Light of the Westering Sun by Dawn Felagund

Light of the Westering Sun

I.
The young girl before Haleth trembled. "I do not regret it," she said in the heavily accented speech of those from this part of the world. "I do not regret it, and so I accept your sentence, for you are my chief." She bowed her head in reverence, but not shame.

The girl's hands were folded in her lap to keep them from shaking, sun-dark hands upon virgin-white cloth. "That is a lie!" her father had announced, delivering her to Haleth's cottage by the ear, thrusting his finger at the white dress. "That dress is a lie, and she is only alive for fourteen turns of the sun!" Spitting upon the girl who cringed for the briefest moment before bringing her shoulders straight again.

"A lie!"

Haleth let her eyes close at the memory of his voice. The girl was silent.

For what could she say? Unless touched by love, it remained inexplicable, the stuff of song and legend, like eagles with wings of cloud that filled the sky: certainly heard of but not truly believed.

"Go," Haleth said at last. "Go and be with the one that you love. I am unable to judge the choice of one's heart."

II.
She still dreamt of him. Remembered him. With her eyes closed, she imagined what he might be doing at any given moment of the day. Sitting down to supper at the end of his long feast table, eating with his right hand or his left, depending on his mood. Or riding alone across empty meadows, the same sun warming his face that warmed hers. Writing a letter to his brother that contained all that he wanted to say, then rewriting the letter with what he was permitted to say and burning the first. Sleeping in his vast bed, naked under furs, eyelids and fingertips twitching as they guided him through dreams.

Always alone.

She imagined them meeting at the intersection of their dreams. He kissed her mouth and warmed her hands with his. Her hands seemed always cold since they'd parted. He enveloped her in his arms, and she heard his heart beating right there, beneath her ear. How she envied the blood that ran his body and never need leave him! "Haleth, I have missed you so--"

Then awakening and finding herself staring at the thatched roof of her cottage, so far away from him, and still alone.

III.
On the eve of the departure of Haleth and her people, Caranthir had held a feast in her honor, a formal and glittering affair in the ways of his people, with silent, unsmiling waiters delivering multiple courses of food that she could not identify and stiff dances to complex, soulless music. It was a warm summer night, and the feast was held in a courtyard with Fëanorian lanterns strung between the revelers and the stars, blue lamps that seemed stars themselves, swaying with the breeze, forming constellations new and strange.

As the feast concluded, he stood and--he who did not dance--offered his hand to her for a turn around the dance floor. The steps were set and space required between them. Neither looked at the other: He gazed at the stars and she upon his black-clad shoulder.

Later, in the forest, they performed for the last time a different dance familiar but no less sweet: one of entwined bodies, with rhythm but no music. Let this night never end! she found herself wishing, and his thought came up against hers: You have the power to make it so.

No longer did anything stand between them and the stars.

IV.
Once she came upon bare feet to his study, unnoticed, and heard him within talking to his brother.

Maedhros stood tall and splendid, though maimed and cursed, but Caranthir slumped in a chair and stared into the fire. Haleth turned to leave as quietly as she had come. But then--

"I see how you look at her. I know that there is love for her in your heart." Maedhros's voice was no less beautiful than his form. Against her better judgment and feeling shame heat her face, she paused to listen.

"I will not judge you, Brother," said Maedhros, "I, who has held too many women in love. But I bid you to think of the wisdom of what you undertake. The fates of our kindreds are to be sundered."

Caranthir said nothing.

"Better to end this on your own accord, for your bliss will be fleeting."

"All the same," said Caranthir at last, in a voice gentle and complacent, "if a siege came upon us from Angband, forty orcs for each of our own kind, you would stand against it, though you would forsake your life. You do what your heart bids you. As I do what bids mine."

V.
And so she'd known that he loved her. But when had she loved him?

It was the longest day of the year and a cause for celebration among her people. The longest day, the day of light, the day when evil had fewer chances to hook its hold; the day when all wishes were safe to make, spoken in whispers with one's back to the wind.

Some wished for fertility and others for plentitude. Many yet wished for love. Haleth wished for nothing but the safety of her people, which she never spoke aloud, trusting it not to the wind, even on the day of light. They danced and they sang that day, but she walked among them, and she was silent.

But there was a stir among them: He had come. He. Their savior. His raiment was plain, like he wished not to be noticed, and he had braided wooden beads and feathers into a plait in his hair, as did her people. Only his eyes distinguished him, for they possessed the same mournful light as the westering sun.

With a gasp, her wish escaped her and was borne upon the wind.

His eyes lifted, and they met hers.

VI.
When Haleth was a little girl, there was a wise woman in their tribe, and she was rumored to have taken three husbands, with children scattered across the lands like dandelion seeds on a brisk breeze, though all husbands and many children were now dead. The woman toddled along, leaning on her gnarled staff, and Haleth followed, and she secretly thought that the wise woman's downfall had always been love.

"Not at all," the woman said, though Haleth had not spoken. Maybe she sensed it, in the way Haleth held her shoulders as the woman taught her to gather herbs and speak the charms to cure hoofrot in the goats or tell the sex of a baby by the way a stone tumbled down the mother's belly. "Love bought me my wisdom."

"I would love a pony," said the sharp-tongued Haleth, and the woman laughed.

Once, passing in the shadow of the mountains, they'd seen Wood Elves standing a silent guard at the bounds of their lands. "Those are not our sort, girl," the wise woman warned. "Best to keep away."

But Haleth looked back often as they moved back to unguarded lands. And the wise woman never stopped her.