Chapter 2: Rekindling
The first few days after Fëanáro's departure are quiet.
Those of Nerdanel's sons that live with her do not comment on their father's move to the cottage on the edge of the estate. She initially wonders if they are displeased, but she catches Maitimo stepping on Tyelkormo's foot under the breakfast table one morning when Tyelkormo frowns at her and opens his mouth to speak – and Nerdanel comes to understand that this is her sons' method of allowing her time.
Fëanáro, true to his word, has not ventured near the main house. Occasionally, Nerdanel will venture out to the balcony of her chamber before retiring for the night, and watch the red glow of the forge in the distance, past the outer gardens. The few times she rises in the middle of the night and does the same, the glow of the forge does not fade; Fëanáro must be working well into the early hours of the morning.
The sight would once have brought a bitter taste to Nerdanel's mouth; a reminder of his years of obsession with perfecting his Silmarils. Now that she knows he is working like so to craft his final gift to her, the bitterness in her mouth has changed to that of self-doubt.
Does she…does she truly wish this to be the remainder of their existence?
Still, it is…peaceful, to be able to walk the corridors of her home without the possible reminder of his fiery gaze around every corner.
Peaceful, but far more lonely.
Nerdanel catches herself, hands stilling on the stonework of her latest project.
She has not given thought to her loneliness out of force of habit for millennia. To think of the concept of loneliness at all in those first few decades after Formenos then the flight of the Noldor would have broken her entirely; she had trained herself out of considering herself lonely after news of Morgoth's fall had come, and Makalaurë's fëa continued to exist in her awareness, a single candle where his brothers and father had all been snuffed out.
But Fëanáro–
Oh, how she misses him, even now when he is only separated from her by a stretch of estate grounds.
Nerdanel grits her teeth and sets to chipping away at the block of marble with renewed determination. Missing her husband means nothing when she cannot forget he has also wronged her so – when they cannot hold a conversation without raised voices.
A small, quiet part of her notes that in their last conversation, she had been the only one shouting; he had shown none of the quick anger of his youth as she had expected, but only looked as though he wished to comfort her.
Then he had straightened, apologised, and informed her he would be leaving, so as not to cause her further pain.
All while appearing as though he was in far more agony.
And his eyes.
It was almost as though she had snuffed out his flame – a task she would have been the first to say was impossible.
Nerdanel's chisel slips off the marble at an awkward angle, sending great uneven chips of stone scattering over her work-apron. She throws down chisel and hammer with a frustrated hiss.
"Damn it all," she growls.
Nerdanel brushes the stone dust off her hands, tosses aside her apron, and goes in search of her eldest son.
She finds Maitimo in Makalaurë's room. Makalaurë is sitting at his largest harp, alternating between plucking notes and scowling as he scribbles furiously on a sheet of parchment; Maitimo lounges carelessly on the windowsill, balancing a book on one bent knee. His hair is like flame against the light from the window.
Both her sons look up at the sound of her footsteps, and immediately straighten, eyes alert.
"Ammë?" Makalaurë says, standing. "Is something the matter?"
Nerdanel startles. "No, nothing like that. I–" she turns to her eldest. "Maitimo, if I could have a word?"
A moment, where Maitimo and Makalaurë glance at each other, a flicker of ósanwë passing between them.
Maitimo stands fluidly. "Of course," he says, placing aside his book.
Makalaurë gives Maitimo a pointed look as he passes, and Maitimo nods once. Seemingly satisfied, Makalaurë returns to his harp.
Nerdanel fights to keep her expression neutral. Her eldest sons have always been close, but since their return they seem almost to move as one unit, knowing each other's thoughts and wishes in a moment.
She holds open the door for Maitimo to enter the corridor, and closes it behind her.
"Ammë?" Maitimo says, expectant.
"I noted," Nerdanel begins, and stops. The words are sticking in her throat. "I noted you and your brothers took evening meal with your father yesterday."
A measured expression enters Maitimo's gaze. "We did." There is no hint of challenge in his voice, but something about the line of his shoulders suggests he is watching her every word and tone. "Do you dislike that we did?" he enquires lightly, as if asking after the weather.
Nerdanel blinks. "No, not at all. That is your right," she says, and watches as Maitimo relaxes minutely. "Only– that is, I wished to ask– is your father well?"
A moment, where Maitimo looks at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes, and she is reminded terrifyingly of the same expression in Fëanor's gaze when she had not worn the gifts he had given her–
"As well as might be hoped," Maitimo says, diplomatically.
Nerdanel frowns. "What does that mean?"
"I cannot speak for Atar," Maitimo says. "You may ask him yourself, if you wish to know."
"Maitimo," Nerdanel says, but her eldest only kisses her cheek in farewell and re-enters Makalaurë's room, closing the door behind him.
Nerdanel looks at the thick oak door, behind which are the cryptic, indecipherable gazes of her two eldest children.
She is no closer to an answer, but the seeping ache in her chest only grows.
She needs to be out of the house.
(:~:)
Nerdanel visits Anairë, then Eärwen; their laughter only reminds her she has none.
She visits her other children and grandchildren. Atarinkë and Tyelpë are getting along well, and their forge is already overflowing with work and inspiration for new projects; looking at her son and grandson work seamlessly together only makes her think of the lonely glow of Fëanáro's forge.
Carnistir and his wife are still in overjoyed, newly reunited bliss, with his wife eager to speak of her forgiveness of his manifold sins in Middle-Earth, and it leaves a sour taste in Nerdanel's mouth, even though she is glad for her son and daughter-in-law.
She takes a few days to visit Elrond and Celebrían in Avallónë, and finds them quite besotted with each other now they have reconciled. The swell of amusement within Nerdanel at the doe eyes the younger couple make at each other turns to bitterness when she recalls similar teasing towards her and Fëanáro in the earlier days of their marriage, when they could hardly spend an hour apart.
It is as though all Arda is against her.
Nerdanel makes her excuses, re-packs her bags, and makes the journey back to the forested village of her childhood.
Her father is glad to see her, and looks perceptively at the bags under her eyes and the scowl that worries at the corners of her lips.
"Would you like advice, or comfort?" Mahtan asks, putting down his hammer. "I know that look, and I wager I know what upsets you so."
"I have no need for either," Nerdanel says, lifting her chin. "I came to visit because I missed you."
"Thank you, my daughter," Mahtan says, and steps over to embrace her lightly, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as he used to when she was a child. "But I wish you could unburden your heart."
"You know how stubborn I am," Nerdanel says, stepping back.
"That I do," Mahtan laughs. "Would your favourite stew for supper help?"
Nerdanel stamps down on the memory of Fëanáro serving her second helpings of her favourite stew at supper without her needing to ask, despite the gap of seven thousand years since he had last done so.
"Yes," she tells her father. "I would like that."
She leaves her father to prepare evening meal and stomps off.
Down the dirt path and through the trees to her favourite haunt; why yes, there is her favourite tree, its flowers in the full bloom of late summer, gilded golden in the afternoon sunlight. The tree is ancient compared to her younger days, now; the trunk many times the girth of what it was when she was a girl.
And yet, stepping into the soft carpet of fallen golden petals and pressing her hand to the silvery bark, there is one memory that rises over all the others.
It was here Fëanáro had presented her with a silver comb inlaid with mother-of-pearl; he had placed it among the fire of her messy curls with reverent fingers, clasped her fingers in his, and asked for her hand.
When she had answered yes, he had smiled, thumbed away the first happy tear on her cheek, and pressed his lips to hers.
I plight my troth to you, Nerdanel daughter of Mahtan, and pledge to live my days with you until the second singing should come, and Arda is remade.
Nerdanel snaps her eyes open.
Her cheeks are wet.
Fëanáro had broken that promise.
But perhaps…perhaps he might be willing to make another, if she would allow him.
Nerdanel gasps in a breath, wipes a hand across her face, and turns to sprint back to her father's house.
Her father, to his credit, does not question her tearstained face or her wild, slightly incoherent explanation that she is going home. He only hands her a wrapped travelling pot of stew, kisses the top of her head, and tells her he is proud of her.
That very nearly brings Nerdanel to tears again, and she swipes at the crystalline trails down her cheeks as she leaps ahorse and rides for Tirion at full gallop.
She rides through the night, and reaches her house – her and Fëanáro's house – as the first glimmer of dawn appears through the pass of Calacirya.
She leaves her horse with a groom who is still bleary-eyed with sleep, and runs across the misty outer gardens with her travelling cloak flaring behind her like a ghostly pennant, her hair unraveling in a cloud of fire around her head.
Nerdanel flies through the wrought iron gate of the little cottage, up the dirt path, and bursts into the forge.
Darkness.
No, not quite; there is the merest ember still glowing in the dimming fire of the forge far across the chamber.
And there before the forge, sitting with his head bowed over something in his hands, outlined by the faint, ruddy glow of the single, dying ember, is Fëanáro.
Nerdanel blinks. In the darkness she can just about make out the graceful angle of his jaw, the sharp line of his nose.
He is looking at her, she realises abruptly. Looking at her silhouetted in the faint dawn light with her hair in a fiery cloud about her head and her dusty travelling cloak rumpled about her.
"Nerdanel?"
There is something not quite right about the rasp of his voice. She frowns, but she cannot place it.
His head lowers a little again as she frowns, and Nerdanel grits her teeth because she cannot understand why that causes her heart to twist as it does.
Now that her eyes have adjusted to the gloom, she notes that he is working tenderly at something between his fingers – something silvery-white, half wrapped in a polishing cloth.
"Come to supper tonight," she says abruptly.
The outline of his head snaps up towards her. "What?" he says hoarsely.
"Come to supper tonight," she says irritably, fighting the urge to stomp her foot like a child. "We'll be expecting you. Don't be late."
She spins on a heel to flee, and makes it two steps down the path before she registers the weight in her hand – the travelling pot of stew her father had made for her. The pot is well made, enchanted to stay warm even after a night of travelling.
Nerdanel looks from the still-warm pot to the closed door of the workshop.
Gritting her teeth, she stomps back up the path. The door flies open just as she reaches it; she nearly runs right into Fëanáro.
A moment, where she catches herself, one hand against his collarbone and the other still clasping the travelling pot somewhere about his waist. Fëanáro's hands have come up automatically around her shoulders, stopping her from crashing into his chest.
Stillness.
His breath ruffles her hair. She looks up at him then, her estranged husband, and reads exhaustion in every line of his face – from his red-rimmed eyes to the shadows under his eyes, to the wry line of his chapped lips and his unraveling braids.
And yet, as she looks into his eyes, their faces less than a handsbreadth apart, she reads something terrifyingly like hope in his gaze.
Nerdanel takes a breath so sharp it aches, and pushes against his chest. He lets her go willingly, hands falling to his sides.
The hope in his gaze is faltering, now, like a last ember about to be snuffed out.
She raises a hand and slams the travelling pot into his chest. He chokes as the breath is knocked out of him, his hands scrabbling to support the wrapped package before it should fall.
Nerdanel knows by the heat on her cheeks that they must be the same colour as her hair, now.
"Eat that for breakfast," she orders him. "And get some sleep before you die of overwork, you bastard. I won't forgive you for doing that twice."
She turns and flees before he can reply, and feels his gaze on her, focused and intense, the entire way across the grounds as she sprints up to the main house.
(:~:)
"Your father is coming to supper," she informs Maitimo and Makalaurë midway through the morning.
Maitimo looks up sharply from his book. Makalaurë's harpsong stops abruptly.
"That is well," Maitimo says. Makalaurë looks contemplative.
Nerdanel retreats through the door before her expression can betray her.
She finds Tyelkormo practicing archery in the range.
"Your father is coming to supper," she says.
His next arrow goes wide, and he mutters some excuse or another for it.
She pretends not to notice all his other arrows in a perfect cluster around the bullseye of the target.
The Ambarussa are sparring in the training area, and Nerdanel waits until a pause in their match before informing them as well.
Telufinwë drops his sword. This has the benefit of causing Pityafinwë to laugh too hard at his twin to continue the question he had obviously been about to ask.
Nerdanel is saved from having to inform her other two sons, given they are living elsewhere. In truth, she is somewhat relieved. She does not think she could endure the mortification of having to do so.
(:~:)
Nerdanel appears for supper that evening dressed in a perfectly normal dress. She had dithered for a moment over what to do with her hair before scraping it messily into some semblance of order and snatching up a comb from her sideboard to fix it in place as she kicks open her room door.
Fëanáro is already there when she arrives; there is a single, agonising moment when it is just the two of them at the head of the table, looking at each other; then he steps to the side and pulls out her chair for her, and she moves to sit as their sons arrive.
To Nerdanel's relief, supper proceeds as it did before Fëanáro left – the two of them speak of matters unrelated to their marriage, and their sons fill in the rest with mundane chatter.
As for the rest, well – if Tyelkormo and the twins keep sneaking glances at the head of the table towards her and Fëanáro, that is not too much of a problem.
What might be a problem is that Fëanáro keeps staring at her hair.
Nerdanel initially wonders if she had tangled it in her haste, but none of the their sons have chosen to comment on it, and surely one of them would have said something if that were true.
So she carefully angles her silver goblet the next time she takes a sip of wine, and glances at her reflection.
An icy hand of mortification grips her spine.
The comb in her hair – the comb she had snatched up from her sideboard without noting its design on the way out of her chamber–
It is the exquisitely designed silver and mother-of pearl comb he crafted for her a month ago, the twin of the one he gave her when he asked for her hand.
She has given Fëanáro entirely the wrong impression.
"Nerdanel?" Fëanáro is looking at her in concern; her sons are as well. "Are you well?"
"I–" Nerdanel's cheeks burn. She stands abruptly, and feels as though she might die of embarrassment when her husband and sons all stand with her.
"Ammë?" Maitimo looks alarmed.
"I– I need a moment," Nerdanel mumbles. "Please. Continue."
She turns and moves as quickly and steadily as she can for the corridor; once the door is closed behind her she breaks into a run, down the marble floors and up the stairs into the cool quiet of the library.
She tears the comb from her hair and throws open a window, washing the library in starlight; the cold night air is a blessing on her flaming face, and she places both hands on the windowsill, still clutching the comb in one hand.
"Nerdanel?"
Nerdanel whirls in place in a fan of crimson hair. The comb falls to the carpet as her hands fly to her face.
Fëanáro's brow is still creased in concern. The yellow diamonds in his hair glitter in the starlight, shining against his sable hair like lanterns on a midnight sea.
Nerdanel buries her face further into her hands. This is no time to be thinking about diamonds in Fëanáro's hair.
The sound of his footsteps draw closer, and the back of his hand presses against her brow.
She muffles the undignified noise that threatens to escape her lips. It is a relief when his hand disappears from her brow.
"You don't have a fever," he murmurs, with a faint note of relief. "Nerdanel, what has happened? Are you ill?"
"No," she mumbles, lowering her hands a little to look at him. "I– I made a mistake."
Hurt washes into his grey eyes, turns them somber.
"I see," he says quietly, and takes a step back. "I will take my leave immediately."
"No!" the exclamation escapes her before she is aware of it. Her ears burn.
Fëanáro looks at her, confusion furrowing his brow in the starlight. "Nerdanel?"
"I–" Nerdanel looks to the carpet, the window – anything to avoid his gaze. "The comb," she mumbles.
"The comb," Fëanáro repeats, an odd look on his face.
"I didn't– I didn't intend to wear that comb," Nerdanel mumbles into her fingers. "I never intended to give you the wrong impression. I only discovered halfway through supper."
"Ah." Something peculiar is happening to Fëanáro's face. If she didn't know better, she would think he is almost about to laugh. "Nerdanel, you do not need to concern yourself about that. My opinion matters little."
"But it does!" Nerdanel retorts, flinging down her hands, only to belatedly realise what she has said.
Something like surprise appears on Fëanáro's features. "My opinion matters to you?"
Nerdanel stares at him.
She is surprised to find the answer is yes.
He reads the answer in her eyes, and for the first time in a long, long while, the corner of his mouth twitches in a faint smile.
Ah, damn it all, Nerdanel thinks, looking at the smile that had made her go weak at the knees in her youth. Damn, damn, damn.
"I was already damned once," Fëanáro says, smile widening as the flames of his fëa grow in brightness, and Nerdanel looks away, tamping down her traitorous, galloping heart and unshielded mind.
"Don't joke about that," she says through gritted teeth.
Fëanáro sobers instantly, and she feels his flame recede as neatly as though she had drenched him with ice.
"I apologise," he murmurs, and Nerdanel feels so absolutely awful and angry, most of all with herself, that she spins in place a jabs a finger in his chest.
"You've apologised for that already," she snarls. "You've damn well near apologised for everything I accused you of. There's no need for you to continue to apologise, only–" She swallows. "Only I'm so angry with you." Her voice breaks. "And I miss you so much."
Fëanáro had begun to lower his gaze, but his eyes snap back to hers at the catch in her voice. The meaning behind her words catches up to him a moment later, and the spluttering ember in his eyes flares to brilliant flame; wild, impossible hope.
"Nerdanel?" he whispers.
Nerdanel's accusatory finger is still buried in the cloth over his sternum; she feels her face twist with the beginning of tears as she pulls her hand away, but his hand rises to catch hers, and she finds herself suddenly holding on to his fingers as though she is drowning.
"I want to forgive you," she sobs through her tears. "I want to, but I've been angry for so long."
His arms come up hesitantly around her, and she buries her face in his chest and floods the front of his robes with ugly tears. Her arms wind around his back, and surely she must be holding him tightly enough to hurt; but he makes no complaint, only drops his chin to her hair.
And oh, if this isn't what she has yearned for for seven thousand years.
"I don't want to see you," Nerdanel says into his collar. "I also don't want to not be able to see you."
The rumble of a laugh where her cheek is pressed against his collarbone.
Fresh tears spring to her eyes. Another sensation she once took for granted and then longed for once her husband was gone.
Fëanáro holds her tighter. "Well," he says, with a ghost of the teasing lilt to his words that he used to have when they were newly married, "Until you decide, I am here."
Faint pressure against her hair, as though he had pressed his lips to it.
The sensation makes her pause. She leans back in his arms to look up at him. "What were you holding in the forge today?"
She asks because she has to know – she has know if what he had said previously was true.
His smile is faintly edged with bitterness. "Ah. This." One hand disappears around her waist and slips into his pocket; it emerges with a plain silver ring.
Fëanáro holds the ring up to the starlight; it shimmers an unearthly sheen, with faint letters visible on its inner surface.
"It seems the youth of the Noldor nowadays make it a practice to exchange promise rings at their betrothal," he says, with the plain, no-nonsense manner he has when he explains all his works. "This is the perfect result after many imperfect attempts. I bound enchantments for your safety and protection into the metal. I consulted with Curvo and Tyelpë regarding the runes; I knew the importance of being precise. I had intended to forge another for myself if you accepted."
Promise rings.
Old, broken promises–
–and the possibility for new ones.
"You don't have to wear this on your finger," Fëanáro is saying quietly. "I had intended to give you new promises when I gave you this, since I broke my previous pledges when I rode north to Formenos and again when I went east. You can wear it on a leather braid around your neck, where none can see it. But I hope you will accept it as a blessing, even if it might be my last gift to you."
Nerdanel sees how much those last words cost him; his pride, his grief.
She reaches up with one hand to run her thumbtip over his cheekbone, where a single tear had escaped. He leans into her touch.
"Say them to me now," she whispers.
"What?" he looks at her, stunned. His arm loosens about her waist.
She holds him tighter. "Say your new promises to me now," she demands, a trifle impatiently, and his lips part in a brilliant, incandescent smile.
The yellow diamonds really do suit him, Nerdanel thinks, as he draws her close. The starlight turns them to a fire that almost mirrors the fire of his eyes.
Fëanáro leans forward to press his forehead to hers, one arm around her waist and the other clasping her hand, with the promise-ring between their fingers.
"Nerdanel daughter of Mahtan," he whispers. "I once made similar vows to you, and broke them with no heed for your heart; for that I deserved far worse than my fate. But I do now plight my troth to you, by the light of Varda's sky; my life shall be yours, and I will never again break my promise to you, even as Arda is remade."
It is not quite an oath, but the words still bind around them in the song of Eä, an enchantment of their own.
He watches her, waiting, a remnant of fear in his gaze.
"Fëanáro Curufinwë son of Finwë," Nerdanel murmurs, closing her eyes. "I shall be glad to accept your troth."
Fëanáro breathes a laugh against her cheek that breaks off into a half-sob, and Nerdanel opens her eyes to realise he is weeping; silent tears that echo the relief from his unshielded mind pressed against hers.
Nerdanel clears her throat to stop her own tears from rising again. "Fëanáro?"
He looks at her, his expression still blissfully stunned, and fumbles for the ring between their palms. It fits perfectly to Nerdanel's finger.
She examines it in the starlight, and reaches up to touch his cheek again. He presses his free hand over hers.
"I am making your promise ring," she says. "I will not accept any arguments otherwise."
Fëanáro breathes a laugh, and turns his head to press a kiss to her hand, directly over the thin silver band.
"I have no complaints," he murmurs, and she knows he means more than his ring.
She leans her head against his shoulder, burying her face in his collar, and his arms wrap around her again, far more resolutely this time.
"Do you think our sons are still waiting for us to finish supper?" she murmurs into his collarbone.
Fëanáro laughs into her hair. "Maitimo will have the sense to herd them away."
"I don't know who he inherited that sense from," Nerdanel says. Fëanáro's heartbeat is audible against her ear, slow and steady. "We know it wasn't either of us."
"Your father," Fëanáro says.
"Ah," Nerdanel mumbles. "Did you like his stew?"
"Yes," Fëanáro says, lowering his head to press a slow kiss to her brow. "Because you gave it to me."
"Flirt," Nerdanel mutters, and Fëanáro's laughter reverberates through her cheek.
They sway like so for an indeterminate time in the cool air from the window, the pooling starlight a column of diagonal luminance that drenches them both.
"The hour grows late," Fëanáro murmurs into Nerdanel's ear as his arms loosen regretfully about her. "I should–"
"No," Nerdanel mumbles, holding him tighter. "Stay."
Fëanáro's hands still with wonder, then slide into a familiar, steady hold around her weight as Nerdanel stretches up on her tiptoes to kiss him.
(:~:)
Nerdanel is relieved to find none of her sons seem to have yet woken when she leads Fëanáro in by the hand to the breakfast table the next morning.
"Oh, good. None of them are here," she says, resting her hip against a windowsill. "I would have been mortified."
Fëanáro's arms come up around her from behind, and his chin drops to her shoulder. "Why? We arrived at breakfast holding hands for millennia before I left."
Nerdanel turns into his embrace. "Fëanáro, that's not the point and you know it."
He kisses her. "No."
A strangled noise emanates from behind them, and Nerdanel leaps from her husband's arms as though she has been stung. She would have leapt clear across the chamber were it not for Fëanáro catching her hand.
Their eldest son stands in the doorway, looking equal parts overjoyed and mortified.
As Nerdanel contemplates dying of embarrassment, a small part of her optimistically notes that at least it had been Maitimo who found out in this manner; who knows how Tyelkormo would have reacted–
"Maitimo?" Makalaurë's golden voice. "What has happened–"
Their second son stops a step behind his elder brother. There is a sheaf of music in his hand, and a stylus in the other; he stops writing abruptly as he catches sight of Nerdanel and Fëanáro. He is staring specifically at their joined hands.
"Good morning, Nelyo, Káno," Fëanáro says, entirely unaffected. He pulls out a chair for Nerdanel, and Nerdanel sits gratefully.
"Good morning, Atar," Maitimo says smoothly. "Good morning, Ammë."
Nerdanel mumbles something like a passable good morning, and repeats the process with Makalaurë. At the very least there is food; it offers distraction from needing to look anyone in the eye.
Maitimo is valiantly attempting conversation. Makalaurë, Nerdanel notices, continues to add notes to his music notation without pause, humming merrily as he does so.
It takes her a few heartbeats to realise he is humming a popular romantic ballad he had written for her and Fëanáro's anniversary millennia ago.
Fëanáro meets her gaze with a smile, and Nerdanel blushes.
Maitimo smiles thinly, and shifts.
Maglor's next hum cuts off in a grunt of pain, and he glares briefly at his brother before reaching for more gooseberry jam.
Shouting reverberates down the corridor, and Nerdanel closes her eyes briefly–
Tyelkormo and the Ambarussa burst into the breakfast room, already deep into a three-way argument about bowstrings, and nearly run into each other when they catch sight of Fëanáro sitting beside Nerdanel.
Fëanáro, smiling, greets all three by name, and all three bid their parents good morning.
The Ambarussa do not speak as they begin eating, but the flicker of ósanwë between them grows to a frenzy. Tyelkormo is trying and failing to suppress a smile.
All in all, Nerdanel is very glad when breakfast is over.
She murmurs a word to Fëanáro about going to her workshop, but halfway there she looks out the window and glimpses the twins sprinting up the street towards Carnistir's house, wild grins on their faces. She leans out the window, frowning, and spots Tyelkormo running in the other direction, towards Atarinkë's house.
Oh dear.
"Nerdanel?" Fëanáro steps up beside her at the window, one arm pulling her close to his side.
She sighs. "Our sons."
He looks through the window, and smiles. "It's quite all right. Look."
Nerdanel follows his pointing finger and sees Matimo and Makalaurë walk sedately out the front door. They have a brief conversation before Maitimo claps Makalaurë on the shoulder and begins to walk languidly towards Atarinkë's house.
Makalaurë for his part, lets out a sigh before he turns up the street towards Carnistir's house.
Nerdanel blinks.
Fëanáro laughs. "I should think our eldest sons have the matter quite in hand."
His hand finds hers, and pulls her to follow him. She curls her hand in the crook of his elbow, and leans her head on his shoulder; his thumb moves gently over her knuckles.
They wander out to the garden, where the birds flit through the trees above and the wild, rambling flowers bloom, and halt under an apple tree laden with flowers, where the ground is curtained with white petals like snow.
"Here," Fëanáro draws an object from his pocket, and Nerdanel tilts her head, surprised.
"I'd forgotten I dropped that," she says.
He smiles. "May I?"
Nerdanel nods, and he steps close, placing the comb behind her ear, where it glints silver in the morning sun. His fingers cup her cheek as he closes his eyes and presses his brow to hers.
"To a morning of new promises," he whispers, holding her close.
"To a morning of new promises," she murmurs in return.
And, in the garden under the apple blossoms, they are at peace at last.
END
Thanks for reading, everyone! I have many more stories already planned for this series, so follow the series over on AO3 or follow me here on FFN if you'd like to see more. Thanks for the lovely comments and favourites!