The red hair is an unusual phenomenon among the Elves, but for a child to be born with this hair colour in our family wouldn't surprise anyone since half of my relatives are red-headed. I also happen to belong to this group.

The most common appearance of the Ñoldor consists of dark hair and bright eyes. The Vanyar have golden braids to distinguish themselves. And lastly, the Teleri are known for their silver-white curls. But it seems that I belong to some yet-unknown tribe. In addition to my red braid, which has already reached my waist, my eyes help to separate me from my kin. For most Quendi, their colour ranges from grey to light blue or even green like Maitimo and Nerdanel's. One of the girls I know has vivid blue eyes because her parents had spent most of their time sailing so the sea gifted her with a piece of itself. My cousin Findekáno has dark blue eyes as well. I, on the other hand, inherited brown eyes from my grandmother Míriel. Needless to say, our family stands out a lot.

I remember a long time ago one stupid boy who didn't know I was his Princess teased me saying that I didn't look like a Ñoldo at all (and it is a great insult, especially in Tirion). Turco was very surprised once I returned home and decided to find out why I wasn't worthy of my kind. He asked me then how I even came up with such thoughts. Looking at him with honest eyes I told him about the conversation I had with that boy, who turned out to be the baker's son, and Tyelkormo then proceeded to beat him… The boy had a black eye and a swollen lip for an entire week but then he and his parents left our town and I have never seen him since.

I got lost in thought thinking about what could have happened to him and painfully pulled the knot in my hair. After finishing the painful procedure I pinned it with my silver hairpins. Dad wanted to take one away for safekeeping but I talked him out of it. So now I examined my reflection and was left quite pleased with myself. However, I didn't have enough time to admire my looks. Duty called! Today was the last day of our punishment therefore I went to wake up the other guilty ones with a light heart.

It is very strange to walk around a quiet house – everyone is asleep and dreaming and I am walking alone like a ghost in the semi-darkness! After all, for our work we had to get up earlier than anyone else. At first it was like a torture for me. But I had gathered my willpower and have been waking up at an ungodly hour with thoughts that soon I will be free from this Balrog-worthy schedule.

Ouch! Now all I needed to do was to avoid falling down the stairs in the dark. Carefully I made my way down the corridor to Kurvo's bedroom since it was the closest to mine. After I opened the door the first thing I did was make sure that I entered the correct room. Inside, I saw a table with tools all over it, some pieces of iron and stones lying everywhere, and a window that as always was curtained (how can he possibly work without normal lighting?). That's right, it was indeed Atarinkë's room. I approached the window and opened the heavy curtains, 'Rise and shine!'

I was answered by some sort of grumbling.

'Get up, Kurvo! Today's the last day!' I stretched out the last words cheerfully. Finally, this nightmare is coming to an end!

'Uh-huh,' my brother rolled over and covered his head with a blanket.

'Get up!' I grabbed the edge of the blanket and pulled it with all of my strength. Curufinwë stubbornly continued to defend himself. Finally, I managed to pull the blanket off the bed but my younger brother also fell on the floor along with it.

'I tried waking you up in a nice manner so all of it is your own fault,' after blurting this out I ducked through the door since Kurvo has already untangled himself from the blanket and jumped on me with the speed of a cat. I barely managed to escape!

That's how I found myself running at full speed to the Twins' rooms, or rather their single room. The two of them didn't want to be separated so as a result, they were allowed to live in the biggest bedroom together. After I almost pulled the door leading to their room off its hinges, I immediately slammed it shut again with a loud bang. From the corridor I could hear Kurvo's angry approaching footsteps. I was frantically thinking about what I can use to block the door as there was no lock here. But then Ambarussar began to stir from all the unusual noise.

'Save me!' I whispered to them as I dragged a chair towards the door.

The Twins and Kurvo were very different in both character and behaviour, this was especially evident during the awakening. Pityo and Telvo could assess the situation and act upon it even just a second after waking up while their dark-haired brother didn't want to return to reality for quite some time. However, if his awakening happens to be unpleasantly unusual, as was the case today, then…

So Ambarussar instantly jumped out of the bed and began to help me in any way they could. Telvo and I were carrying the chair while Pityo was moving the wardrobe closest to the front door.

'Cena!' the scream was followed by heavy thuds against the door.

'Kurvo, it was an accident!'

Instead of an answer, there was a new attempt to knock out the door (or was it to open it?). Only the chair held back the onslaught. After our combined efforts, the wardrobe also joined the defences.

'Why is he like this?' Telvo asked me.

'H-he hit his head!' I nervously watched the quaking door.

'I don't think the door will last any longer…' Pityo stretched melancholically.

'Hey!' I glared at my brother. 'Is there any other way out of the room?'

'Yes!' the duo answered together and pointed to the window. 'There!'

'Well, I've got nothing to lose anyway…'

Our wonderful house had three floors in total. I lived on the top floor and the Twins lived on the second one. But even though it was closer to the ground from here than from my bedroom, the prospect of landing into the thorny briar bushes didn't appeal to me too much.

'Yeah… Okay, I'll meet the enemy face to face,' as I said these words the door failed allowing enraged Curufinwë to enter the room. He rushed at us knocking over the wardrobe. We scattered around with a loud squeal knocking over a small sofa (how much furniture can they have in their room?!). But before I managed to run through the door, Kurvo knocked me to the floor and a brawl began. Ambarussar couldn't miss such an opportunity and joined in.

'Atarinkë, that's not okay! A fight right in the morning!' I was laughing as I fought off my brother's furious attacks.

This time, the Twins were on my side so instead of an epic equal fight, it turned out to be a complete mess. We would have been rolling on the floor all morning but suddenly someone blocked the passage to the room.

'What do we have here?' we heard Carnistir's mocking voice.

'That's my revenge for an unjust humiliation!' Kurvo panted.

'Moryo, join the defenders!' I called for my brother's help.

'You've got to be kidding me! It's already three versus one!' Curufinwë Jr. puffed resentfully.

'Moryo, w-w-what's that noise?' Maitimo unsuccessfully tried to suppress a yawn.

'Good morning. There's a fight here, you see!' Moryo laughed.

'Between whom?'

'A united team of redheads against our craftsman!'

'Redheads?' Maitimo peeked into the room. 'Well, well, well, an unequal battle!'

'Nelyo, help me!' Kurvo kept agitating the older brothers.

'No to bloodshed!' instead of helping in the fight the oldest brother, being the most prudent one, pulled us away from each other.

Now that the fight was over, I had a chance to catch my breath and examine myself. What can I say, I looked lovely! The sleeve of my dress was torn off, my hair was dishevelled, I also probably scratched my face since my cheek was unpleasantly burning!

When my brother decided to end his peacekeeping actions, I noticed that Kurvo had it worst, of course. His pyjamas looked more like rags, his hands were all red from scratches however his eyes were burning.

'Have you calmed down?' Moryo asked in the same mocking tone.

Only now we realised that those who had been laughing at our misfortune were standing right in front of us! Unarmed. Our collective thinking activated and the four of us, immediately forgetting our recent grudges, turned on our older brothers.

And although there were twice as many of us, the age difference made itself known. By this time Maitimo was almost a grown man (he was already fifty years old) while Ambarussar were still children. Moryo wasn't that much older than me, yet he was a male so he had more physical strength. Nelyo, of course, didn't fight, he only tried to separate the entangled Princes and Princesses of the First House. But still, he didn't get out of it unscarred, too. It seemed that he recognised his guilt so he didn't resist the 'beat up.' The battle ended in a draw anyway. However, we have blown off so much steam! So once we went downstairs for breakfast, there was only peace and friendship between us.

Our mum, though, was quite worried when she saw us. She quickly got out a box with medical lotions and treated everyone in turn, simultaneously giving a lecture about the danger of fights in the family or fights in general.

During the meal Turco with great interest listened to the retelling of our morning misadventures and roared with laughter.

'And I wondered what that noise was. Now everything's clear – that's just how Cena walks in the morning!' he kept having fun. 'But you're a girl! What about the innate elegance and slowness of movement?'

'You try running away from the evil brothers in darkness at the Hour of the Mixing Light. Then we'll see if you can still talk about elegance!' I snapped at him.

'Maitimo, why didn't you stop them?' kept asking Mum.

'I tried! But they grasped each other so hard…'

Mother glanced at Nelyo disapprovingly. He sighed heavily and fell silent, realising that it would be impossible to win this argument with Nerdanel.

'Come on, Mum! We were only fooling around!' the younger children felt sorry for their brother because of the unfair reproaches.

'That's true!'

'Just look at what a friendly family we are!' standing in the doorway was Father. He was smiling, apparently he has just returned from his workshop. As Dad took off his dirty apron and brushed the dust off his trousers he walked over and plopped down on the seat at the head of the table.

'Good morning, Father,' we greeted Fëanáro together.

'Morning, don't forget that there's still one day of punishment left!' Dad couldn't help but spoil the happy moment of family reunion after a night of separation and let the children have breakfast in peace.

'Thanks for reminding,' Atarinkë and I scowled at him.

'Hey, we, by the way, have still two more weeks of slave labour!' Ambarussar immediately pitied themselves.

All of this, taking into consideration the difficult personality of Father (and children, too), might have resulted in a new family fight but Mum quickly intervened, reminding us of one of the most boring, but very useful rules in our family – don't talk with your mouth full. So everyone had to bury their faces into their plates and start eating oatmeal with dried apricots…

T/N: I haven't found anywhere the English term the hour when Telperion and Laurelin's lights mix together so I just translated it directly. If anyone knows though the correct term of it, let me know