The Elendilmir by pandemonium_213

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Chapter 6: Beasts of Yavanna, Children of Ilúvatar

Sámaril and Thorno encounter flirtatious Laegrim ladies in the bathhouse, and Sámaril recalls the Athrabeth Huxley ah Wilberforce Mélamírë ah Manendur.

To be on the safe side, I'm rating this Adult for mild sexuality. I probably should slap a big H on it for Heresy, too. Many thanks to Rhapsody, Moreth and oshun for their lively feedback.

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The missile flew through the air, smacking the scroll on the shelf. Gratified by the crackling report, I re-aimed and launched another that hit a sconce on the wall. Immensely entertained and not a little self-satisfied, I loaded the machine of my making again.

Thus Thorno found me, sitting cross-legged on the floor of my workshop, laughing aloud while I played with the Yule gift I had crafted for Valandil.

“So you’ve finally gone mad, eh, Sámaril?”

I lobbed three missiles in rapid succession at him. He caught the small pinecones deftly.

“That boy is a good influence on you,” he said, juggling the pinecones in a whirling oval between callused hands. “Are you ready to go?”

“’Go?’” I twisted around to look out the windows and saw that the sun was at its zenith. “Oh, yes! Let me wrap this up first.” I rummaged around in a drawer and extracted the red silk fabric that I so often used to test a sword’s edge. I wrapped the cloth around the toy and placed the whole in a box I had begged from Calaquar the woodwright. I threw my cloak over my shoulders, tucked the box under my arm and left with Thorno.

The sun traveled low in the sky, casting elongated shadows against the snow. From my vantage point on the path, I saw the residents of Elrond’s domain meandering through the woods toward the house, the peals of their song ringing like silver bells through the crystalline landscape. They carried boughs of evergreen and baskets filled with holly, ivy and mistletoe for this evening’s celebration.

No news had arrived from the Alliance. Scouts reported that the latest winter storm had buried the road to Amon Sûl in snow and blocked the High Pass over the eastern mountains. No messengers had yet arrived from the South. The lack of information took its toll on the queen. Although Isilmë’s tone was increasingly jovial as she doted on her grandson, whose excitement escalated as the celebration approached, her worry-lines became pronounced. Yet even with the uncertainty of the distant war, the festive atmosphere in Imladris had taken on momentum as those of us who remained behind grasped for distraction while we waited.

The queen also fussed over me during our noontime repasts in the kitchen that had now become part of my daily cycle. I had taken no sleep in those days before the festival since I was so engrossed in my metallurgic project and Valandil’s gift. She keenly observed the subtleties of elven weariness that any other mortal would not have noted. She admonished me – advising that I “worked too hard and did not play as a merry elf should.” She had said this wryly since she knew I was not overly inclined toward frivolity, but I knew that her concern was genuine. In those moments, she touched my heart in a manner that reminded me of my mother who likewise had fussed over me when I spent week upon week laboring with little rest in the House of the Mírëtanor.

I stopped at my quarters where I set the box aside with the intent of giving it to Valandil the next day. Hopping on one foot and then the other, I pulled off my boots and then stripped my work clothes from my too-long unwashed body, donning my thick wool chamber robe and sheepskin slippers. I met Thorno in the corridor. Together we walked down the wide stairs on our way to the bathhouse.

The sweet sharp scent of evergreens halted us as we passed by the tall doors - now flung wide open - of the Hall of Fire. We watched the women – elven and mortal both – hanging pine garlands around the perimeter of the room. Valandil, along with two adolescent girls, sat in the middle of the expanse, occupied with his soldiers and wagon. I saw his mother, her often somber face now alight with laughter as she and Lairiel placed holly, ivy and mistletoe around the sconces attached to the load-bearing oak pillars of the hall.

How beautiful she is! The thought escaped unbidden from the recesses of my mind, and warmth rushed to my face. I slammed down iron discipline on what had the potential to turn into a thoroughly inappropriate thought about another man’s wife – a king’s wife. I shuddered but maintained a vise's grip on my hröa’s instincts.

“Let’s be on our way,” I said. “The sun will set all too soon. I don’t want to be rushed in the baths.”

“Yes, you’re in need of a good long soak.” Thorno wrinkled his nose and gingerly lifted a strand of my soot-dulled hair between thumb and forefinger.

“You’re none too pristine yourself.” I slapped him on his hard shoulder, and we were on our way. We walked outside into the breezeway that connected the main house to the baths, the winter chill biting through our wool robes as we scurried to the enveloping steam of the bathhouse.

Shortly after we immersed ourselves in the white marble basin of near-scalding water, three petite Silvan maids entered the chamber. The women had arrived recently in Imladris and answered to the head butler of the House. In spite of King Oropher’s thinly veiled contempt of the Noldor and everything we stood for, he nonetheless eagerly sent his folk to serve here, motivated by the healthy tithe of gold, silver and gems from my smithies that made its way to the Woodland Realm in payment for his people’s labor.

The sylphs slid out of their robes to reveal small high breasts, slim hips, and supple limbs. Thorno waved at them to come join us.

“Tulkas’ stiff club, Thorno! You’re hopeless,” I hissed as the lithesome women approached us. I mustered what I hoped was a gracious smile when they stepped into the large basin. Two sat on either side of Thorno and one near me.

Thorno introduced them with their names of wood and glade. They bowed their heads with shy courtesy when Thorno presented them, but after that, their assessments were far from demure. They overtly sized up my chest and shoulders, and more subtly what lay beneath the distorted surface of the water. I crossed my legs, hiding what their probing eyes sought.

Thorno and the women conversed idly. I responded with perfunctory remarks to a few of their vacuous queries in an attempt to keep these pushy females at bay but with only moderate success. The woman next to me –- Midhloth -- sidled closer, her straight moon-silver hair dipping into the hot water when she tilted her head, smiling first at Thorno and then at me. She was an exquisite little thing with a finely turned nose and large limpid leaf-green eyes flecked with honeyed amber – colors found in the eyes of many Tawarwaith. I admired her looks just as I would a gemstone or a finely turned knife blade, no more than that. Yet she boldly rubbed her tiny foot along the back of my calf while she trilled at a tepid quip from Thorno, who now had thrown a muscled arm around each maid on either side of him. I edged away from her. She took the hint, shooting an icy glare at me from the corners of her sloe-eyes.

“Come,” she said to her companions. “Master Galenîr expects us to prepare for tonight’s feast and dance. We had best leave these lechenn to more lofty conversation. Besides, I am feeling a bit of a chill.”

I resisted rolling my eyes at her none-too-subtle insult. Her companions extracted themselves from Thorno, whose eyes had taken on an unfocused cast, and stepped out of the basin, following Midhloth, their white bodies slick with water and as beautifully curved as the statues of the falmarindi that graced the entry to the baths. While they walked to the women’s lavatory to finish their ablutions, I urged Thorno along, too.

“We need to leave soon. I’ll wash your hair if you wish,” I said, rising from the submerged stone bench.

“I’ll be ready in a moment.” Thorno squirmed, his face flushed and not just from the heat of the water. "I don't suppose you would..."

Then I did roll my eyes in response to his delay. “No, I won't. Certainly not here. Recite a prayer to Nienna the Weeper. That will no doubt deflate you.”

Thorno laughed, albeit self-consciously, at my taunt. I ambled toward the men’s lavatory, grabbing a towel from a precisely balanced stack along the way. A puff of chill air raked over my wet skin and raised gooseflesh as the laegil departed the bathhouse. Midhloth turned and stroked me from head to foot with her eyes. Much to my chagrin, my most intimate attributes tightened in retreat when exposed to the cold draft. She grinned wickedly before she slipped out the door.

Thorno joined me after he emerged from the basin, having successfully applied his discipline to reach a flaccid state. He had witnessed Midhloth's appraisal of the entirety of my body.

“Oh, don’t fret, Sámaril. Your hammer is adequate.” My fist met his upper arm, but with only mild strength behind it, just enough to convey my affront at his particular choice of words. He groaned dramatically, rubbing his arm, but laughed at me and crowed, “This promises to be a most festive evening for us. Those Laegrim, well, they are lively lasses. A bit longer in the basin with those skilled little hands of theirs, and I would have...”

“I’m sorry, Thorno,” I interrupted. “I find the Silvans unnerving. They’re so –- wanton -– men and women both.”

I expected a jab from my friend, a Noldo who was far more open about matters of love than many of his peers even if they indulged in the same more discreetly. Much to my surprise, Thorno checked his gleeful lustiness upon hearing my discomfort.

“I would not debase them with a word like 'wanton,'” he said as he sat down on a bench before me. “You know, I think our woodland kin are far closer to what we Noldor should be in our natural state before the Valar influenced us. We may have these vaunted minds and all, but we are beasts, too. Living in disharmony with our basic nature is detrimental to our being.”

“Humph.” I grunted, massaging soap and almond oil into Thorno’s scalp. “I have heard that philosophy before –- from your old mentor.”

“I can't deny that she had a powerful influence on me.” A sad chord surfaced in his genial voice. Thorno had never ceased mourning the loss of his teacher.

“And on me as well,” I sighed, clasping his shoulder to console him.

I considered Thorno’s words about the nature of the Firstborn. Our very souls and lives were interlinked firmly with the natural world. Yet we –- the Noldor -- denied ourselves certain aspects of our nature. Vivid memory snared me, and I flew back to the winter streets of Ost-in-Edhil where Thorno’s master had imparted her strange thoughts on beasts, Elves and their interconnection.

~*~

Mélamírë and I had joined my betrothed, Nierellë, for a mid-day draught at the Guild of the Vine. A welcome break from our labors in the forge and the workshops, we had relaxed in the company of the cheerful vintners and brewers, savoring dark ale, cheeses and bread - even sampling a small glass of miruvor. At last we tore ourselves away and began our walk back to the House of the Mírëtanor, clutching our cloaks around us against the gusts of frigid wind that roared down from the mountains and burst through narrow side streets and alleyways.

We stumbled upon a minor uproar in one of the city squares. A cluster of Noldorin men with a smattering of Sindarin fellows interspersed among them obscured the object of interest. Women, clucking with exasperation, stood at the periphery. Children swarmed around the mass of adults, edging through legs to get a look at whatever so captivated their elders. Mélamírë and I wove our way through the throng and saw the theater that drew the audience: two dogs –- one a pet of a citizen and the other a hunting hound from the Guild of the Horse –- obliviously coupled in front of a quiescent fountain.

The men’s reactions varied. A few offered good-natured encouragement to the vigorously thrusting hound. Most faces reflected prurient curiosity. Others vocalized outright embarrassment. Small faces of children peeped out from behind legs: some allowed to watch, some hustled away to their mothers, and others with their eyes shielded by a father, an uncle or a brother’s hand.

One of the men yelled to another to fetch a bucket from the nearby well so that cold water could be dumped upon the copulating dogs in the hope of disengaging them. The man hauled the copper-plated bucket, water sloshing from it to freeze on the cobblestones, but my friend stepped in front of him before he reached the dogs.

“No! Leave the poor creatures be!” Mélamírë commanded, her voice ringing around the square.

“Please, Istyanis Náryen,” said an onlooker, his face pinched with disapproval as he addressed my friend formally. I recognized him as Manendur, a senior aide to Istyar Pengolodh from the House of Lore. “A woman should not witness such indelicacy.”

Silence fell over the crowd, even among the children. All waited for the answer from the Istyanis – the sole woman who had achieved senior rank in the powerful Otornassë Mírëtanoron and known to challenge those who questioned a woman’s place in the forges -– an occurrence that happened all too often to her when she stepped away from the familiarity of the smithies.

“I assure you that my feminine sensibilities are not offended, Master Manendur. I merely ask that the dogs should be allowed to complete what nature intended. To throw frigid water on these beasts in such cold weather would be cruel, don’t you agree? I doubt that you would wish to have freezing water thrown upon you when you make love to your wife.”

The audience laughed, men and women alike, the Sindar louder than the rest. They relished seeing this loremaster taken down a peg or two especially by a Noldorin woman. Manendur flushed pink and blustered.

“Of course not! But neither are we such base beasts that we couple so publicly.”

“Perhaps we are not base, but we are beasts, Master. Have empathy for our fellow creatures!” Mélamírë swept her arm toward the humping canines. “Our behaviors have just developed differently than the hounds so that we prefer privacy. I daresay we still enjoy the activity as much as these dogs.”

That elicited another collective chuckle from the onlookers, the women now interspersed among the men and enjoying the sight of one of their own taking on the haughty male loremaster. Manendur’s face flushed from pink to red. I struggled to maintain decorum but not successfully since a grin pushed up my cheeks. A debate on the nature of Elvenkind with two dogs coupling as a backdrop was absurd beyond belief. The audience was torn between watching the dogs and two Noldorin masters exchanging barbs.

“Istyanis, with all due respect, we are the creations of Ilúvatar. We are not the same as the lamani – the beasts of field and forest. They belong to Yavanna. Thus the Valar have taught the Eldar how we should comport ourselves properly as Eru’s First Children. Witnessing such beastly lust is not appropriate for us. It inspires fire in the heart and loins.”

Mélamírë shrugged and then turned to see that the dogs had parted.

“That is your belief, Master,” she said, again eyeing him with her arms crossed. “That does not mean it is the truth.”

“It is the truth. How could it be otherwise?” Manendur retorted.

A hush fell over the crowd once more. They shifted their full attention to another spectacle, but an intellectual one rather than sexual. We Noldor loved argument as much as song.

“Your truth comes from tales filtered through the minds and beliefs of others,” Mélamírë replied, placing her hands on her hips and letting her cloak waft around her. “What of observation and evidence? Do we not also have warm red blood like the lamani? Do we not also desire to mate? Do we not also give birth and suckle our young? Why would we be so similar if we did not arise from the same theme – an ancient melody of the Great Song that is common to the lamani and the Children of Ilúvatar? And what of Turkafinwë? He communicated with birds and beasts. That, too, suggests a strong connection.”

Manendur shifted on his feet, exhibiting a measure of discomfort at the mention of the infamous son of Fëanáro who was nonetheless honored in memory and lore as a renowned huntsman.

“Turkafinwë’s understanding of the languages of bird and beast means little to your contention, Istyanis, for were they not taught to him by the Great Hunter? “

“But there must have been something within Turkafinwë that allowed him to absorb such teaching, an inherent ability that reached into the sentience that is common to us and the celvar.” Mélamírë responded.

Thus continued the debate, the two masters tossing their rejoinders back and forth, pursuing tangents and then racing back to the thoroughfare of their argument again. The eyes of their audience turned from one to the other, the murmurs of disagreement and hums of approval mingled with the gusts of wind that whipped around the square.

Manendur prodded my friend’s arguments with precise quotes from the Ainulindalë. Mélamírë countered with her observations of the natural world, including those from her idiosyncratic projects: the divergence of pale and dusky moths in the high vale of the Glanduin and the strange assortment of pea vines that she nurtured and catalogued.

“Peas and moths!” Manendur gesticulated with frustration after my friend hit him again and again with empirical observations and interpretations that he groped to deflect. “What have they to do with us, the Firstborn? Are we green? Do we flutter from flower to flame?” He emphasized the alliteration and waved his hands in mockery. The audience laughed.

Mélamírë’s eyes narrowed, and the delicate muscles around her mouth tightened, but she answered with her alto voice clear and collected.

“Who here among us does not harbor physical characteristics from their kin? My friend Sámaril has hair like his mother. My eyes are my father’s. Look at Calanir and Merenion.” She nodded toward a Sinda tailor and his young son. “Merenion is the very image of his sire.” The little boy grinned, pressing his face against his father’s leg when my friend flashed a bright smile at him. “How do you suppose we achieve these characteristics and pass them on to our descendants?”

Manendur crossed his arms across his chest. “Everyone knows that in begetting, the strengths of the parents’ feär craft a child.”

“Really? I thought that sex crafted children.”

Laughter again rippled through the throng around the fountain. The loremaster sputtered, his face flushing pink again, but could not reply before Mélamírë continued.

“Master Manendur, I am convinced that what I observe in moths and in my peas relates to the inheritance of such characteristics, and sex is crucial for that. Sex is one of the many characteristics that we have in common with animals and even plants!”

“The only connection between plants and the celvar are the Ents. That is because Yavanna sang Ents into the world, just as your Patron raised the Casari from stone.”

“Dwarves were made from stone? Now that is laughable! I’ll make sure to run your posit by Kali the next time I see him,” said Mélamírë. “But yes, you have me there, Master. I’ll grant you, Ents and Dwarves are created beings, yet more experiments on the part of the Valar. But the Ents and Dwarves multiply after the manner of the Firstborn and the Followers -- and the celvar. The Valar used what works. Creatures, including us, are driven to seek sex. Procreation is merely a side effect. We should enjoy sex and never be ashamed of it.”

"I will allow that –- " and the loremaster blushed furiously again, "-- the act of love is pleasurable, but it is for the begetting of children. That is why Ilúvatar bequeathed such joy to the Firstborn. As for the Ents and the Dwarves being experiments? Hardly.” Condescension bathed Manendur’s every word. “We all have separate themes in the Great Song, and the Firstborn’s theme is not common to Men, Ents, Dwarves or the lamani. Because we have far better control over generation, our comportment must be elevated above theirs. The Valar have taught us that we must avoid lewd behavior such as that of the Followers or the dogs. You have proved nothing to me, Istyanis. You have merely woven an uneven fabric of guess and speculation.” 

“Proofs are for mathematics, Master. I can only offer evidence, but even so I think that will not satisfy you. Your mind is closed to ideas that might counter what the Valar have espoused to the Noldor about our sexuality or about their sexuality – or alleged lack thereof!”

Consternation rumbled through the crowd at that point. My friend had stepped onto dangerous ground when she implied that the Valar might engage in earthy behaviors.

“Now you are just being blasphemous!” Manendur’s face took on the cast of gloating when he heard what he believed was the crowd’s support for his position. “All the Firstborn would do well to adhere to the Valar’s teachings on love and marriage for those teachings are the truth. You, Istyanis, are in grave error by saying that we are beasts.”

Lightning crackled in Mélamírë’s eyes. She responded evenly but a knife’s edge cut through her disciplined tone.

“Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.”

Only the wind brushing against stone walls and streets could be heard while those gathered around the fountain considered Mélamírë’s words. Manendur stood still, his mouth working as he collected his response, but my friend had spoken the last word of their debate for that day. She raised her face to the sun in the pallid winter sky.

“I must take my leave and return to my tasks. Until another time then, and let me assure you, there will be another time. Good day to you, Master Manendur. Please convey my regards to Istyar Pengolodh.” She swept her gaze over the cluster of citizens. “And would someone kindly remind Mistress Broneth that she really must keep her bitch confined when the dog is in heat? Ost-in-Edhil does not need a surfeit of puppies.”

She bowed her head to the loremaster and the onlookers and then turned on her heels, parting the throng and making her way to the street with me in her wake. Although much taller than she, I nonetheless had to quicken my pace to keep up with her. Instead of heading directly to the smithies, she veered toward the narrow stairs that led to the ramparts of the city. I trotted up the steps behind her until she stopped and leaned against the wall, facing into the cold wind that barreled down from Celebdil, her dark hair streaming behind her.

“Manendur is colder than Námo’s bone!” she exclaimed, her measured demeanor from the debate now blown away. “Noldorin self-righteousness and priggery embarrass me far more than dogs coupling!”

“Don’t let him upset you so much.” I put my arm around her shoulders.

“I had to end my battle back there, Sámaril. I hadn’t the inclination to take on Pengolodh’s sycophant any longer today.”

“Probably just as well. We both have a great deal of work ahead of us.” I turned to look down at her, the wind snatching strands of my hair that had escaped my leather-bound plait. “I must ask you something.”

“What is that?” She squinted toward the distant snowfields of the mountain, her mithril-bright eyes protected from the wind by long black lashes.

“Do you really believe that the Firstborn are beasts? Even if you do not like Manendur’s delivery, he makes valid points.”

“If you believe everything the Valar have taught the Eldar, then yes, he does. I, for one, question their teaching. The word of Eru has ever been passed through the sieves of the Valar and then through loremasters’ interpretations and thence to us. So what are we to believe?”

She turned to meet my eyes again. A shiver raked down my neck - not from the cold but from the intensity of her regard. She released me and returned her sight to the mountains, her voice becoming remote when she delved into recollection.

“When I was a little girl, only ten years old, I traveled to Tharbad for the first time with Mother and Father. That was when the Duke Eäratan was the Lord of Tharbad. He was a kind and noble man, very different from the perverted wretch who commands the garrison now. The Duke had three daughters close to my age. They showed me a marvelous picture book, a copy of one that had been made by the naturalist who accompanied Tar-Aldarion on his voyages. In it were drawings and paintings of apes from the green forests of Far Harad.” She turned to meet my eyes again, her face full of grave wonder. “Sámaril, the apes' hands and eyes, even the way their faces were assembled –- they were so much like ours! Even as a child, it struck me that these animals must be related to us somehow.

“I prattled on and on about that book and those apes, so Mother and Father managed to find a rare copy of it for me from a trader in Vinyalondë. Father exchanged a ruby for it. I poured over the book –- fascinated by all the animals but especially the apes. I dreamed of traveling to Far Harad to see them, and I still harbor that dream. Their troops are similar to our families, but males and females do not remain paired like we do. And they fight. They meet invasion of territory by violence – even killing one another. Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Amazing? Promiscuity and violent fighting? Ai, Mélamírë! Those creatures are related to orcs, not us!” I laughed with disbelief but was cut short by her somber expression. Undaunted, I continued. “The apes’ resemblance to us could be the result of Yavanna’s singing their theme into a form that is like ours. Maybe it was a whim or a joke on her part.”

“I do not think these creatures’ existence is mere jest or whim. We all –- even the orcs -– must come from a common link. Does that idea disturb you so much?”

“Yes, it does. Eru created us to be the race closest to the Valar with mortal Men following us. Neither the Firstborn nor the Followers are beasts although sometimes Men seem bestial. And we all know that the orcs are mockeries of the Children of Ilúvatar; they are perversions bred by Morgoth.”

She glowered at my remarks and chastised me as I knew she would.

“You should not insult the Followers so! Men differ from us –- profoundly -- but they nonetheless are close kindred. As for the orcs, yes, Morgoth exploited them, but their origins remain a mystery –- the stuff of our people’s myths. I think we do not yet know the truth, and that truth may turn out to be stranger than we can imagine.

“I wonder - are we so close to the Valar? There are those who whisper that the gods manipulated the Firstborn from our true origins –- that the Valar’s vanity made us what we are, and even worse, they imprisoned the Noldor in a gilded cage until our people escaped.”

She twirled a strand of hair around her forefinger as she spoke, a nervous gesture that belied her confident tone. Her strange and troubling allusion to the Valar’s manipulation of the ancient fathers and mothers of the Firstborn hinted at arcane knowledge that her father had entrusted to her, his beloved confidante. But the Fëanorian heterodoxy came to her as easily as breath, and she repeated it freely. She was among those –- and there were many, my parents and hers included –- who looked askance at the Valar and rejected their summons after the War of Wrath. Thus we had strived to create facsimiles of Tirion and Valinor in Eregion.

Yet for all her outspoken skepticism, I knew that she harbored a fear that she might be punished for her apostasy. She breathed deeply, exhaling her anxiety into the wind and continued.

“You must understand that by identifying us with animals, I am not saying that we should be licentious, but neither should we be so hampered by the Valar’s teachings that we cannot question them or where they warp our natural inclinations. I do not know any of the Tavari, but from what I hear, they are better attuned to nature especially in the ways of love. It is rumored that their widows and widowers even remarry or take on similar arrangements. They are a practical, if sometimes primitive, people uncorrupted by the Valar, and I think they reflect what is truly our nature.”

“Remarriage? Uncorrupted by the Valar? Take care when you say things like that!” I squeezed her shoulder in reflexive concern. Mélamírë was more than capable of defending her ideas, but I could not help but feel protective toward my friend. “It is one thing to discuss such controversies with me, but there are others who will not take kindly to such talk.” I had looked up to the sun, which had traveled further in its arc across the sky. “You know I am willing to discuss this further with you, preferably over wine, but we have dallied far longer than we should have. Istyar Aulendil will be fuming if I am late for this afternoon’s work.”

She had smiled then. “Very well. I have blathered about my ideas more than enough today so I will hold my tongue – but only for now. You’re right. We really ought to move along. It would not do at all to have the Istyar fume!”

~*~

“Close your eyes. That is, unless you want hot water and soap in them.” Thorno’s voice pulled me back to the lavatory. I turned to see him holding a large pitcher of hot water, poised to rinse soap and oil from my hair.

“What? Oh, yes, please go ahead. I’m ready.” Hot water cascaded over my head again and again. 

“Where were you?” Thorno asked after I wiped my face with the towel.

“Ost-in-Edhil. When Mélamírë took on Master Manendur in the Square of the Four Winds.”

“Ah, yes!” Thorno chuckled while he squeezed the excess water from the length of my hair. “My father let me watch every bit of that, the dogs and all, but the theater of the Istyanis and Manendur was even better. Even as a little boy, I knew then that I wanted to become her apprentice.”

“You heretics were drawn together.”

Thorno snickered and gripped my shoulders. “You would know, Sámaril. You would know! Now let's go. I can feel the sun setting.”

---

Chapter End Notes

Thornangor/Thorno - Noldo, master smith; Sámaril's second-in-charge of the forge.

Lairiel - Noldo, master weaver of the House of Rivendell.

Midhloth - Silvan, housemaid.

Galenîr - Sinda, head butler of the House of Elrond.

Mélamírë (Istyanis Náryen) - Noldo, master smith of the Mírëtanor/Mírdain, Ost-in-Edhil. "Náryen" is her father-name.

Manendur - Noldo, loremaster, senior aide to Istyar Pengolodh. The latter fellow, according to Tolkien's writings, may have lived in Ost-in-Edhil/Eregion during the Second Age.

Turkafinwë – Celegorm

Tawarwaith – silvan elves

falmarindi – (s. falmar, falmarin) sea-spirits, sea-nymphs

lechenn - (s. lachenn) Sindarin name for the Noldor

Laegrim – people of the green-elves

laegil – (s. laegel) green-elves

celvar (kelvar) – all animals, creatures that move (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians)

lamani – four-legged beasts, but not reptiles or birds; implies mammals.

Casari - Dwarves

Tavari – an early “Qenya” name for “fays of the woods” from The Book of Lost Tales, 1. The Noldor of pandemoniverse Ost-in-Edhil still use the word to refer to the Wood-elves although in my ‘verse, that use of Tavari is not quite accurate on the Noldor’s part.

"...fabric of guess and speculation." A nod to a comment made by Samuel Wilberforce.

“Irrationally held truths…reasoned errors.” Mélamírë quotes Thomas Huxley a.k.a. "Darwin's bulldog." Or perhaps it is Huxley who quotes Mélamírë? ;^)