Upon her return to Imladris, Lilleduil had taken a long, hot bath, calling for hot water twice instead of using magic to heat it, as that warmth had to come from somewhere and the point had been to warm herself up. She’d left armor and sword with the armor smiths and weapon smiths, to be cleaned and mended and properly polished. Thendryt, when he returned, could take a look at her staff-the Man was an accomplished woodworker. Finally drifting upstairs to her bedroom, Lilleduil found herself not inclined to sleep. The sun was still up and despite the weariness caused by the swift journey she’d made back to Imladris with Lord Ambassador Parnard, the idea of a nap simply did not appeal. The house, usually so pleasant and airy, seemed stuffy and overheated after a month of being continually cold.
A swath of pink and white protruding from her sewing cabinet door gave her pause. Lilleduil walked over slowly, and pulled it out. Another folded piece of blue/grey cloth came with it. She took them both up and carried them over to the bed, spreading them out upon it.
The pink and white was Manahdlaer’s unfinished wedding dress. No need for it now, with the wedding having been performed upon the knife edge between life and death. No joyous celebration with friends had that been, just the swift joining of souls out of direst necessity.
The blue-grey piece was, in fact, a finished dress. A dress Lilleduil had never worn and had long since outgrown. A simple gown for a growing elleth, delicate embroidery of flowers in blue and lavender and pink about the neck and sleeves and hem. A dress meant to be worn on the last day of the journey West, to hopefully meet her father. But Lilleduil had never taken that journey. It had lurked in her sewing cabinet for years, waiting for Lilleduil to alter it into something she could make use of. But she’d never seen her way clear to doing it.
Lilleduil had been very pleased when Manadhlaer had accepted her offer to sew the dress. Pink, perhaps, to match Themodir’s love-gift? she had answered, when Manadhlaer had wondered about colors. Pale pink, like the inside of shell? It would go well, Lilleduil had thought, with the coloring of a silver-pale Teleri, and Manadhlaer had agreed.
She should go this evening, seek Manadhlaer out, give her her condolences. What would she find, she wondered, when she looked upon her friend? The same dark emptiness that had been in her mother’s eyes after her father’s death? The look of someone who had had half their soul torn away? What could she say? She’d had little comfort for her own mother-arguably, she’d added to Ethillind’s grief rather than helping assuage it, what with her disappearances and sulks.
With adult hindsight, she could tell it had been about two months before Ethillind made her decision to go West, for she’d ceased to weep of a night and began to sew furiously, making clothes for the journey. There was no way to tell whether the Lady Celebrian had made her decision as quickly, but Lilleduil thought it was possible that she had and simply lingered long enough for her family to accept that it was necessary. Would Manadhlaer take the journey? And if so, how long would it take her to reach that decision?
The dress was about a third of the way done, still in pieces. Lilleduil had been working on the beading and embroidery, most of which would be done before it was assembled. The underdress was of silk bought years ago in Celondim, Palest pink it was overall, but the weaver had worked in threads of blue and aqua and silver and lavender-grey, so that it had a nacreous shimmer. Lilleduil had seen the piece and had immediately coveted it, purchasing it with no clear idea of what she was going to do with it. But experience had taught her that she would regret not buying something that appealed to her that greatly. A design would always occur to her eventually that was perfect for such a piece, and the moment Manadhlaer had announced her wedding, Lilleduil had known that was what the silk was meant for.
As was the jar of tiny pink shells, also from Celondim, that had been drilled for sewing and she had thought so clever. Tiny pearls to go with the shellls. And the other jar of tiny iridescent crystals she’d traded for in Moria. Half of the original amount of the crystals remained, the other half having been traded in turn in Lorien for a dress length of the sheerest white silk, woven in a supple rippling pattern by one of Lady Galadriel’s weaving women.
The under dress had been cut sleeveless, high-bodiced, the skirt flowing out into a train. The white was the over dress, cut to follow the line of the pink, the train and the ends of the flaring sleeves pulled and shirred into a foam-like froth, arguably the most difficult part of the design, though they would seem deceptively simple. The overdress was to be attached to the bodice with an appliquéd edge of foaming wave shapes, and there was a place beneath the breasts for Themodir’s brooch. The design had been intended to look as if Manadhlaer was stepping out of a wave onto the shore. Lilleduil had been very proud of it.
Now… She glanced at the fire, but only for a moment. The dress wanted to be born, it wished to be worn. Years after her mother’s departure, Lilleduil had come to realize that she did in fact share Ethillind’s gift for color and drape and line. Other tailors, elven and mortal, had succeeded in training her where her mother had failed. It may have started at least in part as an act of contrition from a disappointing daughter, but it had also come to be a source of pleasure and enjoyment.
And she could look at the dress her mother had made for her now and see the love in it, in the choice of colors, in the careful stitching and embroidery. Anger had blinded her to that for a very long time. Ethillind had felt that her daughter did not have proper family feeling, Lilleduil had resented the fact that her mother would flee West at the earliest opportunity, without even considering that Lilleduil might wish to see something of this world before going to the next. The onset of Lilleduil’s lore gift and the requirement that it be trained had smoothed things over a little, but there was still hurt on both sides when Ethillind had departed.
Lilleduil took up the blue-grey dress and held it up before her, looking at herself in the bedroom mirror. She had grown taller ( a little…) and longer in the arm, and somewhat fuller in the body, but not much. I could split it up the sides, widen the arms eye, make it a side-laced over tunic. And make a contrasting under tunic. I could match Mother’s embroidery…
The idea had never occurred to her before, and it was so very simple! She would do that and set it aside against the day her fight was done and she journeyed West at last. It would look like something the two of them had worked on together. When her mother saw her, she would understand… With a smile, Lilleduil folded the gown up carefully and set it back in the cabinet before turning back to the other.
But this I will finish first, now, for I do not know if Manadhlaer will stay or go, and if she goes, when she will do so.
No ellon’s eyes had ever lighted when Lilleduil walked into a room, she’d never been kissed. She did not know if she even wished to be loved, given the complications it made in a soldier’s life, given what she’d seen of the pain love brought. That there was joy as well, she knew, from watching her father and mother together, from seeing Manadhlaer’s giddy happiness the night she’d danced across the Hall of Fire with Themodir. But it seemed the pain had left a greater impression.
Yet I will finish this, as an act of faith that there will be joy beyond the sorrow, one day. If Manadhlaer departed before it was done, Lilleduil would send it to her on another ship. If it was done and she deemed Manadhlaer unready to receive it, she would set it aside and leave instructions that it be given to her friend in the event of her fall. But if, one day, she looked at Manadhlaer and saw that sorrow was departing, like dawn on the ocean horizon after a night of blackest storm, then she would set it in her friend’s arms herself.
There’s an hour of good light left. I may as well be about it! Lilleduil gathered up her sewing basket and the pieces of the dress, and went outside to sew beside the stream.
