Disclaimer: Tolkien owns it. I'm just borrowing.
Timeline: T.A. 252
Rating (this chapter): PG-13. Violence, themes of rape.

Shadow Child
Chapter XI: Departure

ar sindanóriello caita mornië
i falmalinnar imbë met, ar hísië
untúpa Calaciryo míri oialë.

Well, it was over now.

Slumped over on a stiff, high-backed chair in his bedroom in Greenwood, Findur considered this sudden realization. He straightened up suddenly. Yes, over now. And now, he was aware of his weaknesses, his incapacity to hold to his principles in the face of adversity. Viewed in this light, the entire unpleasant ordeal seemed positively worthwhile.

And it had been unpleasant, there was no denying that. No single event stood out in his mind when he looked back on his departure from Imladris, only one bleak, endless moment after another. He hadn't slept for the first days of his journey, had not even been able to rest his mind while walking. Perhaps there had been nothing to rest; everything had been emotion, jagged images and shaking hands. Loss and terror and confusion. It had been too much to hold in, to lock quietly away as usual. There had been no overt displays of grief; weeping was a token of childhood that Findur was glad to have left behind. But within... ah, that was a different story.

Days had become weeks, and the clenching emotions had faded, vanquished by his returning sensibilities. Painful memories were reinterpreted. Childish sentiments were reconciled with rational truths. Finally, he was able to make sense of his ridiculous actions in Imladris. For instance, his regret of being absent for so much of his sister's life: a natural sentiment, but illogical nonetheless. There was no place for him in Imladris. As for his sudden misgivings when it came to his plan to take the Elessar, these were understandable as well, but wholly contrived. Nothing but a reaction to Arwen's presence. He had begun judging himself by the morals of Imladris, by Celebrían's morals, rather than his own. So petty. Curuan would not be pleased.

Reevaluating these events in his head, he nodded slowly to himself. Yes. It was over, and he needn't worry about it anymore. It wouldn't happen again.

Findur stood and glanced out the window. The summer sun filtered through a thin layer of clouds, marking the hour around noon. Liniel, apparently off on some errand, was not home.

It was time to go.


Rather than take the shorter route to Curuan's lodgings, Findur ascended a short staircase upon entering the halls and proceeded to the right. Before long, he came to the wide double doors of the banquet hall. A shaft of sunlight cast its rays down before the threshold, illuminating the panels. Here Findur halted, admiring the masterpiece before him. For, in concert with Thranduil's wishes and Findur's own desires, every detail pertaining to the hall was a thing of majesty, the doors not least. On the first panel, an elven maiden danced in a forest, her hair carven of ebony, her dress composed of rubies. In the background, leaf-shaped slivers of emerald dangled from boughs of mahogany, and above the forest shone a sun of burnished gold. To the right, an even more spectacular, if less ornate, scene glimmered: a silver crescent moon, surrounded by inlayed diamonds that perfectly replicated the constellations on the New Year. Beneath the celestial scene sat a fair-haired minstrel boy grasping a silver pipe, his sapphire eyes bright.

Findur recalled the countless hours spent fashioning those jewels into the perfect form, the months spent, with the assistance of the artisans and architects of Greenwood, to finish this hall. Beholding the finished product, he smiled. Impulsively—for he had not meant to linger and delay his meeting with Curuan—he stepped forward and flung open the doors. This was an easy task; though the doors were massive, he and his fellow craftsmen had used their skill to render them light and easily manageable.

Standing in the doorway, the room lit by shafts cut into the ceiling and golden lamps set in alcoves in the wall, Findur took in the splendor of the hall: the ivory floor, the lofty coffered ceiling, the walls of alabaster stone, inlayed with jeweled scenes akin to those upon the door. Ebony molding lined the ceilings and the floor, banded with wide strips of hammered gold. Occasional doors accented the finery, providing access to the kitchen and other parts of the halls, their dark polished wood identical to the hue of the long central banquet table. Findur observed that one of the chairs was missing from the table, then realized, with a start, why this was. Beside the great marble fireplace that dominated the left end of the hall sat King Thranduil. In marveling at the room, Findur had not even noticed his presence.

Thranduil's frame was bent over a book, but his eyes, though downcast, were clearly not focused on the page. The small fire that constantly burned in the fireplace illuminated his face, exaggerating the sunken eyes and creased brow that had so often characterized his appearance in the years since Queen Selm's departure from Greenwood. A sudden flicker of light brought forth another detail—a golden circlet banded the king's pale locks, an ornament that, customarily, was reserved for the highest occasions.

Findur stepped forward from the doorway. "My lord," he called.

Thranduil turned and straightened up, a semblance of a smile creasing his tired eyes. He closed his book. "Morfindel!" he greeted. "So you have returned. I trust your time in Khazad-dûm was well spent?" Seeing a hint of distress on Findur's face, he hurried on, "Oh, I am not expecting anything from you. Only that you have enjoyed your expedition for its own merit. You have well deserved a retreat from your duties."

Findur walked to the fireplace, smiling a little. "Your praise is much appreciated, my lord, however little it is deserved."

Thranduil shook his head. "No need for modesty, my friend. And if you have come here for no reason other than to gaze upon this hall, I can hardly fault you. Any artist likes to see his own handiwork."

"It is exquisite," Findur admitted, then added quickly, "but I could never have produced it on my own." He paused briefly, but before Thranduil could reply and send Findur off on an egocentric tangent, he asked, "Do you come here often?"

"Ah, from time to time," Thranduil replied. "It is a pleasant place, to read, to think... Mostly, I think." His head turned towards the fire, and Findur saw all the soft lines of his face illuminated. "Many thoughts I have pondered of late, and few of them have been fair." He exhaled deeply.

"I have been growing tired, Morfindel, so tired. Middle-earth, it has always been my home, and I, in every way, have cherished it. I love the forests, the light through the trees, sunlight and starlight. I love the rivers, the tall, woven meadows. Many times, when others sought escape, to set sail, to flee, I fought, only fought the harder. But now... my heart grows weary. Alas, these woods grow more beautiful with each passing year. With the building of great halls like this one. But they are not set here for me."

As he spoke, Findur's eyes went wide with disbelief. "You can't mean..."

Thranduil waved his words away with a bent hand. "I have said what I have said. It is not really important. What worries me... my daughter, Ithreth. She says she will remain in Greenwood. Believes it, I think. But I see her, see her eyes, her longing. She thinks of her mother often. Of her younger brother. You know how she was when Selmë decided to leave. Wouldn't talk to either of us for a fortnight. Wonders now about going to see them, in Belfalas. And why should she not? Why should she not?" The orange flames danced in the light of his eyes, overtaking the soft gray irises. But his next words were subdued, breathless. "If she will not... if she leaves... if she cannot take my place... if..." He looked up intently at Findur.

Findur blinked, feeling vaguely dizzy.

"Morfindel," the king continued. "I trust you, more than any other member of my council. If Ithreth will not succeed—"

"Let us speak no more of this!" Findur's harsh exclamation cut through Thranduil's words, and the king paused, then nodded, the light fading from his eyes.

"If you wish," he said. "No more. Yes, no more. I, I was speaking of conjecture. Nothing to be heeded. Madness. I hope I haven't worried you."

Findur shook his head. "Don't think of it." He smiled, awkwardly but, he hoped, reassuringly. Then he turned to the door. "It was good speaking to you. I must go now; I came here to discuss some things with Curuan."

"Ah." Thranduil nodded. "The Man." Findur managed to find amusement in this statement; forty-two years, and according to the people of Greenwood, Thranduil included, Curuan was yet "the Man". An elderly Númenorean was the prevalent opinion. Curuan had never made his reasons for concealing his race clear, and Findur sometimes wondered about the troubles his assistant would face when his immortal nature started raising questions.

"While you're speaking with him," Thranduil added suddenly, "you might say hello to your wife. I saw her walking to his rooms only an hour ago." He smiled. "This is the third time she's visited him in the past two weeks. In hindsight, I hope that I haven't uncovered some, oh, birthday conspiracy."

"Quite possibly," Findur replied, though he did not celebrate his birthday. "It's strange, though... Liniel's never shown the least bit of interest in Curuan. And I can't think what she'd ask him to make for me." He shrugged, his outer nonchalance admittedly a contrast to the perplexity within. "I suppose I'll find out." He nodded to Thranduil in parting. "Enjoy your book, my lord."


At first, he could not name it. It was nothing but the vaguest of sensations, as inexplicable as it was pervasive. The feeling that things were just not right. As Findur walked down the poorly lit corridor, his footsteps lightly punctuating the voices that drifted towards him, he tried to pinpoint the source of his discomfort. What was so wrong, that would prompt such foreboding? What was so different?

Then he comprehended. This passageway, a narrow, unadorned tunnel that was far from the central corridors of the halls, was normally silent. Now it resounded with voices, and the strangest voices, at that. He was only half listening to Liniel and Curuan's conversation, but the very sound of it unnerved him: the low, smooth tones of Liniel's voice against Curuan's hoarse, grating responses. Unreal, to hear their voices joined in such natural dialogue. Without meaning to, Findur began listening to the content of their conversation.

"Please, let's not idly speculate," he heard Liniel say.

"Idly! Really now, Liniel, I can think of no better employment of our time. He's holding himself back, you know. Troubling himself with ridiculous notions. You can surely find no fault in keeping this in mind."

Findur halted at the door to Curuan's chambers, his hand frozen over the doorknob.

"He'll be fine." Liniel's voice was unusually terse.

"Of course! Utmost confidence, as always. He is your husband, after all." Liniel did not reply. "He's at a perilous point. We cannot be sure that he'll manage himself properly."

"If you're so certain that he's made a fool of himself in Imladris, you should have waited longer before suggesting the journey."

But that was impossible.

A deep sigh. "Think, Liniel: much later, and it would have been too late. Our dear heir is going to be thrown into a difficult situation one of these days. If he's to survive, we must trust him not to make a fool of himself, as my lady so eloquently phrased it. He must be tested!"

Findur's hand trembled as he slowly turned the doorknob. The door opened easily. Curuan and Liniel, revealed like a dream, stood in the center of the room. Their conversation halted. Two faces turned towards him. Their silence destroyed Findur's sense of detachment from this implausible, intangible scene. He had caused the silence. He was part of this. It was real.

He said nothing. Waited to see what they would do next.

After turning and seeing him, Curuan blinked, smirked a little, and turned to Liniel. In a gravelly, perverse attempt at nonchalance: "Well, my dear, I suppose you were right after all. At least he's found his way home."

Liniel did not seem to hear him. Her body was rigid, her face expressionless. She stared at him with empty eyes. "Findur..." she murmured. Too shocked to concoct a story, another lie for him to swallow? He wanted to ask, but found his throat oddly dry.

"Findur," Liniel tried again. To fill the silence. Wasn't that it? He didn't really know, couldn't know, she was nothing, an image, a fabrication...

But it couldn't be.

He stood in the doorway, ambivalent, still. He wanted to shatter her body into a million indefinable pieces. He wanted her to step forward with a suddenly tender gaze—to unfreeze—to say, no, my love, no, it's nothing but a jest, a dream, only a dream.

But her gaze was like ice, just as hard, as cold, as sharp against his skin.

"It was never real," he said. "It was nothing. We were nothing at all."


It was cold now. Or perhaps that was only in his mind. Perhaps it was all an illusion: the wind, the house in front of him, the nearby forest, the sound of movement behind him. She was actually following him, with all the persistence of a wolf chasing its prey. Findur's mind latched onto the analogy. Yes, a beast, that was what she was. Or a spider, ensnaring her victims in a twisted web, bestowing her love with a poisoned kiss.

As he walked down to the house, he tried to sort it all out in his mind. It was simple, really. Liniel knew. Liniel had always known. Liniel had married him because...

He saw her bright eyes, her lips curving into "I love you." He shuddered and tried to begin again.

Liniel knew... and Curuan knew... and they confided together. Were what, partners? Comrades in some insane plan to...

Liniel knew.

Liniel.

His beloved.

He stopped, staring blankly at the house before him. He thought he smelled roses, but he could be mistaken. He could be mistaken about so many countless things.

A few moments later, he heard the long grass rustling directly behind him. "Findur," Liniel's voice called, her astonishment replaced by the firmest resolution. Findur found himself turning to face her.

"What is it?" he demanded.

Liniel walked forward. "Listen to me," she said. When he began to turn away, indisposed to listen to her excuses, she placed a firm, restraining hand on his shoulder. "Listen to me. I understand that you are angry. But you must understand... I love you, Findur. I did not intend to hurt you."

He found that he could not look at her face. There was only the outline of her—her tall figure, clad in red, her dark braids. "Love me," he murmured. He wanted to push her hand away but could not.

"I understand your doubts," she continued. "But do not think that this—that my knowing—I've always loved you, Findur."

He shook his head and, finally, shoved her arm away. "Oh, and incidentally, the love of your life is just the man that you wanted to control? What good fortune!"

"It was not like that," Liniel began.

Findur cut her off. "Oh, then what was it? An accident?"

"I did not know..."

"An accident, that you were standing in the woods that day? There are very few roads into Greenwood, you know. It would be a most convenient place to wait for me."

"I did not..."

"Sheer accident that I stayed? I smell it even now... roses. It's soothing. And always there... something fundamental. What is that scent, Liniel? What else have you deceived me about?"

Liniel stared at him. There was something frantic in her eyes. "For love, Findur, will you not listen? How could I have known? How could I do more than suspect, and then only in the deepest recesses of my mind, until you finally revealed to me your true name?"

Findur did not answer for a long time. When he did speak, it was in a whisper. "Suspected. Then you have known all along, in all the ways that really matter." He looked up suddenly. "It was you who told Curuan my identity." It didn't make sense, not really, not when contrasted Curuan's elaborate tale of discovering his letter, but the frustrated gleam in Liniel's eyes told him that he had spoken the truth.

"What of it?" she asked. "He has made you great, and you in turn have made Greenwood great. Our people thrive again."

Facts shifted and sorted themselves out before his eyes. He was doing it again, fooling himself, rearranging his beliefs to compliment his emotions... or maybe this was simply the truth. "No." His voice was coarse, unkind. Good. "Monuments, Liniel you speak of monuments... but they are cold." For a moment, his voice softened, the voice of a child, but he continued sternly: "Is this your paradise? A land where fathers no longer mourn their sons, where the young set aside the memory of their kin? Count the dead! Think of all those departed! Lórimir is gone, Liniel, and Selmë is gone, and I... I won't go on like this. Perhaps you can, your heart numb to all the world, playing your little games... but I..." He shook his head. "It's over."

Liniel's eyes slowly narrowed. "No." The word came faintly, but from here on Liniel's voice swiftly increased in volume, as if to annihilate the boundless silence that his own words had put in place. "No, don't you see what you are doing? It's so very convenient to play the victim, to blame me, to make yourself the righteous one."

"I didn't—"

Now it was Liniel who interrupted. "Don't deny it! Why, I think you rather enjoy it. Why else would you have tortured yourself for so long, thinking of all the wrongs done unto Findur the damned, son of the tormented Lady Galadriel? I know you, Findur, how, when you are too distraught to work, you think of her pain, of what he did to her, of how she must have screamed—"

He slapped her. Not hard enough to injure her, but with a sharp, sudden blow that released all of his rage in one swift motion, leaving a red mark on her face and an empty look in his eyes. Amazingly, Liniel barely responded: only closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths before continuing as if nothing had happened. "I'm not afraid of you."

"Oh, really," he began, but she raised her voice and went on, "You are so certain that everyone else shares your foolish notions: that you are irrevocably bound to some terrible fate. You are not evil, Findur. You have done nothing wrong save to torment yourself with these ridiculous fears."

Findur examined Liniel with incredulous eyes. Saw that she was serious. "I don't believe you," he said. "I remember the fear in your eyes. When we were married. When I told you who I was. But you followed, I don't know, Curuan's wishes, your own twisted ambitions. Convinced yourself that I was harmless." His voice escalated. "Manwë my witness, I struck out at you, and still you believed I would not harm you! Do not deceive yourself. I am not the savior of the elven people." With sudden resolution, he turned away from her and began ascending the hill. "Goodbye, Liniel."

He heard Liniel's quick footfalls behind him. "Excuse me? You're simply leaving?"

He tried to answer, but a strange, choked sound emerged from his throat. He bit his lip, and was unsurprised when Liniel's hand caught the back of his shoulder.

"What now," he managed. Inexplicably, Liniel did not answer. Instead, she stepped forward, turned to face him, tilted her head towards his, and kissed him.

His first instinct was to pull away, but a combination of delayed reaction due to shock and pure selfishness—two months since their lips had last met, he allowed himself to think—put off the impulse. He found himself sinking into the kiss, placing his hands against her back and pulling her towards him, as if each shared second could somehow be summoned from the wrong direction, undoing the months and erasing these events wholly. It was with great reluctance that he broke away, slowly lifting his eyelids, afraid to find himself back in the present.

When his eyes were open, he blinked a few times, slightly disoriented. Then he saw Liniel's face. Her jaw was set in a small, hopeful smile, but her eyes were devoid of love. Bright they were, with determination, with the beginnings of triumph... but nothing to do with him.

He continued walking.

He heard Liniel back away behind him. "I'm going to Curuan," she said. "Perhaps he can lift you out of this madness." A strange lilt came to her tone, and though her next words did little to lessen it, neither was their own sting weakened. "For it's so like you," she said. "Running away as always." She paused, and her voice bittered. "Running away just like your mother."

He was not sure how it happened. One moment, he was rushing down the hill, running after her, and the next—having grabbed the phial instinctually, perhaps—he had doused her face with water. For a moment, her eyes went wide, then closed as she collapsed. Findur caught her before she reached the ground. She was surprisingly light in his arms.

He stared down at her. For a moment, she seemed to be shaking. Then he realized it was his own arms that were quivering.

He straightened up and began the walk up to the house.

Once inside, he proceeded to their bedroom, lowering Liniel's prostrate form onto the white-mantled bed. She looked astonishingly beautiful laying there, her dark hair strewn about her, her red lips parted slightly. Her tall, slender frame seemed a thing easily damaged, her complexion unusually pale. He leaned down to kiss her forehead but saw that her face was still damp. He was not sure how much contact with the river water would induce a vision, but he was not eager to find out.

"Goodbye, Liniel," he repeated, for no explicable reason other than to give this departure a sense of finality. He turned and went to the bureau, setting his bag upon it, but instead of going to the task of packing fresh clothing, a better action occurred to him. Though he was eager to leave the house, especially considering that Curuan might arrive at any moment, stronger was his desire for the truth.

He crossed the room, knelt in front of Liniel's shelves, and began to tear through them. He leafed through books and tossed them aside. He uncorked the rows of tonics (one, smelling very strongly of roses, he hurled across the room, then watched red liquid flow over the shattered glass and across the floorboards). He unclasped a box of paints and proceeded to tear out the inner lining, searching for secrets, for any damning evidence. He recalled their move from the mere and tried to remember if, in packing, she had been particularly guarding of any of her possessions...

The sketchbooks. Of course: the dog-eared, filled-up books that she rarely opened, never showing him their contents; the new one that had barely been touched. He remembered her sketching by firelight in the days before his departure. He remembered her covertly paging through an older volume on the anniversary of her parents' marriage. Whenever she was distraught, she went to her art for solace... and yet he had seen none of it, save her most recent sketches and the paintings on the walls! He was scarcely sure where she kept the books: in a bureau drawer, or the chest at the foot of their bed, or on a shelf in the spare bedroom?

He found them wedged underneath a cabinet in the sitting room—purposely hidden from him, he supposed. He had never deceived her like this. Oh, there was the letter, still secreted in the painting of Alqualondë, but that hardly counted; there was nothing in that letter that she didn't already know. Immediately, he seized the oldest, most decrepit book and, setting himself down on the floor, opened it.

The first pages were unimpressive landscape sketches, a few badly rendered portraits of people he had never seen before. Some were dated, all from the late Second Age. As he went on, however, Liniel's skill improved. Colored portraits began to show up amongst the sketches, rendered in a vivid, freeform style that increasingly resembled her more recent paintings. Certain faces began repeating: two dark-haired images, sometimes portrayed together, whom Findur took to be her parents, and, later on, a handsome young man with a wry smile, his piercing gray eyes oddly familiar, although Findur could not place him. More paintins—placid lakes, warm smiles. The man and a youthful Liniel clasped hands, Liniel beaming, the man smiling his same old crooked smile. Some beloved who died in the Last Alliance, he speculated. It would not have troubled him had he not learned of it in this fashion.

Coming near the end of the book, he became aware of a circular bulge pressing up against the pages, some object bound to the back cover. He flipped to the end and saw it: the silver ring he had seen Liniel holding one night years ago. It was smooth and featureless, tied to the binding with a loop of ribbon. He stared at it, recalling the sight of it in Liniel's hand. With a start, he realized where he had seen such a ring before: a box on the table beside his mother's bed, carved with morning glories and latched with gold (from Doriath, she had said). Open it, and behold! a silver ring, plainly too large for his mother's hand. His father's betrothal ring. He had blinked at the revelation, having too often overlooked the existence of this alleged father, but had listened carefully as she explained wedding rings. Suddenly, the golden band on her second finger (before as invisible as a birthmark) had taken on a pure, dazzling light.

He unfastened the ring, seizing its weight in his hand. What was Liniel doing with a betrothal ring?

He plunged back into the sea of lines and faces, flipping through the pages he had not yet examined. A tree, a garden, a wilted rose...

Impossible.

He stared at the page in before him, unable to comprehend its implications on any meaningful level. He could only stare. For it was a portrait, not of one man, but of two.

It was a portrait of Liniel's beloved. His gray eyes were harsh and matter-of-fact, though perhaps somewhat apologetic in his cynicism. Entwined with the brown of his hair were streaks of gray. Gray, for it was also a portrait of Curuan, his skin less creased, but no longer smooth, the gray eyes wrinkled at the edges, a shadow of the withered husk that he would soon become.

Beneath the portrait was a line scrawled in Liniel's hand: "He is gone forever." Gazing at it, he knew the truth, a truth scarcely more bewildering than all the rest that had come to light on this day.

Suddenly slumped, he bowed his head, observing Liniel's betrothal ring in his hand as if, in his vigilance, he would come upon some explanation, some rationale for this sudden, jarring unmanageability. In his mind, he unwillingly indulged in possible scenes: Liniel's radiant eyes, Curuan's contented smirk, a stolen kiss, a plighted troth. He imagined her quiet grief during his imprisonment in Mordor, her joy and disgust in discovering that he lived, his body slowly wasting away. Why had she not melted the ring? Some cruel gesture with which to mark her devotion to Curuan alone (still in love with his soul, although his physical form was too disfigured for her desires?) Every moment that they had shared together, in word and in body, had her heart been set on him? No idea was too far-fetched at this point; Liniel was so very good at deception.

He stared, and he pondered. And within him, something broke like glass.


A shirt, trousers, a week's supply of rations. It did not really matter. Where would he go? To dwell among mortals in Gondor, or to live in Belfalas by the Sea... Liniel was right. He was a fool to think of it; no land would take him in. His place was here, amongst falsehood and false hopes and a web of uncertainties. And here he could not stay.

As he packed, he found himself taking furtive glances at Liniel's unconscious form, a reaction akin to the crowd that is appalled by some heinous crime, appalled but unable to look away. He was horrified that she still lay there, that she could yet breathe through those deceitful lips. An affirmation that the events of today had occurred and were not some passing, nightmarish dream.

Even as he left the room, he could not help but glance back, his desolate eyes falling upon her placid face.


opening quote:
and out of a grey country darkness lies
on the foaming waves between us, and mist
covers the jewels of Calacirya for ever.
(The Fellowship of the Ring, "Farewell to Lórien.")