The differences in how to spell

Celebrimbor knew that something had gone wrong on the lesson in writing Tengwar, from the way Rûsa stormed out from the house under a almost literal hail storm of swear words that must have its origins in Angband.

"Curufinwë Atarinkë! What did you do to make your nephew trying to geld you?!"

From the shocked, and not so little angry voice of Nerdanel somewhere in the house, she had heard it as well and found her third-youngest son in a likely less than graceful position.

"I knew that Atar was not a good choice for being a replacement teacher, when he is so much of a perfectionist in how to spell words right…he really is well-named after Haru Fëanor there…." Celebrimbor thought in private as he put back his book on the stone bench, using the Quenya words for father and grandfather as he always had done in his life, even after switching to Sindarin in Middle-Earth so long ago.

Master Rúmil of Tirion, who once again had taken up his old position as teacher to the House of Fëanor to its currently youngest and secret family member that only the Elves in Formenos knew about, had needed to travel back to Tirion for some weeks because of some important meetings with his fellow scholars and loremasters at the Royal Academy. Neither Fëanor himself or any of his reborn children had came along, they knew that their mere presence in Tirion would cause a lot of unease because of all the history with the Oath and Kinslayings.

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Having a reasonable guess where his younger cousin had hidden himself, Celebrimbor went upwards to the house roof by using the marble staircase his grandfather once had done so long ago in the Years of the Trees while living in Exile there. Now, however, it was more or less a permanent house for Fëanor and his family since none of them wanted to return to Tirion, even if nearly all the children had moved out after their rebirth. Only Maedhros and Rûsa lived there now with her parents, as Maedhros could need help in caring for her unusual son at times even if Rûsa had improved in both behavior and personality over the years since he was reborn.

"Did my father earn another taste of how well you can headbutt, even in this tiny body?"

"I used the fruit bowl as a way to remind him that I am used to improvise with different things like weapons. Rather useful helmet for a headbutt as well, if you throw out the fruit on the table first," was all Rûsa explained without looking away from where he had his eyes focused on the distance. There was still a anger in his voice, visible in all the small body by the way he was tensed up. Celebrimbor sat down with crossed legs beside his cousin.

"I tried to tell father that uncle Maglor was a better choice now when Rúmil is away, because he can at least use his songs to show how the difference between how a word is spoken or written, but no, he refused to listen. Insisted on that since he is the only sibling with a child of his own, he could do it. I think he forgot that Haru Fëanor often had to correct Atar's own grammar errors back in his youth, because Atar really wanted to make Haru proud of him. I think Atar forgot that Maglor raised two Peredhil foster sons with the help of your mother."

Rûsa snorted. Maglor was not afraid of revealing various events in which Elrond and Elros had not been the best of students in the classroom, telling his nephew that there was no such thing as perfect. Children learned differently, that was the secret to make things well.

"Uncle Curufin is the only one to claim that I need to write the right grammar, when both master Rúmil and even Haru is in agreement that my issues lays with trouble in finding the link between how the letters look and how they sound!"

Celebrimbor sighed again, Rûsa had suffered from analfabetism while living as a slave in Angband and here in Valinor, it was a great handicap in social life if someone did not know how to read or write. As a member of the Noldor royal family, it was even more important that Rûsa had such a basic education.

"I will tell you this. Your current handwriting is a lot more legible than what Haru himself wrote when he first created the Tengwar. If there is any grammar errors to be read, it is in that first version before he refined it."

"Really?" Rûsa asked in an understandable skepticism.

"Narvi and I have the original notes with early Tengwar in our house, we borrowed them from Haru to see how the grammar had changed over the centuries even if the spelling is the same. And she have brought some cookies from her sister Loki this time that I think she would like to share in exchange for a nice drawing for us to have over the fireplace," Celebrimbor offered with a smile. He knew that Rûsa had signs of a great artist even from the most simple drawings Rûsa first had tried to make with crayons as a toddler.

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After some nice tea and cookies with Narvi before she went back to her work as a stonemason, Celebrimbor showed Rûsa the old notes with early Tengwar.

"If you ever gets a sibling, Cel, I hope that it will be girl. Ammë is tired of being the only female Fëanorian born into the family and would like some nieces rather than more nephews in our generation, she have said a couple of times," Rûsa said after feeling how his head started to spin from the unreadable alphabet in front of him. He knew that Fëanor was a genius, but even geniuses had to start from scratch somewhere.

"Well, then she secretly agrees with me and Narvi about that gender we would like to have on a child between us. We may not ever get a child because we did try for that even back in the Second Age without any effort resulting in a pregnancy for as long as Narvi still held promise of being fertile before she entered old age, and Dwarven pregnancies are rare enough as they are. But yes, some more female Fëanorians born into the family tree would be nice."

Looking around, Rûsa noticed something on some parchments where Narvi had written some messengers in Runes. Namely that with his difficulties to read, his mind read her name as Ngarvi or Ñarvi, depending on where she had written her name. He showed it on a free parchment for Celebrimbor, who did not seem too surprised over the two different spellings.

"I think that shows how you may have caught up on the Dwarven Runes you attempted to read last time we visited her side of the family, and mentally tries to translate it into Tengwar because you are more used to that written script. And I have heard Elves in different dialects say her name with different emphasis on certain letters in her name," he explained so Rûsa would not feel bad over it.

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Naturally, Rûsa did not escape some punishment for his action against Curufin and for once again using the awful language of Angband the whole family tried to make him stop using, but Maedhros only found it a fitting way to remind him that just because Celebrimbor had been a easy student whatever Curufin had wanted to teach him, Rûsa was a very different challenge.

Curufin ended up walking in pretty funny manner for days after being hit in a such tender spot on his body, avoiding the classroom where Maglor now had taken over the lessons with their nephew.