#*my words

Would that I could speak to him as easily as I write, and sing to him of my dreams. But I cannot, and let my unspoken vows be drowned in the molten gold he weaves into light.

Nay, he knows of nothing but the joy of creation, he speaks only in the language of heartrending beauty. His words fill my mind with silver-limned images of artifice and kindness, he paints a portrait of a world filled with a lushness of fathered wonder, a world he can already see with his waking eyes…oh, would that he could also see me. Would that he knew the calling of my heart and draw close to me, close enough so I could catch the scent of the forge still lingering upon his skin, the very autograph of his brilliance.

Tell him not of my longing. Let the gentle shimmer of the jewels he fashions seal my secret in light and sink it into their faceted depths, eternal and changeless.

I know he feels nothing but the heady rush of genesis as delights and marvels spring from beneath his fingertips. His tender touch is only for the coolness of metal awaiting the fire of forming, blossoms of potential. The strength of his arms and the deftness of his hands stay devoted to coaxing a bejewelled possibility from the coolness of stone. The soft glow of his thoughtful gaze only mirrors his wisdom and patience, his smile his passion. If only once, I alone could be graced by that smile. Would that he would hold me, so I may whisper the promises that only the stars and my own tears ever hear to him. If only he could take those sighs and encase them in silver filigree more delicate than starlight upon saltwater, more precious than mithril itself.

But no. I will not burden him with my yearning. I shall let the sparkle of the gems hide my tears deep within their carved hearts, let my sighs fade into the margins of his sketches of maybes, where they cannot trouble him.

My love refuses to acknowledge the closing of the doors of your life upon these shores. My heart sees not your ending. It never will.

I will speak no farewells, and while I may weep, I will shed no tears over the distance now between our souls; not for the most sundering of all seas, nor for the straightest of all roads. In my memory, you are as alive and as vital as the warmth of the sun, forever remembered in the light of an unpassing spring morn as butterfly flickers of light kissed your cheekbones, your proud brow, your hair spun of secret gold. In my memory, I am never far from that morning, regardless of how far your spirit is from me now. I need brave no winter, for I will never allow frost to settle upon my heart and chill my devotion. My love keeps you within me, undimmed by any shadow, untouched by time's passing, never to know the slightest whisper of decay. Whisper no goodbyes, my unexpected love, for I guard you; my remembrance your forever beyond forever. My love as immortal as you ever will be.

I will not let my heart shatter, for I am not letting you go -- in this heart, you are mine to keep in perfect, light-blessed clarity, ever unfading; thus it will stand as a fortress within memory and time. You are endless within me, your brilliance and fire keeping the small spark of my own hope aflame within my sorrow and longing.

My heart shall never say goodbye, even if my voice whispers of our parting to the stars and begs them to halt my tears. My spirit refuses. My love refuses.

I know that you are gone, but in my elven memory you will live forever in a light clearer than that of the stars. The curve of your beautiful smile, the softness and the nightshade intensity in your eyes, the skilfulness of your fingers -- I never saw you craft anything that your people are so lauded for, and this is but another lamentation within the ever-growing ganglion of regret rising upon my wrenched soul -- all that is you, will stay forever in me. Wrapped in my love, safe and evergreen, from now until I hear the sea call, and beyond that into the Healing of Arda.

No.

It is not enough.

It is not enough, my Kíli. I will not be satisfied with it. I cannot quench this love; and I cannot -- will not -- settle for memory. Not even Eldarin memory; dreams awakening.

I cannot be without you. My heart will not rest until my lips touch yours with warmth. My body aches, though I have not moved for days; the pain will not abate until your body is wrapped in my arms. I know this as surely I know that my shattered heart is leading me down the darkest path to Mandos' halls, as surely as I know you are no longer in Middle-earth.

My own amrâlimê. I have whispered the word in your own tongue into the night and the starlight over and over, and it shines as a beacon in my heart. My love. Meleth nîn, uiveleth nîn. This love cannot be soothed, cannot be killed, and yet, I am choosing death willingly. The sacrifice now is mine.

They tell stories of Tinúviel and the mortal man Beren, and how her plea before Mandos moved his stone heart. I go to do the same. But I also go to beseech Aulë -- your Mahal, who knows love himself...he loves the lady of the earth, Yavanna, she who birthed every tree.

Leaf and stone, forest and mountain. I think Aulë will understand. Even the strongest rock changes shape in time.

My only love, our time was too short, but our union is carved in a stone that will never be halved. I leave the Middle-lands that we both loved to find you, to set to rights all that is wrong. They say that Tinuviel and Beren returned, and left again, "in the forest, singing, sorrowless".

We will do the same, my beloved, I swear to you. Be it deep in the starlit forests I love, or beneath the majestic stones you called home, or something that is neither -- it matters not; I will come for you, and I will return with you. Wherever we go, will be made beautiful and real with our love. We will walk in starlight in this world, together. There was none like us before, and nor will there be after, but we were real, amrâlimê. We were real.

The night falls, and the clouds gather. I twist and turn where I lie, and find no respite in the gentleness of darkness.

The walls around me pulse like a frenzied heart. I am the cause.

This I know: a storm lieth in me, and a storm I bring to the hearts of my brother, my King, and my people. The Golden Hall seems to me to be tarnished, and I wonder, in the depths of the endless nights, if I am what turns the gold.

The storm rages and howls against the boundaries of my heart. What thunder cannot escape from my throat pools in my eyes, and I know my stare is limned with icy hail. The people's respect and honour cannot hide the trepidation in their faces when they look upon mine, a lady like a spring morning, they say...whispering, when my back is turned, that mornings in spring also bring frosts.

But my heart is not frozen. It aches, and aches, and aches. The pain and fear I dare not bring to my lips whirls inside me, illuminated by lightning strikes that chase the herds of my thoughts forth into despairing oblivion.

Dare I speak my unhappiness? Dare I be this selfish?

Beautiful is Rohan, and glorious is Meduseld, but my soul aches for something else. It is not enough. It is a cage to any wild spirit clothed in form like mine.

I loved you, once. I still love you. And despite all that has been done, or is about to be, I think I shall always.

But there are flames brighter than your love burning in your vivid eyes, my fiery beloved. The blaze that gives you life will also erase you, this I see upon your horizon like a nightmare of Laurelin blossoming too brightly for eyes to stand. For all the light that you have captured with the skill of the deadliest hunter, the most adept poet, and the finest smith, I also see shadows sighing around you, as faint and deadly as a sudden mist and as definite as eternity.

I do not think you can see eternity anymore, my Fëanor. You have long since lost sight of it, and thus you have also lost sight of my love. Its absence between us creates a great cleft of silence heavier than the hammer blows of Aulë at his forge. I cannot cross it. I will not dare those canyons only to fall weeping at the feet of a blind elf.

Yet, I am able still to see eternity, and for that, I know that I will ever love you. You may forget me, but in my dreams you shall ever burn, oh my flamelike love, and I will draw what comfort and warmth I can from this vision. Even as your darknesses close around you and quench your bright blaze, and our quietude swells and engulfs like the fearful sea, I will remain here upon the shores of memory.

And so, I have refused your pity. Like the day I stood upon the edge of a world set ablaze with blood and fury, I turn my face from you.

Not out of lack of love. Never out of lack of love. Perhaps you will understand this. Maybe you never will. Since the light of eternity faded from the Blessed Lands, all has become doubtful and strange.

It stirs something in me, this change. An unrest, perhaps, the whisper of a worry that I have no true name for.

And yet...I do not fear.

Why is this? I believe time will tell. And I now how have all the time in this strange new world, falling at my feet, wrapping around my fingers.

Time, and dreams enough, to illuminate the darkness that remains with my own power. To paint a world that is my own, finally. A place carved out of my dreams, from swathes of sunrises and all the colours of the memory of light.

I will have it. Perhaps not now. Perhaps many countless years from now, when even this world changes its shape and destiny beneath the feet of the returning Noldor. But I see it in my visions, as if through a fog gentled with morning sun: a land, limned in golden leaves and light, sweetened with song...this, my own Dream.