Chapter length: ~2,400 words

A/N: I wrote the first part of this in response to a prompt from a prompt list on Tumblr ('what are you doing' for Carnistir & Tuilë by alkarinqque) and added a much longer second part to include it in this fic.

My inspiration was this line from the Silmarillion: 'Fëanor and his sons abode seldom in one place for long, but travelled far and wide upon the confines of Valinor, going even to the borders of the Dark and the cold shores of the Outer Sea, seeking the unknown.'

Warning for hunting and animal death (no detailed description).

Chapter V / Discoveries

Carnistir comes home from his worksite to find Tuilindien at her writing desk. There is nothing unusual about that – the long desk before a large window in a garden-facing sitting room is one of her favourite places in the house – and neither is it unusual that she is so absorbed in her task that she doesn't rise when he comes to the room. Her only reply to his greeting is a splash of warmth in their wordless connection.

He goes to her, anyway, and kisses her cheek and caresses her hair that she has gathered in a coiled braid at the nape of her neck.

'Just a moment', Tuilindien says, writing a few more one-word lines on the sheet of parchment before her. There are several other similar sheets of paper strewn on the table: only one or two words per line.

'What are you doing?' Carnistir asks, curious, but trying not to read her papers over her shoulder. She doesn't like it when he does.

Tuilindien writes one more line and then turns towards him. 'Darling', she says, takes his hand, and tips her face up to be kissed. Carnistir obediently and happily bends down to do so, kissing her properly this time.

'What are you doing?' he repeats when their lips part. He settles more comfortably at her side, an arm around her shoulder, and tries again to not stare at her writing.

'Writing a packing list', she replies, still a little distracted, looking at her scribbles.

'A packing list?' Carnistir should be delighted Tuilindien showing interest in their approaching trip. He is taking her along to visit mansions of Aulë and to trek beyond them into the wilder regions of Valmar that are uninhabited and largely unexplored, though Carnistir's family has been exploring and mapping the regions there for years, bit by bit. It will be the first such journey for Tuilindien.

Maitimo, Tyelkormo and Curufinwë are coming with them. Carnistir would prefer to go without the last two but he can hardly stop them from coming, and at least Maitimo will be there to keep the peace. Carnistir has considered just going alone on a separate trip with Tuilindien but since she is an inexperienced traveller in the wild, it is much safer to go together with Carnistir's brothers. The food on a journey is always better when travelling with Tyelko, too.

(But Carnistir has been praying daily that Tyelko and Curvo will behave. He'll push them into a river if they don't.)

'I've never made a packing list', Carnistir says to Tuilindien.

'I made one when I was preparing to move here when we married. I went through all my possessions and decided what to take.' Tuilindien gathers the messy-for-her sheets of her list into one tidy pile. 'This didn't feel very different, since we are going to be gone a long time.'

Carnistir cannot help snorting. 'With the difference that we must carry all that we take with us on our horses, and it cannot be too much, as we cannot afford to tire them too much. Your list –' he takes the stack of papers from her hands and counts the sheets '– is far too long. Twice too long, at the very least.'

'Oh.' Tuilindien looks up at him, dismayed.

'You have to take many items off that list.' Oh, but he can never resist her when she looks at him like that. 'I can carry some of your things', he acquiesces. 'Some. I know from experience that I don't need much myself, and my Varnë is bigger and stronger than your mare.'

'But Mirwannë is very sure-footed in every terrain', Tuilindien defends her horse.

'And that is very good, very useful for our journey. But she cannot carry all this, nor can Varnë.'

Tuilindien wrings her hands in her skirts, her usual nervous habit that Carnistir finds very endearing. She does not feel or look too upset, though, as she says, 'I do not know what to leave off my list.'

'I can do it for you.' He kisses the top of her head and, in the happy contentment that he feels from her at that, decides that he dares to joke. Waving the sheets of parchment in his hand, he asks, 'Would you prefer me to throw away every other parchment, or to cross over every other item?'

'Do not make fun of me, Carnistir!' But Tuilindien laughs as she says, 'I have never been so far away from civilisation. How could I know what I need to take with me?'

'I'll tell you.' He brings another chair to her desk and sits down beside her, spreading the papers on the desk. 'Let us go through your things one by one. Where do you want to begin?'

It does not take many days of travelling for Carnistir to realise that he has made a horrible mistake going on this expedition with his wife and his brothers. Not because Curufinwë and Tyelkormo bully or tease Tuilindien – they are actually so eager to teach her wilderness skills that they behave rather decently towards her, puffing up like proud birds when Tuilindien praises their expertise – but because when travelling with three of Carnistir's brothers, he and Tuilindien do not have a single moment of privacy.

They try to find some. From the first day, Carnistir volunteers them for tasks that take them a little way away from the others, such as gathering firewood while Maitimo, Tyelkormo and Curufinwë make their camp ready for the night.

But because they go hand and hand and then Tuilindien kisses him in a particularly romantic glade where birds whose song is different from the song of birds in Tirion fill the air with their sweet chirping, and the trees around them are tall and alien compared to the tame trees of the city, they take so long that Curufinwë is sent to find out whether they have run into some danger.

'I cannot believe that you two started mauling each other before you gathered any firewood at all!' Curufinwë yells at them from the edge of the glade. 'Have you lost all your wits?'

Carnistir growls and points at the small pile of branches at his feet. 'Shove off, Curvo.'

'Fine!' Curufinwë turns on his heels, but he shouts over his shoulder, 'If you don't get back soon, I'll bully Maitimo until he agrees to come get you, and won't that be embarrassing for all three of you!'

Tuilindien lifts her head from Carnistir's chest where she buried it as soon as she heard Curufinwë's voice. 'I don't want Maitimo to have to come get us', she says.

Her lips are very pink, and her golden-brown skin so soft-looking in the gentle light of the glade.

Carnistir takes her face between his hands; her skin is soft and sweet, as ever. 'Soon', he promises. 'We'll leave soon. Not yet.'

'Not yet', breathes Tuilindien in agreement, and kisses him again, holding him as tight as she can.

They run into Maitimo on their way back to the camp, both their arms full of dry branches. Maitimo says nothing, just turns to walk back, and neither do Carnistir and Tuilindien.

Carnistir can feel the heat on his cheeks but he regrets nothing.

Another time he tries to make sure that they'll have time to do more than kiss. He has spent many days watching the play of emotions on Tuilindien's face as she sees new sights, walks new paths, encounters new animals and plants; and at night she settles in his arms, but curling up together under his wide cloak is all that they can do with his brothers within hearing distance.

At home they enjoyed each other daily unless it was a bad day for one of them but here on the roadless road, they can barely kiss without Tyelko offering sarcastic commentary or Curvo heckling them.

Maitimo rolls his eyes at them once, too. Carnistir is very disappointed in him.

One evening they pass a river and decide to make camp near it because everyone is sorely in need of a wash, all of them beginning to offend each other's noses. The forest is turning into more of a jungle in places, and the air is humid and hot and two days have passed since they found a body of water suitable for thoroughly washing. But there is no suitable camping place very near the river, none that passes muster for Tyelko who decides such things, so they camp several minutes away from it.

The river is wide and shallow, and its immediate environs seemed safe enough. Thus as soon as he and Tuilindien have done their necessary part of camp-building, he grabs his washing things, and hers, and her, and says over his shoulder to his brothers, 'We will be taking our time washing.'

Maitimo groans and Curvo swears, and no doubt Tyelko would too if he had not already gone hunting. Tuilindien squeaks in embarrassment, but she doesn't truly protest.

And when they get to the river, she strips herself of her dusty and sweaty travelling clothes as quickly as she possibly can and wades into the river, less shy about bathing in the wild than she has been on any earlier occasion.

Carnistir grins and splashes into the water right behind her, and they find a nice place where the current is not too much and the water is waist-deep, and they cling to each other and he is definitely planning on kissing her for a long, long time, and also…

He runs his hand down Tuilindien's side and under the water and between her legs, and she doesn't protest that either, no, she presses her forehead against his shoulder and holds on to him with shaking hands, and sighs, and makes little noises of pleasure, and –

And then Carnistir hears other noises. A flock of birds taking flight from bushes, his brain supplies without prompting. For a fraction of a second he allows himself to wonder how he could identify the noise when he has his hands on Tuilindien and, he'd have thought, all his senses too –

For a fraction of a second, and then he lifts his hand from Tuilindien and pushes her behind himself and turns to the bushes where he thinks the birds flew from, and tries to see whether there are any signs of a predator approaching, and tries to calculate how quick he can get to the shore and the hunting dagger that he left with his clothes –

But before he is more than one step towards the shore, there is the sound of a swift arrow, and a dead bird falls on the shore, close by where Carnistir and Tuilindien left their clothes.

'Thrice-damned Tyelko', Carnistir growls with a quick glance at Tuilindien.

She has gone deeper into the water. It comes up to her neck. Carnistir is glad. He wades to the shore.

'Tyelko, you rotten misfit!' he bellows as loudly as he can, arriving at the shoreline. 'Run back to the camp or I swear in the name of every single Vala that I will make you run.'

There is laughter from beyond the rivershore, from the forest.

'What is wrong with your head that you could not let us wash in peace!'

'I didn't mean to disturb', Tyelkormo shouts back. 'Rest assured, Moryo, I didn't sneak any peeks at you and your lady. I have no desire to see either of you naked. And that is why I will now get back to camp – I don't want you to humiliate yourself by chasing me naked through the forest. Bring the bird back to camp when you are done bathing.'

'Is this damned bird even edible?' Carnistir yells, eyeing the corpse at his feet with distaste.

There is no answer from Tyelko. Perhaps that most dreadful of Carnistir's brothers (at least at this very moment) has done as he promised and returned to camp at once.

With a snarling sigh, Carnistir turns around and wades back into the river and to Tuilindien who looks like she doesn't know whether to cry or laugh.

She says as much, and 'Will you wash my hair, Carnistir?', and, a little mournfully, 'I think that that is as much intimacy as I dare to have today. Your brothers are –'

'– a mistake', Carnistir finishes for her. 'Just… a mistake.'

Tuilindien laughs a little, and that is good, though not as good as it would have been to make her gasp and moan against his shoulder as he touched her.

He washes her long hair and she washes his back, and they kiss a little. When they return to camp, Carnistir, to his great satisfaction, manages to throw the dead bird so suddenly and forcefully at Tyelkormo that he doesn't notice before it hits him in the face.

That night Carnistir regrets going on this journey with Tyelkormo, Curufinwë and Maitimo. He should have persuaded Makalaurë and Tinweriel to come along, he muses as he sits keeping watch at night, Tuilindien's steady breathing by his side calming him down.

However long it took for them to find the time on their busy schedules, he should have asked them – they would have understood the need for occasional privacy, Carnistir is certain. Or he and Tuilindien should have gone alone, to some safer region.

But by the end of the journey Carnistir decides that it is all worth it, worth the unfulfilled desire to join his body with Tuilindien's, worth being unable to whisper soft words to her without being ridiculed by one of his brothers, worth missing the quiet routines of their life at home.

It is all worth it to see Tuilindien running into a field of exotic wildflowers and twining them in her hair, and the way her eyes shine and her mouth purses in concentration as she sits at Curvo's side as he teaches her how to draw maps – she proves an apt pupil – beside the campfire at night, and the warmth of her slender hand in his when they walk for a stretch to let their horses rest.

It is all worth it to discover new parts of the world together with her.

A/N: In Carnistir's brothers' defence: he and Tuilindien were being pretty obnoxiously lovey-dovey.

In the next chapter, Netyarë joins the family.I haven't finished the next chapter yet so it might take a little longer to be posted.