Mentelossë Fingoniel

It wasn’t necessary to wait in the wings, watching the other dancers until her cue arrived. In truth, it was easy to be in the way if lots of dancers were coming on and off the stage, with crew waiting nearby to help with set changes or quick costume swaps. Lossrilleth did it anyway, in whatever spot she could find that was not being used, simply because she loved to watch them. She’d made dance her whole life, and maybe surprisingly, she was nowhere near getting bored of it. 

The more she had learned about ballet, and about all the shows and their myriad variations in choreography, the more she saw when she watched. As a child, it had all just looked beautiful and magical, and that was good. Now, it looked skillful and artful. And that was good, too. 

And sometimes it looked just plain impressive, which is what she was watching now. Glorfindel and Mentelossë were far into their careers — old for dancers, but they’d only gotten better as they matured. Not to mention, the strength of their own marriage made their romantic pas de deux positively dreamy. 

Lossrilleth sighed. The curtain at her shoulder wavered. She got the sense someone was behind her. Instinctively, she flattened herself out of the way to let another dancer by. But — wait. The pas de deux wasn’t over. She was in the next full scene after that and the rest of the corp hadn’t even arrived to line up for their entrance yet. She looked back over her shoulder and smiled when she saw who it was. 

The bluebird was a technically impressive solo. Her boyfriend was rightfully proud to have the part, and she’d be the first to tell anyone that he’d been killing it every night. 

It didn’t change the fact that his costume was absurd. It was bright, peacock blue, with feathers, sequins, and even a ‘crown’ that she was sure really would be a thing to inspire jealousy among male birds. His very blue, very shiny tights left nothing to the imagination. At all. She covered her mouth to keep from giggling. 

Legolas rolled his eyes at her, but he was smiling back. He’d been wearing the thing for weeks now. There wasn’t a joke about it he hadn’t heard yet. 

He inched closer, peeking past her to see where Glorfindel and Mentelossë were in their pas de deux. 

“Watching the resident power couple?” he whispered in her ear.

She shook her head at him. Making noise was the one thing she would not get away with backstage. 

He took another step closer and pulled her back against his chest so he could speak directly in her ear. 

“Planning our future? Should I be worried?”

She shook her head again, twisting her head to give him a dirty look over her shoulder. He hugged her and she gave up, leaning back and letting him support her weight while they watched the impressive senior dancers wow the audience. 

The pas de deux was winding down. Now, the transition, and then, she was on. She took a step forward so she could go join the line that must be forming a few curtains closer to the front of the stage. Something tugged at her, pulling her back. 

“Legolas!” she hissed. “Let me go!”

He put a hand on her arm, keeping her from leaving. “Uh, wait,” he whispered. It didn’t sound romantic. It sounded… panicked. 

She turned to look at him — or she tried to — and heard a ripping sound at the same time she felt something tug again. 

“Stop!” he hissed. 

She craned her head over her shoulder but couldn’t see. If she’d ruined her dress, Nibenaes would have her head… She reached a hand back to feel, and ran into Legolas’s hands. He was frantically trying fiddling with…. was that her zipper? Caught on one of his feathers?

Lossrilleth’s head whipped up. She listened to the music, trying to judge how much time she had left. She tried to fiddle with her zipper and he batted her hand away. She felt sweat trickle down her back. 

“I have to get in line!” she said, her teeth gritted. 

“I’m trying!”

”Oh my god, try harder! Just—“

She felt her face getting even warmer when a figure appeared at the end of the curtain, then another. They were being loud! Their costumes were stuck! The corps was going to go on stage with an odd number— sacrilege!

Glorfindel and Mentelossë, the famous stars, tiptoed towards the young couple, smirking wickedly. With practiced hands, they teased them apart. Mentë shooed Lossrilleth away to get in line with an encouraging pat on the arm. 

Lossy arrived just in the nick of time, plastered her most professional ballerina smile on her face, and seconds later she was twirling onto the stage, the suddenness of the lights dazzling her. 

She risked a look down after a pirouette and caught a glimpse of— horrifying— her skirt, missing one of its appliqué roses. She hoped her thick application of stage makeup hid her burning face from the audience. 

(~***~)

Legolas watched Lossrilleth on the stage, catching the moment when she realized they’d had to rip a flower off her dress to free her. She may not be a soloist yet, but he had to give it to her, she was very much a professional dancer. Her smile didn’t crack for a second. 

Glorfindel was hovering nearby. He’d appointed himself Legolas’s mentor ever since he’d gotten this solo, which was apparently a fond favorite from Glorfindel’s younger days. He seemed to want to say something.

Legolas shot him a glance, raising one eyebrow as he retreated further into the wings. 

Glorfindel leaned over towards him. “Best not to do the whole ‘cuddling backstage’ thing,” he said. 

“Yeah, I got that,” Legolas said with chagrin. “Lesson learned the hard way, I guess.”

Glorfindel smirked and shrugged one shoulder. “Not really. The one thing about our costumes is that they’re very… revealing. If you’d really learned not to cuddle backstage the hard way—“

”OK! Ok, thank you. Thanks so much, Glorfindel. Point taken. Don’t you need to change or something?”

Glorfindel snickered and headed down the theater stairs. Legolas started to lean against a curtain-covered wall, wanting nothing more than to melt into the background, then thought twice. He didn’t need to get his feathers caught on his girlfriend’s skirt AND the set in one night.