Chapter length: ~2,100 words

A/N: A quick refresher on Tuilindien's family for this chapter: her mother is an advisor to Ingwë; father Ingolmo a scholar; older sister Lirulinë had a baby a little over a year before this chapter; younger sister Cantiel is pre-tweenish in human years; youngest sister Wilwarindëa, a toddler.

Chapter III / The joy of houseguests

Tuilindien tries not to get homesick for her old home. She writes to her family often, and gets to know Carnistir's family better, and has tea with Indis and her Vanyarin ladies twice a week, and is as sociable as she can be with new acquaintances that she hopes will become friends. It is often exhausting, and she still gets homesick.

Though she wants and tries to avoid self-pity, there are days when it is difficult to do any more than what she has committed to, days when she would rather stay at home and curl up in a blanket with Snowdrop purring in her lap and Cinder napping somewhere nearby, and Carnistir somewhere close enough that she can feel the warmth of his spirit touching hers.

It is colder in Tirion in the autumn than on Taniquetil or the plains of Valinor, where she and Carnistir again spent the latter half of summer on her grandparents' farm with her family. They enjoyed their time there immensely, but after the summer's end and the harvest festival, they returned home to Tirion and settled back into their own life.

It is the life I chose, Tuilindien tells herself day after day, and I do not regret it. And both of those of statements are true; should the truth of them not be enough to keep homesickness at bay?

Yet it is not, not though she loves Carnistir more every day that passes.

As the last remnants of summer are replaced by falling leaves on the streets of glittering white and a good harvest in their own orchard, Carnistir becomes worried about her.

'You spend too much time wandering in the garden or staring out the window into the rain when the weather is bad', he tells her one evening, his fierce black brows drawn to a tight frown aimed at her, a rare occurrence.

She slips into his lap on the living room settee. It is not yet dinner-time. 'I do not do those things all that much.'

His arms tighten protectively around her as she wiggles to find a good position. 'You do them too much.'

'I cannot help it. I wish I could. I tried to keep busy but I cannot do it all the time. I am not suited for that, and I prefer being at home with you to constantly seeking the company of people I hardly know anyway.'

'What can I do?' Carnistir asks.

'What more can you do, you mean. You already do so much.'

'I could –' he begins, but she interrupts him.

'I know that you refused supervising the building of the new distillery west of the city only because it would make your days longer to ride there and back every day. You were very interested in it, I know, I could tell. And you have still not finished all your planned little projects here at the house, either. I know that it vexes you that there are unfinished rooms here, yet you have chosen to spend more time with me instead. I do not want you to give up more.'

The set of his shoulders is bullish – that is the only way to describe it. It amuses Tuilindien. She smooths her thumbs over his frowning eyebrows.

'And I do not regret coming here to be yours, though I miss my old home and my family and friends', she says. 'I shall bear the missing, though it may take some more aimless wandering in the orchard and other such moments of wallowing in self-pitying waking memories.'

'But you will tell me if there is –' he begins, stubborn as a bull, too.

'I will', Tuilindien promises. These days all the promises he asks her to make are easy ones.

And she thinks that that will be the end of him worrying about her for that evening at least, but she should have known that he is too stubborn for that, too. When they are settled in their places before the dressing-table mirror hours later, his hands in her hair, taking apart her braids, he says, 'You should ask your family to visit.'

'I have thought about it.' She bends her head when a gentle pressure from Carnistir's palm at her neck indicates that she should, but keeps talking. 'Lirulinë won't come for some time because her baby is so young. She came to our wedding but it was an arduous journey for her with a baby so small and she would prefer not to make it again for a year or two, and I do not want to ask it of her. My mother won't come because she wants to stay close to Lirulinë, and because Wilwarindëa is still so young too. My father might come but won't enjoy it. He rarely enjoys things that are not very familiar and routine to him.'

'Hmm. What about Cantiel?'

Tuilindien meets his eyes in the mirror, thoughtful. 'She is rather young to leave home for longer periods of time.'

'But she is older than she was a year ago.' Carnistir adds, 'What I mean is, you have taken care of her for shorter periods of time before, haven't you? You two are very close. And she is a cheery and curious sort of child, you always say so. She might enjoy staying with us for a time. She could join your group of students.'

'And you like her, don't you?' Tuilindien smiles.

'She is a sweet girl. Much like her next oldest sister.'

He earns a brighter smile at that. 'She likes you, too', Tuilindien says. 'And she is indeed a cheery sort of girl, braver than me, so I think she would dare stay with us without my parents. Someone would have to bring her here, of course.'

'Perhaps for your well-being's sake your father could be bothered to leave his books and his comfortable chair in the garden for the ride back and forth, if he does not have to stay.'

'I appreciate your restraint in the amount of sarcasm you said that with', Tuilindien chuckles.

'I don't understand him as a person at all, but he has always treated me kindly so I cannot dislike him much despite my bewilderment.'

'He is a rather strange person', Tuilindien has to agree. 'And he dislikes leaving home but indeed, perhaps he might leave for long enough to bring Cantiel.'

'Write to him', Carnistir says, kissing the top of her head. 'The mere thought of Cantiel coming made you brighten and glow.'

'I will write to my mother since she is the one that makes things happen in my family', Tuilindien says.

Carnistir snorts and grins in answer to her grin.

Later, in bed, when they are relaxed and tired and quiet and twined around each other, Tuilindien whispers thanks to Carnistir for encouraging her to invite someone from her family to stay. 'I am too good at seeing only the obstacles', she says. 'You are good at running right through them, like a bull.'

'A bull?' She cannot see his brows but she knows they must be raised, by the tone of his voice. 'That is uncomplimentary enough to sound like something I might say.'

'It was meant as a compliment', she says, and burrows deeper under the covers and in his arms. 'You exhausted me with pleasure, Carnistir, I am barely capable of coherent speech and certainly not of well-formed compliments.'

'Then rest.' His voice is a pleased growl.

Tuilindien does. She walks on the slopes of Taniquetil with her sisters all night, Cantiel's small hand in hers, Lirulinë ahead of them keeping an eye for ripe berries.

After her father and sister arrive, Tuilindien and Carnistir's slow, peaceful mornings become less so.

Already before they come to Tirion, Tuilindien engages a drawing-master for Cantiel so that she can have lessons for the full duration of her stay. Nerdanel, who knows the artistic circles of Tirion, recommended a good one.

'I think that even in a relatively short time, she can learn much here that she couldn't at home', she says to Carnistir who doesn't seem to mind that one of their drawing rooms will be taken over by Cantiel's pursuit of art. He even gets her most of the supplies she'll need in advance, filling the room with artistic paraphernalia.

'Undoubtedly.' Carnistir's chest practically puffs up in Noldorin pride.

Tuilindien hides her smile.

The only unfortunate thing about Cantiel's lessons is how early they are. Tuilindien has to slip out of bed much earlier than she would like to, too early to savour their sleepy connection stirring back to life, or the warmth of Carnistir's body entwined with hers. She has to leave him there, grumbling and gathering the covers around himself as she leaves to have a hurried breakfast with Cantiel and take her to the lesson.

At least the lessons last all morning. Unless Tuilindien has lessons of her own to teach, she can slip back into bed with Carnistir when she gets back home, muttering a good morning to her father if she runs into him on her way back to the bedroom.

To everyone's surprise, Ingolmo expressed a desire to stay for a while, and he was of course welcome to do so, and Tuilindien very happy to keep him longer than she'd expected. Ingolmo is content to spend the days on his own, visiting libraries and scholars or just wandering around the house and appearing for dinner every day without failure. He is a very easy houseguest.

Except one morning, one of those when Tuilindien has slipped back to bed after taking Cantiel to her lesson, and pressed her winter-morning cold toes to her grumbling husband's calf, and greeted him with a wordless burst of affection, and laid her head on his bicep and closed her eyes.

There is a cheery voice from their bedroom door. 'Tuilindien!' And then, a few seconds later when Carnistir has already flown into panic, 'I'm going to the library.'

It's her father, who has never before felt the need to announce that he is leaving but now he has, even though Tuilindien is still in her bedroom. She rues her father's inconsistence and his forgetting that he should keep away from behind married daughters' doors.

She sighs and sits up, sending a wave of calm to Carnistir.

He has slept naked as always. As soon as he heard Ingolmo's voice he dove out of bed and began scrabbling for yesterday's clothes, covering himself in a sheet while he does so, resulting in a complicated, graceless hopping of a dance.

Tuilindien is dressed only in her shift. She sends another wave of calm to Carnistir and goes to the door but doesn't open it.

'That's very nice, father', she calls through the door. 'See you later.'

'Yes, I'll see you at dinner!'

And she comes back to bed. Carnistir, still beet-red, tosses away his clothes and lies down and she burrows to his side and closes her eyes and says to him, 'Let's wake slowly.'

He kisses the top of her head, and they both close their eyes. But within a minute it becomes clear that they cannot find any kind of rest anymore. Their hearts are beating too hard, their limbs no longer languorous, their minds wandering to the tasks of the day.

Carnistir groans. 'Right now, I regret telling you to invite your family.'

'I can understand that.' Tuilindien throws aside the covers, sits up and stretches. 'We have grown very accustomed and attached to our own habits and the rhythm of our life, it turns out.'

'Mm', says Carnistir, turning his flushed cheek to the pillow. 'I like our routines. And I never dealt well with deviation from routine.'

'My poor darling.' She looks at him lying there, naked and uncovered on the white sheets, the pale golden light of morning showing his freckles and his muscles and his long legs to a particular advantage.

She runs her hand down his cheek and his neck and his chest and to his waist. He opens his eyes and looks up at her through long, dark lashes.

'Is there something you want, Tuilindien?' And there is that soft-mischievous smile, too rare, that she loves, making an appearance at the corners of his lips.

'We cannot sleep, that is clear. But are you too irritated to…?' and she takes his hand and lifts it to her breast.

Something flashes in his eyes, and he doesn't bother giving a verbal answer, simply pressing her to the mattress at once and kissing her.

Not a bad morning, Tuilindien thinks as she kisses him back with equal enthusiasm, and winds her arms around his neck and into his thick black hair.

A/N: In the next chapter, there is a storm in Carnistir and Tuilindien's house.