#sindarweek1

enel, thingol’s paternal grandfather, particularly cherished him and had a feeling since elwe was a child that he would be an excellent leader. he encourages elwe’s curiosity and adventurousness -- within reason of course -- and kind of lets him get away with a whole lot, much to luktiene and enelye’s exasperation 

(tanget here: because thingol has such warm and close memories of his grandfather, he turns out to be very much the same way with his own grandson, albeit he spoils dior more than even enel did him; a luxury he can afford thanks to the relative safety of dior’s childhood and adolescence compared to his own. he too gets the feeling that dior is a natural leader -- but it’s not a future he wants for his grandson. he knows only too intimately the burdens that come with that position. ofc we all know dior does end up having to step into leadership…)

physically elwe resembles his maternal grandfather, khyelesô (“khyel(es)” = “glass,” “ô” = primitive elvish masculine ending), a lot. he never met the man -- who was captured by morgoth’s servants, loosed upon the early elves, before luktiene was fully mature -- but he’s heard many people say he’s the spitting image of him. (he does lose some of that resemblance after meeting melian and spending those years with her in nan elmoth, but their physical similarities, especially in their facial features, remain undeniable)

elwe’s maternal grandmother, ailin (“ailin” = “pool, lake” in primitive elvish), is kind but pretty distant both from him and olwe. luktiene explains to them that ailin withdrew emotionally over the years as more and more of the people she loved were killed, taken, or vanished. the number includes khyeleso but isn’t just him; ailin lost most of her close friends too. as a child, elwe doesn’t get it. he thinks that, if anything, he would cling harder to the people he loves if he lost any one of them. it’s only later in life that he understands where ailin is coming from -- in fact, that urge to close himself off in an attempt to preemptively avoid further pain is something he finds himself having to actively work past in his own emotions. he also comes to recognize to what extent he shares her tendency to entirely hide her more vulnerable feelings -- e.g. grief, fear, guilt -- from anyone but the people who are closest to her 

all in all, thingol’s childhood and adolescence were as alright as they could be. they can’t be called happy by any stretch of the imagination -- with unknown dangers lurking everywhere and members of the community, a good amount of whom he knew personally, regularly being snatched off the census by said dangers and either never heard from again or turning up as mangled bodies; everyone’s highkey living in a psychological horror movie -- but he had a loving, stable family and plenty of friends his own age to support him

enel and enelye vanish not long before the war of the powers begins and are presumed to have been taken by morgoth’s servants. their loss affects elwe deeply, especially since he’s still fairly young at the time. he never sees them again and, even until the end of his life, is uncertain of what exactly happened to them. throughout the rest of his time in beleriand he can only pray that they’re dead already, but on some bad days the thought that they might still be out there somewhere, suffering, eats at him. after their disappearance is when the nightmares start -- nightmares about the loss of his loved ones are a recurring thing for the rest of thingol’s life

it doesn’t get much better after that! elwe is already an important leader of the nelyar by the time the valar invite him, along with ingwe and finwe, to valinor as ambassadors, but he has his parents available for counsel or even just for solace and support. however, only a handful of years after the great journey starts and elmo is born, alako and luktiene go missing. people, including elwe himself, try to find them, but it’s no use. he feels sick with the familiar dread he remembers from when enel and enelye disappeared, and every day he just hopes against hope that his parents will somehow turn up unharmed. either alternative -- that they’ll be dead, or they’re alive and being tortured -- is too much for him to contemplate

to make matters worse, elmo is still barely a toddler, and elwe and olwe now have the responsibility of taking care of him when all three of them have in all likelihood just been orphaned or as good as. of course they have friends who are willing to help out, and ailin also steps up and does a good bit of the heavy lifting since she has actual experience raising a child -- but it’s not the same as having their mother and father there

unlike with enel and enelye, thingol actually does get to know what happened to his parents. alako is found first, his body dangling by the neck from the branches of an oak tree. his face has been mutilated -- tongue cut out, one eye entirely missing, deep gouges across his skull -- his limbs have been broken in odd directions, and his abdomen and chest have been horrifically disfigured. he’s given a cremation, and elwe hugs a quietly weeping olwe as they watch their father’s body burn

it’s some years later, when elwe is on patrol with caranor (oc, one of thingol’s close followers, i’ll probably expand on him sometime), that he finds luktiene at the bottom of an immense sequoia tree. at first, elwe thinks she’s dead. her hair is matted with blood from a traumatic head injury, she’s missing fingers, her cheeks and eye sockets are sunken in, and her lips are blue. her body is battered and scraped, as if she was dragged carelessly across rough ground for a long distance. it’s only when elwe runs to her and gathers her in his arms that he realizes her chest is moving very faintly. she stirs and opens her eyes, and when she recognizes him, her first words are to order him to kill her

and she is ordering him -- elwe can always tell when there’s no arguing with his mother. still, he tries to protest; that they can bring her back, that surely someone can do something, that ailin is waiting, that olwe and elmo are waiting. but it’s obvious, both to him and caranor and luktiene herself, that there’s no way to save her. all they’re doing is prolonging her pain

in the end, he complies

he and caranor bring luktiene’s body back to the teleri settlement. olwe and ailin keep asking what happened, but elwe won’t talk about it, no matter how much they pry. caranor doesn’t say anything either, but elwe can see the worry in his eyes when he looks at him

every time caranor tries to bring up what happened to him, elwe shuts the conversation down. he throws himself into his everyday tasks -- hunting, fishing, foraging, making clothes and bedsheets and blankets, mediating between the elves -- with obsessive intensity. he puts distance between himself and everyone he’s close to, even his brothers. he finds it’s hard for him to process luktiene’s death and its circumstances; everything surrounding it feels surreal, like a dream

it’s in this (fairly short) period of time that elwe grows exponentially closer to ailin. he goes to her -- not quite thinking about it, to be frank -- and ends up telling her what happened. ailin listens. when he’s finished she admits that she’s never been good at comforting others and doesn’t have anything she can say or do for him, and for some reason, elwe finds himself comforted by that. he consciously realizes then why he spilled everything to her specifically: they both deal with loss the same way, with burning sorrow that expresses itself as coldness, withdrawal, and self-isolation -- and that shared understanding helps both of them find an odd measure of peace. if not for her, elwe thinks he probably would have lost himself to his grief completely

(jumping to the future real quick -- ailin is among the teleri who leave with olwe’s host for valinor rather than remain in beleriand. though thingol is saddened to hear this when he returns from nan elmoth with melian, he understands how tired she was, and for how long)

thanks to ailin, elwe begins to come back to himself. in some ways he still feels shattered, but he mends the distance that’s grown between himself and the people around him, explains at last to olwe and elmo what exactly happened, and actually allows himself to properly mourn luktiene

elwe and finwe haven’t been in contact since before luktiene’s death -- partly because elwe stopped responding to his friend’s communications -- so he reaches out to him again. their subsequent meeting is a good one; when it’s over, they say a fond goodbye, plan to meet again within the month (note that the concept of a month itself doesn’t exist in-universe at this point, the passage of time is measured by the stars), and elwe strikes out on his way back home. as he gets farther and farther from the place finwe and his people have settled, the stars seem to grow brighter, and he notices that the birds are becoming strangely loud and strangely harmonious. it should make him uneasy -- he’s never heard anything like it before, and he and his people know the dangers that can hide in the forest -- but instead, instinctively, he feels a deep sense of safety and peace