My another old piece of fanfiction, that was meant to work as a preview/prologue to a much longer Canon Compliant story I never wrote (but suddenly got the willingness to start working on this story again :)
Narn i Chîn Elenath Elig
The Tale of the Children of Other Stars
"Swiftly she came to the brink of Cabed-en-Aras, and there stood and looked on the loud water crying: 'Water, water! Take now Níniel Niënor daughter of Húrin; Mourning, Mourning daughter of Morwen! Take me and bear me down to the Sea!'
With that she cast herself over the brink: a flash of white swallowed in the dark chasm, a cry lost in the roaring of the river."
"Then Brandir, seeing his death in Túrin's face, stood still and did not quail, though he had no weapon but his crutch; and he said: 'All that has chanced is a long tale to tell, and I am weary of you. But you slander me, son of Húrin. Did Glaurung slander you? If you slay me, then all shall see that he did not. Yet I do not fear to die, for then I will go to seek Níniel whom I loved, and perhaps I may find her again beyond the Sea.'
'Seek Níniel!' cried Túrin. 'Nay, Glaurung you shall find, and breed lies together. You shall sleep with the Worm, your soul's mate, and rot in one darkness!' Then he lifted up Gurthang and hewed Brandir, and smote him to death."
"But Túrin sped far before them, and came to Cabed-en-Aras, and stood still; and he heard the roaring of the water, and saw that all the trees near and far were withered, and their sere leaves fell mournfully, as though winter had come in the first days of summer.
'Cabed-en-Aras, Cabed Naeramarth!' he cried. 'I will not defile your waters where Níniel was washed. For all my deeds have been ill, and the latest the worst.' (...)
Then Túrin set the hilts upon the ground, and cast himself upon the point of Gurthang, and the black blade took his life."
(J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Children of Húrin")
Nienor
Brandir's shout was immediately stifled by the roar of Teiglin's violent stream, and then it, too, quieted in Nienor's soul until she became calm, and all was shrouded in darkness, pleasant and soothing. It seemed to Nienor that she was swimming in it, not drowning, as in the bottomless and black depths of Belegaer. How long did it last? Oh, but there was time no more, time ceased to exist, time ceased to matter... And was it far from here to the Halls of Mandos? Very, very far, after all, she had to sail with no ship all the way to the nothern shores of Valinor... Oh, may it be as far as possible, what a pleasant and carefree journey among these strange waters it was!
And then suddenly... earth? After a moment Nienor was sure: she was lying on hard earth, some small pebbles poking into her back, and a very slight, bearable chill beginning to permeate her body. Should the body feel cold after death? Should the fingers slipping out from under a cloak... (What cloak is it, who put it on me?)... So, should the fingers slipping out from under the cloak feel sticky and wetly cold... of snow?
Nienor raised to sit. Her heart pounded like a hammer as she looked at her palm clenched around a lump of dense snow, melting rapidly under the body heat. When it disappeared completely, she wiped the wet palm against the fabric of the cloak, exploring its precious texture with fingertips... Undoubtedly elven, though it seemed to her that even in Doriath itself, at King Thingol's court, she had never seen such. Light as dowl, yet it gave a pleasant warmth, even if it seemed frighteningly cold all around, just by reaching out her hand... On her feet, too, she wore solid boots, rather than the fine turnshoes in which...
The sweet death in the river chasm was supposed to give oblivion, so why did she still remember everything like the blackest nightmare?
She shuddered and her hand went to her belly, bulging slightly. Am I still with... carrying his...? It is Túrin's... Túrin's!
She stood up abruptly, trying to find the courage to face her own memory, her thoughts like the heaviest of burdens. I am of the House of Hador and Húrin was my father, I shall not flinch at this afterlife, whatever it may be... Father unknown, shall I meet you here?
She was not sure of her few shaky steps, which she managed to take, the feet sinking into the honey-sticky snow that seemed to be all around. Beyond, forest everywhere, a boundless wilderness drowning in the darkness of night, above which the round eye of the full moon performed its agelong watch. Nienor raised her head and its white radiance for a moment silvered her grey-blue eyes. Is it the same moon or a different one?
"Hello?" she asked quietly, looking sideways as she began to walk through the forest, uncertainly and aimlessly. She was answered, like an echo, only by the grim howling of wolves that, somewhere in the distance, had perhaps begun to gather for their nightly hunt. Only darkness peeked from behind the black trunks, but the wood was not asleep after all.
The wood at night never sleeps, the wood watches. Its heart beats with a thousand little lives, unannounced crackles, whispers that seem loud as screams, flittings from branch to branch. Hundreds of unfamiliar eyes are lighting up like lanterns, then fading out, Nienor suddenly recalled a story spun back in the days of her unmerry childhood in Dor-lómin. A few yards from her a bat's flight swished through the air, an owl hooted on one of the boughs.
The wood at night is a dangerous place. At night in the wood, woodmares awake.
Then she stopped, for some strange mist had begun to float over the forest litter and around her, shimmering with droplets of ice in the moonlight. There was something unusual about this new phenomenon, it seemed to Nienor that the snow was suddenly rising back up from the ground and turning into white fluff, dancing among the trees. It got colder, much colder. The elven cloak enveloped her with its warmth, but when she reached out to touch that mist, she hastily hid her hand at once, lest the fingers turn into icicles. She pulled the hood tighter.
The she saw a figure. Tall and bright as the moon itself, as if its light had descended from the sky and stood before her.
"Fanuilos*?" Nienor stared for a while, enthralled, until she realised that not... It was not Varda, it was ice, a great icy might drawing ominously towards itself.
Without looking back, she threw herself into flight.
But I am dead, much less do I want to live, so why am I fleeing?, she asked herself, instinct, however, continued to push her to an almost unconscious run, until finally she stumbled and fell, sinking into a snowdrift. She was afraid to move and did not know how long she lay like that, until she felt a strong hand on the shoulder, which lifted her up and pulled with itself against a thick trunk of an oak. Nienor wanted to scream in terror, realised, however, that the hand was... warm.
"Calm down, Níniel," a soft voice spoke out of the darkness. "Even if this place is far from the Halls of Mandos, you die not twice."
Nienor's heart leapt in joy. Brandir! It was Brandir's voice, and she strained her gaze to discern the contours of his face in the tree's black shadow. He was as frightened and stunned as she was, yet his gaze was still soothing.
Are you sure, wise brother?, her eyes answered. She clung to the oak's bark as the white figure stood nearby, lighting up the little woodland glade as if a star had suddenly fallen. But he is not a brother of mine... Turambar is... Túrin...
"Túrin!" Brandir's whisper followed her thought like an echo as he glanced cautiously from behind the tree. Nienor looked as well. She could not make out a face under the hood of the elven cloak, but she saw a sword she would recognise anywhere, a glowing black blade that now seemed to burn like a torch. The Black Sword, that was both my brother and husband.
The swish of the sword pierced her head as if thousands of needles were being stuck into it. She felt a shrill pain in the abdomen and, almost unable to breath, she slumped to the ground. Then something warm and sticky like snow before began to coat her undergarments. Nienor already knew it was blood.
* one of Varda's Sindarin titles, translated as Snow-white or Everwhite