Written for Laerthel's birthday, which was a month ago, so perhaps it's high time to put it up here.
Once, when I was little, I walked up to my eldest brother Nelyo and asked him how it had felt to be a single child. In my childish innocence I expected him to say lonely, or boring, or something equally appreciative of the fact that he had Káno and me now; however, all I was met with a grumbling "peaceful".
I was hurt then. Now, four brothers and one nephew later, I see his point.
Take now. Here I am, lying in the grass, entirely unobtrusively, bathing in Laurelin's slowly dwindling light and listening to a family of birds quarrelling in a nearby tree, but is my peace to last? No. Someone is already galloping my way.
Above me, the lady bird is accusing her parter of not bringing enough worms, while the fledgelings are crying in an effort to draw attention to their existence and, importantly, hunger.
I wait.
The intruder to my solitude halts – I hear a sharp intake of breath – and proceeds in what he probably considers stealthy creeping. For some reason a lot of people feel the need to subject me to this treatment. As if, only because I am a renowned hunter, it would be particularly amusing to catch me unawares and cover my eyes, or whatever it is they intend to do – I do not know, as, needless to say, no one has ever succeeded. Not even Irissë, who is trying the hardest, and with admirable (if misplaced) persistence.
(She invited me to try the same on her, but I do possess enough of a self-preservation instinct not to wish to gutted by uncle Nolofinwë for harassing his daughter. That beside the point that Irissë harassing me is apparently also my fault.)
Anyhow, the child presently creeping towards me lack Irissë's skill entirely. I could not be more alert to his presence if he ran towards me shouting "Uncle Tyelko!" at the top of his lungs, which he has indeed been known to do.
For yes, it is the newest addition to my wonderful family, courtesy of Curvo and his lady wife, that is invading my leisure.
I wait until he is a few steps away from me to greet him pleasantly, without changing my position one inch.
(Lírinellë says I am at times even worse then Makalaurë when it comes to theatricals, to which I usually point out to her it must be worthwhile if she fell for it.)
"Good day to you, Tyelpë," I say.
The elfling jumps, startled. "Uncle!" he squeaks, and falls flat on his bottom. For a child of such graceful parents, he really is quite clumsy; I hope he grows out of it. "Good day!" he adds.
It has been brought to my attention that it might be kind to pretend not to notice the sneaking up, so as to give the child the satisfaction; I rejected any suggestions of such blatant deception, of course. In any case, a descendant of my father had better not be content with easy victories; we have all learnt that. One might say I am passing on the family legacy.
(I do look forward to being content with my extremely hard-won peace and quiet, one day; but, as has been previously mentioned, it is not this day.)
"What brings you here?" I inquire politely, raising myself on one elbow as my nephew collects himself from the grass.
"Atar told me to fetch you," he says proudly. The next moment his eyes light up in excitement. Bad sign. "We are going to have guests!"
Oh, great.
It is clear that Tyelpë desperately wants to divulge more details, yet at the same time also desperately want to be asked about them; my compassionate side prevails.
"Who is coming?" I ask.
The elfling raises his chin high, nearly bursting with importance. I expect he will either grow sick of it in time, or fulfil every hope Curvo has of him.
"Cousin Turukáno and cousin Irissë!" he announces happily. "And grandmother says cousin Turukáno has a little girl I could be friends with, and show her my mosaics! She also said they had trouble making her wear shoes," he adds, visibly puzzled.
Trust Ammë to try to find everyone a friend. At least my little nephew is not likely to get harassed; from what I have heard, while Irissë has a greater influence on her niece than could be considered healthy, the shoeless young girl is growing up to be as sweet and calm as headstrong (Irissë is only the latter, as I had many a chance to ascertain). Clearly the Vanya blood is more pronounced in her, otherwise she would be as neurotic as all the rest of us.
"That is wonderful," I say, encouragingly. Not that Tyelpë needs my encouragement; he is too excited to stand still as it is.
As I recall, Curvo as an elfling fell into the suspiciously quiet variety. If my nephew is ever taken to plotting, which he probably will, given his heritage, he will have the perfect cover at the ready.
"Right? Right? Uncle, do you think she will like me?"
Valar, I hope he does not fancy himself in love with her after today, two-thirds of the family would have a simultaneous aneurysm. Which, given my family is the royal family, would be quite a political spectacle. That I would prefer to avoid.
"Oh, absolutely. Just remember to make sure she doesn't step on any of your mosaic tiles barefoot." On second thought, knowing my uncle Nolofinwë, this alone could cause a major incident.
I raise myself in one swift motion (let no one dare imply my parents were not gifted at naming), discreetly shake off the grass from my clothes and offer my hand to Tyelpë, who takes it happily and proceeds to jump up and down as we walk; I remember all the people I used to subjugate to this as an elfling, and suppress a sigh.
Nelyo was right: with such a large and event-provoking family, peaceful moments are hard to come by.
In my headcanon, Curufin's wife is a mosaic and stained glass artist (among other things), and she would give Tyelpë tiles to make pictures with when he was too young to go into the forge.
Everyone's relative ages are too much of a mess to bother with in such a short and silly fic, so just ignore.