Chapter length: ~1,500 words
A/N: A less happy chapter. There are bad days in every relationship.
Chapter IV / Stormy days
There are stormy days, too, in between the days of bliss and comfort.
Literal autumn storms, which force Tuilindien to stay inside instead of spending love in her beloved orchard, are more common here in Tirion than on Taniquetil. On the slopes of the holy mountain Manwë's benevolence protects Ingwë's court from the harshest of his winds.
And there are the kind of storms that rage inside Carnistir.
Most of the time he can control them, and Tuilindien knows that he works hard to do so. He comes home late after clearing his head elsewhere, or expends his rage and energy by chopping firewood even though they have servants who would do it, or he goes to his study after a gruff apology and sits there in silence as the light around him mingles and changes. And when he does come to Tuilindien, the storm is mostly cleared, the rough waters of his mind not too difficult for the two of them to navigate.
But sometimes he comes home irritated and only grows more so as the evening goes on, and Tuilindien tires of being careful with him and grows quiet. And though he usually would, he does not notice, too preoccupied with his own vexations.
And then he snaps about something over dinner, about something which is not even her fault or in her control, and Tuilindien lays down her knife and fork, and says, her voice shaking in that way that she despises, 'If you are going to be like that tonight, Carnistir, I will cut this meal short and go visit Parmandil.'
He stops and stares at her and snarls, 'It's too late for visiting.'
'It's too angry here.'
Silence, and shame in their connection that both of them have tried their best to close.
'I didn't even shout', Carnistir says after a tense minute.
Tuilindien's knuckles are white from grasping her skirt. She cannot look at him when he says things like that, things that bring into too bright a light what he is used to, what are his standards for 'too angry' – or what they used to be anyway, and still bleed through.
'I am not going to wait here until you do.' She stands up, fully intending to leave. To go to her friend Parmandil's house or, if she is not home, to – to Indis, or to their own stables to sit down in a pile of straw and let Mirwannë snuffle at her. Anywhere but here.
Yet she tarries, moves slowly as if in an unwanted dream as she gathers her skirts in her hands and pushes her chair back.
More silence and shame from her husband on the other side of the table. And then the scraping of another pushed back violently.
'Stay', Carnistir says. 'I will go out and come back when I won't hurt you. I wouldn't mean to do it –'
'I know', she says, because she does.
'– But I might. I am sorry.'
And he is, he always is, but she still cannot breathe with all that anger in the air, choking and poisonous, only more so when it is directed at himself. She knew this about him when she promised herself to him, and she accepted it as part of him, but that does not mean she has to breathe in the same air as him when it is clouded by rage.
So she lets him leave, grateful that she doesn't have to be the one to go. He has many more places to go than her.
He has to walk to her side of the table to get out of the room. He comes close to her, not touching, and hesitates.
'I argued with Ontamo and was still angry about that when I came home', he admits gruffly. 'I'll go see him and resolve things with him. It was not fair of me to bring the argument home.'
'No', Tuilindien agrees, with as little accusation as she can. It is not very little. Her day had been good, and she'd looked forward to the time with him in the evening. 'Please don't come home when you are like that. No, do come home, always, it is your home too, but do not come at me with your anger when I am not even its cause.'
'I won't.' There is so light a touch to her arm that Tuilindien is not sure if she imagined it, and then it is gone, and so is Carnistir.
Tuilindien sits back down and leans back in her chair and drinks a glass of wine. She has no appetite for food.
So he fought with Ontamo, she thinks as she stares at Carnistir's half-eaten meal on the other side of the table.
Ontamo is Carnistir's closest friend, Tuilindien assumes, though Carnistir has never explicitly said so. He appears to be the only one who is not a family friend – most of Carnistir's friends are also friends of one or more of Carnistir's brothers. Carnistir and Ontamo were apprentices to the same stone-smith when they were only boys, and forged a bond during that time, Tuilindien has gathered. It is a bond that has weathered many disagreements over the years.
She hopes it will weather this one too.
When the light in the dining room begins to turn rather silver, and her glass of wine is empty, Tuilindien goes to get a cloak so she can wander in the garden in the cooling evening air.
There are few flowers in bloom now, the garden settling into winter's rest. Only lavaraldar trees still carry their pale flowers. Tuilindien has always loved these trees for their resilience even in the midst of winter. They rest for a short while, and then they bloom again, filling the air with their faint, sweet scent that brings restfulness.
She stands for a long time among the trees, doing little more than inhaling deeply.
She wonders if Carnistir is doing something similar, or if he is yelling at the top of his lungs.
Tuilindien is slipping into bed when he comes home. She has brought a book to the bedroom, which she rarely does since books tend not to get read there, but she leaves it on the nightstand and sits back against the headboard as she watches Carnistir strip himself in brisk movements that do not look too angry.
She can feel little from him besides shame, again. She is tired of it.
'Are you feeling better now?' she asks.
'Yes.' He yanks his undertunic up and over his head, and tosses it on the floor. Then he grimaces, bends down to pick the tunic up and places it neatly on the chair where he leaves his clothes every night.
'It was a stupid misunderstanding', he says. 'But I am quick to anger, and he is quick to indignation when his ideas are not appreciated, so we both got into a huff and parted when we should have kept talking.'
'I am glad that Ontamo and you cleared the air', Tuilindien replies carefully. 'I know that he is important to you.'
Carnistir sighs and sits down on the side of the bed. Tuilindien notices that he places himself so that he doesn't touch her. She feels the heat of him on her skin anyway, and misses it.
'He is', Carnistir says. 'Most of the time he is the best person to discuss my ideas with and to work alongside, whether on a shared project or on our own projects. He is less demanding than my father and less sarcastic than Curufinwë. But we both have a short temper and sometimes they flare at the same time and then we cannot just laugh it off.'
'Things are well now, though?' She doesn't mean only things with Ontamo.
They look at each other, properly in the eyes, for the first time since Carnistir came home with a dark cloud in his spirit.
'I will likely be half-grumpy for a while yet but things are well if my most beloved vanimelda is well', he says. 'Tuilë, I am sorry –'
She cannot help but say, 'I am tired of apologies. I always forgive you anyway. You did not mean to hurt me and you barely did before you left and gave me the space of our home.'
'You have fewer places that you could go here in Tirion', he says, and at that she opens her arms and welcomes him back to her, like she knows she always will, because she loves him beoynd reason and beoynd her understanding of herself and beoynd the borders of the world, though it is impossible. Beoynd the stars into darkness.
She brushes her hand through his hair as he clings to her, his frantic heartbeat calming down against her chest, and she thinks again, it is not fair how unreasonably in love I am with you, and, it is not fair how much I love you even when you make me ache.
Perhaps she thinks that at him, having unconsciously opened herself up to him again, because he mumbles into her hair, 'I love you to irrationality and back. I'll always come back to you and this home that we've created.'
A/N: Please note that I never claimed to write only perfectly healthy relationships.
In the next chapter, Carnistir and Tuilindien go on a journey.