Nost-na-Lothion by Grundy

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

Turukano looked from the small bouquet – if one could even call it that, a handful of pale white blossoms already beginning to droop – to his daughter’s hopeful face.

He hadn’t noticed so much as a bud around the camp, which meant that it must have cost Itarillë some time and trouble to find even these few.

“Do you like them, Atto?” she asked anxiously. “I know they’re nothing like the ones at home…”

There was such a tone of discouragement in her voice that he answered at once.

“I have never seen more beautiful flowers, darling,” he assured her. “We must put them in water at once – see, the smallest ones are already in need.”

Her smile rivalled the sun as he cleared what had been a pen holder and poured water into it.

“There, now we can enjoy them for as long as they may last.”

“I know where there are more,” Itarillë told him excitedly. “There was a girl my age in the group that came to speak to Grandfather, and she showed me!”

“Perhaps you could show me in the morning,” Turukano suggested.

He didn’t want her to pick them all in a well-meaning but misguided attempt to cheer him up or make him feel better about having brought her here.

But he wouldn’t mind seeing something normal.

---

The next year, Rillë brought him a larger bunch of flowers, and didn’t need to be told they need water to keep them from wilting.

She had planned it better this time, even if her father would rather not think about which of his cousins she’d gone to for the delicate glass vase in his favorite color. They were waiting on his desk when he woke in the morning, and his daughter looked immensely pleased with herself when he exclaimed over them.

“I’ve been checking for the last three weeks to see if any were in bloom yet,” she explained when he asked how she’d managed the trick of finding the earliest flowers. “Tyelpë helped. I told him if we worked together, he could have half the flowers for his father when they finally opened.”

Turukano would have been happier not knowing that, but both the idea and the plan had been his daughter’s, so he held his peace. And he made sure that the vase of flowers were the center of his table at dinner that evening, for his father, brother, and sister to see and praise. They exclaim over the flowers so much that Rillë promises to find enough for everyone the next year.

---

When they moved to Nevrast, the flowers changed – that year’s bunch was a mix of pale blue and little golden things that look like tiny puffballs. (They match well with the vase she always used, and are tied with a ribbon she must have had some help weaving.)

By then, Rillë was on the cusp of adolescence, and Turukano felt a pang of regret that this lovely little ‘tradition’ may soon cease.

But when he made a guarded allusion to the idea that he would understand if the childish gesture was set aside, Rillë frowned.

“No, why would I stop? Others are starting to do it as well. I believe the Sindar do it as well, and not just children.”

Next year’s bunch was twice the now usual size, and Turukano wasn’t sure if it was to prove the point or because she was irritated that he had doubted her.

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He wasn’t sure what to expect the first year that Itarillë and Irissë joined him in Tumladen. He himself had never been there for the first flowers either – he had found the valley in high summer, and his secret visits had of necessity been in the warmer parts of the year, when cold weather and blizzards would not be a hazard.

The removal from Nevrast had also been in the wrong season for him to have seen early flowers, for he had waited until he was certain all risk of freezing weather had passed. He would not subject his people to a journey that would remind them of the Ice. He also could not have new fallen snow betraying the passage of so many.

The winter had been hard – they weren’t much further north than Vinyamar had been, but the higher elevation and the mountains all around made a difference. The cold lasted longer, the snow fell more often and piled up higher. It had come as a profound relief when it finally began to melt – at least, it was until it turned the valley into a soggy mess, made mud impossible to avoid, and was accompanied by a string of sullen, overcast days.

So it was with some surprise that he found Rillë waiting one morning with an empty vase.

He was somewhat alarmed, but she crooked a finger at him with an impish grin.

He had little choice but to follow her. She led him up onto the walls, to a spot where he could see the nearly all of his kingdom – and as he looked out, realized it had more or less exploded with flowers overnight. The day before the view had been a hopeful green that gave rise to hopes spring had arrived at last. Today there were riotous flashes of bright color carpeting the valley.

“Which flowers should I bring you, Atto?” she asked, her eyes dancing. “There are so many to choose from and no way to say which were first.”

---

The next year, the walls were more elaborate. His people hadn’t been idle. The city came closer to his vision of it with each passing day.

The flowers were just as colorful as they had been the previous year, a match for anything remembered from Tirion. And there were more people on the walls to look at them.

The third year, there were so many that there was scarce space for all of them.

That winter, Turukano suggested they make it an official holiday.

To his surprise, not only his daughter but also his sister took to the idea enthusiastically.

The next spring, the Birth of Flowers was greeted not only on the walls, but throughout the not yet completed city and in the valley. There is not a single house that did not hang a flower or a sprig of fresh greenery above its door, even if that ‘door’ was still a tent rather than a stone building.

---

Everyone in the city loved Nost na Lothion, but for members of the royal family it was particularly beloved.

Irimë scoffed at most ‘new’ holidays, but Turukano had never heard her say anything less than positive about this one. Possibly that was because Laurefindil, whose house took their name from the flowers that nearly matched his hair, said it was his favorite festival.

Irissë would seize any excuse for a festival, and one that involved getting out into what little ‘countryside’ they had seemed particularly welcome to her. She made the flower garlands for the House of the King herself.

When he came to the city, Lomion had never seen such flowers before. The festival proved to be the one time of year Rillë was able to reliably persuade him to wear brighter colors. He hadn’t much talent for growing things, but instead led the smiths of his House to create fire-flowers to brighten the night.

Turukano never told anyone that his favorite part was still the bunch of flowers from his daughter, who after that first year in Tumladen never skipped the tradition again.

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They didn’t know at the time that it would be the last Nost na Lothion, but it was the first one that Turukano deemed his grandson old enough to participate. He waited until it was nearly time for the festival to tell the boy the story of a tiny little bouquet in Mithrim, and encourage him to make sure that Itarillë had a bunch of flowers waiting for her on the morning of the festival.

He’d never seen Eärendil prouder than when he told them at lunch how happy his Ammë had been about the cornflowers he brought her.