1495
"Anyone would think Artanis didn't like Tirion!"
"Now, whyever would Artanis not like Tirion?"
"I don't know, dear. But - but - she does not seem to spend very much time here, does she? I mean - first Valinor, now Alqualondë!"
"You wanted her to study in the house of Yavanna. It was your idea."
"Yes; but I do not know if I properly considered what might come of it."
"What? What might come of it?"
"I don't know! But, Anairë, are there not some things that it is better not to know? Sometimes too much knowledge can make a person all - I don't know! - discontented. If they cannot find a way to put it to use. Don't you see?"
Anairë merely shook her head and smiled.
The occasion of this conversation was one of Artanis' increasingly rare appearances in Tirion, at her eldest brother's betrothal to the Vanya Amárië. Artanis' behaviour at this time had indeed been decidedly odd. Arriving at her father's house on the Day before the ceremony, she had failed - again! - to give her mother any logical description of her activities in Alqualondë; nor had she agreed to stay for a few Days after the feast.
There hung about her an unexplained atmosphere of haste and activity, most surprising to Eärwen, who remembered the Haven of Swans from her childhood as a place of sweet serenity where almost nothing ever happened: a place that she had tried to recreate in the space of her own home. Arafinwë, who had visited Artanis there several times, reported that she was always pursuing mysterious projects in the company of a young cousin, Eärwen's nephew Teleporno.
Anairë was pettishly annoyed by the sadness and anxiety that had woven their misty tendrils around her friend. Dear little Eärwen had so clearly been born to be happy. If she was unhappy, then something had gone wrong with the world. It was like a confirmation of Lalwen's constant sulks and refusal to accept Nolofinwë's authority as regent of Eldamar; of Findekáno's nervous depression, Artelda's new wildness and Indis' cool impenetrability. Could none of them see how much better a place to live in Tirion had become, now that Fëanáro and his most diehard followers were no longer in evidence?
Respectable women could once again walk the streets without hearing their husbands insulted. Servants of the Valar could rest, without fear of Fëanáro's crude rabble-rousing. And there was no denying, however fond one might be of him, that Anairë's father-in-law had of late been too absorbed in abstract questions to operate as much of an active ruler. Nolofinwë was far more dynamic.
The common people at least seemed to understand these things: Anairë was often surprised and gratified by spontaneous demonstrations of support. Only the other Day, a woman had called down the blessings of the Valar upon her in the street. Nolofinwë might not be much of a public speaker, but he was in face and thought a true son to Finwë Noldóran. Fëanáro was too much the child of his unaccountable little mother for public taste.
And yet Eärwen was sad.