Lockdown Instadrabbling by Nienna

relations, voyage, summer, rumored

Anairë recounts her first kiss with Eärwen.

My lovely wife has asked me to speech record the story of our first kiss, so I am doing just that. It has been almost 1000 years since the events being described here, so my memory is imperfect. I wrote little bits at the time though, never more than a paragraph or so. I will be working off of that as well. All the same, details may be fabricated or blurred. The exact nature of certain feelings eludes me. I feel compelled to literally go on record saying that despite the rumors, we elves do not have faultless memories! Ours may be more exemplary than those of the short lived Edain, but that’s like comparing … elanor to… oranges! And really, you’d think they would remember more, what with having so little to remember!) 

Anyway, I’m getting off track here. One summer when I was not yet fully grown I was sent to visit Earwen. I had never met her before, but our families were close. It was a strange feeling being surrounded by people whose faces I had never seen and yet who knew shockingly intimate details about my entire life-story! Our rooms were across from each other. We were about the same age. To be completely honest, I didn’t think much of you at first. You were just there. I wasn’t a particularly friendly youngster, and you kept bugging me when I wanted to read my books. But sometimes you would come into my room and quietly read next to me. And as I warmed up to you we went on such marvelous adventures! I remember, once that summer we went on a voyage to Tol Erresea! We used the boat in your parents’ yard; you could sail very competently. It was a short trip, just there and back, plus stopping in the middle to look for sea life. But I had never been off mainland Valinor and, more importantly, I had never been on an adventure with someone I really cared for (other than my parents of course, whom I love dearly.) We had so much fun, swimming in our full clothes and playing flotsam on the shore, then drying off on the ride home! But all of this is for another time. 

The story I want to tell, the one you asked me to tell is the one about when I kissed you. And that happened a few weeks later. The realization was somehow both all of a sudden and gradually building. I would tag along to your singing classes (and I was being taught too, while I was here.) You and your classmates were doing scenes from a variety of different Telerin operas. I was in the ensemble for two of them, and provided some valuable distracting of the audience during scene changes  (my personal favorite was the frog jumping) the rest of the time. There was one scene- the song will forever be etched into me- in which you were playing a young man who was in love with a woman who you were unable to stay with, because the king wanted to have relations with her, but the two of you were speaking tenderly and romantically to each other one last time. The other girl might as well not have been there. It was always you I watched. I watched you squatting on the side, and there was one day in particular when hearing your voice just seemed like too much. I watched as you bent down and stared into the other girl’s eyes with such loving tenderness. I knew it was entirely fake, and yet I hardly cared. “I wish that was me!” I realized. I felt quiet and toned down in a way I couldn’t name, a pensiveness that seems to have a tangible weight of its own. I almost felt faint. It just felt like too much. I sat down and watched you, fully enveloped in this melancholy/buzzing feeling. 

Your voice is so smooth- I could talk about it for hours. And I did, under the veil of moderate interest that I always used when I was very, very interested in something. Exactly three weeks after the day when I knew, we were sitting in your garden on a hot day. There were some fallen flowers littered around us, but most of them had dried up by now. The flowers on the tree, on the other hand, were still quite lovely. But there was no wind, and in a hot day you really want wind. We were planning to go inside soon and make cold smoothies. But first, we were sitting and talking about.. dinner I think. I can’t recall exactly, it was something incredibly mundane. I was kind of distracted by how close we were sitting, and in a sudden flash of bravery, I interrupted the conversation to ask if I could kiss you. You looked surprised, rightfully, of course. It’s not like I had led up to it in any way. But then you grinned at me, and said you’d wanted to since I first arrived. I swiveled around a little and nervously brought my mouth to yours. It was kind of uncomfortable at first, what with my neck being turned all the way to the side. So we got up and leaned against the tree, and that was much better. It was like every hole in my perception was filled with the most wonderful warm, excited, rich, smooth feeling. In fact, I’m going to turn off the recording and kiss you right now!