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“Thank you for inviting me,” Erien said, a little shy. For all she and Nimrodel had been friends for years now, and she had dwelt among her people since the horror of the Tears, she still felt awed and honored that the Laikwendi would welcome one such as her, a Kinslayer’s daughter.
Nimrodel smiled in the sideways manner she had. “You are welcome,” she said, the meaning of her words richly layered. Erien had never attempted to make an ósanwë connection with her before, but she sometimes thought she could feel her friend’s thoughts anyway.
“And—you are certain it is alright I bear your markings...?” Erien asked, a bit nervous. “I know I am not of the Laikwendi; I would not want to trespass...”
“Tauriel.” Nimrodel placed her hand on Erien’s cheek, the epessë she had given to her warm and sensuous on her tongue. “You are welcome. I mean that. We mean that. You are a Golodh, yes, but there are many Tatyai among us, akin to Finuë your ancestor.”
Erien nodded, her heart in her throat. Nimrodel patted her cheek, then stepped away, busying herself with opening several small jars of dye. Even as she worked, still she spoke: “And, bright Tauriel, I did not name you lightly. You have loved the forest always, and since your...losses, our home has become your home, and you a daughter of the forest itself.”
Now she turned back to Erien, holding a brush dipped in dark brown-red dye. Erien turned over her arms, submitting to Nimrodel’s craft, and did her best to stay still as the brush tickled her forearms, covering her warm brown skin in the same swirling patterns the Laikwendi people wore in honor of their kinship.
“I never had a mother,” Erien sighed. “I did not think I needed one—not with two fathers...but now that I find myself without either, gladly do I take the forest as my mother.”
“As the waters and stars are my fathers,” Nimrodel murmured, for she was of the Unbegotten at Cuiviénen, “so I took the forest as my mother, long ago.”
Erien glanced up at her, her mouth twitching wryly. “Does this make me now your sister?”
Nimrodel gave her another sideways smile. “Perhaps,” she said, but her eyes sparkled with something like mischief.
When she was finished adorning Erien’s arms, hands, and shoulders, Nimrodel turned to renew her own markings. With surprise, Erien saw that instead of her characteristic white paint, a beautiful contrast to her dark brown skin, she used the same red-brown dye she had applied to Erien herself. The effect was subtler, the darker tones not so easily visible, giving the impression of shifting leaf-patterns suitable for one of the Laikwendi.
“Why the different color?” Erien asked.
“You know the meaning of helthwin, yes?”
“Yes.” Erien paused. “Well, only what you and a few others have taught me...”
“Then you know that it is a mark of artistry and celebration, as much as it is a symbol of our community to outsiders,” Nimrodel said.
“Yes,” Erien agreed.
“At revels such as the one we shall attend to night, helthwin is a mark of skill and beauty,” Nimrodel continued. “As birds with their pretty plumage, its purpose is, in part, to attract a mate...if only for the night.”
Erien fought back a blush. It was not as if she was inexperienced with such fleeting pleasures; she had taken lovers back in Aman, and even a few here in Beleriand. But among the Noldor there was always a limit to indulgences of the hröa, and Tauriel had not dared pass it, not in the way she knew the Laikwendi might in their own casual encounters.
“But there are many who do not wish for a partner at the time, and so they use white dye for their helthwin,” Nimrodel explained. “Some who desire no partner at all, ever, take to wearing ninkwi-helthwin in their daily lives.”
“But your helthwin is always...” Erien felt a brief pang of disappointment. She had never known Nimrodel to wear paint in any shade but white.
“It is,” Nimrodel agreed. “But—” and now she was definitely smirking, sparks like little stars flying from her dark brown-amber eyes— “not tonight.”
Once, Erien would have found it impossible to imagine a good party without a bonfire or roasted meat; but the Laikwendi spurned both, and still had lively festivities in the darkness, with only fruits and dandelion wine to drink. This night, as she danced beneath the stars with only glittering jewels to light her step, life felt sweeter and more precious than it ever had before. No revel in light-flooded Aman could compare to this: and she knew now why it was that the Eldar loved the stars.
And yet the Laikwendi were barely counted among the Eldar. They were a mix of Nandor and Avari, those who abandoned the Journey and those who refused it. Neither name was flattering to them, and they rejected the Quenya titles the Noldor had placed upon them, preferring to be called the Barandi or the Hisildi: the brown-folk, the shadow-folk, for they belonged to the trees and the darkness of a time before the Sun.
The Silvan tongue was a different music from bold, lyrical Quenya, and even from the tangled consonants and sharp vowels of Edhellin. Like the starlight caught in Nimrodel’s eyes, it was softer than the blazing Light of the Trees possessed by Erien herself: in all things, the Laikwendi were softer, subtler, but no less beautiful.
Erien felt free here, singing in a language she only half-knew, the forest her mother holding her safe in shadowy embrace. Here, with the Laikwendi, she felt lighter than she ever had among the grave and glorious Noldor; here, with Nimrodel, she could forget the grief of her fathers.
She danced and danced, whirling around light-crystals, trading partners with each new song, catching sweet kisses from fair mouths she did not know. The Laikwendi built no fires, but a flame was lit within her belly; they caught no prey, but she was trapped within their spell.
Yet it was not until she fell into Nimrodel’s arms that her spirit leapt forth like a white flame, reaching for her friend, her dear one, and pulling her into an embrace. Nimrodel’s fëa shone like a ray of moonlight, shimmering as they twined together, and within her heart Erien knew she had found something she had not even known she sought.
“Your helthwin is not white tonight,” Tauriel whispered, and Nimrodel’s eyes laughed as she kissed her full on the mouth.
Nimrodel taught her a new dance, that night, one Tauriel had nearly forgotten. As they lay together in the darkness, stars whirled above them, and Tauriel tasted her lover’s bliss, sharing her own ecstasy gladly. It was a union of fëar such as she had never known, and yet it was not: for as the dawn seeped rosy over the horizon, their spirits settled, and were separate once more.
“I have never...” Tauriel whispered, shivering as Nimrodel ran fingers through her fiery curls.
“You did well for one who had never lain with another, then,” her lover laughed softly.
Tauriel shook her head minutely. “No, I have—I meant...that connection. Our fëar.”
“Ai,” Nimrodel sighed, understanding now. “It is not the way of the Belaindi, is it?”
“We...” But the word felt wrong on Tauriel’s tongue, as wrong as the bitter name Erien felt in her heart. She was barely a Noldo, any longer. Her father was dead, and her other father had forsaken her, and she felt more at home among the Laikwendi than she ever had before.
“The Noldor,” she tried again, “bond only once...”
“As do we,” Nimrodel said. “All Kwendî—well, not all. There are those who take more than one bondmate. But all Kwendî hold our bonds sacred: such is the gift of the One.” She blinked softly. “But this—what you and I have done—this is not a bond. It is a briefer mingling of spirits; gentler, less demanding. Your folk have no such thing?”
“If we do, I know not of it,” Tauriel admitted. “But...from what I have learned of the Laikwendi, I am not surprised. In all ways you are...” She trailed off, struggling to put it into words. In the end she settled for a word in Silvan: “Cwîlidh.” It meant something like “quiet-soft-firm,” and the part of her mind that had been trained by Fëanáro in linguistics guessed it was related somehow to Quenyan quilda, but in the Silvan tongue it was an expression of peace and resolve, of subtlety and nuance.
“Mm,” Nimrodel said, and smiled. “Cwîlidh...an interesting choice of words, bright one. I suppose we must be, to one raised among a people so brash as the Golodhrim.”
Then she took Tauriel’s hand, pressing her long middle finger against her pulse, tracing the helthwin patterns she had painted there. Staring deep into her eyes, Nimrodel’s spirit pulsed softly as it had the night before, and suddenly—
Bright Tauriel, she heard in her mind, alike and yet unlike the familiar touch of ósanwë. Melethli...
Tauriel shivered, reaching out: Nimrodel, meldë—
All at once Nimrodel flinched back, releasing her arm. “Ai, so strong!” she cried, blinking rapidly. “Bright you are, Tauriel!”
“I—were you not trying to establish ósanwë?” Tauriel asked, feeling a stab of guilt.
“Ósanwë?” Nimrodel asked.
“Mm—‘thinking together’?” she translated.
“Ai, yes,” Nimrodel said, and leaned back into her touch, gently prodding her way back into Tauriel’s mind. We call it gwasanath. ‘Together-thought.’
Tauriel closed her eyes, sinking into the feeling of Nimrodel’s mind so close to hers. It was—different, she realized. In Quenya, one forged words like a smith, glittering and complete. In Silvan, though...speech was a path one walked, a search for communication, for understanding. Cwîlidh, indeed.
I think... Tauriel reached out, taking Nimrodel with her on the journey of her thought. I think I understand.
Your ósanwë is more direct, Nimrodel said. Useful for shouting across battlefields, for displaying wit and genius. You share a thought, complete and whole. But with gwasanath, we find the thought together.
Even as she spoke, Tauriel felt more than heard the words she relayed. Gwasanath was a path they walked together, a series of feelings, of images coalescing into a whole. It was not unlike the lesser joining they had done last night, subtler than any Noldorin custom, yet piercing just as deep.
Meldë, Tauriel murmured, pleased to feel the Quenya of her fathers adapt so smoothly into gwasanath. I thank thee for this gift. For all thy gifts to me: thy tongue, thy paint, thy people, thy heart...
Nimrodel kissed her, in flesh and in spirit. Thou art truly of the Laikwendi now, bright melethli, she whispered. I welcome you—we welcome you into our hearts. If you wish it, you may count yourself among us, and take us to be your fae-nothlir: the kin of your spirit, if not your blood.
The word she used was one Tauriel had not heard before, but it struck deep in her fëa—her fae, in Silvan. Twined as she was with Nimrodel’s own fae, she understood the depth of this offer, of her adoption into the Laikwendi. There was no greater honor, and she could not accept readily enough.
Yes, she cried, and Thank you, and Melethli! and Nimrodel. She cast aside her old name, her old sorrow; her crown of loneliness, the stain of grief and blood upon her.
Erien of the Noldor, once Ariën Erëamíriel, was no longer. Now she rose in gladness, in cwîlidh, with a new name and a new home: now she was truly Tauriel, the forest’s daughter, the soul-kin of the Laikwendi and the beloved of fair Nimrodel.