Discord and Harmony by Independence1776

Discord and Harmony

Read Discord and Harmony

Nerdanel watched Fëanáro standing on a multistep wooden stool to reach the the bookcase’s top shelf. The golden light of Laurelin shining through the window outlined his torso rather nicely through his thin linen shirt. She lifted her right hand and bit her forefinger. Mutually attracted to each other they might be, but an archive was not the place for it. Especially not when she had the suspicion they were poking around in a section that the loremasters would prefer to keep out of hands they considered too immature.

Trying to convince Fëanáro he was too immature for something was an exercise in futility, even more so when she agreed with him. Both of them were to begin their masterworks, her as soon as she found inspiration and him when he finished the project he was in the middle of: they were old enough.

Better to keep quiet, to pretend that they were studying something slightly more respectable.

“Hah! Found it!” Fëanáro said quietly as he pulled the leather-bound book from the wooden bookshelf and turned it so she could see it.

It wasn’t ornate in any way, the only hint of the contents the title in gold gilt on the cover. He stepped off the stool and walked the handful of steps to the table they’d spread out on. The window was just above them, giving good light to read by, and they were on the third floor, high enough that most people walking through the square wouldn’t even notice them.

Nerdanel cleared a space on the table, moving the stack of books they’d already trawled through toward the end. Fëanáro put the book down and sank into his seat, causing the chair to squeak. Nerdanel hid a smile behind her hand as he glared between his legs. “Don’t try to fix it. We’ll be caught for sure.”

He smiled at her. “It was your idea to come here.” He bit his lip, a stray strand of hair escaping from his braid falling in front of his face. “Though you wouldn’t have suggested it if I hadn’t asked about the Ainulindalë in the first place.” 

“Yes, well,” Nerdanel said, “someone had to. There must be more to it than what Rúmil wrote.” She tapped the book. “Come on, let’s see what’s so scandalous that we had to all but sneak in here to get a glimpse of it.”

Fëanáro opened the cover and found the table of contents. They both skimmed Rúmil’s sarati, looking for the chapter that several books had mentioned was controversial and other philosophical books hadn’t mentioned at all.

Fëanáro muttered, “Do you wonder if the controversy was merely a matter of wording?”

Given that he flatly refused to give up the thorn when speaking despite most of the Noldor having done so before he was even born…  But she would not bring that up here. She said, “It’s possible. You’ve seen academic arguments, the same as I have. Not all of them are over reasonable things.” She pointed at an entry in the list. “There, page 153.”

He flipped through the pages until he reached that chapter. “’The Discord of Melkor’ is a standard phrase; why…” He stopped. “Well. Maybe it’s not the text after all.”

Nerdanel shook her head and studied the large drawing that covered most of the second page in the chapter. It consisted of a black background, the white outline of a spread-eagled, nude male inside of a white circle and a square, all somewhat blurred as though he was dissipating-- or spreading, given the context of the chapter. Spreading, she decided, given the unconnected white dots scattered through the background. The label read, “The Discord of Melkor spread ever wider, and the melodies which had been heard before foundered in a sea of turbulent sound.”

“Both you and I have seen far more detailed anatomical images,” she reminded him. “There has to be something else in this text than someone drawing a naked Melkor.”

Fëanáro muttered something under his breath she didn’t catch while he pulled his notebook closer to him. In a normal tone, he then said, “Let’s copy the chapter so we don’t have come back here.”

Nerdanel opened her notebook to a clean page and dipped her fountain pen in the black inkwell. She would not copy the drawing in anything more than basic lines, but it was indeed a part of the chapter and thus indispensable. She swiftly did so, a reverse color copy of the drawing in the book, and then copied the paragraph below the drawing. 

She glanced over at Fëanáro and smiled when she saw that not only was he copying the text, he was converting it from the Rúmilian letters into his own tengwar at the same time. He looked over at her when he reached the end of the page and at her nod, he flipped the page over. They both blinked at the two paragraphs of text on the flip side and the start of the next chapter on the facing page.

“Here, you do it,” Fëanáro said, sliding the book closer to her. “We can add the conversion later.”

While she did, he put back the texts they’d finished with. Once done, she put that book back herself. She had to stand on tiptoes to reach, wishing once again that she had just a couple more fingerwidths of height. She’d heard the whispers about why Fëanáro would choose her of all women. But he had, and she never doubted his love. Not when he did things like lift her off the bottom step of the stool, swing her around, and then kiss her.

They gathered their notebooks and various odds and ends into their leather shoulder satchels that marked them as students. They made sure the room seemed as if no one had been there. Then they walked over to the doorway to listen if anyone was out there. A faint, fading conversation could be heard and then it vanished, either into another room or down the stairwell. 

“Come on,” she whispered, and they snuck out. 

Only when they reached the stairwell did they resume a normal tread; there was no more need to tiptoe around. There was plenty of material both of them would legitimately research in the stacks on the fourth floor.

No one paid them any mind as they sailed through the lobby on the ground floor and out the doors into the archive plaza. They glanced at each other and burst into giggles.

“I can’t believe we got away with it,” Fëanáro said when they calmed down. “With how many people follow me around…”

She gave him a side-eye. “You were with me. They either thought it was a legitimate research question or that we wanted someplace private.”

Fëanáro covered his mouth to keep his laughter muffled. “The archive! Given we met wandering out in the wilds of Aman, they thought it reasonable we’d go to the archive for privacy. Sometimes I wonder what the archivists do in their spare time if they think that’s a reasonable thing to do.”

“Given the number of people Father has caught in the smithy…”

“True. But in the archive? A smithy is far less easy to damage.” He shook his head. “Let’s find something to eat. There’s that cafe on the second level of the city you like; we can look at the material there.”

It would bring up fewer questions if people overheard them there. Any eatery here would have too much of a chance of scholars accidentally hearing them. 

 

They spread out the papers on a round table in the little cafe. They were tucked in the back, near the door to the kitchen, though it wasn’t really private. The dark wood-lined walls contrasted with the white stone floors common to many of Tirion’s buildings. Posters for various musical acts were framed and scattered about on the walls. The wooden table matched the walls’ dark stain, though it was covered with lighter rings from wet glasses over the years. The noise of the lunch crowd was enough to drown out their conversation, at least enough that it would become obvious if anyone began to pay too close attention to them.

Nerdanel sighed and leaned back in her chair. Though she’d readily applied herself to her roast beef sandwich and broccoli-cheese soup, Fëanáro picked through his meal absently, half of his chicken sandwich and most of his side of roasted vegetables abandoned on his plate while he perused the document and added in the transposition. 

“I found what’s controversial. ‘Can out of Melkor’s destruction come good? It seems so, yet I do not fully believe it.’ The chapter keeps going under that drawing, but it doesn’t further deal with that question. All the writer does is talk about how the Avari might have been right to remain at Cuiviénen.” Fëanáro tossed down his pen. “Pointless! This wasn’t about the Ainulindalë at all.”

Nerdanel rested her chin on a fist. “We may have to ask the Ainur.”

“Aulë,” Fëanáro said and popped the last piece of spicy pepper into his mouth. “He knows us; he’ll likely answer.”

“Rúmil got his information from some of the Valar. We could ask him first.”

Fëanáro shook his head. “I’m tired of poking around. I’d rather talk to people who were actually there instead of more scholars speculating.”

“Rúmil didn’t speculate, Fëanáro.”

He blinked and then looked up at her. “You’re right, he didn’t.” Fëanáro ran a hand through his hair. “Regardless, I’d rather ask Aulë.”

“All right. When do you want to leave?”

“Tomorrow. Father won’t care where I’ve gone and you’re free.”

“I’m supposed to be collecting inspiration for my masterpiece.”

Fëanáro grinned and spread his arms. “Don’t you have enough?”

Nerdanel could feel the blush rising in her cheeks and was tempted to chuck her pen at him. “Oh, you.” She was not going to do what so many attempted and make a statue of the prince or the king or anything connected to the royal family. Any of the royal families. Something to do with Cuiviénen, maybe, or the Trees.

He merely grinned wider, though he lowered his arms and finally seemed to remember that he had food in front of him. After he finished chewing, he said, “Is tomorrow fine?”

Nerdanel shrugged. “What else am I supposed to do with my time? Tirion is not the most inspirational place for me.” What she didn’t say was that she followed him here; they both knew that. “Besides, the sooner we both have an answer, the sooner we can do something with the information.”

His eyes lit up. “Yes…” he said, almost hissing the word. His expression shifted into the almost hungry stare he wore when his mind worked best.

Nerdanel knew from experience that he could be in that state for hours or mere minutes. Either way, she now had time to sketch the scene of him on the ladder. That was an image she was in no hurry to let sink away into the depth of her memory, rarely to be recalled. No, the warmth it brought was a treasure to be savored and remembered.

* * *

Nerdanel and Fëanáro held hands outside the wooden plank door, bolted together with metal. Aulë's dwelling stood under the eaves of the Pelóri, with Yavanna’s forest surrounding it, almost to the point of hiding even the roof from the sky due to the overhanging trees. The stone courtyard and the small pasture for visitors' horses behind the stable off to the right were the only truly clear areas. The house itself blended in with the mountains behind it, more of the mountains than made of stone from.

A faint shiver went down her spine when she thought that Námo's hall might appear similar; Mandos where Melkor was currently imprisoned. She shook her head and said, “What are we waiting for? The stablehands said they’d pass on the message.” 

Fëanáro glanced down at her and smiled. “Lost in thought again. A momentary whimsy only.” He smiled mischievously and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I was imagining what the door to our dwelling would look like.”

Well, then. That she hadn’t expected.

“Was that a proposal?”

“Only if you want it to be.”

She bit her lip. They hadn’t truly begun traditionally courting and yet… “I do,” she said, looking up and meeting his gray eyes.

He brushed a strand of her auburn hair off her face and leaned down to kiss her. She wrapped her arms around him and deepened the kiss. They broke apart when the door opened and an expressionless Maia wearing a green tunic and trousers stepped out. 

 “Aulë will see you now, ” the Maia said. "He’s in his studio; you know the way.” She closed the door behind them and went in the opposite direction.

Nerdanel and Fëanáro held hands as they walked through the wide stone halls. Some of them were covered in woven tapestries, some made by Vairë, though Nerdanel knew that many of them had been made by Aulë himself. Plants made of metal stood in several corners, a new one with flowers of some sort of metal that shone in a rainbow of colors placed next to a bench in a reading nook underneath a window overlooking the pasture. Fëanáro raised an eyebrow and said nothing, though she knew he tucked the memory away to examine later.

Maiar of all shapes, colors, and sizes, some looking distinctly non-Elvish, and some Eldar passed through the corridors, none of them paying the slightest bit of attention to the couple. Nerdanel half-expected them to, regardless that Fëanáro and she were the only one who knew that they had betrothed themselves to the other. They were in love, not married. And yet she felt sure that the knowledge could be read on them somehow.

When they reached the large door to Aulë's studio, Fëanáro knocked once and then pulled it open. They stepped inside and Nerdanel shut it behind them. The studio was well lit by large openings carved in the mountainside facing the Trees. At this time of day, the same golden light that had outline Fëanáro in the archive glimmered in the room, dust motes shining in the shafts of light. But the studio was also lit by a forge on the far side of the giant chamber and it was there Aulë stood with a leather apron on, though his hands were empty.

He looked over at them, a wide smile splitting his face above his trimmed red beard. 

“Come in, come in. I’m thinking over a problem and you will be a good distraction.” He met them at the low metal bench against the wall underneath one of the shaft openings. “How do you keep copper from oxidizing in the open air?”

Nerdanel tilted her head, thinking. While she could and did work with metal, her preference lay in stone. But Fëanáro didn’t pause before answering. “Cover it with crystal and then sing the crystal whole.”

Aulë raised a red eyebrow. “What have you been up to, Fëanáro, hmm?” Nerdanel blushed, knowing that wasn’t what Aulë meant. He looked at her and raised the other eyebrow. “Well, now, I see that question has more than one answer.” He shifted on the bench. “Is this a private matter?”

“For now,” Fëanáro answered, his voice controlled even though Nerdanel could also see his cheeks had the slightest tinge of pink. “It’s nothing people haven’t guessed at.”

Aulë laughed. “Keep your secret, then. Enjoy the lack of commotion while you are able.” He gestured at the large fountain in the center of the studio. “This is for Lórien.”

Nerdanel stood up to look closer at it, Fëanáro following her, though Aulë remained seated on the bench. The fountain had a stone basin, but the rest of it was metal, shaped like an oak with copper leaves. Aulë must have the autumn in the north in mind to want the leaves to remain that color. “The thin layer of patina protects copper from further damage,” she said. “But you want it to stay orange.”

“I do,” Aulë said. “I thought a protective glass covering might work but crystal? Why crystal?”

Fëanáro peered absently at the join between a leaf and the twig it hung from. “I’ve been experimenting.”

“Oh?”

“Not my masterwork, merely trinkets. I’m nearly done with them.”

Nerdanel had seen them scattered about Fëanáro's quarters, gems that seemed white under Treelight and sparkled lightly under starlight. But that wasn’t the effect he wanted. It would be a masterwork from anyone else, though, and she might be able to convince him to make it his regardless of his current opinion.

Aulë sighed and then visibly discarded what he was about to say. He knew as well as Nerdanel did that Fëanáro's mind worked in odd ways. Oftentimes one experiment would lead to a breakthrough in a completely different field. 

“Crystal may work and I thank you for the suggestion.” He stood and moved forward, stopping by a table holding some sort of schematic. “Now, you didn’t come here to help me. Why did you?”

Fëanáro turned around. “We’re researching the Ainulindalë. Neither one of us are quite satisfied with Rúmil’s accounting and we wanted a participant’s perspective.”

“If you’re willing to give it to us,” Nerdanel added. Fëanáro had a habit of forgetting some social niceties around people he considered friends.

“Ah.” Aulë looked thoughtful, tapping a finger on the table. “Yes, I will. But first answer me this: why did you begin this research?”

Fëanáro said, “Melkor is imprisoned in Mandos, but the time of his sentence will come to an end. How did his discord start? Was it possible to even notice if you weren’t near him?”

Aulë nodded and leaned against the table, crossing his arms across his chest. 

“It was.” He sighed and rubbed his face. “When the forges are singing, a pattern growing, the song heard in the beats of the hammers and someone breaks rhythm: you hear that. You feel it, when things strike wrong. Oftentimes the song will continue with no lasting harm, the rhythm striking back into pattern or becoming a counterpoint. But not always.

“Melkor’s discord started that way, subtle at first but quickly spreading, causing confusion and chaos, damaging things. Yes, Ilúvatar brought in new themes, but the discord remained. There was no drowning it out, only working with it to produce new heights, new works. Melkor could not tolerate it. Maybe in his imprisonment he has learned the value of cooperation and the beauty of others’ works. I hope so, for his sake. The Song could have been much different.”

“That… is not unlike what Rúmil wrote.”

Aulë cocked an eyebrow at him. “What else did you expect, Fëanáro? Rúmil did converse with me as part of his research.”

Fëanáro shook his head. “Something more intimate, a memory sharing.”

“No,” Aulë said firmly. “Those details you Incarnates cannot comprehend and I will not risk damaging you as a salve to your curiosity.”

Fëanáro's lips thinned but he nodded. Nerdanel breathed out a silent sigh of relief. This was one of those times that he realized it was better to let things lie. 

She said, “Is there anything else?”

Aulë shook his head, his eyes distant. “No.”

Fëanáro and she excused themselves and left the studio, going to their suite in the guest wing. Even here, people knew better than to put them apart from each other, though propriety meant two bedrooms. It was easier than having to sneak across hallways, much less buildings, for late night conversations.

Fëanáro stared out the window into the forest while Nerdanel curled up on the small couch. “What are you thinking?”

“That we know little more than we did before we came here.”

“You know the Ainur are reluctant to discuss the Wars with Melkor. Maybe they fear if they dwell too much on the past, it will poison the future.”

“Maybe,” Fëanáro said and turned away from the window to sit down on the cross-legged other side of the love seat. “But usually Aulë doesn’t rely on the fact that we are different to not explain something.” He struck the armrest with a clenched fist. “They call us equals and then claim we are incapable. I dislike that.”

“Well, they did build Eä,” Nerdanel said with a small smile. “I’m not sure either of us could do that.”

“You don’t know,” Fëanáro muttered. “Maybe we could. The Ainur, after all, cannot bear children. Yet we can.”

There was something wrong in his argument, but she couldn’t pull the thread that would lead to its unraveling. 

“Hmm…” she said. “Are you talking children already?”

Fëanáro's eyes lit. “Are we?”

She giggled. “We both want them; what else is there to discuss?”

He leaned forward. “There’s always the practicing.”

“I’m not marrying without telling my parents first. You can tell Finwë or not; that’s your choice.”

“Imagine the scandal,” he said with a laugh.

“I’d rather not,” she said primly before laughing herself. “But it would be amusing to see the Council’s expressions.”

Fëanáro leaned back against the seat. “What do you want to do now?”

She frowned. “I don’t want to return to Tirion. Our quest isn’t done. We have a puzzle piece to fit into a half-made puzzle. But we don’t have the rest.”

“I want to go to Oiolossë,” he said quietly.

She studied him in silence for a moment. The way he chased after knowledge, he would go with or without her. And he was not the only one who wanted a deeper answer. Aulë had been reluctant to answer; others may not be. 

“Yes, let’s,” she said.

Fëanáro grinned at her.

* * *

A week later, they stood at the doorway to the palace of the Elder King and the Lady of the Stars. It crowned the peak of Taniquetil, built of white marble. Large windows overlooked the world and even in the midst of the full flowering of Laurelin, stars peeked through the blue sky. The air was cold and thin on the highest peak on Arda. Despite the breeze and the ever-present snow, Nerdanel knew it would be warm inside and easy to breathe. Only in the Great Hall, unroofed and open to the air for ease of viewing and listening, would the reality of being present on top of Taniquetil override the necessary adaptations for the Eldar who came to visit and to dwell on the mountaintop.

The doors soundlessly opened before them and Nerdanel and Fëanáro walked into the palace. Once inside, with the doors closed behind them by silent, white-clad Maiar, she took a deep breath to regain her equilibrium. This was not the first time she had been on Taniquetil nor the first time she had stepped foot inside the palace. But it was the first time she would directly ask something of Manwë and Varda, a question she knew Aulë would disapprove of Fëanáro and her asking. Yet they could no more not ask it than she could ignore her love for Fëanáro.

One of the door wardens said, “This way, please.”

They followed the warden down a short hallway to a staircase descending into the mountain, to a hallway that led to the guest wing. Their room was on a corner, windows covering one side parallel to the beds and the other outside wall also largely windows but with a door to the balcony. The golden rays of Laurelin were starting to mingle with the silver light from Telperion. 

The warden said, “A light meal will be served here for you once you have washed from your journey up the mountain.” They gestured at the doorway in the fourth wall. “Your baths have been prepared for you.” 

The warden left the room, closing the door behind them.

“Baths?” Fëanáro said. He strode over to the doorway and pulled it open. Steam came out.

Nerdanel followed him into the bathing room. A lone toilet stood in its own watercloset, the door partly ajar, but the floor space was indeed taken up by two bathtubs, one part of the bathroom itself and the other clearly having been placed awkwardly in the large space between the first tub and the sink. A makeshift curtain hung between the two.

Nerdanel stepped behind it and laughed. “A sheer curtain is going to maintain modesty? Sometimes I wonder.”

She squeaked when Fëanáro grabbed her around the waist and nibbled on her left ear. 

“I think the entirety of Aman knows we don’t give a damn about seeing each other naked in the wild. Let them have their sop to propriety.” He released her. “Take the built-in tub; the water will stay warmer longer.”

“Fëanáro…”

“What?” he said, his tunic already off and chucked into a somewhat out-of-the-way corner of the floor.

She rolled her eyes at him, went into the other room and grabbed a dress out of her pack. Here on Taniquetil, she would clothe herself more formally rather than in the trousers she preferred.

Nerdanel sank into the hot water of the tub and watched Fëanáro scrubbing himself through the curtain, feeling the heat in her belly rise again. She smothered it: now was an even worse time than in the archive. A splash of water and then suddenly the curtain was drawn back, Fëanáro almost overbalancing out of his tub. She snorted, trying not to laugh as he righted himself. 

“They may as well not have even bothered,” she said. “Are you going to push the beds together, too?”

“Would you like to sleep together?” he said, lathering up his hair.

She pondered that as she slipped underwater. Would she? It meant toeing the line… not that them bathing together with no care for modesty wasn’t in and of itself a line crosser. But sleep was somehow more intimate. She surfaced and blew out a breath. 

“Yes, I would.” She glanced over at him watching her. “How long do you think we’ll be able to get away with it?”

He shrugged and dunked underwater to rinse off his hair. Once his hair was free of suds, he stood. Nerdanel watched him rise from the water, her mouth dry and the flame roared to life when she saw him half-hard. 

She inhaled. “How soon can we marry?”

His pupils were large as he knelt down next to her, one hand rubbing his hair dry with a towel. He put the other low on her belly. 

“Now, if you wish. But to not create a complete sensation… at least a season between the announcement and the wedding. A year would be better.”

She huffed and covered his hand with her hands, tempted to push his hand between her legs and let him touch her. But instead she lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed each of his knuckles.

“We need to make our engagement official,” she said.

“Yes,” he breathed out before pulling his hand away.

She heard him pad out of the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Nerdanel covered her face with her hands and whispered, “Argh.”

She sank back into the water. This would be much harder than she expected.

 

After Mingling the next morning, when Telperion’s light had faded away and a hearty but strange breakfast had been eaten, a page brought them to a small sitting room. Nerdanel and Fëanáro squeezed hands and then let each other go. Manwë and Varda flanked either side of a narrow window overlooking the Calacirya. Both looked completely Elven today, though she’d seen them in guises where they looked less so. They both wore simple clothes and Varda held a rose-patterned teacup in one pale white hand.

“Please, be seated,” she said. “We know this is an informal visit, a query for knowledge. Aulë told us why you have sought us for answers.”

Nerdanel sat down on a chaise lounge placed opposite Varda and Fëanáro sat on the one next to her. Both were covered in comfortable cotton fabric; a table stood between them holding several bottles of variously colored liquids. Two ceramic mugs nestled inside each other.

Fëanáro said, “Can you tell us about the Discord of Melkor?”

“The drawing in the book or the event?” Manwë said with a flash of a smile. “I rather like the drawing myself; it illustrates what happened nicely. Melkor reached people who weren’t near him, influenced them to fall. Yet others close to him didn’t.”

Nerdanel asked, “Can you show us?”

Varda put down her teacup on its saucer with a little plink. “You are asking us to do something that does indeed put your health at risk, as Aulë warned you. Memory-sharing among the Elves is a simple matter; memory-sharing between Elf and Maia is more difficult but can be done safely. Between an Elf and a Vala? Yes, it can be done. It has been done. But to ask us to share a memory of the Time Before Time and for us to acquiesce, that has never before occurred. Yet we agree: we will share with you.”

Manwë said, “If you are still set on this course, lie back. This will take but moments though it will feel a lifetime. Be warned that you will filter this memory to protect your own selves; you are truly incapable of comprehending the fullness of it. But you indeed do have the right to know.” 

Nerdanel leaned against the back of the lounge, seeing Fëanáro doing the same out of the corner of her eye. Once she was settled, Varda met her eyes…

and she fell.

The song strummed through her, radiating and expanding, immense heat and cold and light and dark and singularities and gravitational waves and SONG. Singing by voices and instruments and natural forces building and building and building, expanding and growing--

--and what was that?

Disharmony, waves of confusion.

She looked to where it seemed the discord started, singing louder all the while.

Yet it grew darker and violent and--

Melkor.

He would be the one to rebel.

Yet Eru arose and the SONG began a new theme, interweaving the discord into harmony.

It was enough, for a time. The music built, working around and with and through the discord of Melkor, though the buffeting of herself was hard to bear. Yet it was not truly targeted at her, for Melkor had ever been afraid of what she could do. Inescapable holes in the fabric of the universe warped the fabric of the universe yet sent beautiful jets spewing outward. Stars exploding and yet seeding the universe with material for more stars and planets.

Yet the discord grew too great and many silenced themselves. But she did not, for she was not intimidated.

Eru rose again, with a third theme coming into the SONG, an unquenchable theme she could not comprehend though she could play and sing with it even as Melkor’s brass braying tried to disrupt and ruin it. And then the final chord, like none she had heard, like none the Ainur could sing or play, rang out-- and brought the SONG to an end.

Nerdanel broke her gaze when Varda blinked. Her stomach roiled but sheer stubbornness paid off again and she kept her breakfast where it should be. Breathing hard, she pushed herself upright, setting her head pounding.

Varda stood up and gently pushed her back against the chaise lounge. “Rest, Nerdanel.” She took one of the cups and poured a measure of blue liquid into it. “Drain this at once.”

Nerdanel took the cup as Varda sat down on the chaise next to Nerdanel’s outstretched legs, still within reach of the various bottles Nerdanel now guessed were some sort of restoratives. The blue liquid vanquished her nausea. A yellow then removed her headache.

She looked over at Fëanáro to see his eyes still locked with Manwë’s. Varda followed her gaze and said, “Fëanáro is the greatest of the Children of Eru. Not even Manwë knows his capabilities.”

Nerdanel smiled. “I know,” she said simply. “I have seen his mind and his works and those are yet dabblings. What he will do at his height even I dare not guess.”

“You may be the closest of us all,” Varda said. “For he loves you.”

What she wished she had done last night rose in her memory, but she managed to not blush. “Well, we are engaged.”

Varda smiled and handed her a cupful of green liquid. “Have you told anyone else?”

“Not yet,” she said softly. “We’re still figuring things out.”

Varda nodded but before she could say anything, Fëanáro gasped and sat upright in his seat, breathing as hard as the time he’d ran up from the bottom of Túna to Finwë’s palace on a dare. Nerdanel saw a glimmer of what she could only name as hatred in his eyes before it vanished as he turned to her.

Varda promptly handed him the blue liquid. He made a face and drank it, and the other remedies, before saying, “Thank you.”

“You are welcome, Fëanáro,” she said. “You will both need to remain here on Oiolossë for a day or three to recover.”

Nerdanel nodded. “If we may return to our room?”

Manwë said from his seat, “You may, if you can stand.”

Fëanáro promptly tried; Nerdanel, being rather comfortable, did not. When he nearly toppled off the lounge, Fëanáro rolled his eyes and lay back. 

“I suppose we can remain here for a while.”

Manwë stood. “We will send someone in to check on you every so often.” The Elder King and the Lady of the Stars swept out of the room, closing the door gently behind themselves.

“What did you learn?” she said.

“I’m not ready to talk about it,” he said, reaching his arm across the space between them. “Merely that I am glad I know.”

Nerdanel reached out her own arm and met his hand in the middle. It would not be a comfortable position for long, but soon enough, they would be able to walk back to their own room and be comfortable together there.

They both ended up falling asleep, only waking when a Maia walked in. 

She studied them and said, “If you feel like walking…”

Fëanáro was not leisurely about proving he was indeed recovered. Nerdanel stood more slowly, not willing to risk embarrassing herself. But the nap had helped immensely; her limbs no longer felt as if they were disconnected from her torso. “May we have a light lunch in our room?”

The Maia shrugged. “I don’t see why not. If you’re heading back there, I need to make sure neither of you collapse on the way, but no one will bother you there after except to bring you food.”

“Thank you.”

Once the door shut after the lunch trays were removed, Nerdanel collapsed on the bed. Fëanáro spooned against her front, so she wrapped her arm over him, smelling his hair and the faint scent of citrus-scented soap lingering from the night before.

She woke up at Mingling, during Laurelin’s fading. She carefully extracted herself from the bed, letting Fëanáro sleep on. She shook out her numb arm and retrieved her sketchpad from her pack. 

She put the pencil to the page and paused before letting her mind do what it wanted: a representation, or as close as she could come on a flat surface, to the majesty she’d experienced earlier. Even that failed. Sketch after sketch did until she finally gave up for the moment and put the sketchpad on the desk.

She took a deep breath and slipped outside onto the balcony, the cold, thin air a welcome change from the warmth of the bedroom. She stood there, studying the stars that shone brighter in the silver light of Telperion, and turned around when the door clicked shut. Fëanáro stood there, hair tangled from sleep and a blanket wrapped around him.

He came over to her and said, looking at the silver-lit vista below them, said, “I learned that Melkor cannot be trusted. Even fair-seeming can hide darkness. He was imprisoned for multiple reasons and I will not forget it.”

Nerdanel nodded. She, too, felt the same. She also more understood Manwë's appreciation of the drawing of Melkor; it fit well with her new knowledge. “Is there anything else?”

Fëanáro shook his head, seeming to shake off the memory of the SONG better than she had. “Only you here in the night without even a cloak on.”

She half-smiled at him. “You could share your blanket.”

“There are more on the bed.”

Yes, there were. She leaned over and kissed him. He dropped one hand holding his blanket shut and pulled her closer, deepening the kiss until they were both out of air. 

“I do not want to wait the traditional year, Nerdanel.”

She tucked her head underneath his chin and huffed.

“I don’t want to wait another week, Fëanáro. Sharing a bed with you and not touching you is the hardest thing I have ever done.” She pulled back to meet his eyes. “We tell my parents first. A quiet celebration--”

“With all of your siblings and the apprentices and journeymen and everyone else,” he said with a laugh. “It will be quieter than when Tirion learns of our engagement. Nor do I want the entire city as witnesses at our wedding. My father and your family at your family’s place will be enough. One season more, no longer.”

“But no shorter, either.” She knew nearly as well as he did that some things needed planning, even if it was a private wedding; the celebration in Tirion afterward would not be private. “Let’s go inside. A hot bath will warm me up.” 

She stepped away from him and put her hand on the doorknob, looking back at him with a sly smile. “You may join me, if you wish.”

Fëanáro's brilliant smile was all the answer she needed.