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All available historical records show that Finduilas, Princess of the Noldor died a prisoner of her people’s enemies after the Sack of Nargothrond. Her body was recovered and buried with proper honors, and her kin mourned while they waited for her to return from the Halls.
What none of the scribes who sat down to pen those records could tell is how much it hurt. Gold spun hair pulled and ripped from the root in clumps till blood clung to what was left. Flesh torn and dug into by both the blades in the hands of her captors and the stones scattered on the ground below.
It might have been kinder if she had fainted, if she had gently faded into nothing. It might also have been worse. She was the only one who remembered after all, the only one who could know.
History says that Finduilas daughter of Orodreth was pinned by a spear to the trunk of a tree when her captors caught wind of the Haladin on their trail. History does not specify what kind of tree it was.
It was an oak, old and tall and so very much like the ones she used to play hide and go seek in with her brother when she was a child. She watched the blood run down and into the knotted wood.
History does not speak of how they had scarred the prisoners before killing them. One last insult before they scattered into the wilds, leaving the bodies to be found.
It’s too ugly a detail for a tragic tale. Princess, even wayward ones, are always beautiful. Especially in death. So no one looked to closely at the disfigured elf maiden impaled on the tree. The hair was gold, that was enough.
History also neglects, or rather avoids, mentioning the missing bodies. The implications too horrible and grisly to bear.
Her hands and forearms had been stripped raw from crawling on the ground and dragging herself into the nearby ravine. She had had to pull loos a root from the mud to bite down on, just to stop herself from howling from the pain.
And History cannot give an answer as to why she did not call out when help finally arrived. Why she stayed silent when she could have been saved.
She was scared plain and simple. Scared, hurt, and tired from keeping still and keeping quiet so no other cruel being could hurt her.
And she remembered the lessons and stories of her youth, the truths all Eldar are told about their nature. She remembered that she did not leave when she was supposed to and she remembered being abandoned to her fate before.
Her tutors spoke often of the dignity and pride of her father’s people. How they would not suffer humiliation or torture beyond what was bearable, how releasing their fëa to the halls was sweet and kind and freeing.
Her mother’s people never spoke of what happened to the ones that were taken. Not really. There was only ever mourning for the dead and the casting out of those that did return. Thralls were nothing more than an empty husk of someone you had once loved, a husk that would betray you if you let it into your home.
So she kept her hands clamped over her mouth, and bit down harder on the bitter root to stifle any traitorous sob or scream that might give her away. Then waited.
It took nearly a day and half for them to finish burying the bodies. Nearly a day and a half she stayed sitting in the cold damp mud as she listened to them curse their enemies and pity their dead.
To her credit she would say, years from now the one time she would ever tell this story, she only almost broke once. It had been at the start of the second day when Túrin rode past her hiding place like a man possessed.
Túrin who she loved to the point of recklessness. Who she had been willing to turn her back to all sense and prior promises. Túrin who had ignored her screaming and pleading as she was dragged away. Who collapsed on what he was told was her grave and cried out like a wounded man.
If her legs hadn’t been so hurt and numb, and if her voice had not been cracked and gone, she might have been fast to rise and reassure him she was alive if not well. She might have called out his name and asked for his help, and taken comfort in his affections for her made evident by his grief.
If she had been fast enough, she might not have heard him scream Lalaith in between sobs over her grave.
A week ago she could have never imagined not wanting to hear his voice. She had been greedy for it, reveled in it. But in that moment, if she had not been so worried about screaming were she to take her hands off of her mouth, she would have gladly used whatever she could find at hand to pierce the inside of her ears till she could hear that name no longer.
Sometime after Túrin was taken away by the Haladin she started to feel her consciousness drift. Curled up on the cold mud, she wondered if the next time she woke up it would be a dark hall near the bounds of everything and she wouldn’t hurt anymore.
It was not the Halls of Mandos that greeted when she opened her eyes, just the overgrown ferns she must have scurried underneath in her sleep. She was still in Beleriand, she was still alive.
Maybe something had truly broken and died inside of her, the way it was supposed to and the only problem was that she had forgotten to leave. She had not felt a call or a pull on her fëa but maybe that had been her fault, maybe the pain had made her ignore what should have come naturally to her.
She wondered if they would call her selfish if they knew she had stayed. After all, she could have just floated off to the halls to be healed by some stranger’s hands, tucked away safely out of sight until she was made whole again. Until she was ready to be alive and merry again.
Finduilas might not have been whole anymore, nor was she particularly ready to be merry. But she could not deny she was alive. She sat up, her body sore and screaming, and listened for any sign of people, be they friendly or not. There was none, she was alone. No one to help her and no one to kill her.
Slowly, being very careful to hold on to a nearby stone to keep her balance, she stood up and looked down at herself. Under the dried blood and mud bruises had already begun to form on the her skin. At least on the parts of it she could see through the tears in her clothes. She took a deep breath and regretted it when she felt a sharp ache in her chest.
Something was definitely broken, and her ankles screamed in pain when she tried to put her full weight on it. But the bleeding had stopped, that had to be a good sign. If the bleeding had stopped but she could stand and stay awake then it meant she was healing. Or was she supposed to check for it while laying down?
It was too late now to curse herself for not paying attention during her lessons in the healers’ halls. She couldn’t even recall which herb she ought to look for if she saw signs of infection. And if she couldn’t treat the infection that was sure to come she wouldn’t make it far.
Tears stung her eyes as she realized she had missed her chance to be rescued, if only she’d hadn’t kept quiet she would be on her way to somewhere safe and warm right now. It didn’t matter that people would whisper about her lack of pride, or even if they called her a thrall and locked her up in some room to stop her from hurting anyone.
Wait, something foolish and reckless bloomed inside her chest, the thralls do make it. We’ve heard of thralls escaping Angband and ending up everywhere across Beleriand.
If the thralls born out of years and decades of torture in the worst place one could ever dream of could do it, so could she. She didn’t know what all those horrors they suffered entailed but she was certain it was less than what she had endured. She hadn’t died, she was standing, and she still had her wits as far as she could tell.
She looked to the ground, with no rainfall to wash them away there were still tracks she could follow. She might find Túrin and the Haladin that had come too late to help, and they might know how to find her brother.
Her brother. Her little brother who used to climb into her bed when he had nightmares, and who would always sneak her sweets and pretty trinkets he found to try and cheer her up when got stuck in one of her dark moods.
Gil-galad would be glad to see her no matter the state she was in. He would wrap his arms around her, sob into her shoulder, and fuss over her like a mother hen until she agreed to let the healers tend to her. He would stick to her side like the world’s cutest little limpet until he was sure she was healed, cleaned, and safely tucked into a warm soft bed. And then he’d stand guard against the door, just to make sure she felt safe enough to sleep. He would never turn her away, never let her even hear an unkind word thrown at her.
And he was king now. King of a broken and burned down kingdom full of people who were scared and angry. If she returned to him, after being ostensibly killed and buried, people would talk. They’d whisper in the corners, and spit curses against the thrall that whispered into a weak king’s ear.
She had seen how rumors and plotting had hindered her father’s ascension to the throne and had heard of how they had encumbered his uncle’s rule before him. Safety and comfort be damned, she would not allow herself to be turned into a weapon against her brother.
Finduilas might not have been a poet or a bard, but she knew stories. She knew them intimately well, how much power and influence they could carry. A dead princess was a tragedy yes, but tragedies moved people. They placed a sheer cloth over people’s eyes and changed the way they saw the world.
Her brother would grieve her yes, he would cry and scream, and spend countless sleepless nights wondering what he could have done to save her. Then he would pick himself up, he would live and he would rule. He would be a good king, and he would be loved by all.
Finduilas loved her brother than she would miss him. So, with one last looks at the tracks leading into the forest she turned her back to them, and started walking.
Well, walking was a generous term for what she did, battered as she was she made little progress on the first week. She stuck to the ravine at first, following the flow of the water, and resting in the crevices covered by the overgrowth. She fell, badly and often, ripping her wounds open once more and making fresh ones blossom on her skin. And the hunger was almost worse, whatever she roots and plants she found and remembered as being safe to eat she would throw back up half the time.
Sometimes, on nights when she did not ache as much and the nightmares would not let her sleep, she would lay on the ground and wonder if this was her punishment for staying. Most nights however, she was too tired to think and would drift off to sleep half hopeful and half afraid of waking up in a different place. She never did.
Then the days flowed into months and the pain turned bearable. Or at least familiar enough that she could walk for longer and further at a time. She traveled south for a time, then made a sharp turn east after a near encounter with a Noldorin riding party sent her spiraling into a breathless panic that had left her cowering inside a small cave for three days.
Three days of shaking in her own skin out of sheer the terror. A mix of fear of being recognized, and the fear that her resolve would not be strong enough to hold firm and stay away. Three days of barely being able to keep down water, let alone anything resembling solid food. Three days that at some point blended together into many more until her eyes were heavy and all she could remember after that was darkness.
The next time she opened her eyes there was a woman leaning over her and brushing a damp cloth over her forehead. She had that distinct look of the Edain, with those curious folds in their skin that drew lines on their faces when they smiled.
“You had us worried there for a bit dear. You were sleeping for so long we thought you might not be long for this world.” The woman spoke faster than the few Edain she had met before, hands flitting around as though accentuating her words.
“Ah-” Finduilas’ throat was too dry and raw for her to speak.
“Slower, you need to go slower remember.” Another voice spoke and Finduilas almost flinched when she saw its owner. “Her kind are not used to your people’s tendency to rush.”
She could not be sure the person speaking was one of the Eldar or an orc. Half of their face was twisted into some form of heavy scarring and she could see the tips of a pair of tusks poking over their lower lip. But their height and the way they moved was all too familiar to her for him to not be an elf.
“Oh those elves out west are so coddled my kind they don’t know what to do with themselves. They’re clever enough, from what little I’ve seen, to keep up in normal conversation.” The woman handed her a water-skin. “Drink a bit now, that should make it easier to speak.”
The water was a balm to her sore throat, and by the time she caught herself she had already downed the whole of it, droplets running down her chin. Unseemly, especially in a princess. “I- I apologize for my lack of manners, I’ve not-” She stopped mid sentence, eyes flitting around. She was no longer in the cave, instead she was laying on a bedroll inside a tent. “Where am I? Who are you?” Her childhood governess would have been livid at her tone, but she didn’t care.
“We’re travelers heading East to Eriador. The same as you I’d assume, seeing as we found you on these roads. We made camp for the night when her granddaughter found you half-dead while she was out searching for mushrooms.” The not-orc-not-eldar’s voice was not sharp or cruel. It was not gentle either. “You were lucky. A little longer and you wouldn’t have made it.”
Right, she thought, of course I wouldn’t have. It was foolish to think I could try.
The woman tutted at her companion then turned back to Finduilas. “He does not mean it cruelly. Just that it is dangerous enough to travel these roads alone as it is, let alone while injured. You must have been running from something quite dreadful to be willing to risk it.”
Yes, and no, and maybe, her head hurt and her thoughts were all tangled up. “I’m not sure I know how to speak of it.” It was close enough to the truth to not feel like a lie.
“You would not be the first in our group to not be able to speak of such things.” The woman smiled, and the Edain lines at the corner of her eyes crinkled. “I’ve left some clothes that might fit you over by the washbasin. When you’re done, you can join us for a meal. And who knows? You might even want to stick around for a while.”
“Stick around? You would allow me to travel with you?” Maybe the Edain this woman belonged to didn’t know about thralls. Or about how Finduilas was supposed to be dead.
The not-orc-not-eldar sighed. “And why wouldn’t we allow you to travel with us? So long as you help around once you’ve recovered, and so long as you don’t intend to do us harm, there is no reason for you to not join us.”
Finduilas promised herself she would not cry when they eventually threw her out. “I might be a thrall of sorts. Perhaps not exactly, but close enough you may not want to take the risk.” She didn't tell them of her indignity. That part wasn't a threat to them, it just hurt.
The woman’s brow furrowed, then she broke into a fit of breathless laughter. “Dear girl you would not be the first ‘thrall’ we take into our a company and you’ll likely not be the last. If the worst you bring with you are night terrors and a need for a little more care then you have nothing to worry about. You are welcome with us.”
“Are you certain? I wouldn’t want-”
“I am as certain of this as I am that the sun rises in the east.” She leaned forward to pat Finduilas’ cheek, then stood up. “Now my friend here has other patients to tend to, I swear Saewine is going to earn himself something worse than a bee sting if he keeps sneaking off to go find honey. And I need to go make sure my grandchildren have not set the camp on fire while their parents are away. But you take all the time you need to wash up and gather yourself. You can meet us by the fire later. We’ll have music and stories, and I think the stew will be especially good tonight.”
In the same rush with which she spoke, the woman herded the not-orc-not-eldar out of the tent, leaving Finduilas alone.
She stood and walked towards the washbasin, clean skin and clean clothes sounded more like a luxury than all the silks and jewels of her childhood. She peered down into the water and gasped.
It was the first time she had seen her reflection since she’d been captured, since she’d decided Finduilas daughter of Orodreth was better off dead.
And there, reflected in the metal dish and distorted by the water, was a stranger’s face. Her right cheek was scarred by a long slash and both her ears had been nicked, the tips blunted.
A wider, rougher looking scar covered the left side of her jaw, running down her neck. Finduilas reached a hand, and the stranger in the reflection moved with her. Who else would it have been? I’m alone in here.
She brought a hand to her head, someone must have sheared off the bloodied mats in her sleep and there were patches where the orcs had ripped her hair out all those months But there was new growth too. Still very short, barely reaching the tips of her ears, but it was new and it might even be soft after a proper wash. She could not tell exactly what color it would be after the dust and grime of the road was scrubbed off, but it wasn’t gold that much she was sure of. Maybe something close to a dove gray? It looked a little bit like that.
Her fingers were still running through her hair. It was so short and strange, and so unlike her. Between the scars and this not even Gil-galad would be able to recognize her. The thought jostled something loose inside her chest, an ache yes, but an almost welcome one. For the first time in months, as she listened to the people outside talk and hum while they moved around, Finduilas laughed.