your behalf, like it was done for King Fingon once upon a time. I dare say my son did mighty well for getting stuck with parents such as us. He was too young to understand, when we dragged him with us- "

It was indiscernible if she really believed this; She had not believed it when she made the decisions that led her to this point, and only said it now in defense of what she deemed a more important legacy.

"As for me – I know better than to expect that what I scorned of my own free will in full knowledge will be handed back to be. I saw the powers in the flesh, in their own land, and I renounced them."

The high king's herald contemplated her somberly.

"Your son's fate was the consequence of his own choices, not yours, or his father's. And your knowledge back then might not have been as full as you thought it to be."

At this, she could not hide her exasperation: "Are you mocking me?!"

To her credit, she refrained from calling him a whipper-snapper. He could regard it with distance of course, it was only very rarely these days that he got to be the younger person in any interaction beyond his few remaining relatives. He was enough of a scholar to see this as something to observe, and calmly shook his head.

"What I mean to say is that one of the enemy's greatest strengths lies his efforts to convince any of us that we have no place in the great plan, as if we were not each of us a note in the great symphony. The ones that are hard to understand may even be some of the most integral to the composition, as long as we don't forget that all of us have our merit. I have found that to be one of his most insidious lies."

His words were all momentous and solemn, the sort that Tincfael had ever seen as invitation for mockery because she couldn't be bothered to think of respectable counterarguments that she already suspected did not exist.

"And let me guess – you mean to tell me that we've all fallen for them hook line and sinker..."

The 'we', as she phrased in in the original Sindarin, would not have included him. Sure, there ought to have been a teetsy bitsy bit of Finwe and of Anaire in him somewhere, but that would have constituted trace amounts at that point – His evening-dark hair was most certainly Melian's; Tincfael recalled the princess in the dungeons. An incomprehensible creature, to her: All that power and all she'd wanted was to live in peace and quiet in the woods with what for all intents and purposes a perfectly ordinary mortal, even he did once land an arrow on Sauron and made a miserable, humbled heap of someone that Tincfael had once considered an overwhelmingly dazzling presence.

On that point alone, he'd be perfectly justified in looking down his nose at her; She had known of the princess in the dungeons and said nothing, nay, she had aided and abetted the whole miserable affair, and for what? Given the choice, she too might have chosen the side that had not bloodied its hands first; How fortunate for him, and Galadriel, to get that choice.

But he would prove himself unlike the daughter of Finarfin in at least one respect, and what he ended up saying turned out all the more disarming from how little she expected it:

"It has happened to many of our kinsfolk."

It was a simple, sober statement really, above all heavy as befitting the times, but the point had been made. Maybe the difference was that he didn't see foolishness as something to be mercifully endured and generously forgiven, but as something that might actually happen to him, or those he would keep close about him, despite best intentions. At the time, she had no better explanation than to chalk it up to the Mannish side of his family: "...in the end, no amount of valor or sincerity alone can be insurance against folly and misjudgment. But likewise, the faults and the downturns do not entirely erase the beautiful things, or make them unimportant. I say your son's fate was the result of his actions, but the last of them was to defend his realm to the last. I cannot imagine that whatever judgment he is to receive would not take that into account."

"Permit me one question then. When you say that the valor and intention of fools will not count for nothing, does that include Turambar? He might be considered your kinsman of sorts, couldn't he?"

It showed just slightly, but he was probably a little perplexed by the question, not understanding the turn of her question – as for the Blacksword of Nargothrond, she would have known him somewhat better, and even then, not especially well.

Yet she explained herself, now that she had already given in to let herself be seized by some strange mood:

"Guess I've been thinking back to those days a lot, now that I know what it's like to lose everything. I always thought it couldn't happen to me. Even when Nargothrond fell, or when we got chased out of Himlad, it never felt to me like the sky was falling. Because the most important thing to me was me… which is probably exactly what you were expecting to hear from the old enemies of your family, I suppose, but I assure you, I was the only one. I always chose me, not jewels, no great and lofty goals, nor even loyalty and honor, and here I am, still remaining, doomed to endure as all my works and deed come to nothing…

And this is how it shall be for all of us, isn't it? There aren't that many of us left, and even fewer who would linger here for long now that Eregion is deserted. We shall not make its like. There shall be no return, no songs of revival – There isn't anyone left here of the same caliber as my son. Mightier perhaps, but none with his kind of vision – I know I wouldn't have it. He shall be remembered as the last of our great thinkers, the last to try something new, to be more than just a receptacle for the glorious memory of days past - "

She supposed that Elrond must have been surprised to see one of his elders realizing this just now.

Perhaps he had wisely made up his mind, accepted outright that he would one day follow after the hosts of the Vanyar from the moment he saw them depart; Perhaps he stayed behind only out of duty and foresight, some heroic devotion to the descendants of his brother and everyone else in this world he was born to or something noble like this, just as he stayed patient now, faced with a one-time enemy of his family daring to speak to him of her woes, as if she hadn't spent her early days in the cushy bliss beneath the trees, and left the joys of Valinor out of her own prideful choosing, bringing about his own chaotic upbringing in the ruins of a broken, warn-torn land, ripped from his mother's arms at a tender age and spending his formative years as a political prisoner who could not for the love of him comprehend why she'd found anything to complain with the life of a palace scribe's daughter in a land of plenty and splendor.

The prideful, truculent part of her was still tempted to counter that Elrond and his brother could not have been treated that bad from what she remembered of Maedhros and Maglor – they had always put honor before reason, and the manner in which they perished did not suggest much change in that regard – but that same part knew well that she would have damn well accused him if she had been in his shoes.

Of course, he did not do that: She was still a valuable soldier, after all, even one foolhardy enough to not make for the coast the moment the roads were secured, and perhaps he was even telling himself that he ought to have sympathy for a grieving widow who had just lost both her country and her only son.

He would have been well within his rights to take it personally and ask what someone like her could really know of sorrow, or if her woes were not wholly self-wrought – He might even have called it poetic justice that the only person she ever cared about should have met the same fate to which she abandoned Finrod Felagund.

From this he refrained, but whether it was hard for him or easy she would never know, since he made the deliberate choice to keep his own thoughts and feelings under wraps to do what a leader should do. Though he was half Man and looked almost entirely Sindarin, some part of him was still so insufferably nolofinwean. No, worse than that, for he said exactly what he thought she needed to hear, and insightful as he was, he guessed quite near to the truth:

"This may be so, but thanks to your efforts, you did retain your life. Perhaps it is time you decided what it is you wish to do with it."

) 1741 years, eleven months and 26 days before

He could not get her to join the prayer, and past a certain point, he did not keep trying to counterproductive degrees what he could already judge to be future.

He let her know, however, that he considered her as a kinswoman and that he had to few of those left to bother much with the old feuds in such dire straits as these – he said also that before long, everyone would understand it.

But though he left her standing guard by the river, he must then have gone to pray, for he was certainly heard.

Just a few days later, a lone rider approached the besieged outpost from the back, arriving from the shores on a shining white horse arrayed in jingling bells, so plainly visible and even eye-catching by himself as to make clear that he feared nothing of what stalked the roads.

He brought no greater force and certainly not the vanguard of Gil-Galad, but his appearance would be accounted a miracle as surely as if the Valar had deigned it fit to open up the heavens.

Tincfael herself unwittingly became witness to their power, for like many veterans of the first age, she stood gaping in awe as the shining figure approached – some, of course, went further.

There were unrestrained gasps of awe, hot tears and people falling to their knees in prayer, faces smoothed out with the serenity of ages suddenly breaking open in feeling.

The most ecstatic rejoicing came of course from the survivors of Gondolin, both those who had flocked to Eregion and the ones who had marched out under Elrond, a distant scion of their lord – but not all of them were; Tincfael found that many of her contemporaries cared precious little about the old allegiances, as if they were wisps of smoke and cloud compared to the strong, all-consuming sense of recognition in their unstained memories, and the younger elves among their number followed after their elders in this, wondering what could have them so moved.

Tincfael had of course known that the fallen returned from Mandos – that knowledge was never not there from her earliest days. But death was so rare then. She'd never known anybody who died – some great-aunt soandso maybe who was said to have had a mishap on the great journey, but that was long before her time – and then, in Beleriand, everyone who left was gone forever, at least from this side of the ocean…

At least until now.

Tincfael never exactly knew Glorfindel of Gondolin, at least not very well. He was once a loyal vassal of the house of Fingolfin, which meant that they had not really trafficked in the same social circles. She knew that he was from a brach house of the Principality of the Golden Flower, just about a few hundred years older than her, which by the standards of Valinor still made them part of roughly the same generation – as the story went, he'd caught High Prince Fingolfin's eye back when he was still a young, and was made a squire or gentleman in waiting to his son Turgon, who was then around the same age. It was easy to guess why: There had not been very many half-Vanyar living in Tirion back when the High Prince was born. In fact, he – and his older sister – were probably among the first handful, for the world was new and just about everything counted as a first. He must have wanted his children to meet and converse with others like themselves – and it was easy to see why he would have worried more about his more reserved second son than about his eldest who never had the slightest difficulty making friends anywhere he went.

In any case, Glorfindel of the Golden Flower went on to serve Turgon loyally for years without count, and even went on to introduce him to his cousin Elenwe. Thus bound to the royal house in kinship, it was not a mystery why he should follow after Turgon when he followed his father across the ice, even if he had never lost faith in the Valar; He certainly didn't have any part in the kinslaying.

Tincfael saw him last at Fingon's wedding, early into the siege of Angband, or at least she thinks so, at the time she didn't care very much to make note of him.

That was, of course, not long before Turgon disappeared with all his entourage and stayed shut up in Gondolin for longer than Tincfael herself had put up with Beleriand. Everything that came after, she had heard second hand from other sources: How Glorfindel had gone on to become one of Turgon's foremost lords, how he was greatly beloved with the populace, and of course, his renowned sacrifice, which she could only shake her head at, though she could not deny his indisputable valor even back then -

By all accounts, he had been a formidable warrior, a merry, likable fellow and a devotee of Tulkas -

But he had returned washed clean, purified and made whole, a transfigured distillation of himself, reforged anew as something tempered in a crucible, through his experiences, his sacrifice, and the grace he had received by virtue of his deeds.

He was flesh-made proof that the Valar still reigned in the west; The sentimental might even go so far as to say that he was proof that they were not forgotten.

They could've sent someone else, he said, but he'd volunteered because he had sworn to keep serving the descendants of Turgon, and he'd figured, lightly, purely, valiantly, that the ones out here would have much more need of his help.

When he walked by, it was hard to believe that his feet actually touched the ground; He had become almost alike to what she remembered the Maiar to be like, the ones that didn't slink around in the darkness beguiling hard-working inventors into their traps, a wholly surrendered instrument of fate, filled with purpose to the brim. Now they came, now they sent someone – and of course their messenger would be coming here now, and not to her poor, misguided son.

She'd derided and chided him for his genuine purpose; now she could only feel loathing for the ones who had taken advantage of it, and there was no place left even for envy.

He recognized her at once – Glorfindel did – he would have known only so much of what took place outside of Gondolin, heard it, maybe, but not so much felt it. He would remember her in turn as he'd last seen her before the burning of the ships and his crossing of the Helcaraxe, from the royal court. She bowed to him and his parents as a girl, staying back to let them pass first.

She'd loved how things changed once she married Curufin: Nearly everyone had to get out of her way then, and both the king and crown prince showered her with favor – or what passed for favor with Feanor. But he certainly took her side in disputes; Curufin would have seen any slight to a close affiliate as reflecting upon himself, so she could certainly count on his pride if nothing else; He could do no wrong in the eyes of his father, who in turn always had the king's ear.

There was the Queen, but to an extent, Tincfael had felt safe to disregard her as long as she counted herself under Feanor's protection; It pleased him ill if any of them were too deferential to her, especially since they didn't necessarily enjoy the blanket trust he extended only to his immediate descendants.

Now Glorfindel had never been affiliated with their house nor ever recognized Feanor as king; Even the decision to follow Fingolfin would have been something he'd consider an occasion where he listened to his loyalty over his good sense. But he was well-bred and big on honor and certainly would have counted them as members of the royal house at least; It was more out of habit that he acknowledged her with the slightest little bow, a mere default courtesy he felt magnanimous enough to extend even to her: "Greetings Princess."

His voice was perfectly equanimous as he said it, none too far from his usual amicable manner; It did not even appear to require a deliberate effort. But of course he wouldn't keep a grudge: He'd probably spoken to both Finrod and Elenwe, hale and whole on the western shores, and put down past events as the products of confused dark times when the black foe still walked this world.

He would have been cleansed of the grudges and sorrows of his old life;

She was still living her first, and she wished she'd stop reminding her of all the had lost – the glory, the purity, the innocence – even the naive brash kind she had possessed.

"Shush! Don't say anything unnecessary now! People will hear. You did hear enough to know that many here have reason to begrudge me, did you? Besides, I'm nobody's princess now. A dame maybe, if the House of the Ledger's titles meant anything here; Curufin and I were finished even before his death."

"Oh. That is unfortunate. You always seemed so well matched."

That was probably the nicest thing he could say about you without speaking a lie.

"I suppose that many unlikely things that should not have been transpired in those days of heartache and uncertainty..." There was at least a little tinge of melancholia bringing the slightest crease to his brow when he thought back to the elder days.

"Though it seems now that the days of shadow are not wholly past. I heard about your son. I'm sorry for your loss."

"Well thanks!"

This is as much as she managed to restrain herself before marching off in search of wood. If it were anyone else she might have admonished them not to breathe a word to anyone of her identity, but what was the point? She was hardly in a position to threaten a messenger of the Valar.

Galadriel knew, Elrond knew, it seems inconcievable that Gil-Galad would have been left unaware, it was bound to get out before long.

) 1741 years, eleven months and three weeks before

What Tincfael did not foresee was another unexpected visitor.

Or let us rephrase it: An expected visitor. Her presence in the rapidly solidifying makeshift stronghold was expected, but her visit to Tincfael in particulsar was certainly not.

Even so, that visitor's slender feet drew near to one of the temporary smithies that had been errected near the steeps walls of the valley, drawing near with hesitation as the one-time lady of Himlad went about her work, hammering dented armor back into shape – one could only hope that Elrond would have as much luck salvaging the poor fellows who had worn it.

The last thing one would expect in this haphazard place of grime and soot was a a slender main in fine glittering sandals and white pantaloons, topped off with a light, fluffy cloud of long silver curls akin to the crowns of flowering cherry-blossom trees in the brief triumphant moment of their flowering, if such trees made a habit of spangling their branches with ornaments glimmering like reflections of moonlight dancing in a bond, from the diadem in her hair to the chains on her arms.

With the eyes of a connoisseur, Tincfael could tell that the entire ensemble had been made as part of the same batch, perhaps by the same hand so as to fit together, perhaps extending to the pearl-studded mash that decorated part of her hair. Back in Valinor, it would have been wholly possible for a simple peasant to acquire this, if they happened to be friends with a silversmith, and even in Gondolin where the gems were plentiful, an ordinary citizen might have been able to afford this if they were prudent with their savings, but out here so far removed from the glory of old, this set was undoubtedly the mark of high status. The relative lack of scarcity and the lesser interest in the purely material by those who could outlast everything had meant that the Calaquendi had traditionally valued gems and precious metals more for their beauty and sentimental value than any notion of material wealth – these days the mortals often raised their eyebrows when they heard the tale of king Felagund bringing his jewels across the helcaraxe, and there was often a need to explain that he was not so much making his subjects haul his personal wealth so much as preserving a piece of his home for the eyes of all, including those forefathers of the Edain whose kindred had (by then) never come closer to glimpsing something of Valinor than when they beheld those artifacts -

But any artificer in Ennor would work with limited means, and hence they would save that kind of piece for the most important commissions, meaning that this girl was either their lover, or their liege – and the former seemed unlikely. Her eyes lacked the sated look of contentment of one already paired, and neither was she handling the bangles with any special sort of cherished caress – they were just clothes to her, though not of the sort that would have been that common in Gondolin or Tirion; The look was simpler, sleeker, not the gaudy baroque pieces typical of those places. The arrangement was closer to something you might have seen on the nobility of Alqualonde, or perhaps inspired by it, with just the slightest hint of Noldorin influence -

Thus, without looking her in the face, Tincfael felt confident that she had determined who she was just from the make of her Jewelry.

"I was aware that Galadriel had a daughter, but judging by her and that proud Sindarin prince of hers, I would have expected to be met with a more fearsome, frightening sort of creature."

"I admit I was born long after the wonders of the early world, during gentle times of peace… I'm not surprised that I must look a child to you who has seen the light that was before the Sun and Moon..."

"Nah. We had plenty of soft people in the days of old; It's just that this place ate them alive. Like your cousin Orodreth!"

"The second king of Nargothrond? I heard that he was a loremaster and a lover of the mountains, and that he ruled not too unwisely for a king who looks first to protect his people."

The silver girl was not defensive, but neither was she daunted. Her soft, gentle voice made her points with quiet resolve.

"You remind me of him a bit. And his daughter. Or maybe it's Earwen your foremother that I keep thinking of. You look just like her."

"I wouldn't know. All of them were long gone before my time. They are just stories to me, sad stories told to me by my parents."

"Then have they also told you what I did with your Uncle Finrod, or what my husband did with your cousin Nimloth? I can't imagine that your father would neglect to mention that one."

That, at last, tested the girl's composure enough for her to sigh.

"Why are you like this?"

"Call it a kinslayer's reasoning, but I'd rather not give your mother the impression that I misled you in any way. She's much, much mightier than I, and well-beloved with her following. Did she not warn you about me?"

"My mother taught me above all to be reasonable, and to never dismiss the worth of value of anything or anyone out of hand out of prior judgment. But if I have a say in it, she will have no impression about this all, for she does not know that I am here. I am a woman grown, and I came here on no one's accord but my own."

This, at last, caught Tincfael's interest enough for her to put down her tools and look at her guest.

"Oh? And why might that be?"

"Well, I am certainly not here to further old grudges about things that took place before my birth. But from what you've just said, what I have heard of you must be right..."

"And what would that be?"

"That you're Celebrimbor's mother."

"You say that as if you are acquainted." For would it not be more succinct to cut out the middleman and accuse her directly of her one-time connection with Curufin the Crafty? If accusation was at all the purpose of the glittering maiden standing in the threshold.

"Is that so strange? He was akin to me."

"Distantly."

"Not so distant as Cirdan of the havens or Oropher of Greenwood."

"Yet not so close as the High King."

"Still they were all that is left to me. I struggled to believe it at times, that I once used to have such a big family, all these aunts and uncles and the many cousins that I never met. Only a small handful of kin has remained to me, distant kin maybe, but all the more treasured…. And yet many of them live far away. Celebrimbor was the closest to us, back when we still lived in Eregion. I saw him many times. He told me many things. We did not part on the best of terms, though I could tell that he too was grieved about it..."

"Well you know how he is! Never listens to reason. It's not like he got that from my side of the family..." That retort began out of old practiced habit, but took on grief and bitterness the more that she realized what she was saying.

"I thought that we might talk about him. I've been wanting to."

"To speak with me of all people?"

"To speak with someone who knew him, at least, and not just as a smith, or as a lord. I talked to Lord Elrond about it, and he said it might be good for the both of us. He said you might just be defiant, but I- I don't know why I even took a chance on you."

"That would be because Elrond said so, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, don't you go running your mouth about him after he gave you sanctuary. He's thinking of you and wants the best for you even after all that you and your lot did to his family! He always thinks first of what's best for everyone, no matter his own sorrow! He's every bit as a broken up about what happened with Celebrimbor as I, and still he's trying his best to comfort me, and even the likes of you! Honestly, it's about time that someone started thinking of him for a change."

"He made an impression on you, didn't he?"

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Nothing. You know what? You're probably right. Alright. Let's talk. You can sit down if you don't mind using the firewood for a bench, I'm probably overdue for a break anyways...Let us talk about Celebrimbor… what was it again?"

"Celebrian."

"My pleasure."

They spoke many hours, recalling countless incidents up and down the history of the world. Tincfael spoke much of the early world, of her son's youth and her acquaintance with many of Celebrian's long-lost relatives – she often had to admit that she would not necessarily know any of them all that well just because she had been alive at the same time, and that they had often been at odds, but even the snippets and morsels of history that she could offer were soaked up like precious treasures. There was still very much to tell; naturally she found it more conductive to the purpose of this dialogue to focus on the nicer memories, those times before the bitter end when the strife between the princes were near asleep; The more she told, the more she managed to dig up of the bliss of Aman, of various festivals and meetings during the siege, of Aegnor and Angrod who held the nearby territories, and of the greater part of their time in Nargothrond before Beren turned up on its doorstep, of harmless, harmonious everyday occurrences that featured Orodreth, Finduilas and Finrod – Celebrian particularly loved hearing about him; He was an established favorite of hers from all the tales she'd heard from Celebrimbor and her parents. In turn, Celebrian filled her in on the later years of her son's life, when he already lived in Eregion, but before Tincfael herself had arrived there; The tales painted a fond, adoring picture of the master smith as a mature person fully come into his own power, of his once warm friendship with Celebrian's parents and how much she had once loved his visits as a girl, since he told the most interesting stories and brought the most intriguing gifts. For both of them, a wider understanding of him came together like a mosaic, and by the end of it, neither of them could really comprehend why they had not stayed in those precious blissful days. It had seemed not big thing then, to betray Finrod; Tincfael had been focussed on what they might gain if her husband's scheme succeeded. They never had a sense that they were throwing anything away – in her pride, she had even thought of Finrod's hospitality as a shameful insult, but looking back from where she was now, telling her tale to a strange girl in this soot-stained hut, she could no longer say what was so bad about being king Felagund's guest.

"I… regret now that things had to turn out the way they did-" she said, and to her surprise, she found herself meaning it to a degree. It was only half an apology, but Celebrian seemed to know better than to expect more. Instead, her thoughts were somewhere else, and there was another question bubbling to the surface of her thoughts, and the closer she came to having to confront it, the more the grip of her fingers tightened on the fabric of her white garments:

"I suppose you must have lived through many dark times such as these."

"I did, but I'm not the one you should be asking for advice here."

"My parents would just reassure me and point me to the path of wisdom."

"Well, I ran."

"Many others fled."

"Yes. Parents with small children, civilians who had never held a sword. It wasn't even that I was afraid for my life really. You can probably tell from your time in Eregion that cowardice is not a common vice among our people. I just didn't care to fight; I saw nothing worth fighting for."

"And now? Are you planning to run once again?"

"Nah. What would be the point of that? I could hardly conquer a kingdom all by myself, and I've had it with the aimless wandering. I have some business to settle with Sauron."

"This should please both Lord Elrond and my mother. They say every sword will count."

Speaking of swords: Though the one she carried and took with her into battle was made by her son, the "better one" he'd boasted he could make, one of the few things that Tincfael had brought with her out of the wrack of Eregion had come with her all the way from Himlad in lost Beleriand under the sea.

She just didn't think to throw it away, or that's what she would say; She hadn't bothered to unwrap it before this day; But later on that same eve, long after Galadriel's daughter had gone, she would sit far up on the rocky walls of the Valley holding the ornate sheath in her hands.

"I think I'm coming to understand a little bit of your damned foolish madness," she said to its maker – and then leaned back and sighed about her own predictable patterns.

"I shouldn't have spoken to you like that, even if I was going to leave. I went out of my way to humiliate you. I needed to goad you into being cruel so I could feel justified doing the same to you. Glorfindel's right, you know, we used to be pretty well matched – We really, truly deserved each other…. The pitiful part, of course, is that our son didn't…

I wish you'd been there with us, you know? When we went to see the mansions of the dwarves. Or during the work we did in Eregion. We didn't even need to up and leave – we had many, many years. We could just have gone and then went back for your ever-so precious Silmarils!"

She stopped herself right as she felt herself slip back into her old caustic ways, and made just one more observation, quietly and somberly:

"If that was all the time the three of us were going to get here, I wish we'd been better to each other..."

) 1740 years before

In the end it was the Numeroans that bailed them out, and with their help, the forces of Sauron were driven back for good.

But it was just as Tincfael had feared: Too many had died, and too many more took to the sea in response to the horrors they had witnessed and the hope they had lost.

Doubtless, the remaining great lords and ladies of the Eldar must have held council concerning future courses of action, and in the end it was decided that Eregion would be abandoned; Instead, the High Kind chose to place his easternmost outpost right here, in this besieged valley, where a fortification had already conveniently coalesced under the rule of Elrond his kinsman.

It was already beginning to be called 'Imladris' - and it's warriors were a disparate folk, made up of the mottled remains of many other groups that would have been at each other's throats throughout the First Age.

Tincfael Steel-Gleam was not even the strangest of its knights. There were of course objections, but they were swiftly dispelled by calls to unity and appeals to the need to leave old grudges behind.

Before her departure back to Lorien, Galadriel herself had opined that she would probably be useful. Newly humbled as she was, Tincfael didn't take it as an insult; if there was one thing she knew, it was how to make herself useful. She was often sent out on diplomatic missions to dwarvish territories or as a discrete spy to faraway lands; She was quite experienced, she had traveled far and wide in her youth back in the Blessed Realm and faced many trials in drowned Beleriand; and she could be trusted not to take any unnecessary risks, which Elrond certainly appreciated; And since he made such a point of tolerating her presence, it was pretty hard not to feel grateful toward him, or loyal even.

If her younger self could see her, she'd probably never get done laughing.

But perhaps it was Tincfael who would get the last laugh:

In the end her journeys brought her further inland than anyone else in her house. In the end she saw many curious things and witnessed many wonders, though her role in them be only small and incidental, which was not necessarily the same thing as futile. Still she was but another helping hand in the proceedings of history; her days in the ranks of its movers and shakers were over.

) 1190 years before

When the political situation in Numenor turned sour, few of them expected their embargo on elvish travelers from either side of the oceans to last. It was thought to be a temporary impasse that might be remedied with the next mortal king, not the exact moment of severance when they should forever be cut off from their kin beyond the sea; Certainly no one back them would have considered that the enemy should make his great comeback from the shores of Numenor.

) 640 years before

Even as she passed by countless seasons on her journeys, Tincfael was not wholly untouched by the passage of time. It was a slow movement for her of course, proportional to the passing of the world's lifespan as a whole, but it was precisely because she often went out from Imladris to see to various errands that she could not fail to notice the change in the wind; Whatever equipment she took with her to the outside world needed to be replaced ever faster; Tools and clothes of identical make that once would have lasted her centuries began to need replacing after mere decades; A kingdom she would have encountered on one visit would be reduced to ruins on the next.

At first she had declined the invitations to any ceremonies, services and performances in Elrond's Hall of Fire, even rolled her eyes at the suggestion.

Now, she found that she could not often resist the lure of its comforts, particularly whenever she would return from a longer journey. Usually, she would find herself a quiet corner to sit in, wrap herself in her cloak, close her eyes and take part in the endless songs of recitations of days gone by; Some here lamented the glory of old that they had never gotten to see; Others, like her, lamented all that which had been but could never be again – the more of time passed by, the more past there would be, and the more of its contents would become irretrievably lost, and the more did those who still knew of it come together to lament it.

Perhaps they would know that the end of days had come when the hours of song and lamentation had filled out all hours of the day.

) 122 years before

The changing of the world was felt keenly by those bound to its nature and its life. It was as if you'd taken all the small changes over the past thousands of years all rolled into one, except still surpassing that.

It was all substances of the earth answering naturally to a single bronze-voiced order from their makers' maker; It was a shock wave of concentrated time, passing through everything but herself, popping her from the picture frame of the world, leaving her ever so slightly out of sync with the substance of this changed world, an all new world, in which she was a relic of the old one.

It was right then, after uncounted years of living in it, that she first witnessed first hand proof of this world's creator. She did not have to be looking at the sea to see it; The very sky was crooked; The very earth curved away in the distance towards the horizon.

She felt it; She could not not feel it.

The change was starting, nauseating; For a moment, she no longer knew up from down.

Even in a cynical mind like hers there was little room for doubt; The experience itself was self-evident; The recognition was the most natural thing in the world, seeing as she was one of His special creatures.

He was out there; He was listening -

Poor, poor Curufin. Poor Celegorm. Poor Maedhros. He probably would have released them, if they'd had faith enough to ask. But where would they take it from, after lives like theirs? Tincfael knew that just mere moments ago, she would not have counted on the creator's mercy herself.

Celebrimbor had of course told her what he heard from her sister-in-law, about how his father's demise had gone and everyone else's;

As it would seem, the late Lady of Thargelion had been proved the wisest of them all.

Tincfael had to admit some newfound respect for her in that moment, even if she had long since grown embarrassed of having resented her as she did in those last days.

Not even at the lowest dephts of her spite and bitterness had she ever hoped that her husband would succeed at cursing himself to the void – now, she felt she could take comfort in the conclusion that he was probably just in Mandos.

She'd have to count on that thought to sustain her like a morsel of lembas on the way;

Because be this a new world or the old, Sauron was still in it, and she still had unfinished business.

) Ten years before

After subjecting her soldiers to a strict drill, she found herself sitting at a campfire with the captain of the Numeroan Squadron that had been placed under her command.

Her mortal counterpart was a grim, weatherworn soldier with streaks of grey in her hair.

With little more than some disdant, casual interest, Tincfael asked her for her name.

"It's Zimraphel."

"-excuse me, Zimraphel?"

"My parents named me after the queen."

"I'm aware that some mortals tend to take their names from famous figures of the past, it just strikes me as a bit of a curious choice."

"Wasn't there some ancient queen of your people by that name? Though I suppose that would be 'Miriel' in your speech. She might even be an ancestor of ours, seeing as we are said to be descended from one of your ancient kings, at least the noble families that share blood with the royal house."

"Now, I've heard that your previous king was quite enamored with the old tales, so I doubt that this was any more than an honest oversight, but he really ought to have looked into this more. There was indeed a Queen Miriel in the days of yore, but she was met with an unfortunate fate, and her bloodline has long since ceased. If you were related to anyone, it would be the second Queen, the Lady Indis. Your kings would be descended from her son Fingolfin, same as ours – though I don't suppose there was much family resemblance left by the end."

"Isn't that right!" the mortal woman's frustration was quite apparently. Clearly she had many thoughts and feelings on the subject. She looked just about ready to knock something over and watch it crumble in exquisite detail.

"I'm just glad that I wasn't a boy, I don't think anyone shall be naming their sons 'Pharazon' for a good while! And now they are gone! Gone to the bottom of the ocean, complete with my husband, my sisters, and all I have ever known! I he wanted the gods to smite him so badly, he could have gone on his own without needing to drag the whole rest of the kingdom with him!"

The Numeroan soldier threw another log into the fire, barely restraining her rage so that it might content itself with the sight of the dry wood going up on flames.

"I understand why it happened, though. Many of the peoples of this land might still think our punishment much too light. For much too long now has our flag brought tyranny to their shores and heralded the stealing of their children so that they might die upon the altars of the black foe. This judgement has been ages overdue…. But still. I'm still struggling to wrap my mind around how EVERY. THING. IS GONE!"

Moving away from the fire, Commander Zimraphel sat back with her arms crossed, though her posture as a whole appeared to deflate somewhat despite her still simmering rage.

"Not that you'd probably understand much about loss, being immortal and all. I imagine that our desperate ravings must be quite confusing to you."

"Confusing?" Tincfael found the very sugesstion to be laughable. "If anything, I'd find it curious that you would think so. I suppose you might think so, with your gaze so fucussed on the little strip of time that you have lived through… but would you not have studied some old texts as a follower of Elendil? Is Beleriand not buried under the waves as well? It sank with the bones of my husband; I don't even know if he ever had a grave. And my only son – the only family I had left – died in torment after the sack of Eregion. Deceived by the devices of Sauron – same as yours. Only that Sauron is proving himself to have some strange sense of humor… once, he made us believe that we should come to the east. That we should fear your kind and covet the gifts you should receive – we, too, were deceived. And now he's convinced the lot of you that you ought to be raiding Valinor! He must be laughing at us up there in his tower..."

"...you're a mother."

The mortal's voice was barely more than a breath; Tincfael would never understand how she'd gone from stern seriousness to bare astonishment, but as for the Commander, she was quite overwhelmed with the stunning realization that a creature older than the moon could have anything in common with her. She'd known, or course, in theory, that the Elder Children multiplied roughly after the same manner, but she'd never supposed that they'd feel the same weight behind it.

Her once sharp eyes were much softened.

"I left my own son with my best friend, who stayed back with her own children. I'm not certain if I shall see him again, not when the enemy seems so intent on wiping us all of the map. I'm supposedly here so that my son might get to live in a world free of the shadow, but I with every mile I feel like I'm betraying him – that I'm going to die out here in the sand, never to return, and leave him all alone. Then he shall be the last of my kin, just as you are the last of yours..."

"No. He wont." The Elf spoke with a suddenness that surprised even her. Zimraphel, though hardened in many battles, certainly couldn't help the twince of fear when Tincfael turned her shining eyes on her and gripped her by the shoulders.

"You have to go back for him. In this world. Who know how long you'll need to find him in the next! You have to make it back to him. I will do what I can to ensure it."

) Three days before

Tincfael had not expected to wake up in truth, much less where she could hear and smell the scenery of a living, sun-drenched garden;

The last she recalled was the sun-drenched waste of Mordor;

But she could have recognized her current surroundings even if she had never known the walls; She had much time to grow familiar with the voices of the birds and the symphonic scents of the trees, even that subtle buzz of song and force rustling around at the edge of even her perception.

"Excuse me, but… what on Arda just happened…?!"

"You're awake."

It was, however, a bit surprising that Lord Elrond would have chosen to tend to her in person – or maybe not so surprising at all, if she could recall nothing of the entire return trip. She hadn't thought that her injuries had been that severe, but the last she recalled was this inexplicable sense of cold…

"Try not to think about it," he said, as if he'd glimpsed something of what was going on in her mind, be it from her face or some subtler perception, "the experience of it is little less venomous than the poison itself."

"So it was that Nazgul, wasn't it? I just knew there was something shady about its weapon…. And you know the best part? I'm pretty certain that I was the one who made that particular ring."

"It's a possibility."

"No, it's more than that; Believe me, I can tell."

It was then that it occurred to her to sit up, but at that point it was a motion of habit in mid-conversation and not prudently considered. She managed to roll onto her site and prop herself up by her elbow, but the moment she put ought of her weight on it, she came to regret it; Her other hand flew to her chest and shoulder, which were mercifully bandaged, but even then there was the clear implication that she'd been hastily cut out of her clothing, and likely the armor as well.

Through gritted teeth, she asked to know about the battle.

"You were very fortunate that I was able to see you within the hour."

It was only now that she was able to get a good look at him; She wasn't sure how far his mortal blood would add to it but though he maintained a stoic, somber expression, he looked exceedingly drained and exhausted, as if he had labored on a great very many patients today, not all of which had gone the way that he wanted. "I take it not everyone was so fortunate?"

"...Elendil has been slain, as was one of his sons – and I fear that I failed to preserve the other from a great folly. And we have lost the High King. He died facing the enemy himself; It was because of his sacrifice that we had any chance to strike at him."

"Then you mean-"

"He is gone. For now, at least."

Tincfael required a moment to process all that. Squinting hard, she got herself into a sitting position which allowed her to take all the weight off her injured shoulder, allowing her to rest somewhat free of pain; Only when she had caught her breath did she venture an observation:

"Alas for the noble house of Fingolfin! His forefathers must all be very proud of him."

In her heart she could not help but feel a distinct sting of bitterness at how Gil-Galad had still managed to outlive her unfortunate son by more than half an age.

"Am I speaking to the next high king of the Noldor then? Or has Galadriel made a claim?"

"Over what? There would hardly be a point. Too many have been lost or gone over the sea. Let Gil-Galad be remembered as the last.

Speaking of which: I have sealed your wound for the time being, but to cleanse it entirely is beyond even my power. To remove it wholly might require a visit to the fountains of Este. I do not know how long it will hold – you might have decades. Perhaps even longer, since you were nurtured beneath the ancient light that was. But if you took a sudden turn for the worse far from here and came to Mandos, you would undoubtedly be bidden to stay a long time given the history of your deeds, and it would be long indeed before you should see your son again. If you wish him to believe in your repentance, you could begin by making him a priority – to be frank, I suggest strongly that you should sail."

"So it's come to that already, eh?"

She always thought that this conclusion would feel like utmost humiliation – but in the end, it was almost a relief, like being relieved at the end of a long night's watch.

"Alright milord. I shall once again take your advice. Grant me just one thing. Let me behold my son's work one last time."

That did give him pause – it had been very, very long since she'd seen him caught off guard.

"Oh don't look at me like that. It was not too hard to work out, seeing as I was the one to deliver it. Your secret is safe with me; and it's right about to follow me across the sea. All I ask is one glimpse."

) Three days and half an hour before

"By the way..." she asked in passing, when she was finished dressing herself and was just about ready to step out of the room. "What about that Numeroan woman… the one who fought beside me?"

"She lives. In fact, she had settled not too far from here with her child. I understand that you saved her life during the strife?"

"If she says so… just have my leftover things sent to her, alright? The ones that won't fit on the boat – my swords included. I don't suppose that I'll have much need of them where I'm going. Let her make a family heirloom of them or something… And one more thing. Two things. Thank you, and good luck – I have a feeling you're going to need it."

) Several Days after

At last, she was borne by the waves far above the strange crooked paths of this world, up to the golden land of her birth, or whatever might have become of it, hanging up there in the sky like some frozen mirage;

In the end, her son was too eager for news of the world below to bother with any old grudges, and glad enough to see her that he went back on his word, for all that he was perhaps less adamant about it to begin with than some of his kin: Despite his one-time protestations to the contrary, he did not hesitate to have her elevated to the rank of Queen Mother; And conversely, despite all the folly of her younger days, it did not even occur to her to complain that she wasn't called 'high' queen instead.

It was just as well; The steadiness and peace of their later days would have been wasted on the rash, begrudging lady who set out here long ago.