wish you would walk through my door

[endless_natterings]

Day 5 Prompt: Finduilas

Summary: If he had really gone off to fight, it would mean that he had lied to her. That he’d known he was going to lose, and that meant he knew he would be leaving her behind. So he hadn’t. She refused to believe it.

Warnings: Mentions of war, death, and captivity. Some mild passive suicidal ideation

AO3 Link

Author's Note: This ended up spiraling from an ask I was sent that just consumed me.

When the two grim faced rangers knelt in front of her father and told them, her first thought was to laugh and tell them they had gotten it wrong. Because it was Gwindor after all. Her Gwindor who always made sure to put spiders outside safe and alive, who only ever trained at arms out of necessity, not out of rage or thirst for glory. Who, in a fight, would sooner sit both parties down to talk before drawing a sword. He’d done it before more times than she could count.

Of course he had grieved when the news of Gelmir’s death came. That was his brother, he loved him. And Finduilas had been by his side, she’d cried with him, forced water and food into him when he refused to care for himself, and sat by his bedside when he could not fall asleep even when her father told her it was not proper.

He had told her, days later when he could finally stand without swaying on his feet, that he was riding out to tell his father in person, so he wouldn’t have to hear the words from a stranger’s mouth, so his father would have someone by his side. She had asked if he wanted her to come with and his faced had twisted in some strange way before he kissed her brow and told her to stay where it was safe.

If he had really gone off to fight, it would mean that he had lied to her. That he’d known he was going to lose, and that meant he knew he would be leaving her behind. So he hadn’t. She refused to believe it.

He had people who loved him, who would grieve him like he was grieving Gelmir. And Gwindor was always kind, always worried and fussing over the people he loved. There was no world in which he would risk making his father lose his last child. And there was no world where he would abandon her. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, hurt her. Not ever.

He wouldn’t have rushed into battle like they said he had. Not for anything, not even revenge. Not Gwindor.

So they must have seen wrong, and while she had good enough manners not to laugh, she did tell them as much. That they must have mistaken someone else for Lord Gwindor, that sort of thing happened more often than anyone would like in the chaotic aftermath of battle. And then she turned to her father to ask if it would be possible to send scouting parties to help find the truth

Her father looked at her with pity but she knew better. Gwindor wasn’t dead, he wasn’t captured, and he would ride past their gates with his father at his side soon enough, an apology on his lips for having taken so long and she would call out his name with relief and tell him someone had tried to make her believe he was dead.

She had been ready to, when a servant had rushed to her rooms to tell her Lord Guilin had returned to Nargothrond. She ran off before he could finish his sentence, hadn’t felt the need to confirm what she was certain of.

Gwindor’s name died on her lips when she saw his father standing alone in the hall, face ashen with grief. She had once heard one of her great-uncle’s guests say that grief aged a person, that death not only stole those they loved from them but part of their own life as well. At the time she had pitied them. How cruel to have to bear the mark of your loss for the rest of your life.

Lord Guilin looked as though he would have been glad to carry it. It felt grotesque, to see him so burdened and still unchanged. When he met her eyes, any joy they might have had was drained from them.

She watched her father embrace him. Watched the courtiers faces fall into perfect and identical masks of compassion. She felt them staring at her, waiting to see if she would break.

To call them vultures would be an insult to the poor birds, she thought, they’re delighting in this. They love nothing more than a tragedy to gossip about.

They had done the same when news of her great-uncle’s death had come. Cried lovely tears for him, then turned around and made her father fight for every step he took towards the throne. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her fall.
Slowly, carefully, as though she might fall if she walked too fast, she made her way to the center of the hall and placed a gentle hand on Lord Guilin’s arm. She went to speak, praying her voice wouldn’t crack, trying to comfort him.

Lord Guilin words were faster, “He’s not dead dear girl.”

She blinked. He’s like I was, hoping against all hope. She might have said something, but she wasn’t entirely sure if she ought to indulge him or shatter his heart further.

“He’s not dead,” he was repeating himself, “he’s alive Finduilas, I swear he is alive. My hunters caught wind of his trail.”

“Alive.” She whispered, more to herself than anyone else.

“Alive yes.” Lord Guilin’s eyes looked a little desperate, a little crazed, “Though not well from what I hear. Every report tells the same, he was taken captive. But I know he is alive, and he’ll be waiting for us to come for him.” He then looked at her father. “I would like to formally request for my king to send a rescue party after him, we may still be able to-”

Finduilas did not need to hear her father’s answer to know what it would be. It had not even been a decade since the last king of Nargothrond attempted to rally forces and head into Morgoth’s realm. Her father would not succeed where Finrod Felagund had failed, though he would know well enough to not try.

And she could not hear it, not if she wanted to keep what remained of her composure intact. She was already struggling to keep the tears in, to not scream.

They will either watch me keen or they watch me run, I can keep one impulse or the other inside but not both. Her breath caught in her throat, eyes watering. Running it is then.

She murmured a quick apology, head bent low. Then she turned on her heel and walked right past the great wooden doors and down the hallway. And when she turned a corner, hip catching against the carved stone, she picked up her skirts and took off running.

They would talk. Of course everyone would talk, even more so than they had already been talking about ‘their poor grieving princess who could not even face her own pain’. And she would regret letting them, would regret giving them any ammunition of any kind to use against her and her family. Against Lord Guilin too, the whispers would not leave him unscathed.

She slammed the doors to her rooms behind her, and did not find the strength to make it to her bed. She ended up curled by the doorway instead, next to the wall fountain that had been installed into these rooms when she moved in. She had wanted running water close, the stuffy underground halls too drastic a change from Minas Tirith.

I was the one who begged my father for it but the design was Gwindor’s, she remembered and she wished she hadn’t, he drew my favorite flowers from back home for the stonemasons to carve into it. Just in case I got more homesick than I could bear.

Now Gwindor was gone. Not gone, taken, someone had taken taken him away from her and put him somewhere she couldn’t reach him. Alive, but somewhere far and terrible she couldn’t run to.

It was a cruel thing to think, cruel and selfish enough that she regretted it almost instantly, but for the briefest of seconds she almost wished he were dead. Wished she were actually able to grieve and wait for him to come home after going to the Halls of Healing in Námo’s realm.

It killed her to think it. She almost wished it did.

Some additional context here, in my mind since Finduilas and Gwindor are said to be childhood friends, I imagine he was sent to be fostered at Minas Tirith when he was a child. I have a bit of a meta post on that that I'll crosspost over here eventually