Many Journeys by Elleth

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").

"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."