A/N: Welcome to my new story!
After having writen over twenty stories in the Wednesday, Hannibal and Harry Potter fandoms, I decided to try dipping my toes in a new fandom. While I mostly post my stories on ao3, I'm trying posting on again. I've read the books (and a lot of fics) years ago and watched the movies as well, but my memory sucks so I'm sure there will be many mistakes with the already confusing timeline and names. My apologies for that.
I'm a self-taught, non-native English writer, so while I tried my best there is always something I missed.
This story starts after Luthien becomes mortal and marries Beren, but before the birth of their son.
Enjoy!
She was born in a haze of impressions and overwhelmed senses. One moment she was warm and cozy, shrouded by peaceful darkness, the next it felt like she was being squeezed through a too-small straw. It was uncomfortable and quite painful, and the girl felt her temper rise.
Then the cold hit her bare skin.
She stiffened in surprise, body feeling like one big bruise. She opened her mouth to give whoever decided that taking her out of the blissful dark was a good idea a piece of her mind. Opened her mouth, but only a cry - more of a mournful wail - came out.
Noise erupted all around her, and she understood none of it.
It was like all the voices in the room were shouting right by her ear, and combined with the loud sounds of nature close by it was an utter cacophony for her overly sensitive ears.
Then a stranger picked her up, and deftly started cleaning her up. The minty smelling figure was clinical in her movements, wiping her down, quickly checking her airways and eyes before putting her down again.
The girl didn't like her.
The stranger felt wrong, unfamiliar and just plain strange.
She was offended, annoyed and utterly confused by it all. Why were they all here, touching her? What happened to her? Where was she? Those were all questions running through her mind at a dizzying speed, and the girl frowned.
There was something very wrong here.
Suddenly a demanding voice cut through the noise like a knife and in response there was a flurry of activity around her, but the girl couldn't care less. She was done. There was an annoying baby crying in the room now, and it was hurting her ears.
The last of the people left the room, leaving her alone with the two of the giants. Her sight was blurry with tears and she felt so very pitiful, but as she tried to focus her exhausted mind, the girl found she could make out some vague shapes and colors.
One of the giants approached her swaddled form, and picked her up. This. This giant felt good. Like she was being hugged, or sinking in a warm bath. The baby immediately stopped crying, and the girl relaxed as the deafening noise finally stopped.
"Shhh, little tári." A deep but musical voice murmured, gently rocking her in his arms. The girl stared up at the giant of a man holding her, stupefied.
"Give her to me, meleth nîn." Another voice demanded, rough with exhaustion but sounding beautifully musical nonetheless. A female one this time and the male holding her smiled. "I want to see her."
The girl didn't want to leave the arms of the nice-feeling giant, but they didn't ask her for an opinion. She was quickly carried over and deposited in the arms and against the chest of the other giant. And to her surprise, this one felt even better.
The woman - because it was a woman she was now resting against - felt and smelled wonderful. Like home.
The girl blinked up at the giant, and tried to focus. Everything was still very blurry, but that didn't mean she didn't notice that for some reason, the giants seemed to be glowing with an inner light.
Angels?
She'd died.
The realization hit her out of nowhere, and the girl felt her eyes tearing up once more as the feeling of loss hit her like a train. She sniffed wetly, and the arms around her started to gently rock her. She wanted to open her mouth and demand to be let go, for the beautiful giant to stop rocking her, but she couldn't form the words.
All she could do was stare up at the woman and let herself be comforted.
"She's beautiful and her fëa is so strong. My sight didn't show me how lovely our second-born would be." The voice of the giant holding her cooed, and she was starting to get a peculiar feeling in the pit of her stomach. "I never thought we would be so blessed again."
"A perfect little elleth for our House." The deep voice rumbled in agreement, sounding proud.
"What shall her name be?" The woman murmured, one of her fingers rising to caress her cheek. The girl blinked, and suddenly she knew.
Listen, she liked to think she was smart but this whole situation was too weird to actually be happening. She was dreaming, or laying in a coma somewhere. She had to be.
There was no way she had been reborn.
She was not a baby, and she definitely wasn't going to go through hormonal hell that was puberty again. The girl frowned, and tried to move away from the weird giant holding her. But swaddled in the blanket as she was, the girl found herself unable to move.
And as she watched the two unnaturally beautiful people coo over her, the girl - now infant - finally had to face the facts.
She couldn't remember anything of her past, yet she knew she had one. It was instinctive, a sense of deja-vu. She'd been here before, though she got the distinct feeling that she'd never been quite where she was now.
There had been no glowing giants in her past.
The girl had died, and now she was here. Held by enormous glowing people like she was a newly-born infant. Because she was a baby again.
She didn't believe in reincarnation, didn't follow any faith, yet here she was, being held by a glowing woman who by all accounts appeared to be her new mother.
And although her eye-sight was as blurry as only the sight of a newborn could be, she had the distinct impression her new parents were kinda otherworldly.
She wasn't on earth anymore.
She could see the woman the clearest, close as she was. Thick waves of silky dark brown hair tumbled down the woman's shoulders and she had the loveliest of purple eyes.
Purple.
It was a rich color, enhanced by the fact that the woman was looking down to her with so much love. Yet the girl felt disconcerted by the color of her eyes, the moon-pale perfect skin. The eyes she bravely met.
"What will you be?" The woman holding her mused, lips twitching as she held her baby's stare. "A warrior or a healer? An artist or a queen? Either way, I feel like you'll give it your everything."
The man approached, smoothing down the woman's hair before doing the same to the girl. "A determined one, hm?"
The woman chuckled, the royal purple of her eyes softening. "She'll be brilliant, and a naneth knows such things."
The girl let the words wash over her, more focused on her new mother's appearance. Those purple irises shouldn't have looked as natural as they did. Purple eyes weren't natural, right? She had the feeling that such a color hadn't been possible wherever she'd been before her apparent rebirth.
"And your sight has nothing to do with your surety." Her father said dryly, earning a tinkling laugh from his wife.
Then there was her other parent.
She couldn't see him very well from where she was laying in her mother's arms, but she'd caught a glimpse of the man when he'd placed her in the woman's arms.
Lightly tanned skin and long silver hair that shone like starlight, with matching pale-gray eyes.
Where was she?
Silver hair and purple eyes sounded familiar, and the girl squirmed, suddenly afraid. There had been something about dragons, hadn't there? A world filled with cruelty, with violence and dragons. She let out a whimper, and sent up a prayer to whoever would listen.
Please let there be no such cruelty in this new life of hers.
The woman immediately noticed her daughter's rising tension, and started humming a soothing little tune. The girl stared up at the lovely woman, spellbound. The lullaby was beautiful and she felt herself starting to relax. A little coo escaped her mouth, and she was rewarded with a breathtaking smile.
The man hummed a few notes along with the lullaby, voice warm and deep before he returned to the question of her new name. "First I thought to name her Idhrenniel, hoping she'd have the wisdom her sister lacked."
A sister?
The arms holding her stiffened. "Thingol."
The warning in her new mother's voice was audible, and the girl felt a strange kind of tension rise around them. It felt oppressive, the power that rose around them. The little hairs on her arms rose, and she whimpered in fright.
"Apologies, wife." The man murmured, and the girl wished she could see his face. The oppressive atmosphere hanging in the room disappeared like it had never been there in the first place and she relaxed back in the protective hold of her mother. "The past has no place in our daughter's future."
The woman sniffed, not quite placated just yet. "And where has my dear husband learned such wisdom?"
Her father chuckled wryly, the sound surprisingly warm for the apparently sensitive topic of the girl's mysterious sister. "From my very wise and powerful wife and queen, to whom I should listen more often. Lúthien made her choice, and we shall have to live with the consequences of that choice."
Lúthien. Her sister was named Lúthien.
The name tugged on her memory, but her murky thoughts didn't allow for any deep thinking. The girl noticed the grief, the quiet sorrow in both their voices as they talked about their daughter, but the still unnamed girl couldn't quite get why.
It hadn't sounded like her sister was dead, so why were her new parents grieving already? Though the girl did wonder where her new sister was. Surely Lúthien was here as well? The birth was over and this was clearly the time for a family to connect with their newest member. She couldn't imagine that the parents that were holding her so lovingly would neglect a child of theirs.
So where was the child?
She sighed. She was exhausted, and dearly wished to sleep.
"Indeed."
The man chuckled again at his wife's pert reply, and the girl felt a warm hand gently enclose around her head. "She has my hair."
"And my eyes." The woman replied, tone wistful but proud.
Oh.
She didn't remember anything before the blissful darkness, didn't even know her own name though she knew she had one before. She didn't know what she'd looked like before, or if she even had been a she. The girl didn't know how she got here or where she was, but that didn't matter.
It couldn't matter.
The girl instinctively knew that lingering on her mysterious and foggy past would only lead to despair, something she could not allow to follow her in her new life. So she nuzzled into her father's hand, and let the memories buried in her fragile infant brain rest.
"Elarinya." The man said finally, love audible in his tone. "Her father-name shall be Elarinya; our little morning star."
The girl, now Elarinya, cooed up to her parents, showing her approval at the sound of her new name the best she could. Morning star, what a pretty name.
He joined them on the bed then, mindful of the new mother and infant. The girl watched as he pressed a soft kiss to her new mother's head, and how she leaned into the man. Good. It appeared that her parents loved each other, strange as they were.
Elarinya had the feeling that love hadn't been abundant in her former life.
Her mother nodded, smiling down at her daughter. "My sweet Elarinya, our lovely morning star. Well met daughter of my beloved husband Elu Thingol, High-King of the Teleri elves."
Elarinya froze, shock coursing through her at her mother's strangely traditional sounding words.
"Well met daughter of the Maia Melian, my beloved wife and High-Queen. All hail Elarinya, Crown-Princess of Doriath." Her father, the king, added in a stately tone only true royalty could pull off. "Welcome to the world, seldë."
Elarinya stared up at her new parents, mind numb.
What?
A/N: So, this was written in a few hours after a sudden flare of inspiration. Then in a stroke of madness I decided to press the 'post' button. Unedited.
Dare I ask how it was?
Quenya:
Tári= queen
Seldë= daughter
Sindarin:
Meleth nîn= my love
Elleth= female elf
Idhrenniel= wisdom
Elarinya= morning star
Father-name= elves often have multiple names. A father name is given at birth and often has similarities to the name of the father or his family.
I also made a moodboard for this story which can be found on my Tumblr; WriterRose1998