curse

She had done it without thinking. But, even had she had time to think, she knew she would have done it anyway. Of course, that was but cold comfort as the current wrapped round her like a serpent to drag her below the Sirion’s icy depths. Brackish water filled her mouth and she vomited reflexively, gagging into the water before inadvertently sucking down another mouthful of it. She had to kick. She HAD to! They would both die unless she could make it back to the surface, but the mercurial river, as if it had sensed her thought, chose that precise moment to spit her back up. 

Trembling madly, she choked and spluttered, coughing up lungfulls of river water. Finrod, she couldn’t let go of Finrod! Her brother lay limp in her grasp, his golden head lolling onto her shoulder, and she was disturbed to see, upon blinking the water from her eyes, the ribbon of blood that ran red through his sodden curls. It was just as she’d suspected, his head HAD hit that rock when he’d tumbled down the bank and into the river. She would never have expected it of her brother’s steady mare, but she supposed even the most docile of horses was bound to spook every now and then. It was rotten luck that Finrod had landed as he had, worse luck still that he’d injured his head during his tumble to the frigid wintery depths of the Sirion, and the worst of all luck that the two of them had ventured out alone. There was no one to save them now.

Capricious as ever, the Sirion chose that very moment to smack her own head into a stone and, pain radiating from behind her eyes, she went spinning about only for a massive rotten log to force her under again. It seemed the river meant to play with them before it killed them, unless… unless Finrod was already dead. The thought nearly stopped her heart within her chest. No! NO! It couldn’t be! Not Finrod! Not her brother! Fate was cruel, and crueler to her of late than most, but she would not, could not, bring herself to believe fate would rob her of her brother, not after everything else. She wouldn’t allow herself to believe it. 

Her limbs were frozen through, but by sheer force of will she managed to propel herself to the surface once more, kicking as hard as she could. Again, she came spluttering up, choking and vomiting up water. Her teeth felt like chips of ice in her mouth and they chattered wildly together as she sobbed, and dry heaved, and fought the inevitable.

She would die here; the Sirion would be her tomb. Even were she to let go of Finrod’s lfieless body and consign him to an icy death, she had not the strength to make it back to shore herself. The river buffeted her about, tossing her from one rapid to the next as if she were a mouse caught between two cats. She tried to tighten her arms about her brother, but her body was too frozen for her to tell if she had managed it or not.

So this was how her dreams of glory would end. She could see the humor in it at least, or perhaps it was the delusions that accompanied a death by cold that made it seem comical to her. She had made it all the way across the Helcaraxe only to die of cold simply because her brother’s horse had thrown him into the river and she loved him too much to abandon him to his fate. If only… if only she could get to the bank she might be able to push Finrod up on it. At least he’d then have a chance of survival, albeit a slim one.

The aching in her joints had become a dull pain, but gradually it seemed to fade altogether until her body felt oddly numb, devoid of any sensation whatsoever. It would have been a relief, she supposed, if she didn’t suspect it meant death would soon have his way with her. The merciless current swept at them again, turning them about like a top and buffeting them against stones, and ice floes, and rotten logs alike, but by now she was so numb that it might as well have not wasted its time on her. Logically, of course, she knew she had arms and her eyes proved those arms to be wrapped securely about her brother, but she could not feel them. 

Teeth clenched together and tears starting from her eyes, she kicked, or at least those were the motions she thought she was making, in one final bid for the nearest bank. There was a rock jutting up and she pressed her foot to it and pushed. A spasm of pain rocketed up her leg as if a thousand needles had been plunged through it at once, but it had worked, she had pushed herself clear of the current. A mad laugh that sounded more like a croak escaped her, but she hadn’t the energy to contemplate her sudden fortune, and only drove herself toward the bank with singular purpose.

It was then that she saw them, and for a moment she wondered if her cold-addled mind was playing some trick on her. Not her people, no, nor the Green Elves as she judged it, and she was a little startled that she had noticed them at all, dressed in gray as they were, moving about as if they were merely shadows flitting through the colorless landscape of winter. She had known they were near the Kingdom of Doriath, of course, but she had not expected to actually see the Sindar so close to Melian’s girdle.

They were shouting to her in some language she did not understand; she supposed it must be Sindarin. But she did not need to know Sindarin to know what she needed to do. The temptation was there to kick harder but she deemed it a risk not worth taking. She might easily be caught up in another current, or be dragged under by another water-soaked log, and she would need every bit of her strength at her disposal were that to happen.

The Sindar had stopped and they stood on the bank now, calling out to her as she painstakingly made her way toward them, and then she felt something bump against her. It was the bottom, she realized. She dared not allow herself to hope. Her knees hit rock and she was in the shallows now. If only she could manage to walk, or crawl, but the most she seemed capable of was to lie there like a fish on land, barely holding her head above water and clinging to her brother with numb and frozen arms. 

Thankfully, the Sindar seemed to understand her predicament well enough and they came plunging out through the shallows toward her, murmuring in their indecipherable language as they noticed Finrod’s state and set about prying him loose from her arms. She had done it, she thought with a sense of relief. Her brother would at least have a chance now. She closed her eyes against the exhaustion that made every part of her body seem heavy. Finrod was safe. Finrod was safe.

She heard a shout go up, then a chorus of frantic yelling growing fainter, but she felt at peace now, rocked gently upon the current of the Sirion, and wondered why whoever was shouting couldn’t understand how badly she needed to sleep. It was irritating is what it was, but gradually it faded, and presently she opened her eyes to find that she was quite alone, her body bobbing like a cork as the river swept her downstream. She couldn’t bring herself to care, and she was vaguely aware that the cold was playing some part in that, but it wouldn’t be all that bad to die right now, she thought. She had accomplished her goal and gotten her brother to safety. Perhaps her sojourn in Mandos’s halls might be rather brief, and soon enough she’d see her mother and father again.

She closed her eyes again, intending to sleep, but now that horrid shouting was back. The river tossed her up and turned onto her stomach, forcing her to swim once more. It didn’t exactly require an understanding of Sindarin for her to know that the lone man standing upon the bank was imploring her to swim for her life, but she supposed that he would never stop shouting unless she did as he wished, and she resolved herself to do whatever was necessary so that he might stop that caterwauling and allow her to go back to sleep. 

She flailed in the water half-heartedly, and it took her far longer than it ought to get her bearings. They were in quite a different place now, and Finrod had disappeared, as had the man’s companions. The river, however, did not look quite so wide in this place, and she begrudgingly began hauling herself toward the bank. For every little bit she progressed, she seemed to slip backward half as much. It all felt interminable and he never stopped his shouting even for a moment. Her head was pounding. The pressure behind her eyes felt as if it would split her head in two. She had managed to swim perhaps two thirds of the way when her weary muscles stopped working altogether.

Well then! He’d have to be satisfied with that, now wouldn’t he? She’d done all she could and she’d be free of the commotion he was making soon enough, for death was most assuredly close at hand. The next thing she knew, she was being hauled out of the water bodily. Well, if he was determined to die with her, then who was she to deny him his wish? There was room enough in this watery grave for them both. 

She went limp as a ragdoll in his arms, not that she was capable of anything else, but gradually she felt the water leave her, and then she realized that he must have plunged into the river, at least up to his waist, and was now carrying her out. When she remembered the depths of that bitingly cold water, the frigid air felt comparatively warm. She felt grateful to him for that, as much as she was capable of feeling anything at least.

He said something in Sindarin then and her eyes drooped shut. She assumed it was only because her legs must be frozen that she was able to stand when he set her on her feet. As it was, she couldn’t feel her feet at all, and she opened her heavy eyes to watch with mild detachment as he began tugging at the laces that lined the front of her gambeson. Should she be alarmed that a stranger was trying his best to divest her of all her clothes? She assumed it should, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care. 

“No Sindarin then?” That she had understood. He continued speaking in the language of the Green Elves as he methodically unlaced the front of her gambeson, but she could not have forced her mind to listen to him if she had wanted to, and at the moment she found she wasn’t capable of wanting anything at all.