A Walk By The River
The elf maid’s steps were slow and steady as she walked along the bank of the rushing Narog. But inside Finduilas had never felt so frail. Only through the strength of will known to her line she held the fraying tatters of her being together.
He had not returned. He who had set off so sure, so alive and so proud as he paraded past her with a white favour hidden under the plates of his gleaming armour. There had been an undercurrent of apprehension and her father sat with grim look as he watched the company pass; but her love had shown nothing but courage and was an image of wonder with his warrior’s braids flying in the wind as he waved her farewell.
The thought of his face, those noble and sculpted features, brought a dull pain in her chest and left her as if gasping for breath in her grief. It was a far cry from the nervous skittering of her heart when she had first looked upon him.
Brave, courageous. That was what she had been told: it had been a valiant end. And so her father had been right… Her mind cast back to years past, whence Gwindor had finally asked for her hand.
Eagerly she had taken the news to her father, only to find his joy did not quite match that of her own.
“But is he not valiant and honourable father?” she had asked in confusion,
“Verily child, though honour and bravery can be as perilous as they are of worth. For no matter how bright and shining, a sun must always one day set.” He had seemed sad as he replied, thinking no doubt about those of his kin long lost in war and turmoil.
But her heart had been set. Gwindor son of Guilin she would wed and it filled her heart with happiness to run to him in the sunshine along the same banks she now trod.
Sorrow overcame Finduilas; she sank down on the river bank wrapping her arms about herself. He said he would return, that they would wed and live in peace. Now the tidings of battle had returned without him, and instead she mourned him and the sun was shrouded by darkness.
~*~*~
And so too he mourned her by those rushing waters; only it was many years later. Only after he had returned unlooked for in the company of a tall and handsome stranger. He mourned her even as he watched her living and loving in that strangers company. He mourned her, for he sensed that all ‘Agarwaen’ touched turned to darkness and despair.
Watching her tall, slender figure stroll alongside the proud and straight countenance of Turin was like looking into a cruel mirror of the past. It was once his strong arm that had steadied her steps, once his face that those rippling strands of golden hair had blown into with the wind, bringing the scent of blossoms and summer.
Unable to look any longer, Gwindor cast his eyes to the foaming waters, glad that they flowed too fast to reflect his now distorted form. Could it really have been this body that swung her laughing over the shallows of Irvin? Could she really have given him that beautiful favour to slip under his armour and keep close to his heart?
“Something of me to take with you,” she had whispered in the twilight as she pressed the material into his hands.
“Does this mean you approve of my going?” he tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear whilst waiting for an answer. She sighed heavily and threaded her fingers through his before replying,
“It is not for me to approve of disprove your actions, so long as you remain the one I love.”
That white square of cloth and its fine embroidery had not kept for long on those gore drenched plains. But in his mind they had stayed bright and shining, a glorious memory of her that kept him sane through the shadows and horrors.
A memory she should have stayed. For beholding her now and knowing what could never be again was an agony. But he could not help following and watching as a friendship tried to grow into something more. What honour he had left would not allow him to abandon her to a cursed fate and an ever encircling darkness.
As he managed to tear his eyes away Gwindor clenched the ragged cloth in his hands and wept. Faelivrin was lost to him.
Author Note: Credit where its due, inspiration for this came from Agalloch’s ‘In the Shadow of Our Pale Companion’.