Chapter One – Benevolent Lies
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If I stayed beside you, love would lead me, not wisdom ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Children of Húrin
On the shores, some half mile out of Mithlond. Gandalf waited with a grey cloaked Cirdan, who stood holding a lamp aloft, eyes scanning the waterline intently.
They had been there many hours. The sun now met the water on the horizon and the stars were release for their time in the sky.
Cirdan had not questioned Gandalf when the Istari arrived and requested assistance, offering little information except that they needed to go alone to a certain stretch of beach and wait.
Though Gandalf said little, Cirdan was no fool, and memories of another such night when his guards had found a revivified and very naked Glorfindel on Gondolin washed up on his shores were firm in his mind as he scanned the rolling surf for the shape of body in the water.
The water was choppy, still shifting in colour from the faint red of the fading sunset to navy and silver as night set in. Cirdan was calm, but he could see a growing impatience taking root in Gandalf, marked by the way his hands were clenched around his staff and the tension in the way he held himself as he stood unnaturally still. Even his stillness betrayed him when he switched to restless pacing, as he puffed his pipe with short, sharp exhales of smoke that perfumed the air as he walked.
Gandalf was worried, and that worry was building with each fruitless hour that passed.
Cirdan saw it first. A pale shaped, deposit by the surf face down on the sand. One arm flung wide floated in the water with tangled hair which was a difficult to distinguish colour under the moonlight.
Touching Gandalf's arm, Cirdan pointed and they both broke into run, splashing into the surf to retrieve the helpless elf as the water buffet the body back and forth in macabrely rhythmical dance like movements.
Cirdan held the lamp as Gandalf reached down, scoping the small pale body into his arms before wrapping it up in dark blue cloak he brought with him for this very purpose much like a baby might be swaddled. He retreated out of surf, across the sand, to where the sharper dune grass gave way to a softer green mat of lush growth under the cover of the trees. Cirdan came to his knees beside where Gandalf knelt.
With gentle hands, Gandalf turned the body in his arms so he could move back the straggled hair that obscured the features lit by the amber light from the lamp. Strands of red hair where brushed back to reveal a pale face and elfin ears. Her eyes remained closed, dark lashed lids closed across eyes that were shadowed below with dark circles that spoke of sickness or exhaustion.
Cirdan sucked in a deep breath. She was an elfling, no older thirty or thirty five years, the equivalent of human child of perhaps twelve years old.
"She is alive?"
"Thank, Eru, yes." Gandalf said, a palpable sense of relief filling his voice.
She spasmed in Gandalf's arms. Wracking coughs shuddering through her thin body, as Gandalf rolled her over so her face was to the side, slapping her none to gently on the back as water dribbled from her mouth with each cough.
"We need to get her inside, clean and warmed up." Cirdan said quietly.
Gandalf nodded, rising to his feet with the elfling in his arms and striding after Cirdan as they headed to an empty property on the outskirts of Cirdan's estate where a fire had already been left lit and provision made ready to Gandalf's prior request.
"Are you sure we should not take her to the main house? She likely needs a healer."
"No!" Gandalf's response was sharp, as they approached the small, stone cottage.
Cirdan held the door open as Gandalf entered and walked over to put the child down on a wooden settle by the halo of light provided by the fire. He seemed to think better of it, instead laying her down on the rag rug in front of the fire.
"She is only a child, Gandalf, she should be seen by a healer." Cirdan pressed, throwing more logs onto the fire and prodding the flames into vigorous activity with a poker to increase the warmth in the room.
"I know you are concerned, but it is for the best. I can't risk discovery. I know you trust your household, but no one must know of this child's return to these lands."
"Who is she? Who are her kin?"
"What you don't know you can't tell of, please don't press me on this, mellon." Gandalf pointed to a bundle in the corner of the room. "There are clothes and towels there. A kettle on the fire ready warmed. I need to get her clean, dressed and ready to leave."
"Leave? She is barely alive, you can't propose to travel with an elfling in such a fragile state." Cirdan argued, gathering the items requested none the less, placing them within reach of Gandalf and the shivering, unconscious elfling by his knees.
"I can, and I must. Don't question me on this. If there was any other choice, I would pursue it." Gandalf said, reaching for a bowl of water and the kettle, adding hot water to the cold, and dipping soap and a cloth into both.
Thus, began the careful process of washing and warming the child. Gandalf tried to provide as much dignity as possible by shifting her limbs so they were accessible to by wiped, chaffed to encourage circulation and dried while keeping her as covered as possible.
Gandalf was unfailingly gentle but there was urgency to the way he tended the small ellith that left Cirdan with a sense Gandalf was in some way running out of time.
Between the two of them, the child was dressed in warm clothes for travel; tunic, leggings, long boots and over coat over with an additional fur linked cloak. She was then wrapped in an additional blanket and propped up on cushions from a nearby bed to ease her breathing.
Cirdan remained by the child as Gandalf stood to warm a pan of some sort of broth over the fire and retrieved a flask from his pack.
Cirdan studied the child. She seemed better, the shivering had ceased and there was some faint signs of colour returning to her face which suggested she was warming up successfully. As he watched, a shudder run through the child, followed by several deeper shorter breaths. Her eyelids rose slowly, once, then twice to reveal dazed, pale grey irises to which wakefulness seemed slow to return.
Cirdan was filled with the sense of something familiar about her features, her eyes in particular, but could not quite place the thought with a name.
When she seemed to finally retrieve a sense of placement and awareness of the two faces lean over her prone body, she flinched, breath hitching in stress.
"Be at peace, child, you are safe." Gandalf said gently, a tentative hand pressed to her shoulder as she tried to sit. When she did not flinch again from his touch, he moved his hold to behind her neck, offering support as she was lifted to rest against his arm.
"Drink, child."
Helping her release her hands from the blanket, Gandalf pressed the flask to hands, then guided it to her mouth, supporting her hands as they shook against the metal container, causing the contents to slosh around inside audibly as it spilt. Cirdan smelt the Miruvor as the drops hit the blanket.
She managed two mouthfuls before coughing made her choke on the drink, and Gandalf withdrew the flask. He pressed a mug of the broth into her hands but she refused, her face tightening as though it made her feel nauseous.
The broth was replaced with a mug of water, which she accepted willingly, again managing a few mouthfuls before the coughing began again and she pushed the mug away.
"What do you remember, child?"
"What do you mean?" She said, features settling into a frown, as though confused, then her breathing hitched as anxiety set in.
Her gaze shifted taking in the room and then back to the faces of the Cirdan and Gandalf.
"I can't… I don't… Where am I? My naneth, where is she?" she gasped.
"Peace, child peace. You must slow your breathing. Your naneth is safe, she was found in time."
Profound relief seemed to wash over her expression, but tears yet sprung to her arresting eyes. Large, wide set, and a soft storm grey in colour with a ring of black around the iris, something about them was so familiar to Cirdan but the memory remained elusive.
Frustration began to rise in Cirdan, the whole situation was wrong. The elfling should be with her parents, for it was clear that at least one was living, not hidden away in a remote cottage with strangers.
"You must slow you breathing." Gandalf counselled, gather her more securely against his chest so she was more upright, and wrapping the blanket around her thin shoulders again. "And your thoughts. You know me, let the memory settle. All will become clear."
"Mithrandir?"
"Good, child, yes. Very good. Remember, breathing, slowly now, in and out, listen to my voice."
"What is your name, penneth?" Cirdan asked, unwilling, suddenly, to entertain Gandalf's need for secrecy, despite the look of condemnation on Gandalf's face, clearly indication that his questions were not welcome.
Panic once again flooded her small features, as tears started coming faster.
"I don't know…" she cried. "I try to say it, but the word is not there to say. I remember a cave… and fear… and falling, but at the same time a road, hard under my back, and water. He hit me."
Her breathing was once again anxious gasps and Cirdan was not sure causing such pain to one so young had been worth the question. Most of what she said made no sense at all.
Gandalf seemed to understand more, despite the words gasped out around her heaving breathes.
"I'm sorry, young one, I did not mean to cause you distress." Cirdan said, "You are safe, I promise. As Mithrandir said, you must slow your breathing and find calm."
"Come, child, listen to my voice. Slowly now, in and out, steady and slow." Gandalf said as Cirdan rose to stand, thinking to step away from the child to help her calm by providing some distance in case she was feeling crowded.
Her small hand grabbed for his hand, and he stilled.
"Thala." she gasped. "My name is Thala… I think, but that does not feel right–" she pressed her hand against her chest, rubbing it as though it hurt "–like I have two names…two sets of memories. How can that be?"
Her eyes moved from Gandalf's carefully neutral expression to Cirdan's more encouraging one.
"I do not know, penneth. Two names?" Cirdan coxed, kneeling by her side again.
"Enough, Cirdan!" Gandalf snapped, and she flinched at the force in his voice.
"Thala… Thalaúrel… my name is Thalaúrel Elrondiel." she said, eyes lifting to Cirdan's as though seeking comfort and his confirmation.
"You are Lord Elrond's youngest daughter." Cirdan said, shocked. He turned to Gandalf, in anger. "What game are you orchestrating, Mithrandir?"
"A cave… and falling…and water." She gasped, arching against Gandalf's hold, her face flooded with tears. "I want my, ada!"
Gandalf's grip shifted, his hand coming to her forehead as he whispered words into her ear, an incantation in Quenya, then the child went limp in his grasp and he lowered her gently back to the pillows and stood.
"Her family must be informed, Gandalf. What do you hope to achieve with this secrecy?"
"To stop a portent coming to pass, that this child herself foresaw before she had reached her twentieth begetting year. The attack on the road that took her from this world was no random orc skirmish. She is being hunted for her abilities."
"Yet the Valar sent her back. Did she pass?"
"I do not know, perhaps, or she was hidden, unintentionally. A clash of powers as her father and grandmother and I sought to stop her fall. Or the Valar intervened, I know not which. I only know that she was removed from this world, and returned by the same force."
"You cannot hide this from Elrond. Galadriel will know."
"It is the Lady Galadriel that sent me on this errand of secrecy, and her father on a one of disappointment."
"Elrond. That's why you have such a sense of urgency about you."
"He will be here soon and she must be hidden. You must help me with this."
"You expect me to lie to her father?"
"There is no other choice, Sauron watches and waits. She must be hidden."
"Leave her here, with my people, Gandalf. She will be protected until her father can arrange safe passage."
"There is no safety for this child. She cannot return to her home, or remain in any other elven realm. She foresaw all."
"What?"
"The destruction of Lothlorien and Imladris by fire. Her kin fighting to protect her, to the last. They fail."
"What power does this poor child have that would make her such a threat that she must lose the comfort of her home and family."
"I cannot tell you that, old friend, with knowledge comes danger."
"Enough of your riddles, if you expect me to sunder Elrond from his missing child, you will explain why, or I will not have any part in this tragedy."
"She is a child of the rings. He seeks her out because she is a child of the rings."
A silence heavy with significance feel between them. It was Gandalf that broke it first.
"Now you share in the same secret, will you do this for me?"
Cirdan sighed heavily, regret in his voice. "Yes, but it gives me no heart to agree. I will destroy the hopes of a good friend this night."
"It must be done."
"What of the child, will she not seek out her family?"
"I will see that she is placed in another family until it is safe for her to be returned. She will understand the need when her mind is more her own. Dark times are a head of us, mellon, I feel it more strongly than ever. She must be kept from his grasp, or all will be lost."
ooOOoo
Hours later, as the sun once again rose slowly on a grey, new morning. Cirdan held his point of watch on the beach, a lamp in his hand. This time the shore was busy with activity, elves from his own people, and those of Elrond's traveling company from Imladris including several of Galadriel's own Wardens, searched with urgency up and down the sands with torches calling the name of a lost daughter who would never answer back.
When the sky was properly light and it was almost the middle of the next day, the activity on the shore, slowed and stopped. Cirdan maintain his position, observing with a heavy heart the figures of Elrond and the Lord Glorfindel standing on the now empty beach, staring out at the water.
He recognised the moment when all hope left his dear friend, as a broken cry left the ellon and his knees gave out from under him. Her name, again, shouted to the empty water towards the West.
Sindarin:
Adar – father
Ada – dad/daddy
Naneth – mother
Nana – mum/mummy
Elrondiel – daughter of Elrond
Penneth – young one
Mellon – friend
Ellon – male elf
Ellith – female elf