an ecstatic accident by void and fire by Chestnut_pod

an ecstatic accident by void and fire

I

The uslunkhagal, the Ered Luin blue, the precious lapis, peers out of the gangue in crystals the size of Blári’s thumbnail. It does not flash in the lamplight; rather, it opens a hole to the world outside the ‘Aban Zirak mine, a tunnel to the sky. Blári taps carefully, chipping out the alabaster, the fool’s gold, the gray matrix in which the staggering blueness seems to sink to an ocean at the center of the world. The crystal releases, a precious shard of sky beneath fathoms of stone. Blári puts it in her bag, half-full, and turns to the next.

II

Resin, wax, linseed oil, powdered lapis dearly bought and dearly ground by Cruinil’s tired arms. Hot water, lye, blue-stained cloths and gloves. She kneads ultramarine like her father kneads bread – a sensible profession, says her mother, for an Elf of the Havens, where fog, waves, and Elves are all gray and waiting. Cruinil kneads and watches the pigment rise, swirl, impregnate the water with a blue to pierce the heart. If, one day, she sails over those gray waves on a white boat, it will be for the promise of blue headier yet than that dug from her own land.

III

Finest prepared ultramarine from Eriador comes in tiny vials like gold dust, which is how the Gondorian traders weigh it up, vial for vial. Kelemi bought two vials of the best from a river-trader and keeps them in her hollow saddlehorn, for in Rhûn they trade finest ultramarine not for gold, but for sapphires, so they can paint their sky goddess’s robes in her eternal color. In Harad, a sapphire will buy a small house for a trader and her wife. Kelemi will paint the ceilings blue with indigo – a different sky to share when Kelemi wanders far from home.

IV

Firuzeh points her brush between her lips. Ten hairs from a cat’s throat for drawing the Queen of Rhûn’s sapphire necklace, the highlights in her hair, the reflections of her pupils, so she glows like the heart of a fire, blue-hot with pigment from the far end of the world. The queen will send this miniature to Gondor to frighten off the new king, who every year rattles his sword closer to the Sea. Firuzeh points her brush again. Not all the fiery blue ultramarine will go with it. In her enamel, grains of heaven fill her mouth with sparks.

V

Helwára opens the rack with her new mastery key. Color symbolism in syncretic Avari communities, in an unprecedentedly short twenty-five years of study. Her next project will take longer: cataloging the paintings of the Gimli Bequest to the Faculty of Endor Studies, an enormous honor for a junior. Gently, she removes the protective tissue from the first item, a Rhûnish miniature. It is instant; blue steals her breath. The queen’s eyes stare at her from the paper, black as night but for the centers, where the firmament sparkles ultramarine – the very earth and sky of another world in a pupil.