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She does not understand the words that echo in her memory, yet they are seared into place with sulfurous heat and horrible dread that she can put no name to. They repeat over and over again the vast darkness of her days without sight or sound.
Ultimately, their meaning does not matter. She understands the tone of that terrible, rumbling voice enough to hear in it an ancient malice bent with all of its force on her. And too, she understands that she is lost—so terribly lost—despite the kindness of the hands that have led her and guarded her and kept her warm.
Still, her fear is a ravenous, growing thing, like a vine that preys upon a tree, sapping her strength and stealing what it needs to survive. As it feeds, her heartbeat feels fainter in her chest and every day its grasping hooks sink deeper.
So when her ears are unstopped to the sound of fighting and her eyes alight on the vicious, hungry grins of orcs, she runs.
Terror makes her heart pound against her rib cage, struggling like an animal in a trap, and she can barely drag in enough air to keep going. The spidery branches of the early evening wood snatch at her cloak, hampering her flight, and without slowing, she unclasps it. The next set of wooden hands tear it from her shoulders in a startling rush of cold air. She runs faster without it.
But the low branches rip into the flesh of her arms instead and tear away strands of hair loosened from her braids. The sting brings tears to her eyes, but she cannot stop to wipe them dry. Behind her, she can still hear the clang of swords and the war cries of hunting orcs.
Blinded once more by the salt of her own tears, she runs directly into a bramble and the thorns find purchase in her clothes. She struggles fiercely, only succeeding in tightening the snare. The sound of distant shouts drives her to panic for she does not understand the words. She cannot tell if the voices are harsh because they seek to be heard over the distance or because it is their very nature, but she knows that they are getting closer and if they be foes, she cannot let them find her. So she slips out of her tunic, hissing as it catches on her bloodied and bruised arms, and biting down on her lip to stop herself from crying out when the thorns scrape her sides as she twists herself free.
She runs on, listening for pursuit but hearing only the echo of foul words from a giant reeking mouth. Mud sucks away one of her boots and she does not stop. It is not much longer before the other wedges itself in between the roots of a tree more ancient that her earliest ancestor. She hurriedly shucks it and runs on, heedless of the sharp stones that jab into her unshod feet—knowing nothing but the need to keep going. Such is the desperation and fear running high in her blood that she does not stop until nightfall, shivering as the Sun's rays dip beyond reach and snatch the last of her warmth away.
Seemingly all at once, the relentless drive of her fear falls away. Her legs turn weak as a newborn fawn's and her shivers are not only from cold. Her hands are shaking so badly that she cannot even wipe the remaining tears from her eyes. She clamps them down around her own arms, making a protective cross over her chest. She looks wildly left and right, searching for somewhere safe to rest—somewhere that she will not be seen.
A ways downhill, she spots a bracken fern and thinks to crawl into it, embraced by dozens of feathery fronds that will hide her and shelter her from the wind, if only a little. She stumbles twice on the way down and she would curse if she had the words, for her tired feet are stinging from the flight. But at last, she tucks herself under the broad fluttering canopy and gives in to the call of sleep. For the first time that she can remember, she does not dream of brimstone.
In the next days, she wanders in the sun-dappled land under the trees. The forest is alive with so many creatures that are new and strange to her. Her eyes seek out the small furred forms, furtively digging brown nuts from the ground to eat and startling at any small noise. She follows behind a four legged tan creature with large, soft-edged eyes and a smaller one with white spots on its back, tottering on too long legs. When they stop to drink from a stream, she remembers thirst and darts forward to drink, scooping great handfuls of water to her lips, only noticing afterward and with regret, that she has frightened them away.
It is not long before she starts to shiver. She is caught between extremes. For a time, she cannot seem to get warm and in next moment, she is burning. Several of the scrapes and cuts she took in her flight have gone hot and touching them, even gently, brings fresh tears to her eyes. She's been careful up until this point to watch awhile before crossing clearings and to listen for any movement that is not her own so that she may remain unnoticed, but the world softens at the edges of her sight and with the heat of her brow, some things she cannot remember or focus upon. She only thinks of going down to the stream with the clear, cool water to bathe her hurts.
It is there that she first encounters the lady.
Shining silver is her hair, falling in waves like the water rushing over the small stones at their feet. The stranger kneels by the water, uncaring of the loamy soil touching her fine raiment, and allows the current to fill some sort of pouch. She sings softly to herself as she does it, heedless of her surroundings.
She stops short, seeing the lady too late and hearing her song as through she is far away. A drift of dirt and small stones cascade down from her feet, and her dazed, feverish brain thinks of only of hiding. She darts for the underbrush, but she is too slow. Far too slow. She knows that she was seen, even as she tucks her stinging feet beneath her to hide them.
"Wait!" cries the lady, peering toward her through the branches. "Please, do not be afraid. I will not hurt you."
She does not understand the words—not any more than she understood the malodorous shadow in her memory—but she knows it is different. The gentleness of the stranger's tone slows her more than anything else. She relaxes the muscles that had been tensed to flee, remembering how tired she is and how far she would need to run to get away. The thought makes her shiver and it is not fear or cold. She is too weak now to fly from this place.
The lady stands, unfolding upward into a column of green with a spray of white at her shoulders. She looks like the bunches of flowers that grow on the edges of the ponds in this forest. Perhaps it is on purpose, but something about that little touch of wildness, makes her feel more trustworthy.
"Are you hurt? Or cold? Or hungry?"
The lady steps closer cautiously—the same way she herself follows the paths of easily startled creatures— and crouches several feet away. Far enough away to let her run.
But something in her says that she need not. That this might be good after all.
So she stays, watching from behind a veil of branches as the lady unclasps her cloak. "I do know much of healing, but I think should come with me. In my father's house, there is one who can help you."
The words still mean nothing, but the smooth, deep voice that speaks them is gentle and the silver-haired woman's eyes are softened by kindness. So when she gestures for her to leave the ferns, she comes willingly into the open. Slowly, the lady unfurls the cloak and places it over her bare shoulders, and though it presses against some of her scrapes, it is silken and warm and she cannot help but pull it tighter about her.
"Here," the lady says, "take my hand. I will show you the way."
And so it is that she arrives, teeth chattering with a terrible fever, into a house of living trees, trained to grow with their branches twining overhead, as if to make a net for catching the stars. It is like slipping into a dream. Perhaps it is a dream, for she does not remember what happens after except in fits and starts. A hundred snatches of moments wherein she is washed clean of the dirt from her flight and tended with quiet, tenacious skill. In some of them, there is a woman's voice singing and a warm hand in her own, and she does not need to open her eyes to know who it they belong to, for she recognizes both.
When the fever passes and she finally wakes, she still cannot remember her words. But she remembers that day well because the lady comes to her with a smile so radiant it is like the luminous fullness of the moon.
"They told me you were awake! And that perhaps you do not know our tongue, but we can teach you." She sits down in a chair drawn close to the soft bed. "I should start at the beginning, I think."
The bright lady puts a hand to her own chest. "Nimloth. That is my name." She looks expectantly at her.
What is expected, she does not know. She looks shyly up at her rescuer and wonders what to do, but she is saved the speculation by a self-deprecating exhale from the other woman.
"Of course, you do not know what I mean."
She touches her own chest again. "Nim-loth," she says, emphasizing the two syllables and gestures toward her.
She tries. As hard as she knows how to, she tries, but her mouth does not know the shapes to make.
The lady only smiles and reaches toward her, slowly so as to give her time to move away, but she does not want to. The warm, slender hand that held hers through the fever is a welcome touch. She is only surprised when the lady lifts it to her mouth, and says, "Nim-loth," with her lips brushing the tips of her fingers in an almost-kiss.
The heat of breath departing with the words makes her feel like her illness has returned, light-headed and dizzy, but when the lady nods to her with kind eyes, she tries again.
"Nnnn—" she says, and stops as she struggles to find the sound for the next part.
"Here," the lady says, and she moves her fingers down to her soft throat. "Nim."
Its warmth is almost distracting, but feeling the resonance under her fingers helps. "Ni—Nim," she says.
She is rewarded with a wide smile and a small noise of pleasure from the lady's throat that she can feel under her hand. "Good. Very good. Now the next part. Loth," she says. "Nimloth."
"Othhh," she tries, dubious of her own attempt, but continuing nonetheless.
"Close. You only need the beginning." The lady moves her hand back to her lips. "Loth," she says, and this time she feels the subtle flick of her tongue peeking beyond lips.
"Nim—loth," she manages, slower and less graceful than her companion, but it is worth the effort, for the lady's face lights like the moon coming out from behind the clouds.
"That is my name," the lady says, withdrawing her hand suddenly to gesture to herself. "And yours?"
But she only has one word. "Nim-loth?" she asks.
"No, that is my name," she laughs a little, but it is warm and gentle and carries no rebuke. "Foolish of me to think that you would know what I am trying to ask. But perhaps I shall you give you one until we know yours. I think that men do not often change names, the way that my people do but I hope you will forgive me in time."
Nimloth hums, thinking, and even that sound is lovely as flowing water. "Rainfir," she suggests, and then wrinkles her noise, causing the freckles that dot it like stars to move. "It is descriptive, but I do not think that suits you. Dínanor? Your hair shines like the sun, but perhaps that is ill-luck. I hope you will not always be silent."
The rush of words are far beyond her, but the rhythm of them and the melodious lilting of Nimloth's voice has her relaxing contentedly, listening as she did to burbling water of the forest stream.
"You were near the tributary of the river Teiglin. Síraneth?"
She cocks her head, hearing the question in tone, if not in words.
"Do you like that one? Síraneth?"
That word again. It sounds like warmth feels.
"Sí—" she starts to say.
"Síraneth," Nimloth says, like the wind rustling through the grasses and flowers in the underbrush.
"Nimloth," she says, gesturing toward her companion.
"Síraneth," Nimloth says, gesturing back to her.
And for the first time since that dark day she met the shadow on the hilltop, she feels herself smiling back.
It is not long before the healers discover the extent of her loss. It is not only that she does not know Sindarin; it is that she does not know any language. So they teach her and she learns with joy the names of all the things she could only think about before but not express aloud. The words for trees and creatures and stars and people.
Nimloth, she learns, means 'white blossom' and knowing it makes some sense of the lady's shining silver hair. Galathil, her father and lord of the house, is named for the shining silver of a distant tree.
And the name that her lady has given her, Síraneth—the most precious thing she has—means 'river gift' for the water that had sheltered her when she was lost. It feels warm no matter how many times it is said.
And it is said often. Nimloth visits her nearly every day and when she does, she always brings something new. Some of the elves do not understand the quickness of Síraneth's mind, for her speech is slow and careful. Her tongue needs practice with the parts of words and the intricacies of how they intersect and change each other, like ripples overlapping in a pond. But her lady knows that her appetite to learn is voracious and insatiable.
And Nimloth delights in indulging her.
They play a hundred different games. The elves of this land called Doriath have had many years of peace behind their fence and they have invented untold numbers of things to do in them. Word games, card games, feats of strength or daring or dexterity. Síraneth excels at the last. She is nimble despite her height—for Nimloth insists she is tall among her own people, though here she has to look up to catch her lady's gaze.
She learns to tell plants apart for gathering and the woodcraft that elves use to walk silently and traceless in the forest, and flinches when she remembers how loud she was in those first days after her flight.
Nimloth teaches her how to braid hair and the meanings that elves bestow on different styles. This one is for the very young and that one is favored for certain feasts and another still is for brides. When she asks why it is so, Nimloth only shrugs and says it has always been so. Some things come unchanged from the time that elves were alone in Arda, before either dwarves or men. She traces the shell of Síraneth's ear, curved and unlike her own.
Síraneth shivers and it is not from cold.
They are inseparable—Nimloth forging ahead, always laughing and speaking like she will run out of words tomorrow if she does not use them all now, and Síraneth, following at a measured pace and appreciating the wonders of this place, down to the last snail clinging to the underside of a wide flat leaf. Spring spins to summer turns to autumn and on.
By the time winter comes, they are certain no one is chasing after Síraneth. Whatever darkness is in her memory, it holds no sway in Doriath, protected as it is by Queen Melian. Galathil, who will deny Nimloth nothing it seems, declares that she can stay under their protection as long she wills it or until their messengers find her people.
Later, in whispers when all others are abed, Nimloth asks her never to leave. Not even if the messengers find out where she lived before, for if there were dark things there, none are here now and as long as Nimloth lives, she will have a place here. And compared to her, Nimloth live an awfully long time.
She has her own quarters and her own warm bed, but she seldom stays there. Nimloth has long since beckoned her into the bower that is hers, brimming with green, growing things and white flowers that perfume its air. They say it is because of Síraneth's nightmares, when anyone asks. And the nightmares are horrible. Great wings blackening the sky, burning flesh and hair, and rotten reeking meat. Words that still she cannot remember well enough to understand. And always, the dread of a pair of great slitted eyes, like a snake that has grown too large and learned malice that is not its own.
Nimloth never asks her to tell what it is she dreams of. She only takes her by the hand and guides Síraneth down to lay in the place beside her, protected on all sides by the softness of her lady. There she sleeps, dreaming of nothing but balmy summer nights with mingled fireflies and stars, shining gold and silver like Síraneth's and Nimloth's hair mingled together on the pillows.
Eventually, they stop even the pretense of sleeping in separate beds.
Síraneth does not know how love is supposed to be. The healers described the word to her, when they were teaching her to speak again, but it meant nothing to her then. Abstract concepts were much harder to explain than the names of people or animals. Now, it has crept up on her like a stalking wolf and it is far too late for her to run or to hide. And, she thinks, even if it were into doom, she would follow Nimloth.
But Nimloth will not do that. She knows it, as deeply as she knows that this is better than anything she left behind in the life before.
The day that Síraneth learns what a kiss is and what it means, she cannot help herself. She seizes one of Nimloth's long-fingered hands and presses a dozen kisses to it.
Nimloth laughs, a bright, happy thing, and says, "What do I owe this treatment to?"
"Kisses are for what we cherish most." Síraneth looks at her without guile. "These hands pulled me from the brink."
Nimloth's smile fades to something bittersweet and she in turn brings Síraneth's hands to her own lips. "No less than you did for me, dear one."
Síraneth searches her expression, looking for an explanation, until Nimloth sighs.
"I was lost before you. Or rather, I was here, but no one saw me. I walked far in the woods alone, seeking to understand their inner secrets, but no one cared to do that beside me."
"Your father—" Síraneth starts to say.
"My father dotes on a daughter he cannot properly understand. There is something too wild in me for even his far-flung house."
Síraneth cannot help herself. She tucks a loose tress behind Nimloth's pointed ear. "I like it. Your wildness. It is why I trusted you when I half-dead of fever."
Nimloth smiles, a small tender one, and kisses Síraneth's hand again. "You see? Something one cherishes indeed."
They are standing so close, sharing breath with all the intimacy that implies, and without conscious thought, Síraneth kisses her.
Nimloth does waste time. Her hands come to twine in Síraneth's hair and draw her closer, so that their chests meet and they can feel each other breathing. It is so much and somehow not enough. There is a sweetness and a passion and a desire blooming in her so strong that she cannot stand it.
When they break apart for air, their breaths fluttering on the side of each other's necks, Nimloth captures her hand and holds it, warm and safe as always like a secret in trustworthy heart.
It lasts a month, before a messenger arrives to speak with Nimloth, on behalf of the king. Síraneth walks with her, hand in hand, and pretends not to notice the tremble in her lady's wrist. But when they enter the hall, it is not Nimloth that the messenger first addresses, but Síraneth.
"Nienor? You are alive!" The marchwarden, whose face she does not know, rushes closer and carries with him a familiar verdant scent. One she has not smelled in nigh a year, but has not forgotten. This was the elf that cared for her before her flight.
"I—"she starts and stops and starts again, shocked to be called anything other than the name she was given in this house. "I am called Síraneth." She steps a little closer to Nimloth, seeking shelter in the familiar.
"And you were once called Nienor, daughter of Húrin," the marchwarden agrees and then seems to notice how he has unnerved her, eyes darting down to see her hand in Nimloth's. "Forgive me, I am Mablung and my company have looked for you for many months. To find you here, safe and hale—that is unexpected and more than welcome!" The smile that spreads across his face is earnest and kind.
Nimloth squeezes her hand in a small, but important encouragement. "Thank you for looking for me," she says at last.
"Of course, my lady. We were so worried when we lost you." His eyes show more than he says and it is the twin of her own grief at having been alone.
"I am lucky to be found." She looks to Nimloth, and smiles her gratitude.
"You should come to speak with the King. He was long been grieved about your fate," Mablung says, and she feels that is not merely a suggestion.
Síraneth looks to Nimloth, afraid to be parted from her, but her lady's grip tightens around her hand reassuringly. "If we can go together," she says, with an air of decision.
"You can. Queen Melian sent me to tell you that she agrees to your terms and your betrothed awaits, my lady."
Betrothed? The word seems to hang in the air longer than is possible. The conversation continues around them, but Síraneth makes a faint excuse and stumbles from the room. She remembers, in the distant early days of their friendship, how one of the healers teased Nimloth about someone named Dior. She had not remembered it until now. She feels dizzy. Too hot.
Nimloth follows soon after her, reaching out to tug her shoulder and stop her in place.
"Betrothed?" Síraneth asks, without looking back at her.
"I am to marry Dior, son of the Lady Lúthien and Beren," Nimloth whispers, from behind her. "I should have spoken to you about this again. I thought you would remember, but perhaps it was too soon for the words to make sense to you."
Síraneth stiffens, without meaning to. She understands and fears the implication underneath these words. It is true, then. Nimloth is going to be married.
"You should have," she agrees, stomach souring even more as she turns to meet Nimloth's apologetic gaze.
"I am sorry. I thought we would have more time before word came back to us. I did not want to worry you until I was sure," she stops, shaking her head as if to clear it. "It does not matter. I should have told you. "
"Sure of what?" Síraneth asks, voice sharper than she intends. "Of me? That I would give you anything if you asked it? I thought you knew that."
"No, no," Nimloth says, drawing back a little and shrinking. "Do not mistake me, please. I had to be sure that you could come with me. That is why Mablung is here. He bears a message from Queen Melian. She agrees that I am to have whichever handmaidens I choose."
"Handmaiden?" Hope, traitorous little creature that it is, stirs in her chest. Countless songs and innuendos about the reputation of handmaidens in Doriath come to mind.
Nimloth nods. "You would hardly be the first in such a position. Queen Melian and Lady Galadriel have been together for many years."
"Together—like us?" she says, but what she means is like this. Like the bright and bursting thing in her chest that soared too high these past weeks and is now wavering in the upper air, deciding whether it must fall.
"Yes," Nimloth says, pressing a kiss to her hand and holding onto it. "Like us. Dior will not mind. It is the way of things in Doriath, especially at court."
Síraneth's heart gives a flutter, on the edge of hope. "Together."
"As long as you will it, yes." Nimloth looks to her, slowing down in a way she never does so that Síraneth can feel the weight of this moment stretching out into years she cannot predict. "Please, stay with me, river-gift. Say you will wander this path beside me always."
There is something so fragile shining in Nimloth's eyes, like a newly-emerged butterfly unfurling its wings, but it is safe with her. Síraneth brings their joined hands to her lips. "Nimloth," she whispers to her lover's fingertips, as once she did many months ago. "I want to come with you. But please, do not leave me in the dark again. You scared me."
"Never. I promise," Nimloth says, steadfast and sure. "Never again. I am so sorry."
Síraneth stares long into the eyes of her lover and decides that she speaks truly. The last bit of hurt gives way to something stronger—the desire to spend her days beside the half-wild one she loves.
"I will go whither you lead me," she says at last. "As I always have."
And Nimloth's answering smile is brighter than the moon above.