In the palace kitchen, Indis baked. The room was full of bread. In between long spells of idling by the window, Findis helped to put each batch of risen dough in one of the great ovens. Ilmarien had at first shared in this labour; but Laurefindë had come to take her away some time ago. Indis did everything else.

Although at least three Hours had passed in this way, neither felt remotely capable of sleep. Indis indeed found the motion of kneading the bread deeply soothing. She could knead until her mind had gone into her fingers and the dough's changing softness, until all thought had been lost in the rhythm.

She was still perfectly calm, as if, after the first shock of the Darkness, a consciousness of the hand of fate had fallen upon her. She had fallen in love with Finwë all those Years ago, had she not? Well, this was as if she had continued to fall - fallen right through the love and into this black hole at the bottom that had been waiting eternally for her. Indis had returned to the shadows of Cuiviénen, or they had come to her, as she had surely known always that they must.

"Mother? This is enough, wouldn't you say?"

Indis straightened with a sigh; her back ached abominably, as was observed by a small corner of her mind. Also, her damp hair was becoming a problem.

"I suppose so. What time is it?"

Such an easy, obvious little question!

"I don't know, how should I? I don't think it's any time, Mother."

Indis joined her daughter by the window and leaned her head against the glass. She could just make out the misty shapes of the trees in the Square of the Folkwell. There had been firs and birch-trees at Cuiviénen, for the children of the second generation to play amongst.

"You won't leave me, will you, selde?"

"No, Mother," Findis said; and she laughed. "What could there be for me in Endórë? No, we will go to Valinor together and meditate on the providence of Ilúvatar. I can turn over the pages of your books of lore for you."

"Amma," said a little voice. It was Lalwen, of course.

.~.~.~.~.

Indis sat in a chair by the hearth. Lalwen knelt on the floor beside her, weeping and wailing and sobbing into her mother's white festival dress. Findis had not moved from the window. She wore a studiedly enigmatic expression, tragically wasted since neither Indis nor Lalwen could have seen it to appreciate it, even if they had wanted to. But old habits die hard.

Lalwen, between sobs, was trying to explain to her mother the full horror of the scene that she had left behind her in her brother's house, but she did not have the words for it. Nolofinwë had been pleading with his wife, practically weeping. That was bad enough; but the peculiar quality of Anairë's resolveto remain in Eldamar would live with her sister-in-law in nightmares until the end of Arda.

"She was like a rock, a rock! Oh, oh... And it is all my fault!"

"Don't be ridiculous," Findis said crisply. "I should say it was all Anairë's fault, not to mention Eärwen!"

"Oh, how can you? - And now Nolofinwë will hate me! Oh!"

.~.~.~.~.

Findekáno never did find Arakáno. By the time he returned home, this was hardly the most salient of Nolofinwë's domestic problems. Most of the family had in fact forgotten that the boy was missing at all until Itaril remarked casually that 'someone ought to tell him'. She then set off to the house of Arafinwë to do so, not so much deducing Arakáno's presence there as assuming it.

(As well as being extremely clever, she was naturally unemotional, besides which, a grandmother is not the same as a mother.)

The possibility of such a dreadful eventuality had never occurred to Arakáno; what of that? Now that it had found lodging-space in his brain, Itaril's news had a dreadful ring of inevitability to it. Of course Anairë would stay. To what else had all the events of his short life been leading?