The Ainu Ficlets by Raiyana

"Do you hate me for it?" Time, such as it is, has passed since angry words rung in the space between them, words he had not heeded - had barely heard - lost in the frenzy of creation.

She sighs, bending to caress a small green shoot. The leaves seem almost too vibrant to be real.

"No." When she turns to look at him, he knows it to be true. Somehow, it does not bring the relief he had hoped for. "I was saddened," she continues, "for your Children are not mine, not ours."

There is new distance between them now, one neither seem to know how to bridge.

When he leaves, his brows are furrowed and she does not call him back.

"Will you meet them?" he asks, feeling unaccustomedly bashful, standing in one of her favourite gardens. Silence greets the question, long enough that he almost turns to leave. She nods, just once.

In his Halls - Námo and Manwë both had asked him to build a Hall for the Children, whose joy in crafting is unchanged by their passing from life; undimmed in either volume or joy - the first of the Children fall silent. She stands there, in the finely wrought doorway that leads to the garden he built for her, pillars wrapped with flowering vines surrounding her with their light perfume.

The hammers are put down, the bellows silenced.

Each one stares, apprehensive but stubbornly brave. Shying away, but oddly longing, too. He sees it in their faces, those faces he carved so very long ago and filled their souls with all that he loved best.

Durin is the first to step up. His favourite Child, so alike in temper to his Queen he might have been her son; while they sleep in the forges, the ones he is still making, he tells them stories in the language he made for them. Mostly stories about her, the distance that still seems to divide them, but also the love he feels for her – no matter how their interests clash.

He feels oddly proud and humbled at once, watching the Dwarf present a golden crown made with the most beautiful gems they could find in the shape of flowers to Yavanna, who laughs, delighted. With a thought she is smaller, small enough for the crown to fit.

They stay a while, though she speaks only to the Children and not to him. Aulë tries not to feel disappointed that the joy he had tried to share with her has gone unrewarded, staring forlornly at one of the blossoms she has left behind, dropping it into a small vase with a sigh before heading back to the workshop. Once his workshop was full of such vases, but he has smashed many as time passed and there was little need to replace them.

"How are they made?" He is so surprised by the quiet question that he drops a hammer on his foot. Khuzdul is great for cursing, he realises, but the thought is gone in the next moment, banished by the light sound of her laughter. "My clumsy love," she tuts, coming to stand beside him. Back to her usual form, she stands a little taller than him, the green hair rippling down her back, flowers blooming along some strands. In her hand, she holds the crown Durin made with his brothers, placing it gently beside one of the unfinished Children.

“I shape them,” he says, “as forms they grow into; the Children have children of their own.”

She hums, looking at the small bodies, finely carved granite and marble, slate and flint and all the types of rock found at the roots of mountains. He barely remembers to wrap his arm around her when she leans into him, filling his nose with the odd combination of honeysuckle and white-hot metal. He does not finish the object on the anvil before him, leaves it to cool and warp as he breathes in her familiar perfume, letting it fill his mind with nothing but her.

“This one looks like you,” she murmurs, reaching towards but not quite touching the blue granite form still unfinished on the table.

“You can touch them,” he whispers, watching the gentle smile on her face as she runs a finger down one tiny Dwarf.

“I cannot hate them,” she says softly, once the forge has died to embers. “They are your Children... and I love you.”

“Help me make these?” he asks, keeping her close when she makes to move away. Yavanna looks at him, her bark-like skin wrinkling in a smile.

They are not her Children, but a few in each generation have been touched by her hands, her love, and they are the ones who grow to care for the food the Children will eat. The inventor of the first irrigation system suitable for growing mushrooms inside a mountain had hands as barked as those that had made them.

Yavanna laughs when he tells her, filling the vases he keeps in the workshop with a collection of mosses, filling his spirit with kisses and love.

They are not her Children.

But she is one of their Mothers.

He found her far out to sea, reclining on a large rock as the light pierced the waters above her, flickering across her skin, the slow current of the deep moving her hair in gentle wafts randomly hiding parts of her form. Crabs scuttled back and forth, combing the strands that seemed to stretch beyond vision, though at the same time they were no longer than his arm.

“Come to play?” she drawled, lazily opening her eyes, and smiling, waving a hand at him in welcome. “The weather is nice – for now – but I can feel a storm rising not far from here… it promises to be spectacular.”

“I wonder who tested Manwë’s temper today,” Ossë mused, sinking down from the surface of the waves to join her; the rock was a halfway-point between their two loves, far enough below the water for Uinen, and far enough towards the waves for him to feel contentment, wrapping an arm around her and feeling one of the snaky tentacles she sometimes favoured for limbs run lightly up his leg, tickling at the back of his knee. Today, he had chosen finned feet, webbed for speed as he cut through the water like an arrow, the soft scales that covered him making him sleek and fast.

“Do you now, love?” she murmured, and suddenly he was the one lying on his back, her long hair spreading in the water around them, making his world green as it filtered the light. One of the crabs landed on his chest, making him gasp when it pinched sensitive flesh. Uinen laughed, picking the crab off him and soothing the sting with her tongue, just the right combination of raspy and soft to make him change his mind. This kind of play was not what he had planned when he spotted the dark clouds ahead, building up to a major storm, but when he tangled his hands in her hair and tugged her back up for a kiss, he figured that one way of making waves was as good as another…

“But… what are they?” Varda wondered, looking at the tiny flying creatures. As she watched, they all seemed to turn, following the lead of one, shaping wondrous figures in the air that fascinated her with their transience. There it was a circle, but now an arrow that became a wave in an instant.

“I have called them starlings, my love,” Manwë replied, satisfied as he watched the small birds fly hither and yon, but always forming constellations of a sort – just the type of bird Varda would like, he thought. “Starlings-”

He forgot what he wanted to say in the heat of her kisses, flitting like starlight through his mind, but it didn’t matter: far below, the starlings would continue to dance for her, mimicking the much slower dance of Varda’s heavens.

Waking in darkness was... not entirely unexpected, really, all things considered. He blinked. It made no difference. 

"Another one, I see."

"Who's there?"

"The Fisherman." The reply seemed wrapped in laughter, as though it was a funny joke. 

"I don't..."

"Understand? No. You will, though." 

It grabbed him.

Waking up was... rather unexpected, actually. 

Looking around, he saw only grey figures in grey robes. 

"What happened?"

"You cannot doom your fëa with words, no matter how much you swear them," someone replied, "only Eru controls the Void."

He whirled.

"Welcome to the Halls of Mandos... brother." 

They were all here. 

“The storm is rising.” Uinen stands at the edge of an underwater precipice, staring into the impenetrable darkness. Around her, the currents play, the strands of her long hair undulating gently through the water and playing with the small silver fish that hide in it.  

“Good. It’s been too long since we’ve had a good dance,” Ossë replies, idly poking at a crab scurrying across the sandy bottom. The crab looks offended for a moment, hurrying off to hide under Uinen’s skirts. “A storm is just what we need.” Scowling after the crab, he enjoys following the curves of her body - she has legs, for once, with blue fins running along the sleek muscles – visible through the gaps in the weave of her skirt; it is made from nets lost at sea and carry the last breaths of the drowned in the seams.

Uinen’s face is grave when she turns to look at him, the crab in the palm of her hand glaring balefully from the protection of its mistress.

“Not A storm, my love,” she says, setting the crustacean on her shoulder and letting it scurry off into the recesses of her hair. Her eyes are dark, the bruised purple darkness of the storm-clouds forming on the horizon, and he feels the power behind it coalesce – at once familiar and foreign, subtly chilling. “THE storm,” Uinen whispers and her smile is terrifying in its savage beauty. Ossë shivers lightly. The grey scales covering her throat ripple slightly when she swallows, her gills working in perfect time with the waves he can feel far above them. Uinen’s connection to the forces around them is never wrong, and this time, she is uncommonly grave. “This will be the storm to end all storms,” she adds dreamily, “until the Breaking of the World at the End of Days.”

Ossë shivers again, moving towards her, drawn by a sudden wave of desire.

“So they have called upon the One…” he replies, turning his face towards the building forces presaging the hand of Eru touching His Creation. “Where will it land?” he asks, unsure if he wishes to hear the answer, though he already knows what it will be.

“Númenor,” Uinen replies, swimming towards the still-calm surface. Ossë feels his own mouth split in a grin those who think him a playful shore-lapper would never recognise, feels the echo of the building storm rumble through his blood as he takes her hand.

“The anger of the One shall be glorious to see...” Ossë grins, feeling the reckless wild energy of the storm spreading through his limbs as he chases her through the choppy waves, both of them laughing.

“An in the wake of His wrath, there will be much lamenting,” Uinen replies, splashing water at him with a whoop of laughter. “But you and I...” She smiles, her teeth sharp as daggers, and her eyes glowing with the eldritch power about to be unleashed.

Ossë’s smile widens.

“We will dance.”