Late spring, Forlindon, a year ago
Somewhere out there, an owl cried.
Hoot hoot
Earcalie snorted, sat alone on the porch of her house, trying to understand from where the cry was coming. The porch was almost all in the shadow, lit only by the flickering light of a lantern hanged onto a beam, already on the way to extinguish by itself. The elleth didn’t care if it was extinguishing.
The night was beautiful, full of stars above her and the light breeze brought in by the sea felt nice on her face. Perhaps she would have preferred it to be completely dark, it might have helped her to think. Rarely she allowed herself to take a moment and think thoroughly about things, now the one time she decided to do it a stupid owl had to break the atmosphere
Hoooooot
Sighing, she tried to tune the noise out of her head, taking in instead the tapestry of small lights above her. She much preferred nights in Lindon to those of the Hidden Valley, where the mountains so high kept the moon hidden and everything turned pitch black the moment all luminaries were doused. Not here. No mountains blocked the path of the moon, big and bright and reflecting in the surface of the sea, as well as all the tiny dots of light that were the stars. Between those in the sky and their reflections in the water the nightscape was tinged of a very deep blue. As beautiful as they were in daytime, now it felt like the fields and the house were shrouded in a velvet blanket, dotted with crystals.
Ammë* would have loved this. Deep blue aways was her favorite color
Earcalie thought about her, how when she was but a little elfling she sat on the porch with her simply doing that, stargazing. Sat in that little corner she remembered a night of a long long time ago, one similarly as beautiful with the luminaries in the sky reflecting gentle light.
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Early autumn, Forlindon, centuries past
“Ammë tell me, where do stars come from?”
Mehtarnis smiled. Of course her daughter already knew of the history of the stars and Varda Elentari, but as she would often do when she wanted someone to tell her a story, kept asking until told “Oh fine!”. So she narrated again:
“Varda Elentari, Queen of the Valar created the first stars in the earliest ages of the Spring of Arda.
Much much later, prior to the awakening of our people, Varda grouped together many of the ancient stars into constellations, which you can find in the sky if you look well. See that…”
She pointed to a cluster of seven stars twinkling in the north direction “That shape is the Sickle, Valacirca. Herald of our awakening and challenge to the first Dark Lord. That one…” and she pointed at a cluster that formed vaguely the figure of a man “Is Menelmacar, the Swordsman of the Sky gathered among the most ancient of stars”.
Pointing next to the east, above the Swordsman shone a tiny cluster. “Those are Remmirath, the Netted Stars”
“Ammë what’s your favorite star?”
Scanning the firmament, Mehtarnis pointed at one lone, bright star. “That one, it is Alcarinquë the Glorious, created by Elentari with the dewy light of Telperion in Aman”
The elleth made an "ooooh" sound, then scrunched up her face as if pondering something very deeply. Suddenly, she piped up “Ammë Ammë! Á anta ni Ele!” Give me a star, she said in broken Quenya.
It was a demand of the kind children are wont to do, which grown ups put aside with a pat on the head and an indulgent laugh explaining why such a thing is not possible. Yet her mother merely smiled extending a hand in a grabbing motion. As her daughter had her eyes fixed on the sky, she did not realize that her mother unfastened the hair tie in her braid, a strip of black silk with a little crystal as decoration. Earcalie squealed in delight as she was given the tie with the crystal glimmering faintly. That was her own star now.
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Adult Earcalie chuckled under her breath at that recollection. She automatically lifted a hand to the back of her head, where her mother’s hair tie with the tiny crystal now secured her ponytail. She almost never let her hair loose and that was the reason why.
The light of the lamp was almost completely out by now and the moon had started her descent into the depths of the horizon. Snuffing the light out herself, the elleth let the porch be surrounded by dark, wailing away the wee hours of that beautiful night in silence. Even the owl finally stopped its crying. It was still a childish thought but the idea of having her own star never left her after all these years, and probably would never.
*Ammë: Quenya for "mother"
