Morwinyon was in a chair that day, settled quietly at the edge of his vision, and she did not have to say anything. Elrond sat at the desk and had begun to decide which story he should relate when one of Laeriel's lieutenants entered.
"The search is ended," Orvaie said, apparently no more pleasant now than she had been when he knew her in Lindon. "There is no more hope. Your children return at speed, as does Inwiel."
Arwen and Elladan and Elrohir had been riding out with the Greenwood's scouts and guards for eight months of the year Laeriel had been missing. Elrond was not sure why they all had continued to hope except that they had no other option.
"Your services are no longer needed," Orvaie continued, "and Imladris surely longs for its lord."
"My mother is gone," Morwinyon said. Orvaie turned to look at her with no evidence of surprise, which made Elrond realize that she had not, as he had assumed, missed Morwinyon. She had decided to give him this news when Morwinyon was still in the room.
"Yes," Orvaie replied.
Morwinyon nodded and slipped from her chair. "My father knows?"
"And your brother. They are ranting and raving together."
Morwinyon nodded again. "My thanks," she said, and slipped out the door.
"Poorly done," Elrond hissed at Orvaie. "No, badly done. She is a child."
"Look to yourself, Lord," Orvaie said, and in Quenya added, "It is not I who has difficulty looking at her."
Laeriel and Goldor returned to Menegroth and to clear trouble. Though the gate they meant to enter by - the gate nearest Laeriel's home - appeared unharmed, there were bodies just inside.
"Guards," Goldor said. "What could have-"
Laeriel spotted a foot peeking out from the edge of a wall some distance away and jerked her head in that direction. Goldor followed, sword out and ready as Laeriel's was. This body was not not dead by sword: three arrows rose from her back.
"Trying to sound the alarm?" Goldor guessed. Laeriel crouched to look more closely and examined the arrows.
"I think these are Noldorin-fletched," she said slowly. "Look at the feathers. They will use gulls when they can."
With a quick muttered apology, Goldor yanked one of the arrows free. It was difficult: they were barbed. He raised his brows at her.
"Yes," she said. "Erien has a few arrowheads from before. Look, they are smooth the whole way over."
"Admire the craft later, Laeriel," Goldor ordered, just as she heard the quiet click of an arrow being laid to bowstave behind her.
She yanked her dagger from her boot and spun, hurling it as the archer loosed. The arrow grazed Goldor, and her knife hit the archer's chest right over his heart and clanged off armor.
Two more stood behind the first, arrows pointed directly at Laeriel and Goldor.
"A good throw," the first archer said in Quenya, stooping to pick up Laeriel's knife. "I would expect no less. You are Lairë?"
It would not have been a difficult guess, Laeriel reasoned. There were few Noldo in Menegroth - in point of fact, the only Noldo in Menegroth were Laeriel and Erien, now that Laeriel's parents were dead. A direct translation of her name into Quenya would have been Lairiel, and they had named her how her grandmother did, but she was a scion of Feanor: perhaps the Noldo kept up with such things. There was no reason to be unnerved that they knew to identify her.
"I am Laeriel Glingaerien," she said in Sindarin.
One of the others muttered something under his breath. Laeriel thought it might have been "Too much a Sindar," but she was not sure.
The first said, still in Quenya, "We did not expect you so soon."
Goldor shifted beside her, hand too-tight on the hilt of his sword. He, like most citizens of Menegroth, did not speak Quenya. "Laeriel?" he asked.
"They say they have been expecting me, but not so soon," she said, and asked the Noldor, "By what right are you here, and what right have you to expect anything from me?"
One of them, not the mutterer from earlier, laughed. "Too Sindar?" she asked her companions. "She sounds like Lady Tirionë to me."
Laeriel stood so she could look them in the eye and said, "You speak of my grandmother as if you know her well. If you do, you know it is in your best interests to take us to her."
"What do you think we are here to do?" the first Noldo asked.
"Laeriel," Goldor murmured as four more Noldor materialized.
She translated.
"But why are they here?" he demanded, and glared at the archers. "How did you get in?"
"We are here for what is ours," the first archer said in Quenya, looking smugly at Goldor.
"Nauglamir," Laeriel said. "You will not have it. How many have you killed?"
The first archer shrugged. "As many as stood in our way. Dior still holds, but barely."
"And my grandmother?"
"In her home. Come."
Laeriel murmured to Goldor, "We will go to my grandmother, and she will know what is happening in full, and we will make a decision then."
Goldor did not look happy, but he followed.
More Noldor stood around the entrance of Laeriel and Erien's home, but they stepped aside with curious glances when Laeriel and Goldor were led in. Erien was in the study, and the Noldo soldiers closed the door after ushering Laeriel and Goldor inside.
They had left them their weapons, Laeriel thought absently. Why would they do that? Plenty of Noldor did not like those that still called themselves Feanori, and if these Noldor sought the silmarils that was what they were. Curufin's son had not taken the Oath, and by all counts had holed himself up to work and ignore everyone. There was no reason she, Laeriel, who was not even alive for the Oath or the aftermath, should be assumed cooperative.
She realized with an awful sinking sensation in her stomach that she had never asked if Erien, who was so proud of her granddaughter's heritage, had sworn. It had not seemed to matter when Luthien and Luthien's line held Nauglamir and the silmaril set in it.
It mattered very much now, but still, as Erien watched her carefully from the desk with her swords sheathed crosswise on her back, Laeriel could not ask.
"I did not expect you so soon," Erien said in Sindarin.
"Well, we are here," Goldor retorted.
Erien made a face and stood, beckoning. "Come away from the door. We have much to discuss."
Laeriel obeyed for lack of other options, but Goldor caught her arm before she had taken two steps, and when she turned to look at him his hand was on the hilt of his sword.
"You let them in," he said.
Erien surveyed him with a raised brow before looking back at Laeriel. "We know how best to enter the palace. It will save more to end this quickly and gift your grandfather the Nauglimir than to let it continue, and you will meet your uncles."
"Great-uncles," Laeriel corrected automatically.
Erien waved the qualification away. "They wish to see you, Lairë. There is no way to prevent anything more than excess, now."
"Because you let them in," Goldor said again.
"Keep him quiet," Erien told Laeriel. "Curufin and Celegorm are not so patient as I am."
Before Laeriel could reply or hush Goldor, he rushed forward and Erien sidestepped. Goldor's sword, which he had swung as if to cleave her in half, hit only air.
"You have a quick draw," she told him. "Put it away before I decide not to be impressed."
Goldor lunged again, mulish expression on his face. "I do not listen to the words of traitors."
Erien sidestepped again, swords still sheathed, her own expression one of mild irritation.
"Stop it," Laeriel ordered. "Goldor, she can kill you easily-"
"Then I die in the service of Doriath!" he snapped.
"Doriath is dead already," Erien said. "You need not go with it. Live-"
"And take the Oath?" he demanded. "I think not."
"How you flatter yourself," Erien said. Her hands were still empty. "We would require no oath from you. You would be accepted as Lairë's, if you choose, but unless you came to us with silmaril in hand we would not take your service."
Laeriel grabbed his arm as he made to lunge again, but he shook her off, shoving her back harder than he likely meant to. She stumbled back and fell more out of surprise than anything else.
Erien had deigned to draw one sword, contempt in every line of her body as she parried, and parried again, and parried once more, this time twisting her blade just so, smacking Goldor's hand with the flat so he dropped his weapon and stood, panting, unarmed.
"Lairë should have taught you better," she said. "Your guard is atrocious, and your speed can only mask your sloppiness so far."
He snarled and lunged again, bare-handed this time, and before Laeriel could say anything Erien brought her sword up on reflex and Goldor ran right onto it.
Erien blinked down at Goldor's body as it slid from the sword and hit the ground, and Laeriel knew her grandmother well enough to know that Erien's pause was less shock and more of a decision of how she should feel: Laeriel knew her grandmother well enough to know that Erien almost felt no remorse.
But then Erien swore and dropped to her knees, sword cast aside, applying pressure to the wound even as Goldor swore at her and died, and kept her hands there for some time thereafter as if she could perhaps will life back into him. Erien had never had much of a gift for healing, though.
No one came to the door, either, and neither Laeriel nor Erien called.
Laeriel sat and watched Goldor lay dead, and Erien try to stop him, whatever good it did, and could not decide her own feelings.
