On a night of stars, a bird by Quente

"Come and find me, son of my daughter."

They came in a fair embassy, banners bearing the eight circled wings flying high in the light breeze.

Melian rode with them, and Nimloth beside her to attend to her. Riding with Melian through the long flats and marshes of East Beleriand was no work at all, for all the land bore forth its sweetest fruits to greet them, and they met no servants of the darkness along the way.

They journeyed many days before Nimloth noticed the bird.

It was, strangely, a sea bird, despite their distance from any great body of water. The yellow beak and black head were distinctive amid the rest of the birds of the marsh, and even the long-legged herons cast their gaze at the tern circling far above.

Melian seemed not to notice for several days, but one night as they sat at the fire on the highest ground they could find in that flat place, she looked up at the bright stars.

“Come, little bird. Thy shyness will be met with gentleness.” Melian’s voice was, as always, an elemental thing -- none could gainsay it, and soon the little bird soared to a stop upon her upraised arm.

“Ahhhh,” Melian said, smiling. “You have the look of Luthien about you, although she did not prefer to take the shape of birds. Come, let our friends look upon you, son of my daughter!”

And then, hopping to the ground, there came a small wind that tore at the shape of the bird, leaving behind a young Elf lord, tall and naked.

“Mâm,” said Dior, for surely it was he. “I am glad to meet you. Many stories have I heard of my family in Menegroth, and yet my parents do not journey beyond Tol Galen.”

Melian looked amused. “And did you tell my daughter where you were flying, when you left?”

Dior shook his head. He stood there before them all fearlessly unclad, and looked at them with a curious gaze. “I heard you calling to me, so I came.”

Nimloth stared, and felt something strange shift within her. For many long years she had hunted in the beech and oak woods of Doriath, and stood beside her father Galathil gazing upon the court of Menegroth.

And yet never had Nimloth seen any so fair as this Peredhel -- the Man in him gave him a groundedness and strange ephemerality -- the Elf in him made him glow in the light of the stars. And there was yet another strain in him, that of the very song of creation, from Melian his grandmother.

Melian stood then, and unwound the cloak from her shoulders, and clothed her grandson in it, embracing him as she did so. She touched his dark hair, unbound but cut at the shoulders in Man fashion, and she looked long into his eyes.

Dior, unused to company, gazed back at her without guile, smiling in turn.

“Mâm -- I have heard that you can take the shape of many things under the sun and stars. Will you teach me, before you go?”

“Of course,” Melian said. “All in its own time! For now, let us sit together, and you shall tell me of your life.”

Pulling the cloak around him and smiling, Dior did as he was bid.

Chapter End Notes

In all of my Dior and Nimloth meet-cutes, he seems to be naked. Hmmmm.