Fëaldo hovered anxiously in front of the closed bedroom door. Inside, his wife was struggling to deliver their first child. It had been several hours as of now, and he wished he knew what was going on. Was Erulissë all right? Had there been a progress in the baby’s delivery? He was loathed to just stay out of sight, listening to his beloved spouse’s pained cries and the midwife’s encouraging croons. Moreover, there was nothing and nobody to avert his attention to. His home, a small cabin outside Tirion, was empty except for himself, his wife, the midwife, and the unborn baby.

When at last the wailing cry of a newborn mingled with that of his wife, therefore, he could not hold himself; he rushed into the room, not heeding the midwife’s warning prior to the delivery that he was not permitted in until told otherwise. However, his feet were halted just some paces from the door, and his eager, somewhat-worried expression turned into a horror-stricken, revulsed one. In the midwife’s hands was a baby girl, bathed in her mother’s blood and with the ambillical cord and placenta still attached to her, but there were some things wrong with the baby. She had no feet, and her hands were only equipped with each two fingers. The midwife herself was staring with the same expression as his, and she was weeping silently.

With a start, Fëaldo found out that all this time, he had been as well crying.

How to tell his beloved that their long-awaited child was deformed? Whose fault was it? Why was such an innocent being condemned to live with only four fingers and legs above what should be her knees? Had he and Erulissë sinned against the Valar or Illûvatar Himself? But then why should their child be the one who bore the penitence of it? How would she live her life with such deformed limbs? What would people say to and about her and her parents? How would she enjoy Arda, such was the fate of all Firstborn?

Neither Fëaldo nor the midwife dared to inform Erulissë about the state of the baby when, in a weak but persistent voice, she demanded to know. The midwife cleaned the baby and cut her ambillical cord, but otherwise she did not give the now-quiescent child to her mother to be nursed. When Erulissë demanded to hold her child, the poor midwife stared in panic at Fëaldo through wide wet eyes.

Fëaldo had no solution for their predicament as well. But, nevertheless, he did not wish to deny his spouse her right to know of her own daughter and the decision whether to accept or deny the deformed newborn. Thus, he signaled for the midwife to wrap the baby in a blanket and give her to her mother, all the while struggling with the growing pain in his chest which threatened to suffocate him.

Erulissë did not undo the wrapping. Instead, she quickly fed her child and meanwhile asked what gender the baby was.

“She is a girl, beloved,” Fëaldo, sidling closer to his spouse and their daughter, whispered in a shaky voice. “A beautiful one at that,” he continued when his eyes took in the details of their daughter’s complexion for the first time since her delivery. It was not a lie. The child’s visage was as delicate as her mother’s, yet it was also strengthened by some nearly-imperceptible firm lines belonging to her father. Her eyes were almost completely her own, nonetheless, save for the way of her gaze; they were of deep, dark blue colour uncommon among the Ñoldor, sparkling from inside as though a starry night. Her hair, seen from the patch of it that grew on the top of her head, was also pitch-black, whereas her mother’s was chocolate-brown and her father’s charcoal-grey.

“What name do you wish to bestow her with?” he asked when the silence had stretched for some time. The midwife had quietly excused herself from the room after cleaning up her charge, and now the couple were alone with their eagerly-suckling newborn daughter.

Erulissë smiled. “Eruanna,” she said simply. Fëaldo’s heart clenched. What an ironic name, he thought, nearly weeping again.

They talked no more until the baby was sated. Fëaldo held his hands out after Erulissë had cleaned her out, asking for their daughter. He did not directly put her into the crib he had carved for her, however. He held her close to his chest, trying to imagine that he was holding a perfect, beautiful baby in his arms.

But it was in futile. The stumps which should be full legs were pressed against his left hand through the blanket Erulissë had made herself, and the little girl’s two hands were reaching out to caress his face. Eruanna was giggling and cooing happily, touching any parts of his upper body that she could touch, and sometimes gurgling something unintelligible. She seemed so alive and joyful, mindless of her physical defects. `Alassiel,` he murmured to himself, yet he was afraid to say it out loud, to proclaim to the world the name he had unwittingly found for the fruit of his union with his beloved spouse. The name sounded just as ironic in his ears as the one Erulissë had given her.

When he at last put the baby into her crib – with surprising reluctance –, he turned around and met the odd stare of his wife. Erulissë would not answer when he inquired about what she might be thinking, so at length he settled to helping her taking a bath in the same silence she had been keeping.

She only spoke when both of them had been snuggled comfortably in their bed, cuddling to each other as though newly-weds or a pair of close siblings, as was their wont oftentimes. She held his head in the nook of one arm and caressed his locks – coarser and thicker than hers but shining more brightly. And, in the lul of the moment, she murmured into his ear, “She loves you, beloved. Our daughter loves you. She is happy with you. She will grow into quite an adventurer, just like you. I just hope that she will be safe in her adventures later.”

“But Erulissë,” Fëaldo nearly moaned. Had his spouse blinded her eyes to the fact that her daughter was handicapped? He even doubted if Eruanna could function normally; how, then, would she be able to embark on an adventure?

He stiffened in her arms when she spoke again, in a voice barely a whisper, “I know, beloved; I know. I have known that she would be born handicapped since some months ago. I feared for your rejection, so I did not tell you about it.”

“But my love, she will only suffer…” He looked up into her eyes. She met his gaze steadily, unfalteringly.

“Who are we to judge upon the plans of our creator, Fëaldo?” Erulissë smiled sadly. “I named her Eruanna, for it is an apt name. I have struggled with this fact since I knew of it the first time, but now I can already accept the situation with my whole heart. She is His gift to me, beloved, as she should be in your eyes.”

Fëaldo bit his lip and turned away. He extricated himself from her embrace gently, then left the bed. Through the open window across the room, he stared at the meadow beyond which was lit softly by the waxing light of Telperion. He had imagined walking and running with their child, whether a son or a daughter, across it, and teaching him or her horse-riding one or two hours everyday while waiting for dinner to be served. Now it seemed that all of his hopes had been dashed by a single moment and a single fact, one that his wife had concealed from him. Had she told him, he would not have hoped.

Would it not have been a cold existence and period of waiting, though, had he lost his hope some months ago?

How had she felt? Had she felt as hopeless as he? Or more, seeing that she had been the one to bear the child for ten months of the Trees? How had she coped with the fact and be so optimistic that Eruanna would be an adventurer someday? Imagining the baby growing into a normal Ñoldorin Níss was even impossible to him.

Was his spouse angry with his reaction upon the deformity of their daughter? Was she disappointed with him?

Fëaldo recoiled visibly. Erulissë had been his world, his life. They had been friends since they were small, as the masters to whom they were apprentices dwelled side by side in Tirion. They had always had their hearts for each other, despite the distance which separated them when they grew older and left their respective masters, and the lack of communication between them in that period. They had overcome hardships together as spouses, including the new ones arising after Melkor had been released from Mandos, and those difficulties only made them closer together. He always strove to please her, to make her comfortable, because he felt that she had made his life full, happy and contented. He always feared to disappoint her, not because he was afraid she would leave him, but because he would feel disappointed with himself for the failure.

Dared he face this newest challenge together with her, as they had always done? Would he willingly disappoint her, just because he could not accept his own child fully into his heart? Could he not adjust to the situation and try to find a way to come out of the predicament laughing, as he had done in his solo adventures around Valinor in his youth?

Slowly, he turned around, facing once again the dimmer interior of the bedroom. His eyes met Erulissë’s, and he smiled. Her guarded gaze melted to that of pride and warmth, and he basked in its intensity. He was yet to come fully to terms with the challenge, yet he had put his first step on the way to solving it. He was embarking in an adventure, and this time he was not doing it alone.

Author's Note:

This may be a short story of several chapters, if anyone could supply me with ideas... Duely creditted, for sure. :)

- Rey