What in Mandos is this thing.
The thing are six paper sheets cover in small, black letters by one Finyaquen Ormenis. The handwriting is good enough, but the words, the sentences are, in Curufinwë Fëanaro's eyes, nothing but unelvish gibberish: twisted orthography and tortured pronunciation all over, turning what is supposed to be an essay concerning the split between Vanyarin and Noldorin Quenya into six sheets of unreadable content.
For a full minute, the loremaster stands still over his desk. He is a master of the Lambengolmor, an erudite of almost unmatched skills and knowledge. Fëanaro considers correcting the whole thing, covering the entire offending pages with ink red as blood.
Ultimately, he dips his goose feather in crimson and writes two sentences before moving on.
Students are expected to provide legible work. Thou shalt rewrite thine dissertation in proper Quenya.
One week later, Fëanaro finds the six sheets pined to the wall of his class room; in the most prestigious Tirion University, a sprawling institution he helped to build and prosper, the offending dissertation has been covered in deep blue letters.
Ain't ya teachers supposed to know how to read real Qenya?
He rips the paper from the wall. There is an ominous silence in his amphitheater. Fëanaro does not need to enquire about the whereabouts of Finyaquen Ormenis: she is, at this moment, the focus point of all stares, arms crossed in a gesture of defiance. Her father or mother named her the Vehement One and Fëanaro thinks, rather unkindly, that the derogatory designation is most appropriate.
"Get thee gone from this assembly."
The girl tips her shin up. By the sight of her long dangly limbs, flat chest, and the roundness of a face still not completely out of childhood, she must be Fëanaro's youngest student, barely out of adolescence.
"Nah!" She clamors. "Watcha gonna do? Drag me out?"
"I shall not repeat myself. Thou hast no place amongst us scholars."
"Why?"
"This honorable university," Fëanaro starts, voice boiling with barely suppressed disdain, "is a house of knowledge and dedication to the beauty and purity of our beloved language. This house shall not be tainted by thine corrupted, barely audible speech."
If anything, the girl seems more determined to stay riveted to her desk.
"If ya can't understand me then ya oughta get out ya palace more cause that's how ya people are talking."
At the end, it is not Fëanaro who makes her leave but two outraged female students; by this time the course has degenerated into a shouting match, one dangly, freckled girl against a flock of pupils angered by the defiance thrown at the face of their much admired teacher.
Finyaquen Ormenis's second paper is as disastrous as the first. As he did the first time Fëanaro simply writes Thou shalt rewrite thine dissertation in proper Quenya and reads none of it. As she did the first time but scaling up her anger, Ormenis nails the offending pages on the door of the Lambengolmor University of Tirion.
Ain't ya supposed to teach about language change?
He rips the sheets and throw them in the gutter. When he enters the classroom and finds her stubbornly seated at the front, arms crossed and ready for a fight, he knows this is going to be yet another disrupted course. Fëanaro refrains from dragging her out himself, nails digging into his palms as she screams that he's nothing but an obnoxious privileged jerk. Fëanaro doesn't know the last word, but he can guess it is derogatory.
There is a royal guard at the door of the university now. Fëanaro did not ask for that. Another scholar says the guard is there to keep the door from being vandalized again, but the prince is not an idiot and knows the guard is also supposed to keep her out.
Two days later, she is sitting in his class again.
"Watcha gonna do?!" She yells. Her voices goes up and more high-pitched at the end of her sentences. More than her open hostility, it is the improper tone that irks Fëanaro. "Are ya gonna put guards in front of every windows? Why dontcha learn how to teach instead?"
She hands in her third essay.
Thou shalt rewrite thine dissertation in proper Quenya.
One week later, Nerdanel asks him why they received a badly bound Dictonary Of Actual Nowadays Qenya. Fëanaro almost burns it and ultimately hides in where he is sure he will not see it.
She sits at the front row again with angry eyes and brown hair that has seen better days, crumpled clothes and bags under her eyes.
They last two minutes before the shouting begins.
She hands in her fourth essay.
Thou shalt rewrite thine dissertation in proper Quenya.
Two weeks later, one of his students brings Fëanaro a copy of his most renowned essay, Translated And Commented In Modern Qenya by Finyaquen, that has apparently been left right in the middle of the University's prized library.
Fëanaro does not yell. The poor student looks terrorized enough as it is.
Fëanaro considers not going to the University.
He wonders when he became such a coward and goes anyway. She is not there.
Later this night, when Nerdanel asks why he is so tensed, he lies and says it is nothing.
She shows up at Curufinwë Atarinkë ceremony. Fëanaro is not the one awarding the prized position of Lore Master to his son, but he is glowing with pride anyway.
He watches her by the corner of his eyes during the whole ceremony. There is a wolfish gleam in her eyes and tension in Fëanaro's spin, anger building up as he wonders if she intends to spoil his son's ceremony for petty vengeance, if this some kind of plot from Nolofinwë to undermine him, his work and his family.
She does not. The bitter taste is still there.
She hands in her fifth essay. Nerdanel asks if, perhaps, he would not consider reading it.
Thou shall rewrite thine dissertation in proper Quenya.
Three days later, he finds her standing in his place pretending to teach. The shouting match degenerate to such proportions they crack one of the room's windows.
She hands in her sixth essay, written in actual, proper Quenya. The handwriting is shaky and somehow familiar and some sentences weirdly constructed, but Fëanaro is surprised by the amount of cleverness and knowledge. He does not understand why someone with such talent would be so aggravating, so happy to indulge in coarseness and degenerated slangs.
She never comes back to his classes.
At first he is merely relieved. The old flame of teaching is gone though, and he takes no pleasure in repeating over and over the same things, knowing that ever since Curufinwë Atarinkë graduated, his best student was, in fact, the only one he could not talk with.
One month later, he finds her attending one of Curufinwë's classes. She stills speaks in this horrific manner of her but there is no shouting. She pretends she does not sees her former teacher.
He corners his son at the end of his course with the nagging feeling that something is not right. All it takes is one scathing look for Curufinwë to blunder that he translated and rewrote the girl's essay with his left hand.
"Thou wert so unhappy! I thought she would stop harassing thee, if only she believed thou hadst read and reviewed her work."
The next morning, Fëanaro leaves for Alqualondë.
When he comes back to Tirion, Fëanaro finds the girl teaching in the middle of a small plaza, a few streets away from the Lambengolmor. He has been gone for almost three years, on and off, travelling through Aman with one son or another.
She is taller than he remembers, her cheeks less round, looking more like a young adult now. She recognizes him as soon as he does. Her public turns toward him, eyes wide as recognition shows on the young faces.
She recovers fast, he can grant her that.
"Long time no see, Lore Master."
He voice still goes up at the end of sentence.
"Indeed, student."
He hears the whisper. We didn't know she used to be Prince Fëanaro's student.
"Wanna hang out?"
His mind takes its time to process what she means.
"I shall talk with thee, if thou so wishest."
"I'd like that, thank ya."
Three days later, they are sitting awkwardly outside the great walls of Tirion. She is a little more polished, her thick brown hair tied less loosely than back at the plaza.
"So I wanna say I am sorry I was such a jerk to ya. I ain't gonna lie, I'm not really proud."
"I suppose the blame resteth with both of us. The content of thine papers was promising."
"Ya wanna know why the commotion?"
He nods silently.
"When I was little I loved to read. I read a lot. I ain't gonna lie, I read loads and loads from you. Everything about Kwenya and Quenya. Felt like the world opened to me. All the books were written in another Quenya, not the Qenya from my city block. I didn't understand why them in the palace didn't speak like us? Then I read you, everything 'bout how the languages splits and the changes and I was like: that's so clear, everythin' makes so much sense! I felt so good, being actually really good at something."
She's still got some enormous eyes, too big for her freckled face.
"Lemme tell you, when I heard you for real? I believed I was dreaming. I didn't think ya talked in real life like you write, ya know? But ya do. I really wanted to impress ya so much, but then? You didn't want to read anything in my language. Like, I liked the way ya spoke but mine wasn't good enough for ya? I could have changed the way I speak. Didn't want to. I felt really betrayed. Ya were the world to me then and ya betrayed me."
"Thou art teaching now. Why dost you speak in the streets?"
She shrugs.
"People at the University aren't quite happy about ya departure and the screaming and the papers I nailed on the doors ya know? I'm not really welcomed there but I wanna teach so. I do so in the streets. Ya? What are you up to these days?"
"I am examining the merits of seashells and acoustics."
"You gonna explain because I can't see the thing with seashells. Ya wanna work about how we hear the sea inside?"
"No." Fëanaro fetches some paper and a charcoal pen from his saddle bag, draws a crude scallop shell and starts to explain how the shape, in his opinion, could improve the way sounds travels in closed room, and how he would like to experiment on this. She looks like she understands half of the concepts, but then, Fëanaro is renowned for being talented in more fields than any other, and it is good enough that she excels in one field. "I believe this system would be most appropriate for a classroom."
"Are ya planning to rebuild the old Lambengolmor building?"
"While I entertained the idea, it hath since then occurred to me another University hath more merits. It is a grievous shame for our great city that scholars such as thyself must teach in our streets."
"Ya gonna teach in there too?"
"I do not believe I will, save perhaps in many decades. The enjoyment was gone before thou wert my student. Curufinwë, on the other hands, shall be most acclaimed if his achievements are perceived as separate from my own. Nay, I shall not teach in this University, but I shall have much joy in building a true palace of knowledge. Furthermore," he is surprised that he smiles, "dost thou believe thee and I can share a school?"
"Betcha not. I don't know which of us is gonna be the first to throw books and stuffs at the other's face."
"Many words have been spoken on the matter of my temper."
"My father named me the Violent One, beat that!" Her laugh is clear and high-pitched. "Ya know, three years ago I thought you were a louse, but you're actually, well… more like the Fëanaro Curufinwë I wanted to know in the past? Thank ya. For givin' me a chance."
When he gets back home, Fëanaro needs a full hour to get his hand on his Dictonary Of Actual Nowadays Qenya and much less time to find the word "louse".