A/N: My biggest problem as a writer is getting distracted by new stories while I already have several WIPs. This time I got distracted by a horse that will make an appearance in a future chapter of Your spirit calling out to mine.

My first thought for Caranthir's horse was the classic princely steed, a big black valiant stallion, but that felt boring. So I gave him a horse that is big and strong but not exactly valiant, and when I thought of how he came to have that horse, one word instantly entered my mind: Celegorm.

So here's a bit of Fëanorian fraternal fun in the form of equine backstory. Caranthir is meant to be a teenager here, the human equivalent age being around sixteen, Celegorm would be about twenty-one in human years, Curufin is a tween and the Ambarussar are babies. Quenya names are used because this happens in Valinor.

'Come on, father, you've been saying that I need to assume some more responsibilities. Well, here's a responsibility I'm offering to take on.'

Tyelcormo is sitting in his father's study with both of his parents who are regarding him with slight suspicion.

Fëanáro says, sighing a little, 'Far be it from me to suspect my own son's intentions, but why exactly are you offering to take care of obtaining Morifinwë's begetting day gift?'

'Because I've thought of a perfect gift for him! And it's one that I am best qualified to purchase. We all know that the old nag he is still riding is not fit for purpose – he was all well and good for teaching me and Moryo to ride when we were younger, but he is no fitting steed for a prince of the house of Fëanáro. So Moryo needs a new horse, and I can select a really good one for him.'

Nerdanel and Fëanáro glance at each other. Despite his young age Tyelcormo is indeed already the best judge of horseflesh in the family. And he is smiling at them so very entreatingly.

'We shouldn't discourage him from doing something for the family', Nerdanel says quietly to her husband.

Fëanáro nods at her almost imperceptibly, then turns to their son. 'Very well, Tyelcormo. We are pleased that you can see that you need to do things for the good of the family sometimes and not just for yourself. You can buy Morifinwë a horse. Just make sure that no one swindles you because of your youth.'

'Oh, they wouldn't dare.' Tyelcormo's smile has a hint of teeth. 'Not when I'm your son.'

Nevertheless Fëanáro and Nerdanel feel a little uneasy for some reason as they watch him leave the room, whistling and grinning.

When in the morning of his begetting day Carnistir's parents tell him that Tyelcormo has chosen his gift this year, he is instantly suspicious. Why would Tyelco do that? He and Carnistir have always got along worst of all the brothers, ever since Carnistir was a baby and Tyelco delighted in teasing him.

Now that Carnistir also approaches adulthood and Tyelco spends a lot of time in Oromë's woods they do not quarrel as much as they used to, but they are still far more likely to be at each other's throats than whispering secrets into each other's ears.

So it is with a sense of trepidation, and a sulky appearance, that Carnistir follows his brother outside after breakfast, along with all his family. When Tyelco leads them to the stable yard, Carnistir's mood lifts. Has Tyelco bought him a horse?

He has been hoping for a new horse and actually started saving money for one a while ago. He is rather touched that Tyelcormo realised what he needed and procured it for him. Tyelcormo's own horse, reared by him from a colt, is a truly magnificent creature; if the horse he bought Carnistir is anything alike, it will be an excellent begetting day gift.

After a while Tyelcormo does lead a horse out of the stable. Everyone's first impression of it is that it is big and has a dark coat; the second impression is that it seems to be in disagreement with Tyelco about whether it in fact wants to come out or not, and then about which direction they are going in. Tyelco has to practically hang from the bridle to drag the horse along.

With difficulty he manages to bring it to his gathered family and to stop it in front of them – Nerdanel had already taken a few hurried steps to the side because for a moment it looked like the horse was going to plough right into her and the babies she is holding.

The whole family stares at the horse, which is still struggling against Tyelcormo's control. He whispers calming words to it in a language no one else understands, but they seem to be no more effective in pacifying it than his tight grip on the bridle is in keeping it from prancing in place and trying to bite him at regular intervals.

The horse is a dark bay, observes Carnistir, big and strongly muscled with well-shaped long legs, clearly well exercised if badly behaved. It is not particularly beautiful but looks like it could run all day, which is in Carnistir's practical mind the more important quality.

It is also female, and that is what Carnistir points out first.

'It's a mare', he says, rather accusingly. Lords and princes of the Noldor traditionally ride stallions.

'Yes, but a big, powerful mare. Just look at her proud stance and her fine rump.' Tyelcormo slaps the mare's well-muscled hindquarters, and she tries to step on him. Her demeanour seems less 'proud' and more 'murderous'.

'She looks rather bad-tempered', ventures Maitimo in a worried tone.

'A bad-tempered horse for a bad-tempered brother', grins Tyelcormo and, dodging another bite attempt, hands Carnistir the reins.

Carnistir takes the reins, mainly to make sure the horse won't kill his little brothers. By now he is almost certain that Tyelcormo has bought him a horrible horse on purpose. This temperamental creature resembles Tyelco's own gallant steed only in size and strength. Surely Tyelco could have found Carnistir a horse that was both powerful and well-behaved? A powerful, well-behaved stallion.

Carnistir stares at his new horse, keeping a tight hand on the reins close to the bit, and the horse stares back at him with wildly rolling eyes.

Carnistir remembers the old trick of blowing gently into a horse's nostrils to help bonding with it, but in this beast's case he thinks the more likely result would be getting his face bitten, and he would rather not have that. Even if it might make Tyelco pass out from laughter.

'What's its name?' he asks his accursed excuse for a brother while keeping a close eye on the horse's teeth and all four legs, not an easy feat.

'Her name is Varnerocco.' A swarthy horse.

'How very imaginative', Carnistir grunts and steps aside when Varnerocco tries to stamp on his foot. 'And her coat isn't even black, just dark brown.'

'Well, neither are you black all over, Morifinwë. But both of you have a black mane.' Now that Tyelco is no longer the one in danger of being bitten, kicked or stepped on, he seems to be in an excellent mood, his whole face stretched into a wide grin.

At this point Fëanáro has had enough and raises his voice. 'Tyelcormo, I will see you in my study before guests arrive for the celebration. Carnistir –' Fëanáro looks at his fourth son and the bad-tempered mare that is now walking in a predatory circle around her new owner. 'I'm sure the horse's purchase can be renegotiated with the seller if it turns out that Tyelcormo made a mistake and you can't control her.'

'Oh, I made no mistake', says Tyelco, so quietly that no one but Carnistir can hear him, then asks in a louder voice, apparently unfazed by the scathing lecture he will surely get from their father, 'Can you control her, little brother?'

Carnistir knows it's a challenge, and he can never back down from a challenge from his next-eldest brother. He looks steadily into Tyelco's laughing, mocking light grey eyes and says in almost a growl, 'Of course I can.'

But while he is not keeping an eye on his new horse, Varnerocco bites him in the arm.

While Carnistir curses the mare, Maitimo says wryly, 'I think it's best if you don't go for a test ride right now, Moryo, for your begetting day celebration would be a sad affair if you were in ten pieces.'

Carnistir does indeed not go on a ride on his begetting day, although a quick, fast gallop on the plains around the hill of Túna would be a welcome respite from the bustle of party preparations that fills the house up to the moment the guests arrive.

Instead he goes the next morning, even though he is feeling a little under the weather from drinking more wine the at the celebration than he is accustomed to – or indeed has previously been allowed to.

His new horse, on the other hand, seems even more energetic, and more crazy, than the previous day, having gone without exercise. 'I thought you would like to be the first to ride your new horse, my lord', says his father's head groom who has gone pale looking at the mare thrashing in her stall. She appears to dislike being watched.

Carnistir might accuse the groom of cowardice if he wasn't himself feeling quite hesitant about approaching the horse.

But he is determined to show to Tyelco that he can handle his terrible gift, so he grits his teeth, pulls on his sturdy leather gloves for protection and enters Varnerocco's stall to brush and saddle her.

An hour later he leads her out of the stable; she comes just as reluctantly with Carnistir as she had with Tyelcormo. And while Carnistir had managed, after a long struggle, to brush her sleek dark coat, clean her hooves and fit her with bridle and saddle, it was at the cost of being bitten several times, stomped on the left foot once and right foot twice, and once being shoved against the wall.

His whole body aching and his head pounding with the mild hangover and less mild rage, he is now in just as bad a mood as his horse.

He has to ask a groom to hold the mare still while he mounts, and even then Varnerocco manages to sidestep and Carnistir has to flail wildly for balance in order not to fall right down her side.

Riding out of the city is a trial. Varnerocco pretends to be spooked by everything from fruit-sellers to cats, and several times starts into a wild gallop in the middle of the street. It is a small miracle that no one gets hurt, although some property does get destroyed, and by the time Carnistir rides out of the city gates his arms and shoulders hurt from constantly pulling on the reins, and he thinks his palms are probably bleeding.

At the first sight of open country Varnerocco's ears perk up and she hastens her steps into a long trot and would go into a gallop if Carnistir let her.

'Want to run fast, do you?' he mutters to the horse. 'You can do that once we get past these wagons, but you have to behave until then.'

She does, barely, and once Carnistir turns her off the road into the tall grass she bolts into a full gallop at once.

It is all Carnistir can do to just hold on. At first he tries to restrain Varnerocco but it makes no difference, so he just concentrates on keeping his seat and hopes she doesn't step into a rabbit burrow.

Once he has become certain that he is not going to fall off and the mare's strides have become slightly more steady, he finds himself actually enjoying the ride. He has always liked riding fast, and Varnerocco is much faster than his old horse and still has a very smooth gait that is pleasant to sit. And the day is lovely, a fresh but not cold autumn day, and he quite enjoys the wind on his face and the powerful movements of the horse.

Perhaps Tyelcormo wasn't being completely malicious when he bought her, Carnistir begins to think and relaxes a little, and that is when Varnerocco bucks and throws him.

By the time he has got his breath back and made sure he hasn't broken anything the horse is nowhere to be seen.

It's a long walk home on foot. When he finally gets there he wants nothing as much as to go soak his aching body in a very hot bath for a very long time, but he remembers the horsemanship lessons he learnt as a child ('always make sure your horse is all right before you see to your own comfort') so he goes to the stable to check if Varnerocco has made it home. He thinks she may not have, since she moved here so recently.

But she is there, munching contentedly on hay in her own stall and looking for all the world ever so innocent and well-behaved, as if she hadn't thrown him from full gallop and then deserted him a two-hour walking distance from home.

'I hate you', Carnistir tells her. 'And I hate Tyelcormo.'

He leans on the stall door, exhausted but also relieved that he found Varnerocco here. Having a terrible horse is terrible, but losing said terrible horse would be an additional embarrassment he really does not need.

A velvety soft muzzle touches his cheek, and at first he flinches away from it, but Varnerocco doesn't seem to be in biting mood for once. She actually allows Carnistir to scratch her behind the ears.

It's when he stops that she nips at his arm, possibly intending to be playful but hurting Carnistir quite a lot because the arm is already bruised. And when he tells her off she does it again, much harder, drawing blood.

All his anger comes back, and he really wants to hit her. He wants to do it so badly. The damned horse has been hurting him all day, and he has been nothing but patient, and the Valar know that patience is difficult for him.

Varnerocco deserves a good walloping, and he'd love to give her one, but again inconvenient childhood lessons come to bother him. No hitting animals, Moryo, he remembers his mother telling him strictly when he was little and had angrily struck at a dog who had bitten him after he had pulled its tail. Because we are above hurting animals.

So though his hands have already clenched into fists he keeps them at his sides and settles for scowling furiously at Varnerocco and telling her, 'I think you might not even be an animal, you might be a beast of darkness Tyelco summoned from out of the Void.'

The horse just snickers at him, mockingly, he could swear.

Things with Varnerocco continue as they began. She is wonderful to ride when she gets to run and she even behaves herself sometimes when he promises that she will get to stretch her legs and gallop for as long as she likes, but putting on her tack is a struggle every time, and she throws him regularly by bucking or rearing or stopping suddenly in front of an imaginary obstacle.

The grooms are all nervous of her and Curufinwë refuses to even walk past her stall after she nips at him – quite playfully, Carnistir defends his horse, she usually bites much harder.

'She is a menace, just like you', hisses Curufinwë and stalks off to complain to their father.

Carnistir regrets ever defending her when she throws him right into the middle of a thorny hedge for the third time during one ride, and he also considers taking his father up on the offer of finding the crook that sold her to Tyelcormo and demanding the money back. But if his new horse is bull-headed, so is he, and by the time he has plucked all the thorns out of his clothes and skin he has again sworn to not give up. He will prove himself the more tenacious.

'If you don't stop throwing me into briars, I won't take you out for a run for a week', he tells Varnerocco. He is coming to realise that she is quite intelligent and that threats work better than just shouting at her. He does plenty of that too, of course, to let off steam.

At least she didn't run off home on her own today, as she often does.

Carnistir puts all the thorns he plucked out into his saddlebag and sprinkles them into Tyelco's bed when he gets home.

Nerdanel is concerned about the way one of her sons is constantly getting hurt and begs Carnistir to ask Tyelcormo's help in taming his horse. To make his mother happy, and because he is getting tired of running through jars of soothing salves and sitting on pillows because he is so sore, Carnistir does ask Tyelco. And though Tyelco makes fun of him for not being able to handle his own horse, he agrees to help.

(This is some time after the thorns-in-bed incident and Tyelco has mostly forgotten it, and anyway that hadn't worked very well since many of the thorns had been bent and blunted already.)

But to Carnistir's great glee Varnerocco seems to like Tyelcormo even less than she has come to like her owner, despite Tyelco's famed affinity with beasts. When Tyelco attempts to bridle her she bites him in a very sensitive place; once he regains his ability to speak Tyelco curses her and swears that he regrets ever buying her. Carnistir gives her a carrot.

Carrots actually help him establish a fragile truce with Varnë, as he calls her now. He promises her the treats for not biting him while he puts on her bridle and leads her out of the stable, and for not kicking him when he removes the dirt from her hooves after a ride.

It turns out that carrot-bribing is not that necessary for making Varnë behave when they go riding outside Tirion, for she loves to run in the open fields and between trees in forests. Of course, in her case good behaviour is relative. It is still a struggle of will and muscle to make her go where he wants instead of where she fancies going, and even though she often behaves reasonably well just long enough for Carnistir to relax and let down his guard, at least once a week she resumes her bad habit of returning home alone after tossing him to the ground in the middle of a wide field.

After the eighth time he has had to trek home on foot Carnistir decides not to go on long rides alone; if he has company when Varnerocco throws him down, at least he can get a ride home on someone else's horse. He has had enough of being late for work, appointments or bed because he spent an hour or more walking back to Tirion.

Tyelcormo is still angry with Varnerocco for making him walk funny for a week and with Carnistir for sniggering at him while he suffered, so Carnistir doesn't ask him for riding company; Maitimo and Macalaurë, and their horses, are very wary of Varnerocco but nevertheless agree to go riding together with Carnistir regularly. Tinweriel, Macalaurë's wife, comes along once but refuses to do it again after Varnë kicks her horse when she trots too close behind her.

Carnistir realises that Varnë doesn't like other horses coming close behind her, so he ties a bright red ribbon to her tail as a warning. Findecáno asks about it when he and Maitimo accompany Carnistir on a ride down Calacirya one day, weeks after Carnistir first tied on the ribbon.

'I didn't think you were the sort to adorn your steed', he says, reaching out to straighten his own horse's mane that is braided with gold just like its rider's hair.

'I'm not, the ribbon is not a decoration. It's to warn that she kicks if you let your horse too close behind her.'

'Oh.' Findecáno studies Varnerocco. 'Just out of curiosity, how close is too close?'

'I know you're fearless, Finno, but best give her a very wide berth just in case', says Maitimo, speaking less good-naturedly than is customary for him. Carnistir thinks his cold tone is quite unnecessary; surely Maitimo's bruise from when Varnerocco kicked him has already healed.

They ride in silence for a while, Maitimo and Findecáno's horses trotting placidly along the road and Varnë putting on short spurts of canter and gallop as often as she can get away with it, snorting loudly whenever she is not in the lead.

'Riding that horse looks like very hard work', Findecáno notes a little hesitantly.

'Ah, well.' Carnistir pulls Varnë's head up from a tuft of grass by the side of the road that she has suddenly started eating, almost making him slide off her back when she stopped suddenly. 'It's doing wonders for my upper body strength, even more than working in the forge.'

And his thighs too, truth be told, since he has not yet managed to cure her of bucking when she gets in high spirits, and instead he has just had to learn on to hold on tight with his whole body. Which he tries to do when Varnë starts bucking a little while later when the sons of Fëanáro and their cousin spur their horses into a canter and then gallop; Carnistir stays on for perhaps a minute and then finds himself flat on his back on the ground, all wind knocked out of him.

Well, at least he doesn't have to walk home. Maitimo's huge beast of a horse is easily strong enough to carry them both.

Carnistir stays there on the cold ground for a moment, watching the clouds drifting across the sky while he regains his breath. He's not worried about having hurt himself seriously, as he has become a master of falling down safely since he first rode out on Varnë.

He hears hoofbeats coming closer and calls out, 'I'm fine!' in a rather winded voice.

But the only answer is a soft whicker, and a dark brown muzzle appears in his field of vision and nuzzles the front of his leather jerkin.

'Oh, it's you.' Surprised, Carnistir sits up and takes hold of Varnerocco's bridle. She has never before come back to him after throwing him off in the middle of a wide open field; something about all that space makes her always run around on her own for a while and then head straight home

But she came back to him now, and he finds himself overjoyed.

'Good girl, you came to check on me', he praises her and scratches her ears in that one way she actually seems to like. 'Very good girl. My terrible-tempered, very good girl.' Varnë blows warm air into his face.

When Carnistir hears hoofbeats again, he looks up and jubilantly calls to his approaching brother and cousin, 'She didn't run home!'

As he hauls himself up and dusts himself off and remounts Varnë – she almost stays still, so he manages to do it in a nearly dignified manner – there is a huge smile on his face.

Findecáno looks extremely bemused at Carnistir's great joy after he has been thrown off by his horse. Surely there is nothing to celebrate in that? But Maitimo, who understands that this is a big occasion for Carnistir, congratulates his brother heartily, and then asks if he wants to go home and rest.

Carnistir answers that he is not hurt, just a little sore, and that Varnë deserves a good long gallop now. So he suggests that the three of them race to the edge of a forest, a distance on which Carnistir has often competed against his brothers but was never able to win on his old horse.

With Varnerocco, who runs like her heart would burst if she did not give her all when Carnistir asks her to, he beats Maitimo and Finno's stallions easily.

All the way home Carnistir scratches Varnë's withers and pats her neck and speaks words of praise and encouragement to her, even when she prances around or snorts indignantly at other horses, and after that day she always comes back to him.

And they get along just fine in their own way, no matter what anyone else thinks.

A/N: A red ribbon in the tail of a horse that is prone to kicking is an actual thing in our world, but probably Carnistir's invention in Valinor because most of the horses there are well-behaved. I've never written about horses in English before, so I apologise if any 'horsey' terms are used wrong.

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