Some keywords for this fic: romance, family, some fluff and angst, implied sex, Noldor and their fall and their triumphs, canon compliant
Chapter word count: ~1,600 words
All warnings for this fic: Major Character Death at the end of the last chapter (with the caveat that's it's Tolkien's elves dying so whether that counts as true death is debatable); also some blood, violence and mentions of deaths in the last four chapters. Nothing is graphic and all is canon or canon-typical.
A/N: There will be five short chapters. I've completed the fic already and will update often. I use Quenya names as long as the characters would use them.
In Laws and Customs Among the Eldar, Tolkien mentions that many elven couples choose each other as children. I decided that Angrod/Angaráto and Edhellos/Eldalótë, who is shortly mentioned in The Shibboleth of Fëanor, are one such couple.
Chapter I: The noontide of the blessed realm
'This was the Noontide of the Blessed Realm, the fullness of its glory and its bliss, long in tale of years, but in memory too brief.' – The Silmarillion: Of Fëanor and the Unchaining of Melkor
Eldalótë cannot recall a time she did not know Angaráto. She was born the daughter of one of king Finwë's advisors, he one of his grandsons. They have always been in each other's world, though not closely before the day as young children when they become the pupils of the same tutor.
It takes some courage to say it. He is a prince and she is not a princess, and she rarely speaks to people she doesn't know well, but after some weeks of watching him silently during lessons she tells him, 'I think I would like you to marry me.'
He studies her face and replies, 'You said that very quietly.'
'It doesn't mean that I didn't mean it loudly', she says.
He thinks for a heartbeat and then nods decisively. 'I think I want that too.'
With that it is settled, and all there is to do is to grow up so that they can do it.
On their last day of lessons together, when they are old enough that such things as small touches are becoming exciting in a new way, Eldalótë takes his hand in hers under the long table.
It is warm and large in hers, and Angaráto holds on tight to her without speaking a word.
The next day he comes to her home just to bring her a flower for her hair.
'For your name', he says. Elven-flower, star-flower, she is called.
He brings her one on many days after that, too, even though she tells him, 'You have the prettier hair that should be decorated.'
Though, perhaps, his mane of gold needs no enhancement.
She often thinks of it while she learns her craft, gilding. No delicate sheet of gold leaf is more beautiful when the light shines through it than Angaráto's hair in the light of Laurelin.
His glowing hair is a wonderful contrast to his masculine features, his strong jaw and thick, light brown brows, and his wide shoulders and arms that even as a boy were strong enough to swing his little brother around, or carry all of Eldalótë's schoolbooks and his own. But he carries his strength lightly, without boasting like his cousin Tyelkormo, and she likes that very much.
She wonders if she chose to learn to beautify things with gold because of his golden self.
They declare their betrothal to their families on the day Angaráto, the younger of them by a few weeks, comes of age. They wait the required year to marry, and then they settle into the life together they always knew they wanted.
It suits them very well.
'Yours is the most boring love story I have heard of', Angaráto's cousin Maglor tells them at their wedding. Eldalótë smiles, for he says it in good humour. Angaráto at her side bristles a little.
Findekáno says the same later. 'No disapproving parents, no problems getting along with anyone, no competing suitors, not even a disagreement on the wedding date!' he lists, grinning.
'We'll leave all drama to you', Angaráto quips, poking at Findekáno's ostentatiously gold-braided hair. 'You wear it better. You can write songs about it and wail them all over Tirion as is your habit.'
Eldalótë likes the way he is with his family. He can be rash, but he is gentle at heart and loves all who are close to him.
Aikanáro has always been a good friend to her, too, and despite his young age often hid pleased smiles when he saw his older brother paying court to her.
At their wedding feast, he takes her hand and leads her to a joyful dance.
'I have been blessed with a second sister', he says to Eldalótë in between the swift steps. He has been growing rapidly, and is almost as tall her now. 'A quieter one, but no less smart. I am glad for my brother, and for all our sakes.'
He smiles at her in his softly mischievous way, and she can do nothing but smile back, words stuck in her throat. She has no siblings of her own.
'Thank you, brother', she manages at the end of the dance when, her arm placed carefully on his, he delivers her back to her beloved.
On their wedding night, Angaráto treats her like the most precious thing he ever saw, with equal reverence and passion.
'As beautiful as the stars', he whispers against her skin as he kisses a leisurely route around her body.
She runs her hands all over him, hurrying to learn all the parts of him that are usually covered in clothes. She has been wanting to touch them for years. He is the perfect combination of hard and soft, and she tells him so.
He makes his way up to kiss her lips that are kiss-softened already. 'And you are more than I dreamed.'
She twines her hands in his hair, in the purest unalloyed gold of it, and looks up at him. He has his grandmother Indis' admired hair colour and his grandfather Olwë's eyes, blue and dark and fair.
'When I chose you as a child', she tells him, 'I did not imagine moments like this. A child could not. The woman I've grown into wants nothing so much as you in all ways.'
Angaráto swallows, and she watches the movement in his neck muscles and his jaw. 'The way you look at me in the low light of private spaces – it robs me of my words and my wits.'
'That is all right.' She runs her hand down his arm that is corded with muscle and golden-warm under her fingers. 'We need only feel tonight.'
Angaráto nods, and sets to work making her unable to speak as well. She holds on to his broad shoulders that some of her friends have called too broad and she calls perfect – but then, any shape he grew into would have been perfect.
Her mother-in-law teaches her to make lace as strong as any net of Falmarin fishermen and as fair as any jewel of the Noldor, with her gentle, nimble fingers guiding Eldalótë's. It is quiet and peaceful in Eärwen's chambers in the palace of Olwë at the harbour of Alqualondë, with a fresh sea breeze ever blowing in through the tall windows.
Angaráto and Eldalótë stay here much of the time. She misses her own family but at his side, begins to feel at home with his family and among the Falmari too.
With Eärwen's guidance, Eldalótë makes a nightgown of gossamer-fine lace and one night, puts it on and asks her husband what he thinks of it.
Touching the soft, almost see-through fabric, he makes a complicated expression. 'I don't know what to think since I know that my mother helped you make it –'
Eldalótë is embarrassed, but bursts into laughter. 'I did not think of that. I am horrible at enticement.'
'You don't need clothes to entice me.' Angaráto swoops her into his arms, nightgown and all. 'Just ask, sweet wife. Asking takes much less time than making nightgowns.'
'Take me to bed, then, please?' Feeling very frivolous, she bats her eyelids at him.
Laughing, they fall into bed. The windows are open, and the sea air is sweet, and the call of seagulls close by a part of existence here.
Her husband and all of his family love to sail. 'You must have half salt water in your veins', Eldalótë dares to joke one night.
'Very possibly.' Findaráto smiles at her. 'But do not mention that in the presence of uncle Fëanáro or his sons. They already thinks us strange with our Noldorin, Falmarin and Vanyarin blood. They would think us stranger with salt water added into the mix!'
'That's not quite fair to them', Arafinwë tries to interject, rather feebly. Eldalótë knows when he defends Fëanáro, it is often more out of a sense of duty than genuine feeling.
'It's more than fair', Angaráto contends. 'They think that we should act and dress and talk more Noldorin than we do.'
But Eldalótë comes to like some Falmarin habits too. She loves wearing pearls in her hair, and fishing on balmy afternoons or early in the morning when the sea wind has teeth.
Findaráto tries to teach her sail when Angaráto's equilibrium fails at her ineptitude, but even with her brother-in-law's more patient tutelage, she never comes to like steering a ship herself. She is a good fisher, though. She enjoys the tranquillity of sitting on a pier or a boat, waiting for fish to bite, and the thrill of diving fast with a spear in hand.
She and Artanis never know how to be in each other's company. Artanis is much younger than her, only a keen-eyed child when Eldalótë and Angaráto are married. As she grows, she continues to regard Eldalótë with slight confusion. Not because she doesn't understand her sister-in-law – Eldalótë knows that there are few people Artanis can't understand the nature of, even as a child – but because she doesn't understand the connection between her brother and Eldalótë.
Eldalótë wants to tell her, 'You don't need to understand it; it is enough that I am enough for him.'
But she never does, of course, and she and Artanis are both well-raised enough that they always behave civilly with one another though they have little in common and never seek out each other's company.
Eldalótë's father-in-law simply treats her like a daughter, as he has done since she met him for the first time when she was the height of his knee and Angaráto had already told his father he was going to marry her. Arafinwë was the only one who took the two of them, a pair of earnest children, seriously since the beginning.