Category: Tolkien-Universe

Rating: M

Couples: -

Warnings: AU, blood, mentions of torture, character death, Loss of bodily autonomy (no Non-con)

Chapter: 23

Copyright: Characters & places © By Tolkien Estate, Plot & OC´s © by me

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"It's just gone." Tyelko murmured. They had made good time, until the trail had stopped abruptly.

He and Huan had made several loops around the last spot of scent, but had been unable to find where it continued.

"He took them." Nelyo murmured, looking up from where he had been using their small break to make some wild-grain flatbreads. "Like how he took them from Tol Sirion and Thargelion, pulling them through fire."

"So how are we going to find where we need to go?" Kano was cleaning their dinner, but now let the knife drop uselessly to the stone he'd had the rabbit on. "Wildly run around?"

"I recall seeing miles and miles of sand, in the tapestries." Fëanáro softly stated from his own seat a short distance away. He seemed to be cutting away at something in his lap, but whatever it was was obscured by his hands. "It's been steadily getting warmer as we moved south. Likely, to get somewhere with that much sand you need to get somewhere where it's so hot all rain practically evaporates before it hits the ground."

"So further beyond this mountain-range?" Ñolofinwë had been sitting with him, and Tyelko did not particularly care what they had been talking about. "To think that..." His uncle bit his lip, looking up at the tall mountain-peaks.

"Then the question becomes, which would be the fastest way for us to get around it? We don't have the provisions to go across it, if this sight is any indication." The red-headed eldest of Fëanáro murmured, even as he flipped the breads that were baking on the stone. From what little they had found, this had been the camping-site of their kin, one where they had lingered for longer than a few hours. There had been still some hair, golden and undecayed under one of the stones that had ringed the remnants of an old, old campfire in this sheltered lee of several large boulders.

The number of living beings that had such a shade of hair, particularly this far from Beleriand, was practically one. Arafinwë had lingered here, for a time, certainly long enough for the luxury of a campfire. And where Arafinwë lingered, so must have their brothers, though they could not find any traces of them for certain.

"From the hilltops, it seemed that it's longer to the East." He informed them, sinking down beside his two brothers. "But that leaves the risk that they bend away from the sea and we'd be taking a longer route."

"Didn't Ciryatan once tell us that the coastline arched East in the far south?" Makalaurë mused, turning most of his attention to the rabbit, despite not actually moving to cut the meat or anything like that. "It will likely not make that much of a difference."

"Are we really going to risk that they traveled sharp East and just ended up in an arid landscape?" The Hunter snarled, trembling in his impotency. He'd never had to deal with this on a hunt, and this had to be the single most important hunt he'd ever be on.

"What are you suggesting, Tyelkormo? That we split up and hope two or three are enough if we find them?" Russandol countered in equal frustration. "And just hope that we don't get picked off by whatever he's managed to cook up these last few years and just join them!?"

"Splitting up will let us cover more ground faster." The silver-haired son of Nerdanel hissed. "It's already been years since they'd got taken. Is it supposed to take years more to find them?"

"Do you remember what happened the last time this family split up?" It was their father that answered, eyes narrow and blazing. "I seem to recall thousands of people dying and being captured, including kin." He sharply gestured at his eldest. "Rushing ahead alone has literally never gone well, Turcafinwë. It will not go better this time around."

He snarled at the use of his father-name, by said father, but the matching glare on his eldest brother's face made the third son back down, sweeping back into the wilds. Huan trotted up to the group, plopping down beside the grazing horses.