The Doom causes a huge fight. Maitimo comes over to tell her and Imliss which boat to get on, they're crossing before things get any uglier and then coming back for the successionists. It's not Tyelcormo's boat, he's on one with injured people so someone can sing them across, and it's full.

Yeah, makes sense. More important that he be okay.

The twins sleep very deeply that night.

When they wake the boats have left.

Fuck. Maitimo didn't say they were leaving that night!

Ugh, they're going to have to interact with the people who hate them in the meantime until the boats get back, ugh.

The people who hate them are in a very bad mood, though it improves slightly on seeing the two of them. "We thought they'd stolen away and weren't coming back," someone grudgingly explains to Idaia.

"Sorry to intrude in the meantime."

"You have to admit that Fëanáro's a lunatic unfit to be King."

"That would be an unbecoming thing for me to say, given that I'm married to his son," she says, which she thinks strikes a nice balance between "not lying" and "not telling the guy to fuck off."

It wins her a wary nod, though he doesn't stop glaring.

That evening there are gasps, and screams, and cries of horror and dismay.

This doesn't even surprise her at this point. What is it? she asks a relatively non-glarey person.

They lit the boats on fire.

What?

They reached the other shore and then they lit the boats on fire. All of them, the whole fleet, you can see it burning.

My vision is much poorer than yours, I can't. Can you show me?

So he does. 

"I swear I had no idea they were going to do this."

"Didn't think you did. Now you want to agree that Fëanáro's an egomaniac ruthless paranoid who shouldn't be within ten miles of power?"

"...Yeah," she sighs. "Guess so."

She doesn't mean it, but she keeps that part firmly private. She's going to have to get along with these people longer than she thought, which means making an effort to get along, which means pretending she shares their (admittedly entirely justified at this point) resentment.

Nolofinwë’s voice carries, even in Araman, and the people on the edges of his hearing repeat the words for those behind them. He walks up the rise behind which their tents were sheltered, and the crowd parts around him, and the mists swirl over the deadly land, and he speaks.

“We are thrice betrayed,” he says. “By Melkor, Moringotto, the Enemy who abased himself at the feet of the Valar and swore himself redeemed, and turned at once to sowing hatred and mistrust, who murdered my father and poisoned the light and the joy of our homeland, who seeks now to massacre his way across Endorë and extinguish or enslave our sundered kin.

By the Valar, who in their determination to exercise their rightful rule over their land decided to deny us the right to depart it, promised us freedom and set this Ice in our path, hoping we would return to them like a hungry animal slinks home. 

And by Curufinwë Fëanáro, my brother,  who left us here to die, today. Who was unsuited to Kingship from the start and would, I think, never have desired it if Melkor had not set us at each others’ throats.  His call for vengeance and victory and a new beginning echoed - echoes - in all of our hearts, but in the end he took the easy path, of destroying instead of building, of mistrusting instead of earning trust. He is in Endorë with Melkor now.” Nolofinwë paused. “For a little while I was tempted to turn around and say ‘well, they deserve each other.’”

The crowd laughs.

“My brother’s Oath,” Nolofinwë says, “has already driven him to terrible things and will drive him to failure and death, eventually. And among the crimes that we can lay at his account is this: he intends to make my own oath false, for in the last hours of the light of Aman I swore that I would follow him.” 

Another pause. This ripples through the crowd more slowly than the laughter, and with more gravity. 

“I still intend to,” Nolofinwë says.

“If you desire to turn back, that is not cowardice. It requires, I think, a different kind of courage – for the greatest of those who betrayed us remain behind us, and have sworn their enmity, and may not accept our repentance. I cannot speak ill of anyone who chooses to face them. But I cannot lead you to that. So I will lead you on, if you choose to follow. We will cross the Ice and face the enemy  and prove ourselves stronger, the thrice-betrayed, than they, even fearing us, could possibly imagine.”  He raised his arms. “And they do fear us!” he cried. “Moringotto runs because he fears us. Curufinwë cripples himself in his fear of us.  He cannot win. But we can. We have twice his strength of arms, none of his pathological recklessness, and the strength of character no one ever wrote down academically enough that he could learn it.”

Another laugh. 

“The Ice is dangerous,” Nolofinwë says. “I will not make light of it. It will be terrible and painful and dangerous. Some will die. I ask you not only to chance your own life but the life of your loved ones. And when we reach the end, we will not have reached safety; for the Enemy is there, gathering his strength and killing the innocent. I can promise you only this: we will reach that end, and we will fight that Enemy, and innocent people will live, will thrive, because of our sacrifice.” 

Someone has begun stamping their feet. Others have taken it up, and then others. The ground quakes like a Vala is approaching. Rhythmic. Thunderous.

 “There is a subject on which I have not spoken,” Nolofinwë says, “not since Tirion, to preserve my brother’s delicate sensibilities. My father is dead. He was the King of the Ñoldor, and always will be, and I believe that he will greet our fallen in Mandos with joy and comfort, and be honored to know all of those who fight the Enemy he died facing. Fëanáro claims my father’s crown, and his title.” 

A breathless silence.

“I was willing to give him a chance,” Nolofinwë says mildly, “but I think he’s proven himself unworthy of both.”

A gasp, building to laughter, building to a roar –

“Will you name me your King?” 

And they kneel.

Fuck.

But.

He burned the boats.

She kneels. She's not happy about it, but whatever, she does what she has to do to get across. And when she gets across she's going to spend months with the Nolofinweans and probably yell at them when she sees them again and then she's going to go home, because whatever else her husband was too unconscious to have been responsible for this.

And the host makes its preparations to cross the Ice.

As part of her preparations Idaia reluctantly takes her wedding ring off her finger and wraps it in cloth and sticks it in a pocket; she doesn't want it freezing to her skin.

They take a long time learning the environment and practicing and scouting. But then, food supplies dwindling, they march.

At some point, reluctantly, Idaia goes to find Irisse.

Hey, so I know you're mad at me, and have every right to be, and I know you're mad at Tyelcormo, and have every right to be, but--he got a nasty head wound at Alqualonde and has been unconscious since. I'm not saying that should absolve him of anything else in your eyes, but he didn't have anything to do with burning the boats.

I am not totally sure you wouldn't say that anyway.