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Jib is the name of the Mithrim cat and the cause of all your troubles. Jib is ornery, spry, distrustful. You liked her at once. (Both of you.)
In the beginning, when Athair was not herding you together like sheep, or stripping off safe fleeces to send your brothers out like wolves to war, you liked to coax Jib with bits of meat, and (once or twice) scratch her between the ears.
That was as far as you ever came with Jib, together.
Mollie—since—has helped. Mollie and Jib are friendly, in the stables, and Mollie alerted you to …Jib’s condition before the kittens ever came.
You had thought that Jib was looking fat.
Jib (in the perverse way of cats) has come to be very trusting of you, in her motherhood. Now that her kittens are stalking and bouncing, their paws and ears too large for them but their legs almost steady, you are allowed to take them out for little ventures.
She doesn’t even yowl after you.
Having explained to Frog and Sticks (just yesterday) that there was a cat (and kittens), you set off very early this morning, between the dawn-guards’ changing. You carried the kitten carefully in the crook of your arm.
Thus, your world ended.
You hide with your hands over your ears, thinking fast. Never let it be said that the Feanorians cannot think on their feet, on their knees, on their backs. Never let it be said—
(The kitten escapes and runs back, back over the bridge, to its mother.)
You haven’t time to gaze on Amrod-in-the-water. You haven’t time, slipping from sun-spotted tree to sun-revealed clearing, to tell him anything at all.
You are something very dreadful, young and old, and you cannot go back to not knowing. No, there is no time to seek counsel or comfort, or dreams.
But Amrod-in-the-water would understand why you ran for Celegorm.
Until there was Maedhros, you needed him most.
Until there was Maedhros.