LAKE MITHRIM

Her fingers ached from hours of sewing. Eve sat under a tent of gold and red, a cot of blankets and a worn pillow lying along the left side not far from where she sat. There were no chairs, no tables. They'd not been camped on the shores of Lake Mithrim for long, certainly not long enough to expend extra hours to build comforts when there were dangers on all sides. Eve didn't concern herself with these dangers.

Sewing by the light of a fire had become her only escape from the darkness in her mind and in the world outside. Varda's stars shined far and bright above them here on the shores of Lake Mithrim, but they were not Telperion and Laurelin, nor even a moon and sun. It was lonely work. She missed Finno most of all, but she also missed Elenwë and Itaril, and the rest of the houses of Nolofinwë and Arafinwë.

She didn't allow her brothers anywhere near her. Fëanáro refused to acknowledge her presence. She sat in her tent in a corner of the host of Fëanáro, occasionally with Curvo's wife Nixiel for company, drowning herself in tears and loose thread. Whispers of orcs and worse circulated the camp some days. But Eve ignored it. She knew, by what she learned from Nixiel, that Tyelko and the men loyal to him, former Hunters of Oromë and otherwise, had been gone for many days. Or what she tried to think of as days in this constant night. Her other brothers had followed him a few days after.

Eve pushed them from her mind. Anger fueled the movements of her hands as she sewed cloaks and blankets for the children that had come with Fëanáro's host. Of her brothers, Nelyo had tried to speak to her most. But of all her brothers, it was his betrayal that stung most. She had no hope left for the reunification of the houses. No hope, even if by the grace of God her husband made it to these shores alive someday.

At the thought of Finno's beautiful smile and golden ribbons in his raven hair, she closed her eyes. An ache of shame formed a pit in her stomach that made her sick. What would he think of her? She had boarded the ships without him. She had betrayed him. And though she had never meant to leave him behind, she had, and now she was left to pick up the pieces of her shattered heart. But she hadn't even tried to mend her heart, not even as she sat mending clothes. The ache of loss held her in its grip.

A commotion outside her tent made her pause. Armored boots pounded on packed dirt and grass. Cheers and horns echoed through the encampment, fair elven voices lifted up in high praises of Finwë, beloved by all. So they'd come back. And they'd come back victorious.

In the din, she caught the voices of a few of her brothers. Tyelko and Káno and Moryo loudest of them, laughter and song telling tales of a routing of orcs of Morgoth, from what she could tell. She tried, she really tried, to tune them out. She turned her eyes to the needle between her fingers. But she couldn't tune them out. They were loud. They were brash. They felt untouchable.

They weren't untouchable though. She had already lost one brother. The youngest had fallen first.

Anguish washed over her. When she closed her eyes, she heard the screams of Telvo as he fought off his brothers to join his dying twin in the waters of Losgar. Her throat had bled from her cries that night. Eve had cried for Telvo and Finno, and for herself, and Pityo most of all. A lump formed in her throat. She couldn't breathe.

"Eve?"

Nelyo. Eve flinched back at his voice, and at the pain in her finger as the needle stabbed her. She looked down. Blood pooled on her fingertip. How poetic.

"Eve, you cannot disappear in this tent until the end of time." She heard him sigh from the other side of the tent flaps. "Eve!"

Still, she could not find her voice. Fëanáro had said that through sorrow they would find joy, or freedom at the least. But she had found neither. Sorrow had deepened into anguish, and that kept her imprisoned in her mind. She had to believe Finno would be okay. She had to believe that, and forget all hope of happiness for herself here in these lands. For the first time in many years, she wished suddenly she had never come to this world. She wanted to see her real family. She wanted to see her friends. She wanted to be set free from this hell.

Nelyo hadn't spoken in several minutes. Eve assumed he had left, as she'd sat in silence and stared at the blood on her hand and the jeweled sword on the grass not far from her. But he hadn't left.

The tent flaps parted. Nelyo wore his bronze armor, bronze and ruby circlet on his head. She tried not to dignify his entrance by looking up at his fair face. Anger filled her mind. She hated him. She couldn't look at him.

But she did. She looked up, and for a moment she wondered at what she saw. She'd not heard him in the songs and cheers. She'd not looked at him in weeks. When she finally did, as she sat there on the grass inside her tent, Nelyo standing just inside the closed flaps, she found the laughter and celebration gone from him. Nelyo had always been quick to laugh, to smile, to make a joke. But the man before her's face seemed set in a perpetual frown. His brilliant, red hair had been tied back, still sightly curled, but with much less sheen. And his grey eyes seemed more like marbled stone than shining pools of Telperion's dew.

She guessed she didn't look much better herself. But even as pity began to overtake her anger, she forced it away. This brother of hers had betrayed not only herself, but his greatest friend and her husband. He had condemned Finno to frozen waters or the doom of the Valar. Stories of little Finno following his eldest cousin for long days in the Bliss of Valinor before any taint had descended on them came back to her.

Eve stood off the ground. At one time she had been but a college student in New England. Her greatest accomplishment had been composing the cover art for her school's literary magazine. But that had been years ago. That life had passed beyond her reach. No. Now, she was a princess of the Noldor even without her circlet. She was the wife of Findekáno Nolofinwion, a beloved artist of Valinor, and she would not stare up at Nelyo, crying on the ground.

Neither spoke. She held her head high, and he seemed to deflate, just a bit. Pity began to creep back in. But she wouldn't let it change her mind.

"We're moving further along the coast," Nelyo finally said. He frowned. "I'll send a few guards for your safety and to help pack up your tent."

"I won't go anywhere with you."

Eve hadn't meant to say it outloud. But as the air seemed to grow even tenser between them, she didn't retract her statement. She didn't want to go anywhere with the house of Fëanáro. None of them had apologized. None of them had repented. They didn't speak of Losgar and the ships at all.

"Eve, the orcs are numerous. We need to move to safer ground." Nelyo pointed to her sword. "You may be forced to use that before the year is out. We routed a large band of the spawn of Morgoth not long ago. They know we are here, and they outnumber us by the thousands."

Eve felt her fists tightening. Tears sprang to her eyes. How could he dare to speak to her of being outnumbered? Hate made her skin crawl. "We would not now be outnumbered if you hadn't destroyed the ships! Don't speak to me about having too small a force. If we die, it is on your shoulders, all of you. " She folded her arms across her chest, tears streaming down her face in her anger. "I will not follow you or your father. Not willingly. And if you force me, I'll hate you forever."

Nelyo didn't respond at first. He just looked at her, his own hands constricting, causing the leather gloves to bend and groan. But he just shook his head. "I would rather have you live, hating me forever, than die alone on these shores, leaving me without an enemy. The guards will be here in a few hours." He turned away from her, but stopped just at the door. "I owe Finno that much, Eve, even if you were not my sister."

Her eyes shut tight. Eve couldn't breathe. The pity came back. Sadness replaced the hatred, even if just for a moment. As he opened the tent flap, she stopped him.

"Did you try?"

He paused, turned back to her for a moment. "Try what?"

"To send them back across."

"Yes."

A wave of emotions crashed into Eve as he left the tent. Sobs filled that little space, the little four corners of a home she had tried to rebuild by herself. Anger, regret, shame, desperation filled every bit of her body. He'd not forgotten Finno. He'd not forgotten them. As she cried there alone, Eve wondered maybe, maybe, there could be some hope left to kindle in the world.