Olwë's Home for Wayward Elves by Morcondil

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Chapter Six

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CHAPTER SIX.

We decided to visit Avallónë after all. Nécandil’s two eldest sisters wrote that construction of the Mindelena had been completed, as had several guesthouses and villas. They spoke in praise of the fledgling city’s beauty and perfection—not even the finest Noldorin architecture could rival it, they promised. Írissë pronounced such a feat impossible, but declared that she must see the site of such audacious claims in person.

“After all, if one decides to outdo Fëanáro himself in terms of boasting, the least we can do is pay a proper visit,” said my cousin.

It was an easy walk of a day and a half to reach the far eastern shore of Eressëa. Lavarië and Hondur packed provisions for the four of us and promised to take good care of the luggage we left behind. (We was understood to mean only Írissë and Costamo, of course.)

The new Telerin city of Avallónë lay like a pearl cupped between two halves of an iridescent shell. It nestled between a pair of escarpments that rose over the eastern sea, forming a natural harbor. The builders—Nécandil’s sisters among them—had done their work well. A few gleaming palaces were built into the cliffsides, and below them ranged a large plaza ringed with half-built shopfronts and workshops. And of course, towering high above all as it rose straight into the glimmering gray sky: the Mindelena.

Costamo whistled lowly when he saw it. “Incredible,” he murmured.

The four of us stood slack-jawed a little ways distant from the city walls. We were atop a natural hill; below us, the dirt road wound to meet the sea. The tower shone like an opal, reflecting the few rays of Treelight that reached this distant shore. Never one to be silent for long, Írissë began guessing how tall the pearlescent white structure was, while I wondered at how deep the foundation had been dug.

“Obviously,” said Nécandil at length, “we’re going to have to climb it.”

“Obviously,” said Costamo in that arrogant tone I found so annoying.

Arrangements were made. Nécandil’s sister, Tamwen, agreed to escort us to the top of the Mindelena as soon as she finished the day’s labor. She was a dreamy-eyed Teler with coppery skin and calloused palms. I thought she looked like Nécandil would have, had his fëa been properly knit inside a woman’s body. I liked her immediately, though I doubted I would ever have a chance to meet her again.

We rested in a tavern while we waited for Tamwen, eating and drinking in contemplative silence. The atmosphere in Avallónë was odd, even compared to the eccentricities of Olwë’s court. The Falmari here wore purposeful expressions and looked often into the east. Many of the residents were older: those who had been born before the Eldalië came to Aman. The recalled the cold, starlit forests of Endórë and spoke of them with some regret. One man told us of the little house he had built by a rushing river, where he had tarried long before his kin convinced him to cross the unknown oceans. His voice was and somber. Many of his friends had forsaken the westward road, he told us; I dared not ask him if he wished he had done the same.

I had never met such folk before. In Tirion, all spoke with gladness of the coming of the Valar; they praised the Trees and all that dwelt beneath their Light. To the Vanyar and most Noldor, Endórë was a fearful dark land full of unnamed terrors. When I was small, my brothers had teased me with frightening stories of shadowy beasts and fanged enemies. 

The citizens of Avallónë told a different tale, one full of difficult choices and uncertain ends. If they did not regret their path, they at least acknowledged the complexities of the past.

I remembered my grandfather Olwë in his tower, peering through his seeing-scope in search of a brother long lost to the darkness. 

My mood, which had been unhindered and joyful since we landed on Eressëa, shifted. I sensed a similar melancholy suffuse the expressions of my three companions. We talked less and less, each absorbed in thought.

At length Lamwen came and fetched us. We followed her in silence to the base of the Mindelena. It was a square tower, nearly twice as large as the marketplace just a few streets distant. A series of increasingly smaller tiers rose from the base, like a child’s building blocks on a grander scale. Intricate frescoes of virgin woodlands and crystalline lakes had been painted on the walls. Stairs encircled the entire structure like a garland. At Lamwen’s welcoming gesture, we began to climb. It was dark, for the long shadow of the tower blocked out all Light.

The ascent took over an hour. We trod on in solemn quietude, upwards and upwards. None of us were inclined to jest or chatter in our usual manner—not even my cousin. Tamwen’s face was reverent and still.

Finally we reached the top. Unlike Olwë’s tower in Alqualondë, there was no roof over the viewing platform. A wide marble portico, inlaid with brilliant gems, stretched before us; only a stone railing separated us from the sky. 

As soon as I caught sight of the wide expanse before me, I stopped and cried out. An exquisite kind of pain pierced my breast. I attempted to catch my breath, and not solely on account of the climb. Írissë, Costamo, and Nécandil had similar reactions. In the periphery, Tamwen retreated back down the tower so we could be left alone.

“Valar’s grace and wisdom,” Nécandil breathed. “Look at it!”

We looked.

A dark gray sky and a darker sea spread before us into the endless east. I could not see where the two met; instead, it was as if we stood inside a bowl of fogged glass, perfectly round. At the very end of our sight, where the Treelight could not touch, the world was black as pitch. I squinted, trying to discern shapes in the darkness. There was nothing.

Somewhere amid that limitless shadow was Endórë. I did not know how far it lay, nor how many days one would have to travel to find it. With numbed legs, I crept close to the edge of the balcony and clasped the railing as if it alone could save me from the abyss. A surreal weightlessness suffused my body. I heard, as if through a memory, someone rustling and whispering at my side—but there was no space in my mind to take account of the noise.

Vertigo. I later learned that was the word for what I experienced at the top of the Mindelena that day. Though as I stood there, I could only think I suffered from a kind of falling sickness. I was an insignificant speck in that gray, gleaming world. 

Slowly, I adjusted. Clarity returned to my mind. I looked up to the sky and saw how brightly the stars shone; here, they needn’t compete with Telperion and Laurelin.

Costamo, who stood beside me, was just as overawed. “We shall never see anything like this again,” he whispered.

“No, we shall not,” I said.

The tall Falmaro peered down the tower walls to the city, where the buildings in the marketplace appeared small as pebbles. “How many blocks of stone do you suppose it took to build this?”

I gave my best guess; he disagreed. We spent several minutes in a friendly debate over construction technique and engineering possibilities. A summer spent in similar discussions had made us comfortable with each other. We fell into a companionable silence and continued to look into the gray-lit view before us.

“So,” Costamo bumped my shoulder with his, “you never told me why the lord Arafinwë sent you to Alqualondë.”

I blinked. “You wish to discuss my parents here, now?”

He laughed, tossing his long braids. “Why not?”

I could think of no reason. A small, answering smile flitted across my mouth. “Someone caught me kissing the groom’s second assistant.”

“That’s not so bad.”

“The groom’s female assistant.”

“Oh.”

We were quiet for a few moments while my friend absorbed what I had said. His body language was indecipherable. Then Costamo turned fully to face me, close enough that our noses nearly brushed. His gaze was direct and open. I peered into his elegant face, shadowy in the dim Light.

“Do you prefer women to men?” he asked.

“Yes. Well, no.” I struggled to discover in myself the proper answer. None had asked me the question until now. “She was beautiful,” I said finally. “And very experienced—I was not the first girl she kissed. But it was more that she...she saw me. She looked at me and liked who I was, enough to risk her position and her reputation and...and everything.”

I trailed off. My words were inadequate to express what I had felt when the groom’s assistant had twined her fingers through mine. I was shocked that I wanted to explain myself, especially to Costamo. How far we had come since the day I slapped his cheek.

Costamo pressed his forehead to mine, and our breath mingled. It was an intimate gesture, sensual in its innocent way. “I see you, Artanis,” he murmured. “And I will kiss you, if you wish it.”

It would have been so easy. I could have kissed him, could have mussed his immaculate braids with my long fingers until we were both panting and dizzy. I was no virgin, and I knew how to please both myself and my partner. We could have enjoyed each other’s bodies there at the top of the world. And when the summer ended, we would go our separate ways.

Yet I resisted my first urge.

Costamo was my friend—a strange one, true, but a friend nonetheless. I had taken a handful of lovers, but I possessed few friends. And I did not love him in that way; nor could I ever do so.

I returned his searching look with one of my own. His glittering eyes reflected my face back at me. “You are far too grumpy to take to bed, my lord,” I heard myself saying.

He blinked in surprise, then grinned. “Fair enough, my lady.” His teeth gleamed like pearls in the weak Light.

Our bodies separated. Silently, we linked hands in the manner of small children, palm to palm. Together we strolled to the other side of the tower, where Nécandil and Írissë searched for familiar constellations but instead discovered new ones. I joined them, for my knowledge of Varda’s realm was great. The cry of seabirds on the docks below was fierce and proud.

Costamo’s hand squeezed mine, and I did not pull away. We stood there, the four of us, beneath innumerable stars like small fires in the sky. The air was sweet, and our hearts were glad. 

#

We returned to Alqualondë the day after we climbed the Mindelena. Anything else would have been anticlimactic. Olwë’s swan-ship met us on the docks of Avallónë’s half-constructed harbor, and Captain Alarciel welcomed us aboard. We spent two days at sea skirting around the northern side of Tol Eressëa, and on the morning of the third day, the ship floated serenely into Alqualondë’s gated marina.

Olwë and Ilcamë waited on the quay to greet us, while a gaggle of my young cousins played an off-key fanfare on reed pipes to accompany the king’s exuberant singing.

The four of us laughed and trooped down the lowered gangplank. Hugs were shared, good-natured teasing flew from our mouths, and laughter echoed off the tranquil waters. The queen presented us with multi-colored scarves she had knitted in our absence.

Within the space of a week, things returned to the way they had been. My friends and I spent our days gamboling about the palace grounds and adventuring in the city streets. Nécandil finally mastered the art of applying cosmetics, and Írissë declared that I had learned as much dancing as I ever would be able. Costamo began writing a lengthy poem about what he had seen on Tol Eressëa, and if we asked politely, he would read us his latest stanza each morning. (The proud Teler seemed to have found new faith in his creative abilities now he was no longer striving to meet Elemmírë’s unreachable standard.)

Outwardly, all appeared to be well. Inwardly, my waking thoughts were filled with an inexplicable wrongness.

I no longer found delight in the same activities that had made me glad just weeks since. Before Eressëa, I had revelled in my freedom. Before Avallónë, I had delighted in my structureless hours. And before the Mindelena, I had thought no further ahead than my next meal. 

But after returning to Alqualondë, I began to reminisce about my studies at the Royal Academy in Tirion, which I was so close to completing. I remembered riding out to hunt with my elder brothers and trailing behind them when they consulted with the masters of the Silversmiths’ Guild. I recalled reading in Arafinwë’s study while he prepared some great speech, singing hymns to the Valar in the kitchen garden while Eärwen cut herbs.

I was homesick: a discomfiting realization. 

Alongside this self-awareness came a sharp dip in my spirits. I attempted to keep it to myself and believed I had succeeded. Yet my cousin Írissë soon disabused me of that thought when one morning she dragged me out to the tide pools in the middle of breakfast. 

Írissë’s sharp fingers dug into my arm; she pulled me relentlessly though the palace grounds and across the rocks, either not noticing or not caring how I stumbled. I towered over her slight frame, but she was deceptively strong. My cousin stopped, and I pulled away, seething. My temper flared as it had not since I slapped Costamo. (Ages ago, it seemed.)

“What are you doing?” I cried. I massaged my throbbing shoulder, for she had wrenched it during our walk.

“What are you doing?” returned Írissë.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, yes you do!” she said. “You’ve been stamping around the king’s house like a child, sniping at us whenever you can, and staring into the middle distance like some dour hero from a Vanyarin epic.”

Her description of me was apt. I crossed my arms, unwilling to concede she was right, but neither able to lie.

“Artanis,” she said, “what is wrong with you? Has something happened? A letter from Tirion?”

I remained silent—partly because I resented being taken to task by a cousin no older than I, partly because I was not sure how to answer without looking a fool.

“Never say that you and Costamo quarreled again?”

“No!” I snapped. “It’s nothing to do with Costamo, or with anyone. It’s just...that is, I…”

Írissë raised a single well-groomed black eyebrow.

“It’s me,” I said, stammering awkwardly. “Something happened with me.”

My cousin took some time to consider my answer. She studied one of the half-filled tide pools at our feet, then knelt to study its contents. A colony of orange-red starfish clung to the rock just below the water’s surface. She reached down to stroke one of the starfish’s slippery arms. Her fingers were slim and dainty.

At length, she said, “Are you all right?”

I sighed and dipped a single naked toe through the pool. “I suppose so. I just...I feel odd.”

“Like a great length of cloth crammed into too small a drawer?”

“Yes,” I said in surprise. That was exactly it! “How did you know?”

She rose, shaking droplets of water from her hands. “I feel the same, cousin.”

“You do?” I was shocked. Not once had I seen even a hint of restlessness from my cousin. She was elegant, poised, and charming. The sons of Fëanáro counted her among their closest companions; her parents delighted in all that she did. She had studied weaving under Vairë herself, and the gossip in Tirion was that she was soon to be betrothed to one of the lady Nerdanel’s brightest pupils. In a word, Írissë was perfect.

Now, standing on the rocks while the sea roared behind us, my cousin rolled her eyes skyward, as if beseeching a higher Power. “Artanis, you really must learn to think of others besides yourself,” she said. “You think me a pretty girl who enjoys parties and pretty clothes and flirting, do you not/ Yet if you looked closer, you might have noted that I spent the last three years researching and writing an account of the Awakening at Cuiviénen that King Ingwë himself said was ‘passably good.’ But you, cousin, persist in believing me to be a shallow womanly creature, far below your own lofty intellect!”

“I don’t think that!” I protested. When I saw the sarcastic curl of her lip, I amended my answer: “Well, I did think you were silly and irritating, but that was before! Now I know you’re...you’re—” (I searched for a word to describe my dazzling relative.) “—kind. You have been kind and gracious to me, Írissë. I am sure I did not deserve it.”

“No,” she replied. Her face was grave, but her famous dimples threatened to overtake her expression. “You did not deserve it, Artanis.”

We shared a laugh. The wind tangled our unbound hair together: gold and shining black. Írissë poked me in the ribs. “To be frank, I do enjoy the parties and the dresses and the beautiful things I have,” she said. “But I am not without ambition, and I can see the faults of the Noldor as well as you. Never mistake me for a passive beauty, cousin.”

“I am sorry I ever did.”

She poked me again, and I pushed her hand away with a laugh. Írissë sharped her nails to vicious points every evening. We wrestled for a moment on the edge of the tide pools. We were children again, playing in the courtyard while Eärwen and Anairë watched benevolently from a distance. 

When our breathing grew labored, she called a truce. “May I tell you a secret?”

“Of course.”

“Do you recall the time you rode naked through the Great Square on the back of a giant ostrich?” My cousin giggled at her own question, and I cracked a smile of my own. The look on King Finwë’s face as I interrupted his speech had been worth every reprimand I’d received from my mortified brothers. Írissë continued: “I thought you were very brave, Artanis. An absolute numbskull, but brave. You didn’t care what anyone thought of you, nor of the eventual result. And you never apologized, never regretted making an absolute fool of yourself before all of Tirion. You did exactly what you wanted.”

I shook my head. I had not been brave, merely reckless. The entire feat with the ostrich had been engineered by a rakish butcher’s boy of my acquaintance—he had bet me his best dagger that I wouldn’t do it, and so I had. (It was a very beautiful dagger.)

“Findárato says I am not the type who ever has regrets,” I said. “He says I simply make decisions and then live with the consequences, be they good or ill.”

Írissë raised her hands upward, as if to ask the Valar what she was to do with so brash a girl as myself. But she smiled her dimpled smile at me all the same. “Well, what will you decide to do next?”

I opened my mouth to tell her that I did not know, but the words that came from my mouth were altogether different. “I need to go back to Tirion,” I said. 

Írissë’s smile widened. She gestured toward Olwë’s palace, rising on a hill above the tide pools and the beach. Nécandil and Costamo strolled together in the garden; the king and queen were playing blindman’s bluff with my little cousins on the terrace. It was an idyllic tableau, but it was not what I needed—not any longer.

“Go on, then,” said my cousin. “Whatever is keeping you here when you wish to be home?”

Home, I thought. I began to run across the rocks. I stopped after a few paces, dashed back to Írissë and pulled her into a tight embrace. “Thank you,” I whispered. And: “When you come back to Tirion, I shall teach you to ride an ostrich.” Then I was away again, flying across the ground. My long legs churned. Írissë’s delicate laughter followed me like a song.

I easily mounted the stairs chiseled into the side of the embankment, then I was inside the palace itself. The ivory halls were silent but for the echoing strikes of my running feet. I mounted the main staircase, turned down the corridor toward the family suites. 

Alone in my chambers overlooking the sea, I sat down at the desk. I pulled paper and pen from a drawer. The words flowed down my arm and wrist boldly, with no hesitation.

Dear Papa, I wrote, I am ready to come back. 

— FIN —

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Chapter End Notes

The end! Expect a brief epilogue in the next few days—Finarfin's servants will have to get the final word (naturally).

Thank you to everyone for reading and commenting over the past year—I really appreciate it, and I hope you enjoyed the story.

Name Guide
— Artanis/Nerwen = Galadriel
— Eldalië = the Eldar; elves
— Endórë = Middle-earth
— Findárato = Finrod
— Fëanáro = Fëanor
— Írissë = Aredhel