Niphredil by Dawn Felagund, Grundy, , Idrils Scribe, , Nienna

Amarië

Written by Dawn Felagund.

Amarië couldn't find the right word. It was the poet's plight--that's what Elemmírë, her longtime mentor called it--that itch on the edge of her brain as the word stirred itself but would not come forth. The birds in the trees, usually a gentle backdrop to her work, were suddenly so loud to be distracting, as though her mind was looking for any reason not to complete this commission to adequate satisfaction.

The poem was for Ingwë, to be read at the first gathering of the three Valinorean kings and the two returned kings from Middle-earth: Ingwë, Olwë, Arafinwë, Elwë Singollo, and her own Findárato. Although the gathering had not been formally declared as such, it was widely understood to be a reforging of alliances, of seeing themselves again not in terms of clan but as a single Eldarin people.

Amarië's poem should reflect that theme, but everything she penned came out episodic, singing the praises of one people before moving on to the others. The connections, too often, were of mingled blood spilled amid treachery and war. Like a stained glass window, each stood vivid and resplendent but utterly apart, untouching. Furthermore, why--how--could she, Amarië of the Vanyar, who hadn't ever set foot further than Alqualondë, write of such far-flung places and unusual people?

And now this word tickled at her brain, likewise undiscovered, a microcosmic symbol of her problems with the commission as a whole … Amarië would have to confess that, at that point, she flung her quill across the room. Or tried to. It was a feather; it did not fling far before tumbling to the floor in a most unsatisfying way.

From the road came the distant sound of hooves, drawing closer. Amarië welcomed the distraction to climb the tower and peer out over the road. Yes, a messenger wagon approached the house she shared with Findárato. She let herself become lost in a flurry of preparation. She was wearing an old patchwork tunic, made from her favorite dresses as a girl, grown soft and worn with overuse, and it was hardly appropriate for receiving a visitor, even just a messenger. Now she was a queen, after all--no matter if her husband's realm did not extend far beyond a workshop, garden patch, and a stripe of forest better for hunting mushrooms than hart--and she sensed that the eccentricities once permitted her as a spinster poet were no longer appropriate. She slipped a gown over the tunic--it had an inkstain on the skirt, but she could stand in such a way to hide that--and slipped down the stairs right as the birds quieted with the arrival of the messenger.

Findárato had heard the hooves as well and was leaving his workshop as Amarië exited the house, trying to walk how she imagined queens should walk. He'd gone to no such trouble. His tunic was half unlaced in the heat of the afternoon, and there was a smudge of red clay on one cheek.

Amarië went through the correct motions with the messenger: offered him a cold cup of water and a place to sit in the shade, had a groom tend the horses, said all the appropriately grateful things about the necessity of his profession to those who, like they, lived in the hinterlands. She hoped the messenger would remember her in the city as graceful and the rumor would spread and, with the same persistence as the ivy picking at the stones of her tower, efface her reputation as the poet who mumbled to herself and did her marketing only to return home to discover her tongue ink-blackened from licking her quills. He declined all of her hospitality but the water for him and his horses and was swiftly gone on to the next farm and another delivery. As the hoofbeats faded, Amarië stripped off the gown, right there in front of the house, and fanned the old patchwork tunic to cool skin dampened by too many layers in the sun on a hot afternoon. Only then did she notice Findárato, still waiting with a box in his hands and another, larger, at his feet.

His eyes laughed like sunrise on the sea: blue and bright with the memory not just of Light but of having gone forth to the world. " My Amarië, my queen," he said, "who would rather wear a comfortable tunic than open the gift sent to her from across the world."

"There's a word I can't--" she began and then stopped. The word sat square on her tongue. Anneal. A strange, Noldorin word but one of unity, of strengthening. Exotic, but not unpleasant. "Valar …" she gasped, "from across the world?"

Gently, the box in his hands was opened. The crown within was too resplendent for the likes of her, but it sat weightlessly upon her golden hair as though it was meant to rest there. Findárato kissed her face; smeared her with his red clay, named her with undeserving praise until the tears brightened her eyes.

Next came the box at his feet, filled with bulbs, so carefully packed for their long journey. He put his face into them to smell their scent and that of the earth that still clung to them, then held them to her. This was the scent of his home for many long years. What he breathed in his lungs--what he knew of the world--when we were apart.

With their scent in her nose, her mind ventured to wild places: to the dappled light beneath ancient trees, rivers that murmured with the secrets of Creation, a world awakened and enlivened by Vása so warm upon her shoulders. From the cradle of Valinor, he had brought forth healing and arts there and now returned with something else, with a strain of the Music that teemed with unfettered life, with the joy of stretching to the sun and not stopping.

Amarië awakened from her reverie with the poem complete not in her mind much less on paper but in her heart, on her knees in the dooryard, stretching hands filled with bulbs to Vása, in a patchwork tunic and a crown as fair as any worn by a queen on either side of the sea. "We should plant these," she said to Findárato, as he helped her to her feet, "right away."

As Vása sank toward Vai and its journey through the dark and toward another morning, Amarië sat again in her tower, the rejected quill in hand. She stroked its feathers lovingly, as if in apology. There was dirt on her knees: the earth of Valinor now mingled in a small way with the earth of Endor. Some of the bulbs had already had green life emerging, so eager were they to live in their new land. Even now, they twined unfamiliar flesh amid the familiar earths of her home.

That was it, she thought: the roots in the dirt, ancient castoffs stitched into something new and loved, the ivy on her tower grasping green life to stone, the words from over the sea that had slipped into their speech like strangers into a crowd, the annealing: vivid life brought forth of metal and stone. A gift passed with such loving care through so many hands to come to her: a sorrowful girl-poet become a queen, so many shapes and colors of hands leading her forth to speak a dream of allegiance, of love.