To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well;

and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass.

The Dispossessed shall they be for ever.

- The Doom of Mandos -

***

The muted roar of wind dulled to a quiet hum as she dove under the surface. Stroking against the ice cold current, her silver hair billowing around her like smoke, Luimëníssë sank to the lake bed.

It didn't take long for her memories to discover her.

The battered swan ship rocked with the raging sea. Vantaro slipped in and out of consciousness in her arms. She refused to allow Írissë or Artanis to cradle him. Artanis was unsullied while Írissë appeared like her, drenched in blood. Írissë would not look Luimëníssë in the eye.

In the dark water with only starlight as a guide, Luimëníssë ran her hands over the bed, searching for something to hang onto, a token of hope. A freshwater mollusk found it's way to her palm.

The Noldor struggled to maintain control of the ships, but not all of the elves were fit for the ocean. In their arrogance, they wrought their own undoing as many were lost to the storm brought by the weeping of Uinen, the Lady of the Sea. The Maia mourned for her lost children, weeping salty tempests and sobbing violent gusts. Luimëníssë wept silently, unknowingly, both while awake and dreaming. She wept as Nienna, the Tenderhearted Lady of Grief.

But she did not feel tenderhearted. She felt like a vacuum, ravenous for distance and distraction. She feared she would lose her mind if she did not seek these things.

Luimëníssë kicked to the surface. She broke into the chilled air of the northern wilds, the trees encompassing the lake swaying with the wind storm. The mollusk cracked easily, weaker shelled than the ones founds in the Bay of Eldamar. She expected to find nothing. But on it's fleshy tongue was a seed of a pearl. Fresh tears filled her weary eyes, but did not fall.

A wavering figure like a reflection in water stood high upon a sea rock, bathed in it's own unearthly glow while the ocean heaved at it's feet. This was no lesser spirit, but Mandos himself come to deliver a sentence. The dread words he bellowed were curse or prophecy, they could not know. And Fëanor laughed as a mad man on the prow of their ship. Curvo stood at his father's side. He had not looked or spoken to her since he had rescued her.

She hurled the crushed shell far into deeper water. Grasping the pearl with both hands close to her heart, she turned towards the shore. The Noldor had set up their encampment on the wintry border of Araman. No snow or ice covered the ground here but it dominated the landscape beyond. With their stolen ships, the Noldor would not have to concern themselves with the frozen wasteland that stretched between Aman and Arda.

"Where are we, nésaya?" Vantaro murmured in his stupor. She had remained onboard, unwilling to leave the arms of the sea, her last piece of home.

"Far away."

"Where is amilye?"

She did not answer, but held him closer till he fell asleep with the swaying of the moored ship. Luimëníssë wandered in her dreams. A Noldo with the dark helm came to her. It was the swordsman she had slain in her rage over Nanwë's death. She had never seen his face, only a spurt of blood, naked veins and the burnished iron of a fierce helmet.

She awoke on land, curled beside her little brother by a fire with Artanis peering up at the stars overhead, her mouth parting as though she longed to drink them into her fëa to make herself clean again.

"How..." Luimëníssë croaked.

Artanis peered at her across the firelight, bruises of grief in the hollows of her gaunt cheeks.

"Findekáno, Írissë's brother, he carried you and Vantaro off the ship. It was too cold, the risk was too great that we would have lost both of you."

"Why do we matter to you when our kin did not?" The potent question spoken in a gentle tone hung between them like the smoke off the damp wood.

"I don't know."

A figure loomed on the beach, the hood of his cloak pulled deep over his head. Luimëníssë halted, her heart beating heavily in her breast and breath coming out in light clouds. The phantom stepped forward, staring towards where she stood in shoulder deep water.

"Rembano," she whispered.

Curvo removed his hood, the smooth black fabric matching the texture of his midnight hair. Starlight filled the sharp sweeps of his regal countenance. He wet his lips as though he longed to speak, but lacked the words as he lingered at the edge of the water, clutching her bloodstained gown.

She'd refused to change out of her rose gown, wanting them to see what they had done, the unavoidable physical evidence. She only took a clean dress loaned by Artanis when Vantaro came to understand the rest of their family was dead. Artanis and Eärwen comforted the child back at the camp. Luimëníssë had little left to give except venom.

Curvo was a prime target for her rage and he had presented himself willingly as sacrifice.

Her thin shift she had worn to bathe clung transparently to her hips and breasts, but she refused to be timid before him. He was the intruder, she would not allow him to intimidate her.

She emerged from the water, eyes honed on his as he watched her rise from the lake's surface. The curves of her body wetly gleamed like fish scales in the dim.

For a fleeting moment, his mouth parted in awe then shame washed over his personage, as though it was him standing nearly naked before her. He turned his back for her modesty's sake without being asked.

"What are you doing here?" She peeled the shift from her skin and slapped it to the stones at her bare feet.

Curvo cleared his throat, crumpling her gown between his hands. "It is dangerous to wander alone. These are not the lands of our birth."

Pulling the clean, grey dress over her head, she tightened the stays, her hair slicked to her long neck. "I am not afraid."

"You should be," he protested sharply, turning his head slightly. He cleared his throat again. "I- I apologize for disturbing you while you bathed."

"I thought your kin did not apologize."

"This time it was merited."

"This time..." Grief twisting in her gut like a blade. Her shoulders were rigid with rage and cold. "Only this time?"

He whipped around at her heightened tone. "I never thought it would come to this, I never wanted to do you harm."

"But you have done harm. Greater than I ever thought imaginable." Anger dried up her tears as she stepped up towards him, trembling. She ripped her gown from his hands. "You are a living curse upon this earth."

"I did not kill my kinsman for your sake lightly, I do not kill for sport," he spat. "And I hold no regret for the blood I spilled in protecting you. But I regret more- I cannot tell you-" His voice faded and head dropped.

She slapped him, the sound echoing across the lake. "You think you are exempt from my wrath because you happened to be in the right place at the right time? You should have let that sword take my head."

"You saved my life once."

"I should have let the sea take you."

Running a hand over his reddened cheek, he removed the cloak from around his shoulders. Without looking her in the face, he draped it over her shoulders and snapped the silver clasp under her chin, his worn fingertips grazing her throat.

"Perhaps you should have."

He wandered into the darkness of the trees, leaving her to weep silent tears of fury on the stony beach.

She trudged into the outskirts of Fingolfin's encampment, seperate from Fëanor's. Artanis had barely left her side since she had awoken on dry land. Írissë actively avoided them. Sometimes, she felt the elleth's eyes on her from her fireside several yards away, but when she peered across the darkness, Írissë's narrow back was turned to her. She did not ask who's blood had covered Írissë's gown and Artanis did not volunteer the information.

Vantaro was missing from the campfire as was Artanis. Only Eärwen, her father's sister and the only true Teleri present, remained by the fire. Her eyes were glazed over as she stared into it's depths. Luimëníssë removed Curvo's cloak and tucked it into her bedroll, unwilling to answer questions about it right then. She fought the impulse to cast it into the flames.

"My daughter brought Vantaro see to my husband, thought perhaps it might lift his spirits." Eärwen murmured tonelessly. "Artanis also is telling Finarfin farewell."

Luimëníssë blinked over at her. "Farewell?"

"My husband and I are abandoning our present course with those of our kin who wish to remain in the blessed realm. We are going up to the Holy Mountain to ask for forgiveness for... what has occurred." Eärwen turned her body towards her and grasped her hands. "Will you return with us? Come back to the lands of our people, to your grandfather, your kin? So that Vantaro may swim in the same waters that his father loved and walk the streets of Alqualondë where your brother was cherished?"

Luimëníssë shuddered at the name of her birthplace, it sounded like a curse in her ears now. "When do you depart?"

"We leave as soon as Finarfin has settled his accounts with Fingolfin."

"What does... their other brother have to say about all this?" She couldn't even bear to speak his name.

Eärwen brushed the frayed strands of her silver hair from her eyes. "My husband owes Fëanor no explanation. He told him but... the King of the Noldor had no kind words for him. They do not part on good terms."

"I did not think that they would."

"So? Will you travel with us back into our realm?"

"Why has Artanis decided to remain behind?"

Eärwen rose abruptly to her feet and paced the damp ground, her arms wrapped tightly around her body. "Nerwen and her brothers have chosen to follow their cousins and fathers into the east quite simply... because of pride. They are part Noldor and it shows in this folly of theirs. She says she longs to see more lands, rule her own realm. My sons do as well. But I fear... I fear I shall never see them again."

After so much loss, Luimëníssë had little left in her to give to her aunt for her own pain. But Eärwen did not seem to expect it. She sank down on the other side of the fire, her blue eyes swimming with tears as she stared across at her niece.

"Well... Silver Bell... will you follow us?"

Her father crumpling to the cobblestones with an arrow shaft trembling in his chest, mother bleeding out in her arms, Náretarnon fulfilling his destiny in flames that their mother foresaw at his birth. And Rembano, his body shimmering to cloud and ash.

"I cannot," she spoke firmly, her hands clenching.

"But why, child?"

"Because I will not seek pardon for what I do not regret. I killed on those piers, I stabbed a Noldo soldier with an arrow. I am guilty of the blood spilled and I am under the Doom of Mandos as well." Her gaze burned with anguish and pride. Her aunt stared at her as though she were a stranger. "I will not apologize for what I have done."

"Then I fear your pride will be your undoing,"Eärwen whispered.

"So be it."