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The upper room fell still and silent. Now that their search had ended, Lómwë slid to the floor and finally allowed himself a moment of rest, more mental than physical. The immense energy required to stay focused on helping Lindir had been far more wearying than any physical search. He knew there was still more to do, but he allowed his mental barriers to relax anyway.
At first the memories that came were pleasant, if bittersweet now in retrospect: jovial times with friends, tender moments with Ellothiel, Aradol’s first lessons with bow and blade. But the timeline progressed rapidly, spiraling downward towards that one barricaded memory – and now Lómwë had no strength left to fight it off.
He had been fighting on the front now for weeks, defending the fortress at Himring. The news here was better than that of other parts of Beleriand – Morgoth’s troops were held back, and Lómwë had had no fear for the safety of his wife and son. That is, until now: word that a few negligibly sized raiding parties had broken through their line, not coming to Himring but terrorizing the countryside. Now did Lómwë fear. This news may not have reached Ellothiel; communications were chancy at best in wartime.
He had begged leave to go to his family, and it had been permitted under the circumstances. He hastened home with all possible speed. Fear and dread grew in him every step of the way and fueled him onwards. As he drew near his home, all the weariness caused by the long journey on foot was sucked from him at the sound of cries – unmistakably Orkish cries – in the distance.
He emerged from the woods into the clearing surrounding his home, and his heart almost stopped. White hot anger instantly swallowed any grief or shock bubbling up inside him at the sight of the Orcs regaling in his yard. Their subjects, two bloodied bodies, told him all he needed to know.
With a frenzied cry, Lómwë launched himself at the Orcs as his shining sword sprang to his hand. The first two fell before they could even get their blades up in defense. Three more tried to fight, but could not stand up to his fury. The last one had fled into the woods, but Lómwë found him, too, after a short chase. The offenders dead, Lómwë half-ran, half-stumbled back to his home and collapsed beside the body of his beloved Ellothiel. Her beautiful face was mangled; her body, despoiled. Aradol, similarly bloodied, lay not far away with his small sword still clenched in his hand. The brutal reality of the scene left no room for denial, only despair. For a long time, Lómwë knelt there and wept. His earlier anger gave way to weakness, to grief, and most of all to guilt. Her almost unrecognizable face seemed to accuse him: You said you’d come back – you promised, Lómwë. Where are you? Her words to him echoed in his mind: “And if you don’t come back, Lómwë, then what?”
He had promised.
And what had he done? Given empty words, instilled an empty hope, fostered empty trust, broken the last promise he had ever made to her. Now it was too late. He could do nothing.
But he had promised.
Something inside him had died that day, something that never had and never would return. And so he had learned to shut the pain into the farthest corner of his mind, locked away and never to be recovered. But now the pain and overwhelming guilt flooded back to him full force. Utterly devastated and undone, Lómwë could not look up, could not even care when some dim consciousness recognized that the two messengers and the Diviner entered the room. Let Endamir deal with it; Lómwë was far too sunk in his anguish to care about anything else. I’ll come back. I promise.
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