Chapter 1: I Hold With Those That Favor Fire

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

~ Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Year of the Trees 1172:

The rage was fire in his veins.

Trembling, Fëanáro rummaged through his room, stuffing things haphazardly into his rucksack. He had to get away. His father had told him of Manwë’s decree in the second hour and he had not slept since. His heart was a drum in his chest, driving him on. It had been a few weeks since his last foray into the wilds of Aman. He would need his tinderbox and whetstone. A folded oilcloth, copper ladle and a small tin kettle joined the pack. Finally, he stuffed in a roll of hempen cord and needle case. He grabbed his quiver and bow in its leather case and pinned a crimson traveling cloak over his brown tunic. He was almost out the door when he remembered to change into his boots; sandals would not serve him in the mountains.

After a moment’s hesitation, he knelt down by his bed and withdrew an iron strongbox from under it. He retrieved the key hidden beneath a bowl of full of multicolored crystals on the shelf next to his desk. The brass hinges opened silently for he kept them well oiled. Within the box was a thick stack of parchment, each leaf covered with sable ink in a practiced, exquisite hand. Fëanáro took the sheets carefully and placed them in a leather pouch, lacing the eyelets tightly closed before placing it in his pack. Fëanáro looked over his room one last time and tried to remember if there was anything he might need.

He ought to leave a note for his father.

The anger welled up inside him at the thought and he struck the door’s lintel, the wood cracking beneath his fist. Snarling at his own foolishness, Fëanáro forced himself to breathe normally as he removed several splinters from his smarting hand. He had to get away. His father did not deserve a note. He must leave before his father made the announcement in the Great Square tomorrow. Before he would be forced to bear the pity on the faces of all who looked upon him. No one stopped him as he left Finwë’s suite and crossed the hall, and entered the nearly deserted Place kitchens. After stuffing his pack with a stack of leavened, wheaten flatbread and a hunk of hard cheese, he filled a small cloth bag with salt. Fëanáro did not wish to repeat the trip when he had forgotten the salt and had to eat the bland meat of the game he killed.

He egressed from the kitchens out into the Great Square, making for the Great Stairs opposite the Palace that descended to the base of Túna. Judging by the light, First Mingling was almost over, Telperion’s silver glow barely discernable over Laurelin’s golden blaze. Most Eldar would be waking soon. Heading south, he took the small gravel road that circled the Hill, seeing no other person until he arrived at the stables. There, one of the grooms greeted him and departed to retrieve his grey mare from her pasture while Fëanáro sought his saddle from the storeroom. He gave his horse, Hísië, a thorough rub down with a brush and cloth before saddling her as she playfully butted him with her head and nibbled at the sleeve of his tunic, hoping for treats.

He took the South Road until he reached the Noldorin mining town of Felyamas on the edge of the Forest of Oromë. There he crossed the stone bridge that spanned Telpeduinë, the river that ran along the Pelóri Mountains south of Tirion and emptied into the Sea through the Calacirya. Once he crossed the river’s floodplain he began the climb into the foothills. The hills were covered with a massive forest that stretched across the lower elevations of the Pelóri for almost its entire length. The dense woodland was comprised mainly of horse chestnut, walnut, evergreen oak and smooth maple. Fëanáro chose one of the many small streams that flowed westward down the hills to ride alongside.

The stream’s banks were thick with hazel brakes and Pelóri alder. The air was filled with the calls from white-cheeked bushtits, spectacled finches and red-breasted flycatchers. His ride was peaceful, interrupted only when he startled a thar that was drinking from the stream. The goatish antelope was covered in black fur with small horns and large donkey-like ears. The solitary beasts were only found in the mountains and, as it bounded into the woods, Fëanáro wished briefly that he had brought along a larger bow. Thar meat was well suited to roasting over an open fire. Yet the short bow he had tied behind the cantle did not have the draw weight to bring down a creature the size of a small goat. Shaking his head, he continued along the river.

After an hour had passed, Fëanáro was forced to stop and to rest and water Hísië. Laurelin was beginning to reach her greatest bloom and the lack of seep had caught up to him. His horse was well trained and there was no need to hobble her so,after removing her saddle, Fëanáro bedded down in the soft reeds on the bank of the stream. Head resting on his rucksack, he watched a black eagle glide overhead, the pinons on its outstretched wings splayed wide to slow its flight. A giant flying squirrel in the alder above him emitted a booming call in warning. Leaping from its branch the squirrel, which was longer than Fëanáro’s forearm, glided down to the safety of a dense thicket of hazel. He drifted down the Path of Dreams listening to the gentle murmuring of the water and the high, squeaking “tseet! tseet! tseet!” of a nuthatch.

Fëanáro woke refreshed and saw that the golden light was waning and it must be late into Quelië Laurë. He saddled Hísië and after drinking from the stream and eating a disk of flatbread, he continued his ascent. It was well into Second Mingling when the woods changed, the trees now comprised of fir, mountain cedar, blue pine and spruce. The forest floor was densely covered with delicate pink rhododendrons, and scattered with vole burrows. Fëanáro dismounted and gathered a large pile of dead wood. He then searched the forest floor for stones and with them he constructed a small fire pit at the base of a towering cedar. Wandering around the roots of trees, he spent some time hunting for morel mushrooms, careful to avoid the stinging nettles that also grew there.

Retrieving his tinderbox from his pack, Fëanáro kindled a fire in his pit. He then sat before it, back resting against the cedar, eating his catch of morels as he waited for coals to form. He would go hunting at second hour. There were many different kinds of partridges and pheasants to be found in these woods. He could stay here as long as he wanted. Perhaps he would not return. He could dwell forever in the uninhabited hills of the Pelóri. His father would send people to look for him, of course. But perhaps he would forget about him in time. His mother had not even been dead four years and he already seemed to have forgotten about her. At that thought he stood, and viciously kicked at a root. Shaking once more with impotent frustration, he dug the leather pouch out of his rucksack.

Tearing the sheets out of the case he held the pages in unsteady hands.

He had been a year and a half when his father had hired a tutor to teach him how to read and write. He had been given a wax tablet, which was a wood panel and frame that was covered with beeswax that had been darkened with charcoal and softened with oil. He was told to copy with a copper stylus all of the symbols his tutor inked onto a sheet of parchment until he perfected them. Fëanáro had mastered all of the Sarati in half a week, much to his tutor’s surprise and his father’s delight. He had then been entrusted with a goose feather quill and penknife. After learning how to dress and point a quill, he was allowed to write whatever he desired on his own parchment. He had spent hours every day at his desk until his hand ached and his inkwell ran dry.

Fëanáro loved writing. He loved the elegance and simplicity of Rúmil’s script. He loved the curves and lines that trailed down a sheet of parchment like delicate vines. He imagined that the little dots and strokes that indicated vowels were little black flowers blooming alongside their stems. He loved the scent of the iron gall ink, and the soft, ticklish tip of the quill. He loved the strange texture of the parchment and the ink spatters on his hands. Yet, even more than the beauty and grace of the letters, he loved how he could now make his thoughts permanent so that he might go back and look at them over again. He must have written hundreds of pages in the first few week after he had learned to write.

Fëanáro looked at the stack of parchment he held.

His tutor had wanted him to practice writing letters to people. He had done so, every day, he had written a letter to his mother. When his tutor had seen his letter’s she had looked at himwith sad eyes and asked if he wanted to write one to his father. He had not understood. Why would he want to write to someone he spoke to every day? His tutor eventually convinced him to write other things. Yet he had composed a letter to his mother every ten weeks since he learn to write. His father had always said that his mother would return to them someday. He also often said how sad his mother would be to have missed his growing up. Fëanáro made sure to describe his life in detail in his letters so that when his mother was released from Mandos she would not feel as if she had missed so much.

Now, gazing at the bundle of letters, Fëanáro knew she would never read them.

His eyes began to burn with unshed tears. Hísië, sensing his distress, stopped grazing by the stream and came to nuzzle his shoulder. He stroked her velvety muzzle as the fire within his chest raged. His father was not to blame for this. In truth, this was the Valar’s fault. It was Mandos’ fault for imprisoning his mother in his Halls. It was Lord Manwë’s fault for allowing the abominable decree that his father could remarry. It was also King Ingwë’s fault for encouraging his niece. Yet most of all it was Indis’ fault. She was to blame for beguiling his father. If the Vanya had not ensorcelled his father a year ago, Fëanáro knew he would have been content to wait for his mother’s return. Yet now she never would, knowing her husband loved another.

With a cry, Fëanáro cast the letters into the fire and watched as the flames burnt his dreams into ashes.

Glossary

Fëanáro (Quenya): the Quenya form of the name Fëanor.

…First Mingling: a cannon term for the middle (6^th) hour of a day of the Trees in which the light of both Laurelin and Telperion mingle.

…It had been a few weeks: a week is 5 days of the Trees or 17.5 solar days.

Hísië (Quenya): ‘mist’.

Telpeduinë (Quenya): ‘Silver River’. A name and geographical feature of my own invention.

…After an hour had passed: an hour of the Tree is 7 solar hours.

Quelië Laurë (Quenya): ‘waning light of Laurelin’. A term of my own invention to describe the 10^th and 11^th hour of the Trees.                                                                                           

…Second Mingling: a cannon term for the final (12^th) hour of a day of the Trees in which the light of both Laurelin and Telperion mingle.

…not even been dead for four years: four years of the Trees is about 38 solar years. Fëanor is the equivalent of a 15 year old boy.

…He had been a year and a half: this would beabout 15 solar years. Fëanor would have been the equivalent of a 6 year old boy.

Sarati (Quenya): the alphabet devised byRúmil.

Notes: I’ve based the Pelóri off of the western Himalayas and the flora and fauna reflect this.

Chapter Two: Desire

“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.” ~Francis Bacon

Year of the Trees 1290:

His wife was angry.           

Nerdanel’s chestnut hair with its auburn highlights hung lank around her face in the steam of the bathing pool. She was frowning, her lower lip pouting slightly as it always did when she was displeased. Fëanáro leaned back, bringing his shoulders out of the water that was beginning to feel too hot. They were both sitting opposite each other on the bench that lined the four walls of the pool. He gazed at his wife, at the water lapping gently at her breasts and at the sweat beaded on her forehead. He wondered if he should speak. Her green eyes stared distantly at the floor tiles that formed a blue and white mosaic featuring seashells, fish and dolphins.

Fëanáro allowed himself a small sigh. It was times like this he was glad he paid the extra fee every week to reserve use of the one of the secluded pools at the bathhouse. The public pools might be larger and deeper but they were no place to attempt a private conversation. In the early years of their marriage they had often gone days without seeing each other, as they both had a tendency to become absorbed in whatever particular project they were currently in engaged in. His wife had put a stop to this by committing them both to meeting at the bathhouse twice each day, no matter how busy or engrossed they were in their respective crafts.

He glanced out the small window, set high in wall so none might look in. Fëanáro could tell by the fading silver light that it was late into Quelië Silmë. Soon the waning glow of Telperion would be joined by the warm, golden luminance of Laurelin as they combined at First Mingling. They would both need to return to their work then and would not likely see each other again until they ate together before retiring to bed at the 8^th hour. Would his wife be angrier by then or would she have calmed? His own anger tended to seethe and grow more intense with time. Yet his wife possessed a more sedate nature and seldom showed irritation, let alone ire. 

Fortunately, Fëanáro was spared from having to decide whether to voice his concern when his wife spoke.

 “Your father came by the house earlier today,” Nerdanel said quietly, gazing at the fresco of a Telerin Swan ship riding a cresting wave that covered the wall behind him.  

“Did he ask for me?” Fëanáro had been in his workshop at the forge since he had woken during the 4th hour. 

Nerdanel shook her head. Still not looking at him she replied, “He merely wished to announce that Anairë is with child.”

Fëanáro grimaced. He had no love for Ñolofinwë and cared not that he was now a father. Any child of his half-brother was likely to be just as insufferable as the Elda himself was. Yet he now knew the reason for his wife’s anger. It was an argument they had previously engaged in many times in their hundred and sixteen years of marriage. Nerdanel desired children of her own. He had always told her that he was not ready, that he did not wish to bring forth offspring until they had been wed for some time. If he was honest with himself, Fëanáro knew in his heart he also desired progeny that he might instruct and one day labor beside.

Yet he was not willing to risk his wife’s life to bear them.

“Meldanya,” he began. “Is now the time to consider such things? I know you have more commissions than you can currently complete. Have you not been telling me you wish to train another apprentice to assist you?”

“Would you have your siblings fill Finwë’s Palace with Elflings while our own house remains empty?” she replied, voice uncharacteristically harsh.

To his surprise, he saw that Nerdanel’s eyes were brimming with unshed tears. In all the years of their marriage, Fëanáro could count the number of times he had seen his wife cry one hand. That included their wedding day, when she could not stop weeping with joy. He stared at her, feeling lost, unsure of what to say. He would not put her life in danger. He could not. If their unborn child were to drain her spirit the way Fëanáro himself had upon his own mother… He knew he would not survived his wife’s death. He would join her in Mandos as would their babe, for the child was unlikely to endure without its parents. 

“I will not loss you too,” he muttered to himself.

His wife’s face softened. She crossed the small pool in two steps and embraced him.

 “Melindonya, you have seen how the Trees always shine more brightly when we return from the coast or the mountains where their light does not reach?” Nerdanel asked, stoking his cheek with her hand.

“Their light is not truly brighter. We just notice it more after being in darkness,” He corrected, frowning in confusion. 

“Yes, and that is why we appreciate it more than those whom have never dared traveled beyond the light Laurelin and Telperion. Because we have dwelt in darkness.”

“I cannot lose you,” he whispered. “Not even for the sake of children.”

 “Yet if we were not willing to brave the dark, we would never have discovered all of the wonderful places we have found on our journeys. We must risk the possibility of darkness if we are ever to enjoy the increase of the light.”

Fëanáro closed his eyes and visions of children with his raven hair and his wife’s green eyes swam before his mind’s eye. He thought of how he would teach them to write with the Tengwar he had invented. They would learn the secrets of metallurgy and the mysteries of gems and crystals. He would retell the stories his father had told him, about life before the Eldar came to Aman when they had dwelt around the shores Cuiviénen under the light of the stars. Nerdanel would teach them the delicate arts: how play music and the knowledge of drawing and painting. She would sing to them, as she often did, and teach them their first words.

And his children would never visit their mother’s body in Lórien nor know the pain that he had.     

“I agree,” he replied softly and leaned forward to kiss his wife.

Glossary

Fëanáro (Quenya): the Quenya form of the name Fëanor.

Quelië Silmë (Quenya): ‘waning light of Telperion’. A term of my own invention to describe the 4^th and 5^th hour of the Trees.

…First Mingling: a cannon term for the middle (6^th) hour of a day of the Trees in which the light of both Laurelin and Telperion mingle.

Ñolofinwë (Quenya): Fingolfin

Elda (Quenya): ‘Elf’.

…Hundred and sixteen years of marriage: these are years of the Trees which is about 1104 solar years.

Meldanya (Quenya): ‘My beloved’.

Melindonya (Quenya): ‘My [male] lover’.

Chapter Three: Betrothal

“…and after ten years the doom of disunion was spoken. And after three years more Finwë took as second spouse Indis the fair;” ~ Morgoth’s Ring: Laws and Customs of the Eldar

Year of the Trees 1182:

First Mingling was almost over, Telperion’s silver glow barely discernable over Laurelin’s golden blaze. The gardens that flanked the north side of Finwë’s Palace were nearly deserted, with most Noldor going about their business at this hour of the day. Finwë and Indis sat together on the marble bench, inhaling the scent of the lilac blossoms and the needles of the   yavannamírë and oiolairë trees. The sounds of birds mingled with the sounds of the City that circled the hill below. The distant clattering of carts and horses on paving stones sounded almost like music.

Finwë placed a hand on Indis’ shoulder. “Now that the Valar have given us permission, when do you wish to celebrate the wedding?”

Indis did not answer immediately, gazing at a black and blue swallowtail butterfly perched on one of the scarlet fruits of the yavannamírë tree.

 “I think we ought to wait,” she said, quietly.

Finwë turned to stare at her, surprise written on his face.

“Fëanáro still dislikes me,” she said, not looking at him.

“I fear I have over indulged him,” Finwë admitted with a sigh. “Yet I have not had the heart to deny him much when he already must bear the loss of his mother. Perhaps I shall speak with him again.”

Indis shook her head. “There is no need. I understand, truly. I might have done the same. Yet your son is now of an age to wed himself. You have said he intends to announce his betrothal to Nerdanel soon.  Fëanáro will be more amenable to our own marriage after he has been wed for several years.”

“You wish to wait so long?” Finwë sighed. “Now that my son is grown I have found the desire to bring forth more children has become stronger.”

 “Are we animals that cannot wait to couple?” she teased, laughing. “We need only wait three years, melda.”  

Finwë reached out to stroke his intended’s hair that was golden as the light from the Malinalda.

“If it is what you desire then we shall wait.” he said.

“It is not about what I desire,” Indis replied, placing a hand on his leg. “It is about what is best for your son.”

Finwë nodded. “Then for Fëanáro’s sake we shall wait.”

Glossary

…First Mingling: a cannon term for the middle (6^th) hour of a day of the Trees in which the light of both Laurelin and Telperion mingle.

Yavannamírë and oiolairë (Quenya): two of theFragrant Trees, which were native to Valinor and later giften by the Eldar to the Númenorians.

Fëanáro (Quenya): the Quenya form of the name Fëanor.

…only wait three years: these are years of the Trees which is about 29 solar years.

Melda (Quenya): ‘Beloved’.

Malinalda (Quenya): ‘Tree of Gold’. Another name for Laurelin.

Note: According to The Doom of Manwë, in order to dissolve Finwë’s marriage to Miriel he had to wait 10 Years of the Trees to ensure she did not changed her mind. Yet he did not wed Indis until 13 Tree years had passed. This is my idea as to why Finwë waited those 3 years. 

Chapter Four: Forge

“And when Melkor saw that these lies were smouldering, and that pride and anger were awake among the Noldor, he spoke to them concerning weapons; and in that time the Noldor began the smithying of swords and axes and spears.” ~ Quenta Silmarillion: Of the Silmarils

Year of the Trees 1451:

What was this supposed to be?

Nelyo frowned at the sheet of vellum. By its slightly rough surface, he could tell it had been recently scraped clean of its previous content. It now bore a drawing of what looked like a long double-edged knife. It was a strange design. Two edges on a knife that long would make it nearly useless for either skinning or butchering. He cocked his head at the depiction, taking in the length of the queer cross bar where the metal met the hilt and the bulbous pommel at the end. Perhaps it was meant to be used like a bill hook for pruning and clearing. But then, why was the blade leaf shaped? A triangular cross-section would provide a far sturdier design for such a tool.

Nelyo looked up from the drawing. "I do not understand, Atar."

His father did not answer. Rather, he began laying out bars of steel as long as his forearm onto the pitted and scared surface of the table before him.

"We shall kneed iron for the core," Fëanáro said.

"It is meant to be a knife, then?" Nelyo asked. The highest quality knives were made from welding steel to a wrought iron core. The iron would keep the blade from breaking while the steel would take and hold an edge better than any other metal. Farming tools were made from iron where toughness and durability were more important than strength and sharpness.

"Nay, yonya. It is not meant to be a knife."

Nelyo brushed his soot stained hands on his leather apron but only succeed in smearing it further. He could not help feeling a little annoyed. His father had pulled him from the making of several dozen broad heads. He intended to use them on the hunting trip he and Findekáno were talking in a few days. He would have declined but his father had asked him for help crafting a new tool, something he seldom did nowadays with his many apprentices and two other sons skilled in the art of metallurgy. Nelyo curbed his impatience as his father began inspecting the steel bars in Telperion's silvery light that emanated from the unshuttered window behind the table.

The iron ore had been partially melted a cylindrical furnace called a bloomery until it became sponge iron. The sponge iron was then removed and repeatedly beaten with sledgehammers to remove the slag and weld the iron together, creating wrought iron. It had then been shipped to his father's workshop. There began the long process of heating and beating the iron while adding charcoal and then the quenching and tempering stage. All this converted the wrought iron into various grades of hardened steel. It had been Aulë that had taught them the knowledge of the smelting of metals but as his father often said, it was a Noldo who discovered how to turn iron into steel.

His father gathered the steel he deemed acceptable into a pile. "I want you to help me form the blade."

"Why do you not ask Moryo or Curvo?" Nelyo wondered.

His youngest brother, Curvo, had inherited their father's skill with rocks and crystals and was mostly interested in silver and gold. Yet his skill with other metals was nearly as good as their father's. Moryo possessed his father's talent with iron and steel and Nelyo often found he could not distinguish between their works. His brothers were in opposite ends of the workshop. Curvo was at a workbench, giving facets to a green beryl. Moryo was beating a length of iron upon an anvil, the heat from the nearby forge causing sweat drip down his forehead, despite the rain that pounded against the roof.

"They have not the skill in welding iron and steel together as you do," His father said.

Nelyo smiled, pleased. He was different from his brothers. Kano had their sire's skill with words, wit and quill. While Tyelco inherited their father's talent in the arts of hunting, bow craft and surviving in the wild, uninhabited regions of Aman. Yet rather than having inherited a particular talent of their father he seemed to have ended up possessing as portion of all of them. He did not excel in any given area other than, perhaps, quelling the arguments between his brothers. Or maybe in soothing their father's anger. He placed the vellum sheet back down on the table before him.
“Of course I will assist you. Yet what is its function?” Nelyo queried. 

“It is for protection, yonya,” his father replied.

 “Protection from what?” he asked, bewildered.

His father did not answer. He tapped a finger on the drawing, frowning in concentration. “We shall have to be careful with how it is balance. If there is too much weight in the tip it will be difficult to wield.”

“I still do not understand what it is,” Nelyo said wryly, feeling a little exasperated. 

 “It is a weapon, I thought that would be obvious.”  

“It is for hunting?” he asked, doubtfully, unable to imagine how such a weapon would be useful.

“Nay, Melkórë spoke to me about a future in which weapons might again be needed for protection. This is the design he described to me, which he said would be more efficacious than spears and axes.”

“You said he was not to be trusted,” Nelyo reminded him.

“Trust? Nay yonya, I do not trust him. Yet I am not so foolish to ignore sound ideas when I hear them.”

“Even if they come from a Vala?” Nelyo asked, mostly in jest. His father’s distain for the Valar was well known. It had cause quite an argument when Tyelco desired to become a servant of Oromë.

Fëanáro smiled. “Even so. The Valar keep much knowledge hidden from us. We would be wise to use whatever they deign to impart to us. They have existed longer than we and understand much about the world.”

“Then tell me how we ought to begin,” Nelyo said. 

He felt troubled at the thought of crafting a weapon for protection. Such things had not been done since the Great Journey, before even his father’s lifetime. And what did they need protection from? There were no dangerous beasts here as there were in Endórë, the tales of which his grandfather Finwë had regaled him with when he was an Elfling. Did his father think they could defend themselves from the Valar? Their might was too great for any weapon. No, his father would never be so rash, for all his antipathy towards the Lords of Aman. Nelyo wondered, briefly, if his father intended to use his new weapon against other Eldar. He shook his head at his own foolishness.

No one, not even his often hot-tempered father, would ever do anything as horrible as that. 

Glossary

Nelyo (Quenya): shortened form of ‘Nelyafinwë’.His Sindarin name is ‘Maedhros’.

“…what looked like a long double-edged knife”: the earliest swords were short swords made of bronze and later of iron and then steel. The design remained the same for centuries throughout the Mediterranean and Europe, from the Greek xiphos to the Roman gladius. The sword described is a Bronze Age Naue II style sword created with Dark Ages technology. 

Atar (Quenya): ‘father’.

Fëanáro (Quenya): the Quenya form of the name Fëanor.

Yonya (Quenya): ‘My son’.

Findekáno (Quenya): the Quenya form of the name‘Fingon’.

Moryo (Quenya): shortened form of Morifinwë. His Sindarin name is Caranthir.

Curvo (Quenya): shortened form of ‘Curufinwë’.His Sindarin name is Curufin.

“…His youngest brother.”: this story takes place before the Ambarussa are born.

Kano (Quenya): shortened form of Kanafinwë. His Sindarin name is Maglor.

Tyelco (Quenya): shortened form of Tyelkormo. His Sindarin name is Celegorm.

Melkórë (Quenya): ‘Melkor’. This is an older form of the name.

Chapter Five: Stars

“The stars are far brighter than gems without measure.” ~ The Hobbit

Year of the Trees 1363:

Darkness was falling.

Tyelko griped his brother's tunic harder and glanced over at Írissë. She too was in the saddle of a horse, also seated behind her eldest brother. He thought she looked scared but then, she was thirty two weeks younger than him. Tyelko was already almost a year and a half old. And she was a girl. Nelyo had told him that girls were scared of things that were not really scary at all, like spiders and mice. He did not know her very well. He only saw Írissë and his other cousins when they went to see his grandfather Finwë in his very large house at the very top of Tirion. He did not know why, but his father did not like it when he spent much time with his cousins.

Tyelko glanced behind him at the blaze of golden light that shone from the Calacirya. They had passed through the cleft not long ago and were heading north along the road that lead to Alqualondë. Nelyo had told him they were not really going that far, they just needed to be far enough away so that the light did not hide the stars. Tyelko had never seen stars. He heard his parents and brothers talk about them sometimes but whenever he had asked to go see them, he had been told that he was too young and they were too busy. It had been a surprise when Nelyo had said he was talking him to see the stars. 

He had been so excited he almost forgot he had spent an uncomfortable 8^th hour trying to sleep in his mother’s workshop in the front of the house. It was the only place he could not hear his parents arguing, not even when they were yelling, because the room had a door and windows that opened out onto the street. Even during the sleeping hours, the street was noisy with carts, wagons, horses and dogs. Nelyo had found him curled up with his blanked underneath a workbench, covered with marble dust. Tyelko had thought he was going to be in trouble, or worse, loose the only place he could sleep in peace.

But his brother had only looked at him sadly before telling him to go get cleaned up because he was taking him to see the stars. It was well into Ancalima Laurë by the time they finally departed because his brother had wanted to visit his friend and cousin Findekáno first. Much to his annoyance, Findekáno had wanted to come too and had insisted on taking his sister, Írissë. Tyelko had been unhappy. He had wanted to spend the day with his brother not with his cousins. But he did not say anything in case Nelyo though him ungrateful and changed his mind.

He shifted in the saddle to peer around his brother’s back. They were nearing the end of the Bay of Eldamar and he could see that the road led into a forest of mulberry trees. It was now very dark. The distant light behind them made their shadow in front of them appear like some strange, fearsome beast. By the time they entered into the woods, the light was gone. Tyelko clung to his brother’s waist, telling himself that he was not afraid. He had only seen it this dark once before when he had hidden from Kano in a windowless storeroom while playing seek-and-find.

He heard Írissë gasp beside him and he turned to look at her, half wondering if she and her brother were being attacked by some creature. To his surprise, Tyelko saw that she was looking upward at the sky. He glanced up himself and herd himself gasp. The sky was not blue as he was expecting or even gray with clouds. It was black as pitch and covered with bright pinpoints of multicolored lights. It was like someone had strewn tiny gems on a black blanket, the kind his father made, the ones that glowed with their own radiance.

“I have never seen anything so beautiful!” Írissë cried.

Tyelko felt the same way.

Glossary

Tyelco (Quenya): shortened form of Tyelkormo. His Sindarin name is Celegorm.

Írissë (Quenya): the Quenya form of the name Aredhel.

Nelyo (Quenya): shortened form of ‘Nelyafinwë’.His Sindarin name is ‘Maedhros’.

Ancalima Laurë (Quenya): ‘brightest light of Laurelin’. A term of my own invention to describe the 9^th hour of the Trees.

Findekáno (Quenya): the Quenya form of the name‘Fingon’.