Midwinter 2020 Instadrabbling by Lindariel

Dior slumped upon the carven throne in recognition.

The ambassador from Tol Galen placed the battered case in his lap and lowered his gaze again before answering the unspoken question.

"At the last your parents eschewed the funeral rites of Men and Elves. We lay them together in your mother's garden, marked only by a carpet of niphredil."

Dior opened the case and lifted the storied necklace from its pillow. He fancied he could still see blood -- his father's, his grandfather's -- dimming the lambent gem.

"I will not forsake their memories," sighed the quarter-Maia, and donned the necklace.

Galadriel marveled anew at the skills of dwarves. Flói's stumpy fingers crafting the silver wire possessed a beauty her own people seldom appreciated, or even recognized. She recalled the times she had watched Aulë himself in his workshop, moving no more smoothly than this. He had taught his children well, and they had taught their children well.

She watched his sure hands as he adjusted the soldering flame downward so the new-spilled flux would transform more slowly. Even the filigree offcuts he discarded for their minute imperfections were the most delicate she had ever seen, whether in Aman or Ennor.

Alatáriel sat at Finrod's campsite, striving to find courage amid the constraints of kinship.

Although Thingol had not sent her away along with her brothers, she had thought it wise to vanish from his sight for a while. Taking only her portable writing desk and her Grey-elven cloak, she slipped out to join her brothers on the banks of Esgalduin.

She drew her journal from the desk, striving to block out Angrod's shouting and Finrod's lugubrious harping as she found her place in the manuscript. She dipped her pen, writing "today I have a new name. I shall be Galadriel."

Elfstan finished the tale. "And then Mad Baggins disappeared from his table with a thunderclap, off on another of his wanderings. Then the table was under an enchantment for seventeen years, producing six excellent meals a day for anyone who sat at it."

Firiel giggled. Elfstan frowned. "Don't laugh! It's true."

Firiel looked at their father in his chair by the fire. "Is it really true, Dada?" she asked, her eyes wide.

"Most of it," said her father. "'Twasn't an enchantment, though. Your Granda cooked for Mr. Frodo after Mr. Baggins left, and he's the best cook in the Westfarthing."

Idril belted her silver-washed steel hauberk, shrugging to distribute the weight of it before donning her white surcoat embroidered with cornflowers. She stood a moment in the alcove, remembering the too few happy years she had spent in this home with Tuor, before saying "I will be fine. Make your own preparations now," as she dispersed her ladies.

The personal guards Tuor had designated against a day such as this closed in on her flanks. "What now, my Lady?" asked the leader.

She lifted Eärendil's mail shirt from its stand along with his ilinyaisa sword. "To the prince," she ordered.

Chapter End Notes

Eärendil's childhood sword becomes Sting.  I wrote a drabble about that here:  http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=4371&chapter=19

The two tall Elves might have been exchanging secrets, their bent heads almost touching as they stood back from the circle of Elves dancing around the fire to the accompaniment of a piper. Círdan's eyes were closed as he swayed slightly. "My mother used to play this tune," he murmured, wistful with memories of Cuiviénen.

"Yes, uncle, I have heard her play it for many a dance," replied Teleporno. "But she plays it with more humor, a song of joyous discovery. Yon piper plays it with more longing, more seeking."

"Now you begin to understand the Falathrim," his uncle replied.

Even before Thingol had finished speaking, cursing the speech of Aman and banishing for a time the sons of Finarfin, Melian could foresee the hole that would be left behind by Alatáriel's absence. An aura of Aman, a memory fresher than her own of the Two Trees, clung about her husband's kinswoman, lending fresh energy to the body Melian had assumed to become Thingol's lover.

She had not been fully aware how much she relied on that new energy until she contemplated how she would have to live without it. For Alatáriel too would vanish from Menegroth, for a time.

Itarillë squealed "there you are!" and launched herself at Artanis. The Ambarussa began shouting for cake.

"Unlikely!" laughed Eärwen. "Dinner before cake, children."

Artanis laughed too, hugging Itarillë. "Happy Begetting Day!" she said. She looked around the room to see whether the family were all present. Discovering her uncle in a corner staring fixedly into a silver bowl filled with water, she forgot about the party entirely. Their weird encounter before the party returned to haunt her. Had Fëanor noticed her vision in the water?

Fëanor raised his head, regarding Artanis more closely than she liked. She shivered, turning away.

"Mother of Stars, here is an evil!" intoned Glorfindel, casting a theatrical eye at his young friend. "Someone has drunk up all the milk and left nothing but plum juice." He reached for a silver pitcher and waved it toward Eärendil. "Will you have a cup with me?"

Idril thundered into the dining room. "Glorfindel! He drinks milk with lunch, not juice."

Glorfindel held out the empty ceramic jug to her, smiling innocently. "There is no milk in here. Really, Idril! Look and see."

"That is a remarkable turn of events," she admitted after inspecting the jug. "Juice for everybody!"

Alatáriel moved around the sewing table, tugging at the newly finished sail as she went. She had already sent the sailmakers home with praise in their ears for the fine job they had done on their first great sail. All their needles had moved together in perfect rhythm with the Telerin sewing rhyme she had taught them: "the sail makes wood to travel on water."

Teleporno appeared in the doorway. "Something is rustling. Is it done?" he asked, surprised.

"It is," she replied, "and well done at that. Help me finish folding it," she directed. "Tomorrow we will waterproof it."

She did not call it resurrection, for she did not think she had ever actually died. But every evening she awakened in her own form, unscathed, and looked out her tower window eastward across the Sundering Seas felt like a reincarnation.

By day her hröa took the form of a great seabird, playing touch-and-gone with the tall waves, wheeling and feeding with a colony of gulls. She rarely flew inland or touched the earth. At eventide she returned to her tower.

By night she watched her husband as he sailed the heavens, whispering "which of us will stop flying first?"