Aug. 22 - The Nimloth Incident
Title: The Nimloth Incident
Author: Grundy
Rating: FR13
Crossover: LotR
Disclaimer: All belongs to Whedon & Tolkien. No money is being made here, it's all in good fun.
Summary: Not all the family reunions run smoothly. (Some of Tindomiel's kin are still in the Halls for a reason...)
Word Count: 2240
Note: I'm in my usual, "what do you mean Fic A Day is nearly over" panic, and trying to work myself up to finally write Arwen's death and what happened immediately after. In the meantime, someone asked what happened that Tindomiel was avoiding Celegorm and Nimloth...
Elrond was somewhat surprised when he had to knock a second time.
After several weeks away, working on getting their new house into a livable state - well, livable for highly active and inventive children, adults were safe enough already - so that Tindomiel could finally have a place to call ‘home’ rather than shuttling between various relatives, he had expected that she would be eager to see him and Celebrían.
Usually that would have meant she’d come charging downstairs for dinner without needing anyone to remind her of the time.
He’d also expected her to be agitating for her ‘grounding’ to be over, as it’s been precisely two years. (Anariel hadn’t been grounded any longer than that for the Battle of Five Armies, so they can hardly punish Tindomiel more severely for having neglected to tell anyone that the power of the Key worked on the Halls of Mandos before she showed up in Tirion with Aegnor and Carnistir in tow.)
The door didn’t open until the third time he knocked, and when it swung inward, he found his youngest daughter appeared to be doing her best to hide behind it.
That was in no way whatsoever suspicious…
He’s not sure which of his elder children would laugh harder at this rather transparent attempt to conceal something, but he did rather wish they were here to keep a sympathetic eye or two on their baby sister. Tindomiel had a good many elder kinfolk here, but the closest to older siblings were Finrod’s children. Unfortunately, Tindomiel and Artalissë got on about as well as Gil-galad and Thranduil used to in the Lindon days.
It would have been a help if Gil were here, too.
“Tinu,” he said with a sigh, “as we both know I’m going to find out either way, perhaps you could just tell me?”
His daughter reluctantly stepped backwards, away from the door, and he could see that there was a livid bruise on one side of her face - a hand shaped bruise.
He blinked in surprise.
That was certainly not anything he’d been expecting.
His children have more relatives in Tirion than they had in all of Middle-earth by the end of the Third Age, and most of them seem bent on spoiling his daughter rotten if it can be done.
He measured the handprint with his eyes and was able to summarily eliminate young Anairon, not that it seriously entered his head that the boy was responsible; if it had been Anairon, there would have been a story about the extraordinary chain of events that led to his hand meeting his best friend’s face with enough force to leave a mark.
He rather doubted it had been Lissë, either. There would have been tears - Lissë’s. At some length, and likely requiring attention from not only her parents and brothers, but also her grandparents assuring her she hadn’t damaged her ‘little’ cousin permanently. (Also, his daughter would almost certainly have retaliated.)
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him before he reached for Tinu’s cheek.
It wasn’t a serious wound; healing it was trivial.
“What happened?” he asked, keeping his voice concerned but not accusing. “Your grandmothers assured me you had not been out of your room all afternoon.”
His daughter flushed guiltily.
“I, um, may have left the room for a little while?” she offered. “Technically. Just not by the doors or windows…”
“I might have known,” Elrond sighed. “And where did you go?”
He suspected he already knew the answer.
“To the Halls,” Tindomiel admitted. “It’s not skipping out on being grounded exactly. I was with older kin the entire time. Just not the ones you thought I was with.”
“It seems your mother and I have arrived to announce the end of your restriction none too soon,” Elrond said, trying to keep the exasperation off his face. “I really would prefer you not go ‘visiting’ from here. If you must visit our kin who have yet to return, I think it’s safer if you travel to the Halls by more conventional means. Save your particular talent for going in and out of them.”
His daughter insisted there was little difference, but Elrond couldn’t help but think that traveling distances using the power of the Key meant more potential for something to go wrong.
“Well if I’m not grounded anymore, of course I can do that,” she huffed. “Although I really do have the hang of going there my way now.”
“Mmm,” Elrond replied non-committally. “Who did you trade blows with?”
“No one,” Tindomiel mumbled, looking at her feet.
Elrond mentally translated that ‘no one I care to admit to’ as he sang quietly over the bruise, watching it fade as he concentrated.
“Is this to be a regular occurrence?” he asked.
“No,” she muttered, still finding the floor remarkably interesting. “I’ll just avoid her. That’s what you do there when you can’t get along with people.”
“Very well,” Elrond replied, coaxing the last vestiges of the bruise to vanish. “But if you’re so bound and determined to visit the dead, you might ask your uncle Gil-galad to help you practice ducking. They can’t bruise you if they can’t hit you.”
“Maybe,” Tindomiel sighed. “I think plain old ‘avoidance’ will be just fine.”
“As you will,” Elrond said, ruffling her hair cheerfully. “All better now, dawn child. Dinner?”
“You won’t tell Nana?”
“You will tell Nana yourself, but it needn’t be at dinner,” Elrond replied generously. “Come, they’re probably wondering by now where you are.”
---
Tindomiel was relieved that Ada hadn’t pushed on the subject of what happened to her face.
She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about the disastrous run-in with her grandmother’s mother.
She’d known before this that Nimloth was a little…well, ‘fragile’ was how the rest of their Sindarin kin put it. Now that she’d experienced it for herself, Tindomiel couldn’t help thinking that ‘unhinged’ might be more accurate.
She’d been visiting like she told her father, and not for the first time since she’s been ‘grounded’ - which, seeing as her parents’ new house is nowhere near finished yet, meant she’s been under the supervision of various grandparents, first in Valimar, then in Tirion. (For some reason, her mother seemed to think that just because she broke her leg in Alqualondë that one time, sending her there while she’s grounded would be inviting further trouble. Neither she nor Olwë were best pleased with that decision.)
She’d been alternating between the Noldorin and Sindarin relatives - they kept to different sections of the Halls, with what felt like ‘neutral territory’ between them, kind of the equivalent of public parks or plazas in the living world.
It had happened in one of them as she was on her way back.
She’d been coming from the Sindarin areas, where she’d been having a heart to heart with Finduilas. She really likes Faelivrin, and can’t quite wrap her head around the idea that someone who was begotten at the same time as her uncle Gildor is actually younger than Artalissë, and if she hides out in the Halls many more years, will end up younger than Anariel no matter how they count her age. (She’s already younger on the measure Anariel prefers, her actual begetting date.)
That was when she’d spotted her grandfather Makalaurë. (And, unfortunately, his stupid brother who shall remain nameless and not talk to her. Wait, he had two of those… the older of his two stupid brothers who shall remain nameless and not talk to her.)
She’d bounced over to say hello, naturally, excited because she hadn’t expected to find him out and about exploring beyond the Fëanorion room so quickly. She’s learned it usually takes the dead a while before they feel confident enough to do that. Then again, maybe haru was a little different than the average dead fëa, what between the ages of wandering on his own in regret plus the Anariel factor towards the end…
Nameless stupid had the nerve to give her a goofy grin and wave, although he pointedly didn’t speak. She stuck her tongue out at him, which only made him grin even more.
“Haru!” she beamed, hugging Makalaurë.
That was as far as she got before she heard the absolutely vile Doriathrin insults coming from behind her. (Her grandfather would have ripped someone a new one for using words like that in front of her.)
She whirled to find it wasn’t just any of the Iathrim - it was her great-grandmother. And she was not happy.
“Daernana, it’s ok, really! He isn’t going to hurt me - he isn’t going to hurt anyone!” she exclaimed, intercepting a furious Nimloth.
“You shouldn’t be anywhere near that murderous Kinslayer,” Nimloth told her angrily, trying to pull her away. She spoke Doriathrin, so Tindomiel doubted Makalaurë understood.
The Noldor might have learned what they called Sindarin, but what was spoken in Doriath wasn’t the same as the Mithrin or Falathrin dialects.
“It’s ok,” Tindomiel repeated, trying Doriathrin herself in the hopes of calming Nimloth. “He’s not going to do me any harm, he’s my grandfather.”
The sharp crack of Nimloth’s hand meeting her face sounded as loud as a cannon.
Tindomiel put one hand to her stinging cheek in shock. She was only vaguely aware that Nimloth might have taken aim at the other side as well before she was spun around and found herself behind a broad back.
“Your quarrel, lady, is not with the child,” a deep and rather irritated voice drawled in Falathrin. “She has done nothing to deserve your anger. If you want to hit someone, you should be swinging at me.”
Tindomiel had just enough time to register that Celegorm of all people had stepped in to defend her before she decided that was quite enough visiting for one day. When she moved, she stepped outside the Halls, back into her own room in Tirion.
A look in the mirror proved that she did indeed have the mark to remember her grandmother’s mother by.
She did not want to have to explain this to her parents. Or anyone else.
---
In the Halls, Tyelkormo glared at Nimloth, who appeared startled by what she had just done, looking at her hand as if it had nothing to do with the rest of her.
“I put a sword in your husband, I’m the one you got with a knife, I’m the one you’re angry with,” he continued, as furious by now as she was. “The girl wasn’t even begotten at the time, nor her parents either, and you’re going to hit her because she’s fond of the ellon who raised her father?”
Nimloth was shaking with rage.
“You Kinslayers took everything!” she shrieked. “You can claim your stupid jewels back, but Dior will still be gone. You took my husband, you took my children, and my daughter's children, now you take her grandchildren as well?”
“Enough!”
Makalaurë’s well-trained voice cut through what would have otherwise turned into quite an interesting shouting match.
“Tyelko, walk away,” he ordered.
Tyelko gave the Sindarin woman a filthy glare, but did as his older brother commanded.
Nimloth might have moved to follow, but other Sindar had gathered at the commotion, and they now crowded around, blocking any path she might have had toward him.
Tyelko was well aware that if he’d still had a body, he’d have been stomping, but it didn’t much matter here.
He tried to slam the door when they reached ‘their’ chamber, but the stupid thing wouldn’t slam.
His eldest brother raised an eyebrow.
“We had an interesting encounter,” Makalaurë said drily. “Dior’s wife.”
“Interesting encounter, he calls it,” Tyelko snorted. “She hit your granddaughter, in case you missed it.”
He hadn’t missed the expression on the girl’s face. He guessed by her reaction that the child had never before had a hand raised to her in her life. She’s been protected and coddled the way an elfling ought to be. Which made it that much worse that the first person to lay a hand on her in anger had been her kin…
“Yes, she did, and I daresay once she calms down, Nimloth will deeply regret that slap,” Makalaurë said wearily. “Tindomiel is the one least affected by her time in Endorë and has the kindest heart. More to the point, she’s the only one who comes to visit. She can avoid Nimloth easily, and I expect she will from now on.”
“Because the other girls would have taken it any better?” Tyelko demanded irritably, giving his older brother a look of deep disgust.
“I’m not entirely sure what Arwen would have done,” Makalaurë said with a shrug. “Anariel wouldn’t have been very impressed.”
Maitimo snorted.
“From what you say of her, Anariel would most likely have hit back on reflex,” he pointed out.
Makalaurë made a choking sound.
“Then we should be glad she wasn’t here,” he said wearily. “Anariel doesn’t slap, she punches. One hit from her would have laid Nimloth out flat.”
Assuming, of course, she could interact with the fëar of the dead as her sister could, rather than being not quite there as Anairon had been.
“It will probably not make for good relations when Anariel finds out about it,” Maitimo mused.
“Oh, I imagine family relations will be interesting no matter what,” Curvo observed. “Or do you two imagine Thingol will take his descendants calling you grandfather any better than Nimloth did?”
Author: Grundy
Rating: FR13
Crossover: LotR
Disclaimer: All belongs to Whedon & Tolkien. No money is being made here, it's all in good fun.
Summary: Not all the family reunions run smoothly. (Some of Tindomiel's kin are still in the Halls for a reason...)
Word Count: 2240
Note: I'm in my usual, "what do you mean Fic A Day is nearly over" panic, and trying to work myself up to finally write Arwen's death and what happened immediately after. In the meantime, someone asked what happened that Tindomiel was avoiding Celegorm and Nimloth...
Elrond was somewhat surprised when he had to knock a second time.
After several weeks away, working on getting their new house into a livable state - well, livable for highly active and inventive children, adults were safe enough already - so that Tindomiel could finally have a place to call ‘home’ rather than shuttling between various relatives, he had expected that she would be eager to see him and Celebrían.
Usually that would have meant she’d come charging downstairs for dinner without needing anyone to remind her of the time.
He’d also expected her to be agitating for her ‘grounding’ to be over, as it’s been precisely two years. (Anariel hadn’t been grounded any longer than that for the Battle of Five Armies, so they can hardly punish Tindomiel more severely for having neglected to tell anyone that the power of the Key worked on the Halls of Mandos before she showed up in Tirion with Aegnor and Carnistir in tow.)
The door didn’t open until the third time he knocked, and when it swung inward, he found his youngest daughter appeared to be doing her best to hide behind it.
That was in no way whatsoever suspicious…
He’s not sure which of his elder children would laugh harder at this rather transparent attempt to conceal something, but he did rather wish they were here to keep a sympathetic eye or two on their baby sister. Tindomiel had a good many elder kinfolk here, but the closest to older siblings were Finrod’s children. Unfortunately, Tindomiel and Artalissë got on about as well as Gil-galad and Thranduil used to in the Lindon days.
It would have been a help if Gil were here, too.
“Tinu,” he said with a sigh, “as we both know I’m going to find out either way, perhaps you could just tell me?”
His daughter reluctantly stepped backwards, away from the door, and he could see that there was a livid bruise on one side of her face - a hand shaped bruise.
He blinked in surprise.
That was certainly not anything he’d been expecting.
His children have more relatives in Tirion than they had in all of Middle-earth by the end of the Third Age, and most of them seem bent on spoiling his daughter rotten if it can be done.
He measured the handprint with his eyes and was able to summarily eliminate young Anairon, not that it seriously entered his head that the boy was responsible; if it had been Anairon, there would have been a story about the extraordinary chain of events that led to his hand meeting his best friend’s face with enough force to leave a mark.
He rather doubted it had been Lissë, either. There would have been tears - Lissë’s. At some length, and likely requiring attention from not only her parents and brothers, but also her grandparents assuring her she hadn’t damaged her ‘little’ cousin permanently. (Also, his daughter would almost certainly have retaliated.)
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him before he reached for Tinu’s cheek.
It wasn’t a serious wound; healing it was trivial.
“What happened?” he asked, keeping his voice concerned but not accusing. “Your grandmothers assured me you had not been out of your room all afternoon.”
His daughter flushed guiltily.
“I, um, may have left the room for a little while?” she offered. “Technically. Just not by the doors or windows…”
“I might have known,” Elrond sighed. “And where did you go?”
He suspected he already knew the answer.
“To the Halls,” Tindomiel admitted. “It’s not skipping out on being grounded exactly. I was with older kin the entire time. Just not the ones you thought I was with.”
“It seems your mother and I have arrived to announce the end of your restriction none too soon,” Elrond said, trying to keep the exasperation off his face. “I really would prefer you not go ‘visiting’ from here. If you must visit our kin who have yet to return, I think it’s safer if you travel to the Halls by more conventional means. Save your particular talent for going in and out of them.”
His daughter insisted there was little difference, but Elrond couldn’t help but think that traveling distances using the power of the Key meant more potential for something to go wrong.
“Well if I’m not grounded anymore, of course I can do that,” she huffed. “Although I really do have the hang of going there my way now.”
“Mmm,” Elrond replied non-committally. “Who did you trade blows with?”
“No one,” Tindomiel mumbled, looking at her feet.
Elrond mentally translated that ‘no one I care to admit to’ as he sang quietly over the bruise, watching it fade as he concentrated.
“Is this to be a regular occurrence?” he asked.
“No,” she muttered, still finding the floor remarkably interesting. “I’ll just avoid her. That’s what you do there when you can’t get along with people.”
“Very well,” Elrond replied, coaxing the last vestiges of the bruise to vanish. “But if you’re so bound and determined to visit the dead, you might ask your uncle Gil-galad to help you practice ducking. They can’t bruise you if they can’t hit you.”
“Maybe,” Tindomiel sighed. “I think plain old ‘avoidance’ will be just fine.”
“As you will,” Elrond said, ruffling her hair cheerfully. “All better now, dawn child. Dinner?”
“You won’t tell Nana?”
“You will tell Nana yourself, but it needn’t be at dinner,” Elrond replied generously. “Come, they’re probably wondering by now where you are.”
---
Tindomiel was relieved that Ada hadn’t pushed on the subject of what happened to her face.
She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about the disastrous run-in with her grandmother’s mother.
She’d known before this that Nimloth was a little…well, ‘fragile’ was how the rest of their Sindarin kin put it. Now that she’d experienced it for herself, Tindomiel couldn’t help thinking that ‘unhinged’ might be more accurate.
She’d been visiting like she told her father, and not for the first time since she’s been ‘grounded’ - which, seeing as her parents’ new house is nowhere near finished yet, meant she’s been under the supervision of various grandparents, first in Valimar, then in Tirion. (For some reason, her mother seemed to think that just because she broke her leg in Alqualondë that one time, sending her there while she’s grounded would be inviting further trouble. Neither she nor Olwë were best pleased with that decision.)
She’d been alternating between the Noldorin and Sindarin relatives - they kept to different sections of the Halls, with what felt like ‘neutral territory’ between them, kind of the equivalent of public parks or plazas in the living world.
It had happened in one of them as she was on her way back.
She’d been coming from the Sindarin areas, where she’d been having a heart to heart with Finduilas. She really likes Faelivrin, and can’t quite wrap her head around the idea that someone who was begotten at the same time as her uncle Gildor is actually younger than Artalissë, and if she hides out in the Halls many more years, will end up younger than Anariel no matter how they count her age. (She’s already younger on the measure Anariel prefers, her actual begetting date.)
That was when she’d spotted her grandfather Makalaurë. (And, unfortunately, his stupid brother who shall remain nameless and not talk to her. Wait, he had two of those… the older of his two stupid brothers who shall remain nameless and not talk to her.)
She’d bounced over to say hello, naturally, excited because she hadn’t expected to find him out and about exploring beyond the Fëanorion room so quickly. She’s learned it usually takes the dead a while before they feel confident enough to do that. Then again, maybe haru was a little different than the average dead fëa, what between the ages of wandering on his own in regret plus the Anariel factor towards the end…
Nameless stupid had the nerve to give her a goofy grin and wave, although he pointedly didn’t speak. She stuck her tongue out at him, which only made him grin even more.
“Haru!” she beamed, hugging Makalaurë.
That was as far as she got before she heard the absolutely vile Doriathrin insults coming from behind her. (Her grandfather would have ripped someone a new one for using words like that in front of her.)
She whirled to find it wasn’t just any of the Iathrim - it was her great-grandmother. And she was not happy.
“Daernana, it’s ok, really! He isn’t going to hurt me - he isn’t going to hurt anyone!” she exclaimed, intercepting a furious Nimloth.
“You shouldn’t be anywhere near that murderous Kinslayer,” Nimloth told her angrily, trying to pull her away. She spoke Doriathrin, so Tindomiel doubted Makalaurë understood.
The Noldor might have learned what they called Sindarin, but what was spoken in Doriath wasn’t the same as the Mithrin or Falathrin dialects.
“It’s ok,” Tindomiel repeated, trying Doriathrin herself in the hopes of calming Nimloth. “He’s not going to do me any harm, he’s my grandfather.”
The sharp crack of Nimloth’s hand meeting her face sounded as loud as a cannon.
Tindomiel put one hand to her stinging cheek in shock. She was only vaguely aware that Nimloth might have taken aim at the other side as well before she was spun around and found herself behind a broad back.
“Your quarrel, lady, is not with the child,” a deep and rather irritated voice drawled in Falathrin. “She has done nothing to deserve your anger. If you want to hit someone, you should be swinging at me.”
Tindomiel had just enough time to register that Celegorm of all people had stepped in to defend her before she decided that was quite enough visiting for one day. When she moved, she stepped outside the Halls, back into her own room in Tirion.
A look in the mirror proved that she did indeed have the mark to remember her grandmother’s mother by.
She did not want to have to explain this to her parents. Or anyone else.
---
In the Halls, Tyelkormo glared at Nimloth, who appeared startled by what she had just done, looking at her hand as if it had nothing to do with the rest of her.
“I put a sword in your husband, I’m the one you got with a knife, I’m the one you’re angry with,” he continued, as furious by now as she was. “The girl wasn’t even begotten at the time, nor her parents either, and you’re going to hit her because she’s fond of the ellon who raised her father?”
Nimloth was shaking with rage.
“You Kinslayers took everything!” she shrieked. “You can claim your stupid jewels back, but Dior will still be gone. You took my husband, you took my children, and my daughter's children, now you take her grandchildren as well?”
“Enough!”
Makalaurë’s well-trained voice cut through what would have otherwise turned into quite an interesting shouting match.
“Tyelko, walk away,” he ordered.
Tyelko gave the Sindarin woman a filthy glare, but did as his older brother commanded.
Nimloth might have moved to follow, but other Sindar had gathered at the commotion, and they now crowded around, blocking any path she might have had toward him.
Tyelko was well aware that if he’d still had a body, he’d have been stomping, but it didn’t much matter here.
He tried to slam the door when they reached ‘their’ chamber, but the stupid thing wouldn’t slam.
His eldest brother raised an eyebrow.
“We had an interesting encounter,” Makalaurë said drily. “Dior’s wife.”
“Interesting encounter, he calls it,” Tyelko snorted. “She hit your granddaughter, in case you missed it.”
He hadn’t missed the expression on the girl’s face. He guessed by her reaction that the child had never before had a hand raised to her in her life. She’s been protected and coddled the way an elfling ought to be. Which made it that much worse that the first person to lay a hand on her in anger had been her kin…
“Yes, she did, and I daresay once she calms down, Nimloth will deeply regret that slap,” Makalaurë said wearily. “Tindomiel is the one least affected by her time in Endorë and has the kindest heart. More to the point, she’s the only one who comes to visit. She can avoid Nimloth easily, and I expect she will from now on.”
“Because the other girls would have taken it any better?” Tyelko demanded irritably, giving his older brother a look of deep disgust.
“I’m not entirely sure what Arwen would have done,” Makalaurë said with a shrug. “Anariel wouldn’t have been very impressed.”
Maitimo snorted.
“From what you say of her, Anariel would most likely have hit back on reflex,” he pointed out.
Makalaurë made a choking sound.
“Then we should be glad she wasn’t here,” he said wearily. “Anariel doesn’t slap, she punches. One hit from her would have laid Nimloth out flat.”
Assuming, of course, she could interact with the fëar of the dead as her sister could, rather than being not quite there as Anairon had been.
“It will probably not make for good relations when Anariel finds out about it,” Maitimo mused.
“Oh, I imagine family relations will be interesting no matter what,” Curvo observed. “Or do you two imagine Thingol will take his descendants calling you grandfather any better than Nimloth did?”