Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Aínwar's eyes glowered with firelight.

She stirred the tea leaves in the pot, listlessly watching as they spun around in a frothy dance. She'd conducted similar tea ceremonies many times before. Nearly thirty years she'd lived in this cold, ancient place, and tea had always soothed her to sleep, especially when the cries of dragons outside kept her awake. But this time, the bitter, earthy stench gave her stomach a convulsive lurch. These particular leaves were collected from a different foliage, a plant she'd travelled for days through wind and snow to find.

A journey, she realized, she was now beginning to regret.

The Matron Mother peered down, scrutinizing the preparations. Her bone jewelry clattered on the lip of the pot.

"Well?" she asked. "How does it smell?"

"Absolutely foul," Aínwar said.

"Excellent. There, see that froth? It's ready."

Aínwar eyed the Matron Mother as she shuffled away. The hunched woman had lived a long time and had helped prepare this brew for Aínwar's mother and her mother before that, nearly a millennia ago. Now, she did the same for Aínwar, who was humorlessly imagining that the Matron Mother had dusted in an ingredient that would make the concoction smell nastier and nastier as it boiled.

The wind howled outside of the cave. Aínwar stared at her reflection in the murky liquid, solemnly acknowledging that her face had looked different every year since birth.

As of tonight, it would remain unspoiled by time, enduring and eternal as the stars.

"Rise, Aínwar."

Aínwar leapt obediently to her feet, the sound of her own bone pendants echoing loudly. She stood stone-still, hardly daring to breathe, as the Matron Mother walked circles around her in meticulous inspection. The old woman grabbed Aínwar's wrist, feeling her pulse; she wrapped her bony hands around the curve of her calves, her shoulders, grabbing her hair...then, after a moment, she touched Aínwar's forehead and hummed with approval.

"The dress suits you," she said shortly.

Usually, Aínwar was cloaked in heavy robes, layers upon layers of furs and wool to shield her from the formidable northern weather. Tonight, she wore her mother's gold-embroidered tunic, trembling under the pitifully thin fabric. But she accepted it with quiet grace. It followed an ancient tradition, for this was Zenta'ganna's own gown, tailored and imbued with a powerful magic during the First Age. Besides, Aínwar knew she would not be cold for long…not after the mythical brew passed her lips.

Then she would be a true Firekeeper. One with a dragonfire heart.

The Matron Mother seemed to read her thoughts.

"Zenta'ganna herself would be proud to see you wearing this," she said. "So would your mother. Tonight, you inherit a formidable responsibility. It isn't one to take lightly, and it cannot be easily abandoned. If only I could adequately translate the suffering experienced by all the Firekeepers before you…but that is your own path to walk. You will learn, child. You will learn."

The steely edge around her voice softened.

"Are you ready?"

Aínwar had spent her entire life preparing for this moment. She nodded fractionally, lips pursed taut. If she kept her eyes fixated on the snow outside, she could imagine that she was a small child again, free of ancestral obligation...listening to the Matron Mother's stories of Middle Earth on stormy nights, just like this one.

The Matron Mother presented a wooden cup to Aínwar, who received the drink with rueful care. Refusing to look, she swallowed thickly as the pungent smell wafted up to her nose.

"You are the third Firekeeper I've served now," said the Mother. Her eyes were clouded with age, but for the first time since before Aínwar, they had taken on a startling clarity. "When your mother's mother drank the brew, her visions were filled with strife and anguish. She saw endless war. The return of a shadow over the land. Death. It has been a thousand years, and still her dreams have not yet come to pass."

For a period, there was little sound but the screaming wind.

"But, your mother…she saw you."

Aínwar closed her eyes. "I worry that, whatever visions come to me, I might be better off without them."

"Ah, three times now I've heard that. Some things never change."

There was a narrow bed closer to the back; the Matron Mother led Aínwar to it, lowering her gently onto the cushions. Aínwar diligently kept the cup upright, afraid to spill even a drop. Only once the back of her head touched the pillows did she begin to panic. Despite laying in the same cave, with the same cabinets and cookware, and the same blankets and crackling fire…she suddenly felt very far away from everything she had ever known, like her soul had exited her body and was floating, watching it all transpire from above.

Thirty years she'd awaited this moment. Now, she wished she could go back.

"I know not how long you will sleep," said the Matron Mother from the bedside. She folded her legs beneath her, getting comfortable. "The first time, I waited only three months. Your mother kept me waiting for twenty years. And I cannot tell you what you will see, or if it will even matter in the end. That will be up to you."

Aínwar's heart was hammering. "Matron Mother—"

"I know, dearest, but it's time to sleep. You shall dream. Then you shall be reborn."

All of her breath escaped her in one heavy rush. Nervously, she raised the cup to her lips. The awful odor penetrated all of her senses, nearly making her retch.

"Drink, Aínwar Firekeeper."

Aínwar drank. She gulped down every last drop, even when the brew bubbled in her gut, threatening to rise again. Its vile taste lingered as a thick residue on her tongue; the crushed leaves stuck themselves in her teeth. The Matron Mother nodded approvingly, then leaned back, waiting. Little time passed before all of Aínwar's vision began to sway. Her whole body itched with an intense, prickling heat. Sweat beaded on her temples.

Then she leaned back against the pillow and closed her eyes.

Aínwar woke to a dark, colorless fog.

A thousand sensations overwhelmed her at once. The adrenaline started deep in her stomach and quickly ascended to her heart. She felt like she was fourteen, having climbed a mountain for the first time, looking out across the waste to Ered Mithrin. Few memories could compare.

Then, instantly, she was present at that memory. She was there. Her body was young and small again, swaying against the wind pulling at her furs. The cold bit at her fingers as she pointed to the sky.

Look, Tarlaeth! she called, grinning. The aurora!

Tarlaeth? Aínwar didn't see the dragon anywhere…but by the time she turned around, things had gone dark again, and the nostalgic sense of wonder which had so fleetingly touched her heart disappeared. The cold, however, remained. It pinched at her bare skin, stinging.

Aínwar shivered. "Hello?"

The steam of her breath rose up and dispersed into shimmering mist. She looked upwards and saw with confused wonder that the aurora had endured this strange hallucination, their colors more vivid than ever in the black fog. She tentatively reached up and touched the prismatic ribbons. They rippled around her fingers, like a stream of rainbow water.

A woman's voice suddenly pierced the dream:

We shall keep you safe — but above all, truthfully we are in YOUR hands, Aínwar Firekeeper.

"Hello?" Aínwar asked the darkness again. "Who are you?"

She mused on this for a moment.

"Well," she said, "none of this is real, after all. What if…"

She willed the aurora to come closer and, to her surprise, it did. Now she could walk through it with ease. Unable to suppress her laughter, she danced through the colors, letting the light wash over her...and many voices began to talk to her at once:

Do not give her the flame she desires, lest she remember what she is, and burn us as they burned Erebor!

Care to explain the meaning behind your irritatingly impertinent smile, Firekeeper?

You do not hate me, Aínwar. You love me.

I knew you would come for duty, but I dreamed you would come for me.

No, not many voices. Only one. All the same, just of many different sounds and tones — some irate, others dense with passion.

"T-," Aínwar started.

Her voice wavered. The edge of the syllable idled on her tongue.

Whose name had she meant to call? She'd just been so certain of it, whatever it was. Her trembling fingers hovered above her lips. Feeling like she'd just lost something very important, she thought she might cry, only at what she didn't know just yet.

Before she could gather her bearings, another sea of voices began to wash over her. They started as foamy ripples by her feet, then submerged her entirely:

— inside — a tempest — dragonfire — drowned by your seas — the tides — so much like fire and water — I could do this for e—

"For eternity?" 

Her words suddenly felt loud and real. Sheets soft as a summer breeze were pulled over her head, tickling the tips of her ears. Though they were distant and distorted, she could hear the sounds of a world unknown to her — the cries of birds, never heard before on the north wind; the roar of water, as much an entire mountain melted; her name, as it hadn't ever been said before, whispered from the pair of lips brushing over her brow... 

For eternity, meleth nîn, said a man.

The voice came from somewhere abstract, somewhere beyond. Far beyond the pair of beautiful blue eyes in front of her. She stared into them, mesmerized. His features were obscure, unidentifiable.

"Oh, my love, I was having a terrible dream," she found herself saying. It was all very unintentional, as she was not willing these words on her own. They were simply coming out of her. She sensed a palm on her cheeks, a thumb caressing her jaw. "Long before we sailed, when you were nearly—"

Hush now, Aínwar, the transcendental voice commanded, but softly. Why do you dream of memories from Ages past? We are here now, as we have been together for all this time, everlasting.

Tears gathered in her eyes. She went to wipe them away but could not move either. The heat of the stranger's face came close...close enough to steal her breath, to grind her bones, her whole being, into dust...and just before their lips touched, the vision fell away and vanished with a foggy flourish. The ocean of her dreams stilled and she emerged at the surface of the water, whereupon crystal moonlight illuminated the darkness, watching as the man's blue eyes faded from her memory, as waves recede with the tides, the totality of which controlled by a celestial importance far greater than any known gravity.

Aínwar meant to say his name. She could sense it, in the same way she could read the stars or how she could smell the snow long before it ever clouded over the mountains. 

Invisible, yes, but etched — no, scorched — into her bones.

The aurora once again bathed her in light. Exhausted by her journey, she stood weakly in witness to a new onslaught of visions. She was dancing, a golden gown swirling around her figure; standing at the foot of a tremendous, shadowy mountain; laughing with a stranger; dreaming; crying; screaming, reaching out; there was a blinding light and a sword that shined...a flame which engulfed her...and all of these visions happened so quickly that she became overwhelmed and fell to her knees, sobbing…then she was running towards a tower of dragonfire, her hair flying around her face as she turned to look for —

Who?

Then Aínwar really did wake up. 

She flew up with a gasp, still tasting the stranger's already forgotten name. She stared breathlessly at the wooden cup, empty of its contents now. An infinite amount of time seemed to have passed since she'd forced it down. Daylight had broken through the darkness. The fire had burnt out. A layer of powdery snow covered the floors, reaching as far as her blankets. She threw them from her and leapt out of bed, unable to wait to tell her story.

"Oh, Matron Mother, I—"

But the Matron Mother hadn't waited this time. Not as she had done for a thousand years.

Not for Aínwar.

Suppressing a choked sob, she leaned forward and closed the old woman's eyes.