A/N – Well, this you could say is where the action really starts. I won't blither for ages on this one, don't worry. This is the one chapter in which I may have taken some artistic licence towards the end. With thanks to reviewer The Grey Lady. This will be the last update for a while as I am going away, hence the swift update!

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In the way of all, Artanis grew to womanhood, and the name which her mother had chosen for her began to become clear in its meaning. Even by the standards of the Eldar she was exceptional, for her looks and for the depth and for the range of her abilities.

She was tall, not so tall as her brothers but taller than the Men whom she would later walk amongst, the full height of King Elessar of the Fourth Age. She had the eyes of her people, clear and far-sighted, but even from her youth the impetuousness, the pride, and the lust for adventure that was to mark all of Finwë's descendants save Finfarfin was visible. It was her hair, though, that was to be her crowning glory, for though it was of richer gold than the sun that we now have, it had also a greater lustre in it, a memory of the silver of her mother's hair which did not thin its shine but increase it. And so it was said when she danced beneath Telperion and Laurelin at the dusk when both were shining that her hair held within it the light of the Valar themselves.

Had it just been her beauty that excepted her, her story would have been but a footnote in the annals of the ages. But she was noted also among the athletes of the Noldor, the pace of her feet and her skill in the hunt at first attributed to her brothers' presence but later to her own talent. Though the only swords that the Elves then carried had been firstly for defence against the dark creatures of the early world and then for hunting in Valinor, she took up arms and was adept with them, then unaware of the darkness that they would bring upon the Eldar.

But one more skill had she, and as strong as was her athletic talent was her insatiable appetite for knowledge. She spent much time among the loremasters of the Eldar, for though there was then less history it was more thoroughly remembered. And she learnt all that was offered to her, all of the theory of the worlds that they were able to give, and it can be easily said that still she wanted more.

For all her abilities and assets, though, she was not as perfect as perhaps she believed herself to be. Her valour and her determination were unquestionable, but like her brothers she was strong-willed almost to the point of being stubborn, and more than ant of her brothers she could not be satisfied with Valinor. She dreamt instead of the lands of her forefathers, of Beleriand, and of Doriath the Kingdom of her kinsman Elwë Singollo. And so it is that the desires of the Elves have changed ever and again with the passing of the ages.

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Though it seemed that there was naught but peace in Valinor, with Morgoth banished and the Eldar in the eternal light of the Two Trees, the first ripples of agitation among the Elves were spreading, and they were doing so among the Noldor. For strangely the greatest of them, Fëanor the jewelsmith and the princess Artanis, were destined to be severed in the heart despite their kinship and their shared qualities.

Fëanor as a jewelsmith was fascinated with the play of light within the facets of a gem, and throughout his time in Valinor he spent more time with his jewels than he did with his sons, save those who followed him into the same work. The single feat which he long desired, though, was to take the lights of the two Trees and bind them in one stones, and it was said by many that his idea to do as such was brought about by Artanis herself.

It is said that as one such time as she was stood on the hill Ezollahar, at the base of Telperion which was just flowering, Fëanor caught sight of her and was struck with the light in her long tresses. She had less than a hundred years by the Valarian times then, though that in human years would be looking towards one thousand years. "Artanis!" He called out to her, and came to stand before her and she turned her gaze upon him for a moment. He looked at her in wonder.

"Yes, Fëanor?" she said, but her voice was guarded. He stood before her for a moment longer, and she turned her face away from him though she was aware of his presence.

"Artanis, the noble woman," he seemed to muse upon her name. "Perhaps they should have called you Kaltanis, the shining one, instead."

"I am sure that your jewels would still remain unrivalled."

Fëanor ignored the biting tone in her voice, though it struck against his own pride to hear it. "There is one hue which I will never achieve, Artanis, and that is the colour of your hair in the light of these Two Trees."

"You flatter me."

She did not sound as if she thought that he did, but again it was put aside. "Artanis, you know that there are many who would give anything for one of your golden tresses. I offer you now my pride; I beg that you may grant me one tress in place of the jewels which are far beyond any skill that I may own."

Now she did finally turn her eyes upon him again, and her gaze was cool and hard. "Fëanor," she said, "though both my kinsman and a mighty jewelsmith you may be, my hair will never be cut for you. No, I will not grant you that which you ask."

Fëanor then demanded in anger why she would not do so, and she would not answer him, so that he left in that same angry temper. For her reason was not for his ears, the fact that she had seen in him a great darkness which was the first deep sign of the dangers of Valinor. The darkness, she would later see, had been his pride and discontent, and dark though she saw it in him she could not see the same storm which brewed in her own heart.

Twice more would Fëanor ask of her the same favour, and twice more would her answer be that she would give him nothing. Eventually it was that Fëanor's pride overcame him, and he did not ask again but returned to his smithy and the jewels whose fire he could tame, but already the bitterness he held against Artanis ran deep. And but for their respective pride these two, the greatest of the Noldor then or since, might have been less than the enemies which they were to become.

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In the end Artanis also began to lose patience with all that she had learnt, wanting more and wanting to see the lands of which the original Eldar first spoke of, and Beleriand. She went first to the Vanyar, the people of her grandmother Indis, and then to the Teleri her mother's people, and sought more knowledge of the Elves who had left Beleriand. Also in her time she asked of those who had remained, of their names and their purposes in doing so. And she story of Elwë did she hear, and of Elmo his loyal brother, and Oropher of the Nandorin Elves who had turned aside to Greenwood the Great at the first of the three great sunderings. Many among those to whom she spoke had perhaps hoped that they would allay her curiosity, but if anything the ardour of her questioning only increased.

In the end she came upon the decision which no Eldar had then made – she went to the Valar themselves and asked for their permission to leave on one of the ships of the sea-faring Teleri and return to Endor. Upon her asking, though, others began to cautiously come forwards with similar requests, and so it was that she found herself speaking for more and more people before the feet of Manwë himself.

She was not granted permission to leave; no Eldar ever was. But neither was she told that she was bound to remain.

All the time that she awaited the definitive answer to her question, she grew more and more certain that she would be allowed to leave. And so for a while she tarried with the Noldor people, waiting for her reply, until the day upon which news reached her of what was later to be called the greatest mistake that the Valar had ever made. Melkor, the dark one, had claimed penitence at the feet of Manwë and had been released once again. And he had come to the Eldar who had not before seen him, and put on a fair face, and promised to teach them much of what the Valar would – or could – not.

But part of what he taught them was the art of weaponry, and Artanis was one of the few who realised as she journeyed from the Teleri to the Noldor and back that many of the families, not just one or two, were building up their stores of weapons and armour against some imaginary attack. And all the while she could feel the darkness of the place deepening, a void opening up within the Eldar themselves, and she dared not speak of it for many years for fear that it was only her who felt it.

Then another central event to the fall from grace of the early Elves found its way into the annals of history. In what was to be called his greatest creation, Fëanor had, it was said, had taken the light of the Two Trees and like fish in a net bound the light of them into three stones: the Silmarils, who are even now so widely famed. And when Artanis heard of them she remembered Fëanor's angry parting words, and the shadows seemed to deepen before her very eyes, and perhaps even then she knew of the ruin that was to befall the Eldar.

She returned to the lands of the Teleri, Alqualondë in sight of Tol Erresëa, and her mother's people though not mistrusting of her found her words of darkness farfetched at the least. Her wildness grew with her certainly and their unease of her behaviour, and for a time she seemed to fall into a sleep almost as deep as death, and many wondered whether she had been taken as Míriel þerendi had once been. But it was perceived that in her life still remained, and she was spared the moving of her body as Míriel had been moved long ago.