#elesianne's fics

Carnistir stands up. 'Let's go outside.' Something physical to do will be easier for them both.

Moriel looks confused. 'We always do mathematics in the morning and outdoor and workshop lessons in the afternoons.'

'Today we're going to have archery practice in the morning and return to tackling arithmetic after lunch.'

He is not going to interrogate Moriel about why she is so restless. She will tell him when he is ready, he knows. He was the same as a child.

He picks up Vaniel from the sturdy wicker basket where she has been babbling quietly to herself. Her chubby cheeks spread to a wide answering smile when he smiles down at her. She is such a happy baby, content to wait in her basket during Moriel's morning lessons, easily soothed by warm thoughts from Carnistir if she becomes bored or disgruntled.

'Let us go see if your mother can look after you, sweetheart', Carnistir says to Vaniel, smoothing down her wrinkled tunic. She says something in reply but for now, her words are all her own, incomprehensible to others. She will speak soon, though, Tuilindien says, and her intuitions about their children tend to be right.

Moriel grabs the empty basket and the three of them make their way to Tuilindien's study a few doors down.

Moriel throws open the door and declares loudly to her mother, swinging the basket in her hands, 'I cannot keep still and arithmetic is boring today so papa and I are going to shoot some arrows.'

Carnistir wonders how his child inherited Makalaurë and Curufinwë's flair for drama. Well, it is Fëanáro's flair for drama, originally, so his father is to blame for this too.

Tuilindien puts down her quill. Carnistir is sorry to have interrupted her writing.

'Is that so?' she asks and comes to them, wide yellow skirt swishing quietly. 'Vaniel will be staying with me, then.' She takes the baby from Carnistir and kisses her cheek. 'Yes, my little darling, you are far too young for archery.'

'I am sorry for the intrusion on your work', Carnistir says while Moriel puts down the basket on Tuilindien's long desk and then sets to making faces for Vaniel to laugh at.

'It is all right. I would probably have had to come to feed her soon anyway. Well, Moriel dear, I wish you the best of luck. Any day now you'll outshoot your father.'

Moriel preens. 'He's not very good.'

Carnistir gives in to the childish temptation to roll his eyes while Tuilindien tries to hide her grin. 'I'm better with a hunting spear', he says.

'You should teach me to use it, then', says Moriel, snake-quick to take the opportunity.

'I'm not giving you a spear yet.'

'You could', Moriel argues, and they argue about it all the while they go change for archery and gather the things they need and make their way to the little practice area that is partially in the garden and partially in the orchard behind it.

It is a years-long argument already. Carnistir knows he will give in soon.

They practise for a while, starting by stretching and then Moriel shoots at the different targets while Carnistir corrects her stance and grip and other small things that he still knows a little better than she does. If Moriel's interest and improvement in archery endures, Carnistir will soon have to ask Tyelkormo to take over teaching her.

Suddenly, in the middle of attempting to hit the farthest target, Moriel lowers her bow and says, 'I don't like the way I look. I don't look like anyone.'

Carnistir's confusion must show because Moriel clarifies, 'Not like anyone in the family.'

Carnistir takes her bow and his and puts them down on the bench, sitting down next to them and drawing Moriel with him to sit beside him.

'I could list all your body parts and who they look like', he offers lamely. Her mother's skin tone, his freckles and eyes, the same texture as hair as Tuilindien has but the colour from him…

'No.' Moriel scoffs. 'As a whole I don't look like anyone in the family and I don't like it.'

Carnistir's first instinct is to protest, to deny that it matters at all who or what she looks like. But he knows from painful personal experience that it does – it took him until the moment of Moriel's birth to make his peace with his own looks – and he knows that Moriel often finds more value in logic and method than simple declarations of what is important in the speaker's opinion.

He begins at her very expanded family. 'I think that when you have more cousins – more great-grandchildren of grandfather Finwë, I mean – there will be more people in the family who look like you. Itarillë does, though she is still small.'

'Very small.' Moriel scrunches up her nose. 'She is never going to be tall, even when she grows up.'

'Well, her Vanya mother is short unlike yours. Let's see.' He leans against the back of the bench, warm in the light, Moriel a light, warm weight against his side. 'Cousin Findekáno –'

'Half-cousin', Moriel corrects, parroting her grandfather. This once Carnistir wishes she didn't. It is not conducive to what he is trying to say.

'Findekáno looks a lot like you', Carnistir plods on. 'With curly black hair and grey eyes and brown skin –'

'Darker than mine', Moriel interrupts again.

Carnistir ruffles her hair. 'Let me make my point, pipsqueak. He looks a lot like you. Perhaps, if you want to give your grandfather conniptions, you should wear your hair braided with gold one day.'

Moriel snorts. 'Only if I'm very angry with him some day.'

'There's a plan. To my next point: yes, you don't look very much like any of your cousins or aunts or uncles. Well, no one looks like Tyelkormo either, do they? Or me. My face is so different from Curvo and Cáno's.'

Moriel nods, grudgingly admitting the point.

'I still wish', she says. 'All of my Vanyarin cousins look so different from me, too.'

'They do', Carnistir admits. 'Because unfortunately none of your aunts had the good sense to marry a Noldo.'

That doesn't inspire laughter. Carnistir thought it rather funny.

Detaching Moriel from his side and turning to face her, he says, drawing gentleness from within himself and resorting to the approach he originally abandoned, 'It does not matter if you don't look much like anyone in the family. In our closest little family – you, me, your mama and Vaniel – no one looks much like anyone else but we belong together anyway.'

'We do.' Moriel sighs, and Carnistir can practically see her shoulders lose some of their tension.

He draws her in for a long hug, and she comes willingly now. Blowing frizzy curls out of his mouth and carding his fingers through them, Carnistir says, 'You will likely have more little sisters or brothers someday and they may well look like you.'

Without lifting her head, Moriel mumbles, 'It is not just that I don't look much like anyone I'm related to but also that… sometimes I feel that I am too tall and too strong. I have big hands and I'm as broad and tall as Tyelpë. It isn't… no maiden of song ever looks like that. I don't think I'm very pretty.'

What rot, Carnistir thinks, and considers saying so. Then he realises that he should not pause to think for too long lest she think that he agrees with her.

'I don't agree', he says, to make it as clear as possible.

'Of course you think I'm pretty. I am your daughter so you are biased.' She pulls away from him.

And she is sullen again. Carnistir sighs.

His father said something once about temperamental children usually growing into parents of temperamental children. Carnistir hates it when he is proven right.

'I think that songs and poems are often utter rot when it comes to people', he says, picking words one by one like flowers, careful. 'Too many of them only describe some stereotypical ideals. Only maidens with dark hair and white skin and maidens with golden hair and dark skin, isn't that so? Only the extremes, somehow that is poetic or romantic or something. But it is not true at all that only women who look like that are beautiful.

'The truth is', he says, growing rather heated now, 'that people think all sorts of people are pretty or handsome and like all sorts of people. And just as true is that when one day you start thinking of… marrying sort of things...'

He realises that he has raised his voice. Perhaps that is good? Perhaps it will help Moriel believe him.

He carries on doggedly even though, as he utters each word, he fears failing her. 'When you meet someone you love, even then it doesn't matter what those over-decorated peacocks at court think a beautiful person looks like, or the over-romantic souls who write the popular songs.

'When it matters – when it is someone that matters to you, and you matter to them – that is the only time that your looks will matter –'

Too many matters, he thinks, yet carries on.

'Then they – that person – will not be measuring you up in their mind or summing up your flaws. They'll be looking at you and they'll see you and if they find your – your strong will and your keen eye and your vigilant care of your sister beautiful, then they'll find you beautiful.'

Moriel listens quietly, dark eyes intent on his, clutching a bent arrow in her hand still.

Carnistir ends, words still sticky on his tongue, with, 'What is to you beauty unseen will be blindingly bright for someone who loves you. As it already is to your mother and me.'

'Is that from a poem?' Moriel asks. 'From beauty unseen to blindingly bright.'

Carnistir can feel colour rise to his cheeks. 'No, it is just… the words that I arrived at when I thought about this.'

'You're always saying that you're not a poet. But you might be, secretly', Moriel says in the same tone as she might say an insult. It is hypocritical of her since she enjoys almost all music and much of poetry, too.

'I'm not a poet', Carnistir says. 'Only your father. And – and I'm not handsome', he adds. Tuilindien is always telling him not to say so but he has always believed in being honest to himself and about himself. 'But your mother loves me', he says to Moriel. 'The reason she did not marry me as soon as I'd have liked had nothing to do with what I look like, or it did in that way that only she can see.'

Moriel still looks dubious but she says, 'You are very happy. You and mama.'

'Yes, we are. Moriel, my darling, there is – I do not have good words for it but as I said there is a connection of spirits between friends and family that has little to do with looks and everything with, with what sort of a spirit you have.' The words are pouring out of him. 'If you like what a person's fëa is like you will like their hröa too. I never thought the Vanyar so beautiful before I met your mother.'

'I am brave', Moriel says, and she is, too foolhardy for even Carnistir's taste. 'I'm loyal like grandpapa Fëanáro is always saying we should be to our family and friends. I learn many things fast and I am a good sister to Vaniel and a good cousin to Tyelpë.'

'You are', Carnistir agrees, his chest tight at his brave girl's summary of herself. His lesson to her has become all muddled, but she seems to be taking some solace in it, and that is the important thing. 'You are smart and strong. Strength is beautiful, and skill.' Thinking of Moriel's patience and care with her baby sister, he adds, 'And kindness. A deeper beauty.'

'I also get grumpy too easily like you.' And she is honest like him, straight-spoken. 'But I know how to ask for forgiveness.'

'You have learned to do it much faster than I did.'

'You're a good teacher, papa.' Moriel pulls a grimy handkerchief out of her pocket and blows her nose on it. Carnistir makes a mental note to get her a clean one when they go inside.

She drops the bent arrow on the ground and picks up her bow. 'Let's shoot again.'

'Alright', Carnistir concedes. If Moriel doesn't have more to say, he doesn't know what to say either. 'Let us start by fetching the arrows you have shot so far.'

He goes to pull out the arrows Moriel managed to shoot into the targets while she searches around for the ones that fell short.

She sees that two embedded themselves into trees, and grimaces as she pulls them out.

'We will hear about this from the gardener and your mother both', Carnistir notes, grimacing as well.

He watches Moriel use all her strength to pull a stubbornly embedded arrow from a yavannamírë tree, the muscles in her bare forearms tensing.

'I know who you look like', he says. He doesn't know how he did not see it before.

With a hoop of victory and a few stumbling steps backwards, Moriel manages to pull out the arrow.

'Who?' she asks, bringing the arrows to their shooting line.

'My mother.' Even as Moriel begins protesting, Carnistir begins listing. 'You are tall and broad-shouldered, and nimble-fingered and strong-armed, and you have freckles you inherited from me and her. The different hair and skin is a small thing compared to all that. I believe that when you are grown and stand side by side with her, the resemblance will be remarkable.'

Moriel is quiet, the bunch of arrows still in her hand. 'I think I would like that. Especially if I will be as skilled as she is.'

'You will be. You have the same passion, and learning will be easier when you are naturally strong.'

As long as Moriel has known how to say it, she has been saying that she wants to be a smith. What kind of smith she intends to become changes every week, but the passion burns steady.

'Thank you, papa', Moriel says abruptly. 'I know you don't like talking about things like this and you think that mama is better at it. But sometimes I need… she is so nice; you know how she is. Sometimes it is too much for me.'

Carnistir clears his throat. 'Let's shoot twenty arrows, then we go inside for lunch. And then you need to talk with your mother, too, about whatever it is she wanted to talk to you about.'

Moriel stares at the targets, then turns to Carnistir with a grin, almost herself again. 'If I hit the farthest target on more than half of my tries, can I get two portions of dessert?'

He is too soft with her, he knows he is, yet he says, 'If you promise to eat enough actual lunch too.'

'I promise.'

She hits that target on all but one of her tries.

*

Part II

At dinner that evening, Moriel can see her mother stealing glances at her, probably to see if what was causing her restlessness earlier in the day has passed. Her mother is not much good at subtlety, and it doesn't take long for Moriel to grow tired of her concerned looks.

She puts down her spoon with too much of a clatter. 'Mama, I am all right', she says.

'Blurgh', says Vaniel who is getting acquainted with soup for the first time. She does not seem very impressed.

'I am glad if you are', mother says. 'Did the archery help, then?'

'Mm.' Moriel picks up her spoon and starts eating her soup again. It is good even if Vaniel doesn't think so. 'And papa and I talked.'

'You did?' Mother glances at father in that way they have. Moriel knows they are talking about her without saying anything.

'Don't do that', she grumbles. 'Please', she remembers to add though not before her mother's chastising look.

'Very well, I will ask you directly, then', mother acquiesces. 'Did talking with your papa help with whatever was on your mind?'

'It did.' Vaniel splashes at her soup, poking at it with a finger before father can stop her. Moriel gives her her dessert spoon to play with instead.

'I am glad', mother says again. 'There is something I have been meaning to talk to you about as well, Moriel dear.'

In her excitement, Moriel drops her spoon again. 'My name?'

She does not have a mother-name. She is unusually old for that but she hasn't minded it much so far, not really.

Many years ago mother asked her if it would be all right with her to wait a bit longer to see if she gets some special insight for a name, like mothers sometimes do, and Moriel said that it was. Then, a year ago, when she hadn't received any foresight or anything like that, mother had told Moriel of a name she'd thought of for her, a bird's name. Mother has a bird name – from tuilindo, swallow – and so do her sisters and many of their children.

She had asked, 'Do you like the name?' and Moriel had said no, because she didn't. It didn't feel like hers.

Mother had looked sad but said, 'Then it is not your name.'

'Maybe – maybe not a bird name', Moriel had said. She couldn't say why not, though; she didn't know. She does like birds.

Mother had accepted it. 'I will think of another kind of name, then. It will likely take some time. It turns out that I am very slow at naming children.'

Now mother says, with a smile at Moriel's enthusiasm, 'Yes, your name.'

'Tell me! Please', Moriel adds at a disapproving grunt from her father's direction.

Mother laughs and asks, 'Do you want to know right here and now, or wait until after dinner when we can talk, just you and I? Either way', she continues despite Moriel beginning to ask for her name now, 'please, mama'.

'Either way', mother says, 'you can refuse it if it doesn't feel like yours, and I will keep trying.'

'Now', says Moriel. She tries to keep from falling off her chair in her excitement.

(She is very old not to have a mother-name. Even Tyelpë, who is almost always nice and incidentally received his mother-name at one day old, has remarked on it.)

'Elerrína', says mother, her smile the same nervous one now that it is when she talks with grandpapa Fëanáro. 'I hope that perhaps you do not mind being named after a mountain?'

Elerrína is one of the names of Taniquetil, the holy mountain where mother grew up. Moriel thinks that it might be the least used one. She knows it only from songs, but she knows that it means 'crowned with stars'. Taniquetil is very high but not so high as to reach the stars, so it is a sort of poetic near-sensible name.

'Elerrína', Moriel says, testing the weight and shape of it on her tongue. It is longer and prettier than Moriel. It is similar in meaning if not form to aunt Tinweriel's name.

'For your freckles, my darling', mother says.

'Oh', says Moriel. She likes that. The name makes her freckles sound beautiful.

'I don't mind being named after a mountain', she says to her mother decisively. 'I want to be Elerrína. It's a mountain where Vanyar live and it's my Vanyarin name. Moriel is my Noldorin name.'

'You can take some time to decide which you prefer to be called.'

'I don't need time. I want to be called Moriel in Tirion and Elerrína on the plains and in Valmar and on Taniquetil. But you can always call me Moriel', she nods at her father, 'and mama, I like the way you say Elerrína, you can call me by it anywhere.'

'Being called by a different name in a different place is unconventional but it sounds like something that will fit you well', her mother. She gets up and comes to hug Moriel, pressing a kiss on her head. 'I am glad that you like the name', she whispers in her ear. 'I am sorry it took me so long to think of it.'

Moriel hugs her back. 'I didn't mind. I like being Moriel, too. Moriel Elerrína', she says, feeling out the combination. 'My name has rather a lot of r's.'

'Suits you', says father.

Moriel squints at him dubiously. She decides that she is too happy to get vexed.

Mother goes back to her own chair. 'I am already considering mother-names for Vaniel so that she might not have to wait as long', she says. 'I have learned, now, that I should not wait for any sort of foresight to inspire a name. It seems that that gift has passed me by though my father sometimes has inklings of things yet to happen.'

And from there mother and father launch into a long discussion about knowing things in advance of them happening. Moriel is not interested in it so she goes back to eating, tasting and savouring her new name along with every spoonful of soup.

'Elerrína, Elerrína', she whispers to herself. 'Star-crowned.'

'Sarrrb', says Vaniel.

'Quite so', Moriel agrees. 'Star-crowned.' She wipes mushed pea from Vaniel's cheek. Father is distracted with mother and not keeping much of an eye on Vaniel. It's alright; Moriel likes helping her during meals.

'I hope that mother will think of as pretty a name for you', Moriel says to her little sister.

*

A/N: In Names of insight, foresight, love I had Nerdanel asking her children whether they liked their mother-names before making the final choice of naming them thus. Tuilindien has the kind of nature where she would happily follow Nerdanel's example so I wrote her doing so.

'Thank you, that's very thoughtful of you. Alarca is not joining us, then?' Findis would happily welcome Írimë's wife to join in her wedding morning preparations. Alarca and Írimë married young while Findis herself is certainly not marrying young. She and Alarca have had years to become like sisters, too.

'No, she's helping Nolvo and Anairë with their young terrors, no doubt persuading Írissë into her dress while Nolvo and Anairë run circles after Arakáno. You know how much she likes them.'

'I do, and I see why. Írissë and Arakáno are adorable.' Findis sets the vase she found for the flowers on a table by the window and goes to look for her dressing gown, flung carelessly somewhere by Vórimo when he'd come to say her goodnight last night and one goodnight kiss had led to several, and a few wandering hands too.

Findis blushes as she picks the dressing gown from the floor by the door as discreetly as she can. It's a wonder Írimë hasn't noticed and made fun of her yet.

Írimë appears to be busy peering out the window, hands on her hips, her own bright purple dressing gown a lively shadow in the golden light pouring in. 'It looks like good weather', she announces. 'Barely any clouds. Even Manwë is glad that you're finally getting married.'

'Írimë!' Findis huffs, then laughs. 'You promised you wouldn't tease me about it any more. It is hardly my fault that I didn't happen to meet the one who is right for me before I was already past my youth.'

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry.' Írimë spreads her arms. 'I did promise. And I am here to serve you, dear sister, on this most happy day.' She executes a perfect yet also, somehow, ridiculous bow. 'I do mean to put you in a better mood, not to add your nervousness.'

She comes over to fuss with the flowers, rearranging them in the vase. 'I still find it strange, by the way', she says to Findis over her shoulder, 'that you were so nervous at your engagement feast and now about saying your marriage vows even though you perform before audiences every week.'

'True, I am not nervous when I am performing. But today is not a performance of music.' Findis sits down on the long blue settee that is the most comfortable piece of furniture in her sitting room.

There are butterflies in her stomach, and they are much less lovely there than among flowers. She does not know whether she can eat the breakfast when it arrives.

'You could treat it as a performance of sorts', Írimë suggests, sitting down next to Findis.

'Wouldn't that cheapen it?'

'I don't think anything can cheapen what you and Vórimo have.' Írimë knocks her shoulder into Findis's. 'It will all be well. It is a happy occasion for you – to everyone else besides you two, even, since neither of you appear to have left behind any spurned would-be lovers – and the part that takes part before a crowd of people is only a formality, anyway.'

Findis leans on her sister a little. 'I only wish I'd been able to persuade father not to invite half of Tirion and half of Valmar, and a good number of people from Taniquetil too.'

'There are no words yet invented that could persuade him not to throw a grand party for every one of his children and grandchildren who gets married. He loves happy gatherings like this more than anything else in life, I think sometimes.'

Findis smiles. 'Indeed, and that says no bad thing about him.'

'Hmm. Quite.'

They sit in silence, waiting for breakfast to be brought.

When it is, they carry it to the table by the window and just as they sit down to eat, their mother slips in the door. 'Good morning, girls!'

Lalwen and Findis roll their eyes at each other. They have not been girls for a long time.

'Good morning, mother', says Findis and gets up to get a hug and kiss from her mother, an inescapable and rather dear ritual.

'Findis is nervous', Írimë says baldly as soon as they have all sat down again. 'So perhaps we should talk of other things than her getting married today.'

They do. About Írimë's new horse, about little Írissë's refusal to wear anything but white and the amount of laundry that that refusal results in, about the song Findis and her mother have been composing together but did not quite manage to finish before Findis' wedding and imminent departure for Valmar.

'We can continue our collaboration by letter', Indis suggests.

Findis laughs and protests. 'You know what happens every time that we try that. We end up with two versions of the same song because both of us are too impatient to wait for the other's contributions.'

'That is true', Indis admits. 'Well, the song will keep until you return here or we meet on Taniquetil for a festival.'

Time passes strangely during the breakfast as it tends to do when one both dreads and looks forward to something, and soon it is time to dress. Indis slips into her glorious yet stately dress quickly and comes to lace Findis into hers, a confection of golden satin and lace, a mix of Vanyarin and Noldorin styles.

Findis smooths down the skirt, a little self-conscious of the dress that is bigger and showier than she usually wears. She turns around to ask Írimë, who has not seen her wedding dress before, what she thinks.

'What are you wearing!' she finds herself gasping in horror instead. By her side, Indis wheezes in laughter, bent almost in two, tears in her eyes.

Írimë is dressed already, her dress apparently simple enough to get into that she managed it on her own. But that is the only simple thing about it – it is an assault on the eyes in every other way.

Írimë grins, hands on her hips, happy as a clam in the monstrosity of a dress that combines bright orange and mint green. Strangely, both are colours that on their own look lovely on Írimë. Not at all strangely, they look horrible worn together.

And there are ruffles, and frills, and ribbons, far too much of all of them, dozen-fold compared to what Írimë, usually an impeccable dresser, tends to wear.

'Who made that for you?' Findis asks when Írimë gives a little twirl, all the better to draw attention to the clashing, supernumerary details of her horrible garment. 'What seamstress deigned to sew that for you, and what madwoman designed it?'

She does not know whether to laugh or cry.

'Do you not like it, sister? It is very special.' Írimë preens even more.

'So special as to cause blindness', their mother wheezes out before collapsing in a chair in laughter.

Findis approaches Írimë. 'Do you – do you like it?' she asks hesitantly.

Írimë smiles. 'Only because it made you forget your nervousness for a while.' She begins undressing herself. Still confused, Findis helps.

Írimë pulls another dress out of the folds of the linen fabric she'd brought the horrible dress wrapped in. Findis helps with that, too, and soon Írimë is wearing a lovely dress that is mint green but, significantly, not orange, and has no ruffles or frills whatsoever.

'Very nice', complements their mother who has finally recovered from her fit of laughter.

'A great improvement', Findis agrees. She cannot help laughing. 'The way your mind works, Írimë, to come up with surprising me with such a horror of a dress! And it is rather a waste of fabric and work, too.'

'There! I told you, mother, I was going to make her laugh on her wedding day.' Írimë grins and adds, 'Do not worry, Findis, the fabric and the work of the seamstress are not wasted. I intend on wearing the dress to the next party honouring Fëanáro or one of his brood.'

'You wouldn't', Findis says with half reproach and half laughter on her tongue, but she isn't quite sure what her sister is capable of.

'Hmm', says Írimë. 'I just might. But now! Look at you, sister.' She circles around Findis, making approving noises while Indis smiles fondly, looking at the both of them.

'You are a lovely sight, Findis', she says.

Findis does like her wedding dress, even if it is ostentatious. Eärwen made the lace for it, lace of golden flowers overlaid on lighter golden satin of silk. It has a long train of lace, too, the work of many skilled hands.

'You glow', Írimë declares at the end of her perusal. 'All of you. The dress goes very well together with your skin and hair.'

'Your hair does shine too, darling', Indis agrees.

'Never as much as yours.' Findis touches her hair, a little self-conscious about it. It is neither golden like her mother, Írimë and Arafinwë's nor very dark like Fëanáro and Nolofinwë's, but brown, a mix of her parents like her name.

'I am certain that your radiance will blind Vórimo, or at the very least strike him dumb, and not in the way that my other dress would have struck Alarca.' Írimë takes Findis's hand, and Indis the other. 'Let us take you to your eagerly awaiting beloved so you two can get married at last.'

Aredhel quietens them with a sharp command and draws her blade. Maeglin has already drawn his. There is no way to hide, not on this grass plain, so they stand and look around and listen and wait. 'We are in the land of my cousins', she reminds her son. 'And they keep it under tight guard. It is unlikely to be orcs.' And indeed, in a moment they hear noises, and they are those of dogs, not wolves or orcs. Aredhel cocks her head and listens closely to the deepest bark. 'Huan', she says, smiling widely. 'Lómion, it is my cousins. Or Celegorm, at least.' She whistles, long and loud, the signal that she and Celegorm long ago used on their hunts to summon the other. At once there is the sound of galloping hooves. Soon another pack of dogs led by Huan rushes to greet Aredhel's, and Celegorm and Curufin and a group of scouts in leather armour rides to surround Aredhel and Maeglin. It is very loud again, all of the dogs greeting and sniffing each other. 'Sheathe your sword', Aredhel tells Maeglin. 'These are my cousins.' 'Írissë! You look well. Pale, though.' With a wide grin, Celegorm brings his horse to a stop right next to her and swings down from the saddle, bending down to scratch the ears of every dog that crowds around him and Huan. 'What brings you to this part of our land?' he asks Aredhel. 'Running back to your brothers, are you, without even coming to say greet us along the way?' It is said more amiably than she'd have expected; as if hundreds of years have not passed since they last saw each other. He was not home when she did try to visit him. 'Írissë.' Here is Curufin too, with his calculating eyes on Maeglin. 'Who is this? Your son?' 'He is.' Aredhel takes Maeglin's arm and speaks proudly. 'Maeglin Lómion is his name, and he is coming with me. Lómion, these are my cousins, Celegorm whom I used to call Tyelko and Curufin who was Curvo, lords of Himlad.' Celegorm and Curufin nod at Maeglin, and all three look at each other warily. Aredhel could hardly have expected more at the first meeting, she supposes. She stifles a sigh of impatience. 'Why did you stop here?' Celegorm asks. 'Though it is good that you did, I must say. I think we'd have ridden past each other without ever knowing it if you hadn't.' Aredhel explains how her horse tripped and became lame, and says, 'We were downwind of you and my dogs smelled yours on the wind, I think. Maeglin and I certainly didn't hear you.' 'And we you', Curufin agrees. 'We were too far.' 'Good thing that it is a windy day.' Aredhel raises her eyes to Celegorm's. He is the one she was always closer to, and the one who she feels she has more to explain to. 'We find ourselves in need of assistance. A fresh horse, or time at your house to let mine recover.' 'It is always windy in Himlad', Celegorm says, a spark of something in his pale eyes. 'Come to the Pass with us, stay while your horse recovers', Curufin invites. 'Our master of horses will have her well soon again.' 'Or stay longer', says Celegorm. Aredhel turns to pat her horse. 'Thank you.' 'Is she well enough to ride?' Celegorm approaches her and her horse. Aredhel swats away his hand when he reaches down to examine the mare's leg. 'No need for that. I can tell that she shouldn't if it can be avoided.' 'That is easy enough. Ride with me.' Easy as anything, Celegorm turns back to his own horse. 'You can ride with me, mother.' Maeglin barely covers his scowling at Celegorm. 'My horse is larger', says Celegorm, and it is, another in a line of massive stallions that Aredhel used to teasingly call brutes even though any horse Celegorm chose and trained was always smarter and better-trained than most horses in Valinor or Beleriand. 'Írissë?' Celegorm prompts. 'Let me run up my stirrups', she says, and to Maeglin, 'It is alright. I am used to riding with him.' Stirrups safely pulled up and fastened in place on her mare's saddle, Aredhel takes Celegorm's hand and swings herself up on his big horse. Behind him – though she found herself in need of 'saving', she is no maiden in distress and does not need to be held by him. Still. She never rode like this with Eöl, chest to his back, trusting him to guide the horse. Oh, Valar, she thinks as they begin their slow journey north to the fortress in the Pass while Curvo and the scouts continue on their planned route. She'd missed Celegorm much more than she has realised. * The two of them sit before the fire in Celegorm's hall late into the night, long after Maeglin and Celebrimbor have gone to bed, Aredhel's dogs dozing at her feet and Huan at Celegorm's. They talk of many things without quite touching on the most hurtful ones, their tongues more careful than perhaps ever before. Aredhel tells Celegorm of her marriage in sparse words that conceal as much as they reveal, though by the look on Celegorm's face he hears many things she does not say. He bites his lip and says little. It must be nearing midnight when Celegorm rises, as abrupt in his moves as he always was, saying only, 'I'll be back soon.' 'I'll be here', Aredhel says. The Quenya words are still a delight on her tongue. She had to keep Quenya buried deep within herself for so long. Here there is no need for it, and indeed Celegorm had told her to speak the language of their shared youth. She settles back in her chair to wait, petting the ears of her most watchful dog who awoke and stood up as soon as Celegorm did. He is a faithful friend. He does come back soon, with a sword in its scabbard in his hand. He drops it in her lap unceremoniously. 'Curvo was experimenting on making more resilient blades – damn, it must be well over two centuries ago now. We hadn't given up hope on seeing you again yet so he made a sword for you too.' Aredhel draws the sword from its scabbard, careful of her curious dog's sniffing nose. The blade glitters even in the low light, reflecting the dying flames in the hearth, as she examines it. 'My weight and length', she remarks. 'A fine weapon, and the size of sword I always liked.' 'In all ways, the sword you always liked. Only the technique by which the blade was forged is different.' Aredhel raises her eyes to meet Celegorm's. He seems uncharacteristically serious, with a hint of that cold fury that took over him when he found out why she and her son were riding their horses ragged as they headed away from Nan Elmoth. 'You kept this for a long time', she says. 'Though you did not know if you could ever give it to me.' 'Things here, with me and Curvo, are the same as ever; you are welcome here with us', he says, echoing his words from when they were riding together on his horse. 'And with you and me?' Aredhel asks, still running her finger down the smooth, sharp blade. 'Am I still your friend? Still welcome in your bed?' He shouldn't be surprised at her forthrightness, but he seems to be. 'Yes, and yes', he says as soon as he recovers, as if both of those things are as simple as that. And they aren't to her, not really though she asked so baldly. Their old friendship that occasionally included falling into bed together feels changed now, however much she wishes it were the same. She stares at the fire, feeling herself slipping from flippant to as serious as he is.

Dear, dear Tyelko.

She says, 'You are…. a constant friend me, Tyelko, when you are not burning ships to keep me from following.' That is an old hurt and an old insult whose edge time and previous confrontations and their enduring mutual affection have worn dull, and without dwelling on it more Aredhel continues, 'Perhaps one day I will knock on your door again, if you are serious; I married, and had a son, and left my husband. And still you say that things are the same between us.' 'Your child has nothing to do with me and is a man grown anyway, and you left your husband, and you are the same as you ever were, Írissë. Your hair windswept and your white hems mud-splattered, running from one thing to another with your howling pack of dogs at your heels. Beautiful and free-hearted and strong-armed.' She can barely look at him when he talks like that. He has always had these moments when he strips himself bare for her: short, fleeting moments when his sincerity is more disarming than his flirting ever could be. 'I have felt a stranger to myself sometimes, this last century', she says. 'Or longer.' 'Perhaps you can rediscover yourself here. Stay and do that', he coaxes. 'Your son will be happy to stay, I know. He seemed to have an infinite number of things to talk about with Tyelpë. I'm sure he and Tyelpë and Curvo will enjoy showing and teaching each other things. They have the same kind of curious, crafty souls.' Aredhel cannot help but smile. 'Lómion does have that. His father claimed it to be all his doing but I always knew he inherited much from the Noldor. We will stay. For a time, at least. Until the spring, perhaps.' They are safe here, both she and her son. 'I am glad', Celegorm replies. 'You are free here, Írissë. Unlike your brother and husband, I know that you are not the kind of bird that can be caged. You will either escape or beat yourself to death against the bars of your prison trying to. Here you are free to come and go as you please, as far afield as you want. I only hope that you eventually come back here. To me.' His sincerity is not yet over for the night, then. Aredhel swallows hard and says, 'I always have so far, have I not?' He smiles with all his teeth but without bite, unless perhaps the kind she always enjoyed receiving and giving. 'Indeed you have', he says, and changes the subject, nodding at the sword still in her lap. 'Since you have no husband to warm your bed here and until you perhaps invite me to there, that will keep you company.' Aredhel snorts. 'No matter where I am, my husband will never again be welcome in my bed, and my dogs make for warmer company than a blade.' 'All the more reason to keep that close, then, though steel makes for a cold bedpartner. More seriously, Írissë, do you want me to deal with him if he comes here?' Celegorm watches her face closely. She shifts in her chair, uncomfortable with the subject though she has been joking about Eöl. 'I don't need you to fight my battles for me, Tyelko, in words or by blade.' 'I know.' His pale eyes are intent on her as he lounges in his chair. 'I asked me whether you want me to. We all have… weaker spots where doing things is more painful or difficult for us than it would be for someone else. I do not mind talking to your husband.' 'By talking, you mean driving him away from Himlad, do you not?' He nods. 'Telling him to leave, and leave you and your son in peace, and never again cross the border to my realm unless he wants to find an arrow in his throat. Every good bird and beast in Himlad knows me and reports to me, not to mention Curvo's scouts and my hunters that are always roaming the land.' He sits there, leaning back in his chair in that indolent, insolent manner that he always had that might mask just about any mood, but she knows that he means what he says and that he could do it: he could shoot her husband without an ounce of remorse. He is already a kinslayer, already Doomed, and always was flint-hearted with those that he did not count as his to protect and yet more so with those he saw as a threat to those he does count as his. He still counts her as his. Aredhel minds it less than she should. She says, 'I know what you mean about weak spots.' Sighing, she allows, 'You may threaten him on my behalf if I do not happen to be with you. If I am, let us do it together.' 'Curvo will be more than happy to lend his support, too, and Tyelpë if you say the least word to him about how Eöl treated you.' Celegorm stands up and stretches, then picks up the poker and pokes at the dying fire. 'It is very late indeed.' He sounds almost surprised. Aredhel is weighed down with exhaustion. From the ride and from the relief of stress and from tearing up both old wounds and new, barely-scabbed ones. She rouses her dogs and stands up. 'I had best go to bed. Let us talk more tomorrow.' Celegorm says, 'Of less serious things, I hope. For example, we have a wolf hunt to plan – you can help with that and come along, and your son, too. I think we covered everything tonight that needed to be cleared between the two of us.' Aredhel hesitates, rubbing the ears of Huan who is again patiently enduring some enthusiastic attention from Aredhel's much smaller hounds. She says, 'Tyelko, I – I asked you very flippantly whether I am welcome to your bed, but the truth of it is that I have slept alone for years now, and I think it will be some time before I want that to change.' 'You were right when you said that I am constant to you.' He scratches Huan's neck, and fleetingly touches her hand. It is the first time he has touched her since they dismounted from his horse. 'And I never wanted anyone half as much as you', he adds. 'I can wait. Any time you want, knock on my door. Leave your hounds in your room, though.' His smile to her feels as much like freedom as the sunlight on her face and the wind in her hair on her way here. Perhaps here in the windswept plain of Himlad she will not need to run away like she did from white-walled Gondolin and tree-shadowed Nan Elmoth. 'I will', she promises. 'Not yet. But someday perhaps.' He walks her to the guest room she's been given, pointing out his own room along the way. It is not far, and neither is Lómion's room. At the door of her room, Aredhel says to Celegorm quietly, 'In another world, a happier one perhaps, you and I would have realised how well we fit together long, long ago. But then I would not have my Lómion; and he is dearer to me than the air I breathe, so perhaps things went as they should.' 'There is no 'should'', Celegorm argues. 'Only our choices. You know', he tilts his head and smiles at her with his eyes only, 'I used not to believe in second marriages. I disapproved of them quite firmly, you know that.' She is very curious about the implications of that sudden statement. 'When did you change your mind?' she asks. His smile grows crooked. 'Today.'

*

A/N: Who knows how things will go from here – how much this changes how things go in Beleriand? I don't really know, but at least in this moment Aredhel and Celegorm are happier than they would have been had they not met again.

Fanyë teki kukkia. En ymmärrä sitä koska eläimet ovat paljon mielenkiintoisempia. Hän on kovin kiinnostunut kukista nykyisin. Sanoin, että hänen pitäisi ruveta kasvattamaan kukkia kädentöiden tekemisen sijaan, jos hän pitää niistä niin kovin. Hän tönäisi minua ja sanoi, että voihan hän tehdä kukkia puusta ja savesta koko ikänsä jos hän haluaa. Minä sanoin että niin voi mutta hänen kannattaa tehdä niitä vain puusta, koska hänen savikukkansa ovat vähemmän hienoja.

Fanyën puukukat ovat tosi hienoja. Hän teki ruusun, jossa on viisi kerrosta terälehtiä. Ne ovat todella ohuita ja tarkkoja ja minun lintuni näyttää ruusun vieressä yhtä paljon möykyltä kuin Airionin möykky joka on kuulemma isoisän ja isoäidin talo. (Se ei näytä siltä.)

Lähetän puulintuni silti sinulle, äiti. Sen pyrstöstä tuli vähän liian pitkä mutta se on räystäspääsky. Jos olet sitä mieltä että oikean väriseksi maalaaminen tekisi siitä paremman (helpommin tunnistettavan) niin voitko hankkia sopivia maaleja? Maalaan sen sitten kun tulen kotiin. Yritin tehdä siitä helposti maalattavan. Isoäiti neuvoi.

Lähetän myös kissan, jonka tein savesta isoisän avustuksella. Hän auttoi minua saamaan jalat pysymään koossa. Olen parempi savitöissä kuin Fanyë, mutta en pidä siitä tunteesta kun savi kuivuu iholle. Luulen, että en halua tehdä asioita savesta, kun olen aikuinen.

Niin kuin sinä sanoit kun tulin tänne, on hyödyllistä kokeilla monia eri asioita niin tiedän paremmin mistä pidän ja minkä alan oppipojaksi haluan ryhtyä.

Huomenna aloitamme metallin työstämisen opettelun isoisän kanssa, vaikka minä tietysti osaan alkeet jo. Fanyë ei osaa, hän osaa vain puutöitä. Sen jälkeen isoisä on luvannut opettaa minulle ja Fanyëlle kivenveistämisen perusteita (Airion on liian pieni siihen). Se kuulostaa mielenkiintoiselta. Sitä sinä et ole vielä ehtinyt opettaa minulle lainkaan.

Mutta pitäisin enemmän siitä, että yksittäisen kiven veistämisen sijaan isoisä opettaisi, miten suuresta määrästä sopivasti leikattuja kiviä saa tehtyä talon.

Talot täällä Aulën asuinsijoilla lähellä ovat erilaisia kuin kotona Tirionissa. Haluan tietää, miksi, ja miten eri lailla ne rakennetaan vai onko vain lopputulos erilainen. Isoäiti sanoi että vanyoiden talot ovat vielä erilaisempia. Haluaisin nähdä niitä joskus kunnolla. Voimmeko ratsastaa tänä vuonna vanya-kylän tai -kaupungin läpi kun menemme elonkorjuujuhlaan Taniquetilille? Meidän ei tarvitse kertoa isälle.

Nerdanel hymyilee yhä, mutta hymy on surumielinen. Hetken tauon jälkeen hän jatkaa lukemista.

Haluan myös katsoa falmarin taloja tarkkaan, kun seuraavan kerran menemme merenrannalle.

Iltaisin me leikimme ja käymme kävelyillä metsissä ja peltoteitä pitkin. Fanyë haluaa aina taluttaa jotakin isoäidin koirista. Ne pitävät välillä kovaa ääntä ja haluaisivat rynnätä oravien perään. Minä kävelen välillä edellä jotta minun ei tarvitse välittää niistä.

Minulla on ikävä sinua, äiti, ja isää ja Maitimoa ja Cánoa, mutta ei Tyelkoa. Olen yhä vihainen Tyelkolle hänen pilastaan joka ei ollut yhtään hauska.

Saatan antaa anteeksi ensi viikolla mutta en vielä lupaa mitään.

Älä pidä kissaa ja lintua liian lähekkäin, ettei kissa syö lintua. (Se on vitsi.)

Terveisin

Morifinwë Carnistir

PS. Kirjoitin Morifinwën isää varten jos hän kuitenkin lukee kirjeen. Kirjoitin hänelle oman mutta se on lyhyempi.

Carnistirin savikissa ja puulintu saapuivat kirjeen mukana. Nerdanel avaa niiden huolellisesti suljetut, pehmustetut paketit ja sivelee sormellaan pienen linnun päätä ja kissan hieman köyristynyttä selkää. Ne ovat selvästi lapsen töitä – näppäräsormisen, innokkaana oppivaisen lapsen.

Miten Nerdanelilla onkaan ikävä neljättä lastaan. Mutta Carnistirin on parempi olla jonkun aikaa poissa kotoa, isovanhempiensa luona nauttimassa näiden rakastavasta huomiosta ja opetuksista, kaukana Tyelkosta ja tämän levottomista kepposista. Jos Carnistir viihtyy siellä kauan, Nerdanel voi ratsastaa sinne muutamaksi päiväksi käymään. Hän voisi kenties ottaa Maitimon mukaan. Tunnolliselle esikoiselle tekisi hyvää pieni loma opinnoista.

Nerdanel lähtee etsimään hyvät paikat savikissalle ja puulinnulle. Hän vie linnun yöpöydälleen tuomaan hymyn kasvoille aamuisin ja kissan ruokailuhuoneen kulmapöydälle, mistä sen näkee koko perhe monta kertaa päivässä. Kulkiessaan huoneesta toiseen hän käy mielessään läpi kaikki Tirionin rakennusmestarit ja arkkitehdit ja miettii, kenen oppipojaksi Carnistir voisi sopia.

*

A/N: Kiitos kun luit! Jos tykkäsit tästä, arvostaisin ihan vaikka yhden sanan kommenttia, niin tietäisin ovatko ihmiset tosiaan lukeneet tämän :)

Carnistir goes there, then, half-annoyed and half-relieved at having to walk all around the palace on his mother’s errand. He is annoyed at Curvo – but to be honest with himself, he must admit that he wasn’t having that good of a time himself, and perhaps looking for Curufinwë is as good a use of his time as he could hope for right now. His friend Ontamo went home already, and Makalaurë has been too busy with his group of musicians to talk with Carnistir.

As Carnistir approaches the long gallery – a large room whose walls are covered in paintings and tapestries, many of the latter made by Carnistir’s grandmother – he hears voices through the open door.

'Come on, Curvo, don’t be grumpy’, says Tyelko’s amused voice, and, 'Give me that bottle, idiot. You’ve had quite enough.’

'No, I haven’t, you’ve had just as much.’

Carnistir snorts at Curufinwë’s petulant voice. How amusing that precocious know-it-all Curvufinwë should turn out to be a lightweight with alcohol.

He’s at the door of the gallery, about to step into the room, when he hears Curufinwë continue, morose, 'I should be more like Moryo. I don’t mind parties, you know I don’t, Tyelko, but I do mind being introduced to about a hundred people when I want to celebrate with those people I already know.’

Curufinwë belches, and Carnistir grimaces. He can see two pairs of legs sticking out on the floor from behind a fat-bellied cabinet.

He hesitates in the door, undecided on whether he wants to go in or stay and listen or turn on his heel and leave.

While he still hesitates, Curufinwë continues his drunken rant.

'No one tries to introduce Moryo to anyone anymore.’ Curufinwë manages to slur every single word. 'They know that he’s hopeless, he’ll just growl at them if they try to make conversation that’s not about, about the best kind of stone or drawing building plans or something – something like that.’ Carnistir’s ire is abated by Curufinwë’s addition of, 'Something sensible. None of this nonsense today.’

There is a second of silence, and then Tyelkormo’s voice warning, 'If you throw up, I will not clean it up.’

'Yes you would’, Curufinwë mumbles. 'I’m your favourite.’

'And don’t you know and exploit that’, Tyelkormo sighs. 'Come on. Up you get. We’ll find some way to sneak out without anyone seeing.’

'We should ask bloody Moryo’, Curufinwë grumbles. 'He often manages to leave parties early without anyone noticing. And he calls me sneaky.’

Carnistir rolls his eyes. Curufinwë is sneaky.

'Come on, Curvo’, says Tyelkormo again, exasperated.

Carnistir steps into the gallery and walks to his brothers with swift strides.

'Come on, Curvo’, he repeats. 'Let’s get you out before you embarrass the whole family.’

Curufinwë, who has just managed to get himself to his feet, flails with an uncharacteristic lack of grace and would probably fall if not for Tyelko’s iron grip on his arm.

'How much of that did you hear?’ Curufinwë is remarkably pale for someone so drunk.

'More than you’d like’, Carnistir replies, and adds, 'You should stick to the honey-wine. Leave the Noldorin red for real adults.’

Curufinwë protests instantly. 'The honeyed wine is Vanyarin!’

Carnistir smirks. 'It’s clearly all you can handle.’

He takes Curufinwë’s other arm and together he and Tyelkormo steer Curufinwë – who is mumbling about being very tired – towards the other end of the gallery. Carnistir knows a route through there that will take them to a side door that leads to the stables.

Even so, they happen to pass lady Maquetimië on their way out. She is one of the worst gossipmongers of the court. From the way her eyes light up as she recognises and greets the three of them, half-conscious Curufinwë still help up between Carnistir and Tyelko, Carnistir knows that the drunken state of the king’s grandson will be the principal rumour of tomorrow.

 Fanyë made flowers. I don't understand why because animals are much more interesting. She is very interested in flowers these days. I told her that she should start growing flowers instead of making inanimate things if she likes flowers so much. She shoved me and said that she can make flowers out of wood and clay all her life if she wants. I said that yes she can but she should only make them out of wood because her clay flowers are less nice.

 Her wooden flowers are rather wonderful. She made a rose with five layers of petals. They are very thin and fine, and my bird looks as much of a lump next to that rose as Airion's lump of clay which is supposed to be our grandparent's house. (It does not look like it.)

 I am sending my wooden bird to you anyway, mama. I made its tail a little too long but it is a house martin, a kind of swallow that lives here. If you think that painting it the right colours would make it better (and more easily recognisable) will you get me suitable paints? I will paint it when I get home. I tried to make it easy to paint. Grandmama gave me advice.

 I am also sending you the cat I made of clay with grandpapa's guidance. He helped me keep its legs from falling apart. I am better at working with clay than Fanyë but I don't like the feeling when clay dries on my skin. I don't think that I want to keep making pottery when I am grown.

 As you said when I left, it is useful to try many different crafts so I will know better what I like and what I want to apprentice in.

 Tomorrow we are going to begin learning how to work metal with grandpapa, although I of course know the basics of it already. Fanyë doesn't, she only knows woodwork and whittling. After that grandpapa has promised to teach Fanyë and me the rudiments of stone-carving (Airion is too small to learn that.) It sounds interesting. You have not yet got to teaching me about carving stone.

 But I would like it better if instead of teaching me how to carve a single stone grandpapa taught me how a great number of suitably cut stones are used to make a building.

 Here in the mansions of Aulë, houses are different from the houses in Tirion. I want to know why, and how differently the building of them is done, or is it only the end result that is different. Grandmama says that the houses of the Vanyar are even more different. I would like to see them up close some day. Can we ride through a Vanya village or town or city this year when we go to the harvest festival? We don't need to tell papa about it.

Nerdanel smiles still but her smile is tinged with sorrow. After a moment's break she carries on reading.

I also want to look closely at the Falmari's houses the next time we go to the seashore, Carnistir writes.

 In the evenings, Fanyë and Airion and I have time to play, and the whole family here goes on walks in the forest and along the fields. Fanyë always wants to walk one of grandmama's dogs. They often make a lot of noise and they want to charge after every squirrel. I walk ahead of the others sometimes so that I don't need to mind the dogs.

 I miss you, mama, and papa and Maitimo and Cáno, but not Tyelko. I am still angry with him for his prank that wasn't funny at all.

 I might forgive him next week but I am not making a promise of that.

 Don't keep the cat and the bird too close to each other in case the cat eats the bird. (That is a joke.)

 Yours

 Morifinwë Carnistir

 PS.  I wrote Morifinwë for papa if he reads this letter after all. I wrote him his own letter but it is shorter.

Carnistir's clay cat and wooden bird arrived together with the letter. Nerdanel opens the carefully wrapped packages and touches the little bird's smooth head and the cat's slightly arched back. Both show clearly the signs of being a child's work – a nimble-fingered, eager-to-learn child's.

How Nerdanel misses her fourth child! But it is better for Carnistir to be away from home for a while, at his grandparents' enjoying their loving attention and teaching, far away from Tyelko and his restless pranks. If Carnistir wants to stay  with his grandparents for a longer period of time, Nerdanel can ride there for a few days' visit. She could take Maitimo with her, perhaps. A small holiday from his studies would surely do some good for her conscientious first-born.

Haleth doesn't have time for reaching for sunlight. She needs to lead her folk to their new land.

'How many are still not in walking shape?' she asks Aeres one evening as she does every night, in their camp near their burned old homes where they gather resources and prepare for the journey.

'Only a few', Aeres says. She looks tired. 'Though not all can walk a full day at first.'

Haleth can't stop her eyes turning to Aeres' own legs. They will have to go slow, Haleth knows. Besides the freshly injured, there are those like Aeres, and the old and the young.

Haleth stifles a sigh of impatience. She wants to leave this land that is in her eyes all burned and blood-spattered and, no matter what the shining-eyed elf-lord says, not a free land anymore.

'You have been working hard to help everyone recover', Haleth says to Aeres.

'We have not many healers left', replies Aeres. 'I do what I can.'

Dorrin, the old healer who took Aeres in after her mother died and taught her, died in the battle between the rivers, trying to help the wounded. Haleth knows that Aeres misses him.

'We all do what we can', Haleth says, rarely one to weave fair words.

But as she leaves Aeres' tent that smells of pungent herbs and salves, Haleth squeezes her shoulder.

*

When they begin their journey, Haleth suddenly sees Aeres all the time. When their people lived in peace, a healer wasn't as important or visible a member of the community as she is now. And besides being a healer Aeres is a friend of Toreth, Haleth's sister-in-law. Aeres often helps Toreth with both her grief and her son, Haleth's nephew.

Haleth has never been as close with Toreth as most sisters-by-marriage tend to be. They both have quick tempers and have found it best to not spend enough time in close proximity for them to spark. After Haldar's death Toreth has been more quiet and drawn, mourning the loss of her husband so young.

Apparently Aeres likes children for she volunteers to help Toreth with Haldan, and soon she does it every day, becoming an everyday fixture at the campfire Haleth makes every evening for her sister-in-law and nephew. There Aeres sits, feeding Haldan and telling him bedtime stories, or boring things about plants make him sleepy when he is too energetic too late and Toreth only stares into the fire, silent and still.

In the evenings, Haleth watches Aeres with Haldan and feels weak in her chest.

Aeres has brown hair that glows in firelight, and dark brown eyes and long lashes, and she smiles at Haldan's babbling commentary and at Haleth's supposedly-witty asides.

Aeres is not strong or lively like some women Haleth has desired, but she is lovely and she is helping take care of Haleth's family and she never complains about having to walk all day every day even though every evening when they make camp she moves with the sort of deliberate carefulness that Haleth knows means pain.

Haleth knows it is hard for her, all the walking, and for many others, yet she must harden her heart and have her people walk a long way almost every day. While winter is not coming yet, it will eventually, and they need to be much farther on their journey by then.

One night Aeres barely moves, just sits by the fire pale, clutching her wool cloak around her while others still bustle around her making camp for the night.

Haleth sits by her side. 'Tomorrow we will rest. No marching', she says, feeding more wood into the fire she just built.

'Not on my account.' Aeres bends to knead her bad leg around the knee. 'I will be better in the morning, I promise.'

'I know', Haleth says. 'I know. But we all could do with a day of rest again. And those who don't need it, we'll hunt, get some meat for the next few nights.'

Aeres nods, the fall of her hair that has escaped its tie obscuring her face as she still rubs at her leg.

'Then I will take another look at Amhar's wounds', she says. 'The one on his arm is still not scarred right. I cannot understand how. It should have either healed by now or…'

'Or killed him', Haleth ends for her.

'Yes.' Aeres nods again. 'There was some strange poison on some of the orcs' spears, I believe, but not all. Not all wounds that our fighters sustained that day were like this. Some were more deadly, many less lingering.'

'I'm sure that you will figure out how to treat Amhar's arm', Haleth says, trying to be reassuring.

'I hope so. I am not sure what to do, to be honest; I'm not sure that what I've been doing is right. I always had Dorrin to ask for confirmation before but now…'

'… but now things are different and you have to make decisions on your own', Haleth says. She never knows how many days she should have her folk march before a day of rest, never knows if she is pushing them too hard or not enough.

'Of course you understand.' Aeres lifts her head. 'Yet you are making good decisions, Haleth. You are leading us well.'

Haleth is never shy but all she can say is, 'I hope so.'

She is confident in her bigger decisions but not always in the small, everyday ones.

She never expected to become the leader of her folk, but she suspects Haldar would not have been sure what to do in this situation either.

*

Aeres is of age with Toreth, a few years older than Haleth's own nineteen summers. Haleth remembers that two summers ago one of the men Aeres' age tried to court her but she refused all his gifts, to the laughter of the other young men. Haleth can't remember seeing Aeres ever grant her favour to any of them.

As they journey northwest across the great plain that the elves call Estolad, and tiredness settles on Aeres' face until it is an everyday sight, Haleth… she doesn't give Aeres those sorts of gifts, little trinkets and bunches of wildflowers tied with pretty ribbon and honey-cakes purchased from the village's best baker. There are no such gifts to give now. 

But when Toreth doesn't see – because Haleth wants to keep the peace in her family now, one more responsibility she doesn't feel all that equipped for – she gives Aeres the best cut of meat; and the warmer blanket, her own, when they settle down to sleep; and some evenings she forces some of her vigilance off her own shoulders and tells her guards to make watch arrangements instead, and fetches water for Aeres and Toreth and Haldan herself, the three people she thinks of as her family now.

Once or twice when she brings a brace of freshly caught rabbits to Aeres to skin, she sets a late-summer flowers on top of them. It is more gruesome than sweet, flowers on top of the dead empty-eyed animals but it makes Aeres smile.

And she accepts them, like she accepts all of Haleth's little not-gifts, with little demurring apart from the first time Haleth gave her something that is hers by right of her leadership.

'This is yours', Aeres said holding Haleth's thick blanket that she'd handed to her, her eyes shadowed and questioning under the sparse trees that serve as their roof for the night.

'Yours for tonight', Haleth answered that night, and the next, and from then on Aeres only smiled when Haleth gave it to her.

*

Aeres has the sometimes-brisk, sometimes-gentling voice of a healer, and Haleth is learning her every tone and nuance.

'Are you well', Aeres asks one night, dark eyes worried as she looks at and speaks to Haleth in a way that she does with her patients, yet not quite.

She has been rubbing salve on a little hurt of Haleth's, but Haleth doesn't feel like her patient.

Still she says, 'I am tired', because there is no one else to hear just then. She has strong limbs and good lungs but sometimes she too grows tired, especially as the days grow cooler and shorter and their stores of food meagre.

'Tomorrow the sun will shine', Aeres says, soft. 'I could tell by the sunset. It will be a warm day, a fair day.'

'Perhaps I will not be so tired tomorrow, then', Haleth says, as comforted as Aeres no doubt intended her to be.

They sleep close to each other that night, close enough to touch if just one of them reached out a hand.

*

'In the sun your hair is spun of gold', Aeres says to Haleth the next day as they are spending the midday break from walking together. Aeres sorts through herbs brought to her by  children eager to help, and Haleth sharpens her knife for her.

And finding poetry somewhere deep within herself where it never was before, Haleth replies, 'In the sun, your eyes are warmer than even the light.'

Aeres blushes and bows her head. She doesn't blush often, Haleth knows, and not just because it doesn't show easily on her light-brown skin.

She looks at Haleth from under her dark lashes. 'If you were a man I would say that you were courting me', she says. 'Giving me the best bits of meat, and making sure I am warm, and doing little errands to make my days easier though you do not need to.'

Haleth is quiet for a moment, her heart heavy in her chest and the knife cold in her hand, and then asks, 'Would you like it better if I were a man?'

Women courting women is rarer.

Aeres lifts her eyes and they are tired as always but warm, still. 'If you were a man I would tell you to stop.'

And she doesn't say anything more, just continues sorting herbs where she sits by Haleth's side.

That night Haleth spreads her bedroll right by Aeres' and as darkness falls around them, quiet and gentle and guarded by others, she holds Aeres close and kisses her the back of her neck where her hair is softest.

Aeres sighs quietly (contently, Haleth imagines; hopes) and turns in Haleth's arms, and tucks her head under her chin.

'Yours for tonight', Aeres whispers, her breath warm on Haleth's collarbones. 'And the next, and the next, and the next.'

*

and

190

manyskilled

when he drops and breaks a cup in his morning-drowsiness, and doesn't bother fixing it though he could. He has better things to do.

But she praises him, too. On their wedding day, when she sees him for the first time in all his finery and all his joy, she says, a fond, gentler-than-usual smile lighting up her fair face,

113

           for no

other girl

           O bridegroom

                  such as this one now

and she takes his hand.

Later she will write, thinking of her own beloved though it is a song written to celebrate another's wedding,

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blest bridegroom, your marriage just as you prayed

has been accomplished

                                and you have the bride for whom you prayed

gracious your form and your eyes

as honey; desire is poured upon your lovely face

[]

*

156

           far more sweetsounding than a lyre

golder than gold

are the voices and noises I plucked of you this night', says Tinweriel when they lie in their large new bed, still intertwined, after the physical act that made their marriage promises true. 'And no one will ever hear them but me.'

Makalaurë raises his weary head from her chest which makes a fine pillow for a bridegroom, he thinks. 'Would you share them if you could? Or make an orchestration for the harp and flute out of them?'

'Never', she swears. 'Our… night-music is for us alone, performers though we are.'

He hums. 'But we can write and compose some new themes now, I think, inspired by our night-music.'

She laughs. 'Ones that will leave the unmarried confused and scandalise the married by their boldness! Yes, let us do that, my love. Together.'

'Tomorrow', he mumbles.