Chapter Text
I know precisely when my obsession started. It began rather innocently with a visit to a local medieval church, where I snapped some photos of the artwork. While editing the pictures later, I realised that some of the wooden statues depicted dragon killers. I had photos from different angles, and the details of the dragons were amazing. In one of the fourteenth-century statues you could actually count the claws on the dragon’s forepaw.
After this first photo session I forgot about the dragons for some time, but then I went on a city holiday and took a guided tour of some of the tourist attractions. One of the most popular places was a 15th century church with the walls covered in gorgeous frescoes. These fascinated me, especially the ones with St George and the dragon, and I also found some that the guide claimed depicted the archangel Michael killing a dragon. Lovely though the saint and the angel were, it was really the dragons I was interested in, and my visit resulted in a large number of photos, some of which I even managed to sell.
The real obsession came much later. One of the local churches from the 14th century was renovated, and under layers of plaster and white paint, lovely frescoes were found, and it turned out they were almost as old as the church itself. They were very painstakingly restored and preserved, and when the church reopened, I went there with my camera, intending to take a few pictures of the interior of the church for my blog. There were several wooden sculptures that had been cleaned and preserved, and I got a really good series of pictures of a pietà that was so well restored the colours on it almost glowed.
As I meandered around the church, idly snapping pictures, my eyes fell on a fresco I hadn’t noticed before. It depicted an angel, stabbing its spear into a dragonlike creature that writhed at its feet. I stepped closer to inspect it, and the beauty of the painting struck me like a blow to the chest. It looked like no medieval art I’d ever encountered. The angel was beautiful, of course, but in other frescoes I’d seen, it was always a flat, lifeless beauty, more of an impersonal depiction of what beauty was to look like. This angel was so alive, golden hair almost crackling with electricity, to the point that it nearly seemed like a living entity of its own. And its eyes… oh gods, the eyes! The angel wasn’t looking down at the monster it, no he, most definitely he, was fighting. He was looking straight at the spectator, with eyes of such a vivid blue colour they bordered on violet.
I shook my head violently to clear my thoughts, raised my camera and started taking pictures. When I got home and downloaded them, I realised I had taken close to two hundred photos of just this one fresco. As I zoomed in on the details, I became even more fascinated. It wasn’t just the hair, or the eye colour, or even the fact that the angel’s gaze seemed to follow you when you moved. It was the sheer beauty of his features, the eyebrows that were raised a bit like he was surprised or amused, the full, sensuous mouth that held a tiny, mysterious smile, the high cheekbones, the dimples, oh my, he had dimples! He was perfect, he looked young, fearless and full of joy. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
This began a period in my life that’s a tad embarrassing. I’d drop by the church nearly every week, more often in summer when there were many visiting tourists that made my fangirling less obvious. I took countless photos of the angel, who I’d learned was thought to be the archangel Michael leading the armies of God in the last battle. I went to services on Sundays just to quietly ogle my artistic crush. I even took up painting again and after a few preliminary sketches I made a life-size painting of him that I hung on the wall of my home office.
It’s safe to say I went a little overboard with it. After extensive research (i.e. googling) I found other pieces of religious art that were reminiscent of my angel. I found photos of other frescoes that had an angel very similar to mine, mainly in South America and the southern parts of Europe, and quite a few in Berlin. Then there was the marble statue on top of a cathedral in Mexico City that looked very much like my angel, only made of marble and considerably grimmer. It really was quite baffling, as the cathedral in Mexico was built in the 1970s, and my local church was at least six hundred years older, not to mention they were on different continents – and yet I could have sworn that the artists had the same model. Which was ridiculous of course.
I had just sneaked into the church once again to sit down and contemplate my beloved dragon slayer. It was early June, and a Saturday morning, which explains the fact that the church was empty of tourists and locals alike. If anybody was up at this ungodly hour, they were either returning home after a lively night out, or having breakfast. I sat down in my favourite spot and craned my neck to meet the angel’s bright blue eyes, when all of a sudden, I heard the sound of the door opening and closing quietly. I turned my head, a little annoyed that my private moment was being disturbed. At first, I could only see the back of the person entering, as they were turning around to make sure the door shut properly. All I could see was a veritable mane of long, golden hair, loosely caught at the nape of the neck with a bright blue scrunchie. The person was tall and broad-shouldered and casually dressed in loose fitting white linen pants and a white t-shirt with a gold pattern.
Then they turned around, and I looked straight into eyes that were the exact vivid blue of my angel’s. I let out a gasp, and the man’s eyes narrowed, then widened as his lips drew into a tiny smile. I knew that smile as well as I knew my own, and the dimples, and those high cheekbones… I was looking into the face of the archangel Michael. All that was missing was the folded wings and the spear and I could have believed he had stepped down from the church wall.
Then I spotted the pointed ears poking up through wavy, golden hair, and that’s when things began to get really strange.
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“Hey… are you going to faint on me?” The angel’s voice was low and melodic, and he sounded slightly worried.
“I… uhh, I’m ok I think… just got up too quickly maybe?” I sank down onto the seat again because my legs really wouldn’t carry me.
“Here, have some water and give it a moment or two before you try to get up again.” He twisted the cap off a new water bottle and handed it to me with a friendly smile. I took a sip and nodded my thanks.
“I’m fine now, thank you for the water. I’ll just be…” My words trailed off, as I sneaked a peek at his ears. I couldn’t help staring, because it was so obvious he and the angel were the same. Cover the ears, put him in a white robe and give him wings and a spear and there he was.
His eyes widened when they met mine, and he turned around and looked at my dragon killer on the wall, then turned back towards me again. “Uh… is there any point in me claiming that is an uncanny, but totally random, resemblance?”
“I don’t think so”, I mumbled. “I, uh, did some research. You get around a bit don’t you?” He gave me a startled look, then laughed suddenly. He sat down beside me on the bench, stretching his long legs with a contented sigh.
“Is this a good place to discuss… things? Or should we go someplace more private? I suspect you have questions. I know I do.”
I shrugged. “We can go to my place. I could show you some of the pictures I’ve gathered over time. And you could tell me who you are. I am assuming your name isn’t Michael? For one, you’re missing the wings.”
“Just call me Fin, that’s the short version of my first name. Are you sure you want to invite me into your home? I mean, you don’t know me, I could be a mass murderer or a vampire…”
“Considering the sun is shining outside, I doubt you’d be a vampire. I’ll just have to take my chances that you’re not a homicidal maniac. Come on, let’s go. I’ll make you coffee… or how are you with caffeine?” I suddenly remembered fantasy novels I’d read that stated elves couldn’t drink anything with caffeine in it.
“I think you’ve been reading the wrong kind of books. I’m not that kind of elf.” His eyes glittered with humour.
And there it was. He’d said the E word. I hadn’t been sure what to think, but what with the height, beauty and pointed ears, it seemed like a foregone conclusion. But what kind of elf were we talking about here? I glanced at him and made note of the golden hair that would have looked perfect in a L’Oréal commercial, the long lashes, the straight nose, the glowing skin… I did a double take. Now where had I read about elves who glowed? Ah yes…
“So which one are you? Not Fingon, you’re too blonde for that… Finrod? Finarfin?” He grinned at me but made no comment, just led the way out of the church. “Fingolfin? Finwë? Nah, they had dark hair, right?” I threw him an exasperated look. “Help me out here, I’m out of names!”
“All the sons of Fëanor had a -fin- in their names”, he pointed out. “Including Fëanor himself. You know, Curufinwë, Nelyafinwë…” We had reached the parking lot by now, and I thumbed the remote to unlock my car.
“None of them were blonde. That is, if my sources are correct.”
“They are. They weren’t.”
I got in the car and slammed the door shut, then changed my mind and opened the window a fraction. “Are you coming or not?” He laughed again, and pointed to a sleek, white sportscar that stood out like a sore thumb in the mostly-empty parking lot.
“I’ll follow you in my car.”
“Figures you’d have something fancy like that”, I muttered and started my car. As I drove off, I checked the rearview mirror and saw the white car following, a still-laughing Fin behind the wheel. I noted he had some kind of vanity plate, and squinted in an effort to make out what the text said. BLRG SLR 1? Now what the actual… Then it hit me. Tall, blonde, beautiful, quick to laughter… what was it Tolkien wrote: tall and straight; his hair was of shining gold, his face fair and young and fearless and full of joy; his eyes were bright and keen, and his voice like music.
Oh fuck.