No rolling eyes by Raiyana

Chapter 1

“Do you not get tired of them,” Nienna asked, looking at Ossë who was doing his best to pretend that he wasn’t looking at Uinen delivering a report on a new species of whale like she was the most beautiful being in all of creation.

“Frequently,” Ulmo admitted, too quiet for the Wavedancer to hear, though Uinen looked at him for a moment of confusion before she continued, nodding respectfully at Nienna’s veiled form. “But I decided in the first song that I should not intervene – their harmony is theirs to discover, not mine to conduct.”

“But either of them could harmonise as well with you or others!” Nienna protested. “Why limit the self to awaiting the harmony of one voice when so many might influence a Song?”

“You’re asking me?” Ulmo laughed.

“Not in truth,” she replied, a shadow of amusement shaping her mouth beneath the jet bead mask she wore today, “for you and I are perhaps most in accord on this question, indeed.”

“Manwë and Varda having another row, I take it?” Ulmo said, gesturing to her robed form, an unfamiliar presence in his home beneath the seas.

“Something about Estë and rain – I didn’t stay to listen,” Nienna sighed. “My brother’s marriage is his own choosing, but I would pray Eru to grant them a space where their voices did not carry so… If I thought they might keep their arguing there.”

“Well, you are welcome to my quiet home,” Ulmo offered generously, chuckling at the image of Manwë being harried by his equally wilful wife – if Varda was not more wilful than their brother, which he would not discredit.

“A boon indeed, Ulmo,” Nienna replied, laughing more brightly than the Children would think her capable. “And one I hope extends to include your not-meddling in matters of whom I love.”

“Of course,” he promised. “I would not presume to know your heart – though I feel it is like mine, in this aspect, and given to none but a domain.”

“If only my brothers saw so clearly,” she sighed, the words a lament of their own. “But they do not understand my desires, though they try.” She laughed again, tinged with bitterness. “This cycle alone I have been introduced to four Maiar of Námo’s choosing – all of them colourful, bright creatures unwilling to understand the beauty of my laments – wanting to make me happy.” She nearly sneered the word. “As though I am not happiest in the recounting of the lost, the mourning of what has past and will come yet, seeing the sorrowed beauty in the old giving way to the new!”

“You alone turned to lamentation afore the Song was complete, my dear,” Ulmo replied. “And that is why they will not understand your innermost realm.” He smiled at her, shark’s teeth pointed and white, gleaming even in the low light under seas. “They see sorrow in you, and wish to change it, wish to bring it into joy… but if there is no grief, how can joy exist?”