My face, right now:  ♥____♥

I love this. I wish I could give you a useful review and tell you why, but all I can manage at the moment is a bit of keysmashing and joy. Just, yes. Beautiful work.

Long overdue, my MEFA review...

This is a story to read slowly, to savour watching the relationship from the first look between Erestor and Glorfindel to its blossoming. The pace of the tale helped to give me the impression of having all the time in the world, like the elves within it. Things happen when they are right and not before, and in the meantime I witness in wonderful detail the passing of the seasons in an Imladris that is conjured before my eyes. Maybe because Glorfindel has chosen to be a painter, the story seems shaped out of precise brush strokes, adding a bit here and a bit there until Glorfindel can see the whole picture, as I have done while reading.

There is far more to the tale than the romance. As much as I've enjoyed the moments between Glorfindel and Erestor (and I am not sure which one is my favourite, because they all are the right mixture of tenderness and growing sensuality), it is Gildor who becomes the unsung hero in the story. For Glorfindel, the settling into the "life after" and the acceptance of how things have changed are achieved through the discreet support from Gildor until he knows it is no longer needed. No love triangles, no drama, just friendship that made me feel good.

I shouldn't finish without a mention of how much I liked Erestor's silky black hair, so real in the descriptions that I could almost touch it. So, so close...