Morning Mist and Silver Sun by StarSpray

Meet & Greet pt 2

Fragile, moment, revisit, brighten

How fragile the world was, Eärendil thought as he watched Beleriand crumble. It was slow, the sea creeping over once thick forests and lush grasslands foot by inexorable foot. He had sailed into the skies eager to revisit, even at a distance, the lands and homes he had once known. But Gondolin lay in ruin, blackened and slowly decaying, its once-bright fountains choked and its towers no more than dust and broken rubble, a mockery of a cairn for all who had died there.

He turned away, needing a moment to blink away the grief that welled up in him.

- -

Breathless. Running. Distance. Limits

Once, Galadriel had raced, running farther and faster over the green swards of Valinor than anyone else among the Noldor or the Vanyar. Such a sprint had not left her so much as breathless; she had felt as though she could do anything, in those days. Once, she had said so to her grandmother. Indis had looked at her with Tree-bright eyes that seemed to pierce her very soul. She had said, strangely it had seemed at the time, “You can win with speed Artanis, but can you endure?”

She could. She had, through darkness and grief and war and turmoil, though it had taken her to the very limits of her power. She twisted Nenya on her finger, its power now passed, and sighed as the grey Sea came into view. The distance from Mithlond to Tirion was no longer so grievously far. Overhead a lone gull wheeled.

- -

Same name convention

A painting of Tindómiel hung outside the Hall of Fire, near a window where it could catch the morning sunshine, making her painted eyes shine.  If the painting was true to life—and Arwen had been assured that it was—then they had looked much alike, though Tindómiel’s hair had been golden, with none of the waves that rippled through Arwen’s own dark tresses. Arwen often paused before it to look up into her cousin’s face—the cousin she could never meet, yet with whom she shared a name. Undómiel and Tindómiel, the granddaughters of the Morning and Evening Star.

- -

Friend, want, bad, gesture

“Ah! Good afternoon, Master Elf!” Bilbo jumped up from his picnic blanket and bowed, gesturing to his basket with one arm swept out. “Do join me! I have plenty to share.”
The elf paused, apparently startled by the greeting. “Well met, Master Halfling,” he said slowly, looking at Bilbo with very dark and ancient eyes. “Ah,” he said, and came to take a seat. “You are an Elf Friend.”

“So I am,” Bilbo said cheerfully. “Though I do want to know how you all can tell just by looking, as though I had something stuck in my teeth—though of course it’s not nearly as bad as that. Or do you all talk about such things?”

The elf laughed a little, quietly. “There is a light in your eyes that shows it,” he said. “I have never heard of a halfling making such friends among the Elves.”

“I’m rather an unusual case. And indeed, I was quite surprised—after I’d spent some time burgling his halls and organizing a prison break. My name is Bilbo Baggins, at your service sir. Seed cake?”

The elf took the seed cake and inclined his head. “Thank you,” he said. “My name is Daeron.”