The Work of Small Hands by Dawn Felagund

Epilogue

Epilogue
Beyond the thick doors of the king's palace, there is a great deal of noise: voices competing with the minstrels and even the occasional sparkle of laughter across it all. "I think they have all come," says Arafinwë. He is not Finwë. He looks nervous, picking at his robes and touching constantly the golden crown upon his golden hair, offsetting it so that I must step in and straighten it again.

"Of course they have. The first speech by their new king is an occasion to behold."

Arafinwë wanders toward the thick doors, as though he can intuit the better the size of the crowd beyond them if he stands closer. His hand lifts to his mouth, but he gnawed all of his fingernails to the quick days ago; the hand drops again, just as quickly.

He turns to face me. "You should be here. Not me. You deserve it more than I."

It is Arafinwë's nature to doubt, and doubt he has done, again and again, in the days leading up to this event, his official coronation ceremony. With the ugly business behind him of begging for aid and forgiveness before the Valar--upon his knees, hands lifted in supplication--and the slow tedium of restoring Tirion, he wants to put upon me honors that he believes I deserve more than he, justified by the travails I endured during the dark days of his despondency. "None of this would have happened but for you," he tells me constantly. "Tirion would be wasted to nothing and I--well, I would probably be dead."

"That was because of Anairë," I remind him, "that you are not."

"That was because of you and Anairë. Without you to go to the Teleri and Valmar, then Anairë would have gone, and I would have died in her absence. So, yes, I owe my life and the lives our people to you. This crown is yours if you want it."

I laugh gently. "I do not want it, Arafinwë. All that I want, I have already received."

But his face will not smooth. It is his nature to doubt; it is about time, I think, that the Noldor have a king capable of it.

From outside the door, a blare of trumpets announces the imminent arrival of the new Noldorin king. Arafinwë sighs and straightens his robes; I catch his hand before he offsets his crown again and give it a squeeze before taking my place as his wife, beside and slightly behind him.

As the porters open the doors for us and we step forward onto the balcony to the accolades of a crowd that--Arafinwë might well have been right--could possibly include every Noldo of Tirion and some from beyond, I lift my hand to rest upon his back, between his shoulders. It is a familiar sight for the women of our people, I think: the broad shoulders of a man with a woman's small, pale hand in the middle of it.

Gently, I press him forward.