1397
"Darling, doesn't Nerwen look sweet today?" Eärwen asked, her silver eyes twinkling with a radiant smile of maternal satisfaction. "I must admit, I do love choosing little dresses for her. After all, it's quite an innocent desire, isn't it, very natural for a women, and you can't do it with little boys, can you? Just like playing with dolls again!"
Anairë smiled rigidly. She was bored.
It was the wedding anniversary of Finwë and Indis, a time at which the king liked to have his family around him. Since Fëanáro invariably found an excuse to be absent from the celebrations, these were usually enjoyed by the family of Nolofinwë as well. Anairë especially relished the break from routine.
On this occasion, while the happy pair were congratulated by their children, she had found a nice, quiet spot in the corner of the room for herself and Eärwen to sit and engage in pleasant conversation. Anairë's idea of pleasant conversation involved embroidery, Lalwen's impossible behaviour, why poor Nerdanel had allowed Fëanáro to give her so many children, the joys of marriage to Nolofinwë and a little light current affairs. Instead, Eärwen, time and again, insisted on dragging the conversation around to the subject of her thirty-five-Year-old daughter.
Eärwen and Arafinwë had four children now, Angaráto, Aikanáro and Artanis as well as Findaráto. Angaráto was himself married to a young woman by the charming name of Eldalótë and had a son. (Not the first great-grandchild of Finwë and Indis: Turukáno's daughter Itaril was a little older.)
Nerwendë Artanis was just now the baby of the House of Finwë and almost universally adored. Findaráto adored her; Arafinwë and Eärwen adored her; all her cousins adored her; Indis adored her; Lalwen adored her (of course).
It seemed that the only person who did not worship the darling's very fingers and toes, apart from Anairë herself, was Fëanáro, who had been known to describe her as a precocious brat. Anairë could only agree. She considered the child spoilt and alarmingly forward, with her unnerving habit of silently staring down her elders and putting her betters right on various points of lore which a girl of her age really had no right to know about. Her uncle's wife had been on the receiving end of such insolence more than once.
"It is really charming to see how Artaher loves Nerwen," Eärwen said, sweetly.
Artaher was her young grandson, an unnervingly serious and scholarly child. Not that there was anything wrong with seriousness in children, as such. Anairë had often wished her own daughter a little more like Artaher.
Artelda was in her own unique way a deeply indolent creature. Anairë was often dismayed to find her curled up, in a most unladylike attitude, in some unfortunate chair, staring into space and doing absolutely nothing. The chair was unfortunate because any inanimate object to which Artelda took a fancy was doomed. Carpets were worn, books were torn and crumpled, crockery was smashed. Turukáno claimed that this was because his baby sister had such a lot of vitality in her.
Certainly, not that you would guess it to see Artelda relaxing, she had a boundless store of energy for hunting, which she loved for the wild exhilaration of the chase. Hunting was her deepest passion and that of her cousin Tyelkormo, who had first introduced her to such pleasures. Anairë felt that he had a great deal to answer for.
"... and such a little gardener she is! Why, Anairë, you would not believe the flowers Artanis grows in that little patch of garden she has. Aro and I think she might like to study in the house of Yavanna for a time, when she is older, that is..."
Anairë wished that Artanis could go to the house of Yavanna immediately and stay there.
