Work Text:
I.
When she was young, Vanimeldë was a child of simple wants.
“Vanimeldë, please, you must pay greater mind to your arithmetic. I have spoken with your tutors, and your progress… You do not seem to have made any progress at all since the last time I spoke with them.”
Vanimeldë’s mother, Vanimandil, often initiated such conversations with her daughter. Though Vanimeldë might find arithmetic too tedious and too irrelevant to devote much attention to it, she was quite an accomplished listener, and she had heard servants whispering in the back halls, when they thought she wasn’t near. The wife of the King’s heir despaired of her husband ever putting his mind to one day governing Anadûnê, despaired of it perhaps even more than the King himself. One of the maids had heard her complaining to her favorite lady-in-waiting; one of the grooms had watched her follow her husband into the stables to implore him to stay in the capital as he was preparing to ride away to meet friends in Rómenna.
Sometimes, the whispers seemed to seep from the very walls, and Vanimeldë would just attribute it to her own keen ears. But what could anyone expect? Vanimandil was a daughter of Andúnië, if a few degrees removed from the Lords’ immediate family. They had strange notions of how to rule in Andúnië; so everyone said, and if it was what everyone said, there must have been at least a kernel of truth to it.
But Vanimeldë knew better than to repeat palace gossip indiscriminately. Information was a valuable resource, one that should never be squandered. Besides, it would just make her mother upset to remind her of it. So Vanimeldë smiled winningly and pointed out, “But arithmetic isn’t all there is to being Queen, is there, Mother? I’ve been doing very well in my other—“
“Yes, you sing very well, Vanimeldë,” Vanimandil cut her off, her formerly smooth brown forehead beginning to crease noticeably. “And you master any instrument given to you to play within a few months. However, that is not—“
“And literature and history, Mother,” Vanimeldë added earnestly. It was easiest to overwhelm her early on, to get her off track so that she didn’t exactly forget what she had been angry about, but that she would deem it no longer relevant. Vanimeldë had watched her father employ this method many times, and he almost always succeeded. “I excel in those subjects, and did you not say that I handled the colonial delegation wonderfully when I had to greet them last week?”
A pause, and then, Vanimandil nodded. “…Yes,” she allowed, her green eyes softening slightly. “That’s not precisely new, Vanimeldë; you’ve always been attentive to your history texts, and to the classics.”
But Vanimeldë knew her mother had weakened the moment the word ‘history’ passed her lips. They did love their history in Andúnië, though Vanimeldë thought the Andustari focused disproportionately on the Elves. Why focus on another race when their own had such a rich history? But in the Andustar, it was all about the Ñoldor, and the Falmari who visited from Tol Eressëa. Boring. Now, the tales of the great among the Edain, and, more recently, the voyages of Tar-Aldarion and the struggles of Tar-Atanamir and Queen Adanel, those were tales worth reading and rereading. And watching. In fact…
“And remember what my tutors told you about the languages I’ve been learning?”
“Y-yes.” Vanimandil hesitated, winding her long belt in her hands. Finally, she squeezed her eyes shut, and sighed. “I would prefer if you devote an appropriate amount of time to all of your studies, not simply the ones you find most interesting. But for now, I will leave you. We will talk about this again,” she promised, but as she shut the door to Vanimeldë’s bedchamber, the air that followed her was hardly that of one who had won an argument.
With her mother gone, Vanimeldë reached for the Taliska reader she had been looking through before Vanimandil came to her. The language held appeal for her by itself, it was true. But there was another reason she was interested in it, and that was another thing she wouldn’t be telling her mother, not yet.
The theaters in Armenelos only allowed adults through their doors, and did not make exceptions for princesses—at the very least, Tar-Ancalimon wasn’t willing to force them to make an exception. But they offered many plays sung or spoken in Taliska, and it would only be a few years yet before Vanimeldë was old enough to go inside. She intended to be well-versed enough in the language to understand the story by then.
II.
When she was a young Queen, Vanimeldë’s desires were, she thought, still quite simple things.
Vanimeldë wrote poetry, and she wrote plays. This did not make her unique amongst the nobility, or, indeed, even among past royals. Fully half of the volumes of poetry on Vanimeldë’s private shelves were written by authors with more than a drop of Elros’s blood—the works of Princess Áralindë, the sister of Tar-Atanamir who had been disinherited for marrying outside the House of Elros, was especially fine, and… Anyways, there were also several tomes of plays written by noble authors on Vanimeldë’s shelves. The quality of these works tended to vary greatly, with some being masterpieces, and some whose greatest contribution to the world would be to inevitably be used as kindling by the future generations. The former, Vanimeldë kept to enjoy. The latter, she kept to laugh at and to remind herself of all the things she was not. And the theaters in Armenelos typically ran at least three Elrosian-penned plays at once at any given time.
It was not spectacularly strange for the nobility, even the Kings and Queens, to write. More than one of Elros’s blood had contributed to the great cultural legacy of Anadûnê. So why was it, that when Vanimeldë wrote—
She gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on her stylus. She was the Queen; it was simply not worth concerning herself with. But Vanimeldë’s ears were no less keen than they had been when she was a child, and this time, she got the impression that she was meant to hear the whispers circulating around the palace.
‘Irresponsible.’
‘Given to frivolous displays.’
‘Can’t focus on affairs of state for more than a few hours at a time.’
‘Oh, if only that last child of Vanimandil’s had not died!’
Vanimeldë fisted her free hand in her dark hair. Incredible. Tar-Aldarion left the country for years on end on his voyages, and I’ve never uncovered so much as a scrap of evidence of ministers or courtiers or anyone calling for his removal. I haven’t left the capital. I am right here if there is a crisis. And yet…
Frustration was taking its toll. Vanimeldë hadn’t been able to finish the scene she was working on for the past three hours, though there were probably ten dialogue switches left. How ironic it was, that the very people complaining about the Queen sequestering herself in her chambers were causing her to stay there longer through their incessant criticisms. Just a few more lines, and I think I should be able to put this down for the rest of the day with a clear conscience. Just a few more lines.
The blank spot at the bottom of the page remained quite infuriatingly blank, and Vanimeldë would like you to know that it took an enormous amount of restraint not to hurl her inkwell out the open window, but that she did restrain herself.
“Vanimeldë?”
She didn’t hear anyone calling for her at first. Vanimeldë had sent her ladies-in-waiting and all of the other servants out of her chambers while she worked. Likely a few of them were gathered outside the outermost door in case she called upon them, but most had no doubt scattered to the four winds. If her pages came back with their tunics covered in crumbs again…
However, when Vanimeldë did hear someone calling for her, she was at least able to relax and set down her stylus (And managed to do so gently enough not to break it. This time.). She knew but one person who would come venturing into her chambers without ceremony. “I’m here, Herucalmo,” she replied, “becoming the living avatar of frustration. Come join me.”
Her husband strode into the room, looking very much as though someone had just died, though that wasn’t unusual for him. Vanimeldë loved him, truly, she did, but he was markedly intense about most things, and most of the times she liked to tease him about it. This time, she couldn’t summon the levity to do so. She could only flop back in her chair and look at him with a grimace. “What brings you to my dungeon?” Vanimeldë asked, wishing, not for the first time, that sarcasm was a substance that could literally drip off of her voice; distilling it into a perfume would likely do wonders for keeping certain officials out of her hair. “Has someone died? That would liven things up around here.”
Herucalmo grimaced right back at her. “Nothing that enlivening, Vanimeldë. If you will recall, you have a budget meeting scheduled with your ministers in an hour.”
Oh, that. Again, Vanimeldë resisted the urge to throw her inkwell out the window. It was made of Falmari sea glass, after all; that wasn’t exactly easily replaced. “I was under the impression that last year’s allotment was considered quite satisfactory. Do we really need to meet if obviously the best course of action is to do as we did then?”
“Considering that we have more money than we did last year, yes.”
“That could be easily solved by sending the surplus to the treasury.”
“They won’t accept that as a course of action unless you are there to recommend it.”
“I am hardly the first ruler to send such messages without being physically present in the council chambers.”
“Vanimeldë.” Herucalmo closed the gap between them, rested his hand flat on her writing desk. The look in his clear eyes was not unsympathetic, but at the same time, it wasn’t really a look that indicated he was going to leave without some sort of concession from her. “You’ve missed the last three council meetings. You are running out of excuses, and your ministers are nearing the end of their patience.”
She paused, running her hand over the rope of lapis beads strung around her neck. “I… I know that. I’ve been busy.”
Vanimeldë enjoyed holding court. She enjoyed hearing from petitioners, even if the issues they brought before her were laughably petty; it did give her a good laugh, and there was something gratifying about knowing that they’d thought it worth it to tell her about it. She enjoyed arbitration, diplomatic negotiations. She even enjoyed trade negotiations. It might have been one of the things certain people thought Vanimeldë didn’t have a sufficient attention span for, but there was something oddly fascinating about the knots people could tie themselves into over tariffs, and the underhanded trickery they would try to pull off when it came to taxes.
But meetings such as the one Vanimeldë was being called upon to attend now… She understood their necessity, of course; not all the vital workings of an empire could be exciting, though it would make life much easier if they were. However, the tedious minutia of running an empire held little appeal for Vanimeldë, especially when she knew she was going to be walking into a room where every person there would tell her that everything that came out of her mouth was wrong. If her advisors were really all convinced that they all knew better than her, what exactly was the point of showing up at all?
“I know,” Herucalmo murmured, lines showing up in his forehead, deeply etched. “But a gesture must be made.”
“And what would you suggest?” Vanimeldë demanded, her voice breaking with sudden exasperation.
Herucalmo said nothing for a long moment, his eyes very bright. Then… “I could go in your place.”
“If they demand that their Queen show herself, I am not certain they’ll settle for the Prince Consort.”
His mouth twitched in something like a smirk. “If I tell them that you sent me as your representative, they might accept it. And we are descended in the same degree from Tar-Atanamir. Even they cannot complain about that.”
Vanimeldë smirked back. “Go, then. As my representative.”
She almost wished she was going with him, just so she could see the looks on her advisors’ faces when Herucalmo told them he was there as the Queen’s representative; the flabbergasted looks might be enough to cure any bad moods for hers for a while. But for now, she had a scene to write…
III.
Vanimeldë wrote. And wrote. It was a glorious time, when she could write without any interruption at all, save those which she chose to heed. The play was finished, a score created, a willing actors’ troupe found, and a theater designated as the site for the debut. When she thought about it, Vanimeldë felt as though she was walking on air. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been able to write without disruption for so long.
But as Vanimeldë emerged from seclusion, she began to notice things. Her ears were still keen, and she was gifted with the far-sightedness of the House of Elros. She could hardly be expected not to notice.
Notices of meetings and scheduled negotiations and arbitrations were either finding their way to Herucalmo’s hands when they should have reached Vanimeldë’s, or they were simply addressed to him outright. Certain courtiers now addressed Herucalmo more deferentially than they had before, and in others, Vanimeldë detected a certain edge of… derision? Yes, derision, when they addressed her. Like she simply wasn’t someone to be taken seriously anymore. That wasn’t the least of it, but that was what followed her wherever she went. The nagging sense of dynastic irrelevance.
Vanimeldë supposed she could have stood to be paying more attention to exactly what her husband was doing while acting as the Queen’s ‘representative.’ Never let it be said that she couldn’t recognize her own faults; she knew she had been inattentive in this. But never let it be said either that Vanimeldë did not know how to send messages as well as she could receive them.
“Are you certain you can afford to spend the evening at the theater?” Vanimeldë asked sweetly as she and Herucalmo settled into the royal box of Armenelos’s grandest theater. Alcarin was not with them; the boy had never had much love of art, poor thing. “I know how busy you have been of late.”
If Herucalmo caught the knife in Vanimeldë’s voice, he gave no sign. Seeing as such equanimity would be new for him, Vanimeldë attributed it to obliviousness. So much the better. “I think I can afford to spend one night away from the palace,” he said with a smile.
So very much the better.
“Oh, good! I think you will enjoy this one, my love. It seems just the sort of thing that would interest you.”
Vanimeldë had never told Herucalmo precisely what her play was about, though considering that Herucalmo had never exercised the curiosity required to ask, she could hardly be faulted for keeping her silence. If he was content not knowing, then let it be a surprise. Vanimeldë loved surprises.
For an hour or two, Vanimeldë watched. And waited. Waited for that particular moment of dawning realization, and the emotions that accompanied it. If she was nothing else, Vanimeldë was an avid spectator; she hoped dearly that Herucalmo, her Herucalmo, would not disappoint her.
Around the end of the second act, Vanimeldë saw enough of that crawling look to ask, with just the right degree of anxiousness, “How are you liking it so far?”
“It’s… wonderful.”
To say that Herucalmo’s voice was strained would be a gross understatement, bordering on obscene. To say that it was strangled did not do it much more justice, but Vanimeldë supposed she would have to be content with that descriptor until she could find a satisfactory replacement.
As for Vanimeldë, she suspected she would have bled sugar if pricked, her smile was so sweet.
That nagging sense of irrelevance was still with her, and Vanimeldë did not know if she would be able to be rid of it. So many thought Herucalmo more fit to rule than her that it might well be impossible. But she still had her writing—and judging from the ghastly shades of white her husband’s face was turning, another new hobby. It was so good to have new hobbies.