rocky41_7

The field upon which their last great blow against Morgoth had been turned aside was a barren expanse of sunbaked mud. Dust blew up from the cracks in the earth and whipped through the air in a thousand tiny storms; heaps of remains, of armor, of weapons, dotted the landscape, and reigning over all, the putrid Haudh-en-Nirnaeth.

Daeron had heard already of the fate of the high king of the Noldor, and he knew this wasteland had nothing for him, yet he came, unable to sever the cord of destiny around his throat. He trudged across the desolate land and each rusting trinket he passed stabbed at his heart, for it seemed to him that the fate of Middle-earth was now written, and no hope remained to them.

Because there was nothing to find, there was nowhere to stop; he only came as close as he dared to the Hill and sank down onto his knees, the gritty breeze stinging his dark cheeks. Had it been here, he wondered? Was this his resting place? It might as well have been.

Daeron had never seen a skull split with a single blow, but his imagination worked wonders in this regard: of splintered bones and rent muscles and ruptured organs, of blood pouring forth onto thirsty soil, of the obliteration of a person.

Daeron bent forward until his forehead touched the desecrated ground and a low moan trailed from his throat; he tried to subordinate these thoughts to the memory of Fingon as he had been at the Mereth Aderthad, how he had allowed Daeron to coax smiles and laughter from a heart wearied of tragedy, but he could not do it. The only other thing on which his mind would focus was his own desperate pleading just before battle: at the edge of the woods he had relinquished any remaining shreds of dignity to grasp at Fingon’s doublet, begging him to forget it, to forget his kingship and his kin and Morgoth most of all, and come into the wood with Daeron, and leave the rest behind.

In a tiny pocket Daeron had sewn inside his tunic, over the left side of his breast, was a loop of wavy black hair which Fingon had given him when he said goodbye in favor of his duty. This Daeron could still remember: How Fingon had smiled when he pressed it into Daeron’s hand, assuring him that all would be well, and when they met again, it would be under a sun which shone not upon the Enemy, and then Fingon would take Daeron to Hithlum that he might partake in the grand celebrations of the Noldor.

Seeing that Fingon could not be turned from his course, Daeron had said no more of it, and allowed Fingon to make his promises and embrace him that he might go to his end at least assured of Daeron’s affections. Now was come the shadow Daeron had foreseen, and there was nothing left over which he might mourn; there was not even a suggestion of the final resting place of Fingon Fingolfinion, prince from across the great wide sea. Once again, Daeron found himself merely tangential to another’s tale, sitting in the ruins of all that had been at the start of the tale and now was no more.

Sitting back on his heels, Daeron turned his face up to the sky, and his tears ran back into his braids.

“What I have done to make you so despise me, I repent of it,” he said to the merciless sky. “I would that you might tell me my proper penance, for I cannot bear this endless sorrow. You made me not with such strength to endure.”

The battlefield was silent; not even the buzzards lingered there.

There was nothing for Daeron in the Anfauglith, it was true: but it was the last place he had hoped to find something. In absence of meaning, of purpose, of comfort, he tore a strip of one of the banners of the Noldor, and told himself it had been the one Fingon had carried, and tucked the scrap into his pocket with the hair.

Where Daeron went when he drifted from Anfauglith none could say, for he vanished then into complete obscurity and the tales tell no more of the loremaster of Doriath and his silent flute, nor does his name cross the memorials of Fingon son of Fingolfin, the shortest-reigning of the high kings of the Noldor.
 

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