I own nothing.
The sky was growing lighter.
It had been for a while, but if Irissë was honest, she'd not been paying it a great deal of mind. The mountains had given way to steep, rolling hills, the ice and snow to short, wiry grass. Itarillë had begged and begged and begged, and finally Turukáno was prevailed upon to let her take off her shoes and run barefoot for the first time in no one could be sure how long. Irissë's mind was set to finding a safe path for herself and her niece, free of shards of stone or loose earth that could send young Itarillë tumbling down to her death. She was not paying a great deal of attention to the sky.
Eventually, however, Irissë felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked around, and Artanis nodded towards the eastern horizon. "The sky has been growing lighter over the hills for some time," her cousin murmured, falling into step beside her and craning her neck downwards. "What do you think it is?"
No longer did it seem quite so unusual to Irissë that Artanis was asking her these questions as it would have were they still in Aman; their relationship had, in recent times, changed from that of cousins who did not often associate to cousins who were now rarely away from each other's company. Whether that would persist into the future, Irissë could not say. But as such, she did not wonder that Artanis was asking her such a question, and instead turned her gaze eastwards. Then, she stopped.
Artanis frowned at her, and Itarillë turned when she realized that her aunt and cousin were not still following her, and rushed back to them. "Aunt Irissë?" Itarillë asked uncertainly, clutching at her hand. Irissë barely heard her.
For the first time, Irissë really stopped to look at the sky, as Artanis had done. No longer was the sky the impenetrable inky black it had been since the Trees were drained of all light and life. It was instead a deep, deep blue, and the eastern horizon was tinged with a deep, almost sooty orange. Irissë looked at the ground beneath her feet, and realized that for the first time since they had left the ice and snow behind them that she could make out the grass's hue without the aid of firelight.
Fire.
A cold dose of fear gripped Irissë's heart. "A fire, do you think it is?" After all they had suffered at the hands of ice and cold and deep, unforgiving water, were they now to be met with death with burning flame and noxious smoke instead? It would seem that Lord Mandos's doom will have us all at last, she thought bitterly, lip twisting.
But she was still afraid, so it was with relief that Irissë saw Artanis shake her head. "No, I don't think so." She stared out towards the east, brow furrowed. "I had thought the same as you, at first," Artanis admitted evenly, "but if there is so great a fire burning so close that we can see the flames on the horizon, why then can we not smell smoke?"
It was a good point, and after feeling embarrassment that it had not occurred to her as well, Irissë was willing to accept Artanis's hypothesis as fact. "Anything to avoid being burned to death," she muttered in acquiescence, and wondered for a moment if she had not burned to death herself when, so long ago, she'd watched flames rise from the other side of ice-choked waters. "What do you suppose it is, then?"
"I… I really am not sure, cousin," Artanis said, and through her typical mask of calm she was, Irissë could plainly see, troubled by the thought that they could not say what this lightening was.
"Then we should keep moving. Endóre's not going to come to us by itself."
And so they kept moving, and the three of them made their way back up to the front of the line where their family awaited; Itarillë refused to let go of her aunt's hand now, mistrustful of the light on the eastern horizon. Soon, however, the entire host halted at Nolofinwë's command. The sky was still lightening, and the orange tint had turned to gold.
The three of them, Irissë, Artanis, and Itarillë, stood on the hillside, a little apart from the rest of their family, watching the eastern horizon. The sky was lightening still, and the stars were disappearing, one by one. Irissë had only a moment to find that alarming before her eyes were irrevocably drawn back to the horizon. The deep blue of the sky had turned to middling and light, tinted with lavender and pink. The light was concentrated on one spot in the utter east, and as it grew brighter, it became so bright a gold that it hurt Irissë's eyes even to look near it.
But she could not turn her eyes away from it.
"The Valar have sent us a sign. Varda has answered our prayers at last," Artanis exclaimed, and she laughed brightly, without restraint, in such a way that Irissë had never known her to do. Even as a young girl, she had never heard her cousin laugh with such abandon, without any trace of self-consciousness. And yet, she was laughing with her, laughing with joy and relief.
Rána had risen in the sky long ago, when they were first beginning to traverse the Helcaraxë. It was a pale, silvery-white orb that, when it was waxed to fullness gave them some light for their paths, but could not extinguish the darkness. The sky around it was still dark as pitch, the perfect canvas for the glittering stars, but so sharp and unforgiving, so wearying.
Now, another orb was rising in the sky, an orb of fire, and it chased all the darkness away. The light was rushing over all the world, over them.
Irissë did not know whether to laugh or weep, but either way, she ended up doing both. She laughed in joy and giddy relief, hugging her cousin and kissing her niece—Itarillë was laughing too, adding her voice to theirs. She shed fat, choking tears at the way her skin was washed with the warmth of the light, the way the cold and the Ice of the Helcaraxë left her flesh at last. She did not think she had ever laughed or wept so much in her life.
Artanis turned to face south, and her eyes widened. "Oh," she gasped softly, struck with awe and wonder. Irissë followed her gaze, blinking through her tears, and soon she was staring too.
There, in the south, there was a new land. A land of rolling green hills and dense forests. A land of rivers and shores. A land where there was life, again. They had come out of darkness and Ice, and had found light and life. "I think we're here," she whispered to Artanis, barely daring to believe that they had reached Endóre alive, and the look on Artanis's face, awed and thankful and disbelieving, made Irissë think that her cousin felt exactly the same as her.
Irissë—Aredhel
Itarillë—Idril
Turukáno—Turgon
Artanis—Galadriel
Nolofinwë—Fingolfin
Endóre—Middle-Earth (Quenya)
Rána—the Exilic name for the Moon, signifying 'The Wanderer' (Quenya)