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Language:
English
Series:
Part 35 of Ataquenta Silmarillion
Collections:
Finwëan Ladies Week 2019, Anna's Trans Anthology
Stats:
Published:
2019-09-17
Completed:
2019-10-10
Words:
1,000
Chapters:
2/2
Comments:
10
Kudos:
55
Bookmarks:
7
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634

Comings and Goings

Summary:

Findis and Elemmírë must part with their son too many times, but they are always there to welcome him back upon his return.
And: an unexpected addition to their family.

Notes:

Here is my first fic for Finwëan Ladies Week!! I put this event together with my headcanons for Lalwen & Findis in mind and I'm very happy to share some of them with you :)

This story really should be marked with No Archive Warnings Apply, but since Glorf does technically die off-screen I went with Choose Not To Use instead, just to be safe. It's okay though, he gets better.
In this fic, Elemmírë is a trans woman. A family tree for Findis' relatives & further story notes / headcanon expansions will be down at the end notes.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Laurefindil

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

He was radiant, with hair as gold as Ingwë's, and Findis' arms trembled as she cradled her newborn son in her arms.

"What shall we name him, love?" murmured Elemmírë. "I wanted to call him after you, like you were called after your parents."

Findis laughed, her heart bursting with love and joy. "Findimírë? His hair certainly is lovely, but it's so gold...he must get it from my mother's side. Ingalaurë, my grandparent, had the same color."

"Laurefindil, then," Elemmírë suggested. "After you, and after them."

Findis kissed her wife, then her son. "Welcome to the world, little Laurefindil."

Findis wept at the sight of her son dressed for war, his bright eyes shining with righteous anger. He was the image of a perfect Vanya, and yet he had never looked more Noldor.

"Lauro, please," begged Elemmírë. "You needn't go—stay here, with us. Following Fëanáro will lead only to ruin—"

"No, Ammë," Laurefindil insisted. "I must see the wide world, and avenge my grandfather's death."

Findis flinched. "Finwë would not want you to—"

"Emil, let me go," he said softly. "I made my choice."

Findis bowed her head. "Be safe," she whispered. "And please come back to us."

A knock at the door. Elemmírë watched as Findis rose to answer, a sense of dread settling in her stomach as she wondered what trouble sent someone to their home at such an hour.

She opened the door, and could scarcely believe her eyes.

"Hi, Emil," Laurefindil said, his eyes brimming with tears.

Findis embraced him, unable to speak. Elemmírë rushed to join them, crying.

"How?" Findis said at last. The last they'd heard, their son had perished in the Fall of Ondolindë.

"Mandos let me out for good behaviour," Lauro explained.

Elemmírë laughed. "You always were a good boy."

"We lost you once," Elemmírë cried, "and now you leave us again?"

"It's different this time," Laurefindil swore. "The Valar are sending me back. It's sanctioned, and I will come home."

"How long?" Findis asked. She knew it was useless to argue.

Lauro shook his head. "I don't know," he admitted. "But I promise I will return. I love you."

Elemmírë sobbed, flinging herself into Lauro's arms. As he patted her back, he met Findis' eyes.

Findis smiled sadly. "I am selfish to want you here, when the Valar trust you so."

"Not selfish," he corrected. "You are a mother."

"Look," Findis said, pointing to the horizon. "A ship!"

"Is it him?" Elemmírë asked breathlessly.

Findis kissed her. "We cannot know, not yet."

"Everyone else has returned," Elemmírë murmured.

"They told us he was coming," Findis said, holding her close. "And he promised."

The ship drew closer. Two men stood at the prow, twins with dark hair. She turned away, her heart sinking.

And then—

"Look!" Elemmírë cried.

A third figure appeared, golden-haired and radiant.

"Lauro!" Findis cried, and she wept as he rushed forward to embrace his mothers. Lauro had come home at last, never to leave them again.

Notes:

Family tree:

Ingwë
Ingalaurë — Alcariniel
................|
..............Indis — Finwë
.......................|
....................Findis — Elemmírë
...............................|
........................Laurefindil

Indis is canonically related to Ingwë, though JRRT waffled on exactly how. I decided to go with her being his niece.
Since Ingwë and Ingalaurë are first generation elves, they don't have parents. They identify as siblings, similar to how Olwë, Elwë, and Elmo identify as siblings despite not having parents to share.
I have some headcanons about Elemmírë’s family, but they don’t really come into this fic. She is also a first-generation elf.

 

Ingalaurë [top-gold] is a discarded mother-name for Finarfin. I thought it sounded like a Vanyarin name, so I recycled it for the parent of Indis; since it's gender-neutral I decided that Ingalaurë is nonbinary. The name I gave to Ingalaurë's wife (Indis’ mother) is Alcariniel [daughter of brilliant one]. Thanks, as always, to RealElvish.net for all my elf-naming needs.

Ammë and Emil both mean “mother”; since Lauro has two mothers he uses different words to refer to them.

The twins at the prow of the boat are Elladan and Elrohir - I think they would have been friends with Glorfindel, and since none of them were given an exact date of return to Valinor I thought I'd put them together. Glorf and the twins probably helped Arwen and Aragorn clean up Middle-earth after the war, and were among the last elf lords to leave (though still before Círdan and Celeborn).

Chapter 2: Faniel

Notes:

This is a somewhat unexpected addition to a story I assumed was complete! I realized that I'd left Faniel, the discarded third daughter of Finwe, out of Finwean Ladies Week and I felt so bad that I concocted my own heritage for her. What if she's Findis' daughter instead of Finwe's? And thus this chapter (in the same style as the first) was born.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Elemmírë woke in the arms of her wife and immediately knew something was different. The way Findis held her so tender, the glow about her fëa...something had changed.

"Good morning, love," she murmured.

Findis smiled. It was a fragile thing—they had only last night heard the news of Lauro's death, so far from home—but it was there. Elemmírë felt that perhaps everything could be alright, if she just kept smiling.

"El," Findis murmured, "I have good news."

"Mm?" That would be a welcome change from the night before.

Findis' smile widened. "I'm going to have another baby."

Their second child was no replacement for the first, as Elemmírë had secretly feared in her heart. As soon as she cradled the babe in her arms, she felt a fierce love that was at once the same and different from her affection for Lauro.

"What shall we call her?" Findis said. "She has your white-gold hair."

"And your smile." Elemmírë kissed her daughter's forehead. "My heart is so full, yet my spirit so light. I feel I could float away upon a cloud."

"What about Faniel?" Findis proposed. "Cloud-maiden. I was almost named Faniel."

"Faniel." She smiled. "It's perfect."

He was embraced by his mothers, but they let go before he expected. Elemmírë and Findis exchanged a tearful look, and Elemmírë rushed to the next room.

"Emil?" Glorfindel asked. "Where has Ammë gone?"

Before Findis could answer, Elemmírë returned. Behind her hovered a person Glorfindel had never seen, and yet knew intimately with just one glance.

"Who...?" he began, but his heart knew.

"This is Faniel," Elemmírë said softly. "Your sister."

Glorfindel stared, until he, also began to weep. Faniel smiled at him with an adolescent's discomfort, but she submitted to his embrace, and held him tightly in return.

He didn't want to believe his eyes, but they had never before betrayed him. "Faniel!" he cried. "What are you doing here?"

She stuck her chin out stubbornly. "I deserve to have adventures too!"

"You were not sent West by the Valar!" Glorfindel admonished. "Oh, Faniel... What will Ammë and Emil think? It was hard enough for them to say goodbye to me!"

"I'm not going back," Faniel growled. "You can't make me!"

Glorfindel ground his teeth. She was right—and there was no way to turn the boat back around.

"Fine," he sighed. "But you must keep yourself safe."

Safe, Faniel scoffed as she tucked her hunting knife into its sheath. Lauro couldn't tell her what to do, and she was going out no matter what he said about staying in Imladris.

"Faniel? Is that you?"

She froze, turning slowly, kicking herself for not being careful enough. But it wasn't Lauro who had caught her.

"Celebrían?" she said.

Celebrían ducked her head shyly. "Where are you going?"

"...Hunting," Faniel admitted. "Don't tell me to go back, I can do whatever—"

"Can I go with you?" Celebrían blurted out. "I'm sick of being stuck here, too."

Faniel grinned. "Of course!"

Notes:

"Faniel" is not given a canon translation, but "fana" can mean "cloud" so I went with the meaning of "cloud-maiden" for this fic.

ETA 1/4/21: I added this to my "base canon" verse, but the last two scenes of this fic are not canon to that verse. Instead, Faniel stays in Valinor with her mothers.

Notes:

Thanks for reading and commenting!
You can find me on tumblr @arofili, and check out the Finwëan Ladies Week blog too!

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