"Fulgurite" and Other Drabbles by Dawn Felagund

One Million Candles

Fëanor and Nerdanel remember their wanderings fondly, but they weren't always pleasant. Until they were.

prompt: always been best for discovering

Fëanor could walk for hours in a dead-straight line, unseeing, over rocks and rivers, so loud were his thoughts. Nerdanel lagged, learned to tell locations by the wildflowers, scanned the landscape for something worthy of catching his sleeve: “My love, look …”

Later, they’d fondly remember their wanderings, but in truth, they weren’t always pleasant. On the fifteenth day of rain, misery punctured even Fëanor’s thoughts. He knelt in the muck that would not hold their tent stakes, cursed and slapped at it.

“My love. Look.” The cave she’d found, quartz-lined. The feeble candle they had managed became one million.