Starlight by Aerlinn

1.

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Her feet hurt. 

She was exhausted, but admitting that would most certainly spell defeat. So she stayed up all night, again, until he talked about stars caught in hair again, forgot she was human again, only to remember it in the morning again. Got up with a guilty look on his face again, left on his horse mumbling something unintelligible about time and mortality again, leaving her to stare intently into the polished bronze mirror again with only the sounds of the dawn chorus to keep her company while the village slowly woke up around her. 

She didn't have wrinkles yet, but sometimes when she laughed a lot two little lines would temporarily take shape around her mouth. He always made her laugh a lot. He made her just as happy as heartbroken and uncertain, and it really wasn't fair at all, Fair Folk or not. She had not even known she had little lines on her face already before he came. It was like by speaking of her mortality all the time when she tried to talk about their relationship (or lack thereof) he had only added to her aging, or at least made the tracks of time visible to her before her time. Well, and the mirror had helped too. It had been one of the gifts to her family the Noldor made every once in a while to show their continuing good will towards their Edain allies. She rather suspected they were merely trinkets to them, a rather lousy exchange for her people's blood and burnt villages really, but her people did not seem to notice or mind and who was she to complain? Although the Dark God may have hated or at least wanted to change all Elves, he certainly didn't seem so certain about mortals. Everyone had at least heard tales of proud the Eastern captains in His service with their red and black armor and dark, kohl-lined eyes. But they were tales from far, far away and in the remembrance of the Edain the ways of that deity had often been savage; he demanded sentient sacrifices more often than any other, and the Noldor had shown them a light and beauty no human could simply forget. She least of all. She could hardly blame her father for wanting to rush to the aid any of the shining ones to his peril when she herself kept blindly rushing after one even when he led her to rush into walls again and again.  

They had danced by the lake again last night, and it had been beautiful enough to make her forget about sleep, about death, about differences and mysterious bridges that could only be crossed by night. He had stayed for two days this time - a record! - and played her brother's fiddle until she had almost collapsed from trying to keep dancing as if she did not tire or need any sleep. 

When he didn't look, she had rubbed the lines beside her mouth until they disappeared into her cheeks again. For now. She feared the day they would not disappear anymore.

She fears the day they will be visible under starlight. 

She does not want to know, but knows somehow with a glimpse of what will in the future cause others to name her one of the Wise that he will leave her not all that long from now, not truly have her at least, not without the illusion of starlight and immortality, leave the first time her step falters or a line sneaks its way onto her face. And that she could have no other is a given, even if somehow she could convince her heart to one day. She has seen the scornful looks the young men of the village send her when she makes her exhausted way to the market, her feet blistered and painful in her boots. Sometimes when she stares into the bronze mirror she sees a void and loneliness reflected back at her she can scarcely grasp yet, an emptiness and a sudden flame. Andreth does not understand, but feels it all the more.  

And so she dances on, rubs the fragile skin at the corners of her mouth and hopes the moon will mask her mortality once more as she makes her way to the lake.

Later, when he tells her not to move because he has fallen in love with her starlit reflection in the water, she will throw her mirror into the lake after he leaves. She will not miss it.

When he does not come back she will find she has grown accustomed to staying awake. It will not be long before she starts reading at night to chase the silence away, before she starts visiting old Adanel in her house outside the village and learns to become a witch instead, or a Wise one - whichever you prefer - and finds out that there is no charm against age, although there are certainly tales about who caused it. 

Sometimes, she still dances by the lake. But she never seems to catch any stars, and when she is tired, she goes to sleep.

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Chapter End Notes

I usually envision Andreth a little more intelligent at an earlier age. I like to think her Noldorin fling came about in part because she didn't just worship the ground they walked on and for some reason imagine her with a fairly large amount of caustic wit (which in my opinion is probably the only way to deal with Finweans anyway). After all, how likely is Aegnor falling for her superior looks when he was born in Valinor? I'm sure she was very pretty, but I guess I think most Elven ladies would still have been more dazzling. But then I went and wrote this. Oh well.