Many Thanks to my betas Istarnie and Georgia Piper for their help.

Disclaimer: The characters are Tolkien's. I'm just borrowing them for a while.

Notes: For those who don’t know - Nerdanel is Fëanáro's (Fëanor’s) wife, Anairë is Nolofinwë’s (Fingolfin’s) wife, and Eärwen is Arafinwë’s (Finarfin’s) wife.

Written for Challenge #8 at the JulieFiannaArchive.

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His blue-grey eyes sparkle in delight as he flashes me a brilliant smile over the head of one of our newest progeny who is just learning to stand. Wispy red curls briefly obscure my beloved’s face just before their owner once again topples, dragging my husband over with her.

“Ow!” Finwë cries as he rolls onto his back on the bear skin rug by the crackling hearth. Futily he attempts to disentangle the pudgy hands from his long raven hair. The diminutive offender assists him by giggling and hauling herself up onto her great-grandfather’s broad chest, wrapping more strands of hair in her fingers.

“Indis, help me, please,” Finwë pitifully begs.

Laughing, I set the girl’s matching twin sister and one of their golden-haired cousins, who is all of two weeks older, on the other side of the rug and crawl over to Finwë.

“What is this?” I exclaim mockingly, hands on my hips as I kneel by his side. “The King of the Noldor brought down by the might of a tiny maiden? Surely only a granddaughter of the mighty Fëanáro would be so bold!”

Finwë winces as I bend over him while we work together to extract the fingers. “We waited long enough for his twins to have children and for one of his seven sons to produce a daughter. I should have known that his little maidens would be just as strong as the daughters of our children.”

Finally freeing the offending hands, I deftly pick up the squealing toddler and swing her over to gently rest beside the other two girls. I pluck a soggy pink hair ribbon from the mouth of Aikanaro’s newest daughter and pocket it as I turn back to face my husband. I feel his warm hands on my shoulders drawing me down to him.

His kiss is deeper and more passionate than I was expecting, but I respond in kind.

Smiling against his lips, I whisper, “If such is to be my reward, I shall have to rescue you more often.”

The dancing firelight reflects in his roguish eyes as he replies, “If you would but lean over me like that more often, I would most gladly reward you so.”

I answer him with a brazen kiss of my own.

When I finally withdraw for lack of air (and for fear of someone walking in on us again), he pulls me down to nestle in his arms, my back pressed to his chest and one of his strong hands resting languidly on my hip. The gentle light of Telperion shimmers through the windows as we lie thus, watching two of the little ones steal the ribbons from the hair of one of Amrod’s daughters. From another room, I hear Nolofinwë and Arafinwë laughing at some jest Fëanáro just made. Giggles merrily alight from an adjoining room where our daughters-in-law are teasing Artanis and Aredhel about the impending arrivals of their first born.

It is a time like so many we have shared together and so many more we promise to have.

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Hazy candlelight mulled through the dark room in the interminable night as Indis took a long pull of her wine. The weak fire in the lonely hearth cast deep shadows upon her grim audience as they lay huddled beneath blankets on the bearskin rug. Placing the empty glass beside her on the dusty bricks, she looked on the sorrowful faces of Anairë, Nerdanel, and Eärwen. Wrapping her own quilt more closely about her to ward off the ever-present chill, she sighed.

“Well, my daughters, you did ask. If I had one wish, that is what it would be. Foolish is it not, to wish for what could and should have been but now never shall be?”