Chapter Text
Princess Ivriniel of Dol Amroth deftly portioned an orange, giving one slice to her great-nephew Alphros, one slice to her great-niece Theodwyn, one slice to the young Crown Prince of Gondor and Arnor, Eldarion...who was her nephew Faramir's half-brother. Whose father, Elessar Telcontar the King, did not seem to care that Faramir was a bastard. Elessar...or Aragorn, as he preferred to be called, had acknowledged Faramir, despite the damage it did to Finduilas,' Denethor's, and Denethor's father Ecthelion's reputations, not to mention his own. Ivriniel stifled a sigh. Her relationship with Faramir had always been...difficult. Perhaps because she was a woman of honor, and he was a bastard, and Ivriniel had known that since attending upon her sister Finduilas, at Faramir's birth.
"Since your family is my family, now," The young Crown Prince Eldarion asked Ivriniel, "Would you tell us a story, about growing up in Dol Amroth?"
Princess Ivriniel stared at the boy who would one day be King, her King.
Stifling a sigh of frustration, Imrahil offered, "Ivriniel looks busy...ah, preparing snacks, Eldarion. I will tell you a story of...the Dol Amroth side, of your brother's family."
As Imrahil began his story, Aragorn moved towards Faramir's aunt, an intent look in his gray eyes.
"Please, Sire, leave it alone." Faramir pleaded.
Aragorn turned back to his older son, intending to discuss the matter, but not to change his mind, when both heard a dreaded sound.
"Ah, Princess Ivriniel." Arwen the Queen said softly, diamonds of ice in her tone, "Just the person I wished to speak to."
Aragorn chuckled, "It's out of hands, now, ion-nin." Gently taking the pale Faramir's arm, Aragorn ordered kindly, "Let us join our children, and hear your uncle's tale."
Faramir winced, but allowed himself to be led to sit beside his young daughter on the grass, with Aragorn seated between he and his half-brother Eldarion, who was only two years older than Theodwyn.
Imrahil smiled at them all, much less uncertain about this business than his sister. But then, Aragorn, then called Thorongil, had always been a friend to Imrahil.
Adrahil's Family (Or the Old Sea Fox and his Children)
Most of his court was disappointed when the Prince Adrahil of Dol Amroth's long-awaited first child was born a girl. Adrahil was not. He loved Ivriniel, called Rinie, from the first breath she drew, proud little scrap of flesh that she was. She was born with her mother's blond hair, kissed with red highlights like the waves at sunset, and imperious gray eyes.
"Thank you for being the only other man here is who is happy." Adrahil had remarked, briefly but sincerely, to his father, the Prince Angelimar.
Angelimar had smiled at his new granddaughter as he answered. "I don't know if I'm quite ready for a son of yours yet, son-of-mine. I barely survived your own young adulthood. So far as I can tell, it ended about a year ago."
"Thanks." Commented Adrahil wryly, nearly 60 when his first child was born.
"You'll understand when you do have a son of your own, if he is anything at all like you." Angelimar had explained, voice full of love for the brilliant sailor and inveterate womanizer and problem-seeker who had been the source of the most joy and trouble in his life.
The heir to Dol Amroth was nearing 70 when his second child was born, also a girl. Finduilas, as sweet and ethereal as her older sister was proud and practical. Finduilas, of the green eyes and red-gold hair, whose first words to her father were a warning that he must not sail that day. Adrahil, a seasoned
old campaigner, had looked at the solemn eyes of his toddler, and had been stirred by a foreboding he did not understand. The sea-fox did not sail that day. None of his fleet did, nor the merchant ships, and the fishing fleet was warned to stay in as well. Several of Adrahil's admirals teased him, and the merchants and fishermen grumbled, but Angelimar the ruling Prince was grateful. Premonitions ran in their line, and his second granddaughter Finduilas showed early signs of them.
There was a terrible storm that came the afternoon of that day, blackening the sky to midnight dark when it should have been mid-afternoon bright. Bits and pieces of wreckage from those ships that had ignored the heir's warning floated in with the morning tide. Rinie, wearing her father's cast-off old clothes, helped Adrahil and his navy to assess the damage to the sand bars that protected the fisheries and oyster harvesting nurseries in the Bay of Belfalas. The heir and his young daughter became a common sight in those days, helping the shore communities rebuild from the damage caused by the great storm.
"Ivriniel will do for Dol Amroth, if I have no son." Adrahil had argued to his father for the first time, coming home from a rescue of a collapsed pier in the wake of that storm. His twelve year old daughter had been steady and unpanicked, as if she was an old hand at plucking half drowned people from the wreckage. She had not faltered once. Grown men and sailors of his, Captains of many years, had
not done as well.
Angelimar had sighed. Dol Amroth had never been inherited through the female line. "Perhaps." Was all he said, though, if one had to have a girl as an heir, practical, diligent Inviriel was not a bad choice. Far better than Finduilas would be, who was barely able to distinguish the real from the spirit. It was not his younger granddaughter's fault, and her dubious gift had saved Angelimar's son and much of his fleet. But he hated to see a grandchild of his so afflicted so young by the visions and foresight that sometimes ran in their line. He remembered his kinswoman Anelis, who had never been able to marry or have children, and he wanted a kinder fate for little Finduilas, who had a sweet smile even though the things she saw, waking and asleep, were frightening enough to scare grown men. They could be sure of this, for Finduilas had started to keep her own vision journal as a toddler, drawing with clumsy chalk images of armies of monsters oppressing their land, blackening their airy sea-side castle, and enslaving their people. The princely family of Dol Amroth went through five different nurses at that time, before they finally found one steady enough to handle Finduilas evenhandedly, without fright.
Finduilas' blessing of a nurse, soon called Miri by everyone in the family, was the widowed sister of one of Adrahil's very talented sergeants, and the heir sponsored all of the family's sons to Dol Amroth's naval academy in thanks. As the years rolled by, and Finduilas grew into a precocious child, Angelimar began to resign himself to the idea that he would never have grandsons. He was disappointed, but philosophic. Perhaps Middle Earth was simply not ready for a son of Adrahil. The old Prince wasn't sure he was, either.
When Finduilas was eight and Rinie eighteen, a male heir was at last born to Prince Adrahil of Dol Amroth. Imrahil, they called him, and a more placid babe none could recall. Imrahil was clever without Finduilas other-worldliness, and self-contained without Ivriniel's sometimes excessive pride. He was everything a Prince could want in an heir, if perhaps a little too quiet. But the young Imrahil enjoyed swimming and swordplay and sailing as well as scholarship, so the quietness was not unwelcome by his grandfather Angelimar, himself a noted scholar. Angelimar did not think it was fair that Adrahil's only son should be a young diplomat and a sage, but he supposed it was better than the terrifying alternative of a young Adrahil come again, perhaps enhanced by Ivriniel's stubbornness and Finduilas' visions. What a terrifying combination that would make.
Ivriniel and Finduilas loved their younger brother. Finduilas with a child's simple welcome, complicated by her occasionally cooing to Imrahil of the lovely future he might have. The family was unbelievably relieved that Finduilas wasn't predicting death and destruction for the new-born. While the family and nurse Miri kept a close eye on this developing relationship, Finduilas seemed to have the mother-sense to edit herself around a baby, even at such a young age. Angelimar breathed a sigh of relief, for Anelis had never been able to do so. Perhaps a normal life was possible for Finduilas after all.
Rinie's love for Imrahil was no less, but his birth did leave the older princess at loose ends. For several years, she had been groomed as the heir. The teenage princess wasn't quite sure what to do with herself as a mere oldest daughter. Her parents and grand-father were sensitive to this, and let the young woman try her hand at anything that might appeal. Invriniel chose to study ship-building, and made that her profession. In time, she was to become one of Dol Amroth's more talented ship wrights.
When Adrahil's children were twenty, ten, and two, Gandalf the Grey made one of his occasional visits to Dol Amroth. Adrahil had been one of the Wizard's agents for a good portion of his youth, and Gandalf was hoping (as Angelimar had not hoped) that Adrahil might have produced a son rather like himself. The Ithron was not interested in ship-wright daughters or easy-going toddlers, and was preparing to make a quick exit, when he met Finduilas. "Hmm" the Wizard had said, staying in Dol Amroth for several weeks. Gandalf had still been in residence, training Finduilas to be his research assistant, when a foul wind from far away blew into the Bay of Belfalas. Finduilas had stiffened, and then spent that night walking around the edges of the castle, humming to herself in an old, old language. That wasn't what had bothered Adrahil. It was that his daughter had first cut her bare feet, and that she had left a slight trail of blood around the inside of the old sandstone structure. The nurse Miri had clucked over the state of her poor charge's feet, but neither Finduilas nor Mithrandir would let anyone wash the blood away until the morning, when the wind had died. The night that the foul breeze blew, many sickened of a strange plague, but only those who carried the blood of Numenor. Many died, but no one who had spent that night in Angelimar's castle. Mithrandir had been enchanted by Dol Amroth's strange young Princess, and had vowed to return.
On Gandalf's next visit to Dol Amroth, when Finduilas had been a teenager, the Wizard planned the marriage of Adrahil's middle daughter to the son of Gondor's Ruling Steward. Angelimar tolerated Gandalf's interfering in his family with good grace, as the Wizard had intervened to request Adrahil's services at a time when the old Prince had nearly despaired of his heir. It was Adrahil who had
pitched a fit, not wanting either of his daughters to marry into Gondor, but particularly not Finduilas, who saw the shadow clearly from Dol Amroth's sun-drenched shores. Though he liked the promising young Captain Denethor well enough, Adrahil knew something of what it would cost Finduilas to live in Minas Tirith, and he did not want his daughter to have to pay that price.
When Finduilas was twenty, she took that choice away from her father. It was the first time Finduilas had put her foot down about anything, and that she could be as stubborn as Rinie when she made up her mind shocked her family. They had no choice but to acquiesce. Finduilas nearly did not make it to Minas Tirith, as a sudden, unseasonal storm had come up fast. But the young captain of their vessel, her old nurse Miri's nephew Telemnar, had laughed and steered his ship straight through the storm. Imrahil traveled with his sister to Minas Tirith, and developed a serious case of hero worship not only for Captain Telemnar, but also for his brother-by-law Denethor, and Denethor's best friend Captain Thorongil. Finduilas quickly became fond of Denethor and Ecthelion, but she missed Dol Amroth with the longing of a transplanted tree, now embedded in the wrong soil. Finduilas, like her siblings, had the rhythm of Belfalas' seasons in her blood. The mild winter, when the migratory birds came to feed. The gentle, fragile spring, when the wind felt like a promise and smelled of green things as well as brine and marsh. The long, hot, summer, when the airy castle by the sea was the best place to wait out the afternoon's haze. The fall and the harvest, when the hurricanes came, and Finduilas, like Rinie, would wear men's clothes and help to guide the ships in during sudden storms, for all of Adrahil's
children were bonny sailors.
The young, home-sick Finduilas was comforted by her friendship with Thorongil, who, like her, was a relative new-comer to Minas Tirith. The young Captain was similarly baffled by the various rituals and formalities which were peculiar to Minas Tirith, and still followed there faithfully, though they were forgotten throughout even most of rest of Gondor. Denethor patiently if teasingly played tour guide for both his new wife and his best friend, and both understood the society in which they had landed much better for his expert tutelage. Ecthelion, so long a widower, delighted in having a gracious young daughter-in-law in his house, and treated Finduilas and Thorongil like the other children he had not been blessed enough to have. Both Denethor and Thorongil, as young Captains of Gondor, spent much time away from Minas Tirith, about their military duties.
Finduilas spent much of this time in the library, or explaining her research to her new father-by-law, who whole-heartedly approved of trying to find other ways, through books and lore, to oppose Sauron and Mordor. Denethor and Thorongil often spent their evenings on leave drinking in various of the city's taverns. Finduilas was mostly patient with this behavior. Young soldiers were expected to drink - she knew her father had. But when her young husband and his best friend arrived home at 3 a.m., loudly serenading the newly-pregnant and very weary Finduilas with a raunchy ballad in her honor, the best the lady was able to summon was disgusted tolerance. She scolded them both fiercely the next morning, and they sheepishly promised not to wake her again in such a manner.
Denethor tolerated his wife's scholarly pursuits with the same amused resignation with which Finduilas viewed his drinking. Thorongil, on the other hand, would visit her in the library and remind her to eat, and listen intelligently when Finduilas explained what she had learned that day, or the current course of her investigations. Thorongil would also ask intelligent questions, particularly about the more military aspects of what Finduilas was finding. Her friend explained that, while no scholar himself, he had grown up in a house of scholars he loved well. Finduilas had been glad to hear that, for Thorongil was very reticent in describing his past, though she saw sometimes the shadow of a lovely dark haired woman, looking lovingly at her friend. Finduilas wished them well. The swan princess rather thought she could become friends with Thorongil's mysterious lady with the soulful eyes, and hoped Thorongil would bring his love to Minas Tirith someday. Finduilas had few female friends.
Finduilas was also cheered by frequent visits from her brother Imrahil. The young, teenage Swan Knight showed a great deal of promise, as diplomat as well as soldier and sailor. Both Denethor and Thorongil took to the young brother of their wife and good friend, and the young Imrahil could frequently be seen in their company, whether training or carousing. Not long before Boromir was due, Finduilas had to amend her earlier instructions with regard to drunken serenading to an embarrassed, sore, but not apologetic Denethor and Thorongil. "If your other idea is to tie a loudmouth sergeant to the outer tower of the citadel," She scolded her squirming husband and friend, "then by all means, wake me up with your inebriated caterwauling! Of all the idiocy - what if Imrahil had been with you!"
Fortunately, the young Prince had been keeping his very pregnant sister company that night. But Imrahil did not disapprove of what his role models had done. On the contrary, Imrahil felt that any idiot who made his sister cry by spewing off about how the madwoman from Dol Amroth was so crazy she would eat her own children probably deserved a much worse fate. He had told Thorongil, who had told Denethor, and one thing had led to another. Ecthelion, once belatedly apprised of the situation, had just transferred the loud-mouthed fool into Dol Amroth's navy. Adrahil was only too happy to re-educate the man. Imrahil thought it was unfortunate for his brother-by-law and Thorongil that they had been caught in action by Ecthelion rather than Adrahil. Adrahil might have let them off with a sound tongue lashing, as Imrahil's father had acted on much, much worse ideas than just tying an idiot to a really high tower. Much worse.
Rinie didn't visit Finduilas in Dol Amroth, not even when Boromir was born and Finduilas was very sick. Rinie didn't like to travel, which is why it was a family joke that Mithrandir had picked Rinie as a good candidate to marry the King of Rohan. Rinie also hated horses. Adrahil had joked with a friend of his who was a Rider that Dol Amroth would just have to owe Rohan a Princess, because Rohan wasn't getting Rinie. Adrahil wasn't about to marry a daughter who wanted to stay in Dol Amroth away; he'd been reluctant enough to let Finduilas leave. When his poor middle child had such a difficult birth, the old Sea Fox longed for nothing more than to travel to Minas Tirith and care for her. Fortunately, Imrahil was there, and Adrahil could trust his son. The boy was always level-headed.
Still, Imrahil was young. So when it came time for Imrahil's first cruise as a captain in the treacherous waters near Umbar, Adrahil asked to borrow Thorongil from Ecthelion. Technically, Imrahil's commanding officer was the brilliant but somewhat erratic newly-made admiral Telemnar, but Gondor and Dol Amroth were conducting a number of joint exercises, and Adrahil wanted someone a bit
steadier looking after his only son. Thorongil agreed, and for the most part was enjoying working with the strategic genius Telemnar and his young protégée Imrahil. Then Denethor asked Thorongil to take a brief detour to see to a matter for Gondor, and Thorongil left Temnar and Imrahil on their own for a few days.
When they rendezvoused less than a week later, Imrahil's normally well-handled ship almost rammed an enemy vessel during a skirmish. To Thorongil's considerable shock, apparently Telemnar had felt inspired to set fire to the slave guild in Umbar, after first releasing all of the slaves. And apparently level-headed, easy-going Imrahil had felt inspired to help Telemnar smuggle those slaves out of Umbar, including giving several berthing on his ship, despite their not knowing an anchor line from a drag net. "Imrahil, you young idiot," Thorongil had explained to his friend the scholar's beloved younger brother, "Once you have already let your commanding officer torch a mercantile establishment in a city with whom WE WERE NOT CURRENTLY AT WAR,"
"Not a declared war," Imrahil muttered mutinously, as Thorongil gaped at him in astonishment. After a suitable interval during which Thorongil explained to the confused young Prince why one did not talk back to a superior officer during a dressing-down, Thorongil continued "Be that as it may, once you had already made those mistakes, you should have COME TO ME with your little problem of hundreds of slaves to hide, and we could have figured out a better way than HAVING THEM REPLACE TRAINED SAILORS. No, I do not care that the trained sailors in question were enemy spies. I may care later."
A few nights later, Thorongil went looking for Imrahil with a question about promoting one of the few former slaves who had proved a capable sailor, a man named Arnaut, formerly of Dol Amroth before he was captured by slavers in a raid. To his surprise, Imrahil had been nowhere to be found. Likewise, Telemnar. Thorongil did not know whether he was relieved or horrified to learn that the reason for this absence was Imrahil's unapproved marriage to Telemnar's younger sister Lorias. After this series of unfortunate occurrences, Adrahil found someone else to ride herd on his son, who had apparently inherited more from the old Sea Fox than had been here-to-fore suspected. Though he did keep Thorongil on as a commander in his fleet, as that part, at least, the former Captain of Gondor had handled well.