Tales of Thanksgiving: A Drabble Collection by Dawn Felagund

Eru's Blessing

Nerdanel announces her marriage to her father. For Allie.

Eru's Blessing

My father was not pleased; I could see it in the way he bustled around the workshop, keeping his hands busy and his eyes from meeting mine, as though afraid that the hands would betray him and tremble--or maybe strangle my young husband waiting outside--or that his eyes would show the depth of his disappointment in me.

But disappointed or not, it was too late: We were wed. Married with neither blessing nor permission, in the wilds of the forest between Tirion and Formenos with only the witness of Eru.

"The King--does he know that his firstborn son has taken a bride?" He was turning a mold in his hand, calloused thumb searching for imperfections along the surface. "Taken a bride without his blessing, like a heathen in the Dark Lands?"

The mold: cast to the table with a clatter. I winced.

Fëanáro had wished to come with me so that we could deliver the news to my father and his master, side by side. I had grown accustomed to having Fëanáro at my side in the past three years; grown accustomed to letting him be strong when I lacked the will. To letting him speak first. But this I had to do alone, to remember my strength as a woman and a daughter, not a wife.

"We had the blessing of Eru, Father. And we--I believe that that was enough."

His gray eyes were cold as steel upon my flushed face. I could see him appraising my well-being and finding reason to fault Fëanáro. I kept my arms crossed over my body, lest he notice how I'd changed. His voice quavered on the brink of anger. "You have become proud, Daughter--like him--to think that you know the will of the One."

"In this matter, Father, I do," I whispered, and I waited for him to cast me forth from his workshop, to denounce me as his daughter for such blasphemous behavior.

But something interrupted us then: a thin cry that made us both turn to find Fëanáro at the door, gray eyes wide and voice reduced to a near-whisper. "I am sorry to interrupt. But he wants his mother."

Passing to me little Nelyafinwë, who stopped crying at my touch and settled against my breast. My father's eyes widened, and I knew that he understood. And never again would he question Eru's blessing.