1. Remember, to Forget
They wake to each other in the cold damp stillness of the grey swirling morning, she to him and he to her; awake and look at each other, he with a fleeting eddy of half-recognition that sinks back, forgotten, she with vanishing unremembered memories, unknown, unheeded, unwanted, and quickly, fleetingly gone.
In the day she is always waiting, waiting for the Sun to crawl out from behind brooding grey cloud, waiting for the little drops of water that teeter on the blades of grass to fall, waiting for him, waiting, unknowingly, unintentionally, for memory. She has not remembered, and it is for memory that she waits.
In the day he is always running, running for the hunt or to the chase or to the kill, running back, quick, to her at the end; running, perhaps half-knowingly, from her and from her buried memories and from horror; running from the memory of Finduilas who could not, in the end, run from death. He has brought death, and it is from death that he runs.
In the night they have learned to remember to forget; he returns in the cool evening and is not Turambar or Mormegil or Adanedhel, but simply husband, and she is always simply Niniel; they have learned to remember to ignore the little creeping thoughts at the edge of thought; he full-remembers to ignore the whisper in his mind of Finduilas, Faelivrin, Finduilas, and she half-forgets the whisper in hers, of creeping shadow and Morwen and a brother and guilt.
In the night, the bleak black neverending night, they have forgotten, and he holds her when she weeps as she sleeps.
This is a work of fan fiction, written because the author has an abiding love for the works of J R R Tolkien. The characters, settings, places, and languages used in this work are the property of the Tolkien Estate, Tolkien Enterprises, and possibly New Line Cinema, except for certain original characters who belong to the author of the said work. The author will not receive any money or other remuneration for presenting the work on this archive site. The work is the intellectual property of the author, is available solely for the enjoyment of Henneth Annûn Story Archive readers, and may not be copied or redistributed by any means without the explicit written consent of the author.
