The Wild Elves' Land

Gildor's POV

Dor Dinen, late autumn FA 511

Aspen forest. It seemed unnaturally light and aloof after the shadow-land. The grass underfoot was wet, and bent down with the limpness of autumn, but it was full of life to us. I saw the sign before any of the others did. A blotch of dark on the patterned trunk of a large aspen. I hastened towards it, laid my hands against the trunk to complete the symbol. Anawi laughed in relief.

"That is their land, now. City-elf, we've made it"

I couldn't grudge him the city-elf right now. The symbols of this region corresponded to one of the glyphs on my pendant. I could have found the caches now, here. But we had no need. Anawi had shot a goose this morning, and there was dead wood in plenty for a fire. Siskano lit it with his uncanny swiftness. That night, we had roasted goose and slept peacefully, though we still set a watch. I was on edge, excited, eager to move on, further into the rhevain territory. With some difficulty I restrained my urgency. They would find us soon enough. We wanted to be found, but could hardly raise hell that would betray the rhevain to any possible enemy. After all, we did not come as city elves blundering through here on some business of their own but as traders and friends. The Avari had promised to lead me as close to Bearclaw's group as they could, but I had not expected us to be so precise. Gilyaga said they had a call, one they shared only among themselves. We looked for signs that told us we were going deeper into their territory, and when we saw them, Gilyaga occasionally called for the group. I knew then why he had laughed telling me about that call – he imitated a vixen in heat.

It was answered from a little distance, suddenly. Gilyaga laughed "Bearclaw, here is someone wanting to see you. We came through the shadow-land"

We stayed where we were, waiting. Only Bearclaw himself would answer that call like with like. The Avari had found him. I clutched Faire's mane involuntarily. Suddenly, I had doubts. What did I want here? What did I think he could do? We had been tentative friends, and we had not seen each other for a hundred years. And here I came popping up dragging my own demons after me. And then he came towards us through the aspen trees, visible a good while before he reached us in the airy, light forest. He was as I remembered, that was my first thought. As I had thought of him all the time, wrapped in a shaggy, sleeveless fur-tunic, half-furred leather leggings and high boots that left his knees bare. He still carried an axe. Bearclaw stopped abruptly, stared, and then laughed.

"City-elf! Is that you?" I had expected and feared him to be cautious. Instead, he came running towards me. I let go of Faire's mane and went to meet him, catching him in my arms, fur, axe and all. Every tension and weariness seemed to fall off me. For a moment I thought I was going to make a spectacle of myself and break down, but the strangeness passed.

"Gildor" he pushed me back a little, looked at me as I looked at him. I knew he would know what it meant that I was here. He needed not ask what had happened.

"Well, I said I would come back" I said finally, smiling.

"And I said I would be here" Bearclaw grinned. He squeezed my shoulders, and finally turned to greet the Avari. He spoke in their own language, so I just watched them, laughing and jibing. A silky muzzle rested on my neck °Glad now?°

'Yes lady. I am glad for now'

°For now°

I looked at Faire. She seldom temporized. It was not horse-way. And it was impossible to say how she meant it. She looked down on me with one eye.

'Would you rather not be here?'

°It is good° And that was the end of it. She said it, and turned her attention to Bearclaw and the others. Sometimes, horses were easy to please, I thought wryly. Or they thought they were.

It was harder than expected to take leave of Siskano and his companions. We had travelled far together, and crossed a strange and dangerous land. But they wanted to go further west to trade their baskets with the farmers and wood-men there before coming back to trade what they exchanged there with the wild elves. Bearclaw arranged a place they all knew to meet there in roughly two moons time. They conferred briefly about the distance and the situation in the lands between, and the Avari prepared to go on. Bearclaw was building a fire in a sheltered nook under a strange, solitary wall of stone that seemed like the remnant of an ancient mountain range, all of which except its tip had crumbled into nothing. It had been rounded by wind and rain, and I thought of the hanging or standing pillars deep within caves. This rock had the smooth, wavy look of one of those. Like water that had frozen into stone. For a moment, I had the absurd notion of standing in a giant cave whose roof was the sky beyond the pillar's top.

I embraced the three, and we said our farewells a little awkwardly. I think we were glad of the prospect of seeing each other again in foreseeable time. Things felt a bit unfinished this way. I then remembered that none of them had a steel knife. Or rather, they had one, which was a notched, often-sharpened blade that had probably been the work of a smith's apprentice. They had traded dearly for that ill-forged piece, I knew that, because they usually joked about its worth.

When I had announced I wanted to trade in the beginning, for company and safety, I had once thought of trading one of my knives, but felt it had felt too much of a wrench. They and my sword were the only things saved from the burning city. Now, it wasn't so hard. I snapped the small sheath loose and held it out to Siskano who, though not the spokesman was definitely their leader. He hesitated "We crossed the szetacan together" he objected in a soft hiss "As companions"

"It is no payment" I said "A gift"

He took the knife and sheath slowly "It is a kingly gift, then. You know it is worth more than all our trade-goods together. For us leading you into shadow"

I had to laugh "Through the shadow. But the Valar forbid, don't mention kings right now"

He winced, and smiled, a little embarrassed "Thank you, then. You know it will serve us well" He hesitated "Do I…have leave to touch you?"

I was puzzled. The question seemed self-explicable. We had just embraced. But he had spoken Avarin, so there was more to it. I nodded. Siskano took a step towards me and touched my forehead and then my shoulders with his scarred hand. He held his eyes closed as if concentrating, but spoke a few words under his breath. I must have looked my question.

"Fire-charm" he hissed, smiling "Better, I think, than those you could trade for, if you people ever did. Given with knowledge"

My forehead and shoulders prickled with warmth, and the feeling was not unwholesome. But I had never heard of fire-charms "Accepted in complete ignorance" I said truthfully.

They laughed, and I watched as they restrung and shouldered their packs and turned to walk westward. Before they disappeared between the far trees they turned and waved briefly. I raised my hand in farewell, too, and then stood, undecided. The sun had come out, and the forest was bright and patches of light wandered over the grassy floor. There had been aspen trees in the Mountains of Gondolin. When you rode right across the plain and into the foothills, all trees there had been aspens. Our favourite place, that crumbling ledge, had been ringed by them. Had been. I turned resolutely and went back towards the high, lonely wall of stone in the middle of this forest. At its foot, under a massive overhang that formed a shallow nook, Bearclaw turned sticks with salted meat over the flames.

"Not the meal of meals," he observed as I sat down on the other side of the fire, with my back to the rocky wall "but we don't have to hunt today or tomorrow yet. We have flour, too"

I glanced at the large pack he indicated. He had left that and his horse here, by the rocks, when coming to meet us.

"How is it that we found you straight away?" I asked "They said they did not know where exactly you were, and this land is awfully big"

"Lucky chance" Bearclaw grinned "This is Hawk clan's land. I am usually here for the winter. By the stones. I think they counted on that"

"You know them well? Siskano and the others?" Half of me was asking out of curiosity, the other half because I did not yet want to face his questions. And because I found myself awkward suddenly, though I could not say why, or how.

"Ah, we trade well. You have seen their baskets? The ones Siskano makes?"

I nodded.

"We always need some. And the farmers west do, too. They trade for Siskano's rather than weave their own. That's one reason why the three cross the mountains for trading. When they come first or last in the year, they have greatest gain. Usually they are one year on this side, spend the winter here, and then re-cross and use spring and summer to make new goods. They trade for their clan over there. Otherwise, I think, they could make a better living hunting and gathering for themselves"

"The farmers seldom trade for steel, it seems" I said.

Bearclaw glanced at me speculatively "They seldom do, yes. First, they need what they exchange for themselves, and only give away things if they have better ones to replace them. And then, they are a bit frightened. Like your people, remember – not wanting to give us weapons they think we might use against them. So we are all short of steel"

He turned the meat around. It was nearly finished. He shared my habit of placing things on spits as close as possible to the flames, in a kind of shock-roasting. Something that had always driven Glorfindel mad when we had been out camping.

"What's a fire-charm?" I asked.

Bearclaw laughed "Singed you hair hugging your torch, did you?"

I unconsciously raised my hand to touch the singed and consequently shorter strands, feeling myself reddening. I clamped down on indignation, but before I could think of answering him or snapping he added "That's what happens to all three of them often when they cross szetacan. They were lucky this time, it seems. But fire-charm…" Bearclaw looked into the flames for a moment "Coming from Siskano it is what it is, I can promise you. There is lots of charm-work around here. The farmers are after it like blood-hounds. Charms for and against everything, bound to everything you can imagine. I don't know about that. But Siskano knows fire, which I mean literally. What he says is a fire-charm is one, no matter if he binds it to a stone or not"

"A stone?"

"Yea. The farmers again. They are not keen to have charms on themselves. But they are always willing to trade for ones bound to things. In lots of cases they fall for fake, or have more superstition than their charms effect, but there are true ones. Usually, if someone trades in one charm only, it's a true one. It's knowledge, I suppose. With a measure of Avarin magic"

"Magic?"

"Whatever you want to call it. I know neither you nor me would want to meddle in that. The making, I mean. The outcome can be quite useful, though"

"What do you know of them? Siskano and his group?"

Bearclaw shrugged "His group, not that much. His story, a bit"

I looked at him quizzically

"I can only tell you what he told me. Among the Avari, there is a…skill that they call sishanna. Fire-starting. Siskano had always had that. He tried to build on that, had a way with fire. One summer, lighting struck a patch of dead trees in his clan's land and in no time, the whole forest was burning. They snatched their things and ran with all the rest of the forest creatures. Siskano remained behind after a while, and tried to do something to swerve the flames. It was their land after all. They lost a year's worth of trade goods in that fire. But you can imagine it was a vain try, bespeaking a forest fire. He was surrounded and retreated to a swampy place in the forest, hoping the flames would not creep over the wet ground. But the trees themselves were dead and dry there, and they caught fire. One split apart, or its top broke off, but a load of burning branches came hurtling down and he could not get away because there were only flames around. He was pinned down under the burning branches, but he could shield his eyes and turn a little so one side was in the mud. I think fear of death can give you quite some power. He concentrated on bespeaking the flames nearest to him, and it worked. He had to wait out until the forest around him was only smouldering and he could crawl out. It was pretty smoky, and he breathed that all the time. He was sick for a whole moon afterwards, and his voice very much gone. If he has to run for great length of time, he gets trouble breathing. But since then he can do things with fire easily that were hard work before. Starting it, for example. Speaking smaller blazes out. He can set protections against it, as he did on himself that day, instinctively. He can bind them to things, or to creatures. And that is what the farmers call charms" Bearclaw paused "He says to set such a charm, he needs no real magic. Whatever he means by that. He says he just calls up the memory of that moment in the fire, and the flames will obey, coming, or going out. It is a…how do you say…latent thing, I think, that he calls charm. In need, it awakens itself. If he binds it to something, he uses the force of that creature he binds it to. If he bespeaks things, like stones or, if the farmer's wealthy, maybe a whole barn, he needs to use his own power, put something of that into the thing.

You know, he has to hide himself when they trade, sometimes. Because of how he looks like. Can you see how absurd that is? The farmers buy stones he has bespelled, by his own power, but they would be frightened to death seeing him. Siskano says he has a few, very old men by now, and their families who know him, knew him before the fire, where he can still go openly. To most others, he only sends Anawi and Gilyaga, or trades at night, when he can hide his face. The humans are so weird. They think someone marred in body is always twisted in spirit as well. They would get him into great trouble. Some of them. They…they burn their own folk calling them sorcerers"

Bearclaw toyed with a stick, poking the ashes "...But the charms…That does not mean it will keep a barn from burning, or keep you from getting burned if you touched fire, it is more like…I don't know how to say it. It makes the resistance greater, maybe. A burning arrow will not immediately set the barn to smoulder, for example. So Siskano's charms…" Bearclaw trailed off. I did not ask further. He was right, I did not want to meddle in that. But neither did it bother me as I had thought it might have, had I heard the same thing in Gondolin. Without ever having crossed the szetacan with Siskano.

The meat was done. "Enjoy the piece between the raw and the charred parts" Bearclaw said with a grin. It wasn't as bad as it looked or as he had said. He had talked a long while. Partly, probably, to put me at ease. We ate in silence, though.

"What about these…rocks?" I asked after a while, gesturing to the wall under which our nook was. I was uncomfortably aware of the vast, unsupported height of the pinnacle-like rock above us. The stone it consisted of was yellow-grey and crumbly. If one rubbed it vigorously, small showers of particles came loose. I could have burrowed our nook further back into the wall.

Bearclaw followed my glance "There is lots of them, further on. Full of nooks and caves. Like a sort of mountain range all broken up. I can show you tomorrow. From the Hawk's nest we can see most of our land. We are here, for the winter always, sometimes for summer, too. It is good hunting here. But still we have to be careful when we stay really long. Hunting further away. Beasts learn, quickly. And there are hawks here, a lot. That's why we are hawk-clan. Our land"

"Have you been here all that time?" I finally asked "In this land? Or near? All these years?"

"All these years" Bearclaw confirmed "Your people have named it, but hardly ever come here. So far, this land has remained ours, in a way. And the farmers stay away, too. It is too rocky, and there are wolves and bears, with too many holes to hide in than that they could hunt them out. And we hide here, too. For us, it is good land" He paused "There are beasts here, though you never hear them. Even the wolves don't howl. Szetacan – Nan Dungortheb - is very near. We get attacked, sometimes. Really attacked, I mean. Spiders come here. Sometimes orcs come out of the mountains. But this is all rock and forest. The orcs are less danger than the spiders, see. We have so many paths between the rocks further inside, and ways to climb them, it is like a maze. The orcs do not survive long. But when spiders come, they go into the cracks, into the deep ravines where we can't climb. They spin thread and shadow. It is hard to get them out. But fire's the trick, we know now. Siskano, you see. Though it's a pity to have to burn so much around them often"

My imagination supplied me with enough material to picture such a spider-hunt. Also, with the appearances of its objects.

"And you have been in that city"

It was a statement. I nodded.

"All these years?"

I smiled a bit ruefully "All these years"

"But no longer"

"No"

"Will you do it again if they rebuilt?"

"No" I said without needing to think "I know that as I know little else" Also, there was little chance that there would ever be something remotely like Gondolin.

"Little else?"

"Very little"

Bearclaw fed small sticks to the fire and made himself comfortable against a tree-trunk that had been dragged here, probably as bench "You want to talk?"

I hesitated, looking away into the gathering dusk. But oddly enough, I found that I wanted to, now. Though I told the story backward. I had to. Get the worst over with first.

Bearclaw had known Glorfindel too. I left out very little. Not even the private tale of him and me. The wild elf listened without interruption, without stirring. It was deep night when I finally fell silent. There was no nice ending, no wrapping up of the tale. Because, I realized, it was not yet finished. And even as I realized that, I wondered why not? It should have been. It should have ended very long ago, before Gondolin. It should have ended now, after Gondolin. But it hadn't. I had even passed Nan Dungortheb to get here, in the hope for – what? Why go on? Why not simply stop?

"Will you stay here?" Bearclaw shook me out of that wild circle of thoughts "...I wished you would"

Everything seemed very far away from me suddenly. I answered from that distance, still seeing that one path clearly and wondering if I could not take it.

I wished you would. So did I.

"I will stay" I said "Until I see my way clearly…If you can accept that"

"I have learned to accept a lot" Bearclaw smiled "Your place is not here, I know. But neither in one of their cities. If I may say so"

I rubbed my eyes, suddenly incredibly tired "You may. You may indeed"

"Go to sleep" he said "I keep watch anyway"

"No" I sat up straighter, looking into the flames and hoping the tiredness might vanish with the light. "If I sleep, I dream" I found myself admitting "I don't want to, yet"

Bearclaw looked across the fire at me. He could probably guess what I dreamed. Or didn't dream. I dropped my gaze involuntarily. Maybe Glorfindel could have used a fire-charm better than I. But then, what power could Avarin magic have against a demon that was more shadow than flame? And at any rate, it was dead now. They were both dead. I looked up when Bearclaw came around the fire and crouched down beside me.

"Look here" he said quietly "You are not looking for distraction, and you will remember what I said once – I am not looking for bedmates either, let alone on the male side. You are a friend, a dear friend, and I don't want to lose you thinking I was courting when I touch you. Right?"

I remembered well what he had said. In fact, I remembered most of our conversations word by word. I had not really thought he would have changed his mind so much. Still, that he said it so bluntly gave me the opportunity not to loose my face. I could never have asked him for comfort had he not put both our cards on the table.

He was here now, solid and shaggy and everything life in Gondolin had not been, so that it was safe to face that now, here. I was cold despite the fire, and so I forgot about pride and curled up in his embrace. I had not cried since that moment the eagle had alighted on that rough cairn I had scratched together snarling at everyone who offered help. I did so now, shamelessly.

Time passed somewhere else. It started for me again when there was a point where there was only hollowness, and no more tears. There was Bearclaw, too, holding me, surrounding me with the scent of wood-smoke and bearskin.

"I'm sorry" I said when I could think, breathe and talk again "Here I come out of nowhere, blubbering all over you…"

"You are pretty silent" he replied after a moment "No blubbering, really"

I had to laugh despite myself. If I had kept my face before not having to say I feared advances I rationally knew he would never make, I had definitely lost it now. No point in hiding. I sat up a little, gingerly. I was all stiff and still cold. He did not let me go, and I was grateful for that.

"Is there water?" I asked after another long while "I think I should have a wash"

He let me go then "There is a spring under this rock. If you go around left, you come right across it"

I returned to the fire after cooling my face and hands in the small, deep hollow in the rocky ground, where the falling water had carved out a pond.

"Sleep now?" he asked when I sat down again.

"I don't know" I said "If I can"

He had rolled out the black deer-skin I still used as bed-roll and patted it. I lay down beside him and curled up, facing away from the fire. My back was hot, now, but the rock-wall gave out a chill. There was a rustle, and Bearclaw cast the bearskin he wore over me.

"You'll be cold" I protested.

He laughed "Never, city-elf"

I kept my eyes closed and rolled tighter in the heavy fur. It smelled cleaner than it looked, earthy and smoky, and of Bearclaw himself. I felt his hand on my shoulder. I had usually slept alone. I had treasured my nights alone. Even if we had had the choice of sharing rooms, I don't think either Glorfindel or me would have wanted it. We both wanted to close the door behind us now and then. I wouldn't have thought I could sleep with someone keeping watch like this, but I could. And I did not dream.

The next morning was full of wind and sunshine. There would be rain at night, but for now, the sky was deep blue and the wind hissed and rushed in the half-naked branches. I woke late, and only because of that sound. Faithful as a stone-figure, Bearclaw was still there, his hand warm on my shoulder. He grinned like a cat "You don't snore"

I blinked. He had spoken rhevain, and the words took a double turn to reach my brain. It took another double turn to form a reply "I…don't think I…ever did"

He kept grinning "I will have to teach you proper rhevain"

"Yes" I said, sitting up "I hope you will…Is it not…secret?"

"You just kept your silence for five hundred years"

"Four-hundred. And well, I don't speak so good. Also, who should I have told?"

He shrugged "In any case I will teach you. You are hawk clan"

I glanced at him, but this time he did not grin. He reached for a metal pot and a second mug, poured something steaming into them.

"You have traded well" I said "We never had stuff like this in…in Gondolin"

He nodded "That's the advantage when the Avari trade with farmers who also trade with merchants who in turn trade with merchants and so on. This spice comes costly, because, we are told, it's from very far away, but it's worth its price, I think. It's a winter-thing, the farmers say. They have that festival in midwinter, too, and then they afford this stuff. I think we can use some of that now"

"What is it called?"

"We say maui, which means simply sweet spice. But the farmers say cinnamon"

The day passed quickly, somehow. We walked in the sunlit woods until the sky became pearly and thin, high bars of cloud appeared, driven by the strong wind. Bearclaw led me to the next nearest pinnacle of rock, and there was a steep, smooth path up to it. Faire had followed us in contented silence, but she refused the climb up and instead turned her attention to a patch of sheltered and therefore still green grass. Bearclaw and I climbed to a recess halfway up the pinnacle. There, the path ended and only sheer, steep rock rose above us. There were hawks' eyries up there, and so the rock was called Hawk's nest, Bearclaw said.

From here, we could see far over the land. It was all wooded, slightly hilly, and huge, single formations of rock rose out of the trees, wooded as well where they were not sheer stone. On one side were the high mountains, their peaks white already, and on the other, barely visible, a part of the land Szetacan we had crossed. It was hazy there, and dark, as if rain was already falling there. Bearclaw named the rocks, pinnacles and walls, slowly, pointing out where the winter camp was, where good caves where, and where we would meet Siskano and the others.

In the darkening light, under the pearly sun, this land looked very foreign and dismal. It was beautiful, wildly so, but this beauty seemed to belong to its wildness alone. I wondered if there was room or reason for me here – a city-elf, after all.

"What do you want to do?" Bearclaw asked after a while of staring in silence across this strange land "We can go back to the rest of the group now, or we stay here a while, and go later. Maybe when Siskano and his brothers come to the Last Stone?"

Both the question and the information took me by surprise. Playing for time, I digested the second bit first. Brothers. Well, I might have guessed that. They had functioned too perfect crossing the shadow-land to be just a group of merchants, friends or not. Also, it made my gift of one knife to three seem much less ridiculous. The first bit was harder. I thought of last night. Bearclaw's quite presence keeping those dreams away.

"I would stay with you a while. Alone" I admitted.

The wind blew sharp up here, and gained in sharpness the more the sun vanished behind the high, thickening veil of clouds.

"But shouldn't you go back to…the others?"

Predictably, Bearclaw laughed "I am their leader, not their father. I can hang about where I want. And they are perfectly capable of surviving without me" Again, the cat-grin "By surviving I mean not knocking their heads in over a meat-bone"

From up here, the land seemed like the maze Bearclaw had named it last night. It seemed, too, like a promising thing, suddenly. If you could lose yourself in a maze, maybe you could lose your trouble there as well. Bearclaw's easiness seemed contagious.

As we descended the steep winding path carefully (I knew then perfectly well why Faire had refused – down was much harder than up) a few first drops of rain fell. "You are still…leader then?" I asked, interrupted when we both slipped on loose sand. I remembered very well that he had told me of a fight between him and an Avar for the lead of the group. In four-hundred years a lot of others could have challenged him. His remark now told me there was a bit of difference I should remember here. Pack mentality. No nobility, here. Bearclaw grunted in confirmation "'Course. There were a bit of fights, but nothing serious" Another cat-grin. The claw-shaped scars on his cheeks gave him a sharp, vicious look. I glanced at the heavy axe that he had not once wedged or scraped on our narrow climb here.

"Well, I certainly don't want to get on your wrong side" I said with feeling.

He did not grin this time "Underestimating yourself again, hm?"

"What do you mean?" I asked sharply, stopping my climb. He glanced up at me, then straightened and held my gaze "City-elf, there are those of us who fear your kind. Why are you so completely unaware of that?"

Now I laughed "Fear us? Fear me? What for?"

Bearclaw shrugged "Hard for you to look into your own eyes with a stranger's, yes"

"You have never spoken in riddles before, wild elf"

He leaned against the rock. We were a good distance from the bottom yet.

"What is the west to you?" he asked "Where you come from? The bright land?"

"A memory" I said. I did not have to think about that answer either. True hope lies beyond the coast. The words of Gondolin's fall. They had not touched me as the hope, only as the warning "A memory of luck and light that ended in darkness. It is gone"

Bearclaw looked at me for a long while without moving "You are…different" he said slowly "I have known a few of your kind, while you were gone. I have worked for a few, scouting, tracking, the usual stuff. They treasure what you call a memory. To them, it is not gone. They do not want it to be gone. And they hold the power of that memory. They are bright, keen, and frightening. I would not want to get on their wrong side. They are not like us. But you are like them. You are bright, too"

"There are Eldar among the wild elves" I shot back.

Bearclaw still stared at me. I had seen a bear, once, close up. There had been something patient and very calm in that gaze, seizing me up before the bear moved on. I was forcibly reminded of that bear's eyes now, with Bearclaw wrapped in his namesake's skin, hunching his shoulders a little against the wind, and giving me that same look.

"No there ain't"

"What about Veriё?"

"She is Noldo. There are Noldor. But none who came from the west"

And I was not a wild elf. I was here, but I had done nothing that would make me an outlaw. I took a breath "What is the…gist of what you are saying?"

Now he smiled "Several things. Siskano and the others, they said this: You were with them, and crossing was easier. They would have been very, very hard put to it without you. The shadows did not touch you so much"

"But I did nothing!" I said angrily "I sat on Faire, squeezed my eyes shut, and thought the world was sucking itself away around me. And I singed my hair!"

Bearclaw laughed, and so did I, because it was the only thing to do bar shouting "As I said, you can't look into your own eyes" Bearclaw said stubbornly "To them, it was quite different. Whatever you are, and however little you might account for what you are, it is there, and it protects you"

I grunted unbelieving "Me. It did not protect Glorfindel either"

Another bear-look "City-elf. He challenged a demon. Something very like those that made the west. Made this world, if I have your legends right"

I closed my eyes and looked away for a moment. Bearclaw was in the lucky position not to have lost a lover. He had very much respected Glorfindel, and liked him. I knew he had counted him as a friend before I had ever met either of them. But still, he had not hesitated saying that he could afford a kind of distance to that loss which I could not. Neither had he ever been told that this was not his world, living in it though he did. Sometimes, I wished fervently to have been born a dark elf.

"And to come back to what you said" he continued, mercifully not responding to the grief I had unintentionally called up "That means that any challenge the rhevain might want to pose you can only be motivated by fear – fear that is strong enough they would fight one of your kind. You could never get on my wrong side, city-elf, because I would be turning to keep you on the right. I would never fight you. And I know it will be the same for others"

I blinked "You were not that hesitant in what made you what you are"

"Ha" he made "Damn, I love that way you can turn a knife" He paused, and looked down "Come. I know your lady had objections in the beginning. She will like to hear the tale"

Puzzled, I followed Bearclaw down to the bottom.

"The one fact is" Bearclaw said as we went slowly back towards the shelter under our rock "that I usually punch first and then think. Oh, not with you. But I used to at court, which is usually what gets you out of court. Aside from falling in love without marriage"

I smiled wryly.

"I still do" he continued "And here, it is my survival. That is, my survival as leader. If someone challenges the leader, you had better not think why or how but meet that challenge. Preferably to win"

"At the cost of your life?"

Bearclaw shrugged "Your decision. Need not be. You know, both must agree to that. But the court: Aranif and me, we were enemies to the blood. We grew up together. That is, beside each other, more precisely. We were at each other's throats as kids, and we still were as adults. Only then, we played the game in earnest. No more insults or elbow-fights in the mud. We played each other up – or down, if you will – whenever we could in front of as many people as possible. One day, there was a big feast. We had to be there. I wanted to refuse, knowing he would be there too, but I had to attend. That made me angry in the first place. I knew we would hack away at each other again, and it would be worse for the grand occasion, the guests, and Aranif had a girl to impress. He thought he could impress her, that is. There was lots of wine, too. I can't really recall what happened. There were sports, show-fights, he challenged me. He played dirty, I played dirty, but he was better. I ended up on the floor and that was humiliation purely. We were supposed to disarm only, but he thought it fitting to draw blood. He was a boasty fighter. I was a mean one. I killed him with his own knife, twisting up when he thought I surrendered. I had thought to wound him, severely maybe, but not to kill" Bearclaw shrugged "Thinking is not my tendency if weapons are involved"

"What happened?"

"Well the feast was ruined, of course. There were healers everywhere, and guards. No-nonsense guards. But I have always killed neatly, even if I had not meant to. So the only thing left was to get me out of the way. I saw the dungeons of Thingol's palace then, for the first time, though I had been born there. You know the penalty for murder. For kinslaying"

I looked down. I had not been at the Havens to fight. By pure chance. I would have marched with Fingon, but I was waiting for Silmarusse. So we had marched under his father. I did not know what I would have done had we been there first, with Fingon. Still, we probably could be counted all alike, I thought. Our leaving in the first place had led us up to Alqualonde.

"I was frightened out of my mind" Bearclaw continued "There would be a trial, but who except my closest family might speak out for me? And I had no closest family. My father was not there. He was a border-guard, and on some mission I did not know the cause of. My mother had died when I was a babe. She had been a border-guard, too. I was not sure who would speak, and if at all, and if they did, what their voice would count. After all, there was nothing to proof or to deny. Everyone had seen that I had been in the wrong, though he had provoked me. I nearly died of terror that night. When they took me out the next morning – court was held outside then, in the open forest – I tore free. They had not chained me. I stole a horse, rode like thunder to the border, nearly killed one of the guards that tried to stop me, and broke through the Girdle. It did not hold me in. I don't know if I was followed or if they let me go. There are times when I think they would not have killed me, even if I had awaited the verdict. But the rest you know, a bit. The bear, the wild elves" He grinned "Here I am"

That night, as we lay at the far end of the nook, sheltered from the rain and wrapped under the bearskin both, I mulled over what he had said on the rock this day.

It was hard lying on the unyielding ground. Years sleeping in a bed had their effect. Bearclaw lay with one arm shielding his eyes from the dim fire-light, perfectly at ease. I had to grin in curious satisfaction. Here I was, comfortably prepared to go to sleep in the arms of a convicted murderer, and thought I could have no better companion. And there was no wryness, no sarcasm I could find in that thought. I had seen a way yesterday, clearly. Though I had not seen how I could walk that way. There were moments like this, when I thought I did not want to go that way.

"Bearclaw" I said softly "Are you afraid of death?"

He lay still for a moment. Then he laughed. Of course. He always laughed.

"You ask the question wrongly" he said, lowering his arm to look at me "I have no answer to that. Maybe, yes. I was, that night I killed Aranif. Maybe, no. Sometimes"

"Well, no answer is an answer, too, I suppose" I said.

He grinned, but then grew grave "It depends. Everything depends, I think. I just don't know on what. I might die awfully quick, out here. But I don't think about it. So far I have survived. Well enough. So I am not frightened. I suppose"

"You suppose. What do you suppose the…what might be in store for you if you happen to…catch the wrong end of a blade?"

"Ah" he said "That is what you're playing at. The powers. Those…halls. Mandos, yes?"

I shrugged. That was what I had meant.

"Well" Bearclaw stretched and glanced at me "I think what I will do about that is this: I will avoid it until the end of my life"

After a moment, I had to laugh "You're an idiot"

He nodded comfortably "Yes. Yes, I know that. Well enough…But what I meant" he added after a while "Is that we can do nothing about it now. When you come there, you can deal with it. Whatever they say, you can't change it anymore. I think, we made our choices long ago" He glanced at me carefully, decided it obviously safe to go on "You chose with your lady. You left against their laws. I decided – or did not – when I acted in anger. I killed against their laws. I don't know where They draw the line what's worse – but we can't change it now, anymore. I think"

"Maybe not" I agreed after a while. Probably not. Where They judged something wrong would not be our standard of judging something wrong.

"It seems unfair"

He looked at me startled "You, city-elf? You say that?"

I had startled myself. After all, so far I had been lucky in my hunts, hadn't I? Had not Ulmo counselled us even if we had not listened, guarded us on our flight down Sirion? He, of all of them, still had come to us. He had been there, in the borders of the willow land – we had not been attacked there.

Still -.

"I might be wrong" I said with a wry smile "I often am"

Chapter notes:

Aranif: (S), "kingly face"

Verie: (Q), "daring"

Dor Dinen: "The Silent Land" is said to be a stretch of land between the Esgalduin and the Aros where nothing dwelt (The Silmarillion, "Of Beleriand and its realms").

Why nothing dwelt there I cannot find out, nor how exactly the land looked like, i.e. what kind of forest if any, or if it was rocky. For this story I took the geological freedom to transfer the region in eastern Germany which is called "Elbsandsteingebirge" to Dor Dinen and add just a few living (even if silent) things.

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