"I'm going out looking for them," Turukáno said for the tenth time since sitting down. His eyes were fixed on the windows of Nolofinwë's study, watching each raindrop that he could see as it trailed down the panes of glass.

"You are not," Lalwendë replied from her seat on her brother's desk. "Don't be ridiculous. It's pouring rain, and it's darker than Moringotto's - !"

"Lal," Nolofinwë interrupted quietly, but there was a hint of a warning in his voice.

You're no fun, she said to him silently, and felt a prickle of amusement in response.

"Well, it's very dark," she amended, "and you might get struck by lightning, or crushed by a felled tree, or trip and break your own foolish neck."

"And my daughter could be out there, facing any of those things alone!" Turukáno shot back, rising to his feet.

"Sit down, Turvo," Írissë said; she was curled up in an armchair woven out of reeds over a light frame and covered by heavy canvas, and her voice was exhausted.

"Please," Nolofinwë added, turning the page of his book. Turukáno groaned, and obeyed his father, sinking back into his own chair.

"Can you send out guards to search for them?" he asked.

"In the morning, if it becomes evident that something happened."

"What do you mean, 'if it becomes - !'"

"Has it occurred to you that they might be fine, Turvo?" Írissë asked sharply.

"If they were fine they'd be here," her brother retorted bitterly. "If Findekáno thinks I will let him take my daughter anywhere again without a full escort, he's very mistaken."

" Turukáno," Nolofinwë said, his voice creeping up in a subtle warning. His son opened his mouth to rebut him, and then thought better of it and grumbled to himself as he shifted in his chair.

Lalwendë sighed, looking over the room and then turning her gaze to the window as if she could pierce the darkness with her vision. The four of them were sharing Nolofinwë's study for the night, as the remainder of the great house was packed with eldar waiting out the storm. The tents were waterproofed and sturdy enough, but they were drafty and dreary and unpleasant when it rained, and on nights like this when the wind howled and the dark felt as if it would creep into the bones of anyone who would let it, no one wanted to be alone. So the servants and their nobles lit candles, and torches, and stoked the kitchen fires, and fished out whatever fragments of stone lamp survived the Ice, and the whole encampment waited out the night together.

Despite the close quarters, there was no merriment, and no conversation beyond the occasional hushed whisper. Lalwendë knew that if she opened the doors, she would find the halls lined with silent figures whose wide eyes were turned ever upward, watching for a calamity that, Eru willing, would never come. Their own rooms had been offered up to any who needed them - hers was occupied by two pairs of twins who had intermarried and were now practically inseparable, and Turukáno's was taken up by three néri whose faces she only vaguely knew, and her brother's master suite had been given over to the cook and the kitchen staff - and despite knowing that it was the proper thing to do, she couldn't help but wish she was listening to the storm from the comfort of her own bed.

Though I doubt any of us will be sleeping tonight, she added to herself, looking at Turukáno. Her hánoyon looked as if he was going to tear himself out of his skin with his fingernails and nothing else. and every noise made him jump and flinch.

"You've seen storms before," Írissë commented rather acerbically as she pulled a cloak off of the floor and draped it over herself. "Be easy, would you?"

No sooner had she spoken than the whole world seemed to go white outside the window in a blinding flash of lightning, and almost before it had faded there was a crackling boom of thunder that made the glass rattle in its panes and shook the whole house.

"Muk," she muttered, and Nolofinwë didn't bother to reprimand her for cursing as they all drew cloaks and blankets and shawls more tightly about their shoulders. Turukáno drew his knees up under his chin awkwardly, trying to hide himself beneath a pair of bedsheets.

Lalwendë was distantly aware that the room was quite warm, almost stifling even with all four of them and a roaring fire in the same tiny space, but the memory of cold had settled into her bones and seared itself into her skin, and the wind on the other side of the walls sounded just as hungry as the wind that had swept the Ice clean of all life.

"Ten to one a tree's gone down," she said, just to have something to say. "Probably a close one, too." She was trying very hard not to think of Findekáno and Itarillë out there somewhere in the black mess of rain and mud, or of their hröar crushed beneath the trunk of some felled oak.

"We can make use of the wood, if it's close," Nolofinwë answered, turning another page in his book.

"You're awfully calm," Turukáno said bitterly.

"Am I?" his father replied. "I hadn't noticed."

"How can you sit there like that when they might be - ?!"

"I will panic when the situation makes it clear that I ought to panic," Nolofinwë interrupted him, still easy and unshakeable. "Until then, I will trust in your brother to have good sense, and you should too."

"Hah. Good sense." Turukáno spat. "He goes running off into the wilderness for weeks upon weeks for no reason, and you say he has good sense."

"Oh, shut up, would you?" Írissë asked. "What did Finno ever do to you, anyway?"

"Nothing. That's the problem."

"Excuse me?"

"It doesn't matter," her brother answered, his voice a low rumble as he pulled the sheets more closely about his shoulders. "Never mind."

She didn't reply, and the four of them fell quiet once more, save for the occasional turned page of Nolofinwë's book. Beyond the walls, the wind whined and howled, driving rain into everything it touched. Now and again the fire sputtered and spat. Lalwendë fidgeted on the desk, watching water run down the window. The silence crept up from the floorboards like frost, and the air seemed to turn colder still. The memory of ice lay thick over the room.

"I wonder if there are ausar here," Írissë said, her voice shrill. It was as if she'd broken some unnamed spell.

"Don't be morbid," Turukáno replied. "And besides, ausar - we'd know if they were here, wouldn't we?"

"Would we?" Nolofinwë asked, and then chuckled when both his children looked at him with wide eyes. "I'm joking."

"Of course you are," Lalwendë told him, her voice shaking when another bright flash of lightning seemed to turn the whole world white. "And I'm going to make sure the window is sealed tightly. Just in case."

She slid over to the far edge of the desk, moving onto her knees to check the caulking at the edges of the wood frame.

"I hate storms," she muttered to herself, echoing a sentiment she knew her brother and his children shared. The cold had settled into her core now, braiding itself through her with every breath, and even the feel of plaster and polish and glass seemed to fade before it. Surely this is all a dream, she thought, feeling a hazy dizziness seep into her mind, and I will wake and the air will be burning my lungs, or I'll have to be pulled out of a drift of snow, or -

A bright, steady voice sliced through the fog in her thoughts, pulling her back into herself like thread drawn through a tapestry. Her eyes widened, and she took a proper breath, and found her hands were shaking as they braced against wall and window. She blinked several times, watching her vision settle, and then turned to look at the closed door of the study.

In the hall beyond it, someone was singing.

Lalwendë couldn't place the voice, though she hadn't heard every single elda in their encampment sing alone; whoever it was, they'd had at least a little proper training. Every note in their melody was soft and golden and warm, bringing with it thoughts of sunlight and summer, and when she let herself listen to it a dreamy vision of a new morning filled her mind's eye. Out of the corner of her eye she could see her brother, and Turukáno, and Írissë; they were just as enraptured as she was. The cold seemed to drain out from the room, as if banished by the song, and she wondered if perhaps it was. The tune was new, or at least unfamiliar, and she could not pick out a word from the long phrases that seemed to run together and rebound upon themselves in the fashion of a tungaquerma's notes, but she clung to it nonetheless until it ended and slipped from her grasp, leaving behind the scent of flowers and sea-breeze.

"Oh," Írissë sighed, slumping back into her chair. "Oh."

Unsteadily, Lalwendë got down off of the desk, sitting on the floor and pulling her shawl after her.

"Whoever that was," she said, "I want to thank them."

"As do I," Nolofinwë agreed. "Did anyone recognize that voice?"

"No," Turukáno said, "but - !"

Now it was his turn to be interrupted by a song, though unlike the first, this tune was familiar, and was soon picked up by many other voices. It was a marching-song, composed on the Ice, low and forceful and furious. It spoke of spilled blood, and innocence lost, and defiance of the darkness and of those who spoke out against returning to the hither shores, and promised yet more bloodshed to any who would stand against their swords.

It was a song of war, though whether it was war against Moringotto, against the darkness, or against the Fëanárions, Lalwendë could not say. All she knew for certain was that it sparked her blood to fight, and that the thud of fist and boot against floor and wall seemed to beat in time with the pounding of her heart.

We are Noldor, she reminded herself as the final verse swelled and surged around her. When night falls, we defy it.

The air was cold, and Findekáno wasn't sure how it managed that trick when just hours earlier the Sun had been high and the breezes soft and warm. Regardless, he could not sing the rain away, or even build a fire, and so he and Itarillë had crawled into a shallow cave in the side of a hill and did their best to sleep away the hours of storms. Beneath them and above them was solid rock, and then the crest of the hill itself with the trees and bushes growing out of it; they were quite safe from anything except the thrice-cursed cold.

And the way the rain seems to run sideways up into the mouth of the cave, he thought sourly, and the howling of the wind that sounds like one of those ausar that we'd meet on the Ice, and -

If I keep this up, I'll send myself into a fright, he thought ruefully, and Itarillë is already frightened. His hánoanel had at last managed to drift into a light, dozing dream, after he had curled about her and given her his arm for a pillow and hummed three or four verses of a comic ballad about a mischievous lopo in between flashes of lightning and claps of thunder.

"It will all be over in the morning," he had promised her as brightly and pleasantly as he could when they first got out of the rain. "And we'll go home, and see the Sun shining on the raindrops that got caught in the grass."

She had looked at him reproachfully, as if to say You're lying to me, aren't you, but when another flash of lightning tore the sky apart she had clung to him regardless, burying her face in his shirt and shivering from the force of her repressed scream. He had wrapped his arms tightly about her until her heart had stopped tapping out a beat for a spirited dance, and then resolved to get them both to sleep as fast as possible.

His plan had worked, in part; now he only had to figure out a way to exhaust himself without waking her.

How did I go for all those weeks and weeks like this? he wondered. His journey north and back seemed many yéni ago, even as he knew it was eighty days past him at the most. Did I just go mad, and then regain my sanity upon my return?

That seemed to be the most obvious answer, but deep down he knew he was fooling himself. I just went, and came back, because it had to be done. I slept when I was tired and I woke when I wasn't, and I was too frantic to worry about things like rain or cold or storms except when the ice and the mud went running down the back of my neck, and now?

Well, now I'm not alone, and I'm not nearly as terrified as I was, and somehow despite being less afraid I'm more awake.

Outside, he could hear the rain falling, slamming into soil and leaf and branch. There was another flash of lightning, this one far brighter than before, and a sound like tearing and crashing.

A tree's fallen, he realized, suddenly remembering the hawthorn he had sheltered beneath in his first days away from camp. I hope - I hope it's not one I knew.

He was unlikely to get any real answer to that hope, but he let himself dwell on it as he listened to the storm and tried to rest.

Maitimo was awake, too enraptured by the scent of rain and the noise of wind and thunder to do anything but take it all in. There had been rain in Valannor, of course, but nothing like this; he was used to gentle murmurs of water on roof and pavement, not something that seemed to tear the world apart. He had slept through the last storm, which had taken up the better part of a day that he spent drifting in and out of nightmares and trying to hide himself in his husband's hair, and if there had been anything like this in the mountains he couldn't remember it.

Is this what it will always be like, on these shores? he wondered, and he couldn't deny the thrill that ran up his spine at the thought of yet more nights like this. Is this world wilder, and newer, and more raw, than the one I left behind?

You're becoming an academic, Maitimo, he chided himself, laughing softly. He wanted to get up from the bed and open the shutters that Aegthel had closed when the rain began, though he had not yet been told such a thing was safe to do on his injured leg. And anyway, it sounds like the wind would like to tear through this place, and there's no glass to keep it out.

I hope Finno's managed to keep dry like I have.

The thought of his husband was sobering, but not upsetting; he could feel the other nér alive and unharmed at the end of their bond. It was too far for them to speak, and he had closed himself off enough that if he dreamed it would not bleed through the threads that tied them together, but at least he knew for certain that he had not been left alone. So I won't worry, he decided, slicing off his budding fear piece by piece and calmly shoving it somewhere he couldn't remember it. Not yet. Not until I have a reason to.

There was a sound at the window of wood scraping on wood, and whining wind, and then with a bang the shutters flew open. At once the room was transformed - it had been dark, and close, and a little too warm, but now there was water pouring in sideways through the hole in the wall. Maitimo started upright, staring wide-eyed at the mess of black on black that he could see beyond the wall, and then he realized that his bed was quickly becoming soaked.

"Á ercat," he swore, moving without thinking. He shoved himself to the edge of the mattress, pushing off onto unsteady feet. "Damn straw stuffing for growing mold." His legs were strange and shivering beneath him, and he almost fell forward onto his face, only catching himself by bracing against the windowsill with his forearms. "Ércamando, muk, cé morcor matuvalyë." Something twinged painfully in his hip. He ignored it, reaching out with his hand for the first shutter, which was pressed flat against the outer side of the wall.

"Come here, you piece of - !" he muttered, only for the insult to die in his throat as the sky seemed to split apart into a river of white light that ran down from the clouds and poured into a low shrub that sat a few yards from where he stood. For a moment, the whole of it seemed to shine as bright as things he did his best to forget, and then it sparked into true flame with a deafening boom that rattled the roof above his head. The fire endured, as if to spite the storm, consuming leaf and branch from the inside and burning in defiance of the rain that should have drowned it.

The shutter was in his hand; he wasn't sure how it had gotten there. Shaking himself out of whatever it was that had seized him, Maitimo drew it closed, and then reached out and soaked his shirt and his hair in the process of fetching its mate. But finally, he was back in the quiet of his room, and the latch was fastened once more, and he was dripping water onto the wooden floorboards. He could feel it running down his legs from the hem of his shirt, and he grimaced at the thought of trying to warm himself in a soaked bed once he got back into it.

Wait.

I - I'm standing up?

He looked down at himself, watching the bones in his feet move as he shifted awkwardly in place, and then looked back up at the closed shutters.

I'm standing up, he realized. I suppose that answers the question of whether or not I can, but as to whether or not I should…

Before he could think too intently on this new development, his knees buckled under his own weight, and he staggered back wildly and slammed into the bed. Somehow, despite his pounding heart and shaking limbs, he managed to slide back beneath the sheets and blankets, curling up as best he could on the part of the mattress that hadn't been completely drenched.

I'm not exhausted, he realized, turning onto his side to look at the shutters again. I feel like I could stay awake for weeks.

That settles things. I'm getting out of this bed for good tomorrow. I don't care what I have to do, I can't stay in it for another day.

Findekáno had not known he'd fallen asleep until he woke up all at once, when a deafening clap of thunder had echoed through the trees, crackling and booming as it went. He wasn't sure what he'd been dreaming about, if indeed he'd been dreaming at all, and he was instantly alert. Something was wrong, something had changed, and now every inch of him was unsure and searching. A quick glance around the back of the cave revealed it hadn't opened up and was still the same hollow as before. The air was still the same blend of stifling and freezing, and each breath still filled his lungs with the same scent of wet earth and rock.

We aren't about to be pulled earthward and devoured by some dark beast, he thought, so why… ?

He eased his head downward, pushing through the stiff muscles in his neck until he was looking more or less directly ahead of where he lay. What he saw made him freeze in place, his blood turning to ice and vitriol.

They were not alone in the cave.

Opposite them, but closer to its mouth and crouching against the far wall, peering out into the storm, was a nér in a heavy cloak. The hood was cast back from his shoulders, baring his head and revealing pale hair that hung over one shoulder in a thick braid; his face was fixed upward as if he could watch the sky through the clouds. He had one hand braced against the roof of the cave, and the other resting easily on its floor. On his other side, between him and the far wall, was an immense shape of dark fur.

Who - ? Findekáno thought, but then there was another flash of lightning and for a single brilliant moment he could plainly see the proud features on the other face. He was intensely focused on the storm, bright-eyed and fairer-skinned than Findekáno himself. The shape beside him was revealed to be a wolfhound that would have come up to his waist at least if it hadn't been lying down with its head on its paws.

If Findekáno's heart had been cold before, now it was well and truly frozen.

Tyelkormo.

The lightning was gone, and the cave was dark again, and he had no idea what to do next.

Maybe he hasn't seen us, he thought. Maybe he just came here seeking shelter, and he doesn't know.

Don't be stupid. Huan definitely knows you're here, and what Huan knows, Tyelkormo knows.

Not necessarily. He did help me all those weeks ago in the woods. He does go against his master, now and again, for reasons I can't possibly guess.

But can I count on him to do so if we're both about to get murdered?

You don't even know he is plotting to murder you, he told himself. You're being absurd. It's storming horribly out there. You know at least one tree has gone down. Can he be blamed for seeking shelter?

And can you really look at yourself, contemplate killing him first, and do it?

That question gave Findekáno pause. He found himself thinking back to that morning under the tree and their first near-encounter, recalling the knife in his hand and the terror that had seized him.

I can't, he realized, sighing softly. The sound was swallowed up by the wind and rain. I couldn't kill him before, and I certainly can't do it now with Itarillë here, even if I had every hope of overpowering him. He's done nothing to us so far, and said nothing - he hasn't even looked at me once.

I can't justify attacking him over nothing. I am frightened, and lost, and on edge, and I am not thinking clearly. Another glance out past the mouth of the cave revealed it was still treacherous and frenzied in the forest, and this seemed to anchor him and cement his resolve.

He was seeking shelter, and came upon us by chance. That is all, that is definitely all. Anything more and I will neither sleep nor leave him be. I don't have to speak to him, I certainly don't have to tell him anything. I am going to shut my eyes and go back to sleep.

Assuming I can sleep.

This was a problem he had not anticipated. Discovering his cousin had robbed him of any trace of fatigue. Even now, having resolved to do nothing at all, he was too aware of every sound and scent and sensation to dream of banishing thought in favor of rest. And with good reason, too - how can I be certain that he won't slaughter the two of us as soon as I close my eyes?

He watched the other nér warily from under half-closed eyelids, catching every shift and breath and scrape of boot on rock. Huan was dozing, or seemed to be dozing, and did not look at either his master or the other eldar; this lent him some freedom to look without Tyelkormo demanding an explanation.

Not that I would give him one, anyway.

Findekáno wasn't sure of how long he lay there, motionless and vigilant, but slowly he felt exhaustion creep back into his limbs. His breathing grew slower, and deeper, and he found it was a struggle to keep his eyes open. Each time he blinked it was harder and harder to focus on anything but how tired he was. He even fell asleep entirely before shock forced him to wake up a second time.

I can't do this all night, he realized with a sinking feeling. I have to rest, at least a little, if I have any hope of getting us out of these woods in the morning. Dismayed, he reviewed what few choices he had, and none of them save sleep seemed at all within his grasp.

I have no choice but to trust him, he decided. No choice at all. Even if I wanted to fight him, I couldn't. Not like this. Not…

He was asleep before he finished his thought, plunging down into black oblivion.

"Why aren't you worried about him?"

"Hm?" Nolofinwë asked, glancing over his shoulder at Írimë. His children were asleep, at last having drifted off after two songs had turned into two dozen; he was not tired, but had been able to distract himself with his book.

"Findekáno," his sister said. She had found another blanket and buried herself beneath it, her back pressed up against one leg of his desk. "Why aren't you fretting like you did before?"

"Because," he said, returning his attention to the volume of poetry in his lap, "I will know if I need to fret."

"What do you mean?"

A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "I mean that if something were to happen to Findekáno, I daresay those of us in this house would know almost immediately."

"Well, that's certainly cryptic," Írimë said. "And it's not what you said last time."

"I didn't have all the facts last time that I have now."

"Hm," she answered, shaking her head. "Fine, then. Keep your secrets."

"Oh, I plan to," he told her, and had to fight to keep the smile from spreading across his lips. "Though I strongly suspect these are ones you're already privy to."

He didn't have to look at her to know her eyes had widened and her mouth had fallen open in surprise.

"Oh," she said at last; he chuckled and turned to a new page.

"Oh indeed," he replied. "As I said, I'll worry about him if it becomes apparent that I need to, and not before. And I have every faith that we will know, and quickly, too."

"You're not wrong," his sister admitted finally, fighting to keep a yawn out of her voice. "You're not wrong at all."

"Go to sleep, Lal," he said in response. "I'll keep watch until morning."

She didn't answer him, but the silence itself was proof that she had obeyed, and he wished her pleasant dreams as he kept reading. The storm had already begun to quiet, and morning would be bright and fresh, and life would carry on despite the night.

There is some comfort in this endless cycle of light-dark-light-dark, he mused, directing his thoughts at his absent wife and feeling the vague echo of her presence in his mind. No matter what happens in the absence of the Sun, she always returns, bringing renewal with her. Night passes, and day comes again.

I suppose there's some sort of metaphor in that.