Archive of Our Own

The soft, hypnotic patter of the snow against the tent drummed a cheery rhythm, but for so long no one had known joy in Fingolfin’s camp. The blizzard had imprisoned and blinded them. The snow had been falling without an end. Silent and deadly, it formed a dense silver wall and quietly covered those who lay down and had no strength to rise. The long and grueling walk of the Noldor across the Grinding Ice had come to a stop. The stars had hidden from them, and without the stars, they had no way of knowing if they were going the right way. They had taken refuge beneath an ice cliff to wait out the snowfall – small, scattered groups seeking the protection of looming shadows.

Along their way, they had been forced to halt their march a few times. At first, all welcomed the respite. They danced under the gentle snowflakes and gathered in the tents and sang old songs of the Journey. The minstrels among them changed the lyrics to sing the praises of Middle-earth instead of Valinor. Sometimes, unwillingly and unknowingly, the songs echoed Fëanor’s speeches, but the bards quickly corrected themselves. Fury, defiance and hope warmed them and drove them onwards.

Later, they had no time or patience to pause their march for blizzards and sang them away – powerful, commanding chants melting the snowstorms to mere drizzle and clearing the skies.

Now, no one had the strength required for such feats. Not when each day, more and more lives were lost to fatigue, hunger and cold. Slowly, Fingolfin and his host lost their defiance and their hope. Only fury remained.

The wind blew against Fingolfin’s face as he took his usual path among the dark tents flung like burnt charcoal against the endless white. Not for the first time he wondered where he was leading these people. His father had claimed his crown by promising the Noldor safety, abundance and light. He had kept his word. What promises could Fingolfin make now to these starving, disheartened people? What save darkness and revenge?

Against the silver background, he noticed the wind-swept figure of his son. Turgon must have looked for him in the tent and, finding him gone, come to seek him outside. Fingolfin could not fault him for his impatience. He must be eager to return to his daughter. He rarely left her side nowadays, as if fearing a moment of distraction could cost Idril her life. He did not trust anyone else with Idril’s care save his sister and even her under his supervision. If he ever spoke of his pain, he did it only with Aredhel and Finrod. But now the blizzard had separated Finrod and his people from them. Some did brave the storm to share news and supplies with the other groups, but Finrod was the leader of his people and could not abandon them. Turgon would not converse with his friend through osanwë, not when he could use the strength to ensure his daughter was warm enough to take another step.

He would not speak to others – the great number of people who followed him out of love and duty. Fingolfin’s second son was well-liked for his unwavering strength and his profound, genuine care for his people. Yet, he would not let anyone care for him.

Fingolfin had asked him to find out how much waybread was left in his stock. The supplies were near depleted. Besieged from all sides, it was impossible to find the strange, eyeless fish that floated where the ice was relatively thin, or to send people to hunt the larger beasts. The fish and meat they had saved from previous hunts were carefully but relentlessly consumed as the snowfall persisted. They had not had a new death for a while. Fingolfin had to order the supplies they had saved for worse days to be brought out. But on the Helcaraxë, every day was worse than the last. There was nothing the Noldor could do but hide in their tents, huddle together and curse Fëanor because they did not wish to curse Fingolfin.

Fingolfin motioned Turgon to go to his tent and followed him. It would be better to discuss the dwindling supplies away from accidental eavesdroppers.

“This is the last piece,” Turgon said, ashamed as if he was at fault for not squeezing flour and butter out of solid ice.

Fingolfin glanced at the bit of waybread his son had carefully unwrapped. Its leaf case was vibrant green, almost blinding against the dizzying achromatic expanse. Fingolfin’s law-daughter had made the bread with her own hands, pouring her unfaltering cheer into it. It was one of the few things that remained of her.

“You should have it,” Turgon said. “Our people need you. It is you they have chosen as their king, and it is you they have put their faith in.”

Fingolfin could not look away from the leaves. Grown close to Laurelin and Telperion, they did not succumb to the cold. Despite the constant hunger, it was not the waybread Fingolfin longed for but the green. He wished to crush the leaves in his hands, wring out the color and paint the ice cliff towering above, transform the glaciers into verdant slopes, take his granddaughter’s hand and walk barefoot amid the violent bursts of grass and flowers.

He tore his gaze away and looked at the haggard face of his son, which bore the cruel seal of grief, familiar now to many.

“I am hale and strong,” he said. “I have no need for it.”

He wished he could urge his son to take it for himself, to keep at least one piece of the waybread Elenwë had made with so much love, but Turgon would refuse it for the same reason Fingolfin had. There was no place for sentiment over the Grinding Ice.

“Give a piece to Itarillë,” Fingolfin decided. “Take the rest to someone ailing.”

Turgon nodded once and turned to go.

“Turukáno,” Fingolfin called, “give it to someone certain to make a full recovery with its help. Someone with skills that we shall need.”

It was understood, but Fingolfin still said the words aloud to relieve Turgon of guilt. This cruel land demanded cruel decisions, and all Fingolfin could do was cushion the blows against his children with his own body.

The wind died down, but the snowfall showed no sign of stopping. Fingolfin preferred the mournful dirge of the wind to the silence settled now over the camp. They were trapped here, in this dispassionate, passive world where there was no enemy to slay or to bargain with. The Ice was not malevolent. It had not ensnared them on purpose like the bogs in the south of Aman were rumored to do. It did not wish them ill, nor did it wish them well as the forests and fields of Valinor did. It was deaf to their pleas, uncaring about their curses, indifferent to their suffering, unconcerned about their righteous cause. It simply was.

Fingolfin could not bear the silence any longer. He felt alone in a cramped tent with his eldest son and his closest advisors, gathered to find a solution where there was none to be found. He rose to his feet and waved Fingon away when his son made to follow him.

Large, soft snowflakes immediately covered Fingolfin as he stepped out of the tent. How could something so soft bring so much death? Everything was soft in Valinor, too. The fruits that burst open in the mouth before teeth broke skin, so rich one could taste colors. The grass, tender as mother’s kiss, rocking gently under the warm breeze. Morgoth’s lies - so mellow and pleasant - whispered in a kindly and convincing voice. But there was death in Valinor and death in Morgoth’s words. Fëanor had recognized it. Fëanor was not soft, had not been since he was born. Fingolfin had been, and that was why he stood now in this white deathland, while his half-brother claimed new kingdoms for himself.

Immortal the Quendi were, yet they found death everywhere, in softness and in harshness. At least here and in Middle-earth, death was not concealed under layers of lies.

At moments such as this, when rancor hugged him like an old friend and did not let go even when he choked, his thoughts often turned to his mother. She would not recognize her pious son if she knew his secret thoughts about Valinor and the Valar. She had always tried to turn a blind eye to the parts of him that were Noldor, that were Finwë. If she was looking for a son who could be entirely hers, why had she not made her youngest her favorite?

The petulance of his own thoughts infuriated him. Was this what he had been reduced to in the icy isolation - someone who would let his mind turn to poison? Someone like Fëanor?

Fingolfin looked up in desperate rage, trying to find a crack in the impenetrable silver dome, a single star to show him the way. Even Fëanor wasn't great enough to contain his all-consuming fury. Perhaps it would have been more satisfying, if instead of the specter Fëanor haunting him, it was the true one he unleashed it against. But although the thoughts of that moment spurred him on, it still felt impossibly far away. Whenever Fingolfin was powerless, unable to do anything but wait for the mercy of this frozen, cruel land, he felt angry not only with Fëanor but with his siblings, his wife, and even his mother.

The last time Fingolfin had seen his mother was after the Darkening. He had not said a proper goodbye to her, lost in the wake of his father’s death and eager to depart for Tirion, so Fëanor would not turn the Noldor against him.

He had not said goodbye to Anairë either. His wife had not baked waybread for him or their children, had not tried to persuade them to stay. Some whispered - truthfully or falsely - that even Nerdanel had begged Fëanor to leave her youngest son with her. Yet Anairë had not asked for Argon. She had never seen the point of fighting for someone’s love and consideration if they were not freely given, had never understood why Fingolfin fought for Finwë’s.

Fëanor’s silver-gray eyes were everywhere, staring him down, laughing at his foolishness in vowing to follow him, at his baseless confidence to call himself king, at his dangerous naiveté to lead all these people over the Grinding Ice.

Fingolfin reached for his sword, wishing to slice the silver shroud, to cut open a path away from this deathly silence, from his half-brother’s piercing gaze. His sword had frozen in the scabbard. The cold stole his voice as he tried to scream. Nothing could escape this white tomb.

Fingolfin must have resembled a marble statue by the time Fingon found him and shook him gently. The mounds of snow on his shoulders crumbled over Fingon’s feet when Fingolfin turned to him. He had no idea how long he had been standing under the snow, but the frost had settled in his exposed cheeks and nose. Disturbed by his lack of focus, he let Fingon lead him back into the tent before he lost the tip of his nose.

“Turukáno says the situation is dire,” Fingon said, once in the relative warmth of the tent.

For a fleeting moment, Fingolfin was sure his son was referring to his situation, but Fingon spoke of the supplies. They had boiled even the smallest bones a few times and drank the broth that was mostly hot ice water at that point, ground the remnants of the bones to powder and mixed them with water to reuse them. They were boiling the last pieces of leather now. As surprising as it was, there were still no recent deaths.

“It is,” Fingolfin confirmed.

“Worry not, Father,” Fingon said. “Sooner or later, someone will—”

He caught himself at the last moment. The horror of what he was about to say was quick to leave his eyes, but the shame lingered.

“I know, Findekáno,” Fingolfin said, if only to make himself a conspirator in his son’s deed, to share in his guilt.

Fingon and his people had been chosen as butchers for reasons everyone understood, but no one spoke of. Fingon didn’t complain, but every time he returned after completing his duty, Fingolfin thought another part of him had hardened, turned to ice – cold and sharp but brittle.

Yet, he could not relieve him of his burden, could not show him mercy, could not even comfort him publicly. His duty was not a punishment, but the people viewed it as a consequence of his actions, as a penance of sorts. Fingolfin could only put a reassuring hand on his son’s shoulder, which he could not feel over the thick clothes, or catch and embrace him when he stumbled, worn out after his work.

Fingolfin did quell the unkind whispers that rose at times, those voices that spoke of how easy it was for Fingon to butcher the lifeless bodies of the fallen, that muttered that it must have been just as easy to spill the blood of the living. Fingon was sacrificing his very essence for his people, and Fingolfin would not stand for the slander, would not allow the same mouths that chewed the fruit of Fingon’s labor to speak such poisonous words.

Those same people who feared Fingon’s knife now hoped to see it cleave again. Fingolfin counted himself among them.

“What news has your sister brought?” he asked Fingon.

Aredhel had plunged into the storm in search of a wandering beast or a lost elf. She often did so and every time, she would solemnly promise Idril to come back. So far, she had not broken her promise.

“She has not returned yet,” Fingon said.

Silence reigned again. But before it could settle over them, before it could smother them, the tent flap opened.

“I have found one,” Aredhel said in lieu of a greeting.

She did not need to add more. All knew what it meant.

Readily, Fingon rose. Always he seemed ready to do what others balked at. Not a word of protest had left his lips except after the very first time. He had collapsed in his father’s tent, and when Fingolfin had come to check on him, Fingon had clung to his cold, gloved hand.

“Do not do it to me,” he had pleaded in a whisper.

Fingolfin had promised they would not and had prayed he would never have to find out if he could keep his word.

Aredhel had sobbed for days when her steed fell. Back then, they had not thought to preserve the meat, had not imagined the harrowing road ahead of them. They had buried Larcatal under the gentle cover of the snow and put an ice block on the grave to mark it. Aredhel had dug a hole in the tombstone of ice and left a brooch there, and Idril had sung a farewell lament. Her clear, youthful voice had echoed in the frozen air, harmonizing with the woeful song of the wind and forming pretty patterns on the snow where Larcatal was buried – a shroud made of silver lace. It had reminded Fingolfin of Míriel Serindë’s shroud of lace he had seen in paintings, the one she had made for herself while still carrying Fëanor in her womb.

Aredhel had embraced Idril in thanks and wept into Elenwë’s shoulder. It was the last time Fingolfin had seen his daughter cry.

She did not cry when her friends began falling one by one. She did not cry when Elenwë was lost in the bottomless void. There were no songs after the death of Fingolfin’s law-daughter. Every note was precious and could not be wasted to mourn the dead when there were so many infirm or despairing.

Aredhel who had once smiled easily and spoken lively, boisterous words, who had once laughed her loud, unmistakable laughter, became a woman of few words and fewer smiles. She went on long hunting expeditions with her companions and returned with game that sustained them for some time. She sat in Turgon’s tent and rubbed Idril’s frozen, whitened feet. She organized the rationing of the supplies – waybread, horse meat and elf meat alike. She looked for those who were not likely to survive for long and let Fingon know, so that he could be ready.

Vulture, some called her and steered clear of her as much as they did of Fingon.

Fingolfin did not know how to speak to her. All his children had become encased in ice sheaths, and perhaps so had he. He could find no way of breaking through except melting the ice, and it could not be done lest they had a death wish. Their common pain had brought them closer in a way, yet distanced them in many others.

“Well done,” he told Aredhel, another attempt to share in her pain or her guilt, but nothing changed on her face.

Fingon sent for a couple of his people and walked with his sister. Usually, Fingolfin would leave them to their duty, but now, closed in the snow prison, he had little to do, so he followed them.

They left the safety of the cliff and stepped, unseeing, into the whiteness. Aredhel tied a rope to a tent at the edge of the camp and wrapped it around their waists. They held hands and walked with slow, careful steps. The Ice was treacherous. A crevasse could open right below their feet and swallow them whole. The dark cliff was already invisible. There was no sign that the camp was just behind them.

Aredhel stopped soon and jutted her chin to show her finding. Fingolfin had to crouch and peer into the blinding white snow to be able to see it.

The body was stark naked, stiff and twisted in death. Once again, Fingolfin was reminded of the paintings of Míriel resting in the Gardens. She had not looked like this ugly, mocking caricature of an Elda. She had looked peaceful as if she could rise and smile any minute. Fëanor had loathed those paintings with a passion as was his way. But Fingolfin would stare at them for hours as a child, fascinated and terrified that this woman who haunted everyone he loved would awaken and take her rightful place beside his father.

He turned away now from the unfortunate corpse, which the Ice had mangled, depriving him even of the dignity of raiment. Fingolfin had seen it happen a few times, especially when they were forced to stop because of a blizzard. That was when the snow madness took hold.

“One of Ingoldo’s people,” Aredhel spoke. “His sister was looking for him.”

They found the damp, frost-devoured clothes of the dead elf not far away. He must have wandered in madness, fallen into a well, crawled out and died of cold. Fingolfin tried not to think of the final moments of the elf, of how he had perished, alone and in pain, searching in vain for a way to safety and warmth.

“At least he died smiling,” Aredhel said as if guessing the course her father’s thoughts had taken. “How many of us shall have the same fate?”

Fingolfin forced himself to look at the face of the dead elf. It was frozen in a grin more horrifying than agony could have been.

Fingon and one of his two companions picked up and carried the body. The other one brought the elf’s clothes, and Aredhel led them back to the camp.

Many had gathered at the edge of it – hopeful, ashamed and famished. They made way for the small procession that carried their survival. Fingon nodded to his friends, and they turned to go where no eyes would follow them, where the evidence of their deed could be buried beneath the Ice – their jailer and accomplice.

“Wait.”

It was Argon, speaking in a voice too upbeat, too steady for the Helcaraxë. He was always undeterred, no matter how long the journey went on. Resolute and strong, his smile was engraved on his face just like the suffering was etched permanently on the faces of his siblings. He was his mother’s son through and through despite his looks and name. Fingolfin loved all his children equally, but Argon had a special place in his heart.

The endless night of the Helcaraxë did not subdue Argon’s nature. When all were silent, he spoke of the green forests of Middle-earth whose song reached the starlit sky-dome, of the meadows where the inebriating zephyr blew the honey-sweet air through the flowers, of pale mist ringlets curling over pearlescent lakes where the weary would find rest and a new life.

At times, his hope was the only thing keeping Fingolfin on his feet. He would bring his son to the lands he dreamed of, so Argon could lie amid the flowers and smile at the stars and teach them all how to live again.

“Speak, son,” he said softly.

“His sister,” Argon said. “She must see him.”

Fingolfin assented, and the body was gently placed on the cold silver carpet. Argon turned to the girl hiding behind his long frame and gave her a nod. Perhaps it would have been more merciful to forbid her from approaching, to let her preserve her brother’s living, smiling face in her mind. This girl had reached their camp from Finrod’s, had been victorious against the storm, had survived by miracle in a desperate hope of finding her brother alive, but she would only find that ghastly grin on his face. Fingolfin had not seen his father’s body after he was slain, only after he had been cleaned and mended. He couldn’t tell if it was a mercy. He had never stopped wondering what Finwë’s last moments had been like.

The girl approached her brother’s body and crumpled on it without a sound. A frail, young thing, who had spent most of her life on the Ice, she must have relied on her elder brother to keep her alive. Their parents had fallen a long time ago, Aredhel – all-knowing Aredhel – whispered. Now, bereaved and lost, she was willingly loosening the bindings that tied her to life.

She had no one left to take her hand and mourn with her. No close relations, no friends. Her lord was on the other side of the host. No one could afford to waste their strength when they knew neither how long they would stay caged in the storm, nor how far they still had to walk.

Argon was the only one who made a weak attempt to speak to her, to bring her back to life, but in vain. Death was not his domain. He was uncomfortable with it, uneasy. He had avoided Turgon and Idril after Elenwë’s loss, perhaps without even realizing it. He inspired hope in the living, but he could not comfort those who dealt with death.

The girl laid her head on her brother’s chest and prepared to take her last breath. She was already resigned to death. Fingolfin had to think of the rest of his people – those who still had the will to live. If this girl died, their supplies would be doubly replenished. He knew he was not the only one thinking of it, not the only one who felt the steely claws of hunger tear away all that remained of compassion and mercy. He could not guess how long the snowstorm would last, how long until they could begin searching for other sources of food. If she lived, she would be a burden. Aredhel had said that she was no hunter or fisherwoman. She was no warrior, singer, or healer.

“Her name,” Fingolfin demanded of Aredhel, but it was Argon who answered.

“Ríalossë.”

Covered in snow, she and her brother indeed formed a great white wreath, her sable black braids entwined with his chestnut ones, dark ivies blooming against the silver. Fingolfin wondered if this was what their mother had seen before naming her.

He knelt beside her and held her hands. She blinked slowly, wet snow clinging to her eyelashes and melting, rolling down like bitter tears. Only now recognizing the King, she shuffled, a little more alert.

Fingolfin brought their entwined hands to the face of Ríalossë’s brother. The heat of their palms together was enough to melt his frozen eyelids and let him close his eyes. He looked more like an Elda with his eyes shut, more like Míriel in the painting.

Fingolfin called Ríalossë by her name, and in a low voice, began chanting an ancient song of farewell. A murmur passed among the crowd, more eyes and ears turning to them. Briefly, Fingolfin wondered what his people thought of this now unusual display, if his children reproached him silently for the waste of the song when it could have been spent on granting a little more strength to Idril’s legs, on healing the wounds of Aredhel’s hunters, on anything that could help them survive for a little longer, push forward a little more.

But none dared say a word. Fingolfin sang, and Ríalossë joined him in a wheezing, feeble voice. Together, they said farewell to her brother who had cared for her, who had told her wondrous tales of Middle-earth, who would never see it for himself.

By the time the song was done, a thick layer of snow had blanketed all three. Fingolfin rose and helped the girl up.

“You shall walk with us for a while,” he said, “until you recover the strength of your spirit.”

Ríalossë nodded, grieved and grateful. For now, at least, she lived.

Fingon’s people took the body away while Fingolfin led the girl to a tent. He went to his own and slept with no dreams.

When he woke, stars were shining in the clear sky.

The Noldor walked. Lost, grieved, despaired. Rested. Walked. They were stopped a few times by snowstorms, though none as long as that dreadful one. Fingolfin led them as he must. His children did what they must. Idril lost one foot, then another. They persevered.

Fingolfin followed the stars. In this desolate land, every step could reveal perfidy, but the stars were trustworthy. Perhaps the Lady had not wholly abandoned them. Fingolfin wondered if the hope that some of the Valar still kept the Noldor in their thoughts would bring warmth to his people, to his children at least. But he kept it to himself, fearing that sharing it would prove him wrong, would prove him weak. They had abandoned the Valar and Valinor. Their only hope was in themselves.

Idril was more sharp-sighted than most, so she was among the first to notice when something changed. Sitting on a sled that her father pulled, she cried out when the flower of Telperion began blooming silver on the horizon. Turgon immediately knelt beside her, terrified that more troubles had befallen her. How hard Turgon had fought to preserve his daughter’s feet, how desperately he had tried to protect her from pain, yet Fingolfin’s march had made it impossible.

But this time, it was not grief or pain that made Idril cry out. Others joined her call, weeping with new hope, finding new strength in their bone-weary limbs, new determination in their worn-out fëar. Nothing could stop them now, neither snowstorms nor famine. Not even death itself.

Yet for others, Fingolfin among them, the silver light was a sharp reminder of what they had left behind, what they had lost never to regain, what they had renounced in folly or wisdom. He wondered if Anairë was looking at the light at that very moment, wondered what she made of it. He wondered if his mother was singing in joy for the new light or in mourning for Telperion that was gone for good. He wondered if it brought the same hope to those who had stayed, to his younger brother who now shouldered burdens never meant to be his. He wondered if Fëanor stood on the walls of the fortresses he must have built in Middle-earth and cried in defiance against this new device of the Valar.

He suddenly missed Valinor with a force that frightened him. He wished for his wife by his side to hold his hand, to share what was on her mind and to laugh his worries away. He wished he could listen to his mother sing, wished he could at least say goodbye to her. He wished that the last time he had seen his brother, he had not worn that anguished and resolute look. He wished for his father. For a brief moment, he even wished for Fëanor, the one who took his hand and accepted his vow of brotherhood.

“Grandfather!”

Idril grabbed his hand and pointed forward. Fingolfin cleared the mist before his eyes, peered into the silver-bathed darkness and saw how far, far away, the ice slowly gave way to earth. Even farther, mountains stretched to the east, three ominous peaks overshadowing the lower ones.

Turgon picked up his daughter from the sled and embraced her as tightly as he had when he had pulled her out of the ice water. This land was for them, Fingolfin thought, for Idril whose eyes had lit up for the first time since her mother’s death. For Argon now rushing forward with that girl Ríalossë in tow - miraculously still alive. For Aredhel who would find herself again. For Turgon who would begin healing and seek a safe haven for his daughter. For Fingon who would wash away his burdens. For his brother’s children who had already begun singing their joy and their dreams. They would make Middle-earth their home, their true home, and Fingolfin would be on the frontline to protect it.

“Behold!” he roared, and the wind carried his booming voice to every last person in the host. “O, most valiant among the Noldor, behold the land of our fathers! So close it is now. Onwards then to Endorë! To clear lakes and snow-capped mountains, to rolling green forests and star-lit meadows, to vast kingdoms that await us. Onwards, my people who have not been vanquished by ice, death and betrayal! Onwards to home!”

A great shout reverberated through the entire host, and all as one, they resumed walking as if this was the first day of their march. Fingolfin took his granddaughter’s hand again and walked with them.

Seven times the shadow of Telperion rose and fell, and on the eighth day, the western skies blazed with scarlet fire as a golden disk appeared instead of silver. This frightened some but did not deter them. Fingolfin was also uneasy. The burning sky reminded him of the distant fires they had observed from the shores of Araman, of the moment they had been betrayed. This light was bright and harsh. There was no hiding from it, all that they had done, all that they were was laid bare for everyone to see. Fingolfin did not like all that he saw. Yet, his look returned to his granddaughter and then forward, to the promise of the new life that was swiftly approaching.

The golden disc fully revealed itself in the west as Fingolfin’s host crossed the threshold between ice and land. As he looked behind, he noticed the sinister way the new light illuminated his rufous footprints left on the mud-maimed snow. He wondered if all could see it for what it was. Swiftly, he turned his back on it and gazed at the wide, dizzying expanse of Middle-earth. Walking forward, he felt cleansed of what he had left behind. He led his people from the silver graveyard over to the dark, hungry soil, and unfurled his blue and silver banners, and blew his horns, and flowers sprang beneath his marching feet.