inundated with the fated thought of you by hanneswrites

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of chance meetings

It is late in the morning when Nerdanel starts out for the day. A basket filled with a light lunch, whittling supplies, a small journal, and her usual linen picnic blanket tucked under her arm, she makes her way into the forest settled behind her father’s home. Deep in the nestled woods there lies a small, open clearing filled with a radiant abundance of Vána’s golden flowers. She knows the way by heart at this point, having come here at least once a week in the months following her husband and sons’ departure from Valinor. It had become a routine place of solace and peace for her - quiet apart from the gentle sway of the forest in the wind and the rustle of wildlife around her - the perfect place to spend a relaxing day whittling away at potential mockups for new projects.

 

Only on very rare occasion would she stumble upon others in this part of the wood. Apart from her small field of flowers, it lacked any sort of defining feature to tempt anyone to venture this far from Tirion, and for that she was often glad. 

 

On this day, however, Nerdanel wanders down the well-worn path through the forest and finds herself to be very much not alone among the old, tall evergreens. It is soft at first - far off in the distance as she makes her way further into the forest, only growing louder as she approaches her little meadow deep in the woods. It becomes apparent as she makes her way around the last bend before the meadow that the song is coming from the clearing. 

 

Nerdanel sighs, closing her eyes for a brief moment as she contemplates turning around and coming back tomorrow. As she’s weighing her options, the voice tapers off and the song ends and for a split second Nerdanel thinks she’s in luck - perhaps whoever has wandered into the forest has decided to move on for the day. Her hopes are immediately crushed as a new melody begins. Her face falls and she lets out a long breath, her fingers tightening around the handle of her basket as she moves to turn around and head home - except, as the voice echoing through the pines reaches the chorus, she stills in place.    

  

It doesn’t take her long to place the melody - an old ballad she remembers being popular back when she was still quite young. She hasn’t heard it in centuries at this point and she finds herself smiling softly at this interesting upbeat rendition of it. Now that she’s actually listening to it more closely - she finds herself oddly drawn in by the smooth timbre of the voice resonating so clearly through the forest. All previous notions of agitation at someone being in her secret clearing fade away and she is left curious of just who has managed to wander all the way out here.

 

Nerdanel slows to a halt at the edge of the clearing, hidden behind only a thin cover of brush and branches, and she listens. She moves closer, steadily bringing a figure into focus as she closes in on the clearing. An ellon with hair that shines like polished gold sits among the sea of flowers that line the low-rolling hills of the secret little meadow she’s come to treasure so dearly over the years. She can’t quite make out who he is at this distance, but his voice sounds strangely familiar as she listens on. 

 

She loses herself in the melody for a long moment and her attention drifts - she thinks of things as they were before, of things as they are now, and she thinks of the last time she’d heard this song. The memory pops into her mind unbidden - a rare quiet night in her old household, the soft lilt of her Makalaurë’s voice accompanied by his harp wafting in from another room as she finished up a project in her studio. 

 

Nerdanel clenches her teeth and closes her eyes, taking in a long, deep breath and letting it out slowly. She lets the memory play out to its conclusion and allows herself a moment to feel everything that comes along with that - the all-too-familiar grief and burden and longing and loneliness washing over her and cresting, her chest tightening, her breath stalling in her throat, and then settling and fading as she opens her eyes, grounding herself in the present with the familiar sounds of the forest. 

 

The song comes to its end. And Nerdanel turns away from the edge of the meadow to head back to her father’s house for the day. 

 

This is unfortunately when her basket decides to snag itself on a particularly thorny tree branch. It catches her off-guard and she momentarily loses her balance, reeling forward and careening face-first into the underbrush surrounding the clearing.  

 

Nerdanel sighs and takes a second to collect herself before pushing up out of the bushes, frowning as she realizes the voice coming from the clearing has not continued and therefore most likely heard her fall. She is proven correct, as moments later she hears the distinct sound of footsteps growing nearer.  

 

“Are you alright?” The ellon calls from just a few feet away now, and Nerdanel curses internally. She swiftly rights herself on her feet, brushing leaves and twigs from her clothes. 

 

“Lady Nerdanel?” 

 

She finally looks up at him, meets his eye and realizes very quickly that she knows him. 

 

“Oh! Lindómo,” Nerdanel smiles politely as she smooths down the edges of her tunic, “My apologies for interrupting your day.”  

 

“Ah, it’s - fine, really,” He says, smiling back at her, and she is stricken for a moment by how bright that smile is. There is a long pause between them where the only sound is the light wind whistling through the trees.

 

“Right. Well, I should be--” Nerdanel starts - but she’s cut off by Lindómo almost instantly.

 

“Would you--” 

 

Lindómo grins sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck as he tentatively outstretches his other hand toward her. 

 

“Would you like to join me?” He asks. 

 

She cannot quite place her finger on why she hesitates, apart from being a bit surprised by the invitation itself - while she often spends time with Amarië, she realizes she knows very little about her brother aside from the fact that he and Amarië are, indeed, siblings. Back in the thrall of her youth when she and Amarië had met and become fast friends, Lindómo had been a consistent presence whenever she would visit their household. She had known him in passing, in the way that most know their close friend’s siblings. And though she would admit in her most honest of moments that she had briefly entertained the thought of him in a romantic context - that had been before--

 

--before Fëanáro, before her sons, before she’d watched them walk away from her for the last time.   

 

--before everything . 

 

Nerdanel finds herself looking at him for a long moment, taking in the gentle curve of his palm and his fingertips, the small braids twined in his hair, the delicate embroidery lining the edges of his tunic, and most of all - the clear brightness in his eyes and the soft, shy smile adorning his lips. It sparks something in her that she cannot quite identify - a subtle warmth that spreads through her chest, an echo of old familiarity and contentment that leaves her oddly curious. 

 

She takes his hand slowly, a small smile of her own crossing her face, “I think I’d like that.” 

 

Her heart flutters as his hand closes around hers and this too catches her by surprise as she lets herself be led further into the meadow. 

 

Lindómo has set up a small blanket among the flowers and as she settles down onto it, she notices a small pile of braided flower rings set off to the side. She plucks one out of the pile as he sits on the other side of the blanket and turns it over in her hands, admiring the clearly skilled craftsmanship of the braided stems and the well-chosen blooms. He’s clearly been weaving them for a while this morning. 

 

“You can have one if you’d like,” He says, and Nerdanel watches as he carefully plucks another golden bloom from the field around them. She raises an eyebrow at him as he selects another and begins braiding them anew. 

 

“Are you making these for someone?” She asks, and he shakes his head. 

 

“I mostly just like to keep my hands busy,” Lindómo ties off the end of one stem and Nerdanel notices, without really meaning to, a fine tremor in his fingers as he adds in another, “It helps me think.” 

 

There is another long pause as Lindómo continues his work on the flower ring, seemingly content to simply sit in silence beside her, and Nerdanel decides to pull out her whittling supplies. She thinks, perhaps, as she stares down at Lindómo’s hands as they effortlessly go through the motions of creating the crown weave, that scultiping something similar may be an interesting challenge for her. And thus, she sets herself to carving one of the flowers woven into the crown. 

 

After some time has passed and the sun sits high in the sky, Nerdanel speaks again, as the curiosity for what brought him this far from where she knows his home to be is still on her mind. 

 

“You have a very nice voice,” She says, smoothing her fingertip over the divet she just carved into the wood, “I’ll admit, you caught me off-guard earlier - I do not often come across anyone this far north.”

 

She looks up at him, catching the light dusting of pink on his cheeks as he pointedly focuses on the movement of his hands. 

 

“I have a fondness for exploring places that are often less traveled,” He says, and Nerdanel watches as he finishes off the flower crown with a small pink camelia, “It tends to yield hidden gems such as this.” He gestures to the meadow. 

 

Nerdanel chuckles softly and smiles, “This place is special, indeed. I am very fond of it myself.” 

 

They lapse again into a comfortable silence, the easy and familiar sounds of the forest cascading around them, and Nerdanel busies herself with her whittling. Lindómo lays the crown with the pink camelia between them and settles down on his back, hands laced behind his head and eyes focused toward the sky. He picks up another tune some time later, singing softly as the flowers sway in the breeze around them, and Nerdanel finds herself more relaxed than she’s been in a long while. 

 

 

“You are very obvious, you know?” Amarië says, her fingers curling around the mug Lindómo sets in front of her. She gives him a sly smile as he sits across from her at the kitchen table. Lindómo says nothing in response, very pointedly keeping his eyes focused on the steam rising off of his tea in order to avoid looking his sister in the eye. 

 

“Something has happened that you are not telling me,” Amarië continues, “And I will figure out what it is eventually. You should simply save me the time and effort and tell me what it is now.” 

 

“Nothing has happened,” Lindómo says and he takes a long sip of his tea. He looks up at his sister, takes in the absolutely unimpressed look on her face, sets his mug down on the table, and promptly lets his head fall into his hands, sighing audibly.

 

“I met Nerdanel while I was out riding the other day.” 

 

“And?” Amarië raises an eyebrow at him, a knowing smile turning up the corners of her lips, “It is not as if you have never met her before.”

 

Lindómo pauses for a moment and takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and feeling the warmth seep through the porcelain mug and bleed into his hands. A tense feeling creeps it’s way into his shoulders as his mind unwillingly supplies him with small snippets of his encounter with Nerdanel - the soft curve of her smile, the delightful melody of her laugh, the golden light of the mid-morning sun reflecting the low undertones of her hair and making her glow like woven firelight--   

 

“Lindómo,” Amarië says, bringing him back to their conversation. He sighs once more and taps the side of his mug, trying to relieve a little bit of the anxious energy that had woven its way into his chest. 

 

“I have never spoken to her at length before,” He says, and when he meets his sister’s eyes again, she is grinning wide and bright. 

 

“Oh?” Amarië says, leaning forward on her elbows. 

 

“I rode out to one of the forests closer to Tirion and ended up settling down in a little grove to rest for a while - Lady Nerdanel arrived some time later, we spoke a long while about a great many things, and spent a good part of the afternoon together. It was--” 

 

Magical - glorious - lovely - divine--

 

“It was very pleasant,” Lindómo finishes, and he knows as soon as he’s said it that he’s made a mistake - because Amarië’s grin just grows wider and more mischievous.  He knows what she is thinking as he is very aware of the fact that Amarië is privy to his long-running adoration of Lady Nerdanel.     

 

“It is not an impossibility, you know” Amarië gives him a soft smile and lays her hand over his, giving it a reassuring squeeze, “Perhaps it was by fate’s design that both of you happened to be in the right place at the right time.” 

 

“Perhaps,” He says, “How is Findaráto, by the way?” 

 

Amarië narrows her eyes at him and gives him a disapproving look, but lets the subject drop anyway. Even as she starts in on a long overview of everything she and Findaráto had gotten up to over the weekend, Lindómo catches that mischievous glint in her eye that tells him that she will not be forgetting about this any time soon.

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