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Ingwë Ingweron, Chief of Chiefs, had come to Tirion reluctantly, aware that his presence was an imposition on people who were already drowning, and equally aware that Valmar was not without challenges of its own these days. The continued dimness of Telperion, wounded by the treason of Melkor, terrified all Ingwë's folk.
Yet despite this, he had come, because Finwë, who was long a friend, who had lept faithfully into unknown paradise with him, and Indis, who was his closest kin, were living at the heart of this struggle, trying to care for all their children and grandchildren. Ingwë could not change that, but he was aware that he was one of the only people in all Valinor before whom they did not have to maintain a façade as king and queen, as mother and father, unshakeable even in the face of terrible things. He could allow them the privilege of weakness. And, if he came, he might see his wounded nephew, sensible Nolofinwë, who had been known to turn to Ingwë for advice. These kind purposes drove him to visit.
He had not intended, when he set out from Valmar, to shout at his sister as he had not since before the end of his first century. But he was shouting now.
“They were my parents too!”
His parents – their parents – had not only died. They had been taken by the enemy, by Melkor, in some wicked act, too evil to ever be spoken of on these shores. His mother, who had been good and generous and brave, had been twisted into a creature unrecognizable even as an elf.
“You think I am ignorant of that?” Indis was shouting back, which she had rarely done when they were children. Even then, she had tried so hard to be as a parent to him, to let him see none of her hurt. Which, of course, was precisely the problem.
“I think you seem particularly unconcerned about it! All these years, Indissë. I have been standing in these holy lands, walking in the company of gods, and our mother-”
“Would have wanted you here. You think there was any piece of her that would have chosen not to see you safe? What good would it have done to mar your childhood with that?”
“The deaths of our parents marred my childhood already.”
“Not like seeing that marred mine. You have no idea what it was like to see her like that. Even now, you do not know, and I will not show you.”
“I am witch enough to scry her myself.”
That brought something other than anger out in her expression. “I beg you – do not do that.”
He was of half a mind to, and yet he did not think he would. Not hearing that pleading in her voice. “I still could have helped her.”
“You could not have saved her; all it would have brought you was grief. It was better not to complicate your choices with it.”
“I could not have saved her then,” Ingwë agreed, “a green boy, I was, barely breeched. But all my years in Valinor, all my years of friendship with the makers of our world, and the only favour I have ever asked of them was to hear your appeal to wed Finwë.
“Do you think I might not have asked them to bring her suffering to an end, at the least?”
He regretted it nearly the instant the words left his mouth for the look on Indis’s face, though in truth it had been his first thought when she told him. All those years, he had knelt before Manwë and Varda, had broken bread with Eönwë, had walked with fair Vána, and not once had he used that power to help his mother. Worse, all that time Melkor walked free in Valinor, Ingwë had been friendly to him, had greeted him as the brother of his lord, had complimented his beauty, had kissed his hand, all unknowing that these were the hands by which he had been orphaned. He had reassured those few of his people who had questioned him that Melkor was fair and good and there at the invitation of their lord. And he had done absolutely nothing to advocate justice for those of their people left behind. All while Indis knew, and said nothing.
Indis said, “I thought of it, sometimes. Moringotto was fair and insisted he was our friend now, that he was regretful for any mistakes of his past, and I thought of asking him if it were possible to unmake her. But it seemed unkind to speak of it. It seemed as if we had all decided not to speak of it, lest we again called such pain down upon us. Finwë never speaks of his parents either.”
To unmake her. The last kind thing they could do for their mother, who had braided Ingwë’s hair in the mornings and taught him to Sing. Their mother, who had taught Indis to fight.
“I cannot do nothing. Not again. I left her so long already-”
“I know,” Indis said. “You must be her loyal son. I have always known this of you, hanninkë. But you must be Ingwë Ingweron too. And I do not know if you can do both.”
“You can be Queen of the Noldor and huntress in one.”
“I can,” Indis agreed, “by being a singularly dilettante queen. You will have to come up with something better.”
Something better. For his family, yes, but also for those of his people who were frightened now, and all those like Indis who had held their tongues against great evil all these years. She could not be the only one.
“It will have to begin with a conversation with Lord Manwë.”
She said, rather surprisingly, “actually, I think you must begin with a conversation with Fëanáro.”
“Curufinwë? Whatever for?”
“I am given to understand he is embroiled in some sort of ongoing negotiation with Varda on various favours. You and he will want to be in alignment on this. There is none in the world better to have in your corner than our Fëanáro, once he has made up his mind to stand there.”
The problem with that being, of course, that he had never chosen to stand in Indis’s corner in his life.
“I will speak with him, if you think it best.” Indis bowed her head in thanks, as if she had never doubted Fëanáro herself.
There was so much still he wanted to say to her, so much he wanted to ask about their parents. She had only mentioned, in an offhand sort of what, that she thought their father had taken his own life to evade capture. He wanted to ask if there would be healing for him too, if there was anything that could be done for the curious ner who had sat Ingwë on his knee and taught him about numbers, and how to understand the world through them, whose desire for understanding was what had driven Ingwë to follow Oromë beyond the small, dangerous world of his childhood.
But he could see in the changing light, as the mingling began, the glow of Indis's wounded arm brightening in time with Telperion’s ascendance, and he knew what it meant about the horrors the past few months had held for her. To bring her more pain was the very last thing in all Arda that he wanted.
Thus, he said instead, “I am grateful, even if I am angry. All these years that you have fought for me have been a gift and a treasure. I do know I would be nothing without you.”
“Nonsense,” she said at once, but there was a tremor in her voice.
“Truth,” Ingwë said, and, because they were alone and he could, stuck his tongue out at her childishly to win a watery laugh.
“You always were the best of us,” Indis told him. “Our parents knew that too, and they would be so immeasurably proud of you, of the person you have become and the things you have done. I certainly am.”
Though he was her younger brother, not her teacher or their parents, Ingwë said, “I am proud of you too, you know. I am proud to be the brother of Indissë Roimenórë.”
“You haven’t called me ‘Roimenórë’ in years.”
No one called her that, not since her arrival on these shores. But Eönwë had, when he brought word to Ingwë of what his sister had done.
“I will begin again, I think,” he said, and though he still had not fully forgiven her yet, he embraced his sister fiercely, and went, as she had asked him to, in search of her stepson.