Nike Adjusting Her Sandal by heget

Chapter 1

Nerdanel was not regarded as beautiful. She was shorter than her sibling, with the stocky square-shouldered look that her father had passed down to all his family. Though she did not regret her height or build, she was annoyed that the copper hair that made her father stand out in the crowd of Noldor was inherited by her sibling and passed down to both her nieces, nephew, and most of her elder niece’s children. Not to her, though. Nerdanel's hair was only brown, and not even the dark glossy brown of her mother Istarnië, though when the light hit just right there almost looked to be a hint of fire. Nerdanel liked to wear colors and jewelry that she hoped would offset the bits of copper and make it more alluring and exotic than brown. Anything to draw attention away from her red face. She liked the amber shade of brown of her eyes; that at least was striking, though a blue would have been even more. Eventually Nerdanel matured and set aside her resentment of her relatives’ greater beauty.

Queen Indis was beautiful, well-regarded by almost all of Tirion as the most beautiful woman even by her political detractors, with golden skin and hair that seemed to glow like a flower of Laurelin, eyes a deep blue that shaded almost purple, and tall without awkwardness. Nerdanel watched as Indis moved, plotting how to sculpt that sense of grace and assurance that High King Ingwë’s sister, later Queen of the Noldor, exuded like Tree-light. Several of Nerdanel's sculptures were inspired by the queen of the Noldor, even when they did not have Indis’s likeness in the face, though Nerdanel did not admit this. 

When Indis removed her sandals to race barefoot through the water gardens, as light-foot as Nessa’s deer, as joyful as Tulkas’s laughter, Nerdanel knew that was the pose to sculpt, that moment before Indis sprinted. There was something symbolic when the Queen of the Noldor removed a piece of confining finery, however small a shoe was, so that she could embrace freedom and delight. Nerdanel wondered if she projected her desire to be free from anxieties onto Indis, for the queen never showed envy or resentment, remaining gracious even when those around her were not. 

And how Nerdanel had blushed in shame the day her husband’s compatriots had insulted Indis to the queen’s face and Nerdanel had been powerless to restrain them no matter how much she had argued with her husband beforehand. He used to listen to her advice, her husband and sons, used to give some heed to her counsel, treated her as if she was a person with opinions worth acknowledgement. But Indis became her dearest friend, especially after her separation from her husband, when all those compatriots, political allies, and anyone who wished to avoid the displeasure of the King’s heir and favorite began to mock and sneer at Nerdanel herself. Golden and graceful, Indis held out her arms and embraced the much shorter woman, unmindful of how the marble dust that coated the sculptress now smudged the queen’s velvet gown and golden arms. Indis would stand with Nerdanel through the turmoil and after. The two now lived together in a wing of the palace filled with music and art, content in friendship and company. Nerdanel was her beloved no matter what official ties between them, said Indis gravely, for she feared not the displeasure of that hateful faction in Tirion and Formenos, and would trade them gleefully for Nerdanel’s smiles and company, her wisdom and love. 

“Yours is a beauty I could never fully capture in song,” said Indis, “though I have spent hours trying to compose a fitting tribute. The best I can do is write music for your statutes, the lifelike ones admired by the court and the strange ones that bring my soul beauty even if I do not understand them.” Indis blushed, and Nerdanel laughed at this familiar problem. 

"Then we are joined in this struggle," said Nerdanel, "for I can only imperfectly represent a fraction of your loveliness in my art."

Indis embraced her.

Findis found the two stretched out in the gardens playing card games of their own creation, laughing with their hair unbound and full of twigs and crumpled flowers, a half-undone braid in Nerdanel’s brown hair that Indis tugged on as she admonished the younger woman for cheating. Findis sat primly on the ground and join the card game, utterly befuddled by the rules, but smiling all the same. She often found the two women like this. “What stakes are we playing for?” Findis asked.

“If I shall sculpt something, and your mother sing to me as I work, or if your mother shall dance and I sketch her as I watch,” replied Nerdanel, “or if we should be both very lazy and take a long vacation to our nieces and nephews outside Tirion.”

“That river cruise does appeal more and more,” murmured Indis, crossing her ankles and digging her bare toes into the soft dirt. “To lounge around, few servants, many pillows, watch the scenery as we slowly drift along, and when we are bored take a swim in the river.”

“We do need to practice our swimming,” mused Nerdanel.

“Then it is settled." 

And Findis was invited along, though she was the only one that did any fishing, and the one that picked up after the pair, as Indis and Nerdanel were not what one would call the neatest of elves. 

Chapter End Notes

Title alludes to a famous high relief marble statute on the parapet of the Temple of Athena Nike in the Acropolis.

There is a slew of quotes from HoME (Histories of Middle-earth) that I used as canon, though I admit while Nerdanel having at least one sibling and nephews and nieces is neither confirmed nor denied, the particulars of their existence is my personal headcanon and featured heavily in some of my other fics, Release from Bondage being one.

Most of Nerdanel's appearance and hobbies come from canon. That her father, Mahtan, had reddish-brown hair and loved the metal copper comes from HoME, as does the name Istarnië, an earlier name for Nerdanel. I am not the first to appropriate this name for Nerdanel's unnamed mother. Also it is never stated that Nerdanel shares her father's copper-brown hair, only that she passed it down to some of her sons. For the rest:

"While still in early youth Feanor wedded Nerdanel, a maiden of the Noldor; at which many wondered, for she was not among the fairest of her people. But she was strong, and free of mind, and filled with the desire of knowledge ... Her father, Mahtan, was a great smith, and among those of the Noldor most dear to the heart of Aule. Of Mahtan Nerdanel learned much of crafts that women of the Noldor seldom used: the making of things of metal and stone. She made images, some of the Valar in their forms visible, and many others of men and women of the Eldar, and these were so like that their friends, if they knew not her art, would speak to them; but many things she wrought also of her own thought in shapes strong and strange but beautiful. She also was firm of will, but she was slower and more patient than Feanor, desiring to understand minds rather than to master them. When in company with others she would often sit still listening to their words, and watching their gestures and the movements of their faces. Her mood she bequeathed in part to some of her sons, but not to all. ... With her wisdom at first she restrained Feanor when the fire of his heart burned too hot; but his later deeds grieved her and they became estranged." (HoME X Morgoth's Ring)

For Indis as an athlete and composer, here is the canon quote:

"And after three years more Finwe took as second spouse Indis the fair; and she was in all ways unlike Miriel. She was not of the Noldor, but of the Vanyar, sister of Ingwe; and she was golden-haired, and tall, and exceedingly swift of foot. She laboured not with her hands, but sang and made music, and there was ever light and mirth about her while the bliss of Aman endured." (HoME X Morgoth's Ring)

Also from HoME X comes the foundation of Indis and Nerdanel's close relationship, for "...it is implied that Indis did not depart with Finwe to Formenos, because it is told that Feanor's wife Nerdanel would not go with him into banishment and 'asked leave to abide with Indis' ". I adore this hint of a close friendship between these two characters.

When one examines 'The Shibboleth of Fëanor' and the rest of canon surrounding the 'festering ill will' Fëanor had for Indis and her children and his growing paranoia, the separation of Fëanor and Nerdanel was obviously not amicable. His treatment of her afterwards would have been ugly and politicized, especially when Fëanor was the eldest favored son of the King of the Noldor. Fëanor's last words to Nerdanel were thus, when she came to beg for the youngest sons before the Noldor departed, "He [Fëanor] replied: 'Were you a true wife, as you had been till cozened by Aule, you would keep all of them, for you would come with us. If you desert me, you desert also all of our children."(HoME The People of Middle-earth).

It's telling that canon holds that Nerdanel separates from her increasingly unstable and violent husband for the safety of either her father or Indis who has spent centuries subjected to her step-son's ire and would never earn anything less, the person who would have her own political and social power to shield Nerdanel.

On a final note, Findis is the eldest daughter of Finwë and Indis and stayed in Aman with her mother.