We'll dance among the stars by daughterofshadows

Balar 1

The prompt was Feeling alone, and that's what it's about.
Nellas struggles to find her place now that she's left her home.

The chapter ends on a positive note, but the beginning is a bit sad, so tread carefully.

When Fingolfin’s fleet reached the Beleriand System after a turbulent journey through the Helcaraxë meteor field, they claimed the planet Hithlum for their own, and the people living on Doriath and Balar, Beleriand’s two main habitable planets, had let out a collective sigh of relief.

Nellas remembered well the fear of an attack hanging like a cloud over these days. Even battered as they were, there was no doubt that the VSS Rochallor and her companions would have made a formidable foe to Doriath’s defences.

But no attack ever came. Instead, the fleet settled on the rocky planet, generally deemed too far away from Anar to support a colony and integrated nicely with the rest of the system. The engineers on Balar, especially, had struck up a close friendship with the newcomers.

They still maintained a small outpost on Hithlum, headed by Fingolfin himself, but most of the ships had soon left again to explore the rest of the system and beyond.

Nowadays, the Noldorin ships often carried supplies and messages with them as they went back and forth between Beleriand and its neighbouring systems, their ships made for deep space in a way that most of the Beleriand ships weren’t.

One of these carrier ships was the VSS Gondolin.

Galdor had been called back to work by his captain, and after many hours of discussion they had decided that Nellas and Anneryn would join him on the ship, so their family, including Galdor’s nephew Laegolas, had taken a shuttle from Doriath to Balar where the Gondolin was undergoing repairs.

Nellas would miss her gardens and greenhouses in Menegroth but working with the biologists on the ship promised to be interesting and the few members of her team she had met so far all appeared to be nice people.

That did nothing to soothe her current loneliness though.

She’d known being so far away from her friends and family would be difficult, but perhaps she had underestimated how difficult.

Nellas had hoped Galdor would introduce her to some of his friends, make it a bit easier to make new connections while they were still docked, but he’d been busy helping to prepare their departure ever since they arrived, and so they had barely seen each other, let alone had time to socialise.

Laegolas, too, had slipped away as soon as the shuttle landed, and truly, Nellas did not begrudge him the chance to meet his friends again, but it did mean the only familiar person left on the ship was her daughter. And as much as she loved Anneryn, a baby hardly provided stimulating conversation.

With a sigh, Nellas abandoned her novel and moved to Anneryn’s crib. She lifted her daughter up and settled her into her carrier sling. “What do you think about a walk, my treasure? We’ve been on Balar for a week now, and I have yet to see a beach. We can’t let that stand, can we? It’s Balar, after all!”

Anneryn gurgled in response, and Nellas chose to take it as agreement. She wrapped her coat around them both, fished her keys out of her bag and left the small apartment they had moved into for the time being.

There were three things the planet Balar was known for: The Yard, managed by Círdan the shipwright, a pioneer of the spaceflight movement, and his partner Aerchen; the vast oceans, covering nearly all of the planet’s surface; and the ever-present wind.

Nellas had seen the yard when they had landed, met the wind as soon as they left the terminal, and now she would finally see the ocean.

She had never seen the ocean before. Lakes, yes, even fairly large ones, but neither Doriath, nor its moon Dor-Lómin had any oceans. Nothing so big that you could see nothing but water all the way to the horizon.

But here she was now.

Grey stairs led down to stony beach and beyond that, there was only water, as far as the eye could see.

In the afternoon light, it looked almost green, and suddenly, she was reminded of the view out of the shuttle window as they left Doriath behind them. The two planets could not be more different from each other, nevertheless, the thought made her feel less alone.

Nellas took a deep breath, tasting the salty air. She wondered whether the water would be warm enough to swim in. Perhaps she could convince Galdor to spend a day here together, before they left for the unknown.

A shimmering caught her eye. She picked up a seashell, its smooth, white inside shining in the sun. The outside was as green as the ocean beside her. Or the leaves of the apple tree in her garden.

Nellas slipped it into her pocket with a smile.

Chapter End Notes

I'm trying my best to keep the info-dumping to a minimum, but there is so much I've been developing for this universe that I don't want to keep it all just in my mind.
I've got a meta fic of sorts planned though, to explain all the surrounding things!

In the mean time, ask if you want to know anything specific!