Chapter Twenty

Estela watched as they celebrated. She had hastily took charge of gathering the wounded and tended to them. She had centuries of experience in that, tending to injuries. Her father might have trained her, but until after his death she had never fought in an actual battle or a covert mission.

Instead she spent time with her mother and became an expert healer. She had taught the twins that, she remembered glancing at where Elrond now knelt over a wounded man.

Squeezing a wet cloth over a bowl, she covered a man's brow. "Rest now," she said. "I can guarantee that you will not die. You will live." She was telling the truth. The man looked at her in awe.

"I saw you," he whispered. "You and the king…. You fought like a Vala."
"Hush," she murmured. "They say you cannot be defeated or touched by a weapon," the man whispered. "You… you saved us, saved us all."

"Rest," she repeated soothingly. "You need to sleep in order to heal."

She stood. This had been repeated in many variations throughout the course of her healing. Thankfully the majority of their troops survived. But death still surrounded them. She walked past them, most of them had had her ministrations and Elrond's, the rest were in good hands and unlikely to die, with injuries that were far less serious anyway. She needed space to breathe.

Making her way outside the healer's part of the camp, she grasped a pole and took a deep lungful of the cold air. It was dusk.

"Tired," a familiar voice sounded behind her. She knew it was the High King.

"The battle was long, but it was the healing that took most of my energy," she smiled. "I was glad to do it, though."

"I see," he moved next to her. "You should rest."

"I am taking a break now," Estela explained. "Soon I will go back inside. I would have rested sufficiently by then. It's nothing new to me."

"Except in a larger scale," he pointed out. He looked at her. "Are you truthfully alright?"

"I am fine," Estela said. She tried to brush off an unidentifiable, unfamiliar feeling.

His gaze bore into her.

"If I believed that," he said quietly. "I would not have asked. You know I must concern myself, before you ask, Estela Nelyafinwiel."

Estela froze. Shock resounded through her and hit her inner core. Never, never in all the years of her life, had there ever been… had anyone ever guessed-

He gazed straight into her eyes. "I came not to condemn you," he said quietly. "I just want you to know that you are not friendless and that you are not alone." His hand brushed her face.

"How-" Estela choked. "How did you know? You-" she remembered the 'dream'. "You were there," she stammered. "In the clearing, when I killed the orcs. I thought it was a dream, but- but it wasn't. Was it?" she glanced fearfully at Gil-Galad. She took a deep, shaky breath, and felt herself begin to shake. "How did you know?"

His blue eyes stood out in the dark. "I found out in a dream. It was memories. And yes, I did see you that night. I saw you and ever since then, I had been agonizing myself over who you were and you where you could be."

Estela opened her mouth and closed it. What was he saying, she thought bewildered and frightened, her emerald eyes wide. Instinctively, still shaking, she took a step back.

"No." she said with uncharacteristic firmness. She shook her head. "You don't know what you're saying."

Gil-Galad's brow furrowed and his blue eyes narrowed in hurt.

"What makes you think that?" he asked in a dangerous voice. But she was not afraid. She scowled.

"I have many reasons to think that," she said. "One, namely because you are the King of Lindon- of the Noldor people in Middle-Earth and that you are High King of the elves. If you know who I am, then you know what you risk with me- not just yourself but everything you've worked so hard to build."

Gil-Galad said nothing and his expression did not change.

"Consider," she continued as if she had not stopped, "what happened to my own grandfather. Despite all his great accomplishments, despite achieving glory and success on a scale previously unimagined, look at what he is remembered now. It took very few decisions to do that."

"You are not your grandfather," Gil-Galad said, his eyes narrowed further. "I do not believe you are like that, and after what I have seen with my own eyes-"

She shook her head harder.

"I am cursed," she said. "It has been centuries since I left Valinor, and not by my own choice- by my grandfather's order. "The Doom of Mandos was pronounced- the Lord of Mandos came himself in person." Her eyes darkened and then misted over in pain.

"He came to us that night, soon after our arrival in Losgar," she said. "The ships burned." Her eyes, ears and nose remembered it all. The scent of the burning wood and smoke floated to her nostrils, her eyes stung with the smoke, sensitive in her young age, and the flames threw a wild, almost demoniacal light over the shore where the ships were anchored.

Telerin ships.

The thing that struck at her core wasn't just the trauma, but the horrifying sense of…betrayal…

She had watched the ships beings built. She had ran her tiny palms across the white wood, gazed with gleeful delight as she first looked upon the swan's head when it was revealed, when she had chosen to help her delighted maternal grandfather in sculpting the figurehead. She had inset the eyes- jet and a tiny gold nugget in each, her grandfather helping her seal them in place so they would never be moved or taken by the waves or the wind.

She had been praised for her work, her proud grandfather holding her up to see her handiwork, the shipwrights smiling fondly as they clapped and cheered. She loved the swans. Wanted to see as many of them as she could.

Yet now the smoke rose in the air, and the smell of burning wood lingered persistently, damningly in her nostrils. The sea was a dark, glassy surface, black as the void in her heart. Black as the doom that was sure to come.

Her mother clutched her close. She buried her face in her mother's skirts, her Telerin mother who married the father that turned away, his dark blue eyes haunted and dark with the sights he had seen, and the memories of it all. His sculpted, chiselled face seemed unnaturally haggard and there were dark half-circles under his eyes. His cloak flapped in the wind, the fabric floating like a ghost. One lone figure stood out among the rest of the Noldorin host.

He had frozen when he heard. Telufinwë, his youngest brother, had choked on his sobs, ran to a cabin and bolted the door. He had refused to come out. Not even when their father ordered the ships to be burnt.

And so the smell of burning flesh was prevalent also amidst the smell of the smoke and burnt wood.

The horrified Maitimo screamed a silent scream when he heard what Pityafinwë had to say to their father. And Estela saw, and Estela heard.

And Námo Lord of Mandos had arrived, amidst all that had happened, looking at her grandfather with stern reproachfulness at the severity of what had happened.

"Tears unnumbered shall you shed," Mandos told sternly. His dark countenance radiated outwards, frightening even the boldest of elves. "The Valar shall fence Valinor against you. And so shall you be shut out, so not even the echoes of your lamentations shall be heard by those over the mountains. On the House of Fëanáro shall the Doom of the Valar be placed; from the west of this world, to the east, upon all those that follow them shall it also be placed. The Oath that you have sworn upon, shall drive you, yet shall it also betray you, and shall it ever snatch the very treasures that in your blind rage, you have sworn to pursue, destroying all those that stand in your way, even the faultless. To evil end shall all things turn if they begin well; and by the treason of kin unto their kin, and forever, the fear of treason shall come to pass. The Dispossessed shall you be, forever.

"You have spilt the blood of your kin, unrighteously, and stained the sacred land of Aman. For blood, shall you render blood, and thus beyond Aman, shall you last in Death's shadow. For though Eru All-Father rendered you never to die within Eä, and no sickness shall beset you, slain may you be, and slain shall you be, by the weapons, by torment and by grief; and so then to Mandos shall your houseless spirits come, and there shall you abide, long and yearn for your bodily form, and find little pity in those that you have slain. As for those who have not been slain, in Middle-Earth shall you dwell, never to go to Mandos, thus ever shall you grow weary; this world shall forever be a great burden unto you, painful and merciless in its trials and tribulations, and so shall it give pain, and so shall you be as wearisome shades, waning of your regrets in your choice of life, waning before the younger race Ilúvatar has sent ahead to be born into this world. Thus, the Valar have spoken."

That was the curse.

Those that followed were also affected. And it was a curse Ereinion Gil-Galad, High King of the Noldor and the elves, would take upon himself, if he chose to pursue her.

Her eyes- she didn't even know they were shut- snapped open.

"Can you promise not to pursue me, Ereinion Ñoldóran? She begged. "Can you promise me, for your own sake? If not for you, then for the people that follow you?" she was almost throwing herself to her knees.

She didn't even know she was crying. Tears streamed from her eyes and coursed itself down her face.

"Why are you saying this?" he whispered. "Why are you cursed? You have done nothing wrong," he said harshly. He knew, of course he did, she was a small child when she had left Valinor- not by her choice- and forced to lose family members, one at a time. He tried to comfort her, to embrace her, but she pulled away.

"You are not cursed." He whispered harshly. "I refuse to believe the Valar would ever place a doom upon the head of an innocent child who by far, did not make any of the choices others did."

"But I followed," she whispered. "Not by my choice, but I followed and I heard," she whispered. "I heard what he said."

She closed her eyes and a tear seeped out. Estela who had stopped crying centuries ago was, to her own frustration, was starting once again.

Memories flooded through his mind, courtesy of her: the meeting between her father and uncle and her Telerin family members, what she saw of the First Kinslaying, the burning of the ships in Losgar, the loss of one of her uncles- more of a playmate and brother to her- the Doom of Mandos….

The Sacking of Doriath- the Second Kinslaying. The deaths of three uncles, and the deaths of Dior the King, Nimloth his wife, and the awful, horror she felt when she heard about the fate of their sons, and how her father tirelessly searched for them in vain, despite the pleas of her mother, saying it was useless. He was desperate, too desperate.

The horrifying, dooming news that the jewel was in the Havens of Sirion. The begging of her father, desperate to know that the news was not true, and the tear that seeped from her uncle Macalaurë. The news of the Third Kinslaying. The finding of the twins Elrond and Elros. The news that her father and uncle were taking them in, rather than allowing them to survive on their own or slaying them. Growing up with them, teaching them healing, fighting, languages, literacy, sciences, crafts, mathematics, geography and many others.

The fading of her mother in grief when she believed her father and Estela were slain. Her father when he heard the news. Her own screams and tears of grief.

Her father when she last saw him. He was preparing to leave.

"Please Atar," she begged him. "Please."

Her father looked at her, the strain of grief written in his handsome face. His loss of his soulmate was written all over, clear as the light of day. And his dark eyes, seemed a darker indigo in their grief.

"I am forever cursed, forever bound to go," he said hollowly. His resolve threatened to break and crumble as he beheld the form of his only child. "But I cannot lose you as well, Melda Selde, no, I never can," he shook his head to shake the tears that formed in miniscule beads in his eyes.

"I won't let you do this!" she was becoming hysterical. She clutched at his sleeve. "Atar, I won't let you do this!"

Maitimo went silent. Then he lowered his head. His face remained in shadow. "I cannot let you die," he said hoarsely, hollowly. "The way your mother suffered and died. I cannot let you be slain, the way many others were."

"Then stay!" she almost shrieked, tears coursing down her face in alarming quantities.

Her father looked up. "You know what to do," he said in a voice that tried to remain emotionless, empty, but came out as hoarse and hollowed even further, by grief at not only what had happened, but what also would occur.

He looked so hollow and blank as soldiers came up and held Estela by her arms. "What-" she started. Then she shrieked: "Let go of me!" They pulled her back, to the fortress. "Atar-"

"Melanye tye, melda selde" Her father whispered, raising his head, and for the first time, his tears flowed unchecked. "I will always love you, no matter where I go,"

"Atar!" the first time she screamed outright. "Atar, please-" The elves dragged her away.

"Pleeeasse!" The scream was also was sob. The utterly hysterical scream that ripped through the air, her sobs shaking her chest, "Please, Atar!"

"Atar!" she screamed before the closed and bolted the door for good measure.

"Atar!" But although she screamed and pounded the doors with her fists, begging not to let him go, not to lose her father, not to lose anymore, to let her go so she may try to stop him, no one listened. And after a while, her screams stopped, and all went silent. And when Melehton, her father's second-in-command, opened the door, finally, her voice had been lost due to the pleas and sobs that shook her.

"My father?" she managed to whisper, her voice barely heard.

He closed his eyes. How could he tell her?

But she somehow knew. A pit of molten rock, liquid fire that scorched him and burned him. consuming entirely. Her uncle, the last remaining relative, disappeared, missing, they say, to lament his loss for the ages to come.

They were all lost to her.

Now what did she have left?

Ereinion stood shocked as the last images cleared from his mind. The memories that came before she made a decision to fight the wrongs done to them.

"Was this why you chose to do what you've done?" he whispered. "Fighting evil- was that why you did that?"

She shook her head. "I cannot turn back the Doom of Mandos," she said quietly. Her eyes met his. She would not look down or away when she was telling him what she felt. "And even if I can try, I never will. What I do, I don't do so I can try to show the world that we are not evil, even if we truly aren't. I would tell my name, my heritage to the world, crying it out as I go to battle, if I were. But I keep silent. Silence is what I live by, and I keep no reward, nor will I tolerate any ill-gotten one, even if they proclaimed that the Fëanorians are not all evil, and are capable of great good as well as great accomplishments and great ill. My works are not for sale nor will they be bargained for anything."

And Ereinion was silent and he knew, he just confirmed what he already knew when he first caught sight of her. The chroniclers, poets, historians and scholars would all write this, even centuries after the War of the Ring, that this was the moment he knew not only did he love her, but they were right for each other. Perhaps they exaggerated, perhaps they over-embellished things a little. But whilst Beren and Lúthien met in a clearing filled with flowers in the forest of Nan Elmoth, and Arwen Undomiel met Aragorn-Elessar, and Idril Celebrindal met Tuor in a shining city, this was a meeting of a different kind. No one sang, laughed or danced. He did not present her with tokens of love at that time as he sensed it would only drive her further away. She did not melt in his arms and pledge herself the first time. Nor was she dressed in the airy fabrics and jewels or flowers worn by Lúthien or Idril, her cousin. He was battle-hardened and still had not removed his armour, and blood-stained, torn clothing beneath. She was dressed in a healer's shift, stained with the blood of the wounded and dying, the ones she were trying to save.

This was not the meeting poets envisioned. The first time he saw her, she did not dance to music, but a dance more beautiful, and more deadly. The dance of death she dealt to the orcs, some would say.

The poets had it wrong. And they will continue to get it wrong. But it was no less powerful and irrevocable for Ereinion Gil-Galad as she quietly took her leave and left him in silence underneath the light of the stars. Their losses were minimal. But she had decided to treat the prisoners as well. They weren't savages to treat them cruelly.

But as Ereinion Gil-Galad stood there, underneath the light of the stars ad of ithil, he thought how dark and desolate his world would be as she left. How devastating and devoid of light.

He would not be shattered. And he would not shatter her the way her kin did.

Ereinion strode back to his tent. His speed increased and he felt the blood rising up his neck and pounding at his temples in a fury.

The flaps fluttered shut behind him. He stood and gazed at the ceiling of the tent.

Why? He demanded the Valar silently. Why did you make an innocent child suffer for what she did not choose and what she could not control?

I trusted you, he wanted to scream in betrayal. I had faith in you. I followed you! Never have I doubted you! And you would do this to an innocent child and doom her kin, even though they also saw the fault in their ways- forever?

Forever meant there was no turning back, he thought bitterly. No matter how much good the sons of Fëanor did later in, their other deeds weighed heavily. Whatever good they did was wiped from the memories of the Ainur, and they would only see them as kinslayers- and place a curse upon their kin, even upon the innocent. And she was Telerin as well as Noldorin.

Why?! he screamed in silence. He demanded an answer. But he received none.

How could you be so unjust, unkind and cruel? Why do you punish her? Has she not suffered enough, not only by the hands of Morgoth the cursed and his slaves, but by her own kin, the ones she loved, and you, yourselves as well, only added to her suffering?! Why is this so? How can this be just and right?

Why do you make her suffer? He demanded again. Why?

There was silence. Just because it is what it done, he thought, does not mean that it should be this way. None of it is right.

But there was no answer. Just as he thought, he thought bitterly. The Valar were not listening.

But they were.

Oh, boy, sorry for the long wait. But as it reveals, there is more than just fear of rejection from Estela and her kin. The Doom of Mandos, as could be found in the Silmarillion, which I re-wrote and paraphrased (after all you can't expect chroniclers- including Rúmil who Tolkien planned to be the 'writer' of the Silmarillion in Arda and Valinor- to say exactly what the people said word by word. But that is the cause of Estela's fear- that she will summon a doom upon Gil-Galad's head and the heads of the Noldor as well as cost his alliance with the Wood-Elves. And as it turned out, she's trying to do good to redeem her kin- not to show to the world or the Valar, but simply to do good to others after all the ill her kin had done. What are the Valar thinking after all?