Chapter summary: Curufinwë and Netyarë settled into married life; one day a new evening ritual is cut short by his impatience. This is the epilogue and where the story ends.
A/N: This is the last bit of this story! A fluffy, happy little epilogue that feels a bit unnecessary, and very short, after two long chapters of fluff. I hope you enjoy it anyway.
Chapter IX / Epilogue / After-dinner work
After the first few days of their marriage have passed in a heady rush, they fall into shared routines so fast and so easily that they both marvel at it.
As neither of them likes to rise either particularly early or unusually late, they discover that it is easy to wake at the same time. Finding the right time to do so does take a few days, for at first they do not remember to allow any time for delays in leaving the bed and end up going to the day's work late, since they inevitably find each other's sleep-flushed forms irresistible.
They breakfast together in their kitchen, as the dining room is still unfinished. Curufinwë goes to work on it after Netyarë kisses him goodbye and goes to paint a commissioned mural in a lord's house nearby.
The day is spent pursuing the respective crafts they love, the midday meal of both a hurried thing eaten while looking at the work of their hands and planning for the next steps. They do not take a long break from work after their wedding. This lack of proper honeymoon certainly does not mean that they have less passion for each other than any other newlywed couple, but perhaps demonstrates that they understand one another's passion for craft and art better than most.
Instead, they attend fewer parties and gatherings for a while and see less of their families and friends; they are forgiven for this, though they hardly realise their negligence and do not remember to apologise for it. And if their working days are sometimes interrupted by thoughts or memories of bodies tangled up together, of moans smothered by fierce kisses or, simply, of shared laughter, their handiwork does not suffer enough for it that anyone could notice except Fëanáro, and he will stay silent this once because he can see how happy his son is.
Coming home for dinner is sweeter than ever before for both Netyarë and Curufinwë and coming home to the house that belongs to just the two of them feels natural from the first, since for the whole year of their betrothal they dreamed, planned and worked on making it their beautiful home.
Sometimes their dinner is eaten when it is already cold, because other demands their bodies make take precedence, and sometimes it is eaten in bed or with her sitting in his lap. (This is the great merit of Netyarë's petite stature, Curufinwë has realised: how easy it is to hold her, to keep embracing her even as they do something else at the same time. As for her, she has always wished for the tall and elegant figure that is considered the most beautiful among their people, but now that wish is disappearing rapidly. There is no place better than within her husband's arms.)
After dinner they like to work for a little while again, to plan and design or write up notes of the work completed on that day. They labour in silence, but next to each other.
One night a few weeks after their wedding Curufinwë is overcome by a strange feeling as he and Netyarë sit at opposite sides of a table, both scribbling on parchment. He is calculating ideal proportions for a new kind of throwing spear Tyelcormo wants to try making, and she is drawing preliminary coal sketches for a large fresco that she will paint in their dining room once her current commission is finished.
The strange feeling is happiness, Curufinwë realises. This is what pure happiness feels like. With his impatient and irritable nature he rarely experiences it. But now, at this moment, he is exactly where he wants to be, and he feels nothing that he needs to push aside or bury deep inside him. All that he feels is good and right.
At first the happiness fills him with a sense of serenity, but then, as he steals glances at her lithe fingers flying across the parchment and her lustrous hair that has escaped its confines so she has to flick it away from her face every now and then, the serenity fades and is replaced by desire. Calm between the two of them never lasts long.
Curufinwë's concentration on his calculations has vanished, and he lays aside his quill and breaks the silence.
'This is lovely, sitting here with you, both of us working.'
Netyarë looks up, distracted but smiling. 'Yes, it is. Lonely work is better when you are with someone whose company you enjoy, even if all you do is share the space.'
He stands up, walks around the table and takes her hand, her left one where there are slightly fewer coal smudges. 'Let's go to bed.'
She is happy to get up at once to go with him but as she rises from her chair she says, laughing, 'This is lovely so you want to end it to do something else? You really are a contrary creature.'
'Yet you married me', he says. He leads her into a few steps of the dance he taught her, then sweeps her into his arms to carry her to their bedchamber. 'And you really should have learnt by now that the nature of this contrary creature is such that whatever he likes doing with you, he likes taking you to bed best of all.'
A/N: Thank you for reading, and especially warm thanks to those who have reviewed! Reviews are still very welcome.
There are three sequels for this story that have been posted on this website, and you can find them via my profile.
One is a K+-rated one-shot called A name of foresight, and it is a combination of fluff and angst that takes place just after Celebrimbor/Tyelperinquar's birth.
The second is a 4-chapter angstfest called Burning out, a M-rated (mainly to be on the safe side, I believe it's very mild for M) exploration of Netyarë and Curufin's marriage slowly breaking apart in the leadup to the exile of the Noldor.
The third one is a T-rated one-shot called Her unwilling presence. It's an angsty exploration of Curufin and Celegorm's thoughts in Beleriand when Celegorm falls in love with Lúthien and this causes Curufin to think of his own now-twisted feelings for Netyarë.
