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Chapter Text

When the Vanyar forsook Tirion for the city of bells, it seemed to Finwë that the bliss of Aman had turned the hearts of the Eldar away from their ancient friendship with the Teleri, and that hope for their coming was utterly lost. Thus he passed his days with a joy half-marred by grief, and the memory of Elwë smote his heart. And as the keepers of the Mindon departed each after the other, and the great light of the tower dimmed, the thought of Finwë turned that should the Teleri sail yet, no light would greet them; lost they would wander in the dark.

- Vanyar-Noldor Relations of the Years of the Trees

The renewal of the lamp of the Mindon Eldaliéva was a yearly event, marked by the slow turn of the stars and the gradual waning of the great light’s silver shaft. The white marble would seem to soften in the dimming light, become more liquid than stone until it was as seafoam breaking under starlight. Then it was that the people of Tirion would light their candles and set them on their windows;  then it was that the minstrels would turn their songs to the coming of the Teleri; then it was that the emissaries of Olwë would make the slow journey from Alqualondë arrayed in majesty even as the Vanyar came from bright-lit Valmar, and as the flower of Telperion was set into the great lamp, so too the three kindreds of the elves would renew their ancient bonds of friendship.

Elenwë did a last survey of her saddlebags. The basic provisions for the weeklong journey that lay ahead, a bow in honour of the woods of Oromë, a spear with a tassel of many thin braids of silver thread. The garments of her office, from the distinct Noldorin influences of her initial garb to the robe she would take up as a Vanya among her own people, and finally the thin, cloth wrap of the mendicant in which she would approach the Trees. The knife, sharpened silver from the forges of Aulë, and the three-footed bronze vessel ornamented with the snarling face of the beast which had featured in the legends of the Eldar in the early days, when Nahar and Oromë were yet unknown to them. Everything was ready.

Her horse’s ears stood straight as her footsteps sounded out in the stone courtyard. She had been waiting for her, docile beneath a raised saddle set on a blanket of emerald patterned with flowers brocaded in silver. Three bells hung from either side of her strong hindquarters: they were silent in the waning glow of Telperion, but their ringing would accompany Elenwë all the way in the journey that awaited her.

Elenwë stroked a hand down the pale ribbons plaited into the beast’s mane before settling her saddle bags carefully across her back and swinging into the seat. Securing her booted feet into the stirrups, she smoothed down the long, embroidered panels of her shirt, tugged the rounded collar low, and set on her way.

The private courtyard of her residence soon gave way to the Great Square. Galathilion, the White Tree, had been draped with ribbons and strewn with flowers for the occasion: as befitting the Noldor, the flowers were not of Yavanna’s making, but born from skilful craft. Metal wire formed their stems, pearldust their pollen, stained glass their furling petals. The work of the queen was as ever apparent in a cunning twist of fabric looped around the central trunk of the tree. The Broideress had broken new ground: it wasn’t a flag or a pageant, but what seemed at a glance to be a part of the bark itself, whose swirling whorls and papery roughness disappeared into clever, layered stitches on a closer look.

The streets were empty as was the custom, but a line of lamps filled with the dew of Telperion had been prepared, leading all the way from the square to the city’s outskirts. The hooves of Elenwë's horse clattered against stone, and like an echo to each step came the soft ring of her bells. In Valmar they would ring as one note among a greater song; there was nothing, however, like the sweetness of the soft tinkling alone in the silence of Tirion.

As Elenwë passed out of the Great Square, she turned in her saddle to look at the thin shimmer of the Mindon. The light of the lamp was a faint ghostly cast, a far cry from the silver fire of its zenith. It seemed to fade into the light of the Mingling. She fixed her eyes on it until the street curved narrow, and the stone buildings of the Noldor hid its distant shine.

It had been many long years since the great blaze had been set on the green hill of Túna, and still her heart panged to leave it. Elenwë had never seen it go out – that was to happen, as it happened always, in her absence.

Old Tirion was a collection of thin, rough-hewn stone streets which wound about each other, all curves and no angles. It was as if the tiered houses had been scattered as grains of sand on a beach. The city had been laid with the easy settlement of a people not used to permanent structures, who had chosen their own camps by and large freely. Only after the foundations were settled for many years and the first children of Valinor grew into their stature was thought given to a planned expansion from the happy, if haphazard accident of the city’s founding.

While the outer ring of Tirion was all laddered streets and straight roads, signed and posted with uniform courtyards and neatly planned gardens, in its heart alleys whittled to dead ends or widened into bustling throughfares with little notice, while small stalls clustered at seemingly random corners between the dense stone-hewn houses, domed with sloping tile roofs. Sometimes the buildings were so high and the streets so narrow that all was cast in shadow. Then, the lamps of Telperion lit Elenwë’s way as once the stars across the sea had done – as if it were night, a rare thing in the bliss of endless days. Already, the city was rising to wakefulness with a sort of subterranean hum. Valmar never slept, but it was Tirion which never found rest. The people here talked in their dreams.

The light of the Trees mingling overhead bore down upon the burnished stone to bring out the stone’s own hues, such that the pinkish-rose of the limestone blushed through the cream to meet a wash of silvery gold. As Elenwë passed from the crown of the hilltop to the airy streets that lined its slopes, she nudged her horse into a slightly faster walk.

Craftspeople favoured the outer rings, where the materials they needed could be brought more easily through the wide-paved streets. The first mingling was not yet full, the forges were as yet silent, and the bellows still cold, but when Laurelin was at her zenith the smiths and the masons would be well-engaged in the songs of Aulë. Wagons of stones and jewels from the feet of the Pélori trundled every day into Tirion. She could hear the clatter of their wheels. They would not cross her path.  Elenwë went unhindered along the last stretch of fading lamps to the great archway which marked the entrance of the city.

The king awaited her at the gate, his hair piled into a high tower ornamented with gold and twined with silver. Jewels sat on his brow and about his chest, while his sleeves shimmered with gemstones as morning dew on grass. Resplendent in the finery of his office, he cut a dark figure adorned with brightness, and by his side stood his silver queen.

Míriel’s stomach was just beginning to swell, forming a bump made obvious through the cinch of her dress below her chest and loosely about her hips. Her light-flowing sash did not so much hide this fact as frame it – no doubt also intentional.

The king had been supporting her by the elbow, but they both straightened into statuesque formality at Elenwë’s approach. The queen nodded her head, a tinkle of gemstones and wire, while the king prepared to speak.

The words he would say were ritual, but had not always been so. The first time, the king had run out in his dressing gown while Elenwë herself had been mounted in her sturdiest riding leathers. She had been the last of the wardens of the lamp, indeed the last of the Vanyar in the city, and Finwë had stood before her more plaintive than angry. He had been grieving for Elwë then, and she had been disheartened, lonely and lost. He had spoken to her as he wept with his arms wrapped about the bent neck of her horse.

“Elenwë, Elenwë, warden of the lamp of the Eldar! Will even you forsake the lesser light for the greater? Who then will light the path for those longed-for beyond hope?”

Of the seven originally tasked with the care of the lamp, six had gone. In the empty, high-domed halls of the tower where Ingwë once held court, Elenwë alone stayed. Her companions on the Great Journey, her childhood friends from the shores of Cuiviénen, had all left with the king she loved. She was a Vanyar in a city that now belonged solely to the Noldor.

Had she been riding that day because she meant to follow in the footsteps of her kindred, or had she from the start set off to relight the flickering lamp of the Mindon? Some days she almost convinced herself of the latter, some days she felt sure of the former. That was its own admission. She had not been certain.

It was not Finwë’s tears that had moved her. She had shed enough of her own to mark it only dully. It was the insult of his words that had turned her instead, turned her to face the tower and its flickering light. The Mindon Eldaliéva was no lesser light, not even against the Trees. It was a great work, a deserving work. A beloved work. Even the king of the Noldor had no right to say otherwise, and she had meant prove it, if only to herself.

But the candle lit atop the tower was a far cry from the blaze she had conjured from her memory. With a slow rush as ice cracking apart to reveal the turmoil of the sea, she realised the extent of the diminishment that had fallen upon this great edifice of the Vanyar. In the turmoil of the slow exodus, even Elenwë had neglected her duties. She saw in that dimming light the Tower of Ingwë, dark and silent, dust settling heavy on the porches and the floors and the alcoves. Only then did the surety of her purpose bind her with the forcefulness of an oath.

Was it defiance that had caused her to cry out? It did not matter; she remained.

“No greater light is there for me than the White Tower set upon Tirion. I go now not to seek the light everlasting, but to rekindle the flame that goes out. Hail Mindon Eldaliéva!”

That had been a thousand years ago. Then, the words had been little comfort to Finwë. It was Elwë he loved, not the lamp he hoped would call him. Now, Alqualondë was the pearl of the Bay of Eldamar, and Olwë dwelt there in bliss with his people. She was dressed to the nines, as was the king, and certainly no one was crying into the mane of anyone’s horse anymore.

The king of the Noldor stepped back. Taking his queen by the hand, they turned as one body to the gathered lords.

“Hail Mindon Eldaliéva, pride of the Eldar in the lands of bliss!”

The lords of the city bowed as one: “Hail Mindon Eldaliéva!”

The formalities done with, all those gathered straightened. This was the sort of occasion that demanded little more than the presence of those attending, and that finished, the courtiers were happy to relax back into chatter amongst themselves. More than a few hid yawns behind long sleeves, or discreetly rubbed their eyes.

Míriel was leaning once more upon Finwë, the burnished copper-red of her gown crinkling as seams of charcoal in a blaze. The sash thrown about her shoulders was a pale, wispy yellow, almost mistakeable for silver were it not for the true silver of her hair. Her headdress, a frame of golden wire painstakingly wrapped with threads of different colours and studded throughout with rubies, formed an abstract frame through which she had wound her silver hair. In true Noldorin fashion, while Elenwë had dismounted and settled her horse, they had started a discussion on craft.

“Surely Therindë could face even such a challenge?” Finwë was saying.

“Perhaps when Therindë is blessed with the return of her spirit from her womb to her hands, she will.” Míriel patted her stomach as Finwë’s face split into a tender smile. The queen said with affection, but not without some exasperation and a little spasm of sorrow: “Little brat. Making trouble for his poor parents already. My needles have felt heavy ever since he came.”

“It will return,” Finwë pulled her close. “So they all say. Besides, a child is its own craft, and I own this one may be not the least of your many works.”

“Not the least,” Míriel agreed. And darkness seemed to pass over her face. But as Elenwë’s steps across the paved road drew near, she looked up and the mingled light washed her face clear of shadow. A sly smile curled the queen’s lips. When she spoke again, it was light-hearted, quick as was her custom, each word following just on the foot of the other.

“Elenwë! We were on the subject of craft and children, Finwë and I, a subject in which you are undoubtably a master. Who has kept their child with more love than you; who has closer watch over their craft? Not I, certainly. I have a room of unfinished projects which only ever seem to grow.”

“I doubt,” Elenwë said drily, “that your children will be rocks and flowers. In any case, by that reasoning I’ve been a derelict mother and a shoddy maker, to have a child still unweaned after these thousand years, and a craft constantly in need of repair. But it was my lord Ingwë who was the maker, and I am only the keeper. I came to give you my well-wishes before I left.”

“We thank you and give you our own,” Finwë said. But Míriel suddenly stepped forwards, her copper dress burning into movement. It was only then that the theme Míriel had stylised herself as became apparent. In stillness, she was the image of Laurelin’s light. But the moment she moved, she was a spirit of fire.

“But are they not the same? Your child and mine. One will grow in the shadow of the other. How do you do it, this constancy? It must be that our natures are different. I am weary already, but I sense that you will never tire.”

The queen’s hands reached up to wrap around Elenwë’s. They were smooth, limber hands, with a softening callus on the thumb. The little thumbguard the Broideress had fashioned for threadwork had become hugely popular in the city; Elenwë had used it herself when beading a ribbon for her hair. She slipped her hands out of the queen’s grasp, marvelling still at the skill they contained.

“Can there be weariness in the Blessed Realm?” she asked.

Míriel cocked her head in the careful way of someone conscious of her headdress. The light turned the threads iridescent, stamped amber into the winking ruby eyes. Laurelin was beginning to wax. It was time to go, and Elenwë said as much with a shallow bow to her hosts.  

“Send our blessings and welcome to Ingwë!” Finwë called towards her retreating back. “Safe going and a speedy return!”

Elenwë offered a backwards wave before she pushed her horse into a trot. The green fields of Túna spread out before her. Small clusters of golden starflowers dotted the green lawns in patches amongst white-flowering clover, where lazy bees curled among the furled petals. The bells of her horse rang with the morning in a jaunty tune. Wind blew past her face; her hair had been securely bound into a wire frame and piled on her head such that only one of Manwë’s wilder storms would have blown it out of order, but even so she tipped her head back to feel the cool rush on her throat. The stones of Tirion were behind, and before her, the bliss and beauty of Valinor waxed to fullness in a glory of light.

Chapter Text

The sorrowful mother was stood

at the foot of Oiolossë

while her son was crushed

before the doors of Angamando.

- Indis’ Lament for Fingolfin

The halls of Ingwë were set about the midpoint of Taniquetil, where the upper airs were not yet so thin as to cause trial for the flesh. The paths up the mountain were hard – no roads had been laid, and only walking tracks through the gradually reduced shrubbery offered a way up to the sheer top of Oiolossë the Ever-white.

In years gone by, Elenwë had enjoyed the quiet as she led her horse up the barren slope. The occasional mountain goat or sleek, large cat came in their path, and above wheeled the Eagles of Manwë, calling each to each. The air grew colder with every step, and snow ever dusted the High King’s doorstep. She liked the way the ice made the world feel sharper, and the snow made the light feel brighter, as if everything was being purified to the intensity of itself. The way the wind tugged her hair reminded her of walking on a rooftop, facing a brisk breeze from the sea.

The rare times she had ascended to the halls of Ilmarin, though, she had been sore disappointed. It was a different thing altogether to look down and the see the patchwork multitude of Aman distilled in its fields and its gentle, sloping hills, while standing in the heat of the braziers Manwë lit for his elven guests; she preferred to be just beneath the summit, when the full glory of the light of the Trees threw back on the undisturbed, piled snow as light beaming through a passageway of mirrors, as cold and glorious as the air burning in her throat. It was not wise, however, to ascend so high too often without the leave of the Farsighted.

In any case, her primary purpose was to visit her king. Long-sundered from his court, it was Ingwë’s presence Elenwë missed most, and the surety of her people about her. She missed his calm repose, even as she missed the speech of the Vanyar. Noldorin Quenya often seemed too sibilant to her, all the harshness ground out by endless modifications, each sound sliding through the mouth so that words came easily, thoughtlessly. No one spoke as she did, dressed as she did, ate as she did in Tirion.

Of course, they rarely did so in Valmar either. But it was a different thing, to be a wandering sister brought back into the fold with some queer habits from her journeying, than to be a foreigner housed in a foreign land.

As Elenwë rounded the last bend of the track, Ingwë’s house came into view. It was unusual among Vanyarin architecture for its sloped roof, a concession to the not-infrequent, though ever-light, snow. The Mindon was also flat-topped, a rare thing among the steepled towers of Tirion. The open yard was nigh-deserted, except for a single figure, cloaked in green wool, sweeping the light fall of the snow with a thatch broom.

Ingwion waved his greeting, setting the broom against the outer wall. The youngest of Ingwë’s children, he treated Elenwë for the most part with the wary curiosity warranted to a distant family friend. Elenwë, for her part, found him mostly amusing, and otherwise seldom thought of him.

She gave her horse into his keeping, stroking the beast down when she shied away from unknown hands. Her great haunches seemed to steam in the cold air. The walk, slow as it had been, had worked her up a little.

Ingwion seemed glad enough to be given a task, and after exchanging a quick greeting with her, directed her to his father in the inner rooms.

To see Ingwë resplendent in his bliss was one of the great joys of Elenwë’s life. He was at rest with a steadiness she recognised in herself. There was a gravity to his existence which usually presented itself as a deep contentment.

The king’s mood was not altogether fair this day, however. Scrolls were strewn about him where he sat barefoot on the long couch, and a frown marred his face as he fingered the thin paper. He seemed deep in thought. It was only when Elenwë’s cloak rustled against the hook she hung it up against that he looked up.

“Elenwë!” The king rose in a falling cascade of linen. Unlike Elenwë and his son, he was clad only in a pleated wrap, leaving his shoulders bare. His hair followed in a cloud of gold as he embraced Elenwë. “My dear, how I’ve missed you! Come, remove your shoes. Sit with me.”

Elenwë toed off her snow-boots before taking the king’s hand. She bowed deeply over it, brushing her lips over its knuckles. Only then did she follow him further into the room.

“It’s cold in here.” The fire in the grate was out, and the window open so the harsh wind of the mountain whistled through the room. “You may not feel it, but not all of us are so blessed. Your poor son, for one, seemed frozen rather stiff in the yard.”

“Was it before or after he saw you?” Ingwë handed her the fire poker while he went to close the windows. “Ingwion rather likes the snow, truth be told.”

“Must have been after then.” Elenwë coaxed the fire alive with bits of timber and the small pile of wastepaper. She stretched her fingers over the orange flame, feeling them uncurl from the stiffness of cold. Ingwë pulled the curtains closed, and suddenly the only light in the room was the crackling fire, inconstant and brilliant.

“Come over here.” Ingwë was seated once more on the couch, gathering up the papers about him. “I’ve called for a hot drink. You need it. But sit, first.”

“What were you reading before I came?” Elenwë remained half-crouched before the fire, turning on the spot so the fire warmed her back. She looked at her king, who had carefully bundled up the papers into a neat pile and placed it on the side table.

“This and that. The latest and most interesting news, a philosophical treatise, and a polemic from an up-and-coming thinker. I think you might know them all well, in fact. I have need of a partner to work through the thoughts that crowd me, and besides, it might be fun or at least illuminating to put everything out in the light. Elenwë, will you not sit?”

Elenwë, warmed through, went and sat.

The first page of the what the king had been reading was glaringly, boldly, titled. The Statute of Finwë and Míriel. It was an event, and then a document, that had a raised a thousand questions and formed a thousand divisions, all of them spidering across Tirion like a shroud. Elenwë could wager a guess as to what lay under that stack. She had been guessing, after all, the whole way up the mountain as Laurelin waxed into fullness. It was a different matter, however, for the heckling Noldor to bring it before, than for Ingwë to do the same.

The king’s eyes were the dark blue of the sky on the outskirts of the Pélori, where the light was dim and the sea was still. Her discontent puttered out in the face of Ingwë’s implacable, meticulous calm.

“I trust you are familiar with what I’ve been reading.” Ingwë’s voice was gentle.

“No one in Tirion,” Elenwë replied, “has not learnt by heart what you have read.”

Not just the statute, which alone was enough to shake the city, as Nahar shook the earth when Oromë rode. All knew that the Crown Prince was unhappy: they could hardly ignore the polemic he had published into every outlet that would print it, and had pinned himself on the board in the centre of the Great Square. Ostensibly on the subject of the thorn, its barbed insults were barely veiled. The Noldor loved arguing, loved innovating, improving, holding debates – but this was different. It was not scholarship that Fëanor spoke of so heatedly, and his attacks were not aimed, or not wholly aimed, at the hapless linguistic scholars, but his father’s wife.

His father’s pregnant, Vanyarin wife.

Elenwë had not seen Indis much past the early childhood years, too given as the girl had been to run once she’d been able to stand. She had a good voice, and Ingwë loved her as he loved all those of his family. Sometimes, when he used to lead his court riding through the great grassy fields about Tirion, he would point to a shimmer of gold on the far horizon, or cock his ear to a breath of song on the wind, and say ‘there is Indis!’

The king’s niece had seldom joined her uncle’s court, however, being one of those who ranged far and wide through the fields of Valinor, with only chance and the wind deciding their comings and goings. Elenwë, who had spent a thousand years settled around an unmoving centre, could not say she understood.

Ingwë was evidently waiting for her to collect her thoughts. He had a damning sort of patience. He had rearranged the pages so that Fëanor’s On the subject of the thorn in the correct speech of the Noldor was on top. It was written in Fëanor’s new-devised script; Elenwë’s eyes passed over it once as water passing over stone, before understanding it on the second turn.

Tracing the looping tengwar with a long finger, Ingwë said, “Then you won’t be surprised to hear me say that I am…concerned. Elenwë, long have you stayed in Tirion beyond the passing of all others of our kin – your eyes see better and clearer than mine, your ears hear whispers where I from this mountaintop can hear only the loudest shouts. I would have you tell me what you know.”

 “Then you are mistaken, my lord,” Elenwë said. “For of the Valar you know far more than I ever will, and the ear and lips of Manwë bend to you. It was they who decided the statute. Equally it was Finwë who made the petition, and Finwë is your friend and brother, whereas to me he is a kind host to a longtime guest, and a guest, no matter how long the host suffers her under his roof, has no claim equal to that of a friend. Finally – Indis is whom the petition and all that followed concerns, and she is your niece, whereas her and I, if I may be frank, are barely even acquainted. What can I tell you that you couldn’t find in more detail elsewhere?”

“The truth, as an observer sees it.” Ingwë tilted his head so the great golden mass of his hair spilt over his shoulder. It was a mannerism he had picked up after coming to Aman. Privately, Elenwë thought it might have been from the Eagles, or even their lord. “I know more about the thorn than I ever wished to; the Valar, I can safely say, have thought more about Elven marriage than they ever wished to either. I know what each of the Eldar knows throughout Aman, and perhaps a little more. In the matter of facts, indeed there is little more you could tell me. But the Queen of the Noldor cannot come to the High King of the Vanyar and speak truly, nor can Finwë speak to Ingwë on the matter of Ingwë’s sister-son, be she his wife or no. You alone I can ask and hope for some measure of reply. Elenwë, is my niece happy?”

Happy? It was a loaded word, as heavy as it was simple. Children were happy. It was joy that those grown into their years pursued, joy and bliss.

 “The queen is tireless in her efforts, gay in her laughter, and sweet in her song. She makes the king glad, as all can see, after his long sorrow, and this gladness is its own currency. Those who love the king, and there are many, have nothing to say against Indis.”

Ingwë shuffled through the stack of papers again. This time, the one that surfaced was a bold caricature: Indis and Finwë, hand in hand, grins wide and hideous on their faces, wedded above the bones of a dead Míriel, while Fëanor (portrayed rather anachronistically as a young boy) wept into his mother’s hair. It would be comical were it not so insulting. Elenwë could not imagine anyone worse-placed to be an object of pity than Fëanor.

The message was clear. Evidently, there were those with plenty to say on the subject.

“The Noldor,” Elenwë admitted, "respected Míriel on her own merits as a craftsperson of renown. Moreso, she had friends aplenty, as well as apprentices and students of her own. Her work hung in every festival, and yearly she would judge the competitions of the broiderers and dressmakers as an acknowledged master. Your niece is new to the city, my lord. They do not know her except as Finwë’s wife. Moreover – ” here her lips twisted, bitter despite herself – “she is a Vanya, and the Noldor have found them to be an alien sort of people, of strange, barbaric customs, ways of dress and speech that grate on the sensibility of Tirion. It is a city, many would say, that belongs correctly to the Noldor alone.”

“The prince among them.”

“The prince,” Elenwë agreed, “chief among them.”

Ingwë was silent for a moment. His eyes were like the open sky; distanceless and vast. They fixed on her, seemed to read her. She knew that the king humoured her in what he chose to pursue – and what he chose to let lie.

“Poor Indis!” he said at last. “And she is with child as well. Yet it is not my place to tell Finwë how to manage his son, nor the Queen of the Noldor how to rule her people. But tell me, does she still run? Does she still sing?”

“She is never far from Finwë’s house,” Elenwë replied. “The streets of Tirion are too narrow for running. She sings sometimes, before the court, at feasts and dances.”

“Seldom, you mean, and not as freely as she used to.”

Elenwë shifted in her seat.

“My lord,” she began, “you have asked me to tell you what I know, yet nothing I have said is new to you, nor should be. It was not for thought or speech that you called me here today. Let us not waste words. You are my king, I am your subject. What would you have of me?”

Ingwë didn’t seem perturbed at being caught out. On the contrary, some of the excessive turmoil seemed to fall from him like a veil pulled aside. His face was gentle, kind and sad.

Elenwë had an inkling of what he was going to ask of her.

“I would have you be friends, if you could.”

It was, to be honest, a tall ask. Indis had, after a few initial months, adopted seemingly every single Noldorin custom she could find. If she could dye her hair black, or even brown, without inciting mockery and pity, Elenwë thought she might have done it by now. The girl had changed how she ate, how she dressed, how she spoke. What did Elenwë, a historial relic of the Vanyar presence in Tirion, have to say to someone so determined to be the Queen of the Noldor? She was not surprised that Ingwë had sniffed out the link of antipathy between Elenwë and his niece; she had forgotten, however, the way the king’s grace could bring her to shame as few other things.

“I will be her ally,” Elenwë compromised. She thought of Indis’ baby, not yet born. “Hers and all her house.”

Ingwë sighed. “That is all I will ask.” He stared for a moment at the low table set before them. The firelight cast a ruddy shadow on the polished hardwood, coloured in the golden light made pale by snowfall. Suddenly, he thumped the stack of papers neatly, so all the edges aligned. “Where are our drinks?”

Chapter Text

The Star Across the Sea was a ballad popularised in Tirion during the early First Age. Detailing the sorrow of a young Noldorin bride separated from her Telerin lover, it became closely associated with the larger cultural dimension of Noldorin sentiment towards the disappearance of Elwë and the unwilling Teleri. Hints of controversy sprouted with the song’s persisting popularity after the arrival of Olwë and the founding of Alqualondë. A school of Telerin thought argued that such ballads underscored a rejection of the Falmari presence: in emphasising the search continually, the arrival had been purposefully overlooked. Following the events of the First Kinslaying, The Star Across the Sea fell into obscurity.

- Compendium of Valinorean Ballads

On account of the marriage between the Swan-Maiden of Alqualondë and Finarfin the youngest son of Indis, the laments and searching-songs for the Teleri had been waived. Ordinarily, the minstrels of Tirion would gather in the Great Square, facing the starlight and the sea, to sing until the next Mingling when the quenched light of the Mindon was to be renewed. It was deemed bad luck, however, for songs of separation so soon after the union of the newlyweds.

Elenwë had returned to Tirion when Laurelin was waxed to its fullest. Her horse was tired, and the moment they were again the secluded comfort of Elenwë’s own courtyard, the beast dunked her head into the drinking fountain for a long draught.

Elenwë ran a hand soothingly along her flank. She combed her fingers through the chestnut mane, undoing each braid and collecting the ribbons that fell into the palm of her hand. Surrounded by stone as they were, the joyous cacophony of the full streets had been dimmed to a murmur. Untying the bells from the saddle, she shook them lightly. The melodic jingle had been following them for a full week.

After she’d stabled the old girl, Elenwë made her own wobbly way up the tower. It was times like these she cursed the spiralling stairs, which suddenly seemed endless. Her thighs were sore from riding, and her bags felt heavier with every step.

On the landing just below her own chambers and seven levels below the lamp itself, she took a break. Leaning against the rough-hewn walls of the stairwell, Elenwë let her head fall back in a dull thump. Exhaustion seeped through to her marrow. It was a joyful sort of tiredness, the strain felt in the face after smiling too large for too long. She was emptied out like a cup of water: neither joy nor sorrow was left to her now, only the peace of her return.

Her braid had caught against the stone, and a few wisps of her hair tugged free to brush her neck. It was an itch that grew the longer she didn’t scratch it. The nape of her neck bothered her, made her want to move her hands. Slowly, she became conscious of her body again: the day’s worth of grime on her skin, the heavy Noldorin cut of her robes pooled around her legs. Her eyelids, reddish-gold from where the light of Laurelin slipped through the small window. Her soreness, which she had not realised she had forgotten, returned to her too.

It was time to get up. The queen was waiting for her.

Indis was gold gilded onto the court of Finwë, never short of laughter when it was needed and kindness when it was wanted. She had continued the initiatives of the previous queen, expanded the scopes of some, implemented anew others that had languished. She had amassed her own people, especially as her two sons came of age, and in the stone halls of Finwë’s house she was as a flowering golden wattle thronged by darker blooms. Seated on her throne, she was the picture of grace and amiability, as golden by Finwë’s side as Míriel had been silver.

When Elenwë had tea with the queen, however, it was always alone. The Indis she saw then was a far cry from the golden warmth of the court; it was a quiet, if restless, woman who hosted her, and one who did not seem to know quite what to do with Elenwë’s company. It was a sentiment Elenwë mirrored, but the time Finwë had knocked in an ill-fated attempt to join Indis had turned cold, become very polite, had firmly and somewhat sharply shown her husband the door. Then she had sat across the table from Elenwë in silence as Telperion waxed into brightness, their tea gone cold and their cakes stale. Elenwë had not been able to tell if she was sulking or thinking. She had wondered if the princes would join them once they were old enough, but they never did.

Freshly bathed, Elenwë towelled her hair half-dry. There would be time later to go through her bags; the bronze casket she had already placed in her middle bedside drawer, the one with a lock. For now, she cast around for one of the dresses she had gotten at Valmar. It was in the Vanyarin style, a long, colourful rectangular wrap which would be thrown over one shoulder, leaving her arms bare.

It was how Elenwë usually dressed, but she could not help resenting that it had become purposeful in the eyes of others. There had been a time when it had passed largely unremarked on, indeed, even unnoticed, but that seemed a different age. And even if Fëanor had mellowed with distance and the growing up of his young brothers, with the marriage to his own wife and the getting of his own son, the whispers only grew quieter. They did not stop, not once they had started.

What the queen thought, Elenwë did not know. Indis dressed herself ever in the wide-sleeved, wide-robed, gem-studded fashion of the Noldor, even in the utmost privacy of these stilted teas. But she said nothing on Elenwë, had passed in rare cold silence over the matter when some particularly daring heckler had raised it in the middle of open court. And what of your kinsman, proud in her tower, who acts as if she is not guest in the city of the Noldor and subject to our laws? Finwë had put a stop to that, but Indis had turned on the man with all her warmth suddenly gone, a face like the icy wastes of the north. Still, she had said nothing. Elenwë did not know herself whether she was making an accusation to Indis, and if she were, what that accusation was.

Finwë’s house nestled at the foot of the Mindon, curled up like a sleeping cat. From the front it was grandiose enough, but the back was lonely, less-decorated and less-travelled. It served Elenwë well as a private entrance.

The gardens had been draped with red ribbons for the marriage. The painted corridor and the gravel paths were wreathed and stitched and bowtied into semblances of festivity, satin flowers scattered in the hedges and the bowers of the aromatic trees. There were rubies too, and sticks of blood coral in deference of the bride. Poppies dotted the grass, and the red rose breathed out her fragrance on her throne of thorns. They had even planted serciondo on the fake mountains, so the stone itself appeared to bleed red.

Finwë had certainly spared no expense. Neither Fëanor nor the Indis’ eldest had enjoyed such pageantry, though perhaps it was because Finarfin was leaving for Alqualondë to join with his wife. That was like Finwë, to make a grand gesture sideways, to make grand speeches at the last moment. He had longevity when he wished for it, but he was prone to grandness.

Elenwë turned the last bend in the corridor before it joined with the bridge over a pond of lazy goldfish and fire-red lotuses. Sheer red panels had been erected to either side for the whole walk, turning the light red and gold. It made her feel as if her eyes were closed and she was looking at her own blood running through the skin of her lids. In her haste, she almost missed the child sitting on the wooden banister, and it was only when she’d stepped foot onto the bridge that she paused and turned around.

He had been easy to miss. He was in a crimson robe, as crimson as his hair. The only part of him that wasn’t red was his face, peering out from above his high collar. Even his shoes were red silk embroidered with gold.

Fëanor’s son, Elenwë recalled. She had seen him once when he’d been a babe and his father had paraded him through court, and again at Fingolfin’s wedding. Nelyafinwë, that was right. He had a small, toy ship in his hands that he now put in his lap when he saw her looking. The boy had been hoping she wouldn’t notice him, Elenwë realised, and it was too late for that.

“Ships are made for sailing,” she called. “They’ll do you no good beached on land. Is yours seaworthy?”

Maedhros ran his chubby fingers over the ship’s hull. “My father made it for me. But I can’t get it to work.”

“Your father’s no Telerin shipwright.”

“My father is the best craftsman the Noldor has ever seen,” the child recited, puffing up briefly before deflating just as fast. “I must be doing something wrong. Swanstar keeps sinking.”

“Come over here.” Elenwë stooped down and seated herself on the wooden planks of the bridge. “Maybe I can help.”

“You’re not a Telerin shipwright either.” The child hopped to his feet nonetheless and began walking over, mindful of his robes. “You’re Vanyar.”

Elenwë elected not to comment on this, though she added one more strike to Fëanor’s name in the place where she kept all her grievances. “Show me how you’ve been doing it.”

Maedhros sat down next to her and placed the toy ship on the water carefully. He steadied it with both hands, and Elenwë reached down to hold his sleeves so they didn’t fall into the pond. But the moment he let go, the ship toppled. Elenwë quickly scooped it out of the path of a curious goldfish.

Maedhros’ lip wobbled. He flopped back, drawing his knees up and folding his arms over them.

Elenwë took a closer look at the ship in her hands. It was of fine make, painted silver in clear imitation of the Telerin ships. Its prow was carved in the likeness of a swan with its neck in a graceful arch. There were little garnets for the swan’s eyes, gold dusting for the beak and a child’s hand had scrawled Swanstar across the prow in neat, if large, tengwar. She set it on the bridge. It wobbled forwards for a moment, before balancing itself on the axle of its bow.

Fëanor had never meant for the toy ship to work, Elenwë thought. Just to amuse by being seen, a child’s toy, nothing more. She groped for a pebble, setting it in the back of the ship. Too heavy? She swapped it out for a handful of gravel, picking out and adding as needed until the toy ship balanced itself flat.

“Nelyafinwë,” she said. “Watch this.”

Maedhros lifted his face from where he’d buried it into his lap.

Elenwë set the ship down on the surface of the water carefully, holding it still until the circular ripples it had left disappeared back into the fabric of the pond. A passing goldfish blew bubbles at her, but she shooed it gently away. Slowly, she let go. The ship balanced, still on the still pond. She held her breath, one, two, three. It didn’t sink.

Maedhros had crawled over to the edge of the bridge by now, fingers gripping the side. Elenwë tapped the ship lightly with a finger. It glided through the water soundlessly, its swan prow cutting through the green forest of lotus leaves and the slow-moving goldfish. Maedhros let out a little shriek when one of the fish came close, mouth open, but it merely passed smoothly under the path of the ship, like a red whale in the deep. She watched the boy hold his breath, hands balled into small fists at his mouth, until the ship made its way all the way to the edge of the pond where it beached itself on the wet sand.

Maedhros waited until the ship had stayed upright on landing for a long moment before breaking into a huge smile and clapping his hands together. “Can we do it again? I want to try.”

Elenwë smiled despite herself. “Only if you go get it.”

“No need,” a voice said from across the pond just as Maedhros scrambled to get up. A hand reached down to pluck the little ship out of the sand. Fëanor dusted the wet grime off the bottom of the ship’s hull, seemingly unmindful of how it blackened his fingers. He was resplendent, tall and powerful in the red robes which swallowed up his son. Jewels of his own make sparkled at his throat and on his brow, but his hands were bare and strong, the hands of a jewelsmith and craftsman.

He glanced at Elenwë with cursory dislike and no small amount of questioning. Elenwë tipped her head, curling her lips into a smile as she played with the tasseled hem of her robe where it fell from over her shoulder to her waist.

“Father!” Maedhros cried. “Did you see? Swanstar just sailed.”

The fire of Fëanor’s spirit seemed to soften when he laid on eyes on his son. He knelt down, setting the little ship on the water again. He made that ship, Elenwë thought, and a part of her softened. He carved each feather and chose the garnets for the eyes and let his son scrawl across the hull.

“Catch, Nelyo!”

Fëanor set the ship back in the water, giving it a little push. It went wobbling off across the small pond once more, listing a little as it went. When Fëanor had picked it up, a little of the gravel had fallen out from where it had been packed into the ship. Not enough to sink it, but enough so it eventually cut away from the original path it had been set on. Maedhros made a small sound of disappointment as the ship came to a stop in the red embrace of a fire-lotus, set in the yellow centre of the scarlet petals.

Before Elenwë could stop him, the boy jumped into the shallow pond. Heedless of her hiss and his father’s shout, he waded through the water – almost chest-deep for him. Fish scattered out of his path, as did a lone duck. His clothes, Elenwë thought, were almost certainly ruined. Maedhros did not stop until he came to the lotus holding his ship. Grabbing it, he held it up and waved it in the air.

“Look, father! I caught it.”

Fëanor seemed caught between half-worry, half-delight. Seeing that the waves had not knocked his son over, nor the fish nibbled him, and that at most he seemed to be a little wet, gradually delight took the upper hand. They had similar smiles, Fëanor and his firstborn.

“He is certainly your son, Fëanáro.” Elenwë got up, smoothing down her dress. “Best get him changed before the wind picks up. I’ll take my leave of you both.”

“My thanks for looking out for him.” Fëanor picked the boy up from where he had clambered onto the bank.

“Where are you going?” the boy asked, arms a wet circle around his father’s neck.

Elenwë paused. To see the queen was her first response, but she had enjoyed her time playing with the child. She did not want to ruin it by seeing Fëanor’s face grow black.

“My kinswoman wants me over for tea,” she settled on, and saw Fëanor’s face smooth out anyway.

“We’d best leave the lady to it,” he said to his son. “Come, Nelyo. We’ll get you out of those wet clothes and I’ll make you a better ship. One that floats properly.”

There was no winning, Elenwë reflected as she watched the retreating red shadow of their silhouettes. She regretted that she had not said she was going to see the queen. Once, she had told Fëanor that she was to have tea with his lady mother and he had almost hit her. Finwë had taken her to the side afterwards, told her not to be cruel. It would be easier, Elenwë had almost retorted, if your son were kinder.

No matter. She ducked under the stone arch that separated the gardens from the inner courtyards. Indis was waiting for her.

Chapter Text

But there is one flaw at the centre of this moving argument. If the Mindon Eldaliéva was for the sake of the Teleri, why build it in Tirion? Why not along the coast, where Alqualondë now stands, or even on the easternmost point of Tol Eressëa, that when we under the banner of Olwë saw the Lonely Isle moving towards us, the light of our kin would be foremost of all lights in Aman for our eyes? But it was not so. The tower was not for us. Its light serves only to blind the staring eyes of the Eldar to the truth of what the Noldor and the Vanyar did for their sundered friends, their long-lost kinsmen: nothing.

- ‘Our’ Tower of the Eldar: the Telerin Outsider

“So Melkor is unchained from the bowels of Mandos? Manwë forgives, it must be said.”

 The queen set the teapot back onto the slatted wooden tray, pushing a small clay cup towards Elenwë.

“It seems strange to admit,” she continued, “but I am less fearful than I thought. He was long our tormentor. I remember my mother scaring me with stories of the shadow in the north. And now he’s helping with community fairs in Valmar – tuning bells, of all things. Tell me, did he seem changed?”

Elenwë took a sip of her tea. “He seemed…diminished. Whether he is changed I don’t know – I only saw him from afar. The bells were clear when they rang; but can it be possible?”

“What, change?”

“Change in such magnitude.”

“Is anything impossible in Aman?” Indis took a flaky biscuit from the stand, breaking it in half. She nibbled on the edge, crumbs falling into her lap. “They say there is healing for all, here. Can a spirit truly withstand the turning of the years in Mandos without becoming changed?”

“That is very strange,” Elenwë said, “to hear you say. But if it is true, I would be glad.”

“As would we all.” Indis blinked at Elenwë. “Is it so strange?”

Elenwë swirled her tea in her cup. She didn’t know whether Indis was being deliberately obtuse, or if she was in one of the stranger moods that came sometimes upon her. In truth, it tired her, to always tiptoe around the shadow off the late queen – or perhaps it angered her, to see Indis twist into the shadow of the late queen. She stayed silent.

“You are too constant, that is the problem.” Indis had made short work of the biscuit, and offered the other half to her. “There are not many like you. You are like the rock you guard; an age could pass you by and your face would barely be weathered. But most of us are water instead – we go where the tide takes us.”

“Even yourself?” Elenwë could not resist.

Indis did not seem to take offence at the barb. She refilled her cup, three-quarters full.

“Yes,” she said.

Elenwë considered her. She decided to push. “You dared a marriage that rewrote the laws of the world. Did the tide wash you there as well?”

Indis drank her tea in one long gulp. She stared for a moment into her empty cup, index finger circling the rim.

“There used to be an outcrop of rock,” she said instead of answering, “to the south of Eldamar, near Avathar. I remember when we were first ferried here on Tol Eressëa. I stumbled over them and skinned my knee.”

“Your uncle was terrified when he heard you scream.” The memory rose before Elenwë, the moment when Ingwë had realised his niece had disappeared, the reflexive fear that came at the scream of a child who had disappeared into the shadows. “By the time we found you, you were laughing again.”

“I thought it a great adventure.” A hint of a smile passed over Indis’ lips. She rose, drawing back the curtains so the waning light of Laurelin flooded the room with gold. “The last time I went to see Ingoldo, I went for a walk down the bay looking for it. I searched the whole day up and down the beach, but there was nothing there but glittering sand. My son had to come and find me.”

“It sounds very hard to be Arafinwë,” Elenwë commented as she rose to join Indis on the terrace. “Imagine losing the queen of Tirion!”

“He should have left me be.” Indis untwined her hair from its fishtail braid. Her voice was strangely flat. “I’m his mother. I came to Alqualondë to be his mother, to meet my grandson, that was all.”

“Then you should have run.” Elenwë leant on the wrought-iron railing, staring at the gardens stretching out below them, and beyond that the great pillar of her tower. “You should have made him chase you and dunked him into the water when he caught up.”

That made Indis laugh. “Imagine! Poor Ingoldo. I could hardly do that to him before his law-father. Besides, I can only imagine what they would say in Tirion if we showed up before Olwë, a wild mother and her wild son, dripping wet the pair of us.”

“They have talked anyway.”

“Yes.” Indis sobered. “They have.”

There was always a place where Indis would stop and not speak beyond, as if she could do no more than edge the rim of discontent. It was a wall of granite that had not changed once in all of their conversations. She would probably change the subject, Elenwë thought idly. Change it to something harmless, something sideways, something that would not hurt. Elenwë had gotten used to talking in concentric circles, looping paths that went nowhere.

“I think about Míriel sometimes,” Indis said. “We were friends, you know. I liked her, I admired her, I thought she was funny and clever and gifted. If she came back, changed, changed enough to come back, I…I would welcome her.”

Elenwë stared at her, too shocked for words. Indis lowered her head, her golden hair blowing out in the wind. Her hands were white-knuckled where they gripped the railing.

“It had been so long,” she said. “Can I be blamed? For choosing what I did, and changing as I have? You will not understand me. I have made us strangers to each other.”

“We were always strangers,” Elenwë heard herself say. The initial shock was passing, leaving behind a cold like snowfall on the slopes of the White Mountain. She was angry, and tired of being angry, and glad in a strange way that she was still angry.

“I miss my uncle.” Indis did not seem to hear her. She was in a restless, fey mood, and now she paced up and down the room. “I miss the quiet of his halls. I have not seen little Ingwion for so long, and now he is a young man. I long to run through the fields outside Tirion, the lonely woods of Oromë. To sing ditties instead of arias. Why has it become like this? I loved Finwë for such a long, long time. And I am the queen of Tirion, wherever I go.”

“Then go.”

Indis stopped. “What?”

Elenwë leant back against the railing, balancing herself with both hands. “Saddle a horse and pack your bags. Ride away beyond the Pélori, wherever you might wish, all the way to the Encircling Sea. Go up Taniquetil and petition Varda herself to take you on as a handmaiden. Or simply never stop running. You used to like that – I barely ever saw you before you decided to set up shop forever in Tirion of all places. Besides, we Vanyar have a history of leaving. I’m sure Finwë would agree.”

Indis stared at her. “You’ve never left.”

“The only one. I never will if I can help it.” The words came out more bitter and more firm than Elenwë had thought. “But if I wanted to tie my resolve to a rock the tides would not erode, I would hardly have pinned my hopes on Finwë. Besides, others did. My king did, as did my friends, as did my six brothers and sisters in duty. You did, once. Who would fault you?”

“Everyone.” Indis’ lips twisted, before smoothing out once more. “My children.”

“They seem grown enough.”

“Are you driving me out as well?” Indis sat heavily down at the table. “You, my only ally, my only kin?”

“You could.”  Elenwë moved behind her, running her hands through the long fall of Indis’ hair. “Fishtail again?”

Indis was silent.

“Just a plait then.” Elenwë separated the golden hair, so like her own, into three parts. When she had plaited all the way down to Indis’ hip and was rummaging for a spare ribbon to tie it with, Indis turned. It pulled the finished braid out of Elenwë’s hands, and within moments, the whole structure began to unravel.

"Arakáno," Indis said. “He is in Tirion. He will not leave the city, ever. And I cannot leave him.”

Elenwë smoothed a stray strand of gold from her cheek. Struck by a sudden impulse, she kissed her lightly on the forehead. It was as she had once done when Indis was a baby, and she a girl following in Ingwë’s train. Back when the stars shone silver on the surface of Cuiviénen.

“You could,” she told the queen again, and left her.

With every addition to Finwë’s house, his actual house gained a room or a wing to go with it. It made for ugly architecture and labyrinthine corridors, décors from different movements grating at each other across the divide of the births they were made for. The oldest Elenwë knew, but she’d lost count some time ago. It mattered little when the heart stayed the same: Finwë and Fëanor and Míriel’s ancient rooms, and Indis’ halls. In any case most of them were empty year-round, more guest-rooms for the occasional visit than lived-in. It was a huge, messy, lonely complex, silent at times as she imagined the halls of Mandos to be.

It was a surprise then to hear muffled laughter and the sound of running footsteps. One of Finwë’s innumerable grandchildren – how many was he on again? Fëanor was on four – or was it five? – and Fingolfin had at least one. No, he had two, Finarfin had one and that one was born on the same day as Fingolfin’s second. Seven at least, maybe eight. It was too late to find a different corridor, and the bend was approaching. She paused, better to avoid crashing into any infants underfoot.

Sure enough two figures came darting around the corner, one gold and one dark. The dark-haired one was carefully balancing a tower of blocks above his head while maintaining a pitpatter run, the other was chasing after him and trying to knock the tower over. They both paused when they saw her, and in the jolt of their stop the tower came crashing down about the first boy’s face. One hit his nose and he squeaked.

Elenwë searched her memory. Blond – could only be Finarfin. Findárato. The other one was likely Fingolfin’s secondborn then, and that child was clutching his nose with his eyes watering while Finrod patted soothingly, if a little anxiously at his face.

Elenwë reached down and brushed a stray block from where it had landed in the boy’s hair. “Does it hurt?”

Turgon took his hands away from his reddened nose. “My tower fell.”

That was a no, then. “You can build it again,” Elenwë offered.

A fat tear dribbled down Turgon’s cheek as his lip wobbled. Finrod stepped in before his friend could truly begin bawling, gathering up the fallen blocks with his small hands into a pile as he settled into a cross-legged sit at his friend’s feet. “You can build one on my head!”

That seemed to cheer Turgon right up. He wiped his eyes and started placing the blocks on Finrod’s carefully still head. It was an old game they were playing, Elenwë thought, watching them. You created a square tower of blocks, then slid a block out to make the tower airier and airier, as high as it could go, until the tower collapsed. She settled back against the wall, interested despite herself. In any case, the children seemed to have entirely forgotten about her, or at least decided that she was not as important as their game.

When the tower was impressively high and also impressively unstable, Elenwë cut in. “Braid his hair in.”

Turgon’s hands paused over where he was deliberating on the position of a block. Finrod too turned his head creakingly slowly to face her, blocks wobbling all the while.

“Braid his hair into the foundations. It’ll make it easier to keep building and keep it steadier.”

Turgon pressed the wooden block to his lips as he considered this advice. “I don’t know how to braid,” he said at last.

Elenwë straightened. “I’ll show you.”

It was only when Finrod was balancing what had become an impressive wooden headdress with his hair climbing up like vines that Elenwë realised she had taken over too much. Finrod touched his head carefully, like someone wearing a formal set of hairpins for the first time. He tipped his head slightly to the side. The tower leaned, but did not fall; both children, however, gasped.

“Do you like it?” Elenwë asked belatedly.

“It’s so tall.” Turgon poked the tower.

Finrod’s nose crinkled as he stood. “It’s heavy.” He tugged a little at his hair, but couldn’t quite reach where Elenwë had secured the tail end of the braid with a clip. He turned woeful eyes on her: “It’s pulling my head.”

“How did you know how to do that?” Turgon leaned in as she began the laborious work of undoing Finrod’s wooden crown. “Can you teach me?”

“I live in a tower.” Elenwë stacked another block on the floor. Finrod was starting to resemble a sprouting golden onion with wilted leaves, and she was struggling not to laugh. “Maybe later.”

“Which tower?”

Elenwë pointed vaguely in the direction she knew was right. “That one.”

“Can we come see it?”

“No. Maybe when you’re older.”

“Why not?”

Elenwë unravelled the loop of braids she had made around the base of the tower so all of Finrod’s hair hung loose down past his shoulders. “All done.”

She patted Finarfin’s son on the head. He tipped back his head to look at her with remarkably bright blue eyes, before hopping up to take his friend by the hand.

“But why not?” Turgon said again.

“You couldn’t climb the steps.” Elenwë stretched with a yawn. “They’re too big, and you’re both very small. You can try, but if you get stranded I’ll – ” she suddenly bent over at the hips so she was eye-level with them “- throw you off the balcony, all the way down to your grandpa’s roof.”

She pulled her face into a massive, ghastly grin and had the pleasure of watching both of the children squeak.

“What’s this I hear?”

Valar take me, Elenwë thought, exasperated and a little embarrassed as she straightened.

Finrod peered past her legs. His face broke into a smile. “Uncle Nolofinwë!”

“Father?” Turgon pushed slightly at Finrod, trying to see, then yelped as Finrod slung his arm through his elbow, dragging the two of them forward in something like a three-legged race. Elenwë turned to face Fingolfin as the two children barrelled into his waiting arms.

The young lord Fingolfin cut a figure in blue and silver. He looked like the sky above Tirion, white clouds curling at the hem of his robe and silver threading his collar. Lace ruffles billowed out of his long sleeves and tucked into the tight line of his belt in the new style. He was warm when he smiled down at his child and his brother’s child, less warm and more pleasant when he faced Elenwë. Still, there was a glint in his eyes that spoke of laughter, and Elenwë found herself smiling ruefully back.

She did not see the princes often, though she saw Fingolfin the most. He had taken to shadowing his mother at court, gracious as she was, kind as she was, careful as she was. Before the throne he seemed as a polished piece of jade, warm in a cool sort of way; Indis’ son all the way through. Down to the very way he seemed to curl inwards at times, defensive before any attack had been struck. Leaving childhood, it had become rare to see him unguarded. He had gained the beauty of a dancer, choreographed and practiced again and again.

The two children seemed to have been handily distracted at Fingolfin’s appearance, an opportunity Elenwë decided not to waste. She edged around the happy trio. When she was at Fingolfin’s ear, she paused. Arakáno, she remembered Indis saying, I cannot leave him. A moment of deliberation – what to say?

“I just had tea with your mother.” She settled on the inane statement, and from his momentary stillness, saw that he had drawn his own conclusions. That was enough. She swept along, finding once more the curving, twisting path that led out of the house of Finwë.

Chapter Text

We have returned again and again to the study of these drawings…it has the merit of great simplicity of arrangement. The great achievement of this building is the unity of its structural expression.

- Assessor’s report on the Tower of the King, Gondolin

When Ingwë first lit the great lamp atop the Mindon Eldaliéva, he had begged a flask of Telperion’s sap from the Giver herself. It was only with the greatest reluctance that Yavanna Kementári had pierced the side of her most prized work, collecting its silver blood in a vessel of bronze; she had wept as she did it, and the scar remained, a whorl on the otherwise smooth trunk. It had been enough to keep the slender beam of silver light strong for an age of the world.

The feat that could not be replicated. Yavanna would not do it again.

“It is precious to me beyond all things,” she said with the voice of a thousand growing roots. “It is the work of my heart.”

And none could, or would, gainsay her.

It was not, therefore, the trunk that Elenwë cut with her bronze knife at the foot of Telperion, all these years later. It was not blood she wanted for her bronze casket.

Clad in the shapeless white shift of the mendicant, she approached the green mound of the Ezellohar with her feet unshod and her hair unbound. The loamy black earth sank beneath each footfall, and her hair tickled the undersides of her arms. Before her Laurelin sank to sleep as Telperion woke. In Valmar, far away, the bells rang high and low.

Knife in hand, she went to the elder of the Trees. It moved in a susurrus of voices, a chorus of whispered sighs. Its flowers were just opening, their perfume beginning to thicken into sweetness. They bulged, some of them, still at the bud, as a fruit gone overripe, while others peeked out, unfurling in a circle of opening lips.

Elenwë fingered one which was almost fully bloomed, feeling its long, thin, tapered petals spreading into circles of silver around a delicately creamy centre. As she touched it, a silver dew rained down like a shimmer of tears. Her bronze knife shone metallic as she manoeuvred it through the thick bunches of pale-throated leaves, set it at the thin stem of the bloom.

A single cut.

She put her thumb to where sap beaded at the end of the severed stem. It burned against her skin, hot as ice felt when it came too cold and too fast. The light of the flower streamed through her fingers, illuminating the paleness of her bones.

Of the many hymns to the Trees, she preferred the worship of silence. The ritual which she completed year over year she almost always did wordless. Light spoke for her. The gold-silver wash of the Mingling in the bower where Laurelin embraced Telperion with her golden arms became sound, taste, smell, touch.

A shift in the grass behind. She looked, long and lingering, before turning her back on the light.

“The casket, Turukáno.”

Turgon stared at her, face open like torn sheet. His hands were still and unmoving around the bronze casket she had entrusted to him. The light streaming past her fell about him without touching him; it seemed as if his hair and his dark eyes were the only shadows in the world.

“The casket,” Elenwë repeated, holding up the flower between them.

The moment the light shone upon his face, Turgon let out a little gasp. His fingers loosened, then reflexively tightened around what they held, a little spasm that reminded Elenwë of a bird ruffling its feathers. Beneath the cold, silver glow his face became as of panes of glass, smoothed into a sort of angular fragility. She thought she could make out his soul, straining towards the light beneath the shadow of his skin. His eyes were wet, and as she watched, a tear slid down his cheek. It glimmered, an iridescent pearl.

At last, he seemed to hear her. Wordlessly he held the casket out, its engraved lid tipped back. The two eyes of the beast stared back at Elenwë from the lavishly decorated outside, a warning and a welcome. Its open mouth gaped upon its three legs, waiting.

They knew, now, that it was Oromë they had seen in the shadows of the trees, and the terrible many-legged beast the Hunter and his steed. And if Melkor had ever made them afraid – well, he was safe enough now, buried three layers deep in the guild of the jewelsmiths, carving pretty rocks. They were not afraid anymore. Indeed, in the rhetoric halls of Valmar and the scholars’ apartments of Tirion the crude drawings seemed silly, primitive, even foolish.

Here in the light, Elenwë remembered the heart-pounding fear of hearing hooves thundering through the forest, and the long horn sounding as something from the deep, and the spark upon the rocks revealing in each dread-filled instant a many-limbed head with a baying train. And the eyes. The golden eyes of the beast, blazing as the stars blazed, a fire that followed unrelenting. She remembered what it was to not know in an unknown world, when the shadows multiplied and all they had were the wavering outlines of ghosts, twisted as they were by terror. She felt the cold grip in her chest again, as she looked in the abyss of darkness, the gaping mouth that swallowed all light.

She did not drop the flower into the casket. She nestled it into the rounded opening, arranging its petals to fit the small space. She let herself do it slowly, carefully, giving up the light to the shadows’ keeping. Surrounded by walls of bronze, the radiance of the blossom had been cut off in every direction except for where it still shone upon her face.

At last, she latched the lid shut.

The Mingling was still upon them, but it did not seem real somehow. She blinked the starry light out of her eyes. All was still brightness, without colour, without sound. The sharp, bright clarity of moments before was dead now, locked in a box; what remained was a soupy radiance, an unshaped haze of light without object or purpose that was almost indistinguishable from darkness. She shook her head a little, feeling the world blur into a momentary haze of watercolour, before settling once more into that-which-exists.

There was a slash of red in her vision. Elenwë blinked, but it remained clear. The light had not tricked her, not flattened the world into mirage-like bursts as it was wont to do. She gained her bearings; she was standing with her hands laid over the closed lid of the casket, knife clutched in them. Turgon stood before her, still as stone and almost as silent, if it were not for the bloody slice across the pale softness of his arm.

“You’re bleeding,” she said.

Turgon seemed to sigh, as if coming out of a trance. “I am?”

“Yes.” She ran her finger along the cut. Her fingers came away scarlet, even as he did not flinch.

That woke her up. “You’re bleeding!”

“Yes,” Turgon said, still a little dreamy.

What must have happened slowly pieced itself together. She had been holding the knife all the while, and when she drew close she must have drawn the sharp edge of the blade against Turgon’s skin. She had not noticed, entranced as she had been – and as it turned out, neither must have he.

Sure enough, when she looked down at her knife, blood had turned it copper, and was now slowly sliding down to wet her fingers where they were curled around the hilt. She looked at Turgon, torn as to what she should do first: wipe her knife on the grass and put it away, take the casket from his hands or try and wake him from the light-drunkness.

Put the knife away first. She knelt down, cleaning the blade so the blood glistened red on the green instead. All the while, Turgon remained, blood pooling in the curve of his wrist as he held the casket with the blocked-out light aloft. He was a statue of stone, high (he had grown, Elenwë remarked for the first time, very tall) and still with a sort of aesthetic unity that one saw in the face of a sanded marble column. He was still bleeding, however, though he did not seem as of yet to have noticed it.

Elenwë rose, putting her hands around the casket. She tugged it lightly.

Turgon made a wounded noise.

“Turukáno,” Elenwë said. “This is mine.”

Turgon stared at her. His eyes were dark and unpained, and the mingled light reflected in them. But in their depths Elenwë could see where the starfire of Telperion’s flower had lodged, a silver of silver in a sea of grey. It was like an opened wound, bleeding light, as if what she had shown him had lanced him through. His hands let go, slowly, convulsively.

The shift she wore had no sleeves nor pockets. Elenwë gripped the sheathed knife with her thumb and forefinger while holding the casket between her palm and other three fingers, so one hand was free. She leant closer to peer at the slice; it did not look deep, but she couldn’t be sure. She had no memory of inflicting it at all, only the implacable measure of her task. She thought she might have sliced through bone in a fugue as the one she had been in. Turgon might even have let her.

The bleeding had slowed to a trickle, and had left a spidering map of blood across Turgon’s arm. She brushed her thumb across the cut.

That, of all things, made Turgon flinch.

Too late, she realised that it was her Telperion-burned thumb, where she had stoppered the cut stem of the flower. The sap had clung to it, viscous and undrying, a cold burn that she now saw as a sliver of light lining the bleeding cut. She looked up, caught him looking down.

Was that wonderment in his face?

“I’m bleeding,” he whispered.

“Yes.” Elenwë took him by the hand. He came easily, his eyes tracing slow circles between her face and his blood. The sap of Telperion had sheared through where the blood had begun to clot and scab; it bled anew, more freely than before. Blood trickled down into the hills and gulleys of their joined fingers, sticky and hot and red. They were leaving a trail behind them like a train of blooming, red flowers.

She peered at his face again. It still had the glass-like quality of light-stricken stillness, though as they walked further away from the Two Trees the light began to diffuse. His cheeks were still wet from where he had wept.

Elenwë reached up to brush her hair off her shoulders before she realised both her hands were full. She was not used to being accompanied, she thought, not used to having to corral and work around others. Somehow the spectacle was reserved for other parts: meeting the royal house of Tirion at its gates, the feast of Ingwë, the song of bells in Valmar.

Here, at the Ezellohar, few had ever approached by her side. Ingwë, once. Yavanna had watched her closely the first few times, but let her alone every time after that.

It had been gratifying to receive the request; she did not regret it yet, but she might soon. She had not expected it from Fingolfin’s son. Turgon resembled him remarkably in face if not in bearing. They had the same sort of airiness; Fingolfin, however, seemed to embody sky, while his son was more the fluting spiral of a limestone stack carved thin by wind and water.

Fingolfin! She would be returning his younger son to him paled with a new scar to match. She almost pulled a face at the headache of it.

Well, Elenwë thought, that is not my fault. It was Turgon who had begged leave to join her, and Turgon who had ridden alone to Valmar awaiting her, and Turgon who had wanted to hold the casket. Before, she would set it at the root of Telperion with its three legs balanced in the green grass. The rite she performed was not a place for children. Let Turgon go running back to his father if he must. She had done merely as what she had chosen to be.

Ringing the Ezellohar was Máhanxar, the Ring of Doom. The thrones of the Valar were tailored each to each; empty, they were but a ring of twelve plinths, patterned differently according to the nature of its lord. Now they passed the outstretched wing of Manwë, now the circular rings of Varda. Yavanna’s plinth was covered in moss, while Aulë’s was a feat of geometry worked into granite. It was before the three eyes of the Fëanturi that Turgon stumbled, pressing his hand against the half-closed lid of Irmo’s plinth. They were flanked to the left by the closed eye of Námo, and to the right by the open, weeping eye of Nienna.

“Ow,” Turgon said.

He lifted their joined hands before his face, before seeming to suddenly recognise Elenwë’s presence. Multiple realisations passed through his face at once. It was like a geological process sped up; each successive thought took the ones before as its foundation, jumping off and linking up in the way Aulë had shaped the mountains. His eyes flickered between her face, her bloodied knife, her casket and his wound.

“I have caused some trouble for you,” said Turgon with admirable aplomb, even as his cheeks pinkened. He made a quick gesture of respect towards the thrones: Noldorin all the way through.

Elenwë tilted her head. With her freed hand, she brought the mass of her hair over her shoulder. “And I have bled you. I fear your lord father may have harsh words for me.”

“Father?” Turgon considered. “No. He will say nothing. I will tell him not to, or not tell him at all.”

“An impressive injury to hide.”

“It’s nothing, truly. My sister and I did worse to each other playing as children.”

“Did you hide those as well?” Elenwë leant against Námo’s plinth as Turgon unwrapped the ribbon from his hair and wound it about his arm. It was tasselled at the ends with small red corals, but otherwise kept neatly to the prince’s overall theme of white and gold.

“As the secrets of children are sacred.” Turgon’s answer was muffled as he held one end of the ribbon between his teeth to tie it tight. That done, he shot Elenwë a low glance. “I hope I was not too much of a burden.”

Elenwë straightened, turning towards the golden gates of Valmar. After a moment, she heard Turgon’s footsteps behind her, rustling through the grass.

“And how was the history lesson?” she said, when they had been walking in silence some minutes.

“What?”

“Surely that was what you came to see? The past made flesh.” Elenwë tipped her head back. “Myself. Well, child of Aman? How are the rituals of your forebears?”

“Painful.”

 Elenwë laughed.

“And…very beautiful.” Some of the youth Turgon had been working so hard to suppress crept in as earnestness. “I had never seen anything so lovely.”

“Enough to forget your pain, it seems. Well, that’s flattering.”

“No.” Turgon drew up by her side. “I felt it. The slice – it hurt.”

Elenwë stopped short. “You felt it? In the moment?”

“Yes.” Turgon poked at the bandage he had made of his ribbon. “I didn’t realise you had cut me though.”

“How,” Elenwë said, “did you feel the pain and not realise you’d been hurt?”

Turgon’s eyes darted up. They widened a little at the storm he saw brewing in her countenance.

“I thought the pain was…was from the sight, if that makes sense.” He frowned, touching his lips. “I thought I was seeing the pain, or perhaps my body was an eye and the light a knife and the seeing a wound. It was so bright, so close – looking at it was like looking into the Elder King’s storms. I didn’t realise I was hurt. No, I knew I was hurt. I just didn’t think the hurt was separate.”

“From?”

“From everything else.”

Turgon’s face resumed a little of its glassy transparency. He turned to Elenwë. In the bottom of his eyes the silver light still shone. A wound, indeed. The thought of censure at putting it there had irritated her at first. But it was not censure, perhaps, that Turgon would meet her with on the hurt that she had dealt him.

Elenwë considered his words. Painful, he had said. Perhaps he had not meant for her to laugh. “Why stay then, if it pained you? You must have known I would have taken no offence if you left.”

In truth, she doubted she would have noticed. It had been almost a surprise to find Turgon behind her – a part of her had gone and what are you doing here.

“I wanted to see. I wanted to know.”

Elenwë looked at him. “And what,” she said, “did you want to know?”

Turgon cocked his head. For a strange, sudden moment, he seemed to be as a circle of mirrors, as sand heated into glass, as water frozen into ice. The light bent into him, caught in the elaboration of his reflecting body until it became a single, silver flame. Elenwë saw him then as a lantern passing light, a beacon drawing on radiance to pierce the shadows of the sea.

The moment passed, and he was Turgon once more. Fingolfin’s second son, sandwiched between a wild brother and wilder sister, filling in his new adulthood with a daring fieldtrip under the supervision of a family friend (if one defined Elenwë generously). She did not know if she had seen him true; only that she saw him anew.

“What makes it worth it,” Turgon said quietly. “To keep what is beautiful eternal.”