Many Journeys by Elleth

Ratiocination

Carnistir is going to be a big brother, and Nerdanel offers comfort. A double-drabble.

Read Ratiocination

"Carnistir, look at me."

The bedcovers quivered. Curled up and barely visible among the pillows and blankets my youngest continued to ignore me. This stubbornness, Míriel's trait, had rendered others wordless and witless before. I sat down on the side of the bed. A hand snaked from underneath the covers, at once clutching a fistful of my dress and attempting to push me away.

Words came, then, for I knew what ailed him. 

"You will not be loved less. Never and never."

A mop of unruly black hair appeared, a flushed face smeared with tears. "The truth?"

"The truth."

"But Tyelko said..." He did not continue.

"Tyelko feared that you would steal the love we gave to him, and before that, Makalaurë feared the same. Before him, Maitimo was no different. Many at first fear what they do not know, but given time they grow to love it."

Like a small animal that leaves its burrow once danger has passed, he crawled from the bed and into my lap, his head against my shoulder. His frown turned into a smile.

"Then if he - " his hands strayed to my belly - "is afraid of us too, I'll make it right."

---

Chapter End Notes

Ratiocination rash-ee-ah-suh-NAY-shun; rash-ee-oh-, noun:
The process of reasoning.

Ratiocination is from Latin rationcinatio, from ratiocinari, "to compute, to calculate, to reason," from ratio, "reckoning, calculation, reason," from reri, "to reckon, to think."

(from www.dictionary.com)

Fractious

Good days and bad days in the House of Fëanor.

Read Fractious

One, two, three, four...

She could tell it was a good day from the way his hammer fell: Rhythmic, sure, fast and strong.

On bad days: Dissonance, long pauses (one... one two... two... one...) and the strength of his strokes seemed, aimlessly, to waver and sway.

On the worst days there was silence like the airs before a storm, silence that heralded brooding and anger she could no longer restrain. On those days she set the dinner table with cold meats and took refuge in her studio, emerging the next Mingling, to listen (breathless) to the sound of the hammer.

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Chapter End Notes

fractious FRAK-shuhs, adjective:
1. Tending to cause trouble; unruly.
2. Irritable; snappish; cranky.

Fractious is from fraction, which formerly had the sense "discord, dissension, disharmony"; it is derived from Latin frangere, "to break."

(from www.dictionary.com, bold emphasis mine.) 

Carom

Nerdanel and Fëanor, and estrangement.

Read Carom

The door slammed shut.

Silence fell, settling, like dust, into the corridors and rooms and hallways. The house would be choked with it before long, and every sound that arose would be smothered before it reached the ears of a living being.

She went to the door, startled by the weakness in her knees. The handle was warm when she touched it, resisted when she tried to open the door, was wrenched from her hands when he re-entered, penitent, and took her face into his hands to kiss her.

She turned away.

"Forgive me."

"Not this time, Fëanáro." Her stomach churned. It hurt. She spoke on before he could ask the questions she knew would come. "Ask not only what, ask how often. To rebound another time without breaking is impossible."

"Then break and let me have your pieces!" she heard him exclaim in a sudden, but not unexpected, upsurge of anger. "I will fashion you again!"

"You do not understand." The calm to his storm. "It is not I who will break, it is us. How will you work when you, too, are broken? Tell me."

The door slammed shut.

Silence fell. She hoped it would smother her weeping.

---

Chapter End Notes

carom KAIR-uhm, noun:

1. A rebound following a collision; a glancing off.

intransitive verb:
1. To strike and rebound; to glance.
2. To make a carom.

Carom derives from obsolete carambole, from Spanish carambola, "a stroke at billiards."

(from www.dictionary.com) 

Phantasmagoria

Nerdanel, the Darkening, a candle.

Read Phantasmagoria

In their first night she dreamt she held a candle.

She remembered that dream many years after when there was indeed a candle clutched in both her hands, the flame feeble against the unlight, flickering wildly in the winds Manwë sent, and soon snuffed out. Darkness descended. Her fingers dug into the wax of their own accord.

Back in the house, in the light, she saw her work. A near-perfect likeness of him that surely would move in rhythm with its flame before it guttered out once more.

Though she tried, it could – would - not be lit again.

---

Chapter End Notes

phantasmagoria fan-taz-muh-GOR-ee-uh, noun:
1. A shifting series or succession of things seen or imagined, as in a dream.
2. Any constantly changing scene.

Phantasmagoria is from French phantasmagorie, from phantasme, "phantasm" (from Greek, from phantazein, "to make visible," from phantos, "visible," from phainein, "to show") + -agorie, perhaps from Greek agora, "assembly."

(from www.dictionary.com)

Heterodox

Mahtan's apprentices and gossip about certain young lovers.

Read Heterodox

"Have you heard? The Lord Aulë, he himself will visit with Master Mahtan!"

The apprentices had only been waiting for something to stir their tongues into action, and the forges and workshops of the Aulenduri were soon abuzz with rumors.

"The Lady Yavanna, too. I wonder what she seeks with Istarnië. That girl is more interested in metal and stone than growing things."

"Oh, but she made something grow. Istarnië has... dealings with the High Prince."
Startled laughter sounded.

"They are but children!"

"Still, it is high time for her to learn the making of coimas. Not yet fifty, and wedded without ceremony; for shame!"

---

Chapter End Notes

Coimas (Quenya) is the life-bread of the Eldar, more commonly known with its Sindarin name, lembas. Tolkien wrote in The Peoples of Middle-earth (HoMe Vol. 12) that "[s]ince it [coimas] came from Yavanna, the queen, or the highest among the elven-women of any people, great or small, had the keeping and the gift of lembas [...]" and "[...] the art of the making of the lembas, which [the maidens of Yavanna, or Yavannildi] learned of the Valar, was a secret among them and so ever has remained."

I do admit that Nerdanel learning the making of lembas is purely fanon, but with her marriage to Fëanor she would certainly be considered one of the higher-ranking women of the Noldor and thus be entitled to learn that secret.

 

Istarnië (Quenya - the wise) is a name Tolkien considered for Nerdanel, but then rejected. Because of its meaning and Nerdanel's subsequent connection to that, I have kept it as one of her names.

 

---

heterodox HET-uh-ruh-doks, adjective:
1. Contrary to or differing from some acknowledged standard, especially in church doctrine or dogma; unorthodox.
2. Holding unorthodox opinions or doctrines.

Heterodox comes from Greek heterodoxos, "of another opinion," from hetero-, "other" + doxa, "opinion," from dokein, "to believe."

(from www.dictionary.com)

Sere (*)

The death of Fëanor.

Read Sere (*)

The earth groaned and cracked beneath their steps. Grass flared up and died. Horses screamed in terror and eyes were shielded against fire. Standards whipped in hot wind, burst into flame, were cast away.

One stood. One fought. One fell, facedown into the dust.
Trumpets sounded. The demons retreated. He was lifted up and borne away.

"Water!" one cried. Though he laved his father's feverish body and the sprung lips, they cracked and bled. His father spoke. His sons listened, grim-faced, and echoed the dying words.

He breathed forth... and burned.

She watched, woke, and would have wept, if not for lack of tears.

---

Chapter End Notes

sere SEER, adjective:
Dry; withered.

Sere comes from Old English sear, "dry."

(from www.dictionary.com)

Acclimate

Nerdanel, Finarfin and Eärwen, and the aftermath of the Darkening.

Read Acclimate

Valinor was cold without the light, she said, and was chided by Arafinwë (with his arms protectively around Eärwen). She knew nothing of cold, he said, she who had not been in Araman and heard the doom of the Noldor herself.

Too wearied to reply she kept her silence, and pulled her scarves more closely around herself. A soft hand rested on her shoulder.

"Leave me," Nerdanel said then. "If you say that I know no cold, I say that you know little of warmth or fire." Eärwen put a blanket around her. "Our peoples learned. Too much of both."

---

Chapter End Notes

acclimate uh-KLY-mit; AK-luh-mayt, transitive and intransitive verb:
To accustom or become accustomed to a new climate, environment, or situation.

Acclimate is from French acclimater, from a-, "to" (from Latin ad-) + climat, "climate," from Late Latin clima, climat-, from Greek klima, "inclination; the supposed slope of the earth toward the pole; region; clime," from klinein, "to lean."

(from www.dictionary.com)

Didactic

A lesson, not only for young Maedhros and Maglor.

Read Didactic

"... the hosts of the Eldalië departed from Cuiviénen..."

The words faltered and failed when a younger voice, already stronger than the other, suddenly sped into wordless song. Images of a white horse and a magnificent rider burst into being, hovering in the air like butterflies. The room seemed to darken, stars burned where the high ceiling should be.

"Father!" Out of place and almost squawking with indignation, a cry broke through the spell. "Mother! I was telling the History! Make him stop?"

He waved his arms at the figures, who had now stopped in their paths and gazed up cruel mountains half-veiled with mist. Then ascent and descent and a wooded land. Some tarried and strayed.

"Mother! Make Macalaurë stop, please!"
The song went on, unperturbed. Nerdanel smiled. "Speak while he sings, Maitimo. Do you not see that together you can create more beauty than each of you alone? It is often thus. Alone, for all our crafts, neither your father nor I could have brought forth beauty like you and Macalaurë. Is it not right, then, especially being kin, that you should work together, too?"

"Mmmh... yes... thus after many long years the Teleri..."

But Nerdanel already looked to her husband.

---

Chapter End Notes

Maedhros's "History" is borrowed from the Silmarillion, Chapter III - Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor.

Maglor, even at that young age, is already a powerful singer, with "[...] the gift of elf-minstrels, who can make the things of which they sing appear before the eyes of those that listen." (The Return of the King, Appendix A: The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen).

- I really hope it isn't too far-fetched.

---

didactic dy-DAK-tik; duh-, adjective:
1. Fitted or intended to teach; conveying instruction; instructive; teaching some moral lesson; as, "didactic essays."
2. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively; moralistic.

Didactic comes from Greek didaktikos, "skillful in teaching," from didaktos, "taught," from didaskein, "to teach, to educate."

(from www.dictionary.com)

Betimes

Nerdanel, Fëanor and a promise.

Read Betimes

"How far is it to Tirion?"
"Two days. We will ride without pause."
"I cannot go so fast, for I am tired. I fear, Fëanáro, that your first son shall be born in the wilds, and his father shall be the midwife." A flutter in those words belied her outward calm.

Silence. He was pale, his eyes too wide, his lips pressed together. Her fingers brushed his hand; reassurance by touch; but he jerked the reins and the contact was broken.

"I will not lose you, too!"
"Do not fear, love. I shall live to give you many children."

But after... a shadow.

---

Chapter End Notes

betimes bih-TYMZ, adverb:
1. Early; in good time; before it is late.
2. At times; on occasion.
3. [Archaic] Soon; in a short time.

Betimes is from Middle English bitimes, from bi, "by" + time, "time."

(from www.dictionary.com) 

Desideratum

Nerdanel, Fëanor, and letters from Formenos. 350 words, recycled from an older drabble I wrote ages ago.

Read Desideratum

Her father's house lay near the road from Formenos to Tirion.

Messengers often passed that way, and always she wished that it was not for her: Please, a message from Finwë to his other sons. But more often than not they wore her husband's colors and clattered over the cobblestoned yard to wait outside while she locked the study-door and read. They would not have to tarry long, she could soon promise, for in his letters he used few words, and each time the same. Her fingers trembled nonetheless.

You will return.
And that was all.

She gave the letter to the flames, unlocked the door, and smiled. She had long since learned to let it reach her eyes. "My only message to my husband is that I have none. He will know what to make of it."

The messengers departed and returned.

You will return.
That letter, too, fed the fire.

You will return.
That, too.

After that, years passed and no more letters came, though often the messengers would stop on the road, just briefly, and gaze at the house in wonder. They wore Finwë's colors now and passed out of sight into the city. There was no more reason to smile. The fire moved hungrily when she passed by, but she had no paper for it now.

At last, one morning, the half-missed sound of hooves on stone. She rushed outside in her festival gown, her wreath of copper-flowers knocked askew, and received the note. Her study-door remained unlocked as she read.

Nerdanel, please return. As the Valar have commanded me, I will be at the feast in the Halls of Manwë upon Taniquetil. If you will, beloved, I will await you there.

No tears came. Instead, she sat long in thought, the letter still in hand. A sudden cold fell on her, a dread she could not explain nor understand, and her fist tightened around the paper. Already arrayed for that very festival (though her dress was crumpled now), she rose and gazed outside. Golden and silver light played on her study windows --- faded, struggled, flickered --- and went out.

Darkness.

---

Chapter End Notes

desideratum dih-sid-uh-RAY-tum; -RAH-, noun;
plural desiderata:
Something desired or considered necessary.

Desideratum is from Latin desideratum, "a thing desired," from desiderare, "to desire."

(from www.dictionary.com)

Providential

A strange take on the Prophecy of the North, from Fëanor's point of view. Possibly AU.

Read Providential

Clouds were piling up in the mountains, dark with a promise of rain. Crawling they scaled the peaks and invaded the Calacirya, and the sight of the sea was lost.

A strange light reigned, coming from waning Laurelin and waxing Telperion to the West, and all at once from everywhere as though the very skies acted like a mirror. The clouds were the color of lead, and low-hanging like curtains they slowly enclosed the city. The land seemed to diminish (and the Valar shall fence Valinor against you) until only the Mindon Eldalieva shone proudly in the gold-and-silver gloom, scratching the clouds much like his mother's ivory needles would have their marks on hands less skilled than hers.

He had tried them once – after all he was skilled by both name and inheritance - and looked in astonishment and fear on the droplet of blood that ran from his fingertip (for blood ye shall render blood) to stain her laid-down work.

The tattoo of heavy raindrops (tears unnumbered ye shall shed) on the palace windows began suddenly, and through the downpour he caught a glimpse of movement in the square below; a frenzy of gold and white as Artanis (treason of kin unto kin) darted outside and danced in the falling water. How liquid the light turned as the clouds tore, and how it played on her hair! A myriad reflections of the Trees, one in each raindrop as it soaked into her hair and ran in rivulets down her skin, seeped into her dress and made it half-translucent (and fear of treason) until she herself shone with that very radiance!

And then a voice.

“Love, what is it you see there? It seems as though you were staring.“ his wife's voice (to evil end shall all things turn that they begin well) sounded from across the room where she sat in discussion with his father. Reluctantly, slowly, he turned his head from the dancer below to look at them. “But the rain.“ (treason) He turned back.

The great courtyard lay empty. She was gone.

(The Dispossessed shall they be forever.)

---

Chapter End Notes

The bracketed passages in italics are of course from the Silmarillion, Chapter 9: Of the Flight of the Noldor, as spoken in the Prophecy of the North. No, I do not entirely understand this drabble either... this was only the second time Feanor granted me access to his mind, and I am a little creeped out, to be honest. But I'm sure all of this makes sense on an obscure level us puny humans can't even begin to grasp. ;)

providential prov-uh-DEN(T)-shuhl, adjective:
1. Of or resulting from divine direction or superintendence.
2. Occurring through or as if through divine intervention; peculiarly fortunate or appropriate.

Providential derives from Latin providentia, from providens, provident-, present participle of providere, literally, "to see ahead," from pro-, "forward" + videre, "to see."

 

(from www.dictionary.com, emphasis mine)

Bibelot

Aulë, Fëanor and Nerdanel. A contest in three pieces of dialogue.

Read Bibelot

I

“Fëanáro challenged Aulë to a contest of skills.”

“So I have heard. He demanded a year's time, no earlier could his work be accomplished, he said, and then he disappeared. I think it is out of fear.”

“You underestimate him. He will not flee, nor seek help from any save perhaps his wife, young Nerdanel.”

“Then he really is as obstinate and proud as everyone says, at the risk of his honor.”

“There is little risk to that. There is no shame in being bested by a Vala.”
“But why speak up in the first place if he cannot win?”
“I did not say that. He is proud for one so young, but learned much, nor shared every secret he discovered. I think they will come to a truce.”
“We shall see.”

 

II

“A maker of bibelots and trinkets has he become, and dares attempt to teach me!”

“What angers you so, Fëanáro? The Lord Aulë has not lost his powers for his choice to put them to different uses now. Small things need not all be flawed or without worth. Grant me but a year to prove it.”

“I know, love. Your year you shall have.”

 

III

“I have come before you today, Lord, to present to you my work. A sphere of stone that, governed by one's thought, may see far-off and even speak with those who wield its brother-stones.

“Indeed an accomplishment worthy of great wonder and honor. Behold now my work, a mirror that shows not merely what is, but that which was and may yet be as history unfolds. - Now where is Lady Nerdanel?”

“Forgive my interruption, Lords. My daughter sent me to say that what she has brought into being mere hours ago is small, yet certainly no trinket. His name is Maitimo.”

 

---

Chapter End Notes

bibelot BEE-buh-loh, noun:
A small decorative object without practical utility; a trinket.

Bibelot is from French, from Old French beubelot, beubelet, "a small jewel, a trinket," from a reduplication of bel, "beautiful," from Latin bellus, "pretty, handsome." It is related to bauble.

(from www.dictionary.com)

Sotto Voce

First shadows gather on the Blessed Realm.

Read Sotto Voce

"I forbid you to shame me, mine and my house, and so yourself, Curufinwë!"
"You shamed you, yours and your house already, giving your hand to the Vanya! You condemned my mother – your wife - to death while Arda lasts!"
"She condemned herself! This discussion is at an end. You will greet your brother Arafinwë Ingoldo at his essecarmë tomorrow."
"I have no siblings."

Fëanáro forced his way past the lords in the courtyard. Engrossed in their own little politics, none had heard the argument fought in hisses and whispers, although one had glanced up and briefly wondered whether Manwë sent a storm.

---

Chapter End Notes

sotto voce SAH-toh-VOH-chee, adverb or adjective:
1. Spoken low or in an undertone, as not to be overheard.
2. (Music) In very soft tones. Used chiefly as a direction.

Sotto voce is from the Italian: sotto, "under" and voce, "voice."

Confabulation

Caught in Angband, Maedhros receives comfort from an unexpected source. (Implied torture, but nothing graphic.)

Read Confabulation

In the brief respites before I was returned to their chambers (for too much pain dulled the mind, and the orcs wanted their playthings aware), I was not alone. In that time between wakefulness and such dreams as are possible in Moringotto's fortress – of creatures that slashed your skin and had you wake bleeding – I felt my hand held. Sometimes I would crack my eyes open to see a mop of red hair that was not my own – and my heart would pound painfully; no, no, no, no! until she moved to reveal a young and unfamiliar face, save for that angle of her chin, or how she blinked her eyes owlishly, like grandfather Mahtan might do – or were these but phantom-thoughts to addle me?

At times I could not help myself and called her amil. Then, and only then, I thought I felt the pain lessen and the nightmares recede, and there was light and a voice I knew. “Take what strength and comfort there is, dearest, knowing that you are not alone, and sleep now. None shall assail you while I am here with you.“

And I slept, with her arms around me.

---

Chapter End Notes

confabulation kon-FAB-yuh-lay-shuhn, noun:
1. Familiar talk; easy, unrestrained, unceremonious conversation.
2. (Psychology) A plausible but imagined memory that fills in gaps in what is remembered.

(from www.dictionary.com)

Serendipity

Carnistir, and a simple way to restore peace between his parents.

Read Serendipity

He could move like a shadow, and Nerdanel used to say that his father had given the essë tercenyë this time, appropriate both for his looks and his skills. Morifinwë .

When he was young, he could move unseen into the pantry (a skill his brothers would have valued, had they known), and out again with gingerbread crumbs in his robes that itched as he sat at the table and tried to empty his plate.

He could creep out of the house to play when it rained, and came back dripping mud to his chamber door, and so was found out.

When he was older – when it had become necessary for all of them to move like shadows while their parents argued in the study – he could slip into their bedroom and place a single flower in the middle of their bed. No matter who was first to find it would believe the other had left this peace-offering. “They want to be so fooled,” he told his brothers in one of their councils, “even when they know there was no chance that either of them put it there.”

For a while it was possible to move openly again.

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Chapter End Notes

serendipity ser-uhn-DIP-uh-tee, noun:
The faculty or phenomenon of making fortunate accidental discoveries.

(from www.dictionary.com)

Stasis

Nerdanel's story, and her reaction to the Silmarils.

Read Stasis

First it was only them, newlywed and in love, and she could believe that life in the Blessed Realm truly was blessed. There was light. There were their talk and laughter and a million other little things; and sooner than she had imagined, the squalling of a newborn who had her hold her breath in awe. Despite the pain at birth – more than she expected, but then, being cautious, she had never before known much hurt – she could believe in blessedness.

But the light dimmed. The pain grew greater over time, and with each child she grew more weary. There were matters they disagreed on, now. Still, there were instances that had her believe, in between the hazes and the loud words they locked away into the study. She could believe in blessedness when they sat together in the evenings, and when she found a flower on the bed after their arguments over petty matters as the meal, or great ones as her loyalty to Aulë. And if those moments grew more rare, they also grew more treasured, and she grasped at them with the desperation of someone who was drowning. This was when she first realized that even though they lived within the Blessed Realm, they also lived in Arda Marred.

And then – the children were grown or nearly grown (Curufinwë, alike to his father in name as in face and character, brought home a wife when he was only forty-six), he made the Silmarils, and brought them into the bedchamber in a casket of crystal when she slept. She woke when the radiance washed over her and even through the red tinge of her closed eyelids she knew the light for what it was.

But it was not for her. For all his words of preserving and protecting – the light, his family, and not least her, for he knew of her condition and secretly feared it - she saw the way he cradled the stones, much as he had held his children, and she saw a flicker in his eyes she had not known before. She saw his reluctance in handing them to her.

She spoke softly, wonderingly, newly woken out of some dream or vision, holding them in one hand and shielding her eyes with the other.

“I fear this may be your greatest work... and yet far too great for you. There is a purpose to everything, love, even that he Trees mingle only in their dim hours, never in full bloom like this. We are not meant for it. Your work is beautiful, but this light is not ours to imprison.”

“Imprison? Nerdanel! If there is a purpose to everything, as you say, there was a purpose to my making them! A permission even, or I could not have made them!”

“It may yet be that that purpose is revealed to you.” She returned the stones to him and already missed their warmth on her palms. It was how her hands had felt in her youth – now they were too often cold. “But it is not the protection of our family. That is our task alone, and no amount of light you cage will change it. Blessed though it is, because it is so blessed, it will only make our flaws the more apparent. It will change nothing and lead to nothing.”

“You do not see. You do not see, Nerdanel.”

With the snap of a lid and the sound of the door, the room was again bathed in darkness. Almost blinded as she had been, indeed, now she saw nothing.

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Chapter End Notes

stasis STAY-sis; STAS-is, noun;
plural stases STAY-seez; STAS-eez:
1. A state of balance, equilibrium, or stagnation.
2. Stoppage of the normal flow of a bodily fluid or semifluid.

Stasis comes from Greek stasis, "a standing still," from histasthai, "to stand."

(from www.dictionary.com)

Parse

Of songs and joy - young Macalaurë reflects on his parents.

Read Parse

My mother is not a singer, and truly, if I listen with my musician's ears, I easily find her voice too ordinary for song. Sometimes the tones stray into octaves that make me, proclaimed as second only to Elemmíre of the Vanyar (some say that I will overtake her soon), wince. Yet she sings constantly, when she believes herself alone, or when the presence of her children is momentarily forgotten. We are always welcome in her workshop, but when she is crafting we might as well be pieces of furniture, such is the attention she pays to us then. If we do not disturb her, we can watch for hours. Sometimes we can hear her hum softly to herself, sometimes sing a full-blown song, often of my making. “Uinen's Tangled Hair“- a song I made when I was younger and still silly, is her favourite. She likes the silly songs best overall, at any rate, they are the ones she sings most often, and when she doesn't start laughing so she has to put her tools down in order not to spoil her work, she sings them with some sort of effortless joy that baffles even me and makes the song far better than many could render it, despite technique, voice and talent.

Father is the only one to startle her out of her rhythms - when he enters the workshop, even when he has not yet said a word and she shouldn't even know he is present, I have seen her eyes light up as though a stray spark of Telperion settled into them. (Carnistir looked at me strangely when I thought that the first time, and confused everyone with his comment. “I bet that hurts. But the light - it's not only in the eyes.”) When father enters the workshop, she stops working and goes to greet him, tucking the tools away into the pockets of her apron as she crosses the distance to him.

Once she was fingerpainting with Ambarussa, and forgot she had paint all over her hands – father looked like he had jumped face-first into her palette. Mother used each finger for a different color, so he had those all over his cheeks, middle finger-red in the hair she tucked behind his ears, a green smudge (from her index finger) on the tip of his nose, and a smear of the same color on his lips. Mother had that one, too.

And when she looked at him, she said “oh”, clapped her hands over her mouth, and started laughing. When father joined her, we knew this would not cause yet another argument.

It felt like a moment in a song.

---

Chapter End Notes

Credit where credit is due - Caranthir's gift in this ficlet is of course based on Dawn Felagund's interpretation of him.

parse PAHRS, transitive verb:
1. To resolve (as a sentence) into its component parts of speech with an explanation of the form, function, and syntactical relationship of each part.
2. To describe grammatically by stating its part of speech, form, and syntactical relationships in a sentence.
3. To examine closely or analyze critically, especially by breaking up into components.
4. To make sense of; to comprehend.
5. (Computer Science) To analyze or separate (input, for example) into more easily processed components.

(from www.dictionary.com, emphasis mine.)

Nonage

Young Nerdanel and first run-ins with her feelings.

Read Nonage

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 had 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.

---

Chapter End Notes

nonage NON-ij; NOH-nij, noun:
1. The time of life before a person becomes legally of age.
2. A period of youth or immaturity.

(from www.dictionary.com)

Oath Fulfilled

Originally written for 15_minute_fic at LJ, the prompt was 'acquire'. Maglor, and the Silmarils regained.

Read Oath Fulfilled

Their last bid was gambling on all or nothing.

It would have been easy, too easy, to walk away from it, but with that idea came the certainty that Maedhros was mad enough to attempt it alone. And besides, loneliness and several kinds of blood bound them together, and he had already abandoned him once. The thought of losing his last remaining brother nearly made his music fail. So did the thought of the Everlasting Dark. He feared it, and wondered if his father had known that as well, used that fear to coerce them all into action, and into fulfillment of the quest. Five, six, seven were dead already, doomed to that very dark if they were failed now. What was a little more blood on their hands in exchange for their family's freedom?

And so he had at last agreed. Ambarussa, smiling as they made a game of their revenge for losing the Silmaril again, and dying with that same smile on their faces, were fresh on his mind as he fought. So were Curvo, smirking and pressing a hand to his chest to stem the flow of blood (the healer, seeing him, shook her head mutely and reached for her herbs to ease the pain of his last few minutes) and Moryo, facedown and a pool of red beneath him, and so was Tyelko, run through by Dior's sword as Dior was by Tyelko's. And so, even centuries distant, was the sight of their father's body falling to ashes.

What was a little more blood on their hands in exchange for all of them? They gambled high and won, and Maedhros died with the Oath Fulfilled and the certainty that he would find the halls of Mandos, not the Void.

It would not be the Everlasting Dark for them, and that was a relief. But it would be something, being a minstrel, he feared more; the everlasting silence, or else the twisted tales of loremasters and bards that had only heard far rumours and made them history. What were the Silmarils returned into sky, earth and sea? Only the fate of the world fulfilled. There was no need to trouble himself over it any longer. What was a burned right hand in exchange for remembrance?

After a while he learned to play the harp one-handed. It would have to do. After all, he had not lost his voice.

Cut (*)

Another entry for 15_minute_fic, the prompt being 'cut'. Thangorodrim scenario, not for the squeamish. This owes much to Lyra's The Tempered Steel.

Read Cut (*)

It was easier than he thought it would be. Not physically, elven bones were made to last, and clinging to an outcrop of rock with bare toes and fingernails made it difficult, but there was none of the begging for forgiveness that he had expected at setting out, from neither of them. For one thing, Maitimo was barely conscious to begin with, and awareness failed him altogether later on. He hacked, first at the fetter, then at the flesh, reasoning that the hand was dead already, and red streaks of blood poisoning crawled up the arm past the elbow. There was none of the begging (not anymore) and none of the tears, but there was certainty that he was thwarting Morgoth as well as his half-uncle and his father; every cut at the broken bones a slash at the dividing lines between them (and every slash a cut in return for Alqualondë and Losgar and Helcaraxë).

The flesh and sinews and bones gave way at last, and clinging to the starved body the precipice tumbled past him as they fell - rocks awaited beneath, and then feathers and wings and a rush, up into the low clouds and away south-west, both of them saved for now. The wound bled weakly, the foul flesh mostly gone, Maitimo's heartbeat-rhythm purging little by little of the foul blood (in return for the oath and the ships and the fire), and his own fingers were bloody as well; Maitimo's blood and his own.

Years later, with the Balrog's mace crashing down, he wondered how and why blood made people heroes.

Hair and Ink

15_minute_fic, some silliness for a change. Warning, language, slash and non-con incest of a very mild nature that should render it completely harmless.

Read Hair and Ink

"He without a doubt thinks that Fingon is the most beautiful being in the world, and Fingon is not so different. All those gold braids must take hours each morning, and who would have so much patience for their looks if they were not an arrogant prick?"
"Only because you cannot stand your surly face in the mirror for more than three minutes, don't go taking it out on us beautiful people!" Curufin shot back and laughed, sticking out his tongue when he found his bottle of wine to be empty. "Not that I have any reason to complain, mind you, looking like father, while you're really only taking after mother's side of the family."
"As I said, prick. And you're the epitome of arrogant pricks, Curvo," his brother replied. Not even Fingon is that bad. Even if you don't spend hours staring at the mirror openly. You probably hide it under the pretense of working, gazing at all those shiny surfaces in your workshop and trying to cut the perfect reflecting crystal. Careful, one day soon it will come back to bite you." Caranthir leaned back and groped for his own bottle, lifting it to hear the wine swish around with a satisfying glug: half-full at least, and Curvo could never hold his liquor very well. Smirking, he passed the bottle to his younger brother, who (rarely displaying that lack of control even when drunk) had turned a very deep shade of red.
"Here. You look like you could use another drink."
"Thank you, Moryo. You're the best brother."
From across the fire, Maglor raised an eyebrow. Caranthir smiled and put a finger to his lips, and for once the bard complied. Instead, they watched with growing amusement as the fifth son of Feanor grew progressively drunker.
"He will kill you for this in the morning and you know it," Maglor cautioned eventually, and that sent Caranthir roaring with laughter.
"How, if he cannot even walk straight, much less abide sunlight? Besides, I daresay he will be too busy!" Curufin only blinked, half asleep and tipping precariously to one side.
"I am not even going to ask," said Maglor, hiding his face in a hand. "I am not even going to ask. Keep me out of it, and don't come running."
"Don't be such a sissy, Makalaurë, I will need your help."
Maglor finally caught on. "Oh, no. No, I will not be helping with something that would jeopardize our every claim on good relations with the Fingolfinian camp. Whatever the outcome, this harebrained thing will. Or at least it will severly strain every relationship that ever existed between you two. But knowing you, you will go ahead with it anyway. You never listen, Moryo."
"Ne'rlissens." Curufin agreed. A thin dribble of drool was hanging from his lower lip – he had long since given up on preserving his princely dignity and was now curled on the floor, the second bottle near-empty beside him. He looked about to pass out.
"Besides, none here but you will clean up any... bodily discharges associated with increased alcohol consumption. That is to say, if Curufin is sick, you wipe it away."
"That is not fair! I did not make him drink that first bottle!"
"He is right about that, love," said the woman next to Makalaurë, resting a delicate hand on his arm and leaning close happily. Maglor's arm snuck around her and pulled her closer. "My beautiful wife. Always the voice of reason," he said softly and leaned down for a kiss. Caranthir rolled his eyes. "Are you two quite done?"
"Yes indeed, there is not even a little privacy with little brothers visiting. But I will hold you to my word. He is sick, you clean it up."
"We'll see what happens in the morning," Caranthir said and rose to his feet, hoisting Curufin up as he went, and rousing him into a state resembling consciousness. Together they made their way across the courtyard and into the keep. Smiling and shaking his head at the antics of his younger brothers, Maglor turned to his wife again.

The night passed uneventfully. The sons of Fëanor that had come together at Himring slept. Only one window remained lit into the early hours of the morning. At some point there was muffled cursing in the keep, of the kind that occurs when trying to maneuver around a severely drunk man without waking anyone else.

In the morning, there was a shriek, then a yell, the patter of steps, and the slamming of a door. In the bathroom adjacent to the bedchamber, there was the sound of frantic scrubbing, and the strong smell of the herbal paste that the Noldor used to clean their teeth issued from beyond the door.

"I WILL KILL HIM! Both of them! ... ow." In the bedroom, Curufin fell back on the bed, and ran a hand through his hair. Or tried. He tugged, and blinked, and tugged again, distangling his fingers from what felt disturbingly like braids. He groaned and grasped a handful of his black tresses, holding them up before his face and willing his eyes and mind to focus out of the alcohol-fumes of the previous night. The braids felt strange. Heavy. And there were distinct glints of gold among the dark hair.

A dim echo from the night before... something about Fingon's prick?, came back to Curufin. He groaned again as his mind picked up speed. His thoughts by now were moving with the force of a half-awake slug. "Wake up, sweet prince, Maitimo? I'll be quite happy to sleep on a little longer." The sound of Maedhros brushing his teeth grew more severe, there was no other answer. He let himself fall and curled up, pulling up a blanket to shut out the early sunbeams coming through the window. It smelled profoundly of his eldest brother and activities he did not want to consider, and he sat up again with a jerk as the pieces clicked into place.

"Maitimo! Tell me all you did when you mistook me for your lover was to kiss me awake in the most sappy, slobbery way!" he yelled at the closed bathroom door. The smell of toothpaste had since grown stronger. "And didn't change your sheets in a while. I won't kill you. I promise. I need you to help me kill Moryo."

He curled up in bed again when there was no answer from the Lord of Himring, but on second thoughts (now moving at the speed of a slightly more awake slug) he discarded the blanket and padded, barefoot, to Caranthir's room. He never stopped working, and for writing his accounts of trade, he always kept that well of black ink...

---

Chapter End Notes

No, toothpaste is in fact not so much of an anachronism. The Egyptians had it in the 4th century AD. Heh.

Not Set in Stone

A double-drabble AU featuring Fëanor for the lovely Allie Meril who gave me a wonderful quote to work with:

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

- Charles Bukowski

Read Not Set in Stone

The last steps of the upward struggle, and then they blaze like stars on the hilltop. Before them run wide empty stretches of land, a patchwork of lakes, forests, rivers, mountains, plains, all the wilds of the Hither Lands colourless under starlight. But as they stride onward, down the slope, the shadows flee and grass flames green before their feet, in all the true glory that the Valar saw Middle-earth bereft of after the overthrow of Illuin and Ormal, after the greedy harbouring of the Light behind their Pelóri walls. Now let them sit deedless and sing laments in darkness!

There is singing in the distance, in a language they do not yet know but have all the time and world to learn. The land opens into a shallow vale and the mountain ranges stretch out like waiting arms to lift a child from the cradle. This is where it all began, Cuiviénen without returning. If the Lapdogs come from the West, let them marvel at the ruin in the North, and the three Lights in his hand – never again to be forced into a crown – and understand that songs and words and histories are never set in stone.

Queen

Galadriel has come into possession of the One Ring. AU set during LotR, but mentions Silmarillion characters and motivations.

Read Queen

She is Queen now. Water always answered to her, but now she can call forth fire, raise and crumble mountains with the gold band on her finger, cause tempests or force the very air into submission. The fiery Eye of the Dark Lord has always been on Lothlórien in hatred, fear and envy. Him she will vanquish next. The Nazgûl are already kneeling at her feet, and even their winged beasts bow their heads to her. She smiles.

Lothlórien will never wither, the mellyrn will bloom forever. At last, after so many ages her uncle's words of rebellion yielded fruit. The golden leaves will never fall again. She is the last of the children of Arafinwe and the greatest, and has come into her own. This land is hers, what need has she for Valinor, what need for passing tests, the pardon of the Valar, love, kinship, sunlight? The Eldar are the people of the Stars, the sun has always been a sign of their fading. No longer. She is Queen now.

The Vessel

Prompted by Aria: What if Morgoth had stolen the Silmarils but Finwë had lived? A mini-AU in three drabbles according Open Office, and an experiment with PoVs. Warning for character death if you want to read it that way. Thank you for the 2010 MEFA nomination, Dawn Felagund!

Read The Vessel

Discovery

Pressed into return to Formenos, the fortress met him rising ruined from the gloom. The great gates twisted, one guard shattered, another an empty husk. The steel doors to the treasure chamber forced, and the casket

-- the Silmarili --

gone.

The room tilted and shifted and spun; he staggered. Voiced jabbered outside, where is the King, where is

--- his father ---

gone.

A fall forward into dark.

And then, torchlight is flickering across rose marble. Arms lock around him, always steady and reliable. Head rested on chest, rough brocades against his cheek, tremors underneath:

Packed full of life, his father's heart beats.

 

Fires

In Tirion the fires burn, singe stones black, and throw red, dancing shadows. The Kings sit in council, advise faith and patience, but the largest fire of all burns in the palace courtyard, and Fëanáro, hearkening to his father and doomed to idleness, tends it.

The Valar might as well be stone as they gather under leafless branches. Nienna weeps on Ezellohar. Yavanna sings. They harvest fire.

A message speeds to Tirion, where the fires burn higher now, and people grow afraid that the dark shall never end: 'To Curufinwë Fëanáro, greetings. We request his assistance in a mighty work...'

The New Lamp

At last the vessels shine, but it is Míriel, hush, Finwë must not hear, that they whisper about. But Finwë can see the wan --- the void shape, his firstborn. His own fire near-extinguished now anneals the New Lamp Anar, they dare say aloud. And: "It was too mighty a work." And: "Our condolences."

Fëanáro's cracked lips shape words: "No, Atarinya. They will not take this from me."
Finwë's strong arms tremble. Cheek against rough brocades he bears his son, heart barely beating, and rests him on the vessel. The welcoming fire throws red, dancing shadows, packed full of life.

Solstice, Sunrise

Two drabbles according to Open Office. For the Blizzard Challenge at the tolkien_weekly LJ community, a response to clodia_metelli's Dawn & Dusk, with her kind permission: The prelude to and aftermath of the attack on Doriath as seen from a Fëanorian point of view. Implicit character deaths in the second drabble.

Read Solstice, Sunrise

Solstice

It is solstice. The wind whets his myriad knives against every tree and casts needles in their eyes. Behind them wolves slink, slavering starveling creatures that will attack any being in this fell winter. Stories will call them wolves, no doubt, Makalaurë thinks, and much of it will be true, if he reads the glints of strange light in his brothers' faces. These wolves hope so much it aches and makes worth every deep trudge through snowdrifts on this dawnless day.

If only, if only, run the whispers on the shortest day of the year. If only it will end.

Sunrise

The sunrise sees the end of fighting. The survivors claim the forest rose against them, that Melian's magic whipped the winds into a screaming dance and made escape impossible. Now large, gentle flakes fall to hide away the traces of battle. The wolves howl at the edge of camp. Makalaurë goes around and wipes the shrouding snow from the faces of three of his brothers, clears it from frozen blood with his bare hands. The forest has no right to be pristine.

If only, he whispers and blows on red fingers to which snow clings, if only it had ended.

Recall Some Pity

During the Dagor Bragollach, Fingon's first official act as High King. A double-drabble according to Open Office.

Read Recall Some Pity

It has become a prayer that springs quickly to Fingon's lips, because it saved him once: O King to whom all birds are dear. They call it the Long Peace, but every so often when the hordes pouring from Angband make it another trial of strength, he finds the High King cursing with his head in his hands, and that marks another commencement of long night-councils and casualty reports, pinched faces and fell-eyed kin who regard the Second House with disdain and yet know that standing alone is impossible. But despite the prayer, the King of Birds sends no envoy.

-

Through the smoke he yells commands and fights his horse onto the road, wishing for wings to speed him to his father. His eyes are red and wild when he finds Rochallor gone upon arrival. The hooftracks fade north into the piles of ash.

His father's desolate people already hail him High King, but he only answers with his prayer: O King to whom all birds are dear! And at last there is the beat of mighty wings. So it is that Fingon's first official act commands Thorondor: You saved Maedhros, now fly to save my father, bear him home.

---

Chapter End Notes

The title and the quote, O King to whom all birds are dear, are of course from the Silmarillion, specificially the scenario of Maedhros' rescue.

A Change of Seasons

For Dawn's summer solstice challenge, a drabble (according to Open Office) for each of the solstices and equinoxes, centering around the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

Read A Change of Seasons

Vernal Equinox

There is a promise in the budding year, in the shoots that rise gladly underneath the maiden's feet, though all around is snow. Dancing as they are, it is no matter, and their fingers – his left, her right – lace and tangle as they head like two spirits: the lack of chains nearly grants them wings toward Ossiriand, and their story, too, wings across Beleriand and kindles a spring-sun of hope, sends war-plans stirring and messengers rushing through the snowmelt as the night shortens and days lengthen.

Although the Eldar are the people of the stars, reservations go unvoiced.

Aestival Solstice

The offensive is full-fledged, and if it is nowhere near the hoped-for strength, nonetheless the Union of Maedhros will hold strong, or so they say, in laughter over their cups that proclaims the opposite. They are assigned to stacking the beacon above Dorthonion and relish the light beating upon their faces as they douse the wood with water and squint at the movements of the Eldar across Anfauglith. The summer sun ripens their plans like a fruit near-ready for the picking. The day is coming to sink their teeth into the promised reward. Only one short night until the triumph.

Autumnal Equinox

A resplendent autum of blood and fire follows the battle, and the dawn of true defeat comes upon them only slowly. They gather wild chestnuts and roast them in the white-hot coals, they strip the seeds off yellowed grasses and subsist on the barest necessities, feeding the wounded and the heart-sick before themselves. Even driven like fallen leaves before the wind, they are lords, and even now they clutch persistence to their chests as they pray for deceitful sun-days to shorten and promised star-nights to lengthen.

Understanding and recollection return to them: The Eldar are the people of the stars.

Hibernal Solstice

The year and its plans have fallen with the sun. The Sickle throws stark shadows on burned Dorthonion and its rays cut over empty Beleriand, shine argent in the frost and reflect the rare upward glance hidden among lace of leaf-stripped branches. There is a promise in the stars, especially in this constellation. It recalls Awakening in the longest of nights, and if voices are hoarse and war-torn now, cries innocent of that first joy, it strengthens their hope and heralds the Dark One's ultimate defeat. For the Sickle may foretell, but it is by swords that Morgoth must fall.

---

Chapter End Notes

The first drabble references the story of Beren and Lúthien and the role they played in inspiring the Union of Maedhros; the second drabble (if that was unclear, I am not certain) is from the point of view of Uldor's Easterlings, and the latter two deal with the aftermath of the Nirnaeth.

Perpetual

A drabble according to Open Office, written for a Mini Challenge during Dewey's 24-hour Read-a-Thon: Maglor had one perpetual listener during his wanderings. What might she be thinking of him?

Read Perpetual

The Great Sea was aswim with memories: From all the sailors that had gone down storms, ideas, pictures, faces, thoughts had bled into her, and not been enough to slake her thirst. Lovers, unhappy or not, gave her poems and kisses and the memory of touch, and for a while the waves laughed on the shores of the world. The hapless taught her fear, and the innocent wonder. But most of all, for a star as their wedding gift, and five thousand years' worth of song, she kept her wanderer. Perhaps one day, giving himself, he might quench her hunger.

---

Chapter End Notes

Inspired, I think, at least in part, by reading Dawn Felagund's ofic, The Leaping.

Survivors of the Downfall

We hear a great deal about Elendil and his sons after the Fall of Númenor, but not so much from the other side... a drabble from the far future, written for Zdenka at fic_promptly on DW; many thanks to GG and the Lizards for nitpicking and feedback.

Read Survivors of the Downfall

We are the survivors of Númenor. We remain long after Elendil has fallen to dust, after Eldarion is forgotten, after the blood of Yôzâyan is spent and mingled with the lesser folk of Middle-earth. We are the survivors, for the Zigûr promised us life in the Deathless Land, and he has kept word. It is a bitter lot to sleep in caves and likewise be forgotten by the world, and some mutter in our shared dreams that we are doomed – but they have it wrong. We merely bide our time until Ar-Pharazôn rises, leading us to battle once more.

---

Chapter End Notes

Yôzâyan - Adûnaic for 'Land of the Gift', one of the names of Númenor.

Zigûr - Adûnaic for 'wizard' and used for Sauron.

Flight

Elwing's last moments at the Havens of Sirion. Written for Zdenka at fic_promptly on DW, picked over excellently by GG and the Lizard Council. Many thanks.

Read Flight

Elwing does not want to die, but her feet are tired of running, from Doriath to the Havens to stand caught between the window and the Feanorians seizing her sons to extort the Silmaril. She knows they will fail to show mercy even in victory – but the crashing sea beneath promises to rob them of all, Silmaril, success, and sweetness. It will gift her sons' deaths the barest meaning.

"Grant me wings," she whispers in final thoughts before the plunge, to spite and turn the tale of Maedhros' flight. Rising, she never expected the Valar to heed her. 

Unspeakable

Prompted in moetushie's one-sentence fic meme, "Prodigal - you have given me love - therefore I to you give love! O unspeakable passionate love." Violence briefly mentioned.

Read Unspeakable

It's unspeakable in more than one way: In Aman to anyone else, on the shore with the ships burning, when a stray lash from the whip cracks over Maedhros' lips and the only word on his mind like a beacon is Findekáno, when he's breathing too hard tottering out of his bed for the first time and Fingon catches him, and when they kiss - always when they kiss, tongue-tied, and there really is no need to speak.

---

Chapter End Notes

Prompt quote is by Walt Whitman.

Tragedy

Also for Moetushie's one-sentence fic meme, and the prompt: "Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy." Mentions character death.

Read Tragedy

Findekáno's tragedy writes itself - that's the joke that has followed him from a rambunctious childhood on, when tragedies were still unreal and thus a laughing matter - but when it strikes at last, he is just one body on the Hill of the Slain, some organic matter that will nourish grass come spring, and the tragedy, the real tragedy, resides with one survivor in particular who bears its whole weight in a single hand.

---

Chapter End Notes

Quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Chess Moves

A three-sentence ficlet. Finrod and Curufin in Nargothrond. Not altogether friendly rivalry. Can be implied slash, or not, as you like it.

Read Chess Moves

Finrod stands bowed poring over maps and battle plans; a force of Orcs on the High Faroth plundering toward the Falas has left his people on edge and fleeing in droves into Nargothrond. It is late summer, grain ripe for the threshing stands abandoned, but without hunt or harvest they face a minor famine, and people are clamouring for the scapegoat to be brought to justice.

The scapegoat - the one whose men let the Orcs pass unhindered - is currently lounging in Finrod’s chambers, sipping the last of the decade’s finest vintage, and eyeing the chess board on the table, already considering another move ahead, and Finrod, against his better wisdom, turns toward Curufin for his own move in this game.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for a three-sentence meme, prompted by Helcaraxë.

Terrifying Stories

A brief, schmoopy curtain fic moment for Maedhros and Fingon, happily ever after. A drabble according to Open Office (even though it apparently went quite wrong this time).

Read Terrifying Stories

They live together at the end of a grassy footpath winding away toward distant Tirion. Apart from crickets, and children playing on the village green, it could hardly be quieter - noises from behind closed doors remain private.

“They should remember who we are,” Maedhros says. “What we did for love. Loves.” Fingon chuckles and tries to kiss the earnestness away. Self-loathing has no place or reason here, not after Mandos, healing, and the immensity of fifty centuries since the Unrest. They have become folklore. 

When they sit on the green together, later, the children gather, and listening to the stories call them heroes.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for Agelast's prompt, "I want people to tell their children terrifying stories about the things we do for love." And then something happened and it went all fluffy.

The Pendant

Fëanor and Nerdanel's relationship, in three-sentence form. Expands on an idea from my fic "In-Betweens".

Read The Pendant

It begins with light, a pendant shining grey and copper fire that falls from his unfurling fist into her open palm, and lies there blazing, all sharp edges and a drop of blood that’s mended by a kiss.

That omen should have taught her, she thinks in the middle of their time, sighing over yet another time her belly swells and the forge door just slammed shut, leaving her on her own in the too-bright golden noonday garden where the pendant’s light is nigh-invisible.

But in the end she yearns back for that, brushing blood from her throat on the knuckles of her closed fist, where the pendant lies to sting her, blazing, as the procession of torches wends seaward - and she remains. 

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for Lorienscribe's prompt, Fëanor and Nerdanel - at any stage of their relationship. 

A Swift Sunrise

The Noldor welcome the first sunrise. It is a more eerie experience for others.

Read A Swift Sunrise

Another light, brighter than the flower on the sky that rose not long ago, is creeping toward her. She is not sure how to describe it, lacking the words for something so momentous, but knowing at the same time that this rising dome of light is not the flower, nor forest-fire, for she has fled her share of those with her family, and laughed about the futility of the Dark Foe attempting to bend fire to his will to do destruction. The next year always saw new shoots peeking from ash at the stars, renewal, and with it the certainty that Belegurth would not conquer.

But this? The whole horizon is a brand, sending ahead apparitions of mist and flame writhing across the sky in the colours of old bruises, red and purple blending into yellows and green, squirming and arching like eels in a trap that is hoisted from the water. She is feeling pity for the eels now, especially the ones that hang in the smokehouse across the courtyard. Perhaps they’ll all join them soon. For the light – a globed thing, visible now where it is peeking red and round over the mountains, shows no sign of slowing, mercy, ending, disappearance. Only the eel-flames vanish as it rises, and clouds thin until nothing is left of them. The flower, too, withers. The new light gilds the landscape, briefly, and the snow-fields on the mountains blaze, and then fade out again, as the light turns whiter, cooler, but the warmth increases.

The globe keeps climbing until it is directly overhead. Her eyes begin to itch and water as she follows its trail across the sky, and there is an ache in the back of her neck, and even as she blinks the tears away, still staring, there are strange bursts – as though she’s been staring at a fire for too long, or straight into the center of one of her husband’s lamps, the blue-and-white crystals hung within netted bands - white bursts black in the center across her vision. If only she could be certain these bursts are not the stars vanishing in the light and heat – but the stars are vanishing, succumbing before this new — thing, fading out.

There are cries of joy all around her. The Noldor have come outside, she noticed a while ago, though chose to ignore them, and they splatter the courtyard, brown and black and grey, in a riot of colours – their robes, never this glaring under stars and by firelight, blaze in blood-red and the stars on their chests in silver, and the land – the pines and the meadows – in far different, brighter greens as though they mean to compete at some feast or celebration.

Altogether, it makes her head swim when she looks at the sky again, to the great flaming globe that now hangs in its center like the crown of a ger, with the wooden ribs that should support it invisible and uncarved, where the stars provided ample patterns just a short time ago.

The sky is vast and blue, except for the globe, vast and blue and empty. There is nothing there, and standing exposed, without guidance, terrifies her more than words allow. What all this means for the People of the Stars she can’t say, and the exclamations of wonder from the Noldor – her husband’s people, she can understand the words at least, greetings and rejoicing, and many a hand stretching to try and reach the globe – seem odd and contrary. These people are not right in their heads, not right for her, with their obsession with light and their willingness to lose lives over jewels.

Even when Makalaurë’s later explanation makes sense of the rising globe – and makes her feel foolish for not recognizing another unlooked-for, unbelievable, miraculous vessel of their slain world trees, for he recognizes this light, too – she cannot shake the feeling that it will only fuel their determination to wage war for trinkets and throw away their all. They now have both parts of the light they seek traversing the sky, and yet...

Perhaps it is exactly right for them. 

---

Chapter End Notes

For people who have been following my fic-verse, the narrator here is Maglor's wife Lasbaneth, a young woman of the Mithrim Sindar, whom he married shortly after the Noldor arrived in Middle-earth.

The flower that is mentioned several times of course is the moon.

Belegurth was a Sindarin name for Morgoth, and the title of course stems from Return of the King. It felt fitting considering the metaphor the movies use it for is death.

The 'eel-flames', which I'm not sure were described clearly enough, are supposed to be the first occurence of Aurora Borealis, and this probably requires a suspension of disbelief insofar that the fic is a merging of Tolkien's early mythological ideas and primary-world phenomena. (I'd like to claim a handwave card for this, please.)

Ger is the Mongolian word for 'yurt'; my idea of the Mithrim Sindar involves a lot of parralels with various Central Asian nomadic peoples, as they can canonically be understood to be nomadic steppe dwellers. I borrowed this particular term since I could not find an attest Sindarin word for 'tent', and it seemed to fit the phonology of the language better than 'yurt' does. Additionally, the this also is where the idea of Telperion and Laurelin being understood as world-trees (a wide-spread concept in Eurasian animistic/shamanistic societies, that some scholars claim actually informed Tolkien's Two Trees) comes from.

Written for Starspray, for the prompt sunrise.

Parting Graces

Finrod and Amarië's last moments together. Double Drabble.

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“Halt,” Amarië mouths into the dark. Rewind the thread of fate, unspin the tapestry, untwist the yarn, scatter the fibres in the wind, is what she thinks. For much has gone crooked between her and Findaráto, and their parting will be salt in a wound, with sea-bitter words rolling from their lips. She wants – not this. They love one another, truly do, and yet he did not ask her hand while there still was light, nor her presence now marching beside him in the dark.

The lamplight between them catches Findaráto’s eyes and kindles them to quiet blue flames, but his back bends beneath the load of too-thin clothes, dainty provisions, useless treasures.

She has no place amid these, as yet another treasure, a jewel on a pedestal, a soon-dead-weight.

“Farewell,” she says. Her lips are graceless, salty. “I refuse to be your burden. But take my love to bear your cares more easily. Let it lighten your heart until you return. Farewell.”

She flees. His hand grasps air, and for a while, from a distant hill, she watches his figure stand moveless amid the throng of bodies. At last, his shoulders straighten.

The thread spins on. Faraway, a wolf howls.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for a request by Helcaraxe on tumblr.

Nainiër Arafinwëo ar Altariello Falassen Heceldamaro (The Laments of Finarfin and Galadriel on the Shore of Beleriand)

Finarfin's reunion with Galadriel when they meet during the War of Wrath. (Double Drabble.)

Read Nainiër Arafinwëo ar Altariello Falassen Heceldamaro (The Laments of Finarfin and Galadriel on the Shore of Beleriand)

Their reunion is not joyful. Galadriel, as she is known these days, in the strange tongue of this bleak land, is a woman grown, grown greater than her own father can hope to match. Hardship and suffering have graven the lines of Beleriand into her face, and etched her eyes to adamant hardness tempered with wisdom, where once, though she was high and proud even in Aman, a certain sweetness rested. Now she seems kin with the broken cliffs on this shore more than with him, moveless as she stands waiting, five hundred swift years later.

“Come home,” he asks.

Her father no longer understands her, she knows. How could he? He has grown little older than in the pictures she carries in her mind, laughing in the fields of Aman unchanging, and for all his share of griefs – healing the Noldor, the news of her brothers’ deaths - he has had time and grace flowing uncounted and little-earned through his fingers, never knowing how much dearer changing time makes sunlight through a golden leaf before it falls and floats away, or the bitter joy of surviving, last of her House.

“No.” It is the only answer to give.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for Tam and Kaywinnet on tumblr.

The Willow and the Shade

What ever became of Daeron? (Double Drabble.)

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Ossiriand sang of Lúthien’s grace, and finding her, Daeron remained as silent-steadfast protector until a sigh rose from the land itself one end of summer. More than the beginning of leaf-fall, the land mourned her and Beren’s passing.

Daeron sent a Laegren guard to her son with the Silmaril, buried her, and let it break him.

Then he fled eastward, deep into the forests beyond the Blue Mountains, leaving behind, step by step, himself. His hand no longer shielded his eyes from the sun at noon. His flute, in one mad laughing-mood, slipped through his fingers and lay in a tangle of briars. They snatched at air, not skin, when he attempted, and failed, to retrieve it.

But oh, he could still sing.

Long ago, as Thingol’s loremaster, a tale had come to him from the North, of secrets confessed to trees and earth, forever to be hidden.

And did he not love her? And hate her?

The Silver Willows where he strayed reminded him of the colour of Lúthien’s hair at last. And sitting underneath the largest, oldest tree, he began to sing until the leaves shuddered, awakening to song and malice, and invited him to make his home.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for thesifsterhood on tumblr.

(And yes, I am indeed implying that Daeron is the spirit behind the malice of Old Man Willow.)

Change of Times

Maglor wanders. (Double Drabble.)

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The winters were growing colder again. It reminded him of the early days of the Exile – not Formenos, where their breaths had always stood as clouds before their mouths, but Mithrim. That withered land of few stunted trees that vanished into freezing mists before the first rising of the sun, when they had been convinced they were the only living things there, for who could exist in a place so utterly neglected by the grace of the Valar and open to the harshness of the world?

As sure as they had been then of being the first, he was now certain of being the last. The shore stretched long and grey before him, under a grey sky, beside a grey, near-moveless sea under floes of ice. In Mithrim they had soon met the folk of that land, and homes opening wide. Here, when he cared to seek shelter, more and more doors closed. The Eldar had vanished; all of them from human memory, some into forests faded to spirit, others at long last into the West, and the last meagre graces of the Valar with them.

The wind picked up and threw sand into his eyes. Maglor continued walking.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for fleurdufeu on tumblr.

The Washerman's Fate (*)

The news of Fingon's death drive Maedhros to madness. Intended to be disturbing; blood, violence, OC character death. (Double Drabble.)

Read The Washerman's Fate (*)

Maedhros lurches up the causeway to Ereb, dirty and leached of life. His skin is white and his hair brittle, the colour of damp hay beginning to rot. Maglor keeps anxious watch from the parapets until Maedhros rattles down the passwords that open the gate, and he can tell the guard to stay their arrows.

He is taken to the healers, who proclaim malnourishments and cuts minor ailments compared to the vacant stare that holds more grief than plans gone crooked and Unions failed. He’s made to bathe, while his ruined clothes are sent for washing and mending: even necessities are hard to come by these days.

Soon after, one of the washermen walks with gold braided into his dark hair, over-bold and vain. He’s brought to Maedhros, for stealing from the high lord’s own pockets (for they all know whose hair ornaments these were, and it confirms the rumors: the King is dead). The door shuts. At last Maedhros emerges, holding the man’s head, dripping blood. He’s smiling like a child.

“He came to me again. But he’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone.”

His brothers lack the heart (each in their way) to chide poor, mad, Maedhros for his deed.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for Zeen on tumblr.

Insight (*)

Galadriel fights alongside the Elves of Doriath against the Sons of Fëanor, who sent her brother to his death. Potentially AU; violence and blood, character death. (Double Drabble.)

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They sent her brother to his death. She heard the tale – he died well, Beren said, weeping with the memory while she stood cold and white before him, died fighting, as though the House of Arafinwë, when they die, die like mortals, or like cowards choosing grief. He died all the same.

She ducks, stabs upward; another kinsman falls, upon a wide-eyed, dead-eyed, silver-haired woman, and then she’s reached the throne room. The sudden lull catches her thoughts off-guard: It is petty pride that has driven two of them, the wolves she seeks, alone in pursuit of Dior – dead – and Nimloth – dead.

It is petty pride that drives her here.

Tyelkormo is already dead. Curufinwë sits gasping in a corner, Nimloth’s dagger lodged in his ribcage to the crossguard. She crouches near, and he laughs, “Artanis,” and the word sprays her face with blood. It is not joy, nor a plea for help, it’s his idea of dying well, seeking to rob her of revenge, dying gloating, for she knows he understands her coming here.

Her sword, then raised, sinks. Neither petty pride nor this will return Findaráto. They have all already served the Enemy enough.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for Zaatar on tumblr.

Potentially AU insofar that there is no mention of Galadriel at the Fall of Doriath or participating in that kinslaying.

Drowning Troubles (*)

Curufin visits Losgar to seek closure only to find that Amras had been waiting for him.  A horror ficlet, features character death and general unpleasantness.

Read Drowning Troubles (*)

Even from a distance, picking his way down the last slope to the beach, Curufin can see the remains of burned planks poking like broken ribs from the sea where the swanships foundered. The water ripples around them, laps at the shingled beach, pebbles grind together in the rhythm of the waves. All else is quiet and dark. Almost he wishes away the stars that allow him to see at all. But isn't that why he came, to see?

Yes. Almost, he thinks, he can still smell the burnt wood, that it is not merely the sharp pungency of salt water stinging the air he breathes, and the cloying sweetness of some dead thing nearby, somewhere hidden. Almost he can see the flames.

But seeing, facing, is difficult, and he sits, head in hands, and at long last begins laughing softly to himself. How much more like Makalaurë's soft-hearted sentiment this is, and how much less. For his older brother seems to have forgotten entirely about the tragedy here, mourning Nelyo instead, leaving him to bear the brunt of the blame now that their father, too, has died, and Ambarussa is but half a person.

Makalaurë prefers to drown his troubles in the contents of a bottle. He's come here to – not to drown, to avoid drowning in his mind, his thoughts, in the bloody guilt that will not let him rest.

The shingles continue grinding against one another, and the longer he listens, the longer it sounds like steps, slow, laboured, but surely that, too, is a product of his mind, his youngest brother swaying from the surf, death-pale where he is not burned, bloated, with seaweed in his dripping hair and one eye gone – perhaps a gull or fish took that. It doesn't suit him. He should be alive.

Fingers close around his wrist, slip, grasp again and with more force, and pull him toward the sea. The scent - the sea, and burning, and cloying dead meat, intensifies. He chokes down bile, and follows.

The question, how, the odd joy, his guilt, are all drowned in a gush of salty water, and a rush of silvery-breathed bubbles catching the starlight between a swanship's planks before all stars go out in a burst of white light, his littlest brother laughing, come.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for Iavalir's request at Zeen's Halloween Comment Fic Meme From Beyond the Grave.

Emergence

Fingon emerges from the Halls of Mandos.

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He’s imagined the moment of his release before, the heartbeat proclaiming him alive again, the triumphant emergence from the gates of Mandos standing as an arch of open light before him to welcome his return into the world, family waiting in the warming sun.

When the day has come, he stumbles upward naked, barefoot, cutting himself on rocks, and it is an agonizing screech of stone over stone as the gates grind open; he is nearly anchored to the spot by his own heaviness, weak, breath and heartbeat as-yet-new-again, unused and laborious.

Outside, an early morning laves the northern grass with dew cooling his feet - but like a star, a patch of firelight in the waste beckons, dark figures around it, and as-yet-new-again eyes squint to make them out for certain: waiting for the last of night to pass, his family.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for Starspray on tumblr.

Roaring Twenties

Elves-in-History AU: Amras and Nellas in the 1920s Chicago gangster era.

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They were swept into the city from the diminishing forests of Old Europe, a century ago, but lately they’ve been mired down, and doing their best to climb above the common morass.

“The city roars, the whole decade roars,” says Nellas one evening, perched on a windowsill high above the darkening city, like a marten ready to leap, and Amras stands with his arms around her, and continues, “It’s the guns, mortals made them far too loud. Here.”

The silencer, wrapped quaintly with forest-green ribbon, for Nellas likes quaint things (and this one she’ll wear in her hair), is easily the best gift she’s lately had.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for an AU meme request by Iavalir on tumblr.

And Seashells in His Hair

Fingon/Maedhros: The Mermaid AU. (Crack!)

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The first shell conks Fingon on the head, bounces off the wash basin and smashes on the floor, the rest continue pelting him while he washes and dresses, all thrown by a not-quite-irate Maedhros who remains in bed, legs (legs!) invitingly akimbo and glaring mutely at his lover.

“Will you stop that?” Fingon quirks an eyebrow, grinning, watching how Maedhros’ eyes narrow and his mouth opens into a ‘no’, except, of course, no sound comes out; that’s how the story goes, even if it makes for a somewhat awkward sex life, and kissing to break the spell, wellll, they haven’t found the right spot to kiss yet (hint: it’s not the lips), though are working on that problem.

He throws another one, hopefully the last to tumble out of his hair when he moves, because he’s had it up to here with Fingon’s shenanigans - maybe he’d consider it a side effect of the oath he swore to escape that oppressive ocean-floor paradise (it’s not like there is a precedent for that sort of thing, and magic can be unpredictable) - but given his lover’s propensity for extravagant hair ornaments that’s a ridiculous assumption to make, and at any rate, they have more important things to worry about - like kissing.

---

Chapter End Notes

This was far too much fun to write to feel sorry for; similarities with either the original Little Mermaid or Disney's treatment of it are purely accidental (*cough*).

Requested for an AU meme on tumblr by Zeen.

Terribly Bad Ideas

Nerdanel, Fëanor, a stranger in a blue box, and just what the title says. Crossover, humor.

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“Well, you could come, you’ve got until… 1449, that’s centuries, pop back here every now and then, babies that need birthing, family matters, but - literally, you’ve got ages, could do anything, take a roundtrip to Cuiviénen, watch Varda at work, find the Flame Imperishable - I love a long-lived race, that’s so refreshing!”

Nerdanel wonders who and what the rambling person before her is, exactly - she has never met an Ainu with a double heartbeat, nor one travelling in a mysterious blue box that appeared smack in the middle of her father’s main workshop and nearly toppled the statue of Aulë that dominates the room. She exchanges a glance with Fëanáro, who looks at once incredulous, as though he’s burning with curiosity (when isn’t he?) and ready to skewer the stranger with a chisel, but then he lowers his improvised weapon and grabs her hand to tug her toward the box, exclaiming:

“Find the Flame Imperishable, you said? Nerdanel, come on!”

---

Chapter End Notes

This couldn't possibly end well. Written for an AU meme request by l33tsaber on tumblr.

The Chosen

A young female dwarf is initiated into the customs of her foremothers, and has a surprising encounter.

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Kjós the brewer grins, glad it’s hidden in her beard, when she passes through the beerhall with the barrel hefted on her hip. There’s lots that the menfolk drinking there don’t know - and shouldn’t, because it’d take a bad end for them. This is the women’s festival, this is the women’s night for revels, this is the women’s night for more than bears saying aloud. Breathing a single word to the men would spoil it.

For while the winds screench outside, while the snow piles so high on the mountains that the rock creaks and groans, while the frost chips away at the stone, while the white wolves come howling, there’s a fire in the belly of the earth that burns high and hot, there’s clay trampled wet and slick between her toes in the dancing, there’s the chant of women’s voices, singing songs the men must never learn in a language they don’t know and that’s kept jealously guarded, there’s a goblet passed from hand to hand, and stories told of offerings, there’s mead and beer poured out into the earth, and finally the crescendo of the chant:

Earth-Mother to whom all mountains crumble, Earth-Mother who nourishes all living things, Earth-Mother, Smith’s Companion, come to us and grant your blessings!

The fire goes out. The dancers scatter, and it’s Kjós only who remains, with the lot upon her as it was on every woman born before her. Her heart beats up her throat, not just from the dancing, but from the burden placed on her: It’s an honour, but it’s heavy, near as heavy as the snows upon the mountains, because that’s what she’s doing away with, to ensure the next year’s fortune, blessing harvest, keeping order, holding the dark at bay another year.

There stands a figure in the shadows, half-wreathed in vines that reach for Kjós as well. She grips the goblet tight to not spill a single drop, and kneeling offers it to the Lady of the Earth – for it’s said that it was Her, when Mahal was busy throwing the Fathers, She brought more clay, insisting that He make Mothers, too.

Her voice is sweet as berries when She speaks, finally laughing like a dwarf-lass: “Aþara, come now, rise and let us dance,” — and her hands, when she takes Kjós’, are loam-soft, her body pliable as clay – and finally Kjós understands – She is the earth, and is her mother, too.

---

Chapter End Notes

First written for a request by Iavalir.

I played with the idea of the Dísablót and Disting in writing this (because I did actually want to make the character here Dís originally, and the similarity in names probably isn’t a coincidence). The rest of it popped up when I was looking for more names. Kjós, unless I’m very much mistaken, means "The Chosen", from the ON verb kjósa, "to choose" (as in Valkyrie, the Choosers of the Slain), and then things came together with the idea that one of Yavanna’s monikers is Earth-Queen (Kementári, let’s just pretend that’s another Elvish translation of a Valarin title that has its equivalent in Khuzdul) and the Valarin name for Arda (Earth) is derived from/influenced by Aþâraphelûn, "Appointed Dwelling", so things kind of came full circle there. 

(And of course the particular kind of dancing, or what they do after the dancing, is entirely up to the reader. ;))

Small Rebellions

Idril and Aredhel, and some of their attempts to escape the laws and customs of society.

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They thunder across the plain together, though it’s not quite thundering as far as Irissë is concerned: Turukáno won’t allow his daughter a horse, her being far too young, and yet couldn’t refuse the tiny, bare foot Itaril put down, demanding (and getting) instead a pony suited to her size – and Irissë’s Tyelpinë has trouble shortening her gait to suit tiny white Tixë. But Itaril is squeaking with delight as they race beneath Laurelin’s glare upon the land, the frazzles of her fine blonde hair flying, and indeed Irissë is soon laughing too hard – out of joy, not out of malice - to race her properly. Itaril wins that race not just by kindness but by luck, and Irissë thinks this girl will make it far.

* * *

They race on foot over the grey fields of Hisilómë, having no horses, and the dew clings to their feet. Itaril, older now, teaches Irissë to dance barefoot through brambles with nary a snag on her dress, and Irissë in turn teaches her to snare, to hunt, and to skin her kills with barely the blink of an eye, and with no blood upon her clothes. Itaril, enjoying the challenge, takes to wearing white and silver, too, shedding the grieving black that would hide the stains, and they laugh together seeing Turukáno’s incredulous face when the women bring home much-needed food. Necessity makes ignoring his protests that it is unbecoming a woman easy, and when they burn midnight oil brooding over philosophy and social conventions to prove him wrong, that marks the beginning of a stauncher opposition – from both sides, not just his, and it grows harder to be at liberty in Nevrast – coming home with silvery scales of fish upon them is frowned at fiercely, or diving off the cliffs head first – there is no danger in it, for they know the shallows from the deeps and where the waves crest highest, and returning to the city with clothes and hair plastered to their skin. Turukáno argues that that serves no purpose, refusing to see that adventure is a need, too, ever since Elenwë’s death – but Irissë and Itaril smile at each other, devising yet another plan to thwart him.

* * *

In Gondolin, finally, they are sequestered away with with the ladies of the Houses, their ladies in waiting, with fabric and needles – for delicate lace and embroideries, though Aredhel, in a fit of frustration, twists her fabric so it resembles a ragdoll, and jabs the needles in. Then she smiles brightly, and says, “a pincushion!” into the awkward silence and the ladies start tittering once she’s gone. Itaril remains with them, finding to her surprise that they are not all as asinine as they did at first seem, but that being forced into the corset of ladyship did it. And there are small rebellions, after – Egalmoth’s wife Elanna delicately stitches hunting scenes and battles into her lace; Idril’s handmaiden Meleth, soft-spoken and erstwhile student under Pengolodh, waits until dusk to unveil her store of tales of Angband, and glimpses into the mind of Morgoth. Idril draws the curtains shut, lights a single candle, and leans on Aredhel’s shoulder, smiling.

It is not a terrible life, but carving their niche out of the Echoriath is harder when they are not allowed the tools, with Turgon’s misguided goodwill smothering them as though they are still children, and so she can’t be sad when Aredhel one day insists that she will leave into the world without – and she alone does win the right to do so; Idril’s own attempts go soundly rebutted, or ignored. But she at last is given a horse, and grinning at her aunt, she says,

“Race you to the Orfalch Echor,” and this is what they do, leaving her retinue and all their trappings, for the moment, far behind.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for Croclock's request.

Elanna and Meleth’s characterizations are from the Gondolin RPG - I played them both, but Elanna is an OFC who originated with Aria, who graciously didn't mind me borrowing her. 

Freckles (or the Lack of Them)

Anairë has been watching Nerdanel for a long time. (Fluff of the femslashy variety).

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They meet the first time in Anairë’s youth, when she’s apprenticed to a seamstress, and Nerdanel a homely country mouse under the lady Indis’ wing to help bedizen her for court and city. Her beauty takes some looking for, but once Anairë finds it – in her wise grey eyes, in the spatter of freckles across her face and breasts as she stands in her underdress for measuring, strong arms and calloused fingers – there is no unseeing it from that day onward.

When, on her wedding day, Nerdanel sits at the table’s head, resplendent in forest green silk and gold beryl, Anairë curls her hand in Nolofinwë’s, seeking to laugh and dance – it is a joyful day, but she was never keen on letting go, not even loves that were not really hers. And she loves Nolofinwë, too, with his own wise eyes, and she loves the children they are given – as she loves Nerdanel’s. Nearly sisters now (half-sisters, as their husbands would insist) they spend much time together, working against the feud, crafting in silence, or sometimes merely drinking tea together while the younger children, Findekáno first and foremost, hound Maitimo all through the gardens, and Tyelkormo teaches Irissë how to build a bow. Anairë leans her head on Nerdanel’s shoulder then, pressing a kiss onto her cheek and laughing, delighting in the freckles underneath her lips, and in Nerdanel’s lips twitching into an indulgent smile. But that is all for many years – when her marriage shatters Anairë tries to comfort. They dance on Manwë’s festival the day the darkness falls, and take refuge together, both deciding after long and harsh debates, that no, they will not leave – let the men depart and dash themselves to ruin. Their choice is a different one, though it hurts no less to stay behind.

“I have seen you watch me,” Nerdanel says that day, desperate to take her mind off the rebellion and the torches flickering through the street as people hurry down to swell the host, “for many years now, and do not think I am a stranger to such looks.” They sit huddled, shielded from the lightless cold with each other’s body heat and a single blanket wound around them both, nearly binding them together – and tangled as they are, Anairë does not even try to escape.

“Yes,” she admits. She has been watching Nerdanel indeed, ever since that first day at the boutique. It’s not nearly as hard to say aloud as she thought it would be.

“That is not what I meant, though I hold your confession dear,” Nerdanel answers. She picked her words deliberately. “I have, myself, been watching you for some time, and you have long become more to me than a member of my family. Your energy – at first it reminded me of Fëanáro’s, but yours never hurt me.” Her fingers, still as calloused as they always were, touch the space above Anairë’s heart.

“Am I to be a replacement for him, then?”

“Not any more than I would replace Nolofinwë for you.”

“Nolofinwë has no freckles,” Anairë says under her breath, but loud enough. In spite of the dark, both of them, after a moment’s stunned silence, dissolve into helpless laughter. 

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for hereff's request.

 

Love Like Singing

Written for Maure on tumblr; strongly referencing the lovely birthday fic she wrote me. After Indis comforted Míriel, Míriel returns the favour.

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Love, I find, is like singing.

- Zora Neale Hurston

 

"Peas in butter. Remember? Granted, I took them from your garden, but even that seems kinder than letting them spoil on the bush."

Míriel left the plate on the nightstand and settled in the wicker chair by the window, positioned just so that enough light fell through the crack in the curtain for her to work by. The needle in her hand flew, looping knots and threads on the length of yarn she had brought. Lace-making required attention, but blurred out of focus she could still see the piled-up blanket-nest on the bed shift, and soon enough a head of golden hair emerged before Indis sat up entirely and balanced the plate precariously on her knees. She ate like someone ravenous – most likely she was, having not emerged from her room for two days – and scooped up the butter from the plate with her finger, pausing only once with a sheepish look at Míriel.

"You must think me very foolish."

"Only insofar that a person with a limp may think another foolish for stumbling," Míriel said. Her focus returned to the needle lace, but she heard Indis set the plate aside, and the rustle of blankets pushed away before barefoot steps patted over the marble floor, and Indis’ bed-warm presence stood next to her; a hand resting lightly on her shoulder.

Míriel lifted her eyes. “I have nothing to offer you, nothing that comforts the way you did me, unless a length of lace will, but there is word on the street that Elemmírë has come to Tirion. She intends to perform tonight.”

"Tidings are not nothing,” said Indis, sitting on the floor to lean against Míriel’s legs. “And they become sweeter than they already are, coming from you.” Although not entirely rid of the tiredness, her voice began to pick up her usual cadence, and Míriel, putting her work aside, folded the warm fingers with her own.

"Shall we limp there together? We may make it in time yet."

After a moment’s deliberation, Indis nodded.

---

Chapter End Notes

Edited slightly to flow better. (Maure, if you're reading this - that anon was me. I figured it was fairly obvious to begin with, given the references, so I hope this didn't spoil anything for you.)

Ghost Lights

A year after the Dagor Bragollach, Maglor has a peculiar experience at a celebration.

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Himring’s great hall, decked with holly and ivy, was swimming peculiarly at the edges of Maglor’s sight, and when he moved his head, he could have sworn there were ghosts, afterimages like a faint trail of light following his vision.

Experience told him that he was drunk, told him to remain sitting lest he stumble down the stairs of the dais and attract Maedhros’ or the celebrants’ notice. They would, none of them, take it well (and would be right, thought the sober part of his mind), but that trail of light… and tonight, toward the end of the first year since the Sudden Flame, the longest night, occasion of sombre reminiscence Maedhros had ordered rather than a carousal to celebrate the have-beens of those that had perished since… he rose.

Ghosts. The hall filled up with ghosts when he moved, all those lights, throughout. Even the ivy leaves had ghosts. Even the harp had ghosts, and that must be why the harpist who had strummed her own compositions throughout the evening gladly yielded her place and Maglor sunk into the chair.

Ghosts that no one seemed to see but him. But perhaps, perhaps, he could sing them into clarity.

 

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for Zeen on tumblr, for the prompt 'capernoited'.

Unchanging

After his return to Aman, Maglor's wife tries to help him unlearn his distrust.

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Lasbaneth’s hand slid between Maglor’s shoulderblades. She was crooning in the old language of Mithrim that he had not heard spoken for years even beyond his own count (he did not speak the language of Aman well, not yet), and listening to the sounds helped - the lapping of water on the lake-shore when they had both been young, birdsong in the reeds - as she tipped his head back.

"Close your eyes. Trust me." He kept his eyes stubbornly open, and saw her frown as she retrieved the blade to set on his throat, dragging it upward with gentle pressure. He felt his jaw tighten, felt her pause and remove the knife, heard the splash of water as she rinsed it of hair and lather.

"There," Lasbaneth said. "I think I will be capable of not drawing blood. Your grandfather has been gracious in demonstrating it to me; you do not need to fret."

"It is not," said Maglor, "that I think you would seek to hurt me, but imagining for so long that I would find nothing except just hatred upon returning —”

" — you need to unlearn, and I will not budge until then. Close your eyes."

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for GG on tumblr, for the prompt Ayurnamat - the philosophy that there is no point in worrying about events that cannot be changed (Inuit).
 
It's set squarely in my fic 'verse in which Maglor wanders long enough to qualify for the obscure tidbit of Elves growing beards when reaching a specific age, and the rest I hope is self-explanatory.

Candles Out

Gwindor and Finduilas, one evening after his return from Angband.

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When Gwindor returned from the council, Finduilas was in his rooms, stitching designs onto a pillow cover. He could have sat watching her hand fly with the needle for the remainder of the night, her nightgown occasionally slipping to reveal her shoulder – surely not entirely scandalous, or at least she did not seem to think so, folded against the headboard as she was: They were, still, betrothed. They had had their tearful reunion to satisfy custom, and Finduilas herself had surrendered her ring to be recast into two, barely thicker than sheet metal, and she had laughed like the sunlight on water he had named her for.

She was not smiling now, and as he watched the movement of her hand seemed to become irritable and fluttery with stabs of the needle, before a cloud passed over her visage and she let her embroidery sink. She reached for him instead, fingers resting lightly on his arm, a gesture of familiar promise.

"My mind is… elsewhere," she replied to his look, but must have noticed his discomfort, him drawing back and shifting the maimed arm from view, for she tilted her head toward the candles and graciously blew them out.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for nerdanel-istarnie on tumblr, for the prompt Gwindor - Lygerastia. I do think that they both have their own reasons for the room to be dark.

The Best He Still Could Hope For

A sort of Maglor-in-History fic, written for Indy for fandom_stocking 2012 and not posted here before. (Mentions of war and injuries, but nothing graphic.)

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When bitterness overwhelmed him again, he thought that singing of his misdeeds ought to have been enough. He had sung all the evils of the Sons of Fëanor to the waves and the surf that evaded his footfall when they heard, and to the wind that quieted around him he had yelled the names of those whose blood they had spilled in pursuit of the Silmaril.

Clearly, the world held no more interest in his suffering. Humans may have looked at the singer of the street corner by the pier, children may have stopped and studied him with inscrutable eyes and the wisdom of the very young, before being tugged along on a guardian's hand, and there may have been legends of an undying, wandering singer always on the bleakest stretch of shore that branched as legends did; a guide of the dying, a herald of death, a seeker of lost things, a saviour from rats and abductor of children with a magic flute.

But that was all. No anger at him, no remembrance, no rejection, no forgiveness. Some undeserved, impotent, useless pity, and more than anything, indifference.

It was not until he understood that the world was slipping him by, that he failed to grasp humanity as it had become, that an idea began to grow in him. He was recovering from an unfortunate collision with one of the newfangled automobiles, and lay under the care of an astonished country nurse who marvelled at old scars – this from the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, that from the Sack of Troy, and another yet from the Hundred Years' War (although he never used those names) – and at his ears, and inquisitive as she was would not be content with his explanation that he had been born so, as had his father, and his father's father. That had been less of a lie than others he told.

She let it go eventually. "Mr. Harper," she said a few days after his arrival, tutting and fussing and wringing her hands as she laid a newspaper in his lap, spelling out the ramifications of an Archduke's assassination, the blustering and threats of mortal nations. "I have a bad feeling about all this."

He did not deny that her instincts had been correct, but all the same he thanked whatever powers had led him, two years later, to a field of mud and war-mad men with their minds wide open (for they only, he thought, could understand some of his own life), pouring stories and tales and hopes and fears at every step, and one especially, struck with grief to part with a young wife, and a mind awash with faeries, quaint notions to please her, with love of languages, and to Maglor's astonishment, some shreds he recognized. Perhaps his songs had, though distorted, spread far wider than he had ever dared hope.

If they were distorted. Some of them he no longer recalled quite as they must have been, instead shifting and confused, this name and that concept overlaying one another, counting tales, old myths, and sudden shreds of clarity at other times while he sang --- but they were no longer his concern. The young man's mind was eager, and he would have a lifetime to tease the truth from all those songs and recollections. He, as the vessel of these stories now, could hope to relate them to the world in a way that humans understood. Maglor and his family's plight would not be forgotten now. It was the best he still could hope for these days: In keeping the tale alive, the Silmarils were no longer entirely lost. A glimpse of Venus through the clouds one night blazed, suddenly, far brighter than the planet had any right to. The young man looked up, astonished, murmuring in a tongue he did not yet understand.

Maglor turned his back on the war and wandered downriver to the sea. Perhaps he could rest now. Perhaps sail at last.

---

Chapter End Notes

I don't really need to spell out whom Maglor met, do I? ;)

The Shaking Off of Nightmares

Written for Idleleaves for the 2011 fandom_stocking. Maedhros, Fingon, and ways to deal with nightmares. Fluff.

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Maedhros lay back into the pillows and forced a smile at the dark head beside him. Sleep-tousled and yawning, Fingon propped himself up on one elbow. "What is wrong?" he murmured. Maedhros shook his head and burrowed deeper into the pillows, pulling the blanket up. He knew his face was covered in sweat despite the cool air in the room, but Fingon did not have to see that his hair was all but plastered to his skull. Too late, apparently.

"Another nightmare? You are supposed to wake me." Fingon could always read him, but he did not sound angry. Worse – he sounded disappointed, worried, and his brows knit into a frown. "What about?"

"Nothing in particular." Maedhros saw no point in denying the obvious, but the contents of the dream he kept to himself. The doors of Angband gaping like a trap in place of Himring's gates, and Fingon, all his usual exuberant joy, rushing into them when he only meant to visit Maedhros in his keep. And worst, the clang of the doors snapping shut and an all-too-clear idea of what awaited Fingon.

He shook his head to clear it of the images and glanced out of the window at the lightening sky. "Would you like breakfast? The ovens will already be lit and you know my kitchen personnel will be happy to oblige you."

Fingon laughed. "Naturally, I am their king. Pity that their efforts will be entirely in vain, seeing how I already have a bed to come back to. But I still like the way you run this. Being a little more self-sufficient would not hurt at Eithel Sirion – it would make for more discretion when you visit, at any rate. Always dismissing the servants with you there makes for a lot of talk. Made, I should say. Not anymore."

It may have been Fingon's laugh, or perhaps his lack of acknowledging the nightmare existed beyond a few words, but Maedhros began to relax. Over the years, they had tried many different tactics, talking the dreams through despite Maedhros' reluctance, glasses of tea with this herb or that recommended by the Master Healer, glasses of hot milk with honey recommended once upon a time by Anairë as a cure-all for the petty troubles of the Blessed Realm, glasses of wine, sometimes in excess, running, riding, archery contests, a walk through Himring's hothouse and the glass-covered gardens discussing politics and poetry, a swim in Sirion, visiting the stables, whatever Fingon could think of as an endeavour before sleep that might favourably shape Maedhros' dreams, and often enough, the very physical side of comfort. They had had varying success; sometimes Maedhros still woke screaming, sometimes he merely woke, sometimes he slept on into quieter dreams. And as often as he had the chance, he would deny that he had had nightmares at all, and yet, Fingon could always read him. But then, he had had hundreds of years and countless mutual visits to hone that skill; in fact so many that Maedhros had heard the men of his retinue jest among themselves about Himeithel and Eithel Ring, and had to admit that that was not entirely untrue.

It was a little baffling to think that the lack of acknowledgment should be what would solve the aftermath of the nightmares best of all, but if it worked, Maedhros was not one to complain. He chuckled to himself and felt the dark lift further from his mind.

"Ah, so you are awake. I was wondering if you had drifted off again, you had that look." With a rustle of bedclothes, Fingon moved closer and draped an arm over Maedhros' torso, smiling up at him with cautious optimism. Maedhros would not usually use the word 'caution' with Fingon, but here it applied for once. He wondered if he should feel special, to be the one matter in the world that Fingon used caution with.

"It worked?"

"Hmm-mh." He was, frankly, too comfortable to say more, but the more radiant smile he got in return was answer enough, and he tugged on a braid, grinning as Fingon slid up for a kiss.

"Good morning, then. As more than a figure of speech."

Recalled to Life

Written for Indy for fandom_stocking 2011. Finwë/Míriel/Indis in a Happy AU that isn't quite our A Kind of Poetry 'verse.

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Recalled to Life

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. In Tirion, the Noldor celebrated. On Taniquetil, Indis wept, praying that the winds would carry no more of the festival's sounds from Calacirya to her ears. Long before Aman love had brightened her days, and ever since Finwë had ascended the mountain path, waiting and hope had filled them.

But the threads and winds of fate ran cruel. Above the music she could hear children that would now never be, and all the more clearly, Finwë, hailing the cause of her misery.

"Praise the return of Queen Míriel!"

* * *

Indis was not expecting pity, least of all from Míriel. But residing in Mandos, Míriel had seen the tapestries spell out Indis' hope, and under the guidance of Nienna learned to put aside the jealous watch over the woman who would supplant her, and usurp her place with her husband and son. Seeing her, resentment had turned to understanding, and understanding to compassion – for did not Indis love Finwë for the same reasons Míriel did? And would Míriel not rather amend what little Marring she could, rather than further it?

In the darkness of Mandos' halls, Míriel had nodded.

* * *

That nod had spelled her release. "You know what you must do," Nienna had said, and Míriel consented. She knew. Long since, but as-yet unacknowledged, her compassion with Indis had turned to love.

But love demanded courage, and after her return Míriel was swept into celebrations and gratulations; Fëanáro and sitting in councils in accordance with her role demanded her attention most of all. Her feelings remained unspoken, until Finwë turned to her months after return, with Laurelin's hours dawning, kissed her hair, and they spoke of their love for Indis.

"Then let us visit her," Míriel said, and smiled.

* * *

They made their way up the mountain slowly. Míriel's steps began faltering, and she asked, "What reason would she have for loving me? I have taken her hopes from her."

"You are on your way to make amends. That courage alone is worthy of love, but if she does not return it, then --"

"-- then the decision is hers," Míriel finished, looking up, relieved. "After all, a woman knows her own heart."

They continued their way hand in hand, and coming to Ingwë's house they found Indis waiting, and she opened the door wide to bid them enter.

* * *

They sat in her garden in the full light of Laurelin. "And wherefore have you come?" asked Indis.

"For love," Míriel said, reaching for her hand. "For although it may seem strange, the both of us love you, and we would heal your grief, if we can."

Both, silent, could see Indis' eyes widen. Eventually she rose, went into the house, and returned with a spyglass. "Finwë gave me this when our union seemed certain to me, before you spoke your decision to return." Míriel's breath caught to be addressed so directly. Indis' voice lacked bitterness.

* * *

"I... have watched you, not Finwë, on occasion," she continued, caressing Míriel's palm. "Since your return. I wept at first, for losing the man I loved, but how could I begrudge a wife her right to be with son and husband? And now this confession – am I to deny my hopes again, and how could I not wish to join what I have seen? The beauty of a union may shine yet brighter with us three."

Míriel laughed, quick and light, and her fingers curled around Indis' hand. "It nearly has a kind of poetry. Let us attempt it."

Light to See You By

Nellas, Niënor, and a summer night in Doriath. For Elvie, who suggested "Nellas and Niënor doing something adorable" as a prompt. (Can be considered a gapfiller for "Sweet Water and Gold").

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"You can see everything in the stars if you look hard enough! There are so many of them that you only need to map something onto the sky, and there you have it, outlined in starlight." Nellas, on her back in the grass, waved her hands at the stars visible between the beeches.

Niënor laughed. "You and your star-stories. I never thought Elves would be this way, having such tales. All I ever heard of the Goldin, and that was only when Labadal was in a mood for stories from his youth, was how tall and terrible they were, bearing stars on their shields and banners like shards of metal, and everything he told me was warlike. I never thought you Elves could be like this – like you." She propped herself up on an elbow, loomed over Nellas for a moment, a dark silhouette crowned in night sky, and pecked a kiss onto her nose. Nellas giggled.

"I only wish you could see what I see - our songs all say that Gilthoniel laboured for a long time to make the stars, but what we think is a long time may not be a long time for her, and to me it looks – it looks... like she took handfuls of sand from Esgalduin and simply swept them across the sky!" Nellas imitated the movement, though her hand was empty. "And there are older songs, still, saying that everything is outlined in the stars, and I don't just mean images, I mean that at the Waters there were wise men and women who had learned to read portends from the sky, but I do not think any of them travelled west, or else they travelled west so far that they sit on the other side of the sea now, and we can't ask them."

Niënor, still leaning on her elbow, glanced down at Nellas, and pushed her slipping flower-wreath out of her eyes. "Would you like to know what is ahead?"

Nellas lay in thought for a moment before her face brightened again. "Sometimes. But then I look to what's closer, and that's you, and the only reason I would care if all the stars went out were that there wouldn't be any more light to see you by."

For Fear and Love of Her

This started with a suggestion for Lúthien as a dark queen by Orvandill on tumblr, and continued through a set of graphics. Asking me to resist drabbling in the same universe was practically pointless.

Three loosely connected ficlets, some grisly images.

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Lúthien has bested Gorthaur. Lúthien has sung Morgoth asleep, and those in Angband that will her harm, that lust after her only for her beauty’s sake and do not know her as a kindred spirit, sleep.

(Beren, too, slept, until she roused him.)

And in the secret shadows beyond the throne a spirit stirs, unclad, timid at first knowing that to love whom Morgoth desired and Gorthaur loathed will cost her more than raiment, will cost her more than the punishment for her failure already cost her.

(If it was failure.)

Beren stands enraptured of the light - smiling and blinded, no doubt, to aught else but the stone in his hand, that piece of rock - but Lúthien ascends the throne with easy steps and sheds the winged raiment that she wore.

"You served me well," she says to the shadow, cowering beneath the beauty and the terror of her eyes. Lúthien's voice softens, feeling a quaver in the dark, a bat's thin shriek, the shade retreating. "And I am minded to reward you. Come now. Your servitude is ended." And she offers a hand to kiss, and with the other, the shadow’s wings, and softly laughs.

"Let the mortal stand there enspelled until he dies, let Morgoth lie until his form has withered, let Gorthaur kneel before us. Come."

The shadow comes, draping her form over herself, unfurling the left wing, then the right, and fangs graze Lúthien's knuckles – in a kiss, and nothing more.

And now that Lúthien is queen, they have no more need for Silmarils or starlight, for her eyes shine brighter.

* * *

The Sons of Fëanor listen to the tales in shock and awe, and some (the most fervid but least kind, the most cunning but least wise) laugh, both for their own reasons – a mere maiden on the throne of Angband - they had had her hand in marriage, or nearly so, flitting like a shade from tree to tree, flitting like a shadow from their cells, and such a one would bear the Iron Crown and hold her head aloft?

But they only know the weight of light, not the weightlessness of gentle darkness. And Angband, Angband made anew, still is full of shadows. Lúthien casts more than one, and she needs no rock-studded crown to bow her neck. She holds her head aloft all on its own, and laughs easier for it than those poor, light-burdened Children.
 
* * *

Maedhros knows that weight best as of yet - it pulled on his wrist for years. Maglor will learn in years to come, perhaps most of all, with the Silmaril’s high arc into the waves that leaves his shoulder sore to cast, the feet that drag and drag through centuries. The middle brothers learn it in Doriath, in their the blood that insists to succumb to gravity and sink into the pores of Doriath’s floors. Ambarussa know it by fire and by salt.

Or rather, they would know, were it permitted to them.

There have been losses already, certainly – Thuringwethil recovers, one day, a ragged right hand, bespelled to preserve it as a tool of torment for Maedhros, and Lúthien unsings the ties on it. They watch as it falls to dust and bone, and send a former captive to deliver it (she begs her way out the gate, her tears pool not for want of freedom but for grief of it), ensuring for the moment gratitude and peace. To Hithlum and the High King they send Grond, its spells unbound, and bid him forge armour imperishable, if he wishes, that he may never meet his father’s fate.

The Silmarils they keep - not as spoils of war, but as seeds of it, forever beyond reach. And should they try besiege her - she rained sleep upon the greatest of the Ainur. An army is no hardship, especially not since there is one to give her wings.

Golden Hour

Elenwë and Írissë share a private moment. Written for Anna for Fandom Stocking 2013.

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"You have been watching me over dinner," says Elenwë the moment the door claps shut behind the rest of their families filing out of the glass salon, and she wisely turns the key behind them. Her voice could not be any more salacious before it spills over into golden laughter that, Írissë imagines, flits like sparks of Laurelin around the room and warms her from the inside.

But she isn't one to budge from a challenge. "So, what if I did?" she asks, lifting her chin to look Elenwë in the eye. There is a gleam of light on her golden lashes, and a single eyelash fallen on her cheek, and that is all it takes for the mood to turn, for Elenwë to quiet beneath Írissë's focused gaze.

"Hold still," Írissë breathes, open-mouthed, and takes it off Elenwë's cheek with a single finger, holding it aloft among some powder-dust like the smallest of treasures. To her it might well be, all of a sudden, as she hovers that finger before Elenwë's lips. "Breathe," she says then. "Make a wish."

It doesn't matter that this is only the third time they'd met, the first at a ball in Tirion that sent them swirling alongside one another in the dances and, the second by accident in Tirion's main market, where Elenwë's star-like radiance also caught Turukáno's eye, and kept it since. As of now they are friends, all three, and Elenwë is visiting for both of them, but perhaps more for Írissë, the way she favours her company, the lingering touches, laughter, glances... so Írissë hopes, at least.

Elenwë breathes and the tiny hair swirls away, catches a beam of light, and vanishes.

"Did you?" asks Írissë, and her tone is still the same, hushed-breathless and inexplicably awed.

"I did," Elenwë breathes. "But don't they say it must be kept a secret to come true?"

"Hmm-mmh." Still Írissë cannot bear to look away, not even when Elenwë's fingers thread through her own with gentle pressure, much warmer and firmer and less ephemereal than she expected. "But regardless," she says and she lifts Elenwë's hand to her lips, "I hope that it entailed what I think it did – after all, you noticed my watching you, and why would you tease me so if it were not..."

"... reciprocated? Why, y-"

Then the moment shatters like glass around them: the locked door rattles, and there's Turukáno's voice outside. "Elenwë, Írissë? Are you not coming to sit with us?"

They look at each other and burst into giggles, and Turukáno without is startled into silence. As much love as they both bear him, this is their own moment, and they flee laughing from the back door into the garden. There, with the view slanting westward down the city and out into the plain, they still again, standing hand in hand together in the light.

A Thread of Red and Silver String

I would seek Queen Míriel and pay my respects, for she was dear to me. Indis braves the borders of Lórien to seek her heart's desire.

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It was fair to say, Indis thought, that a ribbon out of her dreams had led her here, flowing down this very path, to this very point.

Tirion had long since been lost to the distant haze of Laurelin's light, but it seemed not to touch the bank of mist ahead. The path vanished into it, but despite the apprehension prickling at her skin, despite the way her feet dragged, Indis continued walking. The confines of the gardens of Lórien were said to be a stranger place than even the gardens themselves, for where the living land and the borders of the dream-lord met, phantoms were said to walk, strayed out of the imaginings between sleep and waking, and a magic that defied logic as much as dreams themselves might.

Indis pressed onward until the mist closed about her. On either side of the path poppies glowed, a deep red of rubies in treelight like drops of blood, a colour that no living flower had a right to bear. She shook a pebble from her sandal, and it skittered away across the path, suddenly no longer a stone, but a beetle that scurried into the long grass of the field.

Indis rubbed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose before telling herself to stop fighting. This was what she wanted, and already it was beginning. She was close.

Although she could have slept under the open sky the past night, Indis had felt the dust of travel heavy on her skin, and had asked for bath and bed in a village of farmers further to the north at the borders of Yavanna's pastures. Hearing her errand – I would seek Queen Míriel and pay my respects, for she was dear to me – her hosts insisted that when she were to go on, she must not rest upon the borders, for all the tiredness and drowsiness that would fall on her, and there was no saying where she might stray in sleep. In the morning they had brewed her a bottle of tisane to keep her waking, lest, the overseer's wife had claimed, she'd see her heart's desire in the mist and might never emerge again.

Indis had thanked them, and taken the drink, carrying it in her pack until the houses had dropped out of sight behind a fold in the land. Then she had poured it away. If anything meant to take her she was unafraid of it, for it would be one of only a few things: she wished for no evil, and lately all her dreams had been similar, imaginings that left her wishing she could have them in waking life, not confined to startling awake sweat-soaked and with her throat dry from gasping, and warmth coursing all through her.

A swirl of skirts in red and silver. A beckoning, ringed hand waving Indis away into a private place, and sometimes a second pair of arms waiting to receive her, a second pair of lips, Finwë's chuckle sending shivers through her while Míriel laughed against her skin and kissed her until Indis squirmed and mewled. Or more often Míriel alone, and they would dance while Indis sang and Míriel laughed. Here, she was not the wan, tired wraith who had been bled dry of life and fire, sitting brittle-haired and pale without the strength to rise – not that Míriel who now lay dead, not the one she had wept over in secret for days on end.

Rather, a skirt that glowed and billowed like the poppies, and a laugh that wrapped around her like the mist, and a fire in her dark eyes like Laurelin at greatest light.

At the edge of Indis' sight, between the poppies, caught in the tall grass, waved the thread of red and silver string, spun impossibly by invisible fingers into a beckoning hand, a dancing figure, and a laugh she knew that wafted through the trees on the far side of the field.

The flowers parted for her, and Indis followed.

She would find her way out when it was time, and either emerge again or else join Míriel in the Halls - and grieve for neither.

---

Chapter End Notes

Many thanks to Elvie for her beta!

That Kind of Grateful

Míriel and Indis, and an understanding - of sorts. Inspired by Vienna Teng's The Last Snowfall. Mild femslash.

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The cherry trees are in bloom in the palace garden, white blossoms thick like snow on the bare branches, and every warm breath of wind sends a shower of petals onto the two women walking hand in hand beneath them.

Indis laughs softly at Míriel's quiet joy; like a child she tilts her head back and tries to catch one of the floaty things on her tongue.

"I like them better candied," Míriel concludes when she has finally achieved her desire, and with a twinkle of her eye smiles at Indis. It is a good time – spring always sends Míriel soaring into activity, and like Vána trailing flowers in her wake, Míriel leaves hangings and weavings and lace, embroideries and needleworks blooming in the palace. When Indis comes visiting, she feels her heart beat high and quick in her throat at their sight, like a song that wants voice.

It is not for her to articulate it, not in the way she would if such things were permitted, but sometimes it is enough for Míriel to curl her hand in Indis' palm, gold ring that proclaims her union with Finwë and her needle-callouses, and say softly "I know. I know."

White Gulls Call (The Light on the Water Remix)

Written for Agelast's fic Of Light Beguiled, for Remix Redux. I'd recommend reading her fic beforehand to get context of what's discussed here, and why.

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"Have you seen it?"

A snow petrel, Galadriel realized with a start. She had not seen it, until now. Racing panicked low above the waves among the screeching seagulls with a light upon her breast. Nestled into the down feathers and drenching them in light, the Silmaril.

"You know I cannot tell you that." The curtains billowed. Galadriel wanted to say: Open your eyes, cousin. The very wind shows you, though may your wings be made of sturdier stuff than gauze curtain. You will need them.

She realized then – Elwing might need guidance. For all the ichor that made up her blood she had never learned to shift into another shape. Galadriel herself had never truly mastered it, before the quivering of her bird's heart overcame her and she plunged to earth with a nightingale's feather-stubble still itching on her arms. But she knew the means and ways, remembered well Melian's lessons and the kisses that came as her rewards, how they had sweetened learning and made it so much swifter.

Looking up, she found Elwing gone inside. She might have tumbled over the edge of the balcony, have flown already. When Elwing returned bearing the Silmaril, she was smiling, though the light half-dissolved her.

“I do not know why I fear! It is a lucky thing. I should not go without it.”

Her love for it will teach her flight.

Unhappy certainty, then; nothing more to say. The moon was setting, throwing a silver westward path upon the water.

Patience and Quiet

Aerin faces the arrival of the Easterlings in Dor-lómin.

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"Ought we not fight them?" Aerin said between her teeth, standing in line to be counted with those left on the homestead after the war: Indris, her child-sister of eight years, the serving-women and workmaids, more anxious than defiant and many clutching children to themselves, her mother’s mother driving her walking stick into the grass with her weight. Too few, and none fit for fighting.

The Incomers were almost upon them, robed in furs and claret silk brocades. Aerin sighed – they would not have looked amiss at an Elf-lord’s side, the tree-tall man in their midst walking with a rider’s gait and a gold-tipped bow strapped to his back. She remembered the rumors, that Brodda was landless and wife-less with no heir or house to his name, cunning in battle, one of the few faithless in faithful Bór’s tribe.

Her mother had been following her looks – she had always been uncanny in the way she could read hearts, and now the grief-worn face cracked like a rock exposed too long to lashings of hail and wind. Aerin did not realize it was a smile until Gilris’ posture crumpled, and she was wheezing with a mirth that slurred her words. “Fight them, my bird? How?”

Aerin averted her eyes from the imposing figures. “You told me once – many a man of arms misreads patience and quiet. And a man with no house or wife may be glad of both, though she may burn the very roof he sleeps beneath, if she can do no more good than that.”

Her mother shook her head, but then the Easterlings had reached them, and Aerin swallowed any of the awe she might have felt.

---

Chapter End Notes

"Many a man of arms misreads patience and quiet" is a quote from the Children of Húrin, there applied to Aerin rather than spoken by her or her mother.

Resolve

Thuringwethil meets Lúthien.

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The sky stretched across the Vale of Sirion in the blue of Lúthien’s garments underneath her shadow-cloak. Thuringwethil’s gaze glanced off her more than once, seeking to follow her path over the ruined bridge and among the fallen stones to the foot of the crumbling tower, but again and again her eye slipped off the elf, as though Thuringwethil’s mind sought against her will to unsee her. Only by virtue of Lúthien’s swift, flitting movements, revealing a sliver of her face, a fair hand, a scrap of blue dress, a gleam of light from her eye, she was able to keep track.

The scent of spring-flowers wafted to her window, too early for the season and absurd to the extreme in a place of filth and corruption that housed only a dwindling band Orcs dwelling in terror of her. With good reason, for wounded in the collapse of the tower, a wing shattered and her iron claws blunted by clawing slowly from a collapsed dungeon, she hungered for nourishment to strengthen her again… and Orcs made poor fare, their taste dulled and impotent with corruption.

A Maia’s daughter, capable of humbling even her master into screeching flight… whatever errand led her to Tol-in-Gaurhoth for the second time, she would not conclude it without giving something in return.

Thuringwethil smiled, and turned from the window to descend. Her fangs at least had remained sharp.

Counsels of the Weak

Young Finduilas learns her first lesson in politics.

Read Counsels of the Weak

Finduilas had played on the floors of the council chambers of Nargothrond as a child, or sitting on her mother’s knee while Meril braided her hair into designs as intricate as the problems she puzzled over. She said it helped her think, and Finduilas found them pretty. By the time she had grown old enough for tutoring, she was soundly dismissed – not by her mother, who had, it seemed, always been there speaking with the lords as though she was no different to them and carrying herself with the air of the queen Nargothrond lacked – but by the advisors who declared that they could spare no seat for a girl who knew neither her letters nor her numbers yet and was more suited to song and dance than politics, a frail little flower needing sunlight and free air.

So her mother took her away. Finduilas was crying by the time they made it home, and her mother sat by her until her tears subsided into tired hiccups.

"Come now," Meril said softly, smoothed over Finduilas’ mussed hair and began to braid it in one of her old designs, reserved for intricate problems. "It is unfair, is it not? If not for your father’s insistence that he could spare no advisor in Minas Tirith, and that you and I needed to be brought to safety because we are ladies, they would not permit me either. But – there are ways, Finduilas, to make even a supposed weakness your strength."

Finduilas rolled her shoulders to loosen her tense muscles, and lifted her head from staring at her clenched hands.

Meril gathered together the three braids she had already woven and began to braid them into one another. “There are those who will keep their guard up around those they perceive as equal – or better. Those they do not consider a threat – harmless people, like little girls – they may learn matters that may surprise them very much. My advice is this – until you have other options, let them underestimate you, but keep your eyes, your ears and your mind open at all times.”

Meril fixed the braid into place. Finduilas beamed at her.

---

Chapter End Notes

According to the Later Quenta Silmarillion, Meril was Finrod's wife and Gil-galad's mother. I reused the name for Orodreth's wife and Finduilas' mother (but prefer the published Silmarillion's version of Gil-galad's descent from Fingon).

Not on Hope Alone

Idril, Ecthelion, and the matter of Gondolin's sustainability.

Read Not on Hope Alone

"Fish in the fountains, and water fowl. The lady Mŷlluin’s suggestion, in fact, but you will not want to take it up with the Harp, I am certain." Idril grinned at Ecthelion, who had already begun murmuring darkly to himself about filtration systems and waste water. She glanced at her notes and across the table, where the Lord of the House of the Fountain sat. "From the House of the Tree: They added the proposal of a closed cycle of waste water, mulberry orchards and silkworm cultivation; the waste will be used to nourish the trees, larvae and moths may be fed to the fish and fowl, and we will have silk for clothing as well as fish and poultry. The orchards are to be planted on a specific layering of soils to purify the water and return it to your fountains. Imagine, Lord Ecthelion – functionality and your aesthetics combined!"

Beside her, Aredhel laughed as Ecthelion muttered a good-natured, but ill-worded retort. “You are certainly proving that all this city needs to be sustainable is proper thought, Itarillinkë, but you always took delight in that.”

"Well," said Idril, laughing in turn. "For one thing I do not believe that the Lord Ulmo would have guided Father to Tumladen if it were impossible to sustain us in isolation, and sustain us well. Imagine! The very mirror of Tirion, and us chewing on breadcrusts?"

"We cannot subsist on hope or fish alone, Princess," Ecthelion remarked.

"Nor on fountains only. There are more suggestions, but they all come in the same vein, and we will need to come to decisions soon; the architects are waiting for final proposals to begin their designs." She reached for Ecthelion’s hand and patted it. "I am not asking to subsist on hope, Lord Ecthelion. I only ask you to share it."

10-Word Ficlets

A little exercise fro the meme currently going around on LJ. Femslash edition insofar they're all femslash in idea, even if it's not spelled out obviously in all of them.

Read 10-Word Ficlets

1. Angst: Eärwen choked down tears to pray that Anairë turn around.

2. AU: Stiff-fingered, Írissë and Itaril fumbled icicles from Elenwë's sodden hair.

3. Crack!Fic: "Now that Narvi... she has some guts, an Elf for a beard!"

4. Crossover: "Doriath, too, was forbidden. Hogwarts I love good." Nellas laughs.

5. First Time: "Stop." Unhappily, Haleth withdrew, but accepted Argant's kiss for comfort.

6. Fluff: "Lúthien's kisses? Sweeter than miruvórë." Finrod laughed: "You're aglow, sister."

7. Humour: "Elemmírë screeched like a cat!" - "Findis! Nude! In my music-room!"

8. Hurt/Comfort: "Only me," murmured Míriel to Indis flinching from her shadow.

9. Smut: Warm oil gleamed golden down Baraneth's back. Tauriel's hands moved lower.

10. UST: "- spoiled for Hobbit lasses," Elanor giggled, "since seeing Queen Evenstar."

Making a Home

After the Darkening and the Exile of the Noldor, Nerdanel makes a new home for those left behind.

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Two ancient trees and a village green are the landmarks of the hamlet on the plain Nerdanel chooses to settle in. She builds the craft room so that the light falls just right, and the rest of the house grows around it as others follow her.

First of all is Pelórë who bears herself with the grace and contempt of someone who has survived a death-blow. She never talks about Tyelperinquar or Curufin, but wheedles from Nerdanel the permission for the forge Nerdanel had denied herself. After a while, waking at sunrise to Pelórë’s ringing hammer, she even is glad for it; rather than of her husband it reminds her of her childhood and the golden days on her father’s estate. As though drawn by that thought, Rainissë and Isimë come visiting, and Nerdanel sits with her sister while her little niece rolls through grass bright with dandelions. When they proclaim their intent to stay, even Pelórë smiles behind her teacup.

Others follow - hesitant apprentices, then two of Nerdanel’s wards during the Darkening who have grown tired of Tirion’s narrow streets and narrower minds. Some work the garden, some wood, rock, metal, clay. When she’s grown into a young woman, Isimë brings home a husband from dancing on the village green, and very soon Nerdanel kneels next to her in the rich black soil to set a flowerbed around the foundations of her child’s room.

"Won’t your face grow numb from always smiling so much?" Isimë’s eyes twinkle entirely too much for Nerdanel not to laugh hard enough to slosh half her watering can onto the trailing ivy Isimë has just planted by the wall.

"I won’t say if only you knew,” she replies, growing somber for a moment before the shadows dispell. Isimë is not old enough to remember much of the Unrest and the Darkening, and if she were she’d not ask. “Seeing how I have yet to cease smiling, can’t you guess the answer?"

Brethil in Winter

Haleth yearns. Or does she?

Read Brethil in Winter

"She dwells west across the mountains in the Mist-Land," says Haleth when they ask where her companion has gone, and then she lifts her eyes to the frost-dim window and the beeches of Brethil in winter. They expect her to yearn openly, she knows. Someone tucks the furs over her knees a little tighter, someone else presses a wooden bowl into her hand and urges her to drink - peppermint for memory, peppermint for this and that. She drops the bowl, followed with an exclamation of remorse as the contents splatter across the board - not true regret, of course, nor is she truly so doddering that her fingers can’t grasp some tea, not yet.

She feels her mouth twist over that one loose tooth at the minor din that arises; someone mops up the spilled liquid and a new bowl is put on the table before her seat. But instead of taking that, she pushes the furs aside and rises. Her guard are by her side immediately, smooth fingers curled around spears. She only wishes they were her own as she strides from the hall into the blistering cold and toward the stables. The snow lies high enough to crumble into her boots and melt there, soaking the wool of her trousers.

"Lady," says the newest recruit to the hall and lays a hand on her arm; she has not yet earned a torq to wear, and Haleth decides to forgive her the insult. "Where are you headed?"

"For a horse."

"And then?"

"Hithlum, to the Elf-King's sister. I’ve sent her away, but Otherworld take me if I can’t go to her. I’ve seen worse winters than this, and if I’m made to sit around another day, next I blink you’ll be chewing my meat for me. When Haldan returns, tell him I’ll bring back the spring from the west with me."

"But -"

"No. I can." She waves the girl away. "If you want to make yourself useful, pack my things. Go!”

---

Chapter End Notes

Haleth/Lalwen is one of those random pairings that the source material doesn't give the slightest indication of, but then that's never stopped anybody from shipping other things...

Kindled

Vairë kindles Míriel into flame and colour.

Read Kindled

There were no windows in Vairë’s hall. They were lit from within by a ceaseless pale light that seemed to emanate from the very walls - light enough to see, light enough to work by. But while the intricacies of her tapestries stood out in bright, almost painful, colour and detail, the light served only to wash Míriel out.

When Míriel sat and wove, white-clad, white-skinned, silver-haired, she seemed diminished even from her spirit form, for then at least her inner fire had been plain to the eye, beautiful in its obstinacy when she refused re-embodiment time and again, and now, when such colour and life flowed from her fingers, it seemed unfit that she herself should look a wraith.

More, Vairë thought it a shame.

“I love thee well,” she said to Míriel one time when they stood together and contemplated a pattern of flames soon to go into the design. “And I am grieved by thy pallor.”

Míriel turned dark eyes upon Vairë. “I have been thine to command, lady, and gladly so, ever since I came to thy halls. But there would not be red thread enough in thy abode to depict me - not if I were... kindled.”

Vairë, with gentle fingers, brushed the gown from Míriel’s shoulder and lowered her lips to her skin to coax forth a first red mark, a first breathy sigh. “Then thou shalt be. Never fear, dear one. This shall not be committed to weaving, but be ours alone.”

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for a prompt by Zopyrus. 

Out With Lanterns

Míriel and Indis, on a sad anniversary. For Tolkien Femslash Week on tumblr.

Read Out With Lanterns

“Return swiftly,” Míriel said, standing by the loom, but her fingers rested, and she was glancing at the gathering dark outside the window. The Swallows’ Nest, the settlement of the Vanyar, was high on Taniquetil, above the cover of clouds. In clear nights the frosts bit, and Indis stood by the door without shawl or cloak, only a lantern in her hand.

“You worry,” Indis replied. More than Míriel, she turned to grief and solitude on the day of Finwë’s death, but now a smile eased some of the shadows from her face. “Do not. I will not abandon you.”

---

Chapter End Notes

The title is from Emily Dickinson ... and I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.

A Show of Mastery

How Lúthien swayed Mandos. Written for Indy at Trick or Treat 2015.

Read A Show of Mastery

There was this, also, in Lúthien's song, as she sang and wept in the dark before the throne of Mandos:

Her mother began to teach her young in her childhood, long before the rise of sun and moon. First it was language - a tongue that hurt to listen to, the quick merciless slices of a bright sword glittering in starlight given shape and sound. She fought down the fear, the desire to press her face into the cool grass, or to climb a tree and hide among the leaves. She had still been a child, after all, while her mother stood tall and radiant, cutting at the very air with the syllables - the lyrics - from her lips, her pride, her heritage, her birthright.

When the sounds ended and Melian knelt before Lúthien, she was no longer so shining, her face soft and worn and beloved, the one that Lúthien had always known, and opening her cupped hands, let go a nightingale of coloured light. A feather fell when it fluttered into the trees, downy and brown, a glimmer along its edges. Lúthien remembered touching her finger to it, and finding an answering whisper from within her.

But she was young and her body small and tired, and her mother rocked her to sleep in her arms, speaking of the language and in it until Lúthien drifted into a dream of Ayanumâzân and its powers, and the way it might create a world or shiver her life to breaking.

What powers song had she came to know soon after, more than wonders and visions. She had learned, by then, how to wrap her tongue around the sharp, intricate sounds of her mother's language and to speak them without cutting her lips bloody. It still made her head hurt, and for all her practice, near unceasing whether alone or with her mother, mastery had not yet come to her. She could tell Melian was frustrated, and though she remained kind she was struggling for patience when her half-elven child released the nightingale she was meant to evoke - unlike her mother's, hers was white light only, not yet adorned with the blush of colours, and it hopped or fluttered but would not fly, or did not sing - and worn out by her trials, she fell asleep in her mother's arms when she was carried back into Menegroth.

And yet, always, there was the thought, in her song and in her practice, in her love to Beren, in the growth of her hair and her cloak of shadow and in the grasp of pale fingers on bat-wings, in the fall of her body into the grass under Hírilorn:

I will one day prove worthy, whatever unknown shadows I must enter to show my mastery. Until then, I shall not cease.

Upon his throne in the shadowed hall, Mandos could not help but smile amid his tears.

---

Chapter End Notes

Ayanumâzân: A tentative Valarin word, “Ainurin”, composed of ayanûz, “Ainu”, a supposed plural suffix -umâz and a possible adjectival suffix -ân.

The Song (Forever)

Written for Tolkien Femslash Week 2016, for the prompts:

Story Elements: A flute
Tolkien Quotes: "And Indis hath my love", "May I not now spend my life as I will?"
Book Title: Girl Walking Backwards
Emotions: Hope
Formats/Genres: True Drabble
Lyrics and Poetry: “Let me find you and the song (forever) between us”

Set in the "The Beautiful Ones" 'verse, although a long time after that story takes place. (And yes, I fully intend to pick it up again to finish, although I don't want to make estimates on when that'll be.)

Read The Song (Forever)

The sounds of a birdbone flute called Indis out of her hut, to stars above the mere, and mountains dark against the sky. The moon had not yet risen. The music shivered through the marrow of her bones with ancient force.

A solitary figure sat on a boulder by the shore. Indis, and time itself, were walking backwards, into her girlhood and freedom to spend her life as she would. “Kalrê,” she called, slipping into the tongue of her youth the scholars now termed ‘primitive’, and threaded her fingers through her lover’s golden hair, kissing it. “Do not stop playing.”

White-Flowered Also

Also for Tolkien Femslash Week, for the prompts: 

For July 16: 
Book Titles: Send My Roots Rain
Clichés: Flowers, Hand-holding
Emotions: Hope
Four Words: “Charade, amber, colony, moment” and “limit, daisies, cotton, hopeful”

Read White-Flowered Also

Daisies nodded in the cracks of the hilltop road’s pavement, so innocuous Míriel’s heart was near bursting. The charade of a procession followed behind her, and the flowers would be trampled and swept by cotton trains of the many hopefuls for the King’s favour. For rumors had grown loud that that day would grant Pharazôn immortality, a gift in time to be bestowed on them also, flies in amber, perfectly preserved forever.

It only took the limits of humanity. It only took colonies being pillaged of life to be sacrificed in in the temple fires, strapped to the kindling that had been Nimloth, the Line of Kings, her line. She was powerless to stop any of it, and her only consolation the vision she’d received, of a fountain raining onto a sapling’s roots. But standing on a dais in the temple at last with her servants behind her, came a feather-light touch to her hand, the curl of Nénumë’s well-loved fingers in hers for a moment, then something soft and weightless in her palm.

When she opened it: The daisies, though bruised and uprooted, and Nénumë’s breath by her ear. “Lady, dare to hope. Not the tree, but white-flowered also.” 

---

Chapter End Notes

Nénumë is a character of mine from "The Old Maid's Tale". 

As a Cup Yielding

For Tolkien Femslash Week, for the prompts:

Formats and Genres: Sapphic Stanza
Tolkien Quotes: “Who now shall refill the cup for me?”

Galadriel to Varda, more or less obliquely NSFW. 

Read As a Cup Yielding

Fill again my goblet with sweet, honeyed mead:
My lip waits, dry; all kissing me can claim sour
Ash as only due for the bliss paid to me,
And faraway thoughts.

For no kisses match the one I had from you
Whose hand, kindling stars as hearts alike, took
my chalice from hands ever sworn to your aid
And slaked your thirst,

And then passed sweetness from yours to my mouth,
And a wish to learn every joy of your form,
Although raiment only, from me, to teach you.
High One, beneath me,

I reclaimed more swiftly the taste of sweet mead
Drank from you all you’d give, as a cup yielding
Draughts like míruvor on my tongue, yet burning
Ever ago, down years

Upon ages, and you, behind the bent seas,
And with hands raised as clouds, sit drinking
Still, from cups not mine, as thirsting I yearn for
Your summons to mead.

River's Voice

For the July 16 prompts of Tolkien Femslash Week

Emotions: Confidence, Courage
Formats: Haiku
Story Elements: Violets
Tolkien Quotes: “Mithrellas, one of the companions of Nimrodel…" 

Read River's Voice

Mithrellas, running,
Violets at her feet bloom
Down to the river.

For there, though absent,
Sings Nimrodel's voice, laughing
In the cold waters.

To confessions, prayers:
Have confidence, courage, love,
The stream says. She hears.

 

Make a Bird of Me

For the prompts:

Clichés: Breakfast in Bed, Curtain Fic, Gift-Giving, Domesticity
Lyrics and Poetry: “I sing for love, I sing for me, I'll shout it out like a bird set free”

Nellas and Niënor wander in Doriath in summer. References Sweet Water and Gold, where Nellas re-named Niënor Ninglor.

Read Make a Bird of Me

“Would that I could sing out what my heart says, seeing you first each day when I wake.”

From the fire, Nellas looked up, smiling at Niënor who pushed herself up on her elbows in the bedroll and sniffed the scent rising from the birch-bark sack that Nellas had strung over the flame. “Tea?” she asked, and Nellas nodded. “Mint for the morning. It is not much of a meal, but it is warm, and we will come past a pheasant run if we strike north toward Aros later, then we can eat.”

“Warmth is enough for me,” Niënor said and reached out for a proffered cup without rising.

“But why do you not sing?” Nellas asked, letting their fingers brush and relishing the caress in a heart-skip. She nestled to Niënor’s side, and wound an arm around her middle, slipping her fingers along the seam of Niënor’s shirt until she found the warm skin beneath. Niënor’s breath caught, but she pulled away before the beginnings of her smile bloomed into more.

“Mourning does not lend itself well to song - least of all about love. I am afraid if I do it -” Niënor took a sip of tea to bide her time, and smoothed down a mussed strand of hair,“ - I shall give it all away. Ears that ought not hear might take notice.”

“But - do you not remember my gift? I made it so you could be free of this name and of its shadow. Ninglor. Will you not sing?” A flutter of hurt made itself known through Nellas’ chest. They had found the lily bank along the brook only the day before, and Niënor had emerged from the water sputtering and laughing as though her new name had washed away all the cares that wore on her.

“It is not so easy,” Niënor said, her voice quiet with apology. “Would that my life until my coming to Doriath were oblivion so I could sing with the birds, like one that has flown from its cage and not merely into another one that is larger, and fairer. But you - you may yet make such a bird of me, given time enough.”

Hilt-First

For the prompt:
Lyrics and Poetry: “And all my swords have turned to words that blow like poems in the wind”

AU; Aredhel/Haleth.

Read Hilt-First

Gondolin is snaring in its brightness, dulling blades into poetry that rings gently to the sound of a harp in a shut room, not the clash of metal and the free air that Aredhel longs for. So she flees, and wanders aimlessly, happily, eastward. There it is the very sound she missed - metal and the noise of fighting - that draws her, and after distrust passes, the women of that land open their ranks for her. Aredhel stands with their chieftain, and Haleth raises her voice in a battle song while her sword points, hilt-first and heart-high, for Aredhel to grasp.

Breath for Breaking

For the prompts:

NSFW/Kink: Breathplay
Emotions: Lust 
Formats/Genres: Drabble Series
Four Words: ocean, thousand, ceramic, fever

Tar-Míriel after the Fall of Númenor. Dubiously NSFW. I think?

Read Breath for Breaking

I
Fever crawls along Míriel’s veins with every pulse and throb of her lungs as the water pulls her under, the ocean merciless and violent with a thousand hands of water over her mouth, her nose, pushing inside her, and in desperation she opens herself, her lips, her legs. If she surrenders herself yet again, as with her first plunge as a fear-filled offering to the hungry waves then perhaps, perhaps there will be mercy, perhaps there will be life. Perhaps she’ll be lifted, like Elwing, as a seabird to fly and find her beloved, not shatter like precious, fragile ceramic.

II 
If only she could find the Faithful ships riding landward before the ocean wave that swallowed Númenor - but she isn’t lifted, isn’t saved. Instead her fever goes into a panic as she is whirled through muddy waters the thousandth time and delirium builds shapes from the blur that threatens to overwhelm her vision. She only wants - she wants to - fly until she no longer can, and find Nénumë on her way to safety, wake in her arms, have breath. Then - an abrupt tipping, or maybe rising, and a figure prominent on Númenorean ceramic winds around her. Watery lips meet hers.

III
Míriel can breathe. A thousand needles sting at her when she does, but she can breathe, impossibly, underwater, and the ocean stills and clears around her, closer to surface and above the ruin of her island. Uinen’s hands are on her, holding her safe, and something uncoils in her, near to breaking, as her head pushes past the waterline into sunrise and emptiness, and a sky the colour of blue ceramic. Feverish, she casts around for her saviour, even as the ecstasy of being saved sweeps over her and she drifts, eastward, over unmeasured miles of sea.

IV
Uinen comes to her again every now and then, in a pod of dolphins, sometimes bearing a ceramic vessel of sweet water to let Míriel drink, sometimes as the ocean’s hand around her ankle, pulling her under until the breathless fever returns, and a voice whispers “Remember who saved you,” and the same gratitude seizes Míriel a thousand times over, the bliss of air in her lungs. Uinen never touches her despite the offer, content to toy, but never grants her wings, either - perhaps it is not her province to do so. Míriel does not jeopardize her survival by asking.

V 
A thousand days or none may have passed when Míriel reaches land - a beach swept with debris, ceramic, monumental blocks of white rock, perhaps even from her own palace, jewelry and pearls that glitter like the songs say of the Blessed Realm’s shore. She has barely any eyes for it as, weak with fever, she presses her lips into the sand, and turns her back on the ocean to go stumbling to the black-sailed ship on an inland hillside, the dots of fires, and there is Nénumë. And Míriel, remembering her saviour, begs as they kiss, “Please make me breathless.”

Steeling

For the prompts:

Book Titles: Songs of Silk 
NSFW: Discipline 
Four Words: battalion, unsure, headstart, bliss

Morwen and Aerin perform a necessary exercise. (CW for implied abuse as reason for this scene. NSFW.)

Read Steeling

Aerin twists under the warm palm stroking her ass through the worn silk shift - old, too expensive for the likes of her now. She pushes upward, bites her lips for quiet. It’s not a headstart into bliss, it’s a steeling exercise. Sharp smacks sing through the fabric lying flat again on heated skin, repeat until it feels like a battalion of unsure blows, and she imagines the red flush on the back of her thighs, before Morwen’s finger, almost cool, pushes to the center of her heat.

Her reward for the silence, and it’s from Morwen only she’ll take it.

Icy

Emotions: Longing
Formats/Genres: Fanon Subverted (the fanon being that there’d be requited feelings for Aredhel if Elenwë had survived Helcaraxë)
Four Words: below, ankle, invisible, glacier

Unrequited Aredhel/Elenwë on Helcaraxë.

Read Icy

The glaciers below them shift, crack, yawn, and gullets of dark water open suddenly to swallow the unwary. They sink, swiftly invisible, into the sea. Elenwë is not one of them - she makes the leap to safety and into Írissë’s arms when she steps through the ice to her ankle, and is caught, safely - and then she’s let go with reluctance and regret, fingers stretching until they can reach no longer. For though Írissë loves her, the response is pity, and a kiss to her forehead, and sometimes she wishes that Elenwë had plunged, keeping her longing futile but hopeful.

Stone to Pity

For the prompts:

Clichés: Insomnia
Book Titles: The Stone Gods, I Can’t Think Straight
Lyrics and Poetry: "You were the first person on Earth"
Tolkien Quotes: "What is the name of this thing? For in my darkness I lost it." and "Those who hearken to her learn pity and endurance in hope"
NSFW: Comfort sex 
Story Elements: A gold vein

After Fëanor’s death, Nienna offers comfort to Nerdanel. Mildly NSFW, with implied Fëanor/Nerdanel.

Read Stone to Pity

The Valar were of stone, or so Nerdanel said - or, worse than stone, when she lay sleepless and weeping in her father’s garden with their statues immovable around her, in coloured rock and paint and eyes of glass that seemed to be watching her. Not even Nienna, wrought in dark grey shot with gold veins like tears over her face (for Nerdanel had once found it fitting, abstract, when her life had been all bliss that she now barely recalled - as though she’d lost the word in the darkness) moved to take pity on her when even stone had yielded under her sculptress hands.

“Child, I know that he is gone. It will be long ere his fire dims enough for him to heal, but that does not mean that he is forever lost.”

“I no longer care!” She did not pause to consider whence the voice came, or the tears dripping onto her face. Her own eyes were dry, and she rose as though compelled to the touch of a hand not her own - dark, warm stone, gold in her fingertips also.

“I do not believe you,” murmured the voice. A weight of warm stone came to rest against her shoulder, and wet patches grew in the fabric, cool and soothing and a counterpoint of the fire that she still felt consuming her, out of that awful dream of a height across the sea. “But I do not mind. I am Weeping, I can weep for one more lie in the world.”

“I am sick of weeping!”

“Then hearken to me, Child.” Hands on her hip pulled Nerdanel into an embrace, and where there should be stone, she found living flesh, wet with tears under her hands, with no raiment to cover her. It was said that Nienna had been the first to descend into Arda and that from her, not Ulmo, had sprung the salt water that had housed the first life on Arda, and Nerdanel felt her mind reeling and unable to hold on to any straight, stable thought that someone so ancient and holy should be with her.

Her lips opened to the taste of salt all the same, and when Nienna laid her down and rained tears upon her as her tongue worked relentlessly on Nerdanel’s body, the ache of fire slowly faded, shifted, and drowned.

Resteth Not Here

For the prompts:

Book Titles: Spring Fire, The Paying Guests
Clichés: Slow Dancing, Forehead Touching
Story Elements: Autumn Light
(Also Fíriel on the Women of Númenor because I was stumped for a character.)

The prayer that Fíriel sings is from her appearance in The Lost Road, but I updated Herendil's name to Isildur as Elendil's son to make this a little less bewildering.

Read Resteth Not Here

Fíriel sang again from the window, and her voice rang sweet and sad into the evening. She’d done so every day since early summer, when the lavaralda hedges at the lower end of the garden had begun their blooming, and always the same song that echoed in now-familiar verses, even now that the year was rolling on to autumn and its swifter sunsets, and Orontor, her father, had still not returned. “Lovely is Númenor. But my heart resteth not here for ever; for here is ending, and there will be an end and the Fading…”

Isildur stood in the garden below, with his head tipped back to look at her, until the song ceased. Fíriel smiled sadly at him and waved goodnight before she went into her room to shut the curtains behind her, and he turned to disappear behind the hedge where the cliff dropped into the sea. He had wanted to swim before night fell.

Merilin went into the house and took the steps to Fíriel’s room two at once. Unhappy jealousy was churning in her stomach, but her resolve to speak her mind evaporated suddenly when she found the door to Fíriel’s room unlocked, and before her eyes had adjusted to the gloom, heard her weeping.

“Fíriel? Fíriel.”

The weeping ceased. A breath hitched in the darkness; Fíriel’s dark head lifted from her bed.

“Merilin?”

“You are weeping.”

She felt like a fool, but could speak no further before Fíriel stumbled across the room toward her; the waves of her thick hair, scented with rose oil, brushed over her face, and Fíriel leaned in to rest her forehead against Merilin’s. They were of a height, Fíriel perhaps a little taller. She was still breathing heavily. “I know why you came. I saw you in the garden, but please, let me speak —”

Merilin shifted, pressing their lips together first, until Fíriel pulled away with an unsteady laugh.

“ — the Lord Elendil - he had a letter from my father that he was asked to show me when the seasons turned and he hadn’t come back, and he… he hasn’t. Perhaps the King’s Men took him, over the sea. It’s said that they’re swarming like locusts there, that there’s no escaping them,” she said.

“And he wants to see me provided for, and safe - don’t you see — we’re both only guests here, not even paying guests, with no payment asked of us, and that is owed to Elendil’s graciousness alone, and his love for my father. And now - his grace grew even greater and I’m to be married to Isildur, and you to Anárion. I heard it from your mother, and I couldn’t say how I love you; they would not understand.” Fíriel’s hand closed around Merilin’s with painful strength, and the other found the back of her neck and pulled her into another kiss that Merilin refused to break until Fíriel, again, was the one who pulled away. “And I saw you in the autumn light below when you were reading in the garden this afternoon, and I don’t want you as my sister by marriage, I want you for myself.”

“But we’re Faithful - Elendil’s house is safer for us than other places, but only as far as the King finds a reason to send his Men against him. He’s the leader of the Elf-friends, sooner or later they’ll seize all of us, if we marry into this family! Your father was mistaken!”

A petulant note crept into Fíriel’s sadness. “And so are you - about Isildur and me! He is teaching me to sail as a gift to me - if I catch Ilmalómë’s heart for him. He doesn’t want me either, and he’ll aid me - us - with our escape. But we’re not sailing for the colonies. We’re sailing for the north where the Elf-King lives, before the King starts the spring fires in the temple.”

“I - will you sing?” Merilin blurted out from the jumble of thoughts, astonished. “Not - not that awful prayer you sing every night. Something sweeter.”

“I will,” Fíriel said. “If you promise to run with me.”

“Then sing.”

Fíriel twined her fingers through Merilin’s, and lifted their linked hands into the darkness above their heads in the manner of an Emerië folk-dance of young lovers, one that had been danced at the wedding of Tar-Ancalimë’s serving women. Fíriel was skilled in song, and lifted her voice only a little, pressing their foreheads together while they slowly turned circles, and Fíriel sang.

“Lovely is Númenor. But my heart resteth not here forever, for it resteth with you forever, and there will be no end and no Fading, for love is not counted, and may not be numbered at last, and yet will be not enough, not enough…”

Crown-Gift

For the prompts:

Emotions: Joy
Formats and Genres: AU
Four Words: Early, skyline, almost, mask and proposal, drifting, lock, mortal
NSFW: Blindfolds

Idril has a proposal for Rían. (AU; Rían lives.)

Read Crown-Gift

It is early morning and the Echoriath are tinted pink with sunrise that has not yet touched the the skyline of Gondolin’s towers. It vanishes behind a mask of dark fabric coming down over her eyes, and warm lips come drifting over the curve of her shoulder. Rían stills and laughs softly, not to wake the sleeping city. “My lady,” she breathes, and the chuckle behind her gives away her lover. Mortal as she is, she never expected expected to find more than safety - indeed, find love anew, after her husband and homeland fell - in the Hidden City. For a time she wished to die, and might have perished grieving in the waste, had not the eagles seized and carried her from the Hill of the Slain. Might have, still, if not for Idril.

“I have a proposal to make, beloved,” Idril says against her skin. “Crown-gift you are called, and yet no crown graces your head.” Something touches her locks, feather-light. “I would change that, and gift you one - and gift myself. My father will allow it if you do.”

Impossible joy floods her; she pulls the blindfold loose to see Idril and her crown. “I will! I will!”

My Fairest Bed

For the prompts:

Book Titles: The Grass Widow, Waiting in the Wings
NSFW: Foreplay
Lyrics and Poetry: “And I said Venice and you heard Vegas”
Tolkien Quotes: “Their robes the wind, their raiment air…”

Erendis and her maid steal a moment in the country.

Read My Fairest Bed

“Don’t call me this nonsense,” Erendis chides, quick and sharp with stuttering breath while her maid unlaces her dress and nips down over the exposed ridges of her spine. “The grass hasn’t widowed me - Emerië is my fairest bed, better than the palace’s. The sea did, and Aldarion himself.”

Tittering laughter, Ûrîphêl pulls the dress up over her hips, impatient, and strips her entirely. “I’ve been waiting in the wings ever since he sailed the first time, the prick.”

Despite herself, Erendis also laughs. It’s easier to breathe with air and grass and Ûrîphêl being all that’s on her body.

On Nights of Rain

For the prompts:

Story Elements: A will-o’-the-wisp, Thunder
Four Words: Thunder, fragment, apple, arch and silver, tangle, rainfall, dormant
Lyrics and Poetry: “But the rain is full of ghosts tonight”

The Lady of the Blue Brooch dreams of her lover.

Read On Nights of Rain

She dreams in fragments - rolling thunder and silver lightning over tangled branches, the arch of Nîniphêl’s back illuminated, and rainfall patterns cold over the hallowed pool. A will-o’-the-wisp leading her way that winter, sweet apples in the house under the river. That’s past, Ivriluin knows, yet can’t shake her encounters with the River-Daughter, especially on nights of rain. The memories won’t lie dormant; neither will she.

Her husband grunts, sleeps on, and turns over in the bed. Ivriluin reaches for the blue brooch she wears always on her shoulder, the smooth jewels, wishing she had the courage to run again.

Sunlight Free the Heart

For the prompts:

Format: Fix-It
Lyrics and Poetry: “Love until we burn up” 
Four Words: Bloom, devour, blinding, alliance and humble, linear, comet, marble

Arwen at the end of her days. Arien will have none of it. (Character death of sorts; the title is from the LotR Musical’s Song of Hope.)

Read Sunlight Free the Heart

Aragorn sleeps in a marble vault when Arwen turns her back on Minas Tirith, striking north. The sun of spring is a comfort when weariness drags her heels into the earth to devour and humble her. Rather, she thinks, laughing lonely in the wilderness, that the Evenstar should be a comet hurling herself into the sun on a linear course to bloom a last time before the alliance with her people fails entirely.

Let none say that the Queens of the Eldar do not know how to die proudly.

And the sun, Arwen learns, has heard her. Arien waits in withered Lothlórien, to greet the latest of her children: the sunlight has ever been the province of mortals. And Arwen seizes the chance, presses lips to flesh that is hot to the touch, looks into eyes that should sear her sight away – and do not. “You and I are akin - stars both,” Arien says, “and the light of your house is bright yet. It would be wasted here. Come. You, also, belong in the sky.”

Arwen surrenders herself and burns, blinding, in Arien’s arms on a bed of elanor. It is over too swiftly - but they rise together as flames.

Strength of Mountains

Nerdanel and Curufin's wife, through the ages. Triple-drabble as per GDocs, written for AmyFortuna for Multifandom Drabble 2017.

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Work Text:

Curufin brings home a woman from the mountains; she's named for strength much as Nerdanel herself has been - Pelórë, heart and mountains both. She is bright and eager, and Nerdanel sees much of herself in her, the ore-miner's daughter and the smith's. Their families have been acquainted - like minds to like, and it is celebrated as a match that the Valar themselves have blessed. It needs a woman like her, Nerdanel thinks, to withstand Curufinwë - either one of them.

She only hopes that the mountains will not crumble, shake, or fray, for outside them lie lonely sea and the darkness.

-

It's easy to shake the apprehension away, although Nerdanel wonders that her wisdom allows it. When her son spins his new wife in wedding dances and their barefoot limbs beat the mountain earth, Pelórë, dark as she is, shines like a jewel, the light of Laurelin falling through the smoky quartz that she loves.

Then hands seize her, and she herself is spun, laughing as her husband pulls her into a kiss and they tumble to the earth in joy, the mountains' strength reaching so deep that it goes beyond Nerdanel's own touch. This, then, she thinks, is why.

-

It's a comforting memory in all their grief. Pelórë weeps and curses her husband when he takes their son and they set off into certain dark across the sea, just as Nerdanel weeps for her as they shelter together. But down the long-years of the exile and then the inexorable, the mountains persist. Pelórë rises from her bed, renews her life. Nerdanel follows. The roots of the mountains stand, guarding against the outside now.

But, Pelórë says, even the mountains shall be levelled and the Trees return - and the Gates of Mandos at last open. To that, they both hold.

Re-Singing

After the Darkening of Valinor, Findis and Elemmírë set out to do their part in the restoration of Valinor. Triple-drabble.

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Elemmírë knelt in the fragrant earth and cupped her hands around the seedling.

"In Cuiviénen, fruit ripened sweet and round under songs and starlight, and melodies rose grain that swayed like water in the ancient fields," she hummed. The words carried an ancient rhythm whose name Findis, watching, could not recall, but they were rich with the power of the origin of things: Elemmírë had been singing of the gathering of grass seeds and bitter wild fruit since they had entered the field, how they had swelled and sweetened.

Leaves curled between her fingers. The tree listened, and rose lightward.

*

Findis took notes of Elemmírë's singing. The songs would go far and wide in Aman now that the new lights hung in heaven, with power-singers to ensure that fields were replenished from such seeds that had not withered in the lightless cold of the Darkening, that harvest came, and that starvation would not ravage the land. Elemmírë swayed on her feet, seizing her lover's arm for balance: Singing was hungry work.

Findis sat in the new grass, cradling Elemmírë, and hummed a lovesong. She had no talent for songs of power, but with Elemmírë with her there was no need.

*

The homeward road onto Taniquetil and to Elemmírë's conservatory did not beckon until many days later. By that time, through the blue haze of the rising sun, they looked out from the lower reaches of the mountain, and instead of a land in darkness saw ripples of green and veins of verdure spreading outside from Tirion, the heart of the new life, and from everywhere they could hear singing: Songs of origin and healing.

Findis feet grew lighter, but she did not look at the landscape below. Her heart beat in answer looking at Elemmírë's smiling face, hearing her song.

Sweeter Blessings

As summer nears harvest, Morwen and Aerin dance in the meadows. NSFW, for AmyFortuna for Fandom Giftbox 2017.

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As late summer approaches, carrying with it harvest-tide and the final stretch of warm days, Morwen pulls old finery from her dresser, long-hidden garments. She has always been austere, she knows, even as a young woman when she could have afforded not to be, and the clothes show it - they are dark and high-closed, more befitting a widow than a new bride, but there are secret threads of gold and red that will flash like butterfly wings when she'll move in sunlight.

And she will. Oh, she will, in defiance of Brodda and his churls, and how she will dance.

*

Like migrating birds, Admiral butterflies fly south before the winter. There have been fewer of them since the Sudden Flame, when Ard-galen burned where they lived, but a few stubborn ones hold out, and dance before Morwen's window, flashing black and white and scarlet in the sunlight. Their arrival has always been the signal for the harvest to begin, and the fields would fill with people to fill the granaries and winter stores.

Now, the Incomers decry when harvest is held, and Morwen leaves Niënor to mind the house and goes to dance alone along the sand-paths, flashing her wings.

*

Not alone for long.

The Lady Aerin knows the customs as Morwen does, and she approaches with her grain-gold hair back-lit into a halo by the sun, at once terrified and laughing, and seizes Morwen's hands to still her.

"Elf-witchery," Morwen says in answer to the question behind Aerin's eyes. "Would that I could; I'd bless these fields for the wolf-folk to gorge themselves and leave enough yet to last the winter. Yavanna make it so," she adds in solemn prayer and inclines her head westward for a spell, then spins Aerin in a sudden circle. "But now we dance!"

*
And how they dance. Together it is better than alone, until Morwen and Aerin fall, out of breath and laughing, on a meadow, there to lie and simply breathe the warm air and the sun beating down. In all her rich colours and golden hair, Aerin is the brighter butterfly of the two of them, but their vests come off in the warmth, and once they are certain to be sheltered, their remaining clothes follow.

It is meet, too, for there are other, sweeter blessings that Morwen hoped to bestow, for Aerin, who is her life and strength all year.

*

Aerin tastes like sweat and dust and grain, a sweetness that will nourish Morwen as well as any harvest, and she laps her up with greed almost unbefitting a lady.

But Aerin rises under Morwen's mouth until she might as well be flying. Her hands reach and tangle in Morwen's hair until her every breath becomes a blessing and each lick of Morwen's tongue to her center bestows another. They come undone with one another; Aerin's ecstasy is enough to wing Morwen, near-untouched, with her, and they lie at rest with one another after, searching the afternoon sky for butterflies.

In Exchange

Whatever happened to the Lady of the Blue Brooch? For Starspray, for Innumerable Stars 2017.

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The army of Rhudaur came over the fallow fields of autumn. The Prince marched to counter them. So shielded, folk fled into the capitol, steps and voices hushed among the ancient barrows. Chaff itched on Ivriluin's skin, grinding and baking precious winter stores into soft white loaves, bread-giver and lady.

News came on the bent back of the armies returning: The Prince had fallen. A weight fell from Ivriluin also, weeping in spite of herself when she brewed the funeral beer and packed the belongings of her daughter, to be fostered safe from harm at the King's court in Fornost.

*

Amon Sûl taken, Cardolan beleaguered, anxiously awaiting some message saying her line continues in safety: Ivriluin's feet itched to run for refuge even as her husband's tomb was sealed - down the ravine, away from the weeping and hunger - stores all but used up, taking least for herself, running fingers over a memory of summers past and a promise, the help of the forest given in exchange for her name, a night of thunder and water. And a token: the blue brooch already once granted her refuge from the Prince's wrath.

Whether the wood and water loved her yet - she'd see.

*

Her burdens shed like millstones into the hallowed pool. In the warm hollow, autumn held less sway, ripened late-summer golden berries prickled on her tongue until white hands took her brown ones, lips kissed her hair and brushed the brooch always upon her shoulder.

"A hefty trade it might seem to some - but one lifetime spent in love for many, well-provided for. You already ate my berries, sealed my bargain. Your people will lack nothing while you're with me, while your lifetime lasts you, beloved."

Worries would no longer drown her. What could she do but follow, lightly going underwater?

An Exercise

Some magic is altogether worldly; Melian/Galadriel, NSFW. Written for AmyFortuna for Innumerable Stars 2017.

Read An Exercise

The chain slopes like bird-wings over Galadriel's shoulders - not Melian's nightingales for her; an eagle picked out in golden chain-links on her skin. It chimes when she breathes, otherwise rigid and naked in a clearing - an exercise, said Melian, and Galadriel can feel her eyes through all the birds around on her, no hidden place unseen.

She knows well: A trial of her arrogance, to prove discipline, endurance, loyalty - Galadriel almost laughs. Compared to Helcaraxë, both Melian and Doriath are clement. A thrill, regardless, to muse on her reward: Melian's hands and mouth, magic that will spell Galadriel wide open.

*

Before long, expectation has her shiver; the chain-link wings chime a symphony. Almost the eagle would take flight, but it is itself chained: A collar, gossamer-fine and likewise golden, adorning Galadriel's throat, a brooch between her small breasts to loop the chain around over her ribs into a sort of pretty harness.

Melian will come at dusk, hours on, and already Galadriel feels heat burning in her center, but may not move a muscle, must keep her fingers resting on her knees. She knows well: Only when Melian undoes the clasp, release is hers, and she still must earn it.

*

Melian comes at dusk, as always, and her touch is enough for Galadriel to want undoing before the command is given, while Melian speaks of mastery and longing - she says, a vital lesson, and one that bears repeating over until Galadriel has learned it in heart and mind: Some magic is altogether worldly.

Under Melian's full mouth, she lies suspended between her failure and completion. She knows well: To plead or touch herself is failure, at least of Melian's task. She breathes through praise and reprimand, denies herself friction against Melian's thighs.

Then Melian whispers, "Fly," and undoes the clasp.

A Better Lot

Aerin and Rían change their stories. AU, triple-drabble for Zdenka for Innumerable Stars 2017.

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Rían is a shy girl, quiet except for songs falling from her lips like sunlight, combat against the memories that cling to her like the smell of smoke. Aerin admires from afar, wakes to songs beneath her window or singing in the meadows. At daybreak, she spots Rían slip among the flowers, returning with armfuls of herbs to cure this ill or that.

She longs hopelessly, feigns coughing so Rían brings her tea that's sweet with honey, and a song of comfort, and turns her head away: her own cousin coaxes smiles from Rían, brighter than any Aerin's yet seen.

*

A cloud draws over Rían's eyes in the quiet after the war, the full bloom of her summer dimmed by grief. She sings all the louder, to the child in her, of the happier fortune taken from them. Aerin holds her, neither weeps: all hands are needed to establish a defense, dig hiding places, for there's an army coming; Dor-lómin is now Morgoth's fiefdom.

When Aerin has time, she gathers flowers, hoping for a spark of light in Rían's eyes. Rían takes them, finally understanding, picking out the herbs with sure fingers: they'll need medicine, if - when - they escape together.

*

Rían roams more widely, and one morning stands beneath Aerin's window with a blush in both her cheeks, one pack across her shoulders, a second at her side. She's weeping at last, when her hand curls tight around Aerin's, and Aerin notes her wedding band is gone.

She dares not question it, nor call it luck. They run into the autumn fields, still wet with morning dew, like they are girls again, but further until they reach the distant mountains, where they say the Sindar live, as if out of tales receive them, and safely guide them to the sea.