Milyëanyel, by Kaylee Arafinwiel

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

B2MeM Prompt: Freedom (Red Path)
Format: ficlet
Genre: family?
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Allusions to the events of the Darkening.
Characters: Findis, Ingwion, others mentioned
Pairings: Findis/OMC
Creator’s Notes (optional): Inspired by Fiondil’s works, particularly “In Darkness Bound” and “In The High King’s Secret Service”, this is set some time after the Noldor have arrived in Beleriand. The Moon and Sun are both present.
Summary: Living in Vanyamar has its drawbacks, to be sure. Lady Findis, wife of Lord Valandur of the Vanyar, has more reason to think so than most. Fortunately, she has a kindred spirit in her cousin Ingwion.


The eldest daughter of Finwë could be found, most days, gazing out the window that faced toward Tirion. Valandur had been away, doing some work for the High King, and though she knew he was near, knew he would return, her heart still ached after so many separations.
“You are troubled, Cousin.”

Findis did not bother to look round. She knew Ingwion was behind her even ere he spoke. “I am,” she agreed quietly. “I would fain have Valandur return to me. I know my brother will not scorn him, and yet…”

“And yet.” Ingwion nodded, his blue eyes darkening with fell emotion she could or would not name. “You fear for Val’s safe return?”

“I fear for his – our – freedom, every time he must needs go to Tirion,” Findis sighed. “If something were to happen…”

“It has happened before,” Ingwion said quietly. “But Ari is not Fëanáro, nor even…” He snapped his mouth shut, a stab of pain slicing his wounded fëa anew.

“Nor even that one,” Findis agreed, giving Ingwion a cousinly kiss. “Did you need me for something, Ingwi?”

“Ah.” Ingwion pushed his old pain away, trying to clear his mind. “I was wondering if you might join me for a picnic, Findis? It is Valanya, after all, and Atar has gone to pay his respects to Lord Manwë. I thought we could both use some time outside these four walls.”

“What a Noldorin thing to say,” Findis said wryly, a glimmer of humour in her eyes even as she nodded assent to the plan. “Is Vanyamar too confining for you, Ingwi?”

Ingwion laughed. He laughed because he had got Findis to smile, because despite the pain of old separations and betrayals, they could still smile at each other, and Findis, for all she was Finwë’s daughter, was Vanyarin through and through. She was resilient. Together, the cousins could conquer their pasts.

Valandur had been right. Ingwion silently blessed the King’s spymaster for seeing into Findis’ heart, asking Ingwion to keep company with her while Val was gone. Solitude was too much for them – and in the end, perhaps of all their family, only they could fully comprehend what the other had truly lost.

Alone together, they might have the freedom to grieve.

Vocabulary: (All words are Quenya).
Milyëanyel “I’m Missing You” literally “I am longing for you”. This is the title of an (unrelated) ficlet of Fiondil’s, but reflects Findis’ (and Ingwion’s) feelings accurately, I feel.
Fëanáro – “Spirit of Fire”, also called Curufinwë or Fëanor. First son of Finwë and only son of Míriel Serindë.
Valanya – “Powers-day”, devoted to the Valar, equivalent to our Friday but functionally equivalent to Sunday.
Manwë – Elder King of Arda, chief of the Valar.
Vanyamar – “Vanya-Home”, chief city of the Vanyar at the foot of Taniquetl.

OCs (Fiondil’s, but I’ve been using his characters for many years with permission and now as his legacy)
Valandur – “Servant of the Valar”. Spymaster for High King Ingwë, husband to Findis.
Ingwion – Son and heir of Ingwë. (Not quite an OC, just not too well-known At any rate, Atto Fiondil elaborated on him more than Tolkien did.)

Comments

[zdenka]

Congrats on posting the first work of B2MeM 2017! :D I sympathize with the characters here, and their worry in an uncertain time.

Ingwion is a canonical character -- would you like a tag for him? (Well, sort of. He's mentioned once in the History of Middle-earth, and that's close enough for Tolkien fandom.)

One minor thing: Please remember to include the path color along with your prompt -- it will make the taggers' job easier if they don't have to go searching the entire game board for it. :)

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! :) I sympathize with them too.

Oh yes, thank you, a tag for Ingwion would be great :)

Oops. It's the red Fanworks path. Do I put "Freedom (red path)" then?

[zdenka]

Shiny new Ingwion tag added!

That would be fine! But you can put whatever you like, as long as the info is there somewhere.

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

Okay! And thanks for the Ingwion tag! :) *wonders what the challenge tag is this year, like the tags for memories, cards, and all that*

[zdenka]

No problem!

After thinking about it, I've decided that it's probably unintuitive for people to remember that "prompt" means path also, so I've added it to the official posting form. Sorry, my bad.

This year's challenge tag is path:red, path:orange and so forth. I've already added those tags to the tag list, so they're there for people to use if they want to.

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

:) I do want to, so I have edited the tag in :) yay!

[ladybrooke]

I really like this. :D I've read very little about the Vanyar (or Findis), but I love the idea that for all Findis might be Finwë's daughter, she's more like the Vanyar. I mean, her mother is Indis, after all. Surely just because someone is related to the Noldor doesn't mean they have to be one.

Their emotions come through very clearly in this, too, which is really nice.

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! :) In Fiondil's "In The High King's Secret Service", the first thing Valandur ever notices about Findis is her voice - how she speaks like either a Noldo or a Vanya depending on who she's speaking to. (But then, he's a loremaster at the time, and speech is his specialty.)

The fluidity of her accent is what first makes him fall in love with her. So I see her about equally Noldorin and Vanyarin - but of course Ingwion, her cousin on her mother's side of the family, sees her in full-on "Vanya mode". Married to a Vanya, dwelling in the High King's palace, with most of her family in exile, I think her Noldorin side would be very suppressed these days.

[ladybrooke]

You're welcome! :D She's even more interesting to me now, because I do the same thing with my speech (obviously with different groups, but still).

Well, equally both halves is still different from all one side and more interesting to me than everyone being all Noldor, all the time. :P I agree that her Noldorin side would be very suppressed after the exile of most of her family. I think even the Noldor themselves still in Valinor would probably be trying to distinguish themselves from the exiles, and she's in an even more difficult position.

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

Oh, the Noldor of Tirion would definitely be trying to distinguish themselves from the Exiles. I hope to do more about Findis sooner or later, glad you like her! :) (If you want to read more about Fiondil's vision of her, his stories can be found at Stories of Arda. Some on SWG too, I think, but not all.)

[silver-trails.livejournal.com]

Very nice!

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

Thank you Silver Trails!

[independence1776]

Welcome back to B2MeM! :D

One thing, though: all of the text in the entry needs to be behind the cut, author's notes and vocabulary included. The only thing that should be visible in the community feed is the header.

For future reference, the format for fics is by wordcount. As the Posting Rules say, "For fanfic, the format tag is dictated by length. Ficlets are 999 words or shorter, not including drabbles. Short stories are 1000 to 9999 words. (For reference, because we’ve yet to need these tags, novellas are 10,000 to 39,999 words and novels are 40,000+ words.) Chaptered stories go under format:chaptered regardless of the length of individual updates."

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

Thank you Indy! And thank you for the clarification. I have corrected it. :)

[independence1776]

You're welcome! And I really hate to be a party pooper, but "To the Moon-Lord" also needs to be fixed.

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

Ack! Sorry, I should have gone back and checked it *facepalm* I've fixed it now, too.

[independence1776]

Thank you!

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

Belatedly, you're welcome :D

[starbrow.livejournal.com]

Nice! I love getting a look at Findis. I do like the idea of her being very Vanyarin like her mother, and her cousinly relationship with Ingwion here is very sweet.

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much Starbrow :)

[fernstrike]

Nicely written! I haven't read much about Findis but you've drawn her and Ingwion's characters - and the things that trouble them - very well :-)

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! :)

[nialoke]

Aw, I'm glad these two stand together! I haven't read the works this ficlet is referring to, but you make it easy to sympathize with them here regardless of the wider context.

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

:) I'm glad you liked it! There's more to this story now (it's the story I followed for the Red Path), though the focus hasn't returned to Ingwion and Findis (yet. Hopefully soon Gloredhel will meet them! It does show what Val's been up to, though.)