Memories are stirred and I find myself thinking lately of the time I first saw you, and of how I first came to realise that I was in love with you. Mostly, I think of your name, and the way it rolls around in my mind.
It started in the house of your father, and you were less than a year old. I had travelled there with my parents and my brother Canafinwë, and the occasion was your naming ceremony. I was little more than eighty years old, my brother still a child, only twenty, I was full of excitement, because you were my first cousin to be born.
Even then, there was little love between my father and yours but our mothers were friends and they sat long in conversation, doting on you and no doubt sharing the stories that mothers do, about births and babies. I hovered close by, wanting to see, while my brother had no interest and went to play alone in the garden.
"Come, Maitimo," your mother said to me at long last. "Come and see your new cousin."
You were in your mother's arms but you were awake and your bright eyes glittered as you took in the sight of new people around you. Already your hair was dark and soft to the touch. I smiled at you, you gurgled happily and smiled back.
"He likes you, Maitimo," your mother said. "Do you want to hold him?" I nodded, and took you into my arms for the first time, the first time of many.
"What is his name?" I asked.
"Ah, not so fast young Nelyafinwë, she scolded. "You will have to wait until the ceremony. Until then it is a secret."
"Do you have your gift, Maitimo?" my mother prompted.
"Oh! Yes!" I handed you back to your mother and pulled from my pocket the gift I had made for you; a birthing gift for a baby. It was a little cat, crudely made from copper, with green glass eyes and a cluster of little bells hanging from its collar. There was a chain to hang it from your crib and it would, I hoped, jingle when you played with it.
You reached for the copper cat and put it in your mouth.
The ceremony began soon after. Our grandfather Finwë was there, as was our other uncle, Finarfin, who was yet to marry. As most ceremonies go it was too long and tedious for a young elf and I paid little attention, until the moment that your father announced your name.
Findekáno.
At that moment it was just another name, and you were just my baby cousin. I had no inkling that day, what the name Findekáno would come to mean for me in the future.
Findekáno.
The next time I saw you, you were perhaps twelve or fifteen, and you in turn had come to our house to visit for the naming ceremony of my next brother Turkafinwë. You held him in your arms just as I had held you.
After that we saw one another only when your mother visited mine, for my father or his family were not welcome in your father's house, except on occasions when etiquette demanded his presence.
It was gradually that you and I became friends. You already had a reputation for mischief and as the eldest, I was instructed to keep an eye on you and make sure you did not get into trouble. In truth I have to confess that I encouraged you. My father would scold me always for the time I spent with you, telling me that I was too old for playing with children. I resented that he curtailed our adventures but could see no contradiction in making me take care of my younger brothers so that he might work in peace.
And so it was many years then before I saw you again and when I did, I barely recognised you. I was in the garden, practising alone with my sword, and I had paused in my exercise to rest for a moment. You came up behind me, put your hands over my eyes. "Guess who," you said.
I turned around, thinking you were one of my brothers and I was ready to chastise you. It was a moment or two before I realised who you were. "Findekáno?" You grinned, nodded. I stared. "You've changed! You're all grown up!" I could not help but continue to stare at you. Your eyes still glittered but your face was no longer than of a child. Your smile though, was still full of mischief.
"I came to ask if you wanted to go rock-climbing with me," you said, a hopeful look on your face. "You do still climb, don't you?"
I shook my head. "I never have time," I replied. "Not with three brothers to watch out for."
"Then you deserve a break," you said, putting your hand on my shoulder. "You don't have to be so serious all the time."
And so we did. We went to one of our childhood haunts, a cliff by the sea, and we climbed it twice until we were both exhausted and we lay outstretched on the sand waiting for muscles to stop aching. You had evidently kept practising while I had not.
"We should do this again sometime," you said. "I missed our adventures."
I rolled over to look at you. We were both naked from the waist up, sand clinging to sweaty skin. I did not reply. I was too absorbed in looking at you and thinking how utterly beautiful you were.
Findekáno.
Your name filled my mind again.
"Did you not miss me?" you asked petulantly.
"Yes," I replied, my voice quiet. "Days I spent with you were always happy ones." I sighed. "It's a pity really, that we have to grow up, that we couldn't stay like that for ever."
You were silent for a while, gazing up at the sky. "Have you yet thought about... marriage?"
I laughed, surprised at your question. "No. Why?"
You shrugged. "You're of an age to be thinking of it. I just... wondered, that's all."
"I haven't met the right girl yet," I replied. That at least was true. No matter how many times my parents introduced me to well-bred and beautiful maidens, not one of them had caught my interest, nor aroused any sensation of attraction in me. "I am starting to wonder if the right girl even exists at all."
"Oh, I'm sure..." You did not finish your sentence, but instead you came and sat closer to me. "Don't be sad about it."
"I'm not," I replied, smiling at you. "But it would have made things so much easier if you'd been a girl." You blushed brightly and immediately I wished to retract my foolish words. "What I mean to say is..." I began, but you hushed me.
"I already know what you mean," and you leaned forward, brushing my lips, oh, so gently, with your own.
And that was the moment that I first knew, consciously, that I was in love with you. I cupped your face in my hands and kissed you in return, gently, slowly, savouring the taste of your lips on my own. Afterards I fell back onto the sand, eyes wide at the sky, wondering what in the name of the blessed trees I had just done.
You lay beside me and placed your hand on my chest, feeling the frantic pounding of my heart. I wanted to say that I was sorry, that I should not have done such a foolish thing, but I could not say it because, in truth, I felt no regret. When I eventually did find the courage to look at you, it was with great relief I saw that you were smiling.
"Thank you." You said, simply.
All words escaped me then except for one. Only one word filled my mind, my eyes and ears, my universe.
Findekáno.