nothing but time and a face that you lose by Chestnut_pod

nothing but time and a face that you lose

“I feel dull. And achey. And stupidly sad for a minute in between not feeling much at all, followed by feeling like I should be feeling more, and perhaps some relief that he made that decision for me. And shame at my own pettiness on focusing on an ache that is hardly as sharp as anyone else’s. And wondering when I’ll next have an orgasm that isn’t from my own hand, damn it all. And then dull again.” 

Amarië looked away from the spot to the right of Findis’ ear at which she’d been staring for want of the courage to look her in the eye. Dullness was cycling through to embarrassment again, and the longer she stared at her hands the more she could ignore the sudden bareness of her rooms and the less she could ignore the strange orangeness of the firelight- firelight! and its flickering and changefulness. 

“Well, you did ask,” she said, after a beat or two where Findis didn’t respond. “I did tell you they were boring emotions to be taking up so much space, and moreover you likely didn’t wish to consider your nephew and orgasms at all, though I suppose I should at least reassure you that we aren’t married.” 

“You’d hardly be here to assure me of the invalidity of your emotions if you were,” Findis remarked dryly. In the strange, flickering firelight, the strawberry tint Findis’ Noldorin father had lent her golden hair was exaggerated, the blueness under her brown skin accentuated, and Amarië was glad, for it made her look less like Findaráto. “Young one, do you think you’re the only one to mourn a choice but find relief in it regardless?"

She waved a hand around the spareness of Amarië’s room, the typical austerity of the Vanyar, as if to say that her coming to Valinor was as much a regrettable necessity as the hasty departure of Amarië’s not-quite betrothed across a land bridge, if the slow reports from what was left of the country of the Teleri were to be believed. 

Amarië snorted, but without heat. Leaving a homeland surely must ache with at least as much constant dullness as leaving a not-spouse, and she could give a not-aunt and not-quite-friend so much respect, in any case. She patted the low sleeping bench beside her, as if Findis were an age-mate and their heartaches were the sort to be soothed by sweets and late-night chats. 

Findis gave her half a smile as though she understood, and came to sit beside her. They sat in silence for a long moment, watching the twisting reddish shapes the fire drew on the wall. 

“I wish loving things was as simple as doing so or not,” Amarië said, and thought belatedly of all the parts of this mess that could apply to. Findis shot her a dry look. 

“You and all of Tirion,” she said, a wry smile not quite hiding the grit of her teeth behind the words. The ache in Amarië’s chest cycled back to shame, and she nudged closer to Findis, until one or the other could have leant a tired head on a shoulder, if she were to feel so inclined. “But tell me more about your woes with love, for I find them easier to bear than my own.”

This time the tucked-away smile she gave Amarië was less like an aunt, even less like a cordial age-mate acquaintance, but something like the commiseration passed between friends. It gave Amarië courage.

“I didn’t love him, you know,” she said to the shifting fire-shadows on Findis’ shoulder. “I’m sorry- I know you love him, of course. But I didn’t. I could have, though. I could have loved him. Maybe that’s why it’s all-“ she broke off to gesture, pointlessly. “If we’d had the time.” 

“You would have had time on the journey, would you not?”  

Amarië gave a humorless snort of laughter. “It would be idiotic to make such a journey for a maybe. Stupid! How am I meant to follow him across the world when I can’t be sure we won’t tire of each other before we even catch sight of the shores of Endórë?” Her fists clenched. “I can’t give up everything for a promise that’s never been made, and I don’t want to. I didn’t. I don’t.”

Findis held up her hands. “Peace! That was not a challenge. Loath as the House of Finwë is to admit it, there is more to life than dogged obedience to every unspoken promise ever bandied about as rumor. If you would not go for him, then, why would you not go for yourself?” 

Amarië choked back the growl that wanted to rip from her throat. “My entire life is here,” she gritted out. “My studies, my people, my age-mates, my mountain, they are all here! How could I leave when everything is so uncertain, when we do not know when time will start again or if?” 

She resisted the urge to stand up and pace the room. “He might have stayed!” she said, low and fierce, and looked Findis in the eye for the first time since she had entered Amarië’s small bedroom. “He might have! You did, after all, and his father. And me. There is so much uncertainty here, but- he might have made that effort. It is not as though there is no trouble here in Aman that could not use his help. It is not as though I could not have used his help!” 

Findis laid a hand on her thigh, silent, and Amarië smacked the bench’s cushion with the palm of her hand, then wished she hadn’t. Findis didn’t so much as twitch. 

“I could have gone,” Amarië said. “Or he could have stayed. And either way I would have given it the work it needed, and- and I could have gotten there. We both could have. But either way he would have had to commit to it, to me; he would have had to be willing to stay with me and be a real lover, the sort that I could marry some day. And he would not do that, and I was not - am not - willing to give that work to someone who would not give it back. Not even at the end of the world. Surely even now I am entitled to some self-respect.” 

She stopped, slightly out of breath, and closed her eyes against the redness of the light. Now she was angry, more than hurt, and as ever the shame at her tangled emotions pulsed beneath all of it. Eyes shut, she jolted in surprise when Findis grasped her by the shoulders, restraining her flinch with ease. The fire at Amarië’s back was too bright, and Findis squinted a little in its glare, but her look was no less keen for it. 

“Listen,” she said with a force that was almost fierceness, and Amarië was reminded that Findis was the eldest heir of the House of Indis, accustomed to speaking and being heard. “Listen. The end of the world has no bearing on how a lover treats you. If my nephew thinks this darkness calls him more strongly than you do, on his head be it. You have no obligation to him, or to his quest. Your only obligations are to yourself and your honor and what you think it will take to satisfy it. And no almost-betrothed can call that honor into question, nor your judgement, nor your heart.”

Findis’ grip softened, and she wrapped an arm around Amarië’s shoulders, pulling her into her chest the way the mother guardians had once cradled her and her age-mates when childhood had dealt one of its blows.  

“You have done right by yourself, and Findaráto has done right by himself,” she said, voice rumbling through Amarië’s chest. “And I am only sorry that in this case ‘right’ has given you as much grief as ‘wrong’ might have.” 

Amarië shook her head, nuzzling a little into Findis’ shoulder. “It hasn’t,” she said, voice cracking slightly. “I know that much, for here I am. I made the right choice.” 

The fire flickered gold on the wall, and Amarië could only think of how different this gold was from Laurelin’s light and Findaráto’s hair. So quietly she almost could not hear herself, she whispered, “It is only that it hurts to lose a might-have-been.”

“Oh, young one,” Findis murmured, stroking her hair, and Amarië was past the point of caring that Findis was once more treating her like a child in need of comfort. It was mostly true, after all. She laid her head on Findis’ knee and stared at the flames, dancing in colors she had never imagined before a month ago.

She did not cry.