A Gift of Tears

Disclaimer: Just taking Tolkien's world for a joyride; I promise to return it with a full tank.
Reviews: Please! I'll take all the constructive help I can get.

This one poured out of my head when I was doing something else completely, so it must have wanted to be read.

***

Nienán was named for the most mournful of the Valar, and it suited her. She had ever been cloaked in sorrow. And now Haldir, burdened with her brother's sword and the news of his death, knew not how to approach her.

He stood in silence at the edge of her talan for moments uncounted. Her parents he knew were long dead, and this was the only soul to whom he would have to bring such dire news. But that thought made his task no easier; it only proved how thoroughly alone this poor creature before him now was.

"Fëaril has fallen." The words burst forth bitterly from her lips before he could muster the strength to push them past his own. "I knew in my heart the very second he died, pierced through by an orc spear."

Haldir froze. He had hoped that her eerie and unfortunate clairvoyance concerning the demise of those closest to her would fail, just this once, but it was not to be so. She had known the ripping of flesh and bone that had ended her brother's life, and perhaps even the tragic surprise that had spread over his face as he realized what was to be his bloody and broken end. Haldir's stomach turned as he remembered that day. Fëaril had been his closest friend outside of his own kin, and his loss was much more than simply that of a fellow soldier. It had torn at his heart relentlessly these difficult days since, and now pained him as surely as any battle wound he had yet received.

"His last words were of you," he spoke finally. He stepped closer to the carved bench across which Nienán was sprawled, unmoving since his arrival. He could see now the sparkling tears on her otherwise expressionless face. She stared resolutely at nothing, but he continued, that she might know the final nobility of her brother's existence. "He begged that I care for you and protect you when he was no longer able. I promised him at the last that I would do so." He searched her pale countenance for a reaction, and found none. "Little comfort it may be to you, but I intend to hold true to my word."

She turned then, her face youthful and her eyes filled with the death and hurt of a thousand ages. He was caught in her gaze, exhausted and strained, naked and cold, hypnotized and suspended in time with only her and the pain they shared.
He was startled when she spoke again, after how long he knew not.

"I wish you to train me, that I may fight in Fëaril's stead."

He was taken aback, but answered quickly. "No. I will not. He would have wanted you to be safe, not dragged into battle as his replacement."

"He would have wanted me not to be the last of my kin." Her voice was even and clear, but anger lurked at the edges of her tone. It was the same voice Fëaril had always used when on a course from which he would not be deterred. "You will train me, Haldir, or another will."

She rose and walked toward him. Her ghostly hand reached out toward the sword he held reverently at his side. "This belonged to my father once, then until so recently to my brother. Now it passes to me." She took the curved handle and removed the broad blade from its scabbard. "And as passes the weapon, so does the task of its bearer. I am in your service, my lord." She bowed with a flourish, sword in hand, and a sardonic half-grin played menacingly at the corners of her mouth.

"No. No, you cannot do this. I forbid it." Haldir was more than unsettled by her behavior.

"What shall I do then, my great protector? Am I to waste away alone, left with not matter to occupy me beyond the thoughts of all that I have lost?" She resheathed the sword and began to pace with the tense ferocity of a caged beast. "Shall I wait quietly for a death that will not come, and count the endless empty days as they pass? Will my sorrow be enough to carry me through all the ages of the world? Am I to mourn until the end of time?"

Haldir sighed. "No. But perhaps you should allow yourself some time to do so now, before you fall too far into your grief and allow your own life to end without need." He turned to leave, too tired and raw to make sense of her erratic manifestations of pain. His own ordeal had worn him thin, and he reasoned there was little more he could do for her until she calmed. She was irrational beyond the reach of comfort.

But as he stepped away, a stifled sob reached his ears. Never a more wretched sound had he heard from any living being. Without further thought, he returned and held her as she wept. And in the full presence of her agony, he felt his own tears, which he had thought long spent, begin to silently fall.