Home - Part 4 - Being the conclusion to this chapter
Nariel and
Caramirie
misinterpreting the explanations from
Ospiel and
Erfaron
With
Iggy Steeljaw
The parade of protesting redheads tailed
Silugnir back along their path of dust-worn footprints, in at least so far back as the dining hall. At least, like to the bed chamber before it, a single piece of solitary furniture was all that betrayed any intent for the room’s true purpose. This one wore an extensive slab of stone table at it’s epicentre, which might as easily have served for a sacrificial altar as presenting a meal. The scattered mess of various grim and sharp looking utensils that spawled across it’s expanse did not go any way toward discouraging this notion. No cutlery, but chisels, and hammers, and otherwise means of managing duress. Or mayhaps something other. For it was not until an eye glanced more closely that it might begin to note the delicate features of some yet vague storyboard taking shape amidst the stone, beginning to rear out of the stubborn rim.
His grandsire’s noble halls in Tirion-upon-Tuna had memorably festooned the ornate avenues of corridor with a most elaborate tapestry, carven all the way into the heights of the Noldorin arcade. The tale of how the Skysight dynasty had come on their way of the Great Journey of Pale stars and all that they had seen, and later told of .. all had been recorded to the most meticulous detail inside the Ostelemar Manse ever after. To say that
Erfaron was seeking to further his family’s tradition in this light, or rather merely had succumbed to boredom and the only means he knew to decorate his halls, it is unclear. Still the tools remained, like evidence of a crime. They had worked their labour on but one length of their horizontal canvas so far and yet never been put away; for doing so might suggest their toil was done. And it was, clearly, far from finished. As was
Nariel’s interrogation.
There were no chairs, a further means of inviting any who might manage to come visit, not to sit. Still the chance of this guest taking her time prevailed upon the host to haul a wooden crate from underneath said table. This he presented with a practiced but clearly sarcastic bow, to provide a seat for his unhappy guest. Unmoved,
Nariel raised her nose ever so slightly toward the arched dome of the unlit ceiling. Only when her daughter ran to take up with the makeshift seat instead, did the mother pursue, commencing some fretting concern about splinters, moments before she accepted a heavy metal chest herself, which was enticed out in the meantime. Unmatched in appearance, the chest did attain a similar height to the crate, and so the two ladies sat, skirts swept out about them in a synchronised dance of descending. Bereft of any further even makeshift means of a ‘chair’,
Erfaron gravitated toward the head of the massive table. Leaning forward, both his palms were laid flat as he glanced from the one to the other of his unexpected guests.
“
Why are you all wet ?”
Cara commenced her favourite game, of a thousand questions.
“
I have spent my morning busy drowning little girls for asking stupid questions,” the Mole gave back without blinking. “
Next.” He raised one hand to extend it’s index finger toward
Nariel. “
You. What are you doing here ?”
“
You would never drown me,” the child declared, refusing to be forgotten. “
I am far too good a swimmer. My father taught me.” One delicate hand had curled by now it’s curiosity around a wooden mallet within reach. But before the soft muscles could find proper purchase on their prize, the owner of that mallet had strode over, prised it from her grasp and hurled it across the room behind him, not glancing or caring where it fell.
Cara blinked, as her mother rolled eyes, knowingly, and began to gather the conch shell once more out of it’s bag. The silence which accompanied it’s laying on the table top surpassed the resounding echo that the mallet had made against the wall, and the floor after that. That silence swallowed all sound.
“
So tell me, who was that ?” the grown lady ran her lithe fingers over the top of the shell, fully aware of it’s significance. “
In your ..”
“
She is Ospiel,” It was the Elf’s turn to sigh so he threw in an eye roll for good measure, to make clear how tiresome their very presence was. “
If that is all you wanted ..”
“
It is not nearly close to enough !” his former ward almost rose from her seat to hover, so incensed was she, at herself as much as he, for even beginning to believe this would go any other way than it was. Still, she had never expected to find .. “
Where did she come from ? This Ospiel. How is it that I have never heard of her before now ? I have known you for the greater part of six thousand years now and know all of your … acquaintances,”
Nariel could not bring herself to name some of those ‘acquaintances’ ‘friends’, for certainly she believed that some were more easily defined as foes, at least to her. “
None of them are a .. well, her,” she concluded, the commencement of her own thousand questions.
“
I had thought her dead,”
Erfaron dipped his head back as though it had grown suddenly heavy with the thinking of an explanation. Then recovering his face made straight above his chin again, he cocked that head offside. “
She isn’t,” he all but shrugged. “
We served together in Hithlum, before the .. well, when it was yet the domain of Fingon and Fingolfin before him. We were both trained by the Halberdier, Ohtarien’s grandsire ..”
“
Of course, I was his favourite,”
The subject of their conversation could no longer hover in the doorframe where she’d staggered her arrival to see the show without interrupting. But
Ospiel, her dark hair hung like laundered sheets of midnight, locked her fluid grey eyes on her host and old ‘acquaintance’, with one raised eyebrow of her own as he made a rude, objectionary noise in response to her claim.
“
It was I whom was trusted to guard our land, our people, all that we had worked for, while those far more expendible were served up to fight in the war, ” she confided rather more quietly after an awkward silence, and to
Caramirie, whose small face, propped up in both hands, her tiny elbows set against the table top, was watching the exchanges fly, her mouth agape.
“
The Battle of Unnumbered Tears,”
Nariel tilted her head to better gauge the quality of
Ospiel, who nodded gravely. “
So you hid in the mountains, with Annael, when the enemy took occupation ? Our Lord Tuor said that ..”
“
I did not hide,” the brunette made her point with no room for doubt, and served
Silugnir a raised eyebrow when he proposed to contradict this bold statement. “
I did not go with Annael when he sought to flee elsewhere. Hithlum was my home. I stayed. Where I was made, where I was meant to be.” A quiver strained the Sinda’s voice with some hint of sincerest emotion, as she explained. “
No matter it be Noldor or Men who came and named my homeland as though it were their own. I was there before them all. And I was there after. I know my own country better than any invader. They did not find me.”
“
Was it the sea that found you ? When Beleriand was .. drowned ?”
Cara’s indelicate grasp of history failed to properly absorb that those around her had survived the violent upheavals of that same past which her governess had schooled her.
“
Before,” the stranger affirmed, her eyes trained on the mother, rather than the daughter who had spoken. “
I found other refugees. But we did not venture to Sirion. We made our own way.” By now
Ospiel had wound her way to stand beside
Erfaron, but he did not turn to find her. The pale eyes were intent about the table top. He raised and lowered each finger in turn, as though seeking out for the words to say be found beneath them.
“
As did we,"
Nariel shared, in his stead and almost possessively of the solemn pride that was being showcased. “
After Sirion proved no real refuge.” Full eyes closed, warding tears from sight back to the waiting wings of her emotions. “
So where have you been all this time ? And where have you ..”
Nariel rounded back to find
Erfaron, as though she were reproaching her twins, rather than a pair of veteran soldiers who each quite exceeded her in age. Anger came more easily, and it lurked not too deep below the surface to draw from. “
where have you been all this last three years ?”
“
I was on Tol Noldare”
Silugnir raised his eyes to meet his long time companion. “
We were the last three years on Tol Noldare.” he clarified, without needing to take
Ospiel by the hand in his own. Her eyes were dual to his own. As though one single soul dictated the two bodies.
“
You were with Hatholdir .. ?”
Nariel hissed, for such was the only means she could force his loathsome name out through her remorseful lips. The She-Elf shook her head ever so slightly, as though to dispel even the image of his smirk that taunted her mind.
“
He was with me,”
Ospiel protested.
“
And what are you to Hatholdir ?” the redhead voiced her accusation, as though it were exactly that. The result bore her no more fruit than the sweetest plea would have done. The brunette looked almost musing in response, as though she never had considered how to answer such a question.
“
Ercassie”
Erfaron straightened, and drew the limelight off his friend. “
I am not your father, nor your husband. I am not your son. Who and where I chose to spend my time is none of your concern. Particularly when you have made it abundantly clear that you don’t care for my opinion on who and how you chose to spend your own time.”
Sensing that yet another lecture about choosing to wed an Elf who had been married before ..
Nariel raised her hand to stop him flat.
“
I did not say I was concerned,” she sighed, wearied of the battle that this had become. “
I was .. I am .. annoyed. You did after all, take one of my husband’s boats ..”
“
He wasn’t using it.” The tart reply was so swift that the She-Elf glanced as though she had been stung.
“
Well that is besides the point,” she countered.
“
The point of a boat, Ercassie” the Mole sounded bored now, “
is to sail the boat. Your husband was leaving his boat unsatisfied. But that is what comes from his having so many boats to try to cater to effectively I suppose. I am surprised that he even noticed it was gone, let alone that it took him three years to do so. Anyway, what does he even care ? He has other boats and even with the extensive size of his ego can not possibly sail them all at the same time ?”
Refusing to be derailed from her own interest in this allegation,
Nariel narrowed her eyes and ennounciated, ever more clearly, her point. “
I don’t care what your reasons were for taking it, not even should they surmount only to the latest excuse to annoy him. But where is the boat now ?”
“
I sank it,”
Ospiel mentioned, with a shrug.
“
She sank it,”
Erfaron echoed but a moment later, but with such a look upon his face he could not have known the truth of this before. If this were now the truth. He glanced back to his friend with a look that asked if she was serious.
“
Would you be able to tell me why you sank it ?”
Nariel did not expect much, but she had come this far and she’d started so she reasoned she must finish now. For never did she want to revisit this conversation again after.
“
I sank it,”
Ospiel repeated, falling to a pause so that
Cara was practically beating her small hands against the table top to learn why anyone would sink a boat. On purpose ! “
So that he would stay,” the Sinda concluded, with a look which said it ought to have been obvious. “
Because I wanted him to stay on Tol Noldare.”
The words rendered all present to stare at
Erfaron expectantly. But nothing was granted from his lips to satisfy the countless questions which
Nariel now had, to that answer,
“
Hatholdir told you to ?” she assumed, even as
Ospiel had already begun to shake her head, no. A slow puzzle of understanding struggled in the She-Elf’s mind, as she considered the options, and
Silugnir saw before she could say, where
Nariel would head next.
“
Wait !” he made an effort, but it was too late. The fire-crowned guest had pressed her palms together before her, excitedly.
“
You wanted him to …. Oh. OOH !”
Nariel whooped, even as the Mole shot
Ospiel a resigned look, and that Sinda barely held back her amusement. “
See !” the two were summoned back to observe
Eregwen as she began to shape the pieces into a picture of her own design. “
My mother always said that it was fated for her and you to ..” waving a hand in lieu of the details,
Nariel almost bounced a little where she stood. “
For neither one of you may else have come to Endor without becoming … … entangled first in Aman. And my father was so perfect for my mother, you see. But she had to come all that long way to find him. Because the Great Sundering severed some from the rest, and the fates worked it all out to put things right. And see ? You two, just like my parents, you found each other ..”
“
Grandfather has a girrrrrrrlfriend !”
Caramirie triumphed, at having been proved right, apparently.
“
Oh for the love of stars !” it seemed that the Mole was not quite as convinced as his guests about his affections. “
Ercassie, stop. Listen”
But
Nariel was already rounding the massive table to come and clasp
Ospiel’s hand in her own, excitedly. “
Come you must tell me all !” she presumed, that the Sinda would or should at least be as interested as she now was in the news. “
You owe me that at least ! You owe me a ship, but this will go some way to .. please. Tell me !”
“
Well, we were actually hoping for some time alone ..”
Ospiel wheedled out the prompt slowly, even as her friend shook his head in despair.
“
We’ve intruded !”
Nariel gathered her skirts, and her daughter, in an urgency now to depart. “
I’ll .. we’ll leave you to it.” she winked, with about as much subtlety as a mumakil squats in a flowerbed. “
There is just …”
Nariel grasped belatedly for the bag which
Cara was pointing at with ever louder squeaks. “
And you !” a pale finger was waved under the Mole’s nose so that he bridled back away from it. “
Let your mother know what’s gone on !” he was counselled as the conch returned to notoriety about their meeting. “
She will definitely want to know about this … She’s so keen to see you. Now she’ll want to see the both of you !!”
A moment of reflection allowed the thrilled She-Elf to glance back, one last time, When a suspiciously purring sound of contentment began to emanate from her general direction,
Erfaron observed the Dwarf who was rocking with laughter now that he’d braved the flying mallets and accusations to edge closer to the show.
“
Iggy”
Erfaron tried, and then cleared his throat before continuing. “
Please see Caramirie to the door. Her mother is leaving. They both are.”
The sound of the Dwarf herding the two thrilled redheaded She-Elf’s to the entrance, and their invite to exit, played out as a backdrop to the Mole and
Ospiel, sitting both now on the table top itself.
“
Well, that was fun,” the Sinda diagnosed. “
Is there food ? I think I want eggs.”
“
What did you just do ?” her host and friend ignored her attempts to dismiss the situation, grasping at her hands, to have her face him.
“
I got her to leave,” the Sinda shrugged, but unable to keep her expression straight.
The pale elf rolled his eyes, and in that motion found that they fell in conclusion upon the conch, which had been abandoned, silent, small but utterly demanding. Now there would be no getting out of a visit to his mother.