Dawnstar and Friend

Eleanor’s POV
The budding romance made all three if us rather silly I’m afraid to admit and we couldn’t resist... helping.
Actually, neither could any of our friends. We brought in the twins, Elrond, Glorfindel, Arwen and our maids, all of whom were more than willing to get the chief-councillor married off.
The two of them didn’t have a chance.
We found out from Elrond that Silva was actually an elf from the Grey Havens that had come here after her family had sailed, she had not wanted to go to Valinor yet and hadn’t wanted to remain in the Grey Havens without her family, so she had come to Rivendell.
This provided us with a good idea, so we arranged a lunch for them by the Bruinen, under the shade of trees... it was very romantic.
We watched of course, and, largely because our cats didn’t like the water very much, we were not caught watching.
That night in the Hall of Fire, we had some more fun.
When we saw the two of the near each other, Ginny and Miriel went and made sure they were talking together while I wondered over to the performing platform.
The Minstrels were more than happy to let me sing a song.
I sit at the piano for it. This is a song which needs an accompaniment and though a full orchestra would be better, we don’t have one. Oh well.
The song is ‘Love Changes Everything’ from Aspects of Love by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
It is a love song that I have always found incredibly beautiful and moving etc and seems to fit the situation well.
Apparently the elves like it as well, as I get a standing ovation. Well they were standing up anyway, but there is a lot of appreciative clapping. You have to know the elves well to recognise polite from impressed clapping.
I am pleased to see the love birds are on the dance floor.
I whisper something to the bards and the next piece of music is the lay of Beren and Luthien. Through the evening they play soppy songs, I can’t help noticing. It looks like we have more allies in our plan.
***
Over the next few weeks we spend most of our time setting the pair up.
There are a surprising number of ‘accidents’ which result in them being in each other’s arms.
The bards seem to become extremely fond of love songs, as do we.
Fortunately neither recognise our world love songs so neither recognised what we are often humming as we walk around, are anywhere near them...
You get the idea.
Somehow, whenever they are near to each other, they end up alone...
We also managed to make spaghetti bolognaise.
We then had to show everyone at dinner how to eat the stuff.
Us, being us, and this being an exercise in romance, taught them the messy but sensual way, resulting in Erestor and Silva helping each other clean their faces afterwards. This gave them plenty of time to stare gooily into each other’s eyes, which they duly did.
It was working out rather well.
Then we announced that Valentines’ Day was approaching. Actually it wasn’t, it was almost summer, but we didn’t bother mentioning that.
When the elves asked what Valentines’ Day was we explained that it was a festival of love. Then we gave them an account of what was done on Valentines’ Day.
Amazingly enough, neither Silva nor Erestor realised what this announcement was prompted by.
On the date we selected for Middle Earth Valentines’ Day, the servants happily decorated the hall ways with flowers and everyone in Rivendell exchanged cards and flowers and sweetmeats with their loved ones, everyone having thought that the whole thing was a wonderful idea.
The anonymity of the whole thing helped us hugely.
We left a bunch of white and red roses in Silva’s sitting room; she correctly assumed they were from whom we wanted her to believe they were from.
Erestor finds a beautifully wrapped box of sweetmeats in his.
We do notice that there are cards and presents in both of their rooms, and Ginny recognises Erestor’s handwriting on the card in Silva’s room.
In the evening will be a Valentines’ Ball.
It is a masked ball, at our suggestion.
Silva’s dress is the purest shade of white, complementing her hair, and there is gold embroidery that is quite simple and very beautiful.
The fabric is silk dupion and rustles delightfully as she moves. She is slightly uncomfortable about the way that it is off-the-shoulder and rests at the back not far above her backside. What is not visible is a thin piece of thread that is tied round the back and under the arms. This is all that is keeping the dress up. It looks like it is going to fall down at any moment and I am pretty sure Erestor won’t be able to keep his eyes off her. What a terrible shame... really.
With it, Silva wears a swan feather mask. With her silver-blue hair and everything, she looks astounding and to cap it off she wears a delicate vine-like patterned necklace that fills the rather large space between the top of the dress and her neck.
My own dress is deep crimson gossamer with two under layers, the middle one being rich dark orange gossamer and the bottom is an almost gold yellow dupion.
The embroidery is all gold and the dress resembles flames, the layers pulling up in neat fold at various points to show off the under layers. It is embedded with amber and rubies which glitter and add to the fire like look. My necklace is gold with amber and rubies in tear shaped droplets falling elegantly down my chest. I have matching earrings.
My mask is made of feathers of all three colours and little jewels which glitter in the light. In the centre of the mask, above the eyes, is a jewel. It just sets the mask off perfectly.
Miriel is rather taken by our stories of faeries and so her dress is reminiscent of that. The bottom layer of the dress are very light silk-satin which is emerald-green and translucent, then there is a forest-green layer of gossamer, and finally a variegated autumn shades layer that is pixie cut and hemmed in gold.
I had shown the seamstresses how modern ballet dresses are cut so they look like they don’t have a lot of fabric in them, but spin outwards without having a pleated waistline. It was this technique that has been used and the dress was very light and floaty. The actual dress is strapless but there are separate sleeves, attached by tight, tie-on white satin bands and are made from a rich maple tree red shot with copper which glitters in the light.
Her mask is the shape of a butterfly and is beautifully painted with jewels making the patterns on the wings. Her necklace is lots of little emerald leaves with an amber pendant in the middle and the whole thing is wrapped in gold vines. We put one of those nets that make it appear like jewels are floating in her hair and with the braids that hold the mask in place she truly looks like a forest nymph.
Ginny does a similar thing to Miriel, but in purple and white with gold embroidery, there are some differences though.
We insist that Silva join us for the preparation process, something she enjoys as she would not normally have access to the private baths, but would have to use the same ones as everyone else.
To ensure that Erestor doesn’t see her until she is in the best light, we get Elrond to escort her and take her away from us a little early. Ginny of course is escorted by Erestor, I get Glorfindel, and the twins take joint responsibility of Miriel.
One thing I haven’t told Ginny, in case she starts to get family feelings at an inconvenient point, is that we have arranged for Glorfindel, and one or two other elves to appear to take a serious interest in Silva. I am pretty sure they will have no trouble in recognising her beneath the mask, her hair is rather unusual.
The event has an informal meal served by masked servants holding platters and all of whom are wearing simple, dark brown and red fairy costumes so they do not stand out, but fit in.
The Hall of Fire has been decked out with foliage and complete with mistletoe, an idea we nicked from Christmas for obvious purposes. The whole setting was reminiscent of a forest circle and, with the elegant fire places and candles around the room it is very romantic. Trust the elves to take an idea, remove all tackiness, and improve it beyond belief.
I am pretty sure our dearly beloved elf-lord saw Silva and, judging by the expression on his face (well what we could see of it, that is the suddenly grinning mouth) when he saw the necklace she was wearing; I think I can guess who gave her that.
She doesn’t exactly take long to notice him either and somehow she recognises him, which should have been rather harder as there are a fair number of elves of his stature and colouring.
The soppy love songs that night are even more abundant than they have been since we brought the bards into our plan. I am called upon, though admittedly that was slightly planned, several times to sing. I sing both happy and sad love songs, amongst which are ‘The Rose, Miracle of Miracles’ (I think that is what it is called) from Fiddler on the Roof and, for a laugh, I sing the ‘Habenera’ from Carmen in French. I notice that Ginny carefully only half translates, deliberately changing the meaning of the song for elfin sensibilities and our purpose.
Despite us thinking we would have to push the two into dancing with each other, there was no problem there. I think they were bolder under the cover of masks. We do ‘accidently’ make sure they manage to get under the mistletoe a couple of times though.
On the other hand, I could also see the green envy in Erestor’s eyes when one of our guys was either dancing with her or flirting with her, or in fact, just taking her attention away from him. That was rather amusing.
I am pretty sure Ginny uses her powers as an Empath to help things along a bit though...
Later on, when I am taking a break, I find out how Silva knew who Erestor was the moment she saw him. He comments that someone had left the mask with a Valentines’ card in his room. No prizes for guessing who.
I’m not sure if it was coincidence or arrangement that resulted in the two dancing together when midnight stuck and the time came for everyone to remove their masks, but they were. They didn’t look so surprised that they were in the arms of each other.
We plotters went to bed happy that night, at a plan successfully carried out, waiting for the new day to come for more fun and games between our resident turtledoves.
Ginny’s POV
I’m such an old romantic – I always smile ear-to-ear when watching/reading a love scene. The only time I’ve ever (nearly) cried during a film was during Disney’s The Little Mermaid when Ariel walks out of the water and embraces Eric – seriously, that’s how bad I can be at times.
Therefore, it is fairly obvious that I’m in my element when we ALL partake in getting Ada and Silva together. By all, I mean ALL: Elrond, Glorfindel, the twins, Arwen, even our maids were all brought in to make the plan run smoothly.
First things first, we start off nice and simply with a picnic (for two, obviously) by the Bruinen.
None of us girls can resist watching – what? Like I said, I’m a romantic.
I also make use of my powers as an Empath and help things along a bit by making Ada and Silva feel continually happy, carefree, and light whenever they’re around each other. It’s bloody tiring though, continually using my powers, this plan had better work – I’m not tiring myself out just so Ada and Silva feel good about themselves.
There’s to be dancing and music in the Hall of Fire in the evening and this is where the first major event in our Get-Erestor-Hitched plan will be played out.
Ellie, Miriel, and I make sure that Ada and Silva are side-by-side talking before Ellie goes off to sing a nice, romantic song.
When Ellie plays the first notes on the piano, Miriel and I wander over to within earshot of Ada where we are joined seconds later by Elladan and Elrohir who immediately (and loudly) ask us to dance. Miriel and I graciously accept and are whisked off (in plain sight of Ada) to the dance-floor.
It takes a little while for Ada to pluck up courage and ask Silva to dance, but eventually, when the dance-floor is full of couples, he takes the hint and whispers something into Silva’s ear. She colours prettily, her ears fluttering a little, and takes his proffered hand.
Even when the music has stopped, Ada and Silva are still moving gently about – they do look so sweet!
Ada dances with Silva throughout the evening, although he does dance with others sometimes, mostly me when he actually looks away from Silva’s face and thinks that an ellon may be getting just a little too close.
***
Over the next few weeks, we are all preoccupied with getting Ada and Silva together, preferably alone.
I seem to be getting very forgetful recently for, whenever I’m with one of the two and the other walks in, I suddenly ‘remember’ something that I should be doing instead and rush off to complete it. I’ve lost count the amount of times I have needlessly groomed my horse or sorted my medicine bottles.
I even stop going out riding with Ada quite so often, not that he ever goes out alone...
***
They still don’t seem to be taking our (rather unsubtle) hints, so we’re moving our plan up a gear and have announced the imminent approach of Valentines’ Day (it’s late May, but who cares).
Naturally, we plan a Valentines’ Day Ball – surely, even Ada won’t be able to resist acting once he sees Silva in one of Rivendell’s nearly-revealing-all dresses.
Equally naturally, we inform everyone, like at Christmas, that it’s tradition to leave your beloved (heavy emphasis on this word) a little gift and (anonymous) card.
To make sure things go the way we want, we leave gifts in both Ada and Silva’s rooms. Not that we really needed to have bothered as both sitting rooms already contained a card and present. After years of fatherly letters from Ada, I’m instantly able to recognise his elegant, sloping script, even if he has neglected to sign the card.
Obviously, it takes nearly all day for us girls to prepare for the Ball, but it’s slightly different this time as Silva is also joining us. One reason is to ensure that Ada does not see her until the right moment and the other is so we can talk girly things like boys and romance. We slip in the occasional reference to Ada, making Silva blush to the points of her ears.
I can’t help but to take the opportunity of also mentioning a certain blonde prince. Ellie, unfortunately, remains completely silent and composed, although she does colour slightly.
As per usual, our gowns are seductively gorgeous, but we had previously let the seamstresses in on our plan so they made Silva’s gown slightly more revealing and ours’ less so.
My outfit is in three layers. The first is a translucent gold shot white silk-satin with a small scalloped train and tight sleeves ending in a point on the back of my hand. The second layer is lilac gossamer with a pixie cut hem, edged in gold and floor-length bell sleeves that reach down to just above my wrists. The cut of the final layer mirrors the second layer exactly, except that it is slightly shorter and is in a dark violet silk shot with dark pink.
My mask is slightly different to everyone else’s; the actual mask is fitted and beautifully embroidered with gold, but, instead of ribbon, the mask is secured with sashes and is designed to look like the masks highwaymen wore in the eighteenth century.
Not that there is much point in me wearing a mask seeing that I am at least seven inches shorter than everyone else and the only one with a tattoo on their back, but there we are.
Naturally, Ada escorts me, but I can tell he really wants to be escorting someone else. He’s also very nervous as I can feel him shaking underneath his robes.
When we get to the Hall of Fire, Ada begins looking around (I wonder who for). When he does spot Silva in her gorgeous gold and white outfit, he stops dead, his mouth breaking into the widest smile I’ve ever seen him wear. I only manage to get his attention again when I put my hand under his elbow and jerk him forwards – he may be head-over-heels in love with Silva, but etiquette still dictates that he should finish escorting me.
The only things on the menu – music wise – are love songs. Ellie is called upon again and again to sing, when she sings the ‘Habenera’, I translate, with a few changes to the lyrics.
I’m quite surprised that I see Ada and Silva dancing together for practically the whole evening – he actually leaves me completely alone for once so I’m able to get down to a little bit of flirting myself...
One thing I do notice (which I’m very puzzled and a bit angry at) is, when Silva is not being wooed by Ada, she’s being wooed by others – Glorfindel for one. What is he playing at? He knows our plan and how much Ada is in love with Silva. Lucky for him that etiquette also governs me otherwise I’d be on him in a flash.
Etiquette, however, is not able to stop me from pulling Miriel into a corner and asking what the hell is going on.
“It’s all part of the plan, Ginny. Glorfindel doesn’t mean it; Ellie told him in no uncertain terms what she will do to him if he really comes between Erestor and Silva.”
“But you’re hurting Ada, and making him jealous.”
“Exactly.”
At this, Miriel leaves me to go and dance with one of the twins (I think it’s Elrohir).
I look around the hall and see that Glorfindel has once again managed to extricate Silva from Ada’s arms. Ada himself, is sitting just a few feet away watching closely...hmmm...
I wander over to Ada and sit down next to him, he barely acknowledges my presence.
“Doesn’t Silva look happy?” I say in a romantic tone. Ada takes a deep, steadying breath.
I concentrate – I make jealousy begin to course through his veins. As Glorfindel waltzes past with Silva, his hands on her back, Ada crosses his arms. I turn around so I’m looking directly at him and say, in my most tender voice,
“But doesn’t Silva also look so very beautiful... so very radiant...”
This time I make Ada forget his jealousy and instead make him feel the most passionate type of love to be felt by anyone; make him realise just how much he loves Silva. Ada relaxes his muscles and smiles a soft, loving smile.
There, I leave him. I look back a little while later and see that Silva is once again in Ada’s arms and, this time, it looks like that he has absolutely no intention of letting anyone else dance with her.
Everyone goes to bed very happy that night.
Night time is the time when I do most of my thinking – it’s very easy to do when you’re lying in bed in the dark.
I think about Ada and Silva and I’m pretty certain that we shall be hearing wedding bells sometime soon.
But... but what if we tried something else first, something that really makes them realise their love for each other. After all, they do say that absence makes the heart grow fonder...