ferns & violets by hanneswrites

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ferns & violets

Minor/Mentions of background Melian/Thingol & Mairon/Celebrimbor

Written for Innumerable Stars 2022! :)

I'm honestly not sure what to tag this - I headcanon all of the ainur & maiar to be pretty genderfluid? Able to Have Biological Children!Mairon, I suppose.

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Melian watched carefully as the small pitch-black raven settled down on the corner of her desk, eyes trained ever-so-expectantly upon her. She wondered if he was watching her through it’s glossy little eyes.  

A letter sat plainly on her desk, waiting for her as she returned from yet another meeting with Lord Namo. It was devoid of any writing or embellishment apart from the simple and precise lettering of her name, but she had come to know Mairon’s handwriting very distinctly over these many years. 

 

It had been a long while since their last correspondence - Melian had thought, after her flight back to Valinor following her husband’s death, that she would not hear from Mairon again. And she had been correct in that assumption for a while, hadn’t she? An age had ended, and a new had arisen, and no raven sat tapping upon her windowsill as it had during her long-drawn years in Beleriand - until now. 

 

Melian stepped carefully toward the desk, watching the raven out of the corner of her eye as it curled up and closed it’s eyes to rest. Slowly, she took the envelope into her hands. She turned it over a few times, tested the edges and the seams, and glared at the raven once more - just in case - before she tore open the seal with the edge of her nail.

 

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If Melian were to think for a long while (something she tried very hard not to do where Mairon was concerned) then she may have been able to pinpoint the moment that had started all of this. Mairon, finding her on that chilled eve, after she had wandered curiously through a forest that was just a bit too near where he and his master had first begun to lay the groundwork for Angband. For Melian had always found beauty in the chilled shadows of the deep woods in Beleriand, where the light of Telperion and Laurelin did not reach. From the rich viridian of valley ferns to the soft vibrancy of the moss and mushrooms cloaking the forest floor, they had been new and they had been different and they had been fascinating. (She often missed them, even as she walked now through the glory of Vána’s golden fields) . 

 

She would not call it a friendship. They were at odds too often to call him an ally. Their individual goals were, from the outset, contradictory at best. And yet? It was difficult, she supposed, not to find an odd sort of fellowship with him. For they both understood the meaning of devotion.   

 

Manwë had sent no less than five different messengers attempting to summon her back to Valinor. She knew they had not been fond of this - this soft rebellion of hers. Whatever their thoughts may have been about her union with Thingol, it had mattered not, for he was at her side, his hand was in her own, and his smile brought such warmth to her heart that it burned through her core and into her fëa. 

 

Mairon had sent her a small bouquet of those deep green ferns she adored, nestled together to frame a single dark violet, and a letter, of course. It told nothing of his whereabouts and only asked for her knowledge of thrush husbandry, which she was immediately a bit wary of providing, but ended up penning a letter in response regardless. The fact that he had signed his letter with a single, simple “Good luck,”, (which Melian could read as begrudging support) may or may not have influenced this.

Thus began their somewhat odd and very infrequent exchange of letters and tokens and bits of information - nothing serious, no, never anything of the sort. Though she had always expected something of him, had always been waiting for a pin-drop of water that would break the surface tension of this unspoken agreement they had. It had never come.  

 

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The parchment was crisply folded, neat and straight at the edges, just as she expected it to be. She unfolded it carefully, taking in the stark contrast of the dark-lined ink on the page.

 

It began quite ordinarily, all things considered: her name printed neatly at the top, followed by the same short, polite greeting he penned every single time he wrote her a letter. And then.

 

“I find myself unprepared, and as you know, that is not something I take lightly.”

 

There was a heaviness to this line - the words nearly pressed through the paper - Melian could feel the frustration with which they were written as she ran her finger along the back of the parchment, feeling distinctly each line and curve of ink.

 

“I would not ask this of you if it were not my only option. I am in need of certain guidance.” 

 

Melian sighed, her heart fluttering nervously in her chest as she read on. The penmanship was rushed here - slanted slightly to the right. How very unlike him , she thought, as her gaze drifted down to the next line and-- 

 

“I am with child. The sire of the child is of the Eldar.”  

 

Melian’s breath caught in her throat for a brief moment. She read the text once more. Then again. 

 

“I will not disclose any more than this.”

 

Of course not, she thought, as she closed her eyes for a moment to parse through the information that had just been laid bare before her. When she opened her eyes again, the letter was still firm in her hands. She did nothing for a long while except stare at the tiny splotches of ink surrounding the word “sire” on the parchment, wondering what exactly that could mean and knowing she would likely gain no answer if she asked.

 

When she finally looked up from the letter, the raven was watching her once more, its dark glass eyes following her as she sank into her desk chair and pulled out her own fresh set of parchment.