Chapter word count: ~2,000 words
Chapter I: The noontide of the blessed realm
The Noldor advanced ever in skill and knowledge; and the long years were filled with their joyful labours, in which many new things fair and wonderful were devised.' – The Silmarillion: Of Fëanor and the Unchaining of Melkor
'Melkor would often walk among them, and amid his fair words others were woven, so subtly that many who heard them believed in recollection that they arose from their own thought. Visions he would conjure in their hearts of the mighty realms that they could have ruled at their own will, in power and freedom in the East[-]
High princes were Fëanor and Fingolfin, the elder sons of Finwë, honoured by all in Aman; but now they grew proud and jealous each of his rights and his possessions.' – The Silmarillion: Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor
Eldalótë has gold dust on her fingers at the end of some work days, and Angaráto washes away soot from his every evening. She is a gilder, he a blacksmith; neither are as fine royal crafts as those that many in the house of Finwë pursue, but they suit Eldalótë and Angaráto well.
Gold leaf is fragile, and painstaking to apply. It is precious and valuable, too, and a mistakes are literally costly.
But the end result is always so beautiful, and once Eldalótë has mastered the techniques, she often falls into an almost trance-like state as she works.
Some of Angaráto's extended family look down on her craft because she does not herself create the objects she gilds, but she does not mind working on the art of other's hands. She loves bringing it to a new height of beauty by emphasising all or some of it by a gleaming layer of finest gold.
She only works as a gilder a day or two a week after she marries, but her mother-in-law arranges a worktable for her at a gilders' workshop in Alqualondë, too, so she doesn't have to forsake her craft even when she and Angaráto are there.
Angaráto would go mad with work like hers, he tells her. He loves having something to expend some of his strength and energy on.
'And having to hit metal accurately forces me to focus', he explains to her when they are young and each apprentices in their respective crafts. 'I have to work myself into the right shape to work the metal.'
She understands then that it is not that different from the state she finds herself falling into when her work goes well though she works with whisper-thin, temperamental gold and he with stubborn iron and steel.
'Which came first, your interest in blacksmithing or your epessë, Angamaitë?' She asks him once, when they are still young and unmarried. Her beloved is nicknamed iron-handed.
She has some strength in her for she is a craftswoman after all, and loves riding her spirited mare far and fast, but nothing like he has his in his arms and his large hands. Some of it is all his own as if an extension of his spirit, and some from learning his craft.
They lie on their backs under a flowering tree in her family's garden, and the stern and watchful eyes of her grandmother sewing under the next tree.
'The name. Findaráto gave it to me, Angaráto replies. He sneaks a quick touch of his hand to hers in the not-long-enough grass. Eldalótë can feel her grandmother's disapproving gaze, though there is no scolding yet. 'It gave me the idea to perhaps become a blacksmith. I didn't have any particular passion from a very small child like some do.'
'Like Findaráto and his passion for shaping stone.' Eldalótë's eyes follow a bee busily toiling in the blossoms above them while she remains aware of Angaráto constantly almost-touching her.
'Or cousin Makalaurë and his songs. I heard uncle Fëanáro once say that he sang before he could speak.' Angaráto snorts. 'Artanis makes all sorts of noises. Some of them could perhaps be counted as singing, I suppose. All of them are too loud.'
'She is a very sweet child', Eldalótë defends. She stares at the yellow blossoms and dreams of golden-haired babies.
Angaráto snorts again. 'In looks, perhaps. Not otherwise! My parents have their hands full with her. But Aikanáro became a very decent friend once he grew out of babyhood. I dare hope that little sisters do the same.'
There are only a few peaceful years following their marriage. As if out of nowhere, but also arising gradually like a weed growing toward the light, the peaceful if driven existence of the Noldor is poisoned by unrest and strife. Arafinwë and Eärwen and all of their children spend even more time among the Falmari than before, preferring the untroubled atmosphere of Alqualondë.
Angaráto and Aikanáro are the only ones in the family who would sometimes prefer to stay and take sides in the debates and arguments. Angaráto has a few heated discussions with his father about it, as heated as anyone can have with Arafinwë. The end result is, every time, that Arafinwë does not force Angaráto to come to Alqualondë but states that he would prefer it. Angaráto always bows to his father's preference and wisdom eventually, after some grumbling.
(Eldalótë once overhears his father-in-law ask Angaráto, as another prong in his argument, 'Would Eldalótë not also prefer to come to Alqualondë?'
Angaráto admits that probably she does, and in that he is right. Her own family is in Tirion, but they are growing quarrelsome too, asking for her opinions on Fëanáro and Nolofinwë as someone who knows both better than they do. She does not want to take part in those family quarrels, though she is, because of Angaráto's close friendships, closer to the house of Nolofinwë than Fëanáro.)
She is glad when Angaráto always brings them to Alqualondë in the end. The salty-fresh air, the sheen of pearls and shells all around, the ships coming to harbour in the evening – they come to represent freedom from argument-created anxiety for her.
Even in Alqualondë though, there is no cessation in young Artanis' ponderings of what the land on the other side of the wide sea is like, and how it would be to rule realms there. Arafinwë and Eärwen look uneasy at this, but Findaráto encourages it
Artanis asks their grandfather Olwë, once, when Findekáno is visiting with them. Eldalótë is there in Olwë's hall that night and listens with them as the king of the Falmari describes the starlit land he knew as plagued by danger and hardship.
It doesn't put out the fire in Artanis and Findekáno's eyes and, Eldalótë notes with discomfort, her own husband and Aikanáro also lean forward as they listen intently.
Their son is born is Alqualondë on a windy night, the curtains in Eldalótë's bedchamber's windows fluttering and swaying like the wings of seabirds.
Their child is small enough as newborn that Angaráto can hold him on just one of his large hands. Eldalótë watches, too tired to even speak yet filled with incandescent joy, as father gets to know son. Angaráto appears lost for words. He touches the baby's tiny fingers, tiny toes, perfect ears, tuft of dark golden hair. Their son stares back at him with unblinking eyes as blue as cornflowers in the heart of summer, or so Eldalótë would describe them if she were writing a poem.
Eldalótë smiles as she falls quietly into rest.
Artaresto is the first child of a new generation born into the third house of the Noldor, and he is cherished by all of them. Findaráto adores him even though Artaresto has a particular penchant for Findaráto's fine, colourful clothes and especially for burping on them. Findaráto only grins and praises him for his evident appetite.
When his older brother once again comes to Eldalótë and Angaráto's rooms with the flimsy excuse of bringing the baby yet more unnecessary gifts, Angaráto says to him drily, 'You should court your own sweetheart at a pace faster than glacial so you might have little ones of your own to spoil before ours is grown tall.'
'I don't think I shall', Findaráto replies as if one half in sleep, or some other vision, even while he tickles Artaresto's sweet little belly.
Angaráto looks unnerved, and looks at Eldalótë. She can offer him no explanation or consolation. They are both left worried when Findaráto leaves, whistling his way down the corridor.
Eldalótë grieves it when Angaráto begins using the strength in his arms and hands and spirit to forge instruments of protection, and of killing too. Of late, every man of means and many of the women, too, seem to be sporting a shield as they go about their business in Tirion, as if it had become a compulsory part of dress. Angaráto and Aikanáro and Findaráto believe that swords are necessary to make and learn to wield as well. She supposes that they must, if there is any danger, and recently a threat seems to be hanging above everyone's heads.
She gilds the pommels of her husband and Aikanáro's swords though she finds the new weapons almost as unpleasant as the barely-named threats. There have been no such weapons in Aman ever before: not meant for hunting or sport, but for something else.
Her aversion to violence only strengthens the enchantment of strength and staying that she sings through the fine gold into the unforgiving steel of the swords.
She gilds the device of her father-in-law on their shields too. From the shields' centre of orange sapphires radiate golden rays of light which she enchants to deflect blows away from her loved ones.
She prays to the Valar whom she, too, doubts of late that the blades and shields will not be needed.
One day Angaráto tells her to start practising archery again. She was a keen archer growing up and even won a few competitions, but her bow has lain untouched most of the time since Artaresto was born.
Eldalótë asks him why she should take it up again. 'For the same reason I have forged few things other than swords for a while now', he replies, face grim.
So she asks Findekáno whether she can join him in his practice, and asks him to help her teach Artaresto too – for Angaráto is not much of an archer, and Findekáno who is his close friend as well as cousin is a famed one. Elenwë and young Idril join them too, and Artaresto enjoys practising together with his cousin on their small bows. Their mothers find it more difficult to enjoy, knowing as they do that the training has possible motives other than competitions or hunting.
One evening after Eldalótë returns from practice Angaráto gives her a pair of daggers, beautiful but so wickedly sharp that she cannot rejoice in them.
'I do not need more weapons as a gift for remastering one', she tells him.
He buries his face in her hair and she strokes his gently. It is sweaty from his own arms practice.
'Let's take a bath together', she suggests.
In their bed she asks him to hold her close and prove to her that his fingers on her skin are as gentle as ever though they forge and wield weapons now whose bright steel gleams with a lethal purpose.
'The world is shifting, I can feel it, and shall never be what it has been', she says. 'I need to know that you are still here with me, that I can be certain of you if nothing else.'
'Always', Angaráto swears. 'I am always here and yours.'
He touches and holds her just the way she enjoys, familiar and exciting at the same time. He is as gentle and as rough as she likes, and the only hurt here in their bed is pain which is asked for and intertwined with pleasure.
'You have shining eyes, my flower', Angaráto rumbles when they lie cooling down side by side looking at each other. 'I dare not ask whether from tears or better feelings.'
'Not all tears are evil.' She lifts messy strands of hair away from his face; he grasps her wrist and kisses it. 'My tears for you have never been for anything but joy', she tells him.
'We shall have peace for a while', Eldalótë says to Angaráto, relieved when Fëanáro is exiled from Tirion for breaking the peace of Valinor by drawing a sword on his brother.
'Yet the king, by leaving Tirion with the guilty party, has soured the justice given to my uncle', Angaráto replies with bitterness. She has never heard him speak of his grandfather so harshly.
Whenever he leaves the house, he still carries his shield. The shield is almost the height of her shoulders, taller than Artaresto, and it has sharp edges.