Some keywords for this fic: femslash romance, friends to lovers, some mentions of angsty things including the first kinslaying
Word count: ~1,500
A/N: If there are errors in geography or the details of how the Sun rose, please ignore them. They're not really the main point of this fic.
Tilion had traversed the heaven seven times, and thus was in the furthest east, when the vessel of Arien was made ready. Then Anar arose in glory, and the first dawn of the Sun was like a great fire upon the towers of the Pelóri: the clouds of Middle-earth were kindled, and there was heard the sound of many waterfalls. – The Silmarillion: Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor
The fullness of her splendour
Eärwen and Anairë watch Arien's first ascent together.
Eärwen has roused earlier as always and walked to her comfortable chair in their large balcony over the sea. She has long had a habit of sitting there waiting for Anairë to rise from her rest of her own accord for she is always irritable when woken. For the last seven mornings she has watched the light of the new Silver Moon disappear in the east, and eagerly awaited for the day that the last flower of Laurelin will be carried across the sky for the first time. She has heard from messengers from Taniquetil that it will be soon.
It is dark, completely dark apart from the faint light of the lamps on the quays, and Eärwen is close to slipping back into Lórien's realm when the new light appears in the south, at the peaks of the mountains of Pelóri. First she thinks it is only a dream-vision, a memory of Laurelin's light, but it grows and grows until it looks like the snow-covered mountaintops are on fire, and the fire spreads, glorious and frightening in its magnificence.
Eärwen is of the Falmari and she never lived close to the radiance of the Trees or revered them like the Vanyar did, but the sight of Laurelin's last fruit lighting up the darkened realm of Aman makes her lose track of her thoughts and her vision blur. Whether from tears or the brightness of the new light, she does not know.
She runs inside and shakes Anairë's still form that still appears to be in slumber, though from one of the windows the golden brilliance is already creeping in, painting the red bedspread brighter.
'You must come, Anairë', she tells her friend.
Anairë groans but as she opens her eyes, they widen. 'Arien's vessel is rising to the sky', she realises at once.
'Yes, my love, come, we can see it from the balcony.'
Eärwen tugs at Anairë's arm though there is no need, for Anairë hurries to the balcony without even putting on her slippers, heedless of the cold stone under her bare feet.
They go to the southernmost part of the balcony that encircles all of their chamber in one of the round towers of Eärwen's father's palace.
They watch the continuing ascent and spread of the light silently for a while, shading their eyes with their hands, for the brightness of Arien and Laurelin's fruit is almost blinding.
Eärwen does not look directly at it, but the mountains and the land beneath them that is being lit anew, brighter than it has been for many dark, hard years. She looks at Anairë, at the auburn tint to her dark hair that the golden light brings out. She has missed it all these years; she is tired of shades of grey in darkness.
'Blessed Daystar', she sighs, winding her arm around Anairë's waist and leaning her head on her shoulder. It is always a little awkward because of their height difference – Anairë is a mother of tall sons, as tall as her husband – but it is a familiar, cherished sort of awkward.
Anairë leans her head gently on Eärwen's. 'The light is needed and necessary', she says with relief in her voice. 'This is the end of lean years, I hope. In this new light we will be able to build and plant anew instead of just… existing.'
'In the dark years we healed and we mended some of the things that broke when the darkness came', Eärwen reflects. 'Perhaps it is good that we had that time of simply existing. Now we are better positioned, Vanyar and Noldor and Falmari alike, to begin those new things you speak of.'
She thinks of her husband on his unasked-for throne in Tirion, and how she has finally forgiven him, and how they have accepted that things between them shall never be the same again. Yet they can grieve for their departed children together, now.
But from separate places, most of the time. Eärwen lives here in Alqualondë again, in her father's house where she grew up, with her dearest friend who stayed with her when their husbands left against their own better wisdom; he in Tirion, with his people and his older sister Findis and her husband for counsel and support.
The light rises and rises and illuminates Alqualondë, changing the colour of everything, warming the pale stone and turning it into a cream colour, making everything more beautiful and bright. Bringing the places that need a little care and work into sharper relief, too.
Eärwen and Anairë point and exclaim at how different things seem. Their conversation, animated though it is, follows familiar cadences, and Eärwen could guess many of the things that Anairë is going to say.
Anairë is so very dear to Eärwen, and always there for her.
They have shared a bed for many years now. First as friends grieving together, Anairë consoling an inconsolable Eärwen after the loss of many of her relatives and friends, and later as something more that they are still searching a name for but more than content with.
Eärwen decides she has had enough of watching her city and the land around, and takes a step back to watch Anairë.
Anairë's eyes move to her, too, as if moved by the same current, and her arms move to embrace her.
'Not too close', Eärwen says. 'I want to look at you.'
Anairë nods. 'And I shall look at you. It has never been a hardship, and you shine brighter now, pale swan-maiden, than for a long time. Firelight or candles cannot show your beauty like the blessed light of the Valar.' She lifts a hand to Eärwen's hair, its unbraided mess of curls.
'You have fire in your brown eyes', Eärwen tells Anairë, cupping her cheek. 'Even more than usual. I can tell you are making plans already.'
'I think of nothing but kissing you warm-pink lips right now', Anairë murmurs, and she executes her thoughts so thoroughly that Eärwen closes her eyes, forgetting the new light for a moment.
When she opens them, the sky and the sea are on fire.
The small waves, the barely visible sea-foam, they are a thousand new colours: shades of gold, orange and red on the blue, green, black and grey of the sea. Though she is a poet, Eärwen couldn't name them all. The light of the last fruit borne high by a spirit of fire is not the same as the light of the great golden tree that bore the fruit.
The clouds, shot through with fiery gold and beautiful night-purple alike, are lit brighter than they ever were by the Trees that were more distant to them.
Side by side and hand in hand now, they watch the fire spread across the sea as far as they can see, past the island of Tol Eressëa.
'Our children will be seeing this light soon', Eärwen says.
'I hope that it lifts up their hearts even more than ours', Anairë replies. 'Wherever they are.'
The thought of their children, so far away in places they know little of, perhaps in dangers they can only worry about, sobers the mood of them both.
But their children were grown and they made their choice, and Eärwen and Anairë made their own, and they have grieved the separation long enough now that it does not cast a pall over their whole day.
They stay on the balcony for a long time, watching the radiance rise and rise. Eärwen lets her dressing gown slip off her shoulders, for the Daystar's light is as warm as it is bright. The stone floor warms slower, and at some point Anairë shakes her head at her own bare feet and fetches her slippers.
The slippers are old and threadbare and their colour is faded, yet they are treasured by Anairë. It makes Eärwen's heart clench to see Anairë carefully slip her feet into them. She loves these quiet everyday moments together, Anairë's little foibles.
When Anairë returns to her side Eärwen tells her, 'I shall write a poem of this morning and all these precious moments I shared with you. I have some lines in my head already.'
Anairë is already embracing her again but loosens her hold at Eärwen's words. 'Do you want to go write down your ideas? I can let you go', she offers in her drily humorous way. She squeezes Eärwen's waist lightly. 'I know that they sometimes flee swiftly.'
'These ideas and images won't', Eärwen says with conviction. 'I know that they will last, like this light. Like my love for you, my beloved.'
And that is what Anairë is to her. Eärwen needs no other name for it.
She kisses her beloved again under the full splendour of the Sun.
A/N: Title from the Silmarillion line 'Too bright were the eyes of Arien for even the Eldar to look on, and leaving Valinor she forsook the form and raiment which like the Valar she had worn there, and she was as a naked flame, terrible in the fullness of her splendour.'