Work Text:
Mostly, the Fourth Age was a time of celebration. Long-lost loved ones returned at last to one another, at the docks of Tol Eressëa and outside the gates of Mandos. Venues were booked out for months in advance, for welcome-home parties, weddings, and baby showers.
Now, it must be said that the remarriage of Indis would have been scandalous enough on its own.
But her choice of groom was downright outrageous!
In fact, most people thought it was a misprint at first: an expensive, and embarrassing, calligrapher’s error. When it became disturbingly clear that no error had been made, rumors began to flow free as wine. Nobody knew for sure, but the Noldor passed around nibbles of gossip like hors d’oeuvres trays. What could explain the match? Was it a political alliance? Avant-garde performance art? A sad statement on settling for “good enough” as the millennia dragged on?
Nobody guessed the real explanation: that Finwë’s second wife, Indis, and Finwë’s first grandson, Maedhros, were, in truth, besotted. They had fallen in the rarest love of all, that which is built in friendship, on a foundation of mutual respect, unconditional trust, and a shared passion for silk stockings and foot stuff.