I own nothing.
Fëanáro and Nerdanel are arguing again; Fëanáro's voice is unmistakably heard through the stone walls, and Nerdanel's pipes up, fainter, but no more mistakable than his. It's hard to say what they're arguing about. It could be the increasingly long hours Fëanáro spends in the forge, barring the door so that none may enter, or it could be the short way with which he spoke to Eärwen when she chanced to visit yesterday. It could be the way Nerdanel is always in her own workshop, and has neglected the education of their youngest sons. It may be something else. It's difficult to say.
What is not difficult to pick up on is the way the house tends to empty itself of all but them, when they lift their voices in anger.
-0-0-0-
Makalaurë is not much of an early riser, and never has been. When he was a child, his parents or older brother had to come into his room and shake him awake to ensure he wouldn't sleep straight through breakfast. There were times when he did not exactly greet the person waking him graciously.
"Did you stay up late again?" Maitimo rips the covers off of Makalaurë's head, scowling down at him.
Makalaurë winces against Laurelin's light falling on his face. "Go away," he mumbles, shielding his face with his arm.
But Maitimo does not go away. He leans down at shakes his brother's shoulder roughly. "Come on, get up. We've got to get Curvo cleaned up before breakfast; he's been in Mother's clay again."
Those days are long past. Makalaurë is no longer a child. He is married, and does not even live in the same house as his parents and brothers any longer. One would think that, as a result, he leads a very separate life from his brothers, and that is true, but not nearly as much as other married Quendi enjoy.
The bed feels as though it has more people in it than it should. That is the first thing that registers to him as he starts to drift upwards out of sleep. Makalaurë can hear the drowsing breaths of three people where he should hear one. He opens his eyes, looks around him, and groans.
Makalaurë can not confess to quite the same level of closeness with the Ambarussa that his other brothers possess. He was wed and out of the house before his two youngest brothers were even born (And to be honest, Curufinwë was only a child when he left). At times, he feels as though the way they seem him has more in common with the way two young boys would see a young uncle, than an older brother.
All the same, the Ambarussa have the habit of sneaking out of their home very early in the morning before breakfast time. From there, they'll find the house Makalaurë shares with his wife, creep up to their bedchamber and pester them until they get up, get dressed, and walk over to have breakfast with them and the rest of the family. Ilmanis once remarked (and Makalaurë tells himself that he only imagined the wistful tone in her voice) that it was almost like having children.
Makalaurë doesn't think that they've ever crawled into bed with him and Ilmanis and fallen asleep before.
"Ilmanis!" he hisses. "Wake up!"
As Makalaurë is counting it fortunate that he and Ilmanis were too tired to do anything but sleep the day before when they went to bed, her dark eyes flutter open. "What?" she murmurs thickly, before sitting up and seeing her youngest brothers-in-law. "Oh." Her brow furrows. "Help me wake them."
A few moments later, Makalaurë and Ilmanis have two sleepy, rather groggy twin children on their hands.
"Pityo, Telvo," Makalaurë says to them, frowning slightly at the discomfited looks on their faces, "what's wrong?"
Pityo rubs at his eyes and mumbles, "Mama and Papa are fighting again."
"So you came here?" Ilmanis interjects. Her eyes wander to their clothes, and her eyebrows shoot up. "And you've not even changed out of your smallclothes," she points out sternly.
Telvo shifts his weight and smiles sheepishly up at her. "Well, you're not supposed to go to sleep in your day-clothes."
Ilmanis is noticeably unimpressed with this answer. "When I get dressed, I will take you home. You have lessons this morning anyways; I would not want you to miss them."
"Yes, Sister," the Ambarussa obediently reply, if a little less than enthusiastically.
When they are gone, Makalaurë sits in silence, staring out the window, rubbing his hand across the back of his harp. He thinks about what the Ambarussa told him. Makalaurë thinks about that, and sighs.
Quendi always live in the homes of their parents before they are wed; that's just how it's done. However, while nissi always leave their homes upon wedding, there are plenty of neri who choose to remain in their parents' house, even after wedding. Ilmanis commented on being surprised that he did not wish to remain with his parents and his brothers. That doesn't surprise him. The home of Ilmanis's family is remarkably quiet, remarkably peaceful. No storm ever lingers over the doorway.
I had my reasons.
-0-0-0-
Ilmanis does not have siblings herself. She has cousins, but they live in Alqualondë, so she does not see them often. Ilmanis knew that when she married Makalaurë she was marrying into a large, loud family often at odds with one another over small, petty things. She does not think that she has ever met another family that argues as much as her husband and his brothers and parents.
But even if they argue often, they are remarkably close-knit, and Ilmanis has learned to be part of this close-knit family, though they barely seem to notice she's there half of the time. Leading two young boys in their smallclothes back home barely seems like anything unusual. The most thought Ilmanis puts into it is counting herself thankful that the weather is warm and that it's early enough that there are still few out in the streets. If the gossipmongers feasted their eyes on the sight of the High Prince's youngest sons wandering the streets of Tirion dressed only in their undergarments, their tongues would never stop wagging.
The gate is unlocked—probably as the result of the Ambarussa's adventure, Ilmanis can't help but think. The three of them slip inside, with Ilmanis latching the gate behind them. "With any luck," she mutters, "your parents won't be awake." When Telvo stares at her, noticeably surprised, she smiles slightly, one side of her mouth twitching. "I don't really wish for you to get in trouble with your parents."
The house is quiet and still, drowned in Laurelin's shimmering light. The door to the kitchens is left open, unusual for this house of Fëanáro and his family's.
"Go upstairs," she whispers to the twins. They have spotted the open door as well, and do not say goodbye. The Ambarussa merely wave to her, and disappear up the stairwell.
Ilmanis heads towards the kitchens. When the Ambarussa told Makalaurë that their parents had been arguing, Makalaurë did not press them to elaborate. Perhaps he felt that there was nothing troubling about it; after all, he has grown up in a house full of arguing, and is far more inured to the effects than most Quendi Ilmanis knows.
Ilmanis did not press them to elaborate either. She is not sure how well either of them would take to her pressing them. But this concerns her more than it does Makalaurë. Fëanáro and Nerdanel have argued for as long as Ilmanis can remember—they are both strong-willed, both possessed of strong desires that can sometimes clash; of course they are going to argue from time to time. But Ilmanis has of late detected a sharper edge to the tension in this house than she remembers there being.
Maitimo or Tyelkormo can probably tell her what this latest row was about. She hopes that it's one of them in the kitchens.
When Ilmanis sees a Quendë with dark hair sitting at the kitchen table, her heart sinks.
No, this isn't any of her brothers-in-law. This is Fëanáro himself, sitting over an empty plate, his chin propped up on his hand. His eyes are rather bloodshot, as though he did not get any sleep the day before. Ilmanis stops dead in her tracks, unsure of what to say.
She has always been somewhat nervous of her father-in-law. There is no reason for her to be. Fëanáro has never been anything but courteous to her, if anything, more courteous than he is to his wife and blood kin (With the exception of Finwë). She knows how pleased he is that at least one of his sons has wed, and has no desire to scare her off.
But Ilmanis is nervous of him. She has been ever since the day Makalaurë brought her to meet his family for the first time. As they were walking up the path, he urgently whispered to her, "Listen, if by any chance Father starts talking about my grandmother, pronounce her surname as Þerindë, not Serindë. If you don't, I'm not sure that he will ever approve of you." Ilmanis does not see why she should not be nervous of someone who is so fickle and changeable that he could change his opinion of someone else based on how they pronounce his mother's name.
"Good day, Father," she greets him, feeling as though she must at least be polite.
Fëanáro looks to her, and nods. "Good day," he says quietly. He turns his distracted eyes back to the window, staring blankly out into the yard.
Ilmanis wastes no time in vacating the house. She can feel the same sharp, heavy tension in this house as she has, hovering over her neck like the blade of a pendulum.
-0-0-0-
No one knows where Carnistir goes when he wants to be by himself. He prefers to keep it that way. After all, he's going off to be by himself. That will be easily spoiled, if anyone ever discovers where he goes when he wants to be by himself.
Maitimo tells him that he's too apt to involve himself in other people's arguments. He says this in the irritated tone of voice that makes Carnistir want to fight with him himself, but instead, he stalks off, out of the house and into the streets. He doesn't want to listen to their parents arguing any more than the rest of them, and once, he felt as though if he sided with one of them, this would settle the argument more quickly. However, it has not, so he can do nothing but leave if he doesn't want to end up involving himself anyways, and just making things worse.
Usually, when Carnistir goes out of the house, he goes off to be by himself. Not so today.
"That's it. Draw out the fibers. Hook them around the slit on the end. Now twirl the fibers around the spindle. That's it, Carnistir."
Findis is much involved in sewing and weaving and the making of thread. Some of Carnistir's earliest memories of his aunt involve Findis working on a tapestry of the Two Trees. He would sit there and watch her as she painstakingly pieced together the scene in her head, and then rendered it in thread and weft.
Carnistir has sat in moody silence watching her at her work many times, but never before has Findis involved him in the process as she does today. It's unusual enough that Carnistir has to comment upon it.
"Aunt Findis?" he asks, holding the newly-created wool yarn in his hands. "Why are you having me do this?"
"I felt that it would calm you down," comes her taciturn reply. Findis herself is making yarn as well, a task that Carnistir can not help but think tedious. She turns one dark eye upon him. "Is it working?"
Carnistir is rather shocked to find that it is.
-0-0-0-
Findekáno happens to be downstairs when he hears the hammering on the door. Considering who he finds there, it's probably a good thing that he was the one who answered the door; today's caller would not be satisfied with anyone else.
"Do you want to just go somewhere?" Maitimo asks in a strained voice, the by-now entirely-too-familiar worry lines etched on his forehead. "Somewhere outside the city?"
This is far from the first time Maitimo has made him such an offer. In fact, the last time was just a few weeks ago; they ended up spending a couple of days in the wilderness, deliberately avoiding everyone else around them. Findekáno enjoys these times, enjoys them more than anyone else—even Maitimo, he suspects—can guess. But lately, whenever Maitimo makes the offer, he does so with that strained, exhausted expression on his face. As though he can not take being in the city at all.
On one level, Findekáno finds it flattering that of all the people Maitimo goes to when he needs to get away from the stresses of his life, it's him. On another level, that face he makes always worries him.
So Findekáno nods, and smiles. "Of course. I don't think Mother will be wanting her horse for a while; you can borrow it." Anairë's horse is not used to strenuous journeys, but this will not be a strenuous journey, and Maitimo has never been one to push his horses hard.
Maitimo's relief is palpable, both in the way the worry lines vanish from his face and how his broad shoulders sag. But before he can make his way to the stable, Findekáno stops him, and reaches up to touch his cheek. "And when we get out of the city, you had best tell me what's wrong."
Findekáno has a feeling that he already knows just what's wrong. It's probably the same as the reason that has driven Maitimo to flee the city gates several times in the past few months. Still, it does him good to actually talk about it, the same way it does Findekáno good to speak of what's troubling him, when he encounters such difficulties. Hopefully this will help, as it has done.
-0-0-0-
"I don't even know what started it! Last time it was something foolish, I don't know, someone had left plates out in the kitchen, and they started fighting over that."
What Maitimo doesn't know is that one of his brothers made a beeline for Nolofinwë's house even before he did. Findekáno chose not to tell Maitimo that one of his brothers was here, but if he had ventured into the house itself, he likely would have heard a familiar voice, albeit muffled by walls and a floor's distance in height.
Tyelkormo sits perched edgily on a chair in Irissë's bedchamber. Irissë herself sits significantly more comfortably on the edge of her bed. Huan sits at her feet, resting his head on her lap—she rubs his ears. "Everyone argues, Tyelkormo," she points out, brow furrowed as she looks at her cousin. "And Aunt Nerdanel and Uncle Fëanáro are both very argumentative. What do you expect?"
He scowls at her. Irissë's parents never argue; Anairë always cedes to Nolofinwë's will. Tyelkormo knows that he should not expect Irissë to understand. She has never woken, nor gone to sleep with the sounds of arguing ringing in her ears. She has never sat around a dining table and felt the air cracking with tension, never watched her parents glaring at one another silently over the water pitcher. It still irritates him, despite that, that she doesn't understand. "This is different, Irissë. They'll argue, and it won't be over. They'll still be angry with one another for days afterwards; they won't speak to one another. You can practically feel it when you walk into the room with them."
Irissë stares blankly at him. "It sounds to me as though you are describing some sort of illness."
"It's not like that, Irissë."
"Hmm," she replies, sounding unconvinced. Then, Irissë cranes her head to stare out of her window, and her lips curl upwards slightly. "It seems that our eldest brothers are making a break for the wilderness."
"What?" Tyelkormo hops up out of his chair and races to the window. He braces his hands on the sill and stares out the window. Sure enough, he sees two riders on horses tearing down the street, and one of them has unmistakably copper-colored hair. "Those sneaky bastards," Tyelkormo mutters, envious and indignant and amazed all at once.
Irissë grins. "We could catch up with them."
Tyelkormo grins back. "I suppose we could."
-0-0-0-
An hour later, Maitimo and Findekáno find themselves meeting up with Tyelkormo and Irissë both decked out in hunting gear, Huan at their sides. Having hoped to be able to wander alone together, they are not entirely pleased at the sight of their siblings and Tyelkormo's dog trotting up to them.
"We were rather hoping for privacy," Findekáno points out.
"Too bad," Tyelkormo retorts lightly.
Findekáno smirks. "Are you sure the two of you don't want privacy?"
Tyelkormo blushes furiously, and Maitimo laughs at his brother's face, but Irissë only frowns uncomprehendingly. "No, Finno. I am not sure what gave you that impression." She sees Tyelkormo's scarlet face and sighs. "Now what's wrong?"
He doesn't answer, and Findekáno and Maitimo decide that it will be good to have the two of them with them, if only because, in their haste, they neglected to bring any provisions with them. Irissë and Tyelkormo are good for finding food in the wilderness, after all—better than either of them.
And maybe they having enjoy the company, as well.
-0-0-0-
Findaráto has learned, over the years, exactly what Curufinwë is like when he is angry.
He doesn't explode into rage like Carnistir. He doesn't grow sharp and incisively sarcastic like Makalaurë, at least not most of the time. Nor does he attempt to reason things out like Maitimo does, unless he is well and truly enraged. No. If Curufinwë does not think he can find a solution to the situation that is causing him anger, he will slip into fuming, pensive silence, and barely respond to anyone who happens to speak to him.
Findaráto had heard knocking on his bedchamber door. He had opened it expecting Angaráto—Angaráto and Curufinwë's knocking sounds quite similar—but instead, Curufinwë had slipped inside, sat down on one of the chairs, crossed his arms about his chest and barely gave him any explanation as to what he's doing here at all.
Arguments are not a thing foreign to this household. Findaráto hears them often enough, and participates in some of them. Angaráto doesn't like the late hours Aikanáro keeps, or Artanis thinks she's being condescended to, or Findaráto has unwittingly said something offensive. But arguments do not define their relationship. The world moves on from them. Findaráto really does not understand what has Curufinwë in such a state.
He does think he knows what can cheer him up, however.
"Maitimo and Findekáno rode out this morning."
Curufinwë gives him a look down the bridge of his nose, a look clearly indicating I already knew that—do you have any news to share that I was not already aware of, by chance?
Findaráto bites back his own irritation with his cousin, and goes on. "Tyelkormo and Irissë joined them not long afterwards."
This garners no reaction, which Findaráto can not help but think odd. "Tyelkormo and Irissë, Curufinwë? My childhood friends? Your favorite people, asides from your father? Does this ring a bell to you, by any chance?"
"Which way did they go?" Curufinwë finally asks, trying to appear unconcerned.
Findaráto smiles. "Let's go to the stable. I will lead the way."
Fëanáro—Fëanor
Makalaurë—Maglor
Maitimo—Maedhros
Curvo, Curufinwë—Curufin
Ambarussa—Amrod and Amras
Pityo—Amrod
Telvo—Amras
Tyelkormo—Celegorm
Carnistir—Caranthir
Findekáno, Finno—Fingon
Nolofinwë—Fingolfin
Irissë—Aredhel
Findaráto—Finrod
Angaráto—Angrod
Aikanáro—Aegnor
Artanis—Galadriel
Quendi—Elves (singular: Quendë) (Quenya)
Nissi—women (singular: nís)
Neri—men (singular: nér)