Varda's Lights by feanorusrex

Chapter 1

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The night was cold and peaceful. All was quiet, as most denizens of Aman were asleep at this hour. Nerdanel had been as well- emphasis on the past tense. Some noise had woken her, a tapping on the glass of her window. Fëanor. He motioned at her to open it.

Nerdanel was still half asleep- too tired to be excited by the possibilities presented by being woken by the very youth she fancied in the middle of the night- and opening the window to see what he wanted would require sticking her arm out from her pile of blankets. But who could say that if she ignored him he would go away? Reluctantly, she pushed away the blankets covering her shoulders, and reached over to unlock and raise the window. Luckily it was well oiled, and did not squeak as she pushed it up.

“What is the meaning of this? At this hour?” She hissed at him, her annoyance not great enough to risk waking the rest of her household.

Fëanor looked at her, not at all troubled, and said, “Come with me, I have something to show you. Trust me, Nerdanel, it will be worth losing some of your sleep- and it is not that cold,” he added, anticipating her next question.

“What are you speaking of? Can it not wait until morning?” Her hair must look terrible, Nerdanel realized belatedly. She did not know what caused it to get so tangled each night and yet it unfailingly did. She pulled her covers over her head, thinking perhaps she could just ignore him.

“No, it cannot wait; for what I have to show you can only be seen at night.”

“I have already seen the stars, Fëanor. They have been in existence for quite some time now,” Nerdanel responded, her voice muffled by the blankets.

“Not the stars, something else. It will be glorious I promise,” said Fëanor, and then he had the audacity to actually reach through her window and prod her shoulder. “Come!”

“Fine,” she was at least curious now. “I will come.” Nerdanel pushed back all of her blankets and felt her cocoon of body heat dissipate as she rose from her bed and put on every coat she could find. Dressed she crawled back across her bed and climbed through the window- with not too much difficulty- and jumped down to join Fëanor.

“Now close your eyes,” he instructed. Being more awake now, Nerdanel had begin to think on what he meant by asking her to sneak out in the middle of the night, and now she thought fleetingly that he was going to kiss her. But no, when she closed her eyes and heard Fëanor say: “This way. It is not far, and the road is fairly flat.” He did take her hand at least, if only to guide her steps. She knew well the road they were walking on, and yet could not think of anything on it that was so spectacular, or could only be seen at night, on this path.

Nerdanel felt the road slant upwards beneath her feet as they climbed upwards several paces more. “Here,” said Fëanor. “Sit down.” She did so, opening her eyes, and seeing nothing but an unremarkable landscape. The ground was cold but at least not wet with frost. Fëanor had unfortunately let go of her hand, although unsurprisingly, as they had reached their destination. “I see nothing,” she began, wondering what kind of drawn out jest he was leading her on.

“Look up, Nerdanel,” he said, pointing. And then she saw what Fëanor had dragged her out of bed to show her, and the cold and loss of sleep faded away, as she beheld the illuminated sky. Not lit with stars, although some of them shone above as well, but with other lights- bright ribbons and swaths of color lit from a source she could not name. These lights were different from that of the Trees, more remote, yet equally as beautiful. Vivid green was the predominate color, yet Nerdanel’s eyes picked out streaks of yellow, so pale that it was almost white, and purple, blending with the black sky.

Most were stationary, but as she continued to stare, awed, one section arced upwards and snaked downwards to for a new pattern. Their appearance was transfixing. It made her feel tiny, and yet as if she was the center of the world. It was glorious, and so unexpected, and hers to share with Feanor as the rest of Aman slept.

After an eternity of gazing skyward, or perhaps only a few moments, she heard Fëanor ask: “Do you like them?”

“Yes!” Nerdanel dragged her eyes away from the lights and back to him. “They are so extraordinary- what causes them?”

“I do not know. They only appear in the winter and even then not too frequently here. I discovered a book astronomy that mentioned them, and I have been watching for them each winter night since.”

“What are they called?” The thought that he had read of this, and immediately wanted to share it with her pleased Nerdanel immensely.

“Varda’s lights. Perhaps they have something to do with the stars. If Varda knows she has not told.”

“Beautiful,” Nerdanel said again.

“Yes,” agreed Fëanor, but he was no longer looking at the sky, his eyes were on her, and Nerdanel was distracted from celestial manifestations, and instead thinking of her unconfessed feelings, and of daring to go after what she wanted. Who. Who she wanted.
While she could never had done something of this sort during the harsh light of day, the colored night sky gave her courage, and without stopping to consider the horrifyingly embarrassing ways that this could go wrong, she leaned over and kissed Fëanor.

She expected that he would be surprised, or at least hesitate. Nerdanel did not think that he would immediately respond to her advance, wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her closer, with a force that surprised her. Despite the cold, his mouth burned against hers, and she forgot everything else. There was only him and nothing else, until she was completely out of breath. Unsure if one was allowed to breathe through the nose while kissing- no, Nerdanel decided- she broke away reluctantly.

“Well,” she began as her breathing returned to normal. “I am quite glad that you feel the same, or that would have been rather awkward...” Nerdanel felt thrilled that he returned her feelings, but had no idea how to voice this sentiment eloquently, but she felt that it was necessary to say something.

“Feel the same?” Fëanor said. “I have loved you since we first met!”

Nerdanel tilted her head. “But that was ages and ages ago; if you felt such then why did you not tell me sooner?”

“I did not think that you cared for me, in the same way, and I did not want to make things uncomfortable between us if that was the case- ”

“Fëanor, you coward!” Said Nerdanel, although she followed this statement by kissing him again which rather took the edge off of her words. “And you would have been right, until recently, when I find myself, inexplicably, fancying you.”

She thought that he would seize on the ‘inexplicably,’ but his tone remained serious.“I am glad,” Fëanor stoked her hair, the same open joy that she had beheld upon his face when he had crafted something successfully in the forge. “I am so glad.”

Despite her wish to throw herself at Fëanor again- the previous kiss had been nice but she wanted more, she wanted- but some voice of reason not yet drowned by her desire told her that the king’s son could not be wed on the side of the road, so Nerdanel contented herself with leaning her head against his shoulder. Thrilled by the night sky, and the fact that Fëanor loved her- loved, he had said loved!- that she felt that she could stay here forever. The display in the heavens was too glorious to go to sleep on and let the lights in the sky dance for no one.

“We should leave,” said Fëanor, although Nerdanel guessed that he did not wished to either and she hoped that some of his reluctance was on her part, not only because of the sky. “Unless you wish to be completly exhausted tomorrow.”

“Stay!” she caught hold of his arm as he moved to stand up. “I can be tired on the morrow.”

“You who were so concerned about sleep when I woke you-”

“It is sleep that you want, then we could try my bed. I suppose it could accommodate two people, although there has never been occasion for that until now…” Clever remarks are nothing new to her, but this was different, this was flirting, unknown territory waiting to be explored.

Laughing, Fëanor stood, pulling Nerdanel up with him. They followed the path back, the two of them together like so many of their journeys, but not like the past. They were holding hands now and Nerdanel had never been more pleased with a new beginning.

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The next morning, as Fëanor prepared to go into the forge, he too was equally pleased with how things had turned out. And yet he felt slight trepidation at what he was going to say to her today. While last night Nerdanel obviously had expressed her feelings for him, and there had been a quite a lot of kissing- now in the light of day he still felt shy around her.

Speak to her, he told himself sternly, as he sat before a block of marble, his assigned practice carving today. He cannot just stare at the back of her head all day, and so forced himself to walk over.

“Nerdanel, good morning,” he said, trying not to shuffle his feet.

“Hello,” she said glancing up He felt conspicuous, as if every other apprentice was noting their conversation and the new dynamic of their relationship.

“I am sculpting today, and I...er wondered if I could borrow your chisel, I need a smaller one. May I borrow one of yours?” It was a bad excuse to go talk to her, for he could have easily achived a finer chiseling by using the pointed edge of his own. Fëanor hoped that she would know that he really had just wanted to speak with her and did not care about sculpting at the moment.

“Here,” and their fingers brushed as Nerdanel handed over the tool.

She was blushing Fëanor noticed, she was actually blushing- and it occurred to him that she could be just as awkward and nervous and new to this entire love thing as he was. This of course was ridiculous-she was perfect and amazing and had no reason to worry- however this gave him the confidence enough to say, “you look very beautiful today- as always.”

Nerdanel muttered something about how he was being ridiculous, but she could not entirely hide the fact that she grinning, and so was Fëanor as he walked back to his work table, prepared to spend the rest of the day completely, blissfully distracted from his sculpting.