Name(s) : His father named him
Sarnirion, the son of his father, and he didn’t earn another until he was already come of age. Then he was called
Erfaron, the ‘Lonely Hunter/Hunter of loneliness’, and
Sílûgnir, the ‘Snake of silver-white’. Neither was particularly glorious, but both were rather apt and honest and so he took them for his own.
Ospiel sometimes calls him
Nielininque, ‘Snowdrop’. But for anyone else to utter such an epesse in his hearing would be most unwise.
Heritage : Half Noldo - Half Falmari, 100% Calaquendi
Year and Place of Birth : Born in Tirion-Upon-Tuna, Aman, during the Years of Trees. Exact year unknown. (He is approx. 3-5 years older than Aigronding Mordagnir ?)
Physical Appearance : His eerily angular countenance is a striking blend of his mother’s celestial colouring with his father’s dark brooding intensity. He shares the piercing ice blue eyes of both his parents with a half-amused scowl which is all his own. Not the tallest, and neither the slightest, Erfaron conjures enough of a noticeable presence to unsettle anyone who stares overlong. He can not easily camouflage with the crowd, and has long since embraced his ability to stand out, remorseless and alarming in his confidence.
Personality : Erfaron is an oddly obsessive individual who nonetheless manages to appear dismissive of most all he encounters. He is swift to temper but subdues untempered aggression behind a cold coat of animosity. Keen to wield a motley of weapons, when his shield of dry wit and sarcasm will not suffice, or because those same have further antagonised the situation. He loves with the same fierce devotion as he hates, cares with the same strength that he criticises. For all that he despises the ‘throng’ of attention, he can not long stay away from amusing himself at mocking society. His moral compass may run errant from social etiquette, sometimes veiled behind a fine vocabulary and dim recollection of manners expected in noble company. At the end of the day, he does nothing without a good reason, whether or not other people would count that same reason (or he in whole, as) ‘good’.
Family : His father was Sarnir Erondo of the noble Noldorin House of Cenilwë. Erfaron’s paternal grandparents were thus begotten Tatyar who had travelled to Aman with Finwe, serving as celestial prophets. They fell out of favour when they advised the King not to marry his second wife. Sarnir himself was a sculptor of stone, working primarily with granite. He was not fond of company and conducted his home in as much privacy as he could manage. He was a devout Feanorien, who Captained a small unit of fellow Nobles under the command of Prince Maedhros. During the Kinslaying at Alqualonde, Sarnir and his son forsook the bulk of their armour, to aide some of their number who had been forced from the docks into the sea, by the Teleri. They were being enmeshed in fishing nets and shot at, or beaten down with oars. Sarnir had his second, Herumacil, to lead a diversary attack while the sodden soldiers were rescued from a sorry fate. Unfortunately, before he could replace his formidable and expensive armour, Sarnir was shot through by arrows. He threw himself in front of his son, but perished as a result. Herumacil and Sarnir’s sister Mylirae managed to get the remainder of his small company safely onto the stolen swan ships, leaving their leader behind, as one of the first Noldor to ever find death.
Erfaron, as a child, had been a constant shadow at the heels of his imposing father, unwilling to be tethered to his homeschooled studies from his patient mother. There was naught that he enjoyed so much as pretending to be one of his father’s statues, watching all that went on in the noble household, until his parents grew weary of pretending that they didn’t notice him. Sarnir disapproved of Feapoldie, however, whom Erfaron engaged to at a still young age. It was perhaps in an effort to try and win back his father’s approval that he followed Sarnir in the Feanorien contingent.
Erfaron’s mother is Menellote Silosse, of the Falmari line of Lindesul. She was born in Alqualonde, where her father was the bellmaker. Erfaron’s maternal grandparents were also begotten, though of the Nelyar. They were not renown for anything save their devotion to rising music and song to Ulmo at the turning of the two Trees. Menellote met Sarnir when he and his architect brother were commissioned for work upon her father’s belltower, and she famously insisted that it was ‘not right’ enough times that the furious sculptor finally came and demanded to know what was her problem. She had fallen in love with his quiet determination and the love which he put into his work, so claimed him for her husband, which he agreed to, since it would be the end of their incessant renovations.
Menellote homeschooled her only child, and often took him to vacation with her family in Alqualonde. When the Noldor fell to the corruptions sown by Melkor, she counselled her husband toward calm, and to appease her only, he stayed from following Feanor to exile in Formenos. His parents foresaw that Sarnir would never leave Aman, so Silosse did not protest his following Feanor to have wrath on Melkor. The prophecy was found true, when her husband was slain on the shores of Aman, after which time she grieved long for her eternal partner. Their son’s fate she knew not, though assumed that with no body to be found, he must have taken to Endor. She went in search of him during the War of Wrath, entering the combat with her trident, ‘Etuli’, and though it took her until the Second Age to track Erfaron down, she now will not return to the Blessed Land without him.
Friend(s) / Foe(s) :
Maltahtar was Sarnirion’s first friend outside of his father’s stone figurines, the first one who spoke back. Silosse had insisted that her son be ‘socialised’, and Sarnir had agreed, on the condition that it was with a family as equally loyal to the Crown Prince, and one which he could do business with. The young Sarnirion did not properly understand the sorts of games which Maltahtar and his other playmate Roina partook of, but the nature of companionship itself was not lost upon him.
The two boys were separated during the Flight of the Noldor, when Sarnirion went with the stolen ships, and Maltahtar instead endured the Helcaraxe. They were reunited later, by which time both were using a new name. While Erfaron served Fingolfin in Mithrim, Maltahtar, now named Aigronding, served Turgon in Vinyamar. They did ally for several adventures when their companies combined during the Siege of Angband, but when Turgon’s folk concealed themselves in the hidden city of Gondolin, the childhood friends were separated for some several hundred years.
When Erfaron entered Gondolin, following the death of Fingon in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, he fell into service of the Dark Prince, Maeglin. Aigronding served the House of the King, and then later the House of Tuor, Turgon’s son in Law. When the Houses of Tuor and Maeglin came to blows during the Fall of Gondolin, it was Aigronding who found Erfaron vulnerable during that struggle. His axe caught in the ribs of one of Tuor’s guard he had just slain, Erfaron expected for Aigronding to kill him. But his old friend instead made him see that what he had been fighting for, Maeglin, was already lost. Reminded of the vow he’d taken in Alqualonde, never to slay his kinfolk again, Erfaron accepted Aig’s mercy and fled. To find the House of Feapoldie, the only thing he had left to care for in the world.
Feapoldie had met Sarnirion when they were both young, and their fathers in bitter contention over the unrest of the Noldor. Fea’s father, Aiwenare, was an advocate of Fingolfin, while Sarnir was obstinately in the camp of Feanor. Their children met by chance, with Fea seeking to practice her swordplay clandestinely in Sarnir’s quarter, where she felt she would not be discovered, and then found that one of the stone sculptures she was sparring with sparred back ! Their mutual secret and amusement in these ongoing encounters led to Sarnirion realising that he admired Feapoldie more than was good for anyone, but that it was too late to do anything about it. He sent her sculptures of ice, and she introduced him to lessons of dance, which meant that he was able to improve his swordplay and impress his father, while she was adamant to have a partner of striking intrigue for her father’s infamous dance parties.
He proposed at one of these same parties and she accepted, little understanding what it meant when he said his heart was hers. She imagined children and a home of her own, while he thought only of the two of them forever in company, without even children to distract from their exclusive love. It is no surprise that both their sets of parents disapproved for a good many reasons, their young age the least of them. But rings had been exchanged. Then came the war, and Feapoldie was left to endure the Helcaraxe, where her entire family save for her and one brother, perished. The betrayal of Sarnirion having left her behind broke her in many ways, and she vowed to survive, if only to visit vengeance upon the one she blamed, and she did not mean Melkor.
When they were reunited in Mithrim, Feapoldie was unmoved by Sarnirion’s news of his father’s death, for she felt her own losses far outweighed his, and moreover, he had been the one to leave her. The only way she would believe that he was sorry, and would be faithful to her before all else, was to demand his hand, which she looked to sever with her sword. For had he not elected to follow one-handed Maedhros over a fair life with her ? Her fiancé withdrew from her unreasonable behaviour, and she flung her silver ring away. He kept his however, and wears it still, believing that (despite the fact she later met and married someone else), she still really would always be his.
Earenolwe was the only reason why Erfaron survived the grief of his father’s loss. Dragged from Sarnir’s dying form by Herumacil, that friend of his fathers then threatened to slay the ‘Teler’ unless he and the rest of their group were granted safe passage to the ships, which they then sailed away on. Lacking the armour he had himself removed, Sarnirion was all too easily mistaken for one of his father’s killers, and so Herumacil safeguarded the remnant of Sarnir’s unit, and his heir, to safety. And Erfaron never forgave him for it.
Disgusted that Earenolwe, a Teleri ambassador to King Olwe of Alqualonde, was found upon their stolen ship, Herumacil aided fellow Feanoriens, Rincion and Nenloico, in throwing Earenolwe into the sea, as an assumed stowaway and saboteur. It was in fact Earenolwe’s ship they were stood upon and he was fortunately saved from the sea and the storms by the royal Prince Maglor, and taken aboard another ship.
After the death of Feanor and the capture of Maedhros, Maglor was effectively the most senior of the Feanorien encampment. And Herumacil who had usurped the command of Sarnir’s surviving soldiers, was forever enraged when a young Sarnirion refused to obey him, favouring to spend time with Earenolwe instead. Maglor of course, ignored Herumacil's complaints, wise as he was to the racist Noldo's capabilities. Still Sarnirion was openly beligerant to the new captain, and deliberately provoked Herumacil’s bodyguard Balcheth the Spearmaiden. It was Herumacil who dubbed the younger Elf to be ever after called 'Silugnir'.
Years later when Erfaron had transferred to the Host of Fingolfin, based at Barad Eithel, he still met up with Earenolwe. The first time when he was on his hundred years search for Feapoldie, after finding Turgon’s city was abandoned. Erfaron searched everywhere during this period for the hidden city of Gondolin, but found it not. He did travel far and wide about Beleriand however, honing new skills, and reuniting with Earenolwe, who was also travelling. They met a second time when each representing their respective King’s in recruiting Mortals at Estolad. Erfaron was also reunited with Tavari Mordagnir at this recruitment drive, her representing King Caranthir of Thargelion. Recalling that she had been visiting with her brother Aigronding, before Turgon’s people fled, he sought her out for any news of where the missing had secluded themselves. Earlier efforts to locate her in Thargelion had been unproductive when a fellow Feanorien called Herugon had inadvertedly pointed the lonely hunter into a directed which had led to Orcs, and then to angry marchwardens of Doriath. To say that Erfaron suspected Herugon of deliberately trying to see him dead, was an understatement and although Earenolwe was a friend to both of the younger Elves he could not put them to friendship. And Tavari could not shed any light on where Gondolin lay.
The Elf to whom Erfaron credits his actual evolvement to a warrior was the Halberdier,
Earcolante. A Begotten Tatyar loyal to Fingolfin, Earcolante was the first leader since his father, whom Erfaron respected. Bereft of any hope of forgiveness from Feapoldie, he instead threw himself into helping the defences which stood between her on the coast, and Melkor in the north. During his training under Captain Earcolante, Erfaron met the Sinda maid,
Ospiel, who felt equally as apart from the Helcaraxe survivors in their host. A local scout and tracker, Ospiel, exchanged her experiences with the young transfer, and they educated one another to each rise in the estimation of their Commander. They also worked with the Sindarin Noblemaid
Crabanel, and her bloodsister
Mauya. When Erfaron went on leave to visit Vinyamar, as he had a dozen times before, and this time was AWOL for a hundred years, Ospiel believed him dead. His name was carved onto the wall of remembrance in the fort of Barad Eithel, and when he did finally return, dejected after failing to find Feapoldie, it was Ospiel who demanded that he scrub out the carving of his name from amongst the noble dead, with the smallest stone that she could find to be his tool.
He and Ospiel became very close, serving side by side in the Dagor Aglareb and the Dagor Bragollach, together they mourned the death of the High King Fingolfin, but they were separated for a second time, when Erfaron was chosen to fight in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and Ospiel was left behind to guard the gateway into Hithlum. When the Easterlings poured into Barad Eithel at battles’ end, Ospiel believed them to be her Mortal allies, learning too late that Fingon had been slain and his army broken. The bulk of Elves in Hithlum were hunted down and taken as thralls to Angband, but Ospiel knew her homeland well, and escaped into the wild. She did loiter a time and try to bring aide to the Mortals now enslaved in Dor-Lomin, but when she stole food for them, and they were found with it, many of the Men were killed as punishment, and their widows begged her to leave them be. With nothing left, Ospiel wandered the wilds, evading the Orcs who now roamed at will, until more than thirty years later, she met with a party of Mole Survivors from the fallen city of Gondolin. Learning that their leader Hatholdir was a mutual friend of Erfaron, she went with them, in hopes of finding her old friend again. But Erfaron was elsewhere, for all that he had survived, and Ospiel assumed he had found his Feapoldie and had no further want of her.
The climax of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad had seen High King Fingon surrounded and slain with a small clutch of his most loyal soldiers, by the terror of Balrogs. Erfaron had escaped this fate by a twist of fate where Captain Earcolante recognised his son, Earculinta, in peril upon the battlefield, and unable to compromise his own position, ordered Erfaron toward lending aid in his stead. Earculinta had been a childhood associate of Feapoldie, and the last thing Erfaron was keen to do was help an old rival, rather than protect his beloved king. But he owed Earcolante much and did as he was told, meaning to come back in no time. But at the moment Earculinta was within reach, Fingon and his guard, including Earcolante, were brutally slain. Deciding to honour his captain’s final wish, Erfaron saw Earculinta back to Gondolin, only to discover that Feapoldie was there, and she had married someone else. They even had a child already come to adulthood, a daughter, Nariel. Unwilling to face the inescapable truth that his only love would never now be his, he sought to leave Gondolin, and was informed that was against the King’s law. Finally he had found the city which he had sought so long, and now he wished that he was anywhere but there.
Feapoldie’s brother, Tirindo, took Erfaron into his home, a lodgehouse for batchelors and the like, and vowed to keep the younger elf from ruining Fea’s happy family. He organised for Erfaron to find work with the masons, based on his experience with his father’s business back in Aman, but Erfaron had mind only to be free of the place, and purposely sabotaged the Stone Gate of Gondolin to a jammed state, so he could depart. Alas he had overlooked the Wooden Gate beyond it and instead was faced with the fury of a great many Gondolindrim who were forced to work through the night to release the Stone gate. Roina Mordagnir was amongst those who was consulted on this debacle, and she reunited Erfaron with Aigronding, now married to Roina, and father to two fine children.Their happiness did little to convince Erfaron of anything but his own unhappiness, in contrast, and he planned to drink Tirindo’s cellar dry and throw himself from the highest point in the city, and be done.
The location he had selected was the point where Prince Maeglin’s father, Eol, had been sentenced to death by King Turgon, for the murder of his estranged wife, Aredhel. So it was that when the despairing young Elf made to greet his death, he found the prince of the realm objecting to bear witness. The upshot of a long conversation about living with an unrequited romance was mostly lost upon Erfaron, who’s mind was drowned in Tirindo’s wine. Wakening the next morning, he found that he had enlisted in the House of Mole, and there was no turning back. Maeglin placed his latest recruit into the custody of Hatholdir Narroval, a famed metallurgist who had come to serve Maeglin after publicly quarrelling with Lord Rog of the House of Hammers of Wrath. Between Hatholdir, his best friend Hrango, and the Prince Maeglin, soon Erfaron found himself surprisingly at peace and for the first time in a long time, whiling his days in labour at the mines of Anghabar, he almost forgot his broken heart.
That does not mean that he utterly removed himself of Feapoldie however. Some roots run too deep, so during visits to keep friends with Aigronding, and dealing with Tirindo’s criticism, Erfaron ceased not watching Feapoldie. His greatest means of following her life was through her daughter Nariel, whom he engaged with in dance at court, mostly to infuriate and make his old love jealous. Another contact through whom he kept tabs upon Fea, was young Ohtarien, the daughter of Earculinta. She who begged to hear his tales of her grandfather, Earcolante, and spent much time in the watch of Feapoldie and Nariel while her father was at work. It was an unfortunate thing that Ohtarien was cruelly bullied by some older children, just after Feapoldie had found Erfaron talking with the two girls, and warned him to never go near either of them again. For the sake of trying to win back Feapoldie, he obliged, and did not intervene when Ohtarien was badly hurt, though he stood at hand. To noone’s surprise, Feapoldie now held his inaction against him, and swore that she would hate him forever. This was becoming a tired threat of course.
The Fall of Gondolin came as a surprise to many, though there are claims that Maeglin and his House of Mole were actively involved in abetting the Enemy that breached their hidden home. Nariel’s father was slain in battle (as one of the House of Swallows) and it transpired that Erfaron, seeing the Elf plummet from the wall close to Lord Duilin, ended Fea’s husband’s life, as he was already injured by the crushing onslaught of advancing Orcs. It is uncertain whether this was a case of mercy on Erfaron’s part, or a determination to see Fea made a widow, but regardless, Tirindo who witnessed the entire thing, feared the worst and was understandably furious.
As stated, Erfaron found himself at the House of Tuor, where his Lord and the Mortal Lord Tuor battled on the precipice. When Tuor threw the Royal Elf to his death, Erfaron forgot his earlier vow to never raise arms against his fellow Elves again. He slew several of the House of Swan Wing in an effort to reach and smite at Tuor, but in witnessing Aigronding hurl Hatholdir over the cliff, in Maeglin’s wake, Erfaron found his progress stalled, and soon then found himself at the mercy of Aigronding, his old friend. Urged to flee, rather than face his certain death, Erfaron took the path to Feapoldie’s home, knowing her now to be left without any protector.
The house was already ablaze by the time he got there, with Nariel within seeking her father’s medicinal supplies to help the injured upon their flight. Fea was adamant against leaving for the way of escape, until her husband came home and from there away with them. Still she demanded he help Nariel out of a small window to escape the blazing house first. When it came time to go back for his one love, Orcs had descended upon the street, seeking to drag off survivors. Fea physically withdrew from her only escape route, until Erfaron heeded her wish that he protect Nariel from the oncoming assailants. Faced with her infamous obstinacy, he gave in, but during the course of fighting off the Orcs, he and Nariel were struck by a horrendous scream emanating from the house. Fea’s long red hair had caught aflame and she burned alive, her wails of anguish the soundtrack to their desperate struggle. Once the Orcs were dispatched, Erfaron moved to fling himself into the still burning house as well, and be done with it. He had lost all that he cared to fight for. It was left to the young, traumatised and now orphaned Nariel to hit him with the rebuke that he had promised Fea to see her daughter made safe.
Nariel led their way to the Way of Escape where they reunited with a small clutch of their surviving friends and relatives. Tirindo did not believe that Erfaron had not been complicent In the death of Feapoldie, but Nariel would have the two keep peace. Hrango was chased off with an outcry of stones flung in his pursuit, but Tirindo took Erfaron into his custody, eager to interrogate the Mole of how far Maeglin’s treachery had gone. The flight from Gondolin was perilous and not all those who left from the city were still amongst them when they finally found sanctuary at the Delta of Sirion. Aigronding’s own son, Valion, was seized by Orcs during an ambush, and while Erfaron’s stolen Swan sword had been confiscated by Tirindo, Nariel gave it back to him, that he could assist in fighting off their attackers. From that point on, Tirindo was forced to forget any thoughts of binding the devastated Mole, who was barely in any fit mind to think of causing mischief or much else, in the wake of the disaster. He had lost his Feapoldie, his Lord Maeglin, his friends Hatholdir and Hrango. And everybody wanted him dead, now even Ohtarien, whose friend’s he had slain during the conflict.
The accusation had been made that Hatholdir survived his fall, and had somehow diverted the Orc ambush toward Aigronding’s party as revenge, an accusation which Erfaron utterly ignored, for he had seen his old friend throw his new friend to a certain death. However, as the lonely Mole survivor took a secret refuge in the new built home of Tirindo and Nariel, he discovered Hatholdir and Hrango tunnelling in to make their secret rendez-vous with him, a rescue as it were, from his ‘captors’. For the sake of Nariel though, who he had sworn to protect with his life, his final promise to Feapoldie, he refused to go with his friends and stayed instead in Sirion.
He would not stay there long, for the Feanoriens who had already assaulted Doriath, now came to lay waste to the refugee camp, in desperate hopes of finally claiming the lost Silmarilli. Tirindo and Erfaron were quarrelling over whether the secret tunnel in the basement had actually been crafted to forge links with Feanorien spies. During the escalating argument, Tirindo shot Erfaron, not to kill, but to merely keep him out of the way, while the Archer meant to join the fray. Feanoriens barged into their home, led by Dalvar, who had been second in command to Herumacil back at the Gap of Maglor. Seeing Erfaron injured, he believed the Mole’s plea that he wished to ‘kill this one himself’ and left the Mole to murder the Swallow, on promise that he could have Nariel afterwards as payment for the favour. While Erfaron’s old associate guarded the small house, the inhabitants escaped into the secret tunnel but during a further quarrel, the Mole hit his warden over the back of the head and moved to depart alone. Nariel, torn between the uncle whom her mother had been estranged from and the Mole who had saved her life, opted to go with Erfaron, for he was bleeding and she feared for needless death. Tirindo was safe where he was stowed, although he did not stir back to consciousness until after the battle was over. By then, his niece and his now-assumed nemesis were long away.
Erfaron had become acquainted with many kinds of people during his hundred year wander, and one of the most intriguing that Earenolwe had introduced him to back then, were the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains. The Dwarvish Road was his destination, reasoning that the closeted people were unlike to care which side they favoured in a civil Elvish war. Nariel attended to his injuries until they were too far gone for her to return alone to her friends and family in Sirion. Her guardian proclaimed it unsafe for her to travel alone and further, that they would all despise her now regardless, for having elected to come away with him instead of stay with them. They took sanctuary in the Dwarvish Halls and emigrated further East into Eriador before the War of Wrath destroyed Beleriand. Erfaron had a want to now locate Hatholdir, but Nariel still blamed the elder Mole for the ambush which cost them Valion, and proclaimed that if Erfaron would seek out Hatholdir, he would have to forego her. Having turned his back so many years before on Feapoldie, losing her for good in the process, it was beyond the now rogue Elf to give up on Nariel as well. She was all that remained of Feapoldie in all the world after all. And possibly the only one who could stand to be around him. He might have saved her from the fire, but she saved him a dozen times over in the times that followed. For he protected her in the wild world she had never known before, and she protected him from thoughts of a life wasted. So long as she was safe, and a blessing to the world, he could figure that he’d done at least something right, after all the mistakes.
The Second Age found them rarely, for they roamed incessantly. Few in settled societies would long entertain a Mole, and Erfaron was unrepentant as to his allegiance. As far as he was concerned, there was scarcely an Elf alive who hadn’t killed their own kind in the First Age, so it was hypocritical for the apparent rest of them to act as though Maeglin’s folk were the only ones who’d ever erred at the House of Tuor. Furtherso he claimed that Maeglin had been innocent of all that he was later accused of, that it had been an opportunistic move on the part of Tuor to slay his greatest rival to the Elvish throne and create a scapegoat in the meantime that left the Mortal the hero of the hour. It must be said that Nariel tired of these theories, but entertained the notion that it was the only way her now friend could cope with the guilt of the city’s devastation. It was certainly his go to answer when he doubted if he ought to have sought Hatholdir. The news that Mole Survivors had followed him to a new city, on a safe secluded island, often tormented him with a hope for reunion. But still he stated that he would never again live where he must be hemmed in, even for the sake of safety. He was not ashamed of having been one of Maeglin’s folk, and he would not hide away as though he was. Let the world face him and deal with it !
Hearing that Ohtarien and Aigronding were both dwelling in the new realm of Eregion however, the unlikely companions set out to be reunited with their mutual associates. Erfaron was hesitant, more so than Nariel, who had overcome her fear that they might be displeased with her, by the thought of how much she had missed them. The nomadic lifestyle which Erfaron favoured was not of her choosing. Of course within hours of her finding Ohtarien, and the two embracing each other, Erfaron was engaged in a duel with a survivor of the House of Fountain. Celebrimbor insisted that, since blood was drawn, the two were held in custody until they each apologised, and it was some time before either proud neck would bend. By then, Nariel had decided to stay in Eregion with her friends, and Erfaron wanted nothing more than to never see the place again. Aigronding offered him a place in the new Mordagnir Mining business he had established, but his old friend worried that the choice of industry was a direct blow meant to injure Hatholdir’s own enterprise abroad. Having turned down the option of working for the one friend, he thus refused the other also, and removed himself to Khazad-Dum, again turning to the Dwarves rather than make a choice between two good friends who happened to hate each other.
When Eregion was sacked by Sauron, Erfaron was deep underground with his Dwarvish associate, Igneous (Iggy) Bloodbeard. Nariel escaped the destruction, fleeing with Ohtarien and Aigronding and others into the valley of Imladris. By the time Erfaron to seek her in the ruins of Ost-en-Edhil, there was no sign of his new obsession. He and Iggy were drawn into a cat and mouse guerrilla war game with the rampaging foe which now occupied Eriador, which had it’s highs (such as when they collapsed part of the destroyed city onto an encampment of Orcs who were squatting there) and it’s lows (when the Elf and Dwarf were found, outnumbered, and duely interrogated as to where Elrond and his people were hidden). The fact that they did not know of Imladris was not properly believed, and much damage was done in the convincing to give up information that they never had.
It was fortunate that this dark time occurred toward the end of Sauron’s hold over Eriador. Lindon and Numenor had allied to strike at the Abhorred foe, and Elrond was freed of his siege in the hidden valley. Hatholdir’s forces, seeking recognition and the scavenging of lost treasures of Eregion, assaulted the Orcish camp where Erfaron and Iggy were being held. He was unconscious when Ospiel succoured him to a place of safety, returning the silver ring of engagement which she recognised of great importance, and which (therefore) the Orcs had robbed of him. A half-woken haze convinced him that the spirit of Feapoldie was urging him to wake back unto life, and Ospiel returned to Hatholdir’s island, convinced that her friend would be forever entangled in a prison of his own making. For no satisfaction could ever come, especially now, from his continued obsession with Feapoldie. Still Erfaron did not come to Tol Noldare to thank Hatholdir for the impromptu rescue, so he never realised that Ospiel was even alive, let alone in the service of one of his oldest friends. Nariel fell into his arms, devastated at the loss of yet another city she had thought her home, and swore that she would never take another home that she would never lose such love again. Her fury against Hatholdir was not spent, and Iggy drew all praise from Nariel for keeping her favourite Mole alive.
By now Erfaron’s mother was actively seeking him, to urge her son home to Aman, but though they were reunited, he refused to abandon Endor, so long as there were friends there he could not forsake. Nariel for a one, was keen to further explore the world, and that was their purpose. But for all that she favoured staying In cities and touring civilisation, he far preferred the wilds. No business or industry did he seek for himself, having foregone the use of even his noble family name for centuries now. All that could be took of him, he deemed no want to obtain, except for Nariel. For her sake he sat out all the conflicts of the years to come. The Last Alliance, the Angmarian/Rhudaurian insult in Arnor .. they were no part of any of it. And for the sake of keeping her from harm, he endured the calls of coward, consoling them both with the assumption that no Mole would warrant invitation or trust from any Captain of Elvendom alive. Except of course for Hatholdir, whom he chose not, for the sake of Nariel.
It was not until the Third Age began to idle towards conclusion that Nariel fell in love, with a sailor of Lindon, named Tharmas. It was not an easy thing for Erfaron to relinquish his grasp over the young She-elf he had considered his responsibility for over 6000 years. Still, she had her mother’s obstinacy, and in the end would not be refused. Erfaron took up his mother’s advice to seek answers of his future now from the stars at his Uncle’s starguild. He found instead a clutch of Umbarian Corsairs infiltrating the coastline and, after conducting a one-man sabotage of their camp, he narrowly escaped with his life and fled to the nearest place he knew would find him safe. The island of Hatholdir.
It was Ospiel who met him upon the shores and readied him to understand all the work that Hatholdir had done in the years they’d been apart. She was now one of his trusted captains, and the Island transpired to be not unlike some leftover of Hithlum. The mist over the mountains, and the Moles, the mining .. it was a home he had never asked for but found incredibly hard to turn down. As a compromise, he and Ospiel made a vow. To spend half the year in Imladris, and the other half of every year with Hatholdir. Caught forever between the still bitter rivals, Erfaron found that he had little cause now but to keep them from killing one another. He had done all that he could for Nariel. And Ospiel .. well, Silosse thanked the stars that her prophecy had been right this time. Her son had found what he was looking for, finally. It might just take him another couple of ages to realise it.
Significant Character RP posts :
1)
Long ago and Far away (Aman, YT)
(Started. More to come. A collaboration planned with
@Tharmáras. In flashbacks/Ever Beyond thread)
2)
Gold and Silver (with Feapoldie, YT) - Part 1
Part 2
Part 3 (with Feapoldie. Mithrim, 20 FA)
3)
The Writing on the Wall (Tirion, YT)
4)
Innocence and Experience (Alqualonde - Losgar, YT) - Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
5)
Choosing Sides (with Herumacil, Mithrim FA) - Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
6)
Taking the Black (Gondolin, 472 FA)
Part 2
7) Out of the Ashes (with Nariel, Gondolin and after)
(coming soon)
8)
Delving too deep (with Iggy. Khazad-Dum/Eregion, SA) - Part 1
9)
Relative Strangers (with Domanol/Gwandhyra, TA) - Part 1
Part 2 - to come
Part 3
10)
Old Friends, New Friends (with Hatholdir/Ospiel. Tol Noldare, 3007 TA) - Part 1
Part 2
(more on it’s way)
Sérëlindë Liriasîdh
