In-Betweens by Elleth

Chapter 1

This particular chapter started out as a daily drabble ("Nonage" as found in "Many Journeys"), but quickly decided it wanted to be more. And since it fit well with the prompt for "Beginnings", I decided to take up that idea and work with it...

She could feel those bright eyes again.

On her red hair, on the skin of her neck, steadily from her shoulders down the middle of her back, the one place a touch could make her shriek with laughter (a weakness her siblings exploited with delight), or shudder with a sensation she yet refused to name. That way it lacked what little reality he had not already bestowed.

She fled, no, moved outside into the yard. The forge-door closed, and she breathed more easily.

Then... a quick, tentative touch (bright like his eyes) on the edge of her mind.

Her breath hitched, and it was not the sound of the door that had her turn around. She simply did.

He stood there. Tall and all wiry strength, more adult than youth already, at forty-three – almost, her artist's eye perceived – if not for the gangly limbs that could deceive those who gave him no more than just a passing glance. ('Is that possible?' she wondered somewhere hidden, not-spoken-aloud in the back of her mind. 'To give him less than a long and careful look?') Yet – she had seen him wield her father's sledgehammer, and he could outrun all other apprentices with ease when they were sent outside after the lessons. She had watched from her window day after day, and once or twice she swore that he looked back at her.

With those bright eyes.

They swept over her again now, as he stood pressed against the door, a fist half-clenched against the sooty leather apron for protection in the forge.

“Istarnië,” he said. “I made a gift for you,” and stretched out that hand. From his palm, a star-shaped jewel shone at her. Clear, tiny and radiant, a what – a grey and copper fire? – caught within. “So you know what I see.”

Of course she took it, her fingers not-quite touching his. And of course, she thought, it was no surprise that it was so bright, for through those bright eyes all things must shine with special radiance, even her.

All the more surprised – and scared - she was to see, not much later, another of his works. A sceptre for King Manwë, in gold and white and blue, and beautiful, but nowhere near as blazing as her star.