![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
To all who are following along and leaving such great comments: Thank you! Thank you, thank you a million times! I was very apprehensive about putting my writing out into the public, but you all have made it not only painless but fun.
I am leaving in about a half-hour for a weekend holiday. I leave for you Chapter Four until I get back. Yes, at last, Tyelkormo will shut up for a bit and let another character talk. Now I'll shut up and get to the story.
Carnistir
When I see the shape enter our gate, my brother Turko and I are swatting at each other with wooden swords that Ada made. The shape looks like an Elf. It has dark hair and is tall, broader in the shoulders than most of our people, and it wears a nice, clean set of white robes. That, right there, tells me that the shape does not belong to our house. I let my wooden sword fall to my side and ignore Turko when he pushes his roughly to my throat, claiming victory, to stare at the shape as it walks up the path towards us. It leads a horse, which it ties loosely to a tree near the gate to graze. It looks like grandfather Finwë, but before I launch myself down the path and into the arms of a potential stranger, I want verification.
Turko, is that grandfather Finwë?
I look at him, but he is only staring at me with mixed triumph and annoyance, his wooden sword still poking in my throat. I smack at it and scowl at him, until I realize that I haven’t spoken aloud. I tend to forget that thoughts have to slip from your mind and into your mouth, and then they had to be regurgitated into great lumps of words before others can understand you.
“Turko!” I shout. He hates when I call him that, but the name Tyelkormo is like a wriggling snake in my mouth. “Is that grandfather Finwë?”
“Where?” Turko’s voice is smooth and rich, like honey, even at the callow age of fourteen.
“By the gate!” I screech at him in frustration, and he turns.
I feel his thought slam into me like a warm gust of wind. It is! We look at each other and set off running.
He hears our racing footsteps and turns right as we slam into his legs, each of us wrapping our arms around a thigh like a tree trunk. Our dual impact doesn’t even make him tremor but with laughter, and his hands ruffle our hair into mayhem. Grandfather Finwë is the biggest Elf I know. Ada is tall, but he is a twist of steel where Grandfather Finwë is a boulder.
Turko is shouting greetings at him, and I bite into his leg. I am kissed all the time, a hundred times a day, by Nana and Ada and Nelyo and sometimes Macalaurë—more rarely by Turko—but I think it more sincere to move past just the lips and add a good gnash of the teeth when you really want to show that you love someone.
And I really, really love grandfather Finwë, so I stretch my mouth as wide as it will go, imagining that I am like the snake that Turko caught one time, the snake that Nelyo had said could unhinge it’s jaw to eat, and let the powdery taste of grandfather Finwë’s robes fill me.
“My, you bite hard for such a little one.” I feel my feet leave the ground, and I am perched on his hip, over Turko, who is still on the ground, twisting a strand of his gold-colored hair and staring at me with a hard jaw and blue eyes brimming with contempt.
A lint ball is rolling around on my tongue, and I grimace until grandfather Finwë reaches past my lips, plucks it off, and flicks it away.
“That’s what you get for biting,” he chides and reaches down for Turko’s hand. Turko is too big to carry around anymore, unless you are Macalaurë, who still falls for his feigned helplessness and lifts him up, even though he is bent backwards by Turko’s weight.
Together, we walk up to the house.
“How fare my you, my little fair and dark ones?” grandfather Finwë asks.
“I killed Carnistir a minute ago,” Turko boasts.
“Did you now?”
“Yep. Ran him right through with my sword. Cut his throat. There was blood everywhere.”
“Is that so?”
“Yep.”
“Well I suppose that your Ada will expect you to clean that up.”
Turko shrugs. “Maybe. Probably he’ll get Carnistir to do it. He was the one who was dumb enough to drop his sword and die.”
Grandfather Finwë is Ada’s Ada. They look a lot alike but not entirely. They both have dark hair, though Ada’s is darker, like the sky between the stars. They are both tall, but Ada is slender and lithe where grandfather Finwë is stoic and powerful. They both have gray eyes, but Ada’s are brighter, like the center of a flame. Grandfather Finwë lives in Tirion, inside the walls, and we live outside. Grandfather Finwë is the King of the Noldor and Ada is the high prince (though Nana always says that he rarely acts like it).
Grandfather Finwë comes to our house every month or so—although riders appear more often, and sometimes Ada is summoned to counsel in Tirion—and his arrival is never announced. Ada deserts whatever is in his hands when grandfather Finwë arrives. I saw him leave a sword he was making for Manwë once, a beautiful gold thing with rubies in the hilt, with the last inch of the blade unfinished, twisted and ugly and ruined. The feeling that rolls off Ada when his Ada arrives is different than anything I have ever felt before. Once, I got angry with Macalaurë and stormed off into the woods when he had his back turned; Laurelin waned and I got turned to where I didn’t know my way home, and I sat trembling with my head between my knees; the raw, cold joy, on the edge of tears that I felt when Nelyo crunched through the bushes and rescued me is like that which pours off Ada whenever grandfather Finwë comes.
Grandfather Finwë asks us now: “Is your Ada in his forge?”
Turko nods. “He is working with Macalaurë today.”
I hate the forge when Macalaurë is working there. The hot, dry air, already uncomfortable, is saturated with his discontentment. Nelyo tolerates his day there—he likes to experiment with materials almost as much as Ada does—but poor Macalaurë suffers. He is not good at the work, and Ada is hard on him. He makes silly mistakes and hurts himself. I squirm to be free of grandfather Finwë before he makes me go in there, but he clutches me tighter, and I am like one of the flies that Turko pins between his thumbnail and the tabletop, wriggling and desperate and trapped.
The heat makes ripples that make the air shimmer like water, but it is dry and makes my skin feel like paper. Breathing in, my lungs feel like they fill with hot dust. I put both hands over my face and cover my eyes, fearing that my tears will be sucked right out of them if I don’t, and grandfather Finwë jiggles me and says, “Don’t be afraid, little one.”
Grandfather Finwë does not work in the forge. He is competent enough, Ada says, but his job is to be King. But what does he do? I asked once. Ada is a smith and Nana is a sculptor and Nelyo is a loremaster, and I know what they do, but what does a King do? I didn’t know any other Kings, whereas I knew lots of smiths and sculptors and loremasters. Ada told me that a King makes the world work so that the smiths and sculptors and loremasters can do what they do. I still didn’t understand. Ada said that was fine. It was a boring job, being King, he said.
Ada has his back to the door. Macalaurë faces him; his face is rumpled with displeasure, but he is intent and nodding, and Ada’s voice cuts through the heavy air like a stream of molten steel, “You can see, Macalaurë, where you didn’t hammer it thin enough, and that made it—” and Macalaurë’s eyebrows wrinkle in until they almost seem to be touching. Nelyo took me hunting once, and he slew a deer, and as the animal died, it wore a look on its face identical to that which Macalaurë wore now: wounded resignation, a prayer for escape, even if to death. Macalaurë’s misery wraps around me, and I cover my face again and try to hide, but it weasels into my throat and burns there, and I choke and sob.
That is what makes Ada turn and see grandfather Finwë standing there, and he drops his criticism of Macalaurë in mid-sentence and comes to him. I am dumped into Macalaurë’s arms so that they can embrace, and at first, it makes me cry harder, for I fear that I may be smothered by his suffering, but my tears are cooled by the his obvious relief. If he holds his baby brother in his arms, I realize, then he will not be expected to wield hammers and tongs and stand in dangerous places.
Turko is looking around eagerly, for it is his heart’s desire to work beside Ada in this very forge, and Macalaurë rests his chin atop my head and we slip outside, under the pretense of quieting my tears. The hot summer day is cold now, after the dry heat of the forge, and Macalaurë sits on the cool, green grass and rests me in his lap. He does not fold me into his being like Ada and Nelyo do; I do not lose track of where my body ends and where his begins, but it is comfortable enough. “Hush, baby,” he says, and he wipes away the tears that pool beneath my eyes with his thumbs. “I know. I hate it too.”
There is a whoosh of hot air, and Ada and grandfather Finwë emerge from the forge with Turko squirming to dart between them. Ada has rolled his tunic to his shoulders, and his arms are bare and swept with soot. The same streaks his face. He has restrained his hair off his face and neck with a long swatch of dark blue cloth, and his hair pokes out of the cloth at strange angles, like a porcupine. He still wears his leather smith’s apron, though it has long been blackened by ash and dirt. Standing next to grandfather Finwë, regal and impeccable in his long white robes, it is hard to believe that Ada is his son.
Grandfather Finwë is presenting a sheaf of letters wrapped in a leather package. Ada looks at them with uneasy disdain, scratching his neck where a fly has landed to sip his salty sweat. “This would all be so much easier if you would live in Tirion, with your people, Fëanaro,” grandfather Finwë told him. “You could deal with these things one day at a time.”
“I have not time to deal with letters and messages every day.” Ada waves his hand as if contemptuous of such foolish wastes of time. “And they are your people, not mine.”
“You command much admiration, Fëanaro, and loyalty quickly follows such. Your skills, your wisdom, your beautiful family…such are the gifts bestowed upon a high prince, and people know that.”
Ada grabs the leather package from him, opens it, and begins to riffle through the letters. I see many colored seals flicker through his fingers, seals that I have seen before in Tirion. My uncles, Ada’s half-brothers.
“Some of the messages bear only good tidings. Your brothers’ wives each conceived, only a few weeks apart. Nolofinwë’s second son should be here before the winter. Arafinwë’s should arrive with the Winter Festival, but that seems fitting for your brother’s first child, don’t you think?”
Ada makes a humming sound through his lips and ponders the letters that bear my uncles’ seals but does not open them. “They are sons, then?” he says after a long moment.
“Pardon?”
“My half-sisters-in-law shall bear sons?”
“Yes, they both carry sons.”
“Then your house shall be twice blessed.”
I wiggle in Macalaurë’s arms, for I suddenly have the urge to run to Ada and have him lift me so that no one can see his face twist the way it does, and he could press into my chest as I do his when I have fallen and hurt myself, and I would soak up his tears like a pillow.
They retreat to the garden.
Turko and I are left in Macalaurë’s care, and he is halfway jovial today, since grandfather Finwë saved him from the forge. I tug at his hand, looking back at the garden, but he ignores it and drags me along, singing some inane song that amuses Turko. We stop on the path, so that Turko can name the butterflies that dance in the meadow. Monarch. Swallowtail. Viceroy.
“How do you know these things?” Macalaurë asks, and I tug his hand, straining in the direction of the garden, but he jerks me back to his side without even a glance.
Turko reaches out his hand, and a yellow and black butterfly, skips along his fingertips. He laughs and races into the meadow. Macalaurë sighs (though not as audibly as usual), and we follow.
I wait for Turko to dive into a mud puddle (I know he’s going to do it the moment I see his eyes alight on it; I wonder why Macalaurë doesn’t stop him) and for Macalaurë to become distracted by fishing him out. Then I escape, slipping into the tall grass and, letting its movement across my body match the whisper of the wind, and whisper back to the garden.
I become the shadows. I am the shadow; I am the darkness. My mind breathes these words. I do not know from where they came—they come to me at night sometimes, from the darkness beyond the stars, slipping into my brain unbidden—but they are a powerful incantation, and I creep unseen into the garden.
A few years ago, Nelyo became obsessed with growing rosebushes that would grow everycolor roses. He would hunker over books in the library, at the table at mealtimes, even in bed at night, and if asked to look away from his books for a moment, he would mutter, “I almost have it. I’m almost there,” in a frantic, throaty voice. His early trials were very unsuccessful, but Ada wouldn’t let him destroy the infant aberrations, claiming that death was a decision best left to the ways of Arda, so Nelyo planted them in the garden farthest from the house, where no one ever went. But Ada and grandfather Finwë sit there now, on a stone bench across from one of Nelyo’s splotchy orange gaffes, and I crouch beneath the bush, in the shadows, able to see them but knowing that they cannot see me.
I am the shadow.
I am the darkness.
Ada removed the blue strip of cloth, and his hair pools unrestrained on his shoulders, except for a few uneven, tattered braids that keep the sides off his face. Nana’s work, I know; her fingers picked over all of us constantly. The cloth is twisted in his hands; his hands are rarely still; if he is not making some craft or another, then he is scribbling in a ledger or riffling pages in one of Nelyo’s books. He must have stopped at a fountain because most of the soot is gone from his face and hands, and his smith’s apron is discarded over a rosebush with soupy green blossoms. The letters lay on the bench beside him. He’d opened two, torn through the colorful seals that belonged to my uncles.
“So you shall be leaving for Formenos soon?” grandfather Finwë asks.
“In a week’s time.”
I feel my insides give a delighted squeeze. Formenos!
“So soon? Summer has not even arrived yet.”
“Nerdanel and I have four apprentices that we must settle.”
The delighted squeeze loosens into baggy disappointment: the apprentices, who insist on coming to supper and make Nelyo act frantic and scrub Turko’s and my hands and faces until they hurt. I had forgotten them.
“Shall you aid your brother in his request?”
The cloth jerks tight between Ada’s hands. “I know not.” The silence between them is louder than shouting. Grandfather Finwë stares at Ada, and I sense that he wants to say something more, but he does not. Ada looks down at the cloth and twists it around his fingers.
“It would aid him greatly,” grandfather Finwë says at last, his words tiptoeing across the space between them.
But the words, however delicate, must have bumped something in Ada, because his voice becomes loud and righteous. “I do not think well on those who cannot care for their own children. Nerdanel and I have four of our own—Nolofinwë has only one, for I do not count the son unborn—and never have they been in want of love or need.”
“Fëanaro,” says grandfather Finwë in a voice soaked with patience (he sounds so like Nelyo that I nearly fall from the bush in surprise), “his request has nothing to do with his inability to care for his son but rather his recognition that he cannot give to him the kind of instruction that you can easily provide. Findekano is the same age as Tyelkormo, nearly; would you wish any less an education for Tyelkormo? Nolofinwë is expert in matters of court, little more, and he desires that Findekano become learned in all matters of art and lore. Your knowledge and skill exceeds that of the best tutors in Tirion; he comes to you, not to unload his burdens upon your hands, but in praise of that which he does not possess.”
Like an elixir, grandfather Finwë’s words soothe the poisonous contempt that oozes from Ada. “I have two apprentices and four sons, whom I teach,” he protests still, but his voice is softer now. “Even that is too much. Were Nerdanel and I to conceive again, already we have decided that one of the apprentices would have to go to her father. I will not deny my sons for another. Any other.”
“Then give Findekano to Maitimo. Maitimo is exceptional in matters of science and lore and gracious enough to be a lord of my court. Indeed, I wish he would desire that pursuit, for the Noldor would thrive from his contributions. Though I have a feeling he will be too busy teaching his children and those of his brothers to pay much attention to politics.”
A wan smile flits across Ada’s lips, but still he twists the cloth in his hands.
“So he might as well learn now, wouldn’t you say?” grandfather Finwë continues.
Ada hesitates. “I shall speak to Nerdanel,” he says at last.
“With haste, I hope, for Nolofinwë will need time to prepare, should you decide to take Findekano into your charge, and time to arrange another tutor, should you not.”
Ada stiffens. “I shall send a messenger to Nolofinwë tomorrow.”
Ada is angry. I can feel it. Only a few weeks old, I’d first learned to feel love, then anger. Love drew me in; it bathed me in gold; it soothed all ills. But anger grew spikes like untempered steel, and it repelled me or, if I got too close, it shot through me like cold stilettos. It hurt. The spikes that come from Ada now are small, and there is an aura of something else beneath them. Something I’d never sensed on anyone before. I lean forward without a sound to study him closer. He sits primly; the only clue to his tension is the strip of cloth that he winds around his hand as though bandaging an injury. But I can feel it, a throbbing emotion beneath the protective bristles of anger.
I lean back into the bushes and close my eyes. Inside my head is another set of eyes, and I open them, only instead of opening from the top, like my outside eyelids, these I slide open from the bottom. I draw them from my inside eyes like pulling a sheet off a body and feel my mind go black. There is a bird twittering somewhere and a thorn nipping the back of my leg, but I ignore them and drink deeply of Ada with my inside eyes like one might smell a rose. I encounter the stipples of his anger—black and silver—and they sting me, but I push between them and delve for that which lies beneath, and I am filled with red light like fresh blood. Nauseous red. Red like the flesh that is revealed when trauma scrapes away the skin.
Grandfather Finwë’s yellow light tickles the edge of Ada’s, and I turn my attention to it next. Hopeful yellow, the color of the butterfly that danced in Turko’s hand; it is trying to soothe Ada, to dilute the wounded red color, to turn it the color of Nelyo’s rejected roses at least. Images flicker across the red: a white-clad woman in a garden, a gold marriage ring, a brown-haired little boy who leans on someone’s knee, angry footsteps on the stairs. I turn to grandfather Finwë—
You should not be here, Carnistir! You do not belong in the private corners of one’s mind!
The admonishment comes from the center of grandfather Finwë’s yellow light, and it tears the sheet over my inside eyes and knocks my outside eyes open so that the rich colors disappear and there is only Ada and grandfather Finwë, sitting on the bench among Nelyo’s roses. The breath is gone from my chest; I feel like I’ve imploded. Never has another’s voice come into me with such purpose, such perception! I peer through the leaves, terrified, and see grandfather Finwë’s glance skip across the rosebushes. His mouth has hardened. Ada tightens his arms against his body as if cold.
Did he see me? Had I been knocked from the shadow I wove around myself?
I am the shadow; I am the—I can’t finish the incantation, for grandfather Finwë’s eyes are resting on the orange rosebush, and I know he sees me, but his face has softened, and I feel hopeful doubt that it wasn’t his voice from the light at all.
Carnistir, come forward.
Did he speak to me? The words are as clear as if spoken, but Ada doesn’t not move, does not look in my direction, so the words must have been in my head. Or were they in grandfather Finwë’s head? I hear myself mew like an animal wounded, and Ada’s head swivels in my direction.
“Carnistir?” Inquisitive but edged with worry. I ease from the bushes. “Carnistir!”
Hands gather me, strong hands, warm hands, Ada’s hands. I squeez my eyes shut and weep. I feel his thumbs press against the bare skin of my ankles and my arms, and when I look at them through squinted eyes, they are spotted with blood.
“Where is Macalaurë?” Ada asks me. He sits me on his lap, on the bench; he is dabbing at my wounds with a white cloth grandfather Finwë hands him, red roses on white. I open my eyes a sliver and see grandfather Finwë watching me and know he is not fooled into believing that my tears are caused by nips from the rosebush in which I’d been hiding. His face is grave, stern, and I can see why non-family finds him a bit fearful. “Ada, I swear,” my Ada is saying to him (it always sounds a bit weird to hear Ada call grandfather Finwë “Ada,” like he is talking to himself), “for all the responsibility that our eldest has, Macalaurë would lose his body if his spirit was not bound to it.”
“Now Fëanaro,” grandfather Finwë says, turning to Ada and sparing me from his reproachful gaze, “Macalaurë is still more than a decade shy of his majority, where Maitimo is only three years away. Looking after two young children is quite a responsibility for an Elda so young.”
As though he knows we are speaking of him, Macalaurë hammers onto the garden path, his hair streaming behind him, his gate lurching a bit because Turko is perched triumphantly on his hip. Turko is slathered with mud, though Macalaurë has wiped most from his face and hands—even his hair is brown with it—and Macalaurë’s clothes are streaked with brown. “There you are!” he shouts to me, and I don’t need to open my inner eye to feel his hysteria. He dumps Turko onto the ground—Turko immediately darts off to explore a trail of ants marching underneath the rosebushes—and kneels before me. “Ada, I’m sorry. You know how he is. He disappears like he was never even there. I turned for three seconds—three seconds!—and he was gone.” He sees the bloody cloth in Ada’s hand. “Oh, no. Did he hurt himself?” I can feel that he wants to touch me, to prod my wounds as Ada had done, but he cannot because of his muddy hands. I settle smugly against Ada’s chest and smile at him.
“Why do you do this to me, Carnistir?” he asks me.
I can’t tell you why Turko and I delight in tormenting Macalaurë so, but we do. Oh, do we. He is docile and kind—malleable—with the least flammable temper of anyone in our house—Nana included—and he probably never would be in a bit of trouble if not for Turko’s and my antics. His color is gray, flat and even. I suppose I like the splatters of brilliance when we distress him; I like the way his boyish features wrinkle comically, the way he gives us the satisfaction of hearing his voice hitch when he is upset.
“He is barely scratched,” grandfather Finwë reassures Macalaurë before Ada has a chance to speak.
“I am so sorry, Ada. Grandfather Finwë. So sorry. I’ll take him back now and leave you to your counsel.” He wipes his hands on his trousers, smearing more mud on himself and reaches for me.
I yowl. I don’t want to leave the warm security of Ada’s arms—where I can listen to his private counsels with grandfather Finwë—for Macalaurë’s muddy uneasiness.
“No, no,” Ada says quickly, “he can stay with us.”
Macalaurë settles back on his heels in nervous relief.
“Take Tyelkormo,” Ada instructs, in a voice that sounds measured, gentle, but really crackles with irritation just below the surface. Macalaurë, even with his trained musician’s ears, does not hear it though, and I watch his shoulders sag with relief. “Take him and put him in the bath. He’s filthy.”
“Yes. He dove into a mud puddle,” Macalaurë explains, and his forehead pinches and wrinkles.
“And clean yourself up too,” Ada goes on. “Your grandfather and I will keep Carnistir if you think you can handle Tyelkormo.”
“Well, Nelyo—” Macalaurë begins hopefully, but Ada cuts him off: “Nelyo is busy today. He cannot have his work interrupted every day to watch his brothers. Your brothers. You have been given unexpected leave; I do not think it unreasonable to ask you to watch Tyelkormo.”
“Yes, Ada.” Macalaurë’s voice is meek; his nod contrite. “I apologize again and bid you farewell.” He nods again, and his eyes will not meet Ada’s.
“That is well, Macalaurë,” grandfather Finwë says quickly. “Farewell.”
Macalaurë stands and gathers Turko into his arms and shuffles from the garden.
“You are hard on him,” grandfather Finwë says once Macalaurë had left.
“I am hard on all of my sons,” says Ada, “as you were hard on me. Yet my love for them exceeds what can be expressed in words. I would leap from Taniquetil for any one of them. As you would for me.”
Grandfather Finwë ponders that and nods slowly. “Yes. I suppose I was hard on you, Fëanaro. It just looks harsher when you stand on the outside.” A wry grin twists his lips. “And Macalaurë does not fight the way you did.”
“Nor does Nelyo, usually. Tyelkormo has a temper that dies as quickly as it rises. But this one—” he squeezes me into a smothering embrace and plants a loud kiss on my forehead— “this one is going to be my fighter.”
I laugh and bite his thumb to prove his point. I taste my own blood and lick it in recoiling fascination.
Ada’s voice softens as he cradles me, and I feel a sting as he dabs again at the scratches on my legs with the white cloth. “Do you think we should take him to the house? Tend his wounds?”
“Fëanaro, really,” grandfather Finwë teases, “have you four sons? And you still worry over scratches? They shall be healed before you leave for Formenos, and he shall have acquired twenty more by then.”
“I will have a dozen sons before I cease to worry over scratches,” Ada says into my hair. “Maybe not even then.”
Grandfather Finwë laughs. I close my eyes and it runs over me like water. I can hear Macalaurë in his voice. Nelyo too. “A dozen sons, Fëanaro? Does Nerdanel have any idea that you are so ambitious?”
“Nerdanel does not protest trying for a fifth. In fact, there are times when she instigates the attempt.”
Grandfather Finwë laughs again, and Ada joins him this time. I twine a strand of Ada’s hair, bored. I don’t understand what is so extraordinary about my parents having four sons before reaching their hundredth birthdays. “So soon, Fëanaro?” grandfather Finwë asks. “If you were to beget a child tonight, little Carnistir would only be five years old when he—or she—was born.”
“And Tyelkormo would be but fifteen without even Nelyo at his majority—five underage children, I know—but Nerdanel and I go not for those austere traditions: separate bedrooms and the like; only cold, chaste affection. We do not expect to conceive again until Carnistir is around ten—that seems to be the pattern—but would I beget another child tonight, we would call for celebration.”
I pop the strand of Ada’s hair into my mouth to taste it. It tastes like hair, a bit acrid from the forge, but I imagine it tastes like the black licorice that we get when we visit Tirion.
“You sound like your mother, Fëanaro,” grandfather Finwë says, and his tone is light, but I sense a careful hesitation in his words, like he is stepping onto a frozen pond. From Ada, I feel red emitting again, a sore reopened, and he tightens his arms around me until my shoulder explodes into a dull ache and I whimper.
Ada often does not know his own strength.
He loosens his hold on me and kisses my face—my forehead, my nose, my cheeks—as though to quiet my fussing, but I know that it is so he does not have to look at grandfather Finwë.
“Well, of course,” Ada says. Hairline, temple, ear—my tears are stemmed, but his kisses do not cease. His voice is loud in my ear, like he is standing inside my head instead of sitting me in his lap. “She loves you.”
I am only four; I have only had a few lore lessons so far with Ada, but even I do not miss his deliberate misspeak, for one does not accidentally speak of the foreverdead in present tense.
Just checking in?
Read my Author's Introduction
Read Chapter One
Read Chapter Two
Read Chapter Three
Any and all comments are loved and appreciated! Thank you!
Move on to Chapter Five
Tags:
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-09 04:33 pm (UTC)I am looking forward to the next chapter and really hope you don't mind me adding you to my friendlist?
Uli
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-11 01:43 am (UTC)No, I do not mind if you add me to your friendlist. I am flattered! Thanks for you kind words :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-10 07:02 pm (UTC)I think the "had" should be "have" and I love that imagery!
my/you? I think there is something missing or two words too many here.
Would Elvish children during the time of the trees play something like that? I really doubt that!
I am not sure about the expression "job" in reference to Elves of the First Age. It sounds off.
I am not quite sure about the use of past tense in this paragraph.
the/his - I think the "the" can be deleted.
Could you maybe come up with Elvish names for the butterflies?
I'm still not happy with that use of Arda... I think Eä or a reference to Eru Ilúvatar would be better.
Wouldn't it be "He has opened"?
Just one of my private wonderings: did they have seconds in Middle-earth? The Hobbits had clocks, but did men have clocks? During the time of the trees, would there be minutes and seconds?
This sounds a bit too human... after all, Elves only conceive when both partners wish to create a child... Maybe you could make that a bit clearer? Just a suggestion... *hides*
I love the Finwe/Feanor interaction and the tension between them, the thinly veiled hints at hate and pain.
Wonderfully well done. Also, the way you have even very small Elvish children so adult and mature in their understanding. That's a neat trick to keep them Elvish as opposed to normal human children.
I also liked the way you described the ósanwe. That's always tricky, I feel, but you really did that well.
Good writing and I hope you had a good weekend!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-11 01:49 am (UTC)Um...what's "osanwe?"
(Now it's my turn to hide!)
About Tyelkormo's sword-play: I've been kind of uneasy about that myself. I am trying to show that Feanaro's fascination with certain parts of history (and his blunt honesty with his children) may have rubbed off in a bad way. Kind of a hint of things to come.
I am going to think on this issue. Thank you for mentioning it to me.
Thanks again for the wonderful, in-depth comments. I am truly flattered to think that someone spent *that* much time on one of my stories this weekend. I am flustered and flattered and...just thank you! So much! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-11 07:31 am (UTC)"Ósanwe" or "osanwe" is Quenya for Elvish "mind-speech".
I understand absolutely what you are getting at...
And as according to Tolkien Elves were also excellent warriors - methinks they were created to be warriors, actually - it does make sense that their fierceness shows through, their deadliness.
Idea: I think foreshadowing kinslaying in such an obvious manner is perhaps less than ideal. But why not have one of them be the hunter, the other the prey. You can have them act that out really dramatically - kids have a lot of potential for drama in their plays, after all. "The tragic death of Carnistir the stag". Then allow a moment of shock on the part of the adults...
I have to admit that I was kind of worried that you'd ban me from your LJ or something, for all that nitpicking!
I really like the way you write and it's a very interesting story!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-11 10:11 pm (UTC)I will work on that. You are right: It accomplishes the same purpose but less obviously, which is always good.
I really have no problem with nitpicking. I have had a shortage of it in my writing career. Back in the days of college workshops, I was always the one who made tons of in-text comments and wrote each writer a letter at the end and got back for my own stories...nothing. Well, a lot of praise, but not even specific praise, like "I like this imagery" or "This character speaks to me," just "This is really good!" Okay, why? It kind of used to make me mad. (I spent hours on each story I read, and they spent...a half?) That is probably why I never sought a beta and do my own editing, and also why my head gets so cluttered from reading the same sentence two hundred times that I cease really hearing it.
Anyway, I'll stop rambling and suffice to say "Thanks." Again :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-11 04:29 am (UTC)Impatiently awaiting more...(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-11 10:04 pm (UTC)Yes, the lack of stories where Feanor is not a) a bad father b) an abusive husband or c) just generally insane is what led me to start this
ginormous distractionmonsterstory. I was reading some stories on ff.net and got POed by yet another such tale, popped a disk into my 'puter, and started a character study that--one year and 300 pages later--is this story. (And still unfinished--but getting close!)I am hoping to update later this week, as soon as I fix the tense troubles in Carnistir's next chapter. Then there's four Nelyo chapters (thankfully) in present tense, so that should be smooth sailing.
Thanks for reading! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-13 08:27 pm (UTC)Awesome. I've thought about doing my own character study, but I'm not really brave enough. Maybe someday...but I like reading yours, so it probably won't happen anytime soon!! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-14 12:14 am (UTC)I totally understand that! Given my experience in writing and traveling in circles far more "sophisticated" than fan fiction (insert facetiousness here), I was amazingly scared of putting this story out there. What I always do is swear that I'm not going to show it anyone, and then I can usually write just about anything. And most of the time, I decide to show it to someone (or lots of someones, in this case), but by then the story's almost done, and you can always edit the heck out of it first :)
Maybe someday...but I like reading yours, so it probably won't happen anytime soon!! :)
I'm glad that you like mine, but don't let that stop you from writing your own! When you do--and if you decide to share it--let me know; I'd love to read it ;D
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-14 05:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-12 03:56 am (UTC)Oh, speaking of slain. Slayed? Slay? Anyway, the only problem I had with this chapter is the game that Carnistir and Turko are playing with the swords and stuff. Feanor started making swords in secret (I'm not sure how far along in the Silm) but I don't think he'd give his sons swords to play with. I also don't think kids, not having that kind of violence around would know to "kill" each other with the swords. Especially about blood and stuff. And definitely Finwe would be appalled when he found out what they were doing, since nobody had been killed like that yet.
I hope this makes sense. I wanted to respond because I read this the other night and even thought Juno says I should read about Feanor anymore because it will taint my own Feanor, I don't care becuase this story just sucked me in and your characters are so engaging and charming.
Oh, one other thing. I'm not sure, but I kind of thought Miriel was the only "foreverdead" of the elves at this point, so why would there be protocol on how you speak about them if she is the only one.
Oh, and I love LOVE how Feanor says he shall have a dozen sons before he ceases to worry over scratches. Awwww! *huggles Feanor* He's such a good Daddy! You knew he had to be otherwise why would every single one of his sons follow him?
I'm sure I have more to say, but I fear I'm making less and less sense, and I can't keep my eyes open anymore, so I think it's time for bed.
Maybe when I wake up there will be chapter five???
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-13 02:42 am (UTC)I would like to wake up to a Chapter Five too. Unfortunately, as I have been whining at length in my journal and others', my work Internet is defunct. So I haven't been very productive lately. But I promise a Chapter Five as soon as things are in order. Hopefully tomorrow, when my boss is back and can get the Internet fixed! ::end whining::
Juno had the same concerns about the swordplay. I was uneasy about it myself, but when I am uneasy, I figure the best way to deal with it is to throw it to the wolves...um, I mean, you guys...and see what happens. She made a great suggestion that I am going to use that should lessen the shock of it a bit.
I have always assumed that there were plenty of dead Elves by Miriel's time. Surely, many died in Middle-earth. I can't even argue against the possibility of accidents in Valinor, although they would have been more rare (and controversial).
Anyhow, thanks for the comments and I am glad that the whole mind-speak thing (osanwe?) is working out. It is one of the most fun parts about writing from Caranthir's POV--and one of my experiments, that I wasn't sure would turn out. But it seems to be working, which makes me very, very happy :)
Okay, it is nearly my bedtime too, and I have a pile of emails accumulated from no work Internet (I promise, that's the last time I'll mention it!) so I am likewise going to bid this overlong comment adieu.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-15 08:42 am (UTC)I hope you don't mind if I nit-pick a couple of minor details, (which you probably know about already).
1)With the time-frame you've set up in the earlier chapters, Feanor's half-brothers shouldn't be born yet - it's the whole 1 year-of-the-trees = 9.582 years-of-the-sun business from paragraphs 5-10 of 'The Annals of Aman' in 'Morgoth's Ring'. Feanor was born in 1179 (or 1169) Y.T. and Fingolfin wasn't born until 1190 Y.T..
2)The hair of Nerdanel, her father, Maedhros and the twins is described as 'not as dark or black as was that of most of the Noldor, but brown, and had glints of coppery-red in it.' - note 61 from 'The Shibboleth of Feanor' in 'The Peoples of Middle-earth'
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-15 04:50 pm (UTC)I looked over the "Annals of Aman" when I first started this and decided the timeframes didn't work for what I had in mind for the story. So, yes, I intentionally ignored canon to further my own devious ends ::hides::
As for hair color, we just had a discussion about it on the Henneth Annun list, coincidentally. The text actually never says anything about Nerdanel's hair color--only Mahtan, Maedhros, and the twins. I never realized this before (although I have read the "Shibboleth" many times) and always assumed Nerdanel's hair to be the same color as her father and eldest and youngest sons. Alas, it seems it is fanon....
Nonetheless, my Nerdanel has red hair :)
I realize that my Maedhros probably has more dramatic hair in my story than the "Shibboleth" cites. This is just always how I pictured him before I began researching the characters in greater depth, and such long-standing and -loved images are hard to erase :) My Celegorm also is a blond, and some people, I know, would argue quite heartily against this, but again, it is how I have always pictured the character. So it seems I am guilty of heresy again.
Thank you again for the comments. I need careful readers like you to keep me in line ;)
(the blasphemous) Dawn Felagund
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-17 10:25 am (UTC)As for the time frames, I actually approve of your changes! I've always thought 'The Annals of Aman' - or at least the bits relating to the elves - would make more sense if the years were years-of-the-sun rather than years-of-the-trees. Feanor and Fingolfin's behaviour would be far more understandable if they were 300 rather than 3000 when they had their fight about which of them Finwe prefered. Feanor's reaction to his father's re-marriage would also be more reasonable if he was a small child when it happened.
With that final blasphemy, I shall go back to studying and stop cluttering up your journal!
P.S. May I 'friend' you? I don't want to miss out on any updates!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-17 08:10 pm (UTC)I think you are right about The Shaping of Middle-earth. I know in one of the HoMe books, there was a mention of how Tolkien originally conjured the names of the Feanorians based off of Old English. (Or something! I don't own tSoMe and so am working entirely off my tattered memory here!) Celegorm's original name meant "Fairfax" in honor of his blond hair. I don't know if Tolkien ever stated outright later that Celegorm had dark hair or if it is just the genetics-naive assuming that a dark-haired parent can't have a fair-haired child (which is not true), but I know that some "canatics"--to borrow a term I heard from
You are right that the "Annals" makes better sense as Years of the Sun than Years of the Trees. Wouldn't that make Maedhros older than Fingolfin? (Assuming, as I have, that Feanor's marriage "in his early youth" also meant that Maedhros would have been born sometime after.) This creates a wrinkle because Maedhros acknowledges Fingolfin as the eldest in the House of Finwe.
Now, it seems that I am rambling.... :)
By the way, don't worry about ever likewise "cluttering" my journal. I love rambling! I am glad to meet people who are willing to discuss inane nuances. (And my husband is glad too because it means that he doesn't have to listen to an hour-long diatribe about how the "Annals" don't jive with the Sil!)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 12:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-18 01:37 pm (UTC)Call the Gods of Canon to smite me, but I always felt that Years of the Trees and Years of the Sun create conundrums. When one is talking of Feanor's twelve years of banishment, for example, is that Years of Trees or Sun? It happened in Valinor, so one would suppose it to be Years of Trees, but assuming the Sil was written in Middle-earth.... Anyway, I always use Years of the Sun in my stories. I figure that if anyone noticed and complained then it would be a simple edit to change it :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-19 11:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-19 11:38 pm (UTC)Also, I've friended you. Hope you don't mind. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-20 12:26 am (UTC)And I'm happy to have someone so knowledgable about language and canon on my Friends' list! Thank you :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-20 12:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-20 12:49 am (UTC)This, in turn, led to a discussion of Elven hair color genetics, and since we have a retired geneticist in the group, we got a pretty expert opinion that Elven hair color is enormously complicated--well beyond Punnett squares and simple dominant/recessive--and finally all came to the conclusion that it's a fictional race and so we could invent at will! But she did point out that it's a mistaken myth that dark-haired parents can't have fair-haired children, and my Celegorm breathed a sigh of relief....
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-20 12:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-20 01:53 am (UTC)Nerdanel, Celegorm, Legolas....
::shakes fist at sky:: Why did you have to have such an aversion to describing your characters! (Although, the writer in me is grateful for the freedom!)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-20 02:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-20 02:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-20 02:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 08:45 am (UTC)I would be one of those people who jump sky-high at the mention of Celegorm with blond hair. When I came across it for the first time in HoME I had to double take and then mutter: "This is nonsense! Genetically impossible. Where would Celegorm inherit his blond hair from?!" Of course, Feanor has a cute explanation for it, but still...
But I'm not picking on you for it. Celegorm's hair color is of little importance in the story and there are many other things that draw the attention to this (otherwise highly misunderstood) character.
Hugs for all the joy you brought me with this story.
Alina
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 04:02 pm (UTC)I don't mind disagreement, btw. Lots of people have taken issues with various things that I have done with my story. The resulting discussions are usually wonderfully informative.
Hugs for all the joy you brought me with this story.
*hugs back* Thank you! :)
Chapter Four: AMC
Date: 2005-07-28 11:53 am (UTC)"I pop the strand of Ada's hair into my mouth to taste it. It tastes like hair, a bit acrid from the forge, but I imagine it tastes like the black licorice that we get when we visit Tirion."
Re: Chapter Four: AMC
Date: 2005-07-28 12:59 pm (UTC)"I pop the strand of Ada's hair into my mouth to taste it. It tastes like hair, a bit acrid from the forge, but I imagine it tastes like the black licorice that we get when we visit Tirion."
LOL! Yes, my Carnistir is a strange little guy. I love writing him, though; it challenges me to think and view his world in a very different way. Of course, I am doing something very specific with his character that is a bit outside what the canon says about him. The canon doesn't say this absolutely *can't* be true, but I must admit to a bit of indulgence in Felak-fanon!
Thank you *again* for reading! ::hugs::
Belated chapter 4 review :)
Date: 2005-10-17 10:20 am (UTC)*Pouts as you've left Celegorm's head*
Interesting that he seems to perceive the world in a different way, so much so that he forgets about such things as speech.
I love your description of Finwë as a boulder, compared to Fëanor as a twist of steel.
*Chuckles at Carnistir's unique view of biting* He really is an oddity yet, at this stage in his life at least, really means well!
Another hint of Celegorm's developing character... his almost desperate need not to be left out. Makes me wonder why that is... Having so many brothers maybe? Hmmm food for thought there!
An interesting outsider’s view on Fëanor’s love for his father... the deep love that in the end contributed to Fëanor’s downfall. I like it!
Poor Macalaurë/Maglor (I have yet to get my head round the Quenya names!) the comparison with a dying deer was rather funny in a slightly morbid way!
I like the touch of resentment Fëanor has for his half-brothers, resentment that must have grown steadily over the years until it finally ended in his betrayal if Fingolfin. Here it seems to be in an earlier stage and in a way; I see this trait as something he passed on to Celegorm.
The darkness in Carnistir's mind, especially at such a young age, is unsettling and maybe explains why he was something of a loner in his adult life - maybe all those thoughts and emotions he could feel were just too much for him. Yet with that in mind, I wonder how he was ever able to commit kinslayings.
I like that that Fingolfin was wise enough not to let his brother's dislike of him stand in the way of what was best for his children - it's just a shame Fëanor wasn't as flexible!
OK the description of Carnistir's 'inner eyes' was nicely written, but it made me feel a little - queasy!
I'm a little uncertain that the word 'weird' really belongs here... I think 'strange' is more in keeping with the style.
//Tyelkormo has a temper that dies as quickly as it rises// Recalling Fëanor’s anger in the last chapter, when Carnistir misbehaved at the dinner table It seems that they are very much alike in temperament.
//only cold, chaste affection// Hmm, I'm not sure I can see other Elves being less loving, but I understand why you want to set Fëanor and his sons apart from the others.
Nice tension when Mirel is mentioned, and the use of the present tense provides the feeling on intensity and confusion which must have surrounded her death.
Re: Belated chapter 4 review :)
Date: 2005-10-17 03:07 pm (UTC)*Pouts as you've left Celegorm's head*
Lol! Don't worry, I revisit frequently :)
Another hint of Celegorm's developing character... his almost desperate need not to be left out. Makes me wonder why that is... Having so many brothers maybe? Hmmm food for thought there!
Yes, I've always seen Celegorm as very much a middle child in his concerns and subsquent behavior. And he really doesn't fit in the family at all (except in terms of temperament), and even now, he senses that and is trying to over-compensate by being demanding. At least, that's my theory on him :)
Here it seems to be in an earlier stage and in a way; I see this trait as something he passed on to Celegorm.
Yes, he is passing it onto all of his sons, really. It was interesting to write the early "Maitimo" chapters, where he goes to Tirion, to see how he thinks of his half-family, compared to how he views them differently at the end of the year. But Maitimo is of more independent mind (as is Maglor) than the younger ones. (In Felak!verse anyway.)
OK the description of Carnistir's 'inner eyes' was nicely written, but it made me feel a little - queasy!
Oops! Sorry.... I'm a blood phobic and generally squicked by anything involving eyes, but somehow, that excludes writing about it. I'm not quite sure how that came to happen.
I'm a little uncertain that the word 'weird' really belongs here...
Rereading, I would tend to agree with you. Thanks :)
Hmm, I'm not sure I can see other Elves being less loving, but I understand why you want to set Fëanor and his sons apart from the others.
Well, this is really just Feanor's (decidedly biased) opinion only, based on how he perceives--or wants to perceive--his half-brothers. I take both Fingolfin's and Finarfin's PoVs in later chapters, and they sort of defy Feanor's expectations of them.
Thanks so much for the wonderful review! :)