Cradle of Stars by Dawn Felagund, Elleth

No Words

But the next day, Arafinwë returned.

We had requested a meeting at the culmination of work for the day, asking people to come to the square when their hourglasses had nearly run through. I requested that those skilled in cooking prepare a meal for all in gratitude for their attendance; none of us took for granted the acceptance of yet another obligation in our schedules for the day. My request met with grumbles and sighs beyond what one can expect from the characteristically temperamental cooks.

“We are running ever lower on food,” one explained huffily. “These kinds of expenditures—when by necessity we must exceed the usual rations in order to ensure that all are fed—squander what little we have left.”

I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth until I could smile and say, “Trust that the meeting is important and aims to solve the very problem you described. I am grateful that you have chosen to apply your skills to solving this problem for us,” and walked away before further argument could test my patience.

In truth, I was restless, having spent the night before sleepless and tossing in my bed. We survived here only through our work: by plunging daily into a routine of tasks and surfacing only when we were exhausted enough and then only to eat a small meal before collapsing into sleep. We left no time for the invasion of grief, of memories, of doubt. We attacked the problems our little new society faced in lieu of glancing back upon the troubles of our past that we would now never solve and forever regret.

But Eärwen—Eärwen was firmly in the past, the deep past, untouched—as I have said—by the dark. I clutched at her memory like an oyster upon a pearl, hidden in secret recesses: memories grown soft and lustrous to swaddle old hurts, beauty grown out of pain. I never thought of my times with her—I forced myself never to think of my time with her—but she was buried within me nonetheless. I pressed my solar plexus at times, the place where my pearl grew, imagining myself held upright, respectable, even admirable because of that secret luster within me. To wrench it--her--out now, of all times—?

As I made my rounds for the day, tallying production and shuffling workers from one job to the next, I wondered if I would be permitted to go to Alqualondë. I had a young girl who, when she could be spared from Nerdanel’s bellows, was learning my work, but she was far from ready to function on her own, even if Nerdanel didn’t require her. Yet I was a scholar of the Telerin language and tradition; my “great friendship” with Eärwen was one of the diplomatic threads connecting my people and hers—it made sense that I should go.

I should go, came the thought. I am one of the Four Queens. I should insist upon it.

But then the reasons began to surface as to why I could not, should not: a crisis in the supply chain for the glassworks, my apprentice’s voice shaking as she fumbled instructions to a surly chemist before I interceded, a broken axle on one of the few wagons that had been left to us, a dwindled apple harvest and the damned temperamental cooks nearly shouting at me as I suggested substituting pears? grapes? peaches?

And reasons I could never speak aloud and dared not even think.

The time of the meeting came and people began to flow from their kitchens and fields and workshops toward the fountain-then-bonfire, now converted a second time into a platform for address. They came wiping their hands, removing aprons and gloves, stretching sore muscles. An hour of labor had been shaved from their days, but their anxious eyes contained no gratitude for it. They stood awkwardly with little to say to each other, for even offhand, innocent comments could trigger painful recollections. They wanted busy hands and exhausted minds chased free of thought.

When the inflow had slowed to a trickle, Indis climbed onto the platform and said, “We regret that we had to call your early from your labors today, but we cannot overstate our gratitude that you were willing to come and listen to us.” The crowd stepped closer to hear her, and she turned and nodded to me.

Our status was uncertain here. I was the wife of the last High King—albeit disputed—while she was the wife of Finwë, abdicated but undisputed and now dead. I sensed in the exchange of glances and shifting of feet when I took my place the old factions, that not all were willing to relinquish Indis as their queen. She sensed it too and stepped back at my side. “The idea we bring to you was Anairë’s. It is just that she speaks of it. We have always valued merit.”

We. The Noldor—from a golden-haired Vanya who could have fled long ago to the adamantine halls of Valmar and the sheltering of the Valar but who had stayed alongside my husband—her son—and counseled him as king. I reached over and squeezed her hand. “We will have no factions here,” she said. Her voice was neither loud nor stern. “We will return to judgment of ideas on their merits, not on bloodlines and marriage. Those things matter no longer; they have forsaken us and we shall not honor them.”

She stood aside.

“People of the Noldor,” I began. I tried, I really did, to emulate the comfortable authority of Indis, but I found myself reverting to the overenunciated and slightly pompous speech favored by my husband. “Long have we trusted the Teleri as our allies and friends. It is time to both call upon and offer reaffirmation of that friendship. I have consulted with the other queens, and I have suggested that—”

There was a ripple in the crowd, a turning of heads, and I sensed I was losing them. I used to cringe when Nolofinwë became louder and more archaic at such moments, and here I was poised to do it myself. “I have proposed, and the others of the queens have agreed”—I barely stopped myself from saying ratified—“that we should approach King Olwë—”

“The prince!” I heard someone exclaim, and I was confused. All heads were turning away now; the people were shifting away from the platform and constricting into two groups, making an avenue down their middle that led between the road and the platform.

Arafinwë rode into the circle of torchlight. He’d had a gray mare, not particularly spirited but loyal and enduring. Her footfalls were arrhythmic with lameness; the pristine white clothing in which he’d departed the city—clothing so white that it seemed to reflect what small light there was until he appeared to glow—was dulled by dust from the road. He brought no baggage, and exhaustion slumped his shoulders: exhaustion in he who had once been the most indefatigable of us, the most tenacious in hope and love. He’d never stopped loving Fëanáro. He’d never stopped believing in—and working toward—the reunification of our people. His braids were ragged. One of his riding gloves was missing, the wedding band beneath capturing the torchlight so that his slim white hand bore a brand of flame.

A wordless cry and Indis ran to him. The hope none of us dared—the return of a child—had come to her unlooked for. He dismounted and it was plain to see that it was her strength that held him upright for those first moments before he mastered his buckling knees and adjusted his tattered cloak and lifted his eyes to the three of us on the platform.

From the road behind him, other horses and riders were emerging from the dark: a haunted, pale people, gaunt, with eyes overlarge in their faces.

“Amil,” he said. He stood on his own now but held both Indis’s hands in his. He looked again to us. “Sisters.” He turned to the silent, staring people in the crowd. “My people. My Noldorin people.”

Arafinwë did not like to speak in front of groups. He would sing or play a small guitar he’d fashioned or playact, but he did not like to give speeches. He would push one of his brothers or his son Findaráto or the small, vibrant Eärwen in front of him. “They do not want to hear from me.”

The voice that spoke now might never again sing or playact or laugh. “My Noldorin people. There are no words for what I have seen.”