Brandir

Brandir could not tell how long they had walked through this wood, that seemed to make no distinction between night and day, equally dark at all times. His crippled leg had become so sore that he struggled to drag it along with him whenas they at last came inside a cave, a brooding place that without the torches of the Little Ents would have been nought more than one great dark mass.

Thereafter, through a narrow and low passage they began to descend down, into the black depth of the earth, and suddenly Brandir thought that perhaps the afterlife had only played a trick on them before, that the night in the forest had only been their farewell to the world, and now (ironically by daylight outside, albeit poor) proper death was opening its black arms to them and they were reaching the true Halls of Mandos at last, or another postmortal place they wist nought of... He suddenly remembered the moment when Níniel... Nienor had thrown herself into Cabed-en-Aras, and he had stood on the edge of the cliff afterwards in his boundless misery and boundless terror, whilst the greedy murk, that had moments before devoured the creature dearest to him, had been drawing him to itself like a moth to the light of a lantern, ready to swallow him whole, to the last bone, the last drop of blood, the last scrap of soul...

Now Brandir got terrified as well, and immediately looked back to see Nienor in Túrin's arms. She was here, not in the roaring spasms of the river, whole and possibly alive, the pale torchlight partially illuminating her face. She must have felt Brandir's gaze on herself, for she turned her head and her usually blue, but now, in the darkness of the cave, almost black eyes sent him a long, inscrutable look. Brandir smiled faintly. She was here, and was that not soothing, then at least reassuring.

He glanced afterwards at Túrin's face. He feared not, Brandir doubted that he had ever feared aught, no matter in life or death, yet his face was fierce, alert, restless. The shadows of the siblings' shapes followed them on the rocky walls of the passageway like unmerry companions.

"Put me down now," Nienor said then to Túrin.

"Yet..."

"Put me," she repeated sternly, and Túrin reluctantly obeyed. Nienor wobbled on her own feet, yet when Brandir reached out his hand and grabbed her arm to hold her, she had already regained the balance herself. I am well, go, her eyes told him, and there was something so steadfast and almost steely in this gaze that Brandir's hand trembled and he at once let go of her arm.

As he turned to walk on, his forehead nearly impaled on something growing out of the rocks of the ceiling, sharp and gleaming in the light like the blade of a queer and twisted dagger, white as the fingers of the dead. Brandir stepped back abruptly and glanced again at Nienor, whose eyes now widened in amazement and fright, then he looked around and only now realised that similar protrusions were all over them. Suddenly he understood.

"These are roots," he whispered, astonished and fascinated, his fingers cautiously stroking the white surface, slightly rough from the specks of earth that had settled on it.

Then, as fast as his leg would allow him, while trying not to snag his head on the ceiling, Brandir walked forth to catch up with the child-woman.

"So who are you leading us to?" he asked once again, for they had hitherto received no answer.

"To the three-eyed crow," the child-woman said now, turning her leaf rustling head to Brandir. "To the greenseer."

The crow?, Brandir furrowed his brows and suddenly remembered the strange bird with which he had exchanged glances in the forest. The raven!

"I saw a raven in the wood, back whenas we were alone," he told the siblings, trying to keep his voice from sounding suspiciously anxious. "He was watching us."

"Has it heard all that we spoke of?" Túrin asked.

"How may I know?" replied Brandir, displeased with himself and his earlier unperceptiveness. "Then it was only a bird to me."

"Nevertheless, that matters not," Túrin unexpectedly justified him. "There are worse whom I fear to meet here than skin-changers."

"Who do you expect to meet?" Brandir wondered aloud, yet he was given no answer.

The passage ended and a cavern spread out before them, its flooring a sea of more white roots that eftsoons turned out not to be them, though. Bones!, Brandir halted so rapidly that he nearly fell, Nienor and Túrin along with him. A cursed place which is a like a tomb where they bury you alive..., he remembered Túrin's words by the firepit and for a moment he could hardly breath. He considered it his small, feeble luck that he did not have time to stay and think longer, for then a question reached them from afar, a voice slightly astonished, and dull as an echo from the depths of a well, of someone who seemed to have not used speech for a long, long time, "Who are you?"

Túrin tensed and dared Brandir a glance, then without hesitation, went after the child-woman's torch towards the source of the voice. Nienor followed and so did Brandir, albeit reluctantly. The question repeated three times before they at last faced the one who had been asking it.

This was a true man-tree, two creatures as one, and not an Ent, no Ent might look so strangely pathetic and so horrific at the same time. Brandir's eyes widened, breathing hastened and his heart began to flutter. Nienor moved swiftly closer to him and grasped his arm in her own fear, her palm as cold as ice through the linen of his tunic, as though the blood and life had truly drained out of her now. There was undoubtedly little of it in this creature as well. He seemed more dead than alive, a white corpse, his own flesh nearly indistinguishable from bones or roots of the white tree that grew all around him. Only his eye, the only one left instead of three, as the name he was given by the children would indicate, was red and seemed to be blazing like a ball of fire.

Túrin, however, was unimpressed. He stood straight before the man-tree with his sullen as usual face and gave his false name without a hint of a stammer.

"Elves they are," the child-woman added to his words, seemingly expecting the man-tree to confirm it or deny, or explain more. He did not, however.

"Elves?" Had the creature still had eyebrows, he would have wrinkled them, Brandir supposed. "Your name is a lie, black lord with the black sword," he then said only and as though hesitating, wondering. "I can feel it, yet I myself cannot recognise the truth about you. I see you only behind the veil, the mist, behind the dark bough of the tree..."

"Who are you? What do you want from us?" Túrin demanded.

"I? It is you who have come to me."

"We have been brought to you, and I want nought from you save the help for my sister," Túrin said, glancing fleetingly at Nienor, who stood frozen and bewildered, still holding Brandir's arm tightly, whilst he himself adjusted the bough-crutch nervously in his other hand. "Who are you? I have given you my name, and it matters not whether you believe it to be true or not. Give me yours as well therefore, so that I too may decide whether I believe you are who you claim to be."

"You seems kingly and so is your speech." Something akin to a faint, snorting chuckle escaped the man-tree's mouth. "And your heart is as weary as the king's. I may not see you truly, yet I see him, alone on the Throne, eyes dead, face grim."

"I am neither a king nor do I care about yours," Túrin said boldly. Too boldly for Brandir's liking, yet he dared not to utter a word himself.

"Mayhap you ought to, black lord," the man-tree replied, yet he did not seem to take Túrin's words as an insult. "You and the king are alike and your paths ought to meet, for better or worse. Not yet, though. Your errand seems other for now."

"Who are you to give me errands?" Túrin angered.

"I had been Brynden once," the creature answered after a silence, his words now even slower than before, "long agone, before I wore many other names, yet none of them will tell you anything, elf-man with black sword, just as I am giving you nothing now as well, only repeating words that I hear like a raven, past and not mine. The woman's words."

"What woman are you speaking of?" Nienor asked, seemingly having decided at last that curiosity had grown stronger in her than fear. She had already let go of Brandir's arm and, despite her weakness, stood proud and straight like her brother. They were both so unlike and so similar, these children of Húrin, now Brandir noticed it for the first time and foreboded it would not be the last.

Brynden again hesitated awhile, then answered her, "Wise and joyless. The one I have seen when I looked into your brother's eyes. The dark-haired woman that loved who she should not have. This is all I have seen behind the veil. She holds the wisdom. I hold no knowledge, only the eyes of ravens and weirwoods. Now I see that."

"What errand do you have in mind?" Brandir asked, trying to follow Nienor's courage and not to tremble whenas Brynden fixed his red-eyed gaze on him.

"To find a boy who dwells in the barren land. My blood and seven on his forthcoming name day, the unknown crown prince. You shall need him, black lord," he shifted his gaze back to Túrin, "when the time comes."

"Time for what?" Túrin asked suspiciously.

"If only I knew... Yet the future written on your face is beyond my reach, just as you are, and nought seems to chance as it was meant to. It seems the summer has only begun and is not heading towards an end, and yet winter is coming, more severe than I had sensed, and now my heart freezes as though someone would freeze summer fields."

Someone?, Brandir felt his heart froze as much as the three-eyed-crow's, as the answer seemed obvious. Has Túrin been right after all and it has truly been Morgoth's will that brought us hither? He uncertainly looked at Húrin's son, yet he found no comfort in his grim, blank, almost contemptuous face, quite the opposite, he awhile did not know who was more disheartening: Morgoth possibly already scheming against them, but still dwelling somewhere afar, or Túrin standing so close beside him. He suddenly felt as lost, and despairing, and forlorn as he had that day whenas the herald had brought news to Ephel Brandir about his father's death and that he, Brandir was now to become the Chieftain of the Haladin.

Brandir would have willed to leave these caves as soon as possible, yet Túrin decided to stay for the sake of Nienor's wellbeing and Brandir agreed without thinking, even though he knew his own heart would not rest until he went back to the surface and breathed in the greenness of the wood. He realised he had been slightly mistaken here, however, when the time for the children of the forest to begin singing came. This was beautiful, sadly sweet, pure and fresh like water from a stream, and Brandir listened, having closed his eyes in his utter weariness, and the song might have even lulled him to sleep, had Túrin not seated himself heavily beside him, a gloomy shadow taking away all the sun (that came not hither either way).

Brandir sighed in spirit and asked ere he may have regretted it, "What do you intend to do?"

Túrin said nothing, so Brandir went on, "I highly doubt this three-eyed-crow is to be trusted, yet what if it is forsooth the will of the Valar that he speaks aloud?"

"I care for the will of the Valar not more than I care for the will of Morgoth," Túrin snapped fiercely. "My whole life I have been rooted in the mire of fates chosen by them for me. It is high time to shed those roots."

"What about Eru's will?" Brandir asked cautiously. "The fate that is his will?"

Túrin laughed darkly. "The will of Eru is unknown, hidden to everyone, Men most of all. How then to follow it?"

Brandir remained silent, knowing no answer to this. "What do you intend therefore?" he merely repeated his question.

"I may not be destined to die and death rejects me, yet I do not intend to live either. I shall hide in the wood, awaiting alone till death changes its mind. Even if I have to wait for ages, fate shall not reach me again, I swear..."

May luck favour you!, Brandir taunted inwardly, for Túrin's wish seemed unimaginable, assuming that Morgoth might have as well been nearby and wist of them. He dared not to say that aloud, though, thus they sat in silence, the hum of the underground river being the only sound disturbing it as the song of the children had already quietened.

Ty for reading :) :) Next POV: Jon (meeting a wizard...? )