Was Dancing There by StarSpray

Was Dancing There

There were no tapestries in Sirion—the threads were needed for other, more practical things. But on the wall of the receiving hall where Elwing—and Eärendil when he was home—held audiences, someone, or many someones, had taken the time to paint in surprisingly vivid colors scenes from all over Beleriand, at many points in its history. Here was Gondolin rising up from the plains of Tumladen; here was High King Fingolfin and all the princes and princesses of the Noldor at the Mereth Aderthad; here was a scene from the glades of Ossiriand, and there the meeting of Thingol and Melian beneath the dark boughs of Nan Elmoth long long ago.

Elros’ favorite was the ceiling; at one end it was filled with stars, gleaming white paint on a dark background, and the faint outline of Elbereth herself, her hands flung out as she cast the stars into the sky; at the other end, near the entrance, eagles circled on a paler backdrop, coming and going from Manwë’s throne upon Taniquetil.

Elrond loved most the scene painted behind their mother’s seat, a green forest glade decked with hemlock umbels and delicate niphredil, and Lúthien dancing in the center, her skirts blue as the morning sky and her hair like a dark shadow swirling around her as she spun, hands uplifted. Her dance was like the one that the Sindar danced in the woods of Arvernien in the summer when the stars were bright. It was a very old dance, their mother told them, that was said to have been one of the first that the Nelyar danced beside the waters of Cuiviénen when they could do nothing but leap and spin for the sheer joy of being—very fitting for an image of Lúthien.

“She looks just like you,” Elrond told Elwing one afternoon when she came to find them looking at the paintings.

Elwing smiled. “She looks just like you,” she said. “Come on. Elros, you too! Would you like to learn the steps to her dance?”

“Oh yes!” They both scrambled to the center of the room, where Elwing laughed and began to sing a wordless song, lifting her white skirts as she spun, barefoot like Lúthien—on wooden boards instead of green grass, but no less lovely.