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“It will hopefully be quick”, Mablung said, trying to sound certain. Nienor’s face was unusually unresponsive. “Your mother is adamant. Your brother will want to come back, I am sure.”
“What of the orcs?” Nienor said and Mablung silently cursed his habit of telling her what his scouts had seen and heard.
They were in her rooms in Menegroth, Mablung ready with bow on his back, axe in his belt and clad in light armour. Nienor still had the same soft and simple white dress on which she had had that morning and her golden hair hung free down her shoulders. Mablung only had to close his eyes to remember that morning; the sensation of the fabric of her dress pressed against him and her soft hair sliding between his fingers. The light of the sun catching a few strands and making them shine. Her eyes looking at him with a strange and exciting and probably inappropriate hunger. The warmth of her body pressed so tightly against his front, while the cold stone pressed against his back. Her smile against his lips. Her lips. Their kiss. His soft please-
When he then would open his eyes, he would remember the summons that followed; Morwen had gone against Melian’s advice and left Doriath to find her son, called Mormegil by the refugees from Nargothrond, – and then light feeling in his chest would go out. He told himself it would be a quick affair; find Morwen and escort her back. He told himself he would soon be back in Menegroth and he would meet Nienor again and they could – talk, yes, they probably needed to talk.
Yet something made him uneasy; a feeling of foreboding had settled in him. It was the same which he always used to feel when he and Beleg – oh, Beleg! To have him here now! – patrolled Doriath’s borders together and before something bad happened, an ambush or alike. He knew it well and had learned to trust it, yet in this situation he did not know what to do. Thingol had ordered him to go with Morwen to Nargothrond and protect her and he could not defy his orders. Delaying it was impossible – lady Morwen was already gone and fast approaching the ruins of the former city of Felagund.
But at least Nienor would stay in Menegroth, where he knew her to be safe. He knew she would rather go with and seek out the brother she had never met and see the world outside, but during the announcements of her mother's hasty departure she had remained quiet and Mablung took that as a sign that she agreed, if not reluctantly, to stay.
“There … has been some, yes”, he admitted slowly. “But we will not move like an army – any orcs or other foul things we may manage to escape from. I will see your mother back safe.”
Nienor said nothing, at first, her eyes cast down. Mablung wondered what more he could say – ‘I will miss you’, ‘You have my heart’, ‘I want-‘ – when she spoke up again:
“And what about you?”
She looked at him again and her blue eyes shone. They looked as if they struggled with something.
“My lady?” he asked, not fully understanding.
She frowned but explained:
“Will you be back safe?”
He was taken aback for a moment but then reminded himself: She kissed you and you kissed her back and clearly that means this means something. Clearly you mean something. To her.
He smiled a small smile, though it probably gave away the sun of happiness he felt in his breast.
“I will do my best, which you know is quite good.”
She smiled a little at that, though the small frown remained.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I- … I wish this could be easier. I wish my brother had remained in Doriath and not run away, so I and mother would have met him here. I wish … “
She did not tell him what more she wished, but she stretched out her hand for his and he took it. He hoped he interpreted it correctly as he raised it to his lips and kissed it. He then held it between both his hands and sighed.
“I do too. But I will see you when I come back. It- “, he took a shaky breath, “we will talk then.”
Mablung then looked at her and smiled and she smiled back without the frown. He felt his heart soar and the strong urge to remain there, right there, with her hand in his and the sound of Melian’s halls surrounding them. He did not want to go.
But eventually he had to, and he kissed her hand one last time and said goodbye. They both smiled, though it was rueful smiles, at the other as he turned to leave and Mablung only barely saw when hers dropped like a stone, but then he was already out the door.
I will see her when I come back, he told himself. She will still be here.