Genres: Character Study, Family

Rating: G

Summary: There are many kinds of gem, some inanimate, some living… Elu Thingol mused on the birth of his daughter. Was he satisfied?

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He had thought that his bride was his brightest jewel. But now…

She lay there on the bed of moss and leaves and grass he had made for her, exhausted but happy and contented. And in her arms was a bundle of the softest and cleanest cloth, now proffered to him as her eyes twinkled with deep mirth.

He reached out his hands and cradled the bundle close to his chest, fighting back tears. He did not need to see what was inside to confirm that he had found his brightest gem yet. But when he did look, any last hesitation about it was swept away.

Luthien. His daughter; half-other, but he did not care about her ambiguous race, not now and not ever. Her eyes, twin pools of starlit dark-blue depths, shining with sheer joy of being and lit with the same divine touch that was present in his bride’s own orbs, gazed up at him with loving wonderment. And her tiny cherubic face, glowing with the same inner light as her mother, was decorated with a small soft smile that completely took his heart away and did not give it back.

He did not mind it, at all.

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End Notes: … And I am not proud of this piece, at all. But say what you wish. (It is one of the reasons I did not put this little note up there.) Sometimes the author is mistaken, and I hope, faintly, that this is one of such instances – that I have misjudged the worth of this piece.