Nienor

They departed at dawn, after a week or a fortnight of dwelling in the cave (Nienor was not sure, day in that place easily immingled with night, and not that she had been counting the days nonetheless), maugre the children of the forest's insistence that they stay longer to gain more knowledge and strength. Strength - for what? Knowledge - of what? Nienor wist not of as this Brynden half-man, half-tree, in whose wisdom and gift of sight the children so blindly believed, had seemed almost helpless and lost in relation to their cause, and much more knowledge than that from the day of their arrival he had failed to give them. Besides, Brandir trusted him not, and Nienor, despite the kindness that both Brynden and the children had shown them, had willed to leave the cave as soon as possible. Its never-changing gloominess had made her thoughts even blacker and bleaker.

What Túrin had been thinking, Nienor had not known either, for she only spoke to him as much as was needful. At times, whenas she looked at him, her heart rushed to talk, to soothe him in their shared pain and misery, other times, she cursed in spirit whoever it was who had brought their fates together again here, in this strange, unknown world, hating that she had to dwell along with him still, his presence not allowing her to forget even for a moment. And when she would stand right beside Túrin, her heart would tighten till it became motionless and cool, as though made of stone.

She breathed a sigh of relief now and, having closed her eyes slightly, sucked in a deep lungful of air. She could smell the trees again, whilst the wind at last brushed her face and blew her hair.

"Whither will you to fare?" Brandir asked Túrin, who stood a few yards ahead of them.

"Forth," Túrin only muttered in reply, adjusting the scabbard with Gurthang attached to his belt.

"That is verily the very fulsome answer I was hoping for," said Brandir, then looked at Nienor, smiling slightly and uncertainly. His mood seemed to improve as well as soon as they had left the underground. Nienor gave him a faint smile back, and afterwards followed Túrin through the sweeps of snows, along a nonexistent path 'mongst the sullen and twisted trees. Brandir went after her, closing their little party.

They were sitting by the fire, after the whole day of their slow wayfaring to nowhere, in silence as they usually were, whenas the wood behind them rustled suddenly and something cut the air as though a hail of arrows had been released.

"Down!" Túrin hissed and they darted behind the thick trunk of the fallen oak they had sat on earlier, yet no arrows it turned out to be. Nienor lifted her head to look aloft, bewildered. A flock of ravens like a torrent of dark thoughts came amain over the woodland glade. Having wheeled above the firepit several times, croaking loudly, the birds then separated and perched, one by one, on the branches of the trees. And as Nienor, Túrin and Brandir rose and began to look around at their eyes: one pair indistinguishable from the other, sane, curious, glowing black jewels, a voice reached them as though one of the black trunks had unexpectedly spoken, "Not this way to the Wall. You've taken the wrong path."

Túrin drew the sword therewith, yet the stranger seemed not afeard; he stepped out of the forest's darkness, his gait slow and heavy, and, having stood before them, reached out his hand from between the folds of his loose cloak's sleeve, as black as a raven's wing, to show Túrin to lower his blade, and looked at them from under his hood with eyes also like those of ravens.

"Who are you?" Túrin demanded.

"Not your foe, lord Úben," the stranger said, "but a friend. The three-eyed-crow sent me after you to accompany you further."

"We hardly are in need of company, nor do we intend to cross the Wall. Whence such a belief?"

Nienor might not see, yet was sure she had heard the stranger smiling to himself. "I have heard enough of you to be convinced that your heart would drive you to higher purposes than striving for food among wildlings and wights, and occasional rangers of the Night's Watch," he said.

He was queer and glooming, seeming more a wight than a man himself, yet, astonishingly, there was something in the sharpness and haste of his voice that made him trustworthy. Nienor supposed Túrin had felt that as well, for after a silence he slipped Gurthang back into its scabbard and said, "I deem my heart hardly mighty to beat, much less to command me. Yet sit along with us by the fire, if you will."

He sat back on the oak trunk himself thereafter, scarcely interested in the stranger henceforth. Nienor was, however. "What is your name?" she asked.

The man chuckled strangely, sloping down on the fallen tree beside Túrin. "Choose a name for me yourself as you will, my lady. I'm not less dead than the three of you, and the dead use their names rarely. I fear I have long forgotten mine."

Nienor was unsure whether the stranger was mocking her or speaking plainly, for what could one be sure of in this land? She also realised, though, that she scarcely cared. We both care not anymore, the thought came to her as she glanced at Túrin.

"Torandir you shall be then," she told the stranger blankly.

He looked at her and somewhere amidst the many folds of his hood and scarf she descried his dark eyes as they shone suddenly, nearly bewildered.

Whenas the midnight was approaching and it was time to rest, the stranger offered to take the first watch, and Túrin agreed. Yet as they lay not far from the quietly burning, small firepit, Nienor was sure that neither her brother nor Brandir were truly asleep, their breathing wary and restless. Nienor could not sleep as well, and eventually even lying there seemed heavier than carrying boulders, therefore she rose and passing by Túrin's figure, walked athwart the little wood glade and into the forest. Her brother's breath froze for a moment and she knew he was listening to her steps, but he moved not.

She halted erelong, having descried the figure of the stranger in the dark. He was sitting on a high bank of the rustling brook from which they had drawn water earlier, on a thick and twisted root, and an even thicker tree spread its lowest boughs over him like the dome of a vault. Nienor watched the man awhile in stillness, unconvinced whether to approach him or return to the firepit, till she spotted he was not alone and that what had appeared to be tree branches above his head were not only them, but also the wide antlers of an animal.

"An elk!" she whispered in astonishment, all of a sudden no longer afeard to come near, a smile like the thinniest sickle of the moon appearing on her face.

The man twitched and lifted his head slightly, and for a brief while she might see under the folds of the hood his eyes glittering as alert stars. "Why are you not sleeping, ladyDaeneth?"

Nienor answered him not, though, but without taking her eyes off the animal, that was also watching her intently, she went on with her own thought, "Back whilst, as a child, I lived still in my home lands, plundered and devastated by enemies, one of the few people left by my mother's side, the old and blind Ragnir, told me a story of an elk spirit that guides heroes and warriors of brave hearts and gentle souls through dangerous woods and along secret paths to reach their homes at last. Ragnir promised it should guide my father as well, and I waited. He never came."

"Sleep comes not easily to the dead," she then replied at last to the man's question, shifting her gaze to him. He let out a quiet, hasty chuckle and to Nienor's surprise, there was some understanding in this laugh.

"A flighty one, that sleep. Does not come easily to the dead, at times does not come easily to the living either. Fortunate those able to tame it," he said, then stood up and began stoking the elk's slender muzzle, close to the black nostrils. The animal snorted quietly. "You may touch him. He will do you no harm."

Nienor reached out and ran her fingers over the elk's neck. Its fur was rough and hard, tickling her with gentle stings. The black eye glared at her suspiciously. She exchanged a fleeting glance with it, then her gaze fell on the man's hand. Like the elk's eye. Like a lump of coal, she thought, furrowing her brows. Like it was constantly stuck in fire, yet might not be burned.

"Why are your hands black?" she blurted out her inner question, yet was given no answer. The man passed by her and, having walked a few steps, crouched by the edge of the miniature brook's cliff, his back turned to her.

"You've named me "secret wanderer", lady Daeneth, so I shall stay one," he said through a smile, his voice muffled by the folds of fabric.

Nienor's hand stroking the elk's neck froze at once, and her eyes widened. She came swiftly to the stranger and crouched right beside him. "You do know the tongue of the Grey-elves!" she whispered excitedly.

"Know has long since become a faraway word to me. But I may have known it once, or, more likely, may have dreamed that I once wielded it as well as a sword," he replied long-windedly, seeming to be in deep thought.

Nienor furrowed her brows again and then, silent awhile, shifted her gaze to the water of the stream, blackening in the murk. Starlight reflected off it in places, so that 'mongst the waves it lit up as little fires beckoning the watchers and ready to swallow. Suddenly, Nienor felt again on herself the icy chill of Teiglin whenas... and she trembled. A strange, dreaded feeling.

"Who are you truly?" she asked afterwards, looking back at the man's profile. He turned his head towards her, and the moon made her behold more than before under his vast hood, and suddenly his eyes, that had prior seemed black, became fair and grey-blue like her own, as though she were looking at herself in the mirror.

"The shadow," he told her blankly. "The memory of the world of old. The wraith of memory that dwells, and dwells, and dwells." He then stood up and having glanced fleetingly behind, said some more as a goodnight, "You best go back to sleep, lady. The night grows old already and beyond deep, and the day will soon begin."

Nienor glanced as well. A few yards behind them Túrin stood in the darkness, as motionless as a stone statue, watching. A skinny branch cut his face in half like a thunderbolt, and on either side of it his eyes glittered like stars.

You did name me nimbly, brother, Nienor thought bitterly whilst they stared awhile at each other, and she felt as anger and defiance began filling her heart. For I am forsooth the sister of the shadow, and I myself am merely a shadow as well. We are all shadows here, shattered scraps of the olden days. Therefor is it not the deadland after all? Is it not what the Halls of Mandos are: the gathering of savaged and weary souls?

Having dropped her gaze to the forest floor, where roots fat and skinny intertwined every now and then like braids and mosses wrapped around them thickly as fur, she hurried back to the firepit. Brandir sat on the ground beside it, leaning back on his hands, and looked her way, his eyes as wakeful as Túrin's, yet thousandfold gentler and thousandfold more awkward. It seemed that he wished to speak, but lingered, and Nienor said nought as well. She wanted now neither his kindness nor his soft compassion.

She walked to her own place by the fire and, having wrapped her cloak around herself like a cocoon, lay down on the ground and closed her eyes tightly, painfully tightly, maugre she knew sleep would not come nonetheless.