You are frail, she tells him, matter-of-fact. And servants of our One gone astray walk this land still. Perilous it would be for one as weak as you to leave this place.
Had the words come from anyone else, Elwë would have bristled. But as he gazes at her, her face high above awash in the starlight, her spirit pulsing in tandem with his, he understands who she is, why she speaks thus, and the love that moves her to do so.
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put together for day 1 of @sindarweek, prompt âearly days.â the hcs arenât meant specifically to focus on the early sindar, but since thingol is the subject here, they naturally include a good bit about them. lots of ocs who are members of the proto-sindar
this got pretty graphic towards the end so trigger warning for pretty detailed descriptions of violence! early elves and horror is my jam, and putting characters through terrible things as an expression of love is also my jam, so hereeee goes
thingol and his brothersâ relation to enel and enelye (whom they are canonically descendants of) is that of grandchildren and grandparents. their father, alĂąkĂŽ (âalakâ = ârushing/wild windâ, âĂŽâ = primitive elvish masculine ending) is enel and enelyeâs eldest son. their mother, luktiĂȘnĂȘ (âluktiĂȘâ = enchantment, ânĂȘâ = primitive elvish feminine ending), is the daughter of two of enel and enelyeâs close friends of the same generation (aka the og generation of 144 elves who first awakened at cuivienen). she and alako were childhood friends
elwe is closer to his mother than his father, though thatâs not at all to say he and alako have a bad relationship. in terms of personality, he takes after luktiene to an almost uncanny degree; his temper, stubbornness, protectiveness, sharp tongue, and commanding presence all come primarily from her, as does his flightiness, love for silly little jokes, and sense of humor. he also has her unusual purple eyes. (olweâs the one who takes more after alako -- milder and more even-tempered, slower to make judgment calls, but also more calculating)Â
thingol will later name luthien after his mother!
enel, thingolâs paternal grandfather, particularly cherished him and had a feeling since elwe was a child that he would be an excellent leader. he encourages elweâs curiosity and adventurousness -- within reason of course -- and kind of lets him get away with a whole lot, much to luktiene and enelyeâs exasperationÂ
(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 diorâs childhood and adolescence compared to his own. he too gets the feeling that dior is a natural leader -- but itâs 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 leadershipâŠ)
physically elwe resembles his maternal grandfather, khyelesĂŽ (âkhyel(es)â = âglass,â âĂŽâ = primitive elvish masculine ending), a lot. he never met the man -- who was captured by morgothâs servants, loosed upon the early elves, before luktiene was fully mature -- but heâs heard many people say heâs 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)
elweâs maternal grandmother, ailin (âailinâ = âpool, lakeâ 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 isnât just him; ailin lost most of her close friends too. as a child, elwe doesnât get it. he thinks that, if anything, he would cling harder to the people he loves if he lost any one of them. itâs 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 herÂ
all in all, thingolâs childhood and adolescence were as alright as they could be. they canât 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; everyoneâs 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 morgothâs servants. their loss affects elwe deeply, especially since heâs 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 theyâre 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 thingolâs life
it doesnât 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 itâs 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 theyâll be dead, or theyâre 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 itâs 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. heâs given a cremation, and elwe hugs a quietly weeping olwe as they watch their fatherâs body burn
itâs some years later, when elwe is on patrol with caranor (oc, one of thingolâs close followers, iâll probably expand on him sometime), that he finds luktiene at the bottom of an immense sequoia tree. at first, elwe thinks sheâs dead. her hair is matted with blood from a traumatic head injury, sheâs 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. itâs 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 thereâs 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 itâs obvious, both to him and caranor and luktiene herself, that thereâs no way to save her. all theyâre doing is prolonging her pain
in the end, he complies
he and caranor bring luktieneâs body back to the teleri settlement. olwe and ailin keep asking what happened, but elwe wonât talk about it, no matter how much they pry. caranor doesnât 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 heâs close to, even his brothers. he finds itâs hard for him to process luktieneâs death and its circumstances; everything surrounding it feels surreal, like a dream
itâs 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 heâs finished she admits that sheâs never been good at comforting others and doesnât 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 olweâs 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 thatâs 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 havenât been in contact since before luktieneâs death -- partly because elwe stopped responding to his friendâs communications -- so he reaches out to him again. their subsequent meeting is a good one; when itâs over, they say a fond goodbye, plan to meet again within the month (note that the concept of a month itself doesnât 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 -- heâs 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