Brandir

Brandir watched, poking his fingers in the hollows of the damp and slippery oak bark. It all lasted no more than a fraction of a moment, no more than a few drained grains of a hourglass: Túrin raised the sword, the hood slipping from his head, and then the ice creature's cruelly beautiful, previously mocking face shrunk as if. Brandir strained his gaze, wondering what he was seeing on it. Fear? Perhaps, but mostly astonishment, great astonishment... that remained there until the end, when the ice longsword twitched in the wraith's hand, and Túrin immediately took advantage of this moment of hesitation, pierced the corslet effortlessly with Mormegil's black blade and plunged it into the wraith's chest, and the latter gradually dissolved into the air until only a whiff of that astonishment was left, yet soon dissipated with the mist as well and disappeared from Brandir's sight.

However, the man continued to stare for a while, trying to grasp anything of what was happening. He did not have the faintest idea what the ice creature was, yet he supposed it must have recognised the Black Sword or at least known its legend... But were they not dead after all, were they not in the land of the dead, this or that? Is it possible to feel fear of a sword after death?

He turned towards Níniel, and then realised that she was lying on the ground, leaning with her back against the tree trunk, with the hands pressed to the belly. Terrified, he rushed to kneel beside her.

"Níniel!"

She only gave him a cloudy look, so he took her, moved gently a few feet towards the moonlight and, with trembling hands, spread the folds of her cloak. Níniel's white dress was reddening with blood at the bottom of the belly and at thigh level. So she is still...

"Brandir..." she whispered as he looked at her bewildered, and stared at him for a moment, as though to let him know that she understood his surprise and that nothing was as it should be. "It hurts..."

Brandir nodded.

"I know..." he said softly, slowly pulling back the edges of her cloak even more and seeking uncertainly the hem of the dress with his hand. "I... I will have to..."

Then a shadow fell over them as Túrin stood beside, and, breathing heavily and looking from one to the other, he whispered frantically, "Ye…!"

His gaze fell on the bloodstain blackening in the gloom on the whiteness of the dress, and he immediately leapt to Níniel, grabbing her arm wildly, and as the moonlight doused his face, Brandir saw that it was paler even than the wraith's before.

"Níniel..."

When she beheld Túrin's hands on her, her eyes widened in boundless terror, she trembled all over and began to cower like a deer caught in a snare. Brandir felt ire seize him. With all his strength he pushed Túrin away and stood up, yet suddenly wobbled and at the last moment leaned his hand against the tree. Then he realised that he was still lame, and that his leg was still of little use, and he almost laughed out of helplessness and sorrow. Could Eru and the Valar not have spared me this one thing after death?

Yet he raised his gaze and looked angrily at Túrin, who stood before him.

"Dare not!" he growled. The eyes of Húrin's son flashed in the darkness, and for a fraction of a moment Brandir thought he would draw the sword and slay him once more, but he did not, only lowered his head in a helpless, almost imperceptible nod.

"I shall set a fire," he said in a hollow voice, as if indeed there was not a shred of life left in him, and then moved away, just enough, however, to still be within their sight.

Brandir looked after him for a while, then knelt down again beside Níniel and reassured her. Not much more I may do here, he thought bitterly. He could not even dream of herbs in this middle of winter, they did not have water, either, and Brandir was afraid to send Túrin for it... They would be left alone, and he had no weapons to defend Níniel if needed.

He washed his hands nervously in the snow, though he did not expect them to become much cleaner as a result. Again he began to search for the hem of her dress. His hands were still trembling, and now he was no longer sure whether from fear for her or embarrassment. He had been a healer to his people in Ephel Brandir for years, and in the course of healing he had touched many women, and many of them had been beautiful, yet never had the touch made him shudder as it did with Níniel...

"Níniel..." he mumbled. "I will have to give a look... See what is happening..."

She nodded.

"Yes, certainly," she replied, paying no particular attention to it, as though her thoughts were somewhere far away. Just as he was about to begin his work, however, she grasped his hand unexpectedly, and when Brandir lifted his gaze towards her, a strange ardency burned in her eyes, some astonishing determination.

"Do what you need, stay with me, Brandir. Yet never again call me Níniel. Do you understand? I am Nienor."

Then she looked somewhere up, amongst the black crowns of the trees, and added in a whisper, "Níniel must die with this child. I will not bear it otherwise."

A pile of branches and wood burned lazily in the middle of the glade, in a firepit prepared hastily and skilfully by Túrin, and Nienor had fallen asleep beside it, wrapped tightly in the cloak. It was dawning. Somewhere far to the east the weak sun was rising, though Brandir did not expect to see it again after that night, long as a journey through an endless cave.

His mouth was dry, eyes sore. At last, he tore his gaze away from Nienor and glanced fleetingly, through the tongues of flame, at the grim face of Túrin sitting on the other side, then looked down to where Gurthang lay among the snow, not far from its master. It looked almost innocuous now, not much different from the black boughs scattered here and there in the clearing, it only shone more, reflecting the glare of the sparks dancing in the air. Brandir, however, shuddered involuntarily at the sight of it. Immediately afterwards, displeased with himself, he reached for one of the boughs to serve as his crutch, stood up and shifted his gaze back to Túrin.

He had been sitting like that for a long time, not a single word escaping his mouth, motionless like a stone statue, staring into the fire with blank, dead eyes. Why must I still be stuck in his shadow, even after death I cannot be free of it!, Brandir thought at first, but when he looked longer, all anger suddenly left him and pity filled his heart.

"Is it already... done?" Túrin asked at last, still not taking his eyes off the flames.

Brandir sucked in a deep lungful of the morning air, then walked a few wobbly steps round the fire to stand closer to the other man.

"I am not sure," he said miserably. "There are ways to insee, though not here, not as I have nothing here... The miscarriages I have seen have been short or gone almost unnoticeably, yet I know it may last longer, a few days even. And I do not have the simplest herb to clean her wom-... to clean her. I too fear overmuch bleeding. I could use the bark of some trees round here, but..." Suddenly he realised that what he was saying was just a babbling, foolish and pointless, and fell silent.

"Húrin Thalion's blood she is, and she is strong," Túrin said, an expression on his face so dreadful and dark that further words bogged down in Brandir's mouth for good, and he stayed silent for a long while. A lone raven flew over and perched on a chestnut's branch. Unscared, it was almost boldly peeking at them, and when Brandir looked into its black eyes, in which the reflections of the firelight lit up like glow-worms, he would have sworn that the bird was completely understanding and aware of the exchange of glances with him.

"The child has died..." he dared to say aloud some time later, suddenly realising... "Does that mean that we too...?" He looked at Túrin.

"That we are not yet dead?" Túrin laughed grimly. "Nay, we are not, that would have been grace too great for us on the part of Eru and the Valar. A cursed place!" he raised his voice, looking around with hatred and sorrow, "which is like a tomb where they bury you alive. They write your name in stone and you are dead to the known world, yet still you cannot die, and suffer torment ere you do... Morgoth's venomous will has brought us hither and this wood seems scarcely better than the shadows of Taur-nu-Fuin."

"Would Morgoth have given us such cloaks?" Brandir did not share Túrin's thought, or at least he was not sure. He stood up and, having made his way over to the nearest tree, stroked its bark almost tenderly.

"Granted that I have never been to the land of Taur-nu-Fuin, or anywhere closer to the North, yet this is not how I imagine the forests there... This wood is alive, it has a soul of its own that is not all darkness. I feel as if it has been watching us all the time," he said almost with fascination.

"For it has been," Túrin said at that. "Something is nigh, just awaiting to emerge from the darkness. And it will do so shortly."

Brandir moved his palm over the chestnut's bark a few more times, his fingers fiddling amongst its oval flakes, then slipped his hand under the folds of the cloak and checked the belt with which his tunic was girded. He wished he at least had a knife to scrape the bark delicately from the tree, to later brew a decoction for the bleeding of it. Reluctantly, he glanced once more at Gurthang. Túrin noticed his gaze nailed on the sword, and lifted his head towards him.

"What I have done to you," he said slowly, grey eyes darkening, "has been done greatly unjustly."

Brandir's breath quickened. "I myself have killed Dorlas in anger and despair, and not truly justly…" he said quietly after a moment, then turned away, not able to bare Túrin's intent gaze. "Speak of it no more, and I shan't either." Just thinking of this all could get one crazed. Soon, however, he looked at Nienor's figure, blurred slightly behind the flames of the fire, and thought at once: Yet have you not done me a favour after all, Túrin, son of Húrin? Would I not a hundred times rather be here with her, wherever we are, than still in Brethil?

He watched the young woman for a while, in her stillness and cocoon-like grey cloak similar to a rock now, her slightly unsteady breathing being the only sign of life, then reluctantly looked again into the darkness... and petrified. Túrin's prior words proved to be a swiftly fulfilling prophecy. His eyes widened like full moons, and he began to walk slowly backwards towards the fire.

"Túrin...?" he whispered, his breathing quickening once more.

The other man sprang from his place and grasped the hilt of the sword, though did not lift it. He only threw Brandir a fleeting glance, then began to shift his gaze again over newcomers that was appearing from behind the trees. His whole body tensed, willing to leap at any moment, yet did not move. Brandir's initial fear, too, seemed to have left him, and now he felt only astonishment.

Glittering gilded greenness of eyes - several pairs - looked at them from different sides, but it belonged neither to Men, nor to Elves, nor to wraiths. They were small, walking trees, the size of children or Dwarves, as Brandir had always imagined them, with skin as brown as bark and clad wholly in leaves.

Little Ents, are they not?, Brandir wondered and almost smiled, enchanted. Ever since he had been a child, he had dreamed of seeing Ents, had heard stories spun in Brethil of them and had even tried to find them once in the woods of the Haladin, yet to no avail. Most likely, no Ent had ever lived there.

The creatures seemed equally fascinated with them, looking almost in awe at Túrin in particular, speaking some single words to each other in a language that Brandir did not understand.

Túrin did not seem to know it either. He lingered for a moment, but then slipped the sword into its sheath as a sign of peace.

"We mean no harm and no ill intents," he slowly said, and then switched to Sindarin, presumably to be sure. Brandir knew a hint of Elven healing arts, that the old healer in Brethil had taught him years before, and he had learned Elvish itself, yet had heard it seldom, and found it sounding somehow foreign now, almost as though he knew it not. Astonishingly, little Ents seemed not to know it either. One of the creatures, a female with hair like autumn leaves, came closer to them and stood somewhat scared before Túrin.

"We mean no harm as well, fair man," she unexpectedly said in the Mannish common tongue that Brandir could easily understand. "But who are you? What is this sword you wield, so odd and gleaming with light of a comet? And in what tongue have you spoken to us, sweet as long-lost memory?"

Some liberties with languages here as I'm not sure something like the Common Speech of Men has ever existed in Beleriand. Truth be told, I'm not sure how they commonly communicated during the First Age. There was not yet Westron of course, and Sindarin was popular, yes, but did many Men actually know it? Túrin did, but Brandir and the Haladin? I assume Brandir was taught it, but not leaving Brethil all his life, he probably had not many places to practice. Yet they didn't seem to have much problem communicating, even if they natively spoke rather different dialects.

So, my headcanon (that is very useful here :) is that there was some kind of Men Common Tongue . (But how is it possible they understand Westeros Common Speech? Well - just magic here ;)