Combining everything into the quasi-fic, think I mentioned all five things. sorry it got really shippy.

…

Nerdenal was shorter than her sibling, with the stocky square-shouldered look that her father had passed down to all his family, though she was annoyed that the copper hair that made her father stand out in the crowd of Noldor was something that her sibling inherited, and which was passed down to both nieces and nephew and most of her elder niece’s children. Her hair was only brown, and not even the dark glossy brown of her mother Istarnië, though when the light hit just right there almost looked to be a hint of fire. Nerdanel liked to wear colors and jewelry she hoped would offset the bits of copper and make it more alluring and exotic than brown. Anything to draw attention away from her red face. She liked the amber shade of brown of her eyes; that at least was striking, though a blue would have been even more. Nerdanel grew and matured and set aside her resentment of her relatives’ greater beauty.

 Queen Indis was beautiful, well-regarded by almost all of Tirion as the most beautiful woman even by her political detractors, with golden skin and hair that seemed to glow like a flower of Laurelin, her eyes a deep blue that shaded almost purple, and tall without awkwardness. Nerdanel watched as Indis moved, plotting how to sculpt that sense of grace and assurance that High King Ingwë’s sister had. Several works were inspired by the queen of the Noldor, even when they did not have Indis’s likeness in the face, though Nerdanel did not admit this. 

When Indis removed her sandals to race barefoot through the water gardens, as light-foot as Nessa’s deer, as joyful as Tulkas’s laughter, Nerdanel knew that was the pose to sculpt, that moment before Indis sprinted, where the Queen of the Noldor removed a piece of confining finery, however small a shoe was, so that she could embrace freedom and delight. Nerdanel wondered if she projected her desire to be free from anxieties onto Indis, for the queen never showed envy or resentment, was gracious even when those around her were not. 

And how Nerdanel had blushed in shame the day her husband’s compatriots had insulted Indis to the queen’s face, and Nerdanel had been powerless to restrain them no matter how much she had argued with her husband beforehand. He used to listen to her advice, her husband and sons, used to give some heed to her consul, treated her as if she was a person with opinions worth something. But Indis was her dearest friend, especially after her separation from her husband, when all those compatriots and political allies and anyone who wished to avoid the displeasure of the King’s heir and favorite began to mock and sneer at Nerdanel herself. Golden and graceful, Indis held out her arms and embraced the much shorter woman, unmindful of how the marble dust that coated the sculptress now smudged the queen’s velvet gown and golden arms. Indis would stand with Nerdanel through the turmoil and after, the two live together in a wing of the palace filled with music and art, content in friendship and company. Nerdanel was her beloved no matter what official ties between them, said Indis gravely, for she feared not the displeasure of that faction in Tirion, and would trade them gleefully for Nerdanel’s smiles and company. 

“Yours is a beauty I could never fully capture in song,” said Indis, “though I have spent hours trying to compose. The best I can do is write music for your statutes, the lifelike ones admired by the court and the strange ones that bring my soul beauty even if I do not understand them.” Indis blushed, and Nerdanel laughed at the familiar problem. 

Findis would find the two stretched out in the gardens playing card games of their own creation, laughing with their hair unbound and full of twigs and crumpled flowers, a half-undone braid in Nerdanel’s brown hair that Indis tugged as she admonished the younger woman for cheating. Findis would sit primly on the ground and join the card game, utterly befuddled by the rules, but smiling all the same. “What stakes are we playing for?” Findis would ask.

“If I shall sculpt something, and your mother sing to me as I work, or if your mother shall dance and I sketch her as I watch,” replied Nerdanel, “or if we should be both very lazy and take a long vacation to our nieces and nephews outside Tirion.”

“That river cruise does appeal more and more,” murmured Indis, crossing her ankles and digging her bare toes into the soft dirt. “To lounge around, few servants, many pillows, watch the scenery as we slowly drift along, and when we are bored take a swim in the river.”

“We do need to practice our swimming,” mused Nerdanel.

“Then it’s settled." 

And Findis was invited along, though she was the only one that did any fishing, and the one that picked up after the pair, as Indis and Nerdanel weren’t what one would call the neatest of elves.