My Wish for You by kiniro-no-hana

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Chapter 1

First of all, thank you for reading this, I hope it will meet your expectations! Secondly, I regret my inability to write happy things for this fandom. Will be following up with a second chapter fluffier than an Angora rabbit to remedy this.

          Nerdanel relished in the feeling of warm sheets on her skin, twisting to her other side and enjoying the wide expanse of bed left to her since Fëanáro left on a short excursion to a nearby mine. It was still too early to take Tyelkormo on trips, and she honestly saw no novelty in going to a mine after having practically been born in one herself. And so Fëanáro had left without her, waxing on about the great wonders she would be missing out on and promising to bring back something interesting for the boys.

            “Amil…” As if summoned by her thoughts, her second-eldest son poked his head through the double doors of her bedroom.

            “Yes, love?” She sat up in bed and held out her arm for her son. As he trotted over, she saw that Tyelkormo was held in his arms.

            “Amil, Turco’s seen a bad dream, and he looks sad. Can you fix him?” He proffered his younger brother to his mother like a present, supporting the babe with both hands. Nerdanel laughed and carefully scooped Tyelkormo into her arms. He squeaked happily and pulled at a lock of her short-cropped hair.

            “Hmm, I think I may be able to. Climb up here with me, Kano.” She patted the empty expanse next to her, and her eldest clambered over her and sat down on the bed.

            “Now, you said he saw a bad dream.” She remarked as she poked her baby’s tummy experimentally. When Turco giggled with delight and plucked at her cotton night-dress, she leveled a knowing look at Macalaurë. He shuffled about, avoiding her gaze, and sat on his hands.  “But this doesn’t look like a frightened baby to me, Kano.”

            “He was crying before…” He murmured, still not looking his mother in the face. She smirked before she plopped Tyelkormo onto Macalaurë’s lap. Then she scooped up both of them and drew the covers over all three.

            “Now if my intuition has served me right, you are lying to me Kanafinwe, and that is not how I raised you.” She kissed his hair and then tilted his head back so she could look him in the eye.

            “I…I didn’t mean to…” He stuttered; holding on to Turco as the baby tried to crawl away, “Atar says I am too old to come crying to you, but since Tyelkormo is still little, I thought you’d let me stay if it was for him, and I was scared and no one was there and Nelyo would hate me and there was…”

            “Shhh, it’s alright.” Nerdanel wrapped both arms around him as he began to stifle soft sobs, rocking him back and forth. “Do not cry Kano. I am not angry, and you are safe. Shhh.”

            “Amil!” He cried, letting go of Turco and clinging to her torso as he sobbed. Unaffected by his brother’s distress, Tyelkormo yawned and nestled himself in the blankets before nodding off. Macalaurë cried for a good while, as Nerdanel continued to shush and rock him. Eventually, he regained some control and his wailing sobs quieted.

            “Now why do you say Nelyo would hate you?” She wiped his tears with a sheet and offered him a handkerchief from her nightstand to blow his nose.

            “Because I am always bothering him with my dreams and he is too nice to tell me to go away, but I know he wants to because I always wake him up when I have bad dreams and I am afraid he will hate me for it even though he says it’s okay…”

            “Nelyo is a gentle person, Kano. He says it’s okay because he loves you and doesn’t want to see you sad. He will not hate you for something out of your control.”

            “But Amil, he is always doing everything for everyone and he never says no! And he works so hard and people rely on him a lot but there is only so much room in a person for other people before they are left with no room for their selves! And I am afraid that I will take too much room from Nelyo and he will hate me!” Macalaurë exclaimed, pounding his fists against his knees in frustration. Nerdanel marveled, for she had never realized Macalaurë had seen so deeply into the troubles she’d also noticed in her eldest.

            “Then that is proof that you will not, Macalaurë.”

            “What?” He looked up at her, puzzlement written all over his small face.

            “You are right in saying that a person may be too giving and end up being stretched thin, because they are so used to giving to others that they have not learned how to give to themselves. And if no one notices this, and they are left to continue giving when they do not wish to, they will grow angry and resentful.’

           ‘But you are aware that he only has so much to give, and so you are careful of how much you take. That is exactly what Nelyo needs, and he will love you all the more for it.”

            “Really?”

            “Really. I promise.” She smiled down at him, twined their thumbs and chanted the promise-rhyme. *

            “Now tell me about this bad dream.” She peeked over to make sure Tyelkormo was still sleeping in his blanket-nest, and then returned her attention to Macalaurë.

            “I…I dreamt…” Macalaurë looked to the great window that ran from ceiling to floor on the right hand side of the room and hesitated, as if he saw something beyond it which quelled his voice.

            “Yes, love? What dream did you see?” She prodded gently, shaking him gently. He looked up to her with distant eyes, and she felt a jolt of recognition.

             “I was standing on the shore of a lake, and it was horribly dark, like the inside of a cupboard, but the stars were very pretty. Then I saw Atar come out of the forest, holding a pretty lantern. It was shaped like the ones he invented last month, but it felt wrong. The lantern wasn’t lit, but Ata walked just fine in the dark. When I called to him, he looked at me and then his whole body slowly turned to dust...” Macalaurë swallowed loudly, and panted despite not moving at all. Nerdanel held him closer, noticing that he had begun to tremble.

            “When…his hand went away, the lantern fell. But before it broke, it shone bright like Varda’s eyes, and after it shattered the light escaped and flew above me, into the sky. With it gone, everything was dark, and then...There were voices coming out of the trees. People were screaming at me, and Turco ran out of the forest, and his hair is going to be silver, did you know?” He remarked in a toneless voice, as if he were reciting a very basic and useless fact. Yet he still clung to his mother, and refused to look at her. She abjectly wondered if he was trying to protect her from the horror of his nightmare, as if he thought the images were burned into his retinas for all to see.

            “Turco ran out of the trees, and there were other people with him…They were my brothers too, I think, but I cannot remember anything about them…And he screamed at me, and shook me, but I could not move. He was very angry, and then he punched me. I fell back into the lake, and that’s when I woke up.” With that, he fell silent. Nerdanel stared down at his chocolate brown hair, feeling trepidation and fierce protectiveness in equal measure. It was a prophetic dream, that much was clear, but deciphering its meaning would have to wait till a later time. She had prayed that none of her children would be given the gift she inherited from her mother, and she had believed this to be true up until now.

            “Kano, baby, it’s alright. Nothing bad is going to happen to Ata. Nothing is going to break.” She murmured into his hair as she rocked him. “Nelyo does not hate you, he will not, and everyone will be alright. It was just a dream.”

            At that, he looked up at Nerdanel with elderly, worn eyes. It seemed to her that she was looking into the face of one who had survived many toils and horrors, and knew he must endure yet more, and did not remember why. Fear bore into her gut like a great mining drill, and she clutched her son to her, kissing his cheek and muttering soothing words she could not remember. Yet now she was the one that stared out of the window in terror, for the raw emotion in Macalaurë’s last sentence cut her heart to the quick.

            “Am-Amil…He did not come out of the forest. Nelyo was not there.”

                                                                                                                                             

Chapter End Notes

* It's one of my personal headcanons that Nerdanel is not considered "unlovely" because she's particularly ugly, but rather because she keeps her hair cut in a bob and engages in traditionally male professions. Since evles find hair to be such an important aspect of beauty, without it she is considered plain and homely. The way she chooses to portray herself is in too strong a contrast to society's parameters of beauty for her to be considered beautiful (I'm sure Feanor would have his arguments on the matter).

In this verse, Nerdanel is sporadically gifted with prophetic dreams, and this gift she passed on to her son Maglor, who was noted for being most like his mother in mood. The dreams are the source of her desire to understand her world rather than impress her opinion on others.

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