Faithful Beauty by AdmirableMonster  

Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too,

The world’s heart breaks beneath its wars,

All things are changed, save in the east

The faithful beauty of the stars.

--Winter Stars, Sara Teasdale

The wind whispered gently through the grasses of the meadow, carrying a sweet, fresh scent to Nerdanel’s nostrils.  After spending most of the day scrambling up hills and clambering through narrow, rocky valleys to reach this place, she was content to lie and breathe beside the woman who had brought her here.

“Look up,” Tinwë told her, with a laugh, shoving at her shoulder.  “Don’t look at me.  That’s the whole point of being here.”

Privately, Nerdanel did not think it was the whole point, and she didn’t think Tinwë thought it was the whole point either, but she conceded to the other woman’s excitement and followed her pointing finger, up, up, up, to the vast blue-black velvet beaded with glittering crystal stars.  A veritable wealth of jewels.

She hadn’t thought she would be able to look at light the same way ever again.  Not with the same joy.  And maybe it wasn’t the same way, because something deep in the pit of her stomach ached a little, as if she had been injured and it had not quite healed properly.  The way Finwë had always held his arm at an odd right angle because of some injury during the Journey.  But it was much easier to watch the Stars than she had expected, especially with her new companion.

She had run into Tinweriel quite by chance one day when she had had enough of Tirion, of the stares and the hostile looks—worse, the pitying ones.  She had walked so far and so long without thinking of anything but escape that she had found herself amid the golden leaves of Lórien.  Tinwë had been only recently released from Mandos and Nerdanel had walked right into her, wearing absolutely nothing and hiding from Este because she was sick of being told that she needed to rest.

Nerdanel hid a smile in Tinwë’s shoulder as she remembered her plea and their hurried, furtive exit with Nerdanel’s cloak wrapped around her.  Not that Este would have done more than scold.  And Tinwë hadn’t been angry, just exasperated.  She’d laughed into Nerdanel’s shoulder and quite accidentally pressed her whole body against her.

“They’re beautiful,” Nerdanel whispered in Tinwë’s ear, and the other woman nodded eagerly.

“All my life, they’ve sung to me as nothing else has,” she murmured back.  “See, there’s Wilwarin.  Though to me it doesn’t look like a butterfly.”  This last said only a little scornfully.

“What does it look like to you?”  Nerdanel could see the butterfly, though it wasn’t her first thought.  She could also see the vague form of a woman chained, arms extended outward at odd angles, face frozen in a rictus of agonized indecision.  She could sculpt it, too.  She didn’t want to.

“Berries,” said Tinwë.  “Look, that little cluster of three could be berries with the other two the leaves.  I know it’s not as exciting as a butterfly, but Tyelpë and I used to eat berries when we were out stargazing together, and…” She trailed off, her voice going wistful.

Nerdanel swallowed, her throat suddenly tight.  She hadn’t intended this—she hadn’t intended any of this.  How could she have known that the bright, eager astronomer with the pretty laughing mouth and shapely form was Curvo’s wife?  She had never met her before Fëanor had taken them all off to Formenos.

Like mother, like son.

That was an old worry now, though.  Tinwë had rarely spoken of Curvo even before the two of them had discussed the way something other than platonic seemed to be arising between them.  It was as if she didn’t know how to approach the topic—it wasn’t sadness appearing in her eyes on the few occasions when he came up, but something closer to confusion.  When Nerdanel had awkwardly confessed her feelings, trying to make it clear to Tinwë that she didn’t have to reciprocate, that she knew it was a terribly strange situation, Tinwë had silenced her with a soft kiss, then looked at her inquiringly.

“Was that right?” she’d asked, and Nerdanel had only been able to laugh and embrace her.

Now she didn’t quite know what to say—especially about the grandson she had barely met, but she reached out and took Tinwë’s hand and squeezed it.  Tinwë turned onto her side and smiled, her eyes crinkling up.  Nerdanel wanted to sculpt that smile, but she didn’t think she could sculpt Tinwë in stone, in wood, in anything unmoving or unchanging.  In light, perhaps, if she could come up with a way to sculpt light.  If everyone in Tirion wouldn’t shake their heads over something like that.

“Tinwë,” she whispered.  “Tinwë, can I kiss you?”

“I think I’d like that,” Tinwë whispered back.  Then, in the same tiny tone of voice, “Why are we whispering?”

“I don’t know,” Nerdanel whispered back, and she slid a hand along Tinwë’s waist and kissed her, deep and thorough.  Tinwë’s hands tangled in Nerdanel’s hair, tugging hard, and Nerdanel moaned into her mouth.  “Oh, Tinwë.”

Tinwë nibbled at her bottom lip, licking into Nerdanel’s mouth, and her hands were pushing up under Nerdanel’s tunic, curiously feeling across her chest.  Nerdanel gasped as pleasure shot through her, coiling in her core.  She reached for Tinwë’s own small breasts, and they were squirming against each other in the next moment.

They were both wearing tunics and soft leggings, the better for an expedition that had involved a lot of clambering.  “Is this my reward for solving the riddle?” Nerdanel asked breathlessly. “Hm, I don’t know if it’s a reward exactly, I just want to do it,” Tinwë replied.  “But I don’t think I’d have wanted to do it if you hadn’t tried to solve the riddle.”

Nerdanel had woken up in the morning to find that a map had slipped underneath her door with a bouquet of flowers on top of it.  At first she had been quite confused, but then she’d realized that the flowers had been chosen with deliberate skill by someone well-versed in one of the old Tirion flower-languages, and that they were an invitation to solve a riddle.  Treasure at the end, the flowers told her.

“Is this the treasure at the end?” she asked, nibbling on Tinwë’s ear and hearing her gasp, her legs twining around Nerdanel’s waist.

“No!” Tinwë replied indignantly.  “That’s—” She gestured at the sky above them.

“Mmm…” Nerdanel nuzzled her neck and put her hand down Tinwë’s leggings.  “Do you like this, though?”

“Yyyyyyes,” Tinwë got out as Nerdanel’s slim fingers slowly traced her growing slickness.  “Let me—”

Nerdanel felt a small, slim hand rub across her clit, and she gasped as warmth built up and built up inside her.  She rocked against Tinwë’s fingers, still gently pressing into her at the same time.  A warm wind babbled cheerfully in her ear, and she felt more connected to Tinwë than she had felt to anyone in longer than she let herself remember.

Up here, beneath the wide sky, with fields of soft grass stretching out to either side, in a little bowl at the top of a series of great rough hills, they were as alone as it was possible to be.  Even dogged by the memories that caught and clutched at both of them, here they could be safe.  How could she ever sculpt this? Clay, perhaps.  Clay and light might do it, if she could put them together…

“More,” Tinwë demanded, and her mouth sought Nerdanel’s breasts.  Nerdanel cried out and pressed her fingers more insistently into Tinwë’s cunt. Tinwë’s back arched, and she made a tiny squeaking noise.  Nerdanel rocked more urgently against her hand and clutched at her with the one free hand that she had.

“Oh, stars, like that—”

The warmth turned to heat, and the heat turned violent, forcing her whole body to lock up and spasm.  She blinked starlight out of her eyes and found herself looking down at Tinwë, who was also clenching and fluttering around her hand.

Nerdanel held herself up for just a heartbeat longer, staring at the Treelight caught, flickering in the depths of Tinwë’s opening eyes—just long enough to feel like a moth drawn to a candle flame—and then she sighed and flopped down next to her.

“Mmmm.”  Tinwë cuddled up to her.  “Look there—can you see Soronúmë soaring across the sky?”

The stars did not burn as bright as Tinweriel’s eyes, but her warmth at Nerdanel’s side and the whole world around them, holding them gently and in safety together made them burn brighter than anything else Nerdanel had ever seen.

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