Peculiar by Ada Kensington

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Meeting

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Peculiar

 

 

A week ago, if Rúmil had been told he would be lying in on absurdly comfortable four-poster bed in the house of his hated nemesis Finwë, Noldóran, he would have laughed heartily in the teller's face and named him mad.

 

But that was precisely where he was, and Rúmil could hardly believe it himself.

 

Not even in the servants' quarters - where he had, in all honesty, expected to have been placed - but in a state room! A state room in which, apparently, king Olwë of Alqualondë had stayed not so long ago.  And they were state rooms plural, in fact, if one wished to be pedantic.  For as well as the huge bedroom, Rúmil looked forward to enjoying the use of his own private bathroom, a study, a wardrobe the size of some of the first year students' rooms at the School, and a generous balcony with stunning views overlooking Tirion.  And he had a personal invitation to dine with the king later on in the evening!

 

Lying stretched out like a contented cat upon silk sheets stained a deep, berry red, Rúmil made a little sigh of pleasure and rolled lazily from one side of the bed, then to the other - just because he could - and then he laughed at himself for indulging in such childish behaviour.  He was acting like a young dog fox, marking its territory by rolling around and rubbing its musk onto fence-posts and tree stumps.  The comparison amused him, and he laughed louder this time, because his rooms were in a private area and there was no one around to hear him make a fool of himself.

 

For a while, he lay there on the bed and warmed himself as Laurelin's light streamed through the tall windows.  When he grew bored, he rose, padded across the very heavy, ornate rug that stretched almost to the four corners of his bedroom, and entered the study.  Riffling through the drawers of the desk, he retrieved a pot of green ink, a sheet of paper, a quill and a pen-knife before retreating to the balcony.  Outside, he found a comfortable-looking divan, and once he had installed himself upon it, he found himself staring up at the sky, contemplating the clouds passing overhead and the nature of the task the king had given him.

 

Out of that strange, stultifying windowless room, his mind felt much clearer - his heart less heavy.  Therefore, he could think more rationally about the situation.

 

He found that he still held fast to his opinion concerning the king's remarriage.  He still considered it unlawful: the rash act of a man whose grief had become embittered beyond hope.  But where once those opinions were formed from a cold logic - uncaring and unaware of just how much the king had suffered - now, there was at least a measure of empathy to inform his choice in the matter.  He understood why the king had made his decision, and it was odd, but it made holding his contrary opinion easier to bear.  It made him less bitter, at any rate.

 

And he didn't know why, but when the king had laid himself bare in that strange, little room, revealing to Rúmil a very fragile and vulnerable part of himself- it seemed like a victory, somehow.  As though what he had been fighting for all along was not the upholding of the laws and customs of the Eldar, but to see and to know that the king was in as much pain as Lady Míriel would surely have suffered being condemned to remain forever discarnate, wandering the cold halls of Mandos alone until the end of Arda.

 

Perhaps he possessed more capacity for altruism than he thought?  Even, dare he say it, a social-conscience?

 

Notions of personal discovery aside, what this newfound understanding meant was that he could now feel free to work for the king without running the risk of an old grudge clouding his judgement and could therefore more effectively turn his hand to solving the apparent mystery that was the king's son.  The boy whose rights, now that he came to think of it, he had unwittingly defended at the Máhanaxar.

 

Stretched out on the divan, listening to the muted sounds of industrious activity going on in the Great Square below, Rúmil closed his eyes and tried to remember what little he knew of Prince Curufinwë.

 

The first and only time he had ever seen the boy was at the feast of Nost-na-Lothion, a fair few years ago, when his father had not yet wed Lady Indis, but had publicly begun to court her. Rúmil had still been carefree in those days, and enjoyed attending most of the major feasts his people recognised. 

 

Nost-na-Lothion was always one of his favourites.  In celebration of the blooming of the flowers, the city was absolutely covered in them, and minstrels came from the furthest corners of Aman to sing in the Great Square in Tirion - because the Noldor knew how to throw a party, unlike the stuffy Vanyar who sat in vigil and sung in their temples.  There was drinking and dancing, and as long as they were wearing their white flower-garlands, the city's children were let loose to run riot.

 

The year he first set eyes on Curufinwë, he remembered sitting at the long table reserved for the School, drinking wine with his colleagues.  There had been a debate raging upon a matter he must've considered trivial at the time (for he could not recall what it was) and he gradually tuned out the sound of his colleagues'  bickering in favour of concentrating on the quite lovely wine and observing his surroundings.

 

The high table, at which the king and his family sat, was never placed far from the scholars' table.  Thanks to the Noldor's general predilection for valuing highly their Loremasters, he had therefore been able to get quite a good view of the goings-on at the royal table.

 

Larger than life, as always, king Finwë sat at the centre, decked out in formal and splendid regalia of blue and gold.  Lady Indis sat at his left, dressed alike in rich blue, her hair twined with flowers - a warm and laughing presence, bubbling over with joy and alight with the love of her lord.  The king and lady Indis had had eyes only for each other that night as they chatted gaily - the king reaching over at intervals, touching her hair, laying his hand upon hers - and the child sitting to the right of the king appeared momentarily forgotten...

 

Rúmil's eyes snapped open, and he sat up, snatching at his pen.  Dipping the nib in his little pot of ink, he put pen to paper and began to write.

 

At that feast of Nost-na-Lothion, prince Curufinwë had been sitting at his father's right hand, strange and silent and fiddling with something he held in his hands, which Rúmil supposed, with his newfound knowledge of the boy's interests, must have been a trinket of some sort. 

 

Prince Curufinwë did not speak to either his father, or the lady Indis.  Neither did he play with the other children, who were tearing around the square, causing havoc and dancing rings round the adults who shouted out warnings to be careful, lest they hurt themselves.  Instead, prince Curufinwë's attention was given solely, wholly, to the object he held in his hands, his brow furrowed with concentration - a countenance that had at first startled Rúmil, and then made him smile and look more closely, for it reminded him somewhat of Míriel Þerindë.

 

From his vantage point at the scholars' table, Rúmil had then spent an idle moment studying the boy's face and form, trying to work out which other features he had inherited from his parents.

 

The young prince's hair was black like his father's, but had the texture of his mother's, and was slightly wavy. He had the willowy build of his mother, but appeared also to possess the wiry, dextrous strength of his noble father - this made evident as he struggled under the tablecloth to alter his trinket in some way.  He had his mother's moon-pale complexion and her regular features, but there was a sharpness there that echoed those of his father. His posture was Finwë's, but the way he absorbed himself in his task, ignoring the many who flitted past the high table with a profound detachment, was unmistakably Miriel's.  From a distance, Rúmil could not get a look at his eyes, but they seemed pale, bearing more of a resemblance to his father than his lady mother.

 

By all accounts, it had seemed to Rúmil that prince Curufinwë was, in bodily form, a most harmonious amalgamation of the better aspects of his mother and father.  Most fortunate, Rúmil had thought cynically, taking another sip of his wine and ruing the unhappy circumstances that had landed him with his rather plain face and coarse brown hair - the worst features of his own parents.

 

At that moment, he recalled, a drunken colleague had tapped him on the shoulder, asking him to dance.  The worse for wear himself, Rúmil had laughed and complied, and all thoughts of the king's sullen son vanished from his mind.  For another hour or so, he had been caught up in a square dance that had snowballed into a tangled-legged free-for-all, and when he finally managed to navigate his way through the crowd and back to the table, the word going round was that the king's son had gone missing, and that if he was spotted, he had to let the king know.

 

Caring not a jot for the king's woes (if he had not been so busy salivating over the lady Indis, it would not have happened) Rúmil had slurred that he would keep an eye out, and then had glanced around for his wine glass, with intent on filling it to the brim.  It was not there. 

 

He had looked around for a replacement.  There were none, bar a few at the other end of the table, which - he noted, aghast - were being spirited away by a little girl in a green dress.

 

"What are you doing with those?" he had wailed, as he tripped over his own feet to reach her before she ran off with them.

 

"Sorry, Master Loremaster," she had said, her dark eyes solemn.  "We need these for the sculpture."

 

And then she had darted away, ducking into the crowd so he could not follow.

 

Snarling with defeat, Rúmil decided to cut his losses and had wandered round a few of the neighbouring tables in search of an empty glass he could borrow.  No such luck.  Upon questioning a few others, they had answered that theirs, too, had been stolen by bands of marauding children.

 

By happy chance, just as he had reached the point where he had seriously been considering swigging from the bottle, the little girl in the green dress breezed past him once again, carrying two more wine glasses in hand. 

 

Stealthily, he had followed her, weaving his way through the throng of merrymakers, thinking that he'd be damned if she'd keep him from his alcohol.

 

The girl had kept walking until she left the Great Square entirely and had emerged out onto the road, closed for the Festival and empty of traffic, bar a few folk wandering home and - Rúmil stopped short and stared in astonishment - a large gang of children, all bearing empty wine glasses, which were being sorted by other children according to size and shape, and then stacked into a great pyramid by prince Curufinwë, who had stripped down to his tunic and hose, had somehow managed to acquire a step-ladder and appeared to be giving orders and issuing demands for more wine glasses.

 

Thoroughly amused and impressed by their devious initiative, Rúmil had decided to abandon his quest for a drinking vessel, and instead decided to fall back on the bottle option.  He had not wanted to spoil the children's fun, and had planned on returning to the square and feigning ignorance as to the young prince's whereabouts, but just as he had turned on his heel to leave, a worried voice had shouted out behind him, accompanied by hurried steps.  It belonged to a harried-looking young man, wearing the king's livery, and who was obviously a servant of some capacity in the king's household.

 

"Prince Finwion!  There you are, thank Eru!  The king has been out of his mind with-  with- What in the name of the Everlasting Darkness is this?  So that's where all the glasses have gone!  And where are your robes?  What do you mean, ‘in a tree?'  PRINCE FINWION, COME BACK HERE THIS INSTANT!"

 

Rúmil had ended up doubled over laughing, watching as the boy took off like a shot, ducked under the unfortunate young man's legs (a dextrous and daring move which made the rest of the children shriek with laughter) and sprinted down the white stone stairs in what were essentially his undergarments, the sleeves of his tunic flapping in the breeze.

 

The young servant had made a sad, little moan, before he began to give chase, and the other children cheered and clapped, speeding prince Curufinwë on, whose small feet were pounding the pavements, sending up sparkling clouds of dust into the night air, as he made rather good progress down the road.  The boy had been far enough ahead that he felt he could stop long enough to turn round and call out, "I shall distract Minyandil!  Protect the sculpture!", at which point the rest of the under-aged rabble had begun to laugh and cry out to one another, "Protect the sculpture!  Protect the sculpture!" as they fell back into a loose, defensive formation around their glass pyramid.

 

It was really, really rather funny, but Rúmil, alas, had not been present at the end of their battle - had not witnessed how their heroic stand had played out - for he had been spotted by children and deemed an "adult and a Loremaster," and would have been likely to steal the glasses from their "work of art," and was therefore hurried away by a small, but determined group of suspicious children.

 

He had not known, either, what had become of prince Curufinwë, but he assumed someone had caught the boy eventually.  By all accounts, the young prince was still living under his father's roof and not up a tree with only a ragged pair of robes for company.

 

Smiling to himself, Rúmil put down his pen.  Then he rose and picked up the loose leaf of paper and began to peruse his notes as he paced, to-and-fro, along the balcony.  Sometimes he would stop, and stoop over the table to add another detail, before returning to his pacing, repeating this process until, having scratched down a final point with a concluding flourish, he nodded his head, satisfied with his work.

 

Matters pertaining to prince Curufinwë Fëanáro, Finwion.

 

By account of his father, the king, he is possessed of prodigious talent, is intelligent, has a quick wit and is driven to seek knowledge - all this beyond even the measure of our people. However, the prince is also allegedly possessed of a fierce temper, an impulsive recklessness, a disregard for authority, and is sharp-tongued and strange and self-willed.  The king, however, loves him dearly.

 

From what little I observed of his demeanour at the festival of Nost-na-Lothion, when he was still but a young child, I learned that the following characteristics corroborate with the king's account: his strange and at times sullen behaviour; an impulsive recklessness; an extreme disregard for authority; a quick wit; and a prodigious talent for feats of creative skill. I also observed that the boy, like his father, is a born leader - the other children of the festival sparing not a moment's thought in obeying his command - and that the boy, perhaps, also revels in rebellion, as I never saw him happier than when he took to his heels in flight from the king's servant.

 

I wonder now what I will observe of him?  I wonder what, if anything about him, has changed?  I also wonder how exactly I am to find out what is causing the boy's alleged peculiarity?  I make a tentative hypothesis that it is to do with his mother.  I also hypothesise that the king, in his heart, knows this but does not want to acknowledge the fact.  I wonder, then, how I am supposed to tell him? 

 

It seems that I am full of wonder and empty of answers.

 

Well, he thought, there was only one way to remedy that.

 

It was time to meet prince Curufinwë.

 

 

***    ***    ***    ***    ***    ***

 

 

After wandering around the palace for a while, he had finally managed to snare one of lady Indis's maids, who, when told of his purpose, fetched one of the king's own servants to take him to prince Curufinwë's chambers.  The friendly young man who escorted him past the guards to the private family quarters had been none other than Minyandil, the unfortunate sod who had been obliged to chase after the king's disobedient son that night at the Nost-na-Lothion festival.

 

Rúmil mentioned the incident to Minyandil, and the younger man threw back his head and laughed heartily.

 

"Oh, Valar, what an embarrassment!" Minyandil chortled.  "If I'd have known you were watching me make an prize arse of myself that night, Master Rúmil, I'd have likely thrown myself over the falls!  What a bloody night that was!  Fëanáro ended up running all the way down to the banks of the Ascar, and he scampered up a tree and climbed to where I couldn't reach him. We exchanged insults, he threw fruit at me, and refused to come down. I ended up having to fetch the king.  He had to come away from the Festival and leave the queen at table on her own."

 

"Really?" Rúmil said, marvelling anew at the lengths the king would go to in order to attend to his beloved son, and also at the servant's referring to the young prince as ‘Fëanáro'.  Interesting...

 

"Yes, really.  It took him a good hour or so to coax Fëanáro down, and when we finally brought him back to the square, he had a fit of temper and tipped half a bottle of wine over the king."

 

Rúmil's eyebrows shot up.  Only in his dreams had he ever dared...

 

"The king was absolutely furious," Minyandil went on in his good-natured, chattering voice, "and he quite rightly wanted to punish Fëanáro, although I did defend Fëanáro a little because he was just a boy at the time, and I suggested to the king that he be sent to his rooms.  The king told me to get him out of his sight for the night, and I brought him back here.  Ended up feeling heart sorry for him because it was my fault for bringing the king over to the riverside, so I stayed with him in his rooms and we made clay models until the king and queen got back."

 

"That actually sounds like fun," Rúmil mused.

 

"It was!" Minyandil exclaimed. "I rolled out the best snake I had ever rolled in my life that night.  Not much of a punishment, eh?"

 

Minyandil halted suddenly in front of a door and Rúmil almost crashed into him - for but a second ago, he had not even known the door was there. It had been very skilfully painted to blend in with the rest of the corridor.  He knew instantly that it led to prince Curufinwë's rooms.

 

"Here we are!" Minyandil announced.  "Now, we'll see if we can get him to let me in."

 

Rúmil flinched when Minyandil took a deep breath and bellowed, "Fëanáro!  Fëanáro, are you in there?  You have a guest!"

 

"Fuck off!"

 

The prince's reply was muffled, but there was no way Rúmil could have mistaken his words.  Disbelief washed over him.  Had those foul words truly come from the young prince's mouth?  Thoroughly shocked, he glanced at Minyandil, who did not seem bothered in the least.

 

"Fëanáro, open up!" Minyandil shouted, hammering insistently on the door.  "I'm not having him standing out here waiting.  He's come over from the School-"

 

"FUCK OFF!"

 

An indignant, offended anger flared in Rúmil chest.  Never, never in his life had he been spoken to with such disrespect!  Even the king in all his ire at the Máhanaxar had never resorted to such low language.  Why of all the nerve! The horrible, nasty, little shit! 

 

Flustered and affronted, he pushed in front of Minyandil, ignoring the younger man's protests, and shoved at the door. Something was making it stick, so he began to force it open with his shoulder, his righteous anger giving him energy.

 

With a final shove, whatever was causing the resistance gave way, and Rúmil felt the door slip away from him. With a yelp, he stumbled into prince Curufinwë's rooms, tripping up over a dust-sheet and almost clattering into a workbench that was covered in paint-pots and brushes of varying sizes.  Laurelin's light streamed in from a long window, setting swirling specks of dust a-sparkle.  The smell of paint fumes assailed him, and the cream-coloured walls of the room were covered in an indecipherable, arcane graffiiti.

 

"What is going on in here?" he thought, irritated.

 

Then he turned slightly, and started, almost falling over again in fright. 

 

A few feet away, prince Curufinwë sat atop a stepladder, staring at him, perched like a gargoyle, his knees drawn up into his chest, still and silent.  The prince's eyes were fixed on him, staring straight at him, through him, and for the brief moment when their eyes met, Rúmil felt an unexpected twist of apprehension.

 

The prince's eyes possessed a depth and intensity unmatched by either of his forebears.  A pale grey, they shone with a fierce luminescence, as though lit from somewhere deep within.  Or somewhere immeasurably far away.  Alien.  A place not of Valinor.  A primal, ancient place. Older than Cuiviénen, than the Trees, than the Lamps, than the Valar, even.  Perhaps older than Arda itself.

 

No one should have eyes like that.  It is unnatural...

 

Then, like a blow to the chest that winded and incapacitated, the prince's presence hit him full force - and for a horrifying, unbearable moment that flashed as brilliant and hot and briefly as lightning, all he could feel was heat.  

 

All consuming heat.

 

Instinctively, his fëa recoiled, feeling its edges curling into cinders and ashes like a sheet of paper held over an open flame.

 

Stop it...

 

The prince said something.  His lips moved.  But Rúmil could not hear him.  The prince's head tilted, his brow furrowed in concern, and he said something again.

 

Stop it!

 

Rúmil shook himself.

 

ENOUGH!

 

The heat dissipated.

 

Normality rushed in again, filling its place like waves washing away footprints in the sand.

 

And just like that, the moment was gone.

 

For a few seconds, Rúmil stood there in the middle of the floor, blinking, trying to process what had just happened.  Then the prince's voice cut through his reverie, resonant, impatient and low, but not yet fully deepened into manhood.

 

"You are not Minyandil."

 

It was like a short, sharp shock to his system, and Rúmil felt a black anger begin to writhe in the centre of his chest.  He felt his lip curl, and he returned the prince's flinty, dispassionate stare with interest.

 

"No, I am not," he said, his voice dangerously quiet.   "My name is Rúmil, and if you ever do that again, I promise you, you will regret it."

 

At the mention of his name, the prince's eyes widened momentarily.  There was a flash of eagerness there, but quickly as he had dropped his haughty reserve, the young prince picked it up and drew it around himself once more.

 

"You are Master Rúmil?  The linguist and historian of the School and the inventor of the Sarati?"

 

"I am," Rúmil replied with a nonchalance carefully crafted to mask his pride.

 

"Why are you here?  You do not often leave the School."

 

"I am here at your father's behest."

 

"You hate my father."

 

"I do not hate your father.  I merely do not believe the sun shines out of his backside, like so many others of my acquaintance."

 

The prince's mouth quirked a little at that remark.  "Yet you are here," he remarked, folding his arms and sitting back a little atop his stepladder.

 

"He is my sovereign," Rúmil replied evasively, leaving the implication hanging in the air.  Of course, the young prince picked up on it immediately.

 

"You came because you were commanded?"

 

"Correct."

 

"Why did my father command you to come here?"

 

"To speak to you, apparently," Rúmil replied testily.  The boy was beginning to try his patience. He asked far too many questions. Well, perhaps it was not so much the number of questions as the attitude in which they were posed.  Prince Curufinwë asked questions, and he expected them to be answered.

 

"What about?"

 

"I am not entirely certain, but I believe mutual interests may play a part."

 

There followed a short silence, in which the young prince clasped his hands in his lap and looked to the ceiling.  Then he said, "Oh.  That was thoughtful of him."

 

He jumped down from his stepladder and approached Rúmil.  Inclining his head slightly, he offered his hand.  It was then Rúmil noticed that whatever the young prince was wearing - it looked like a dingy, grey tunic and dark trousers rolled up to the knee and held in place with string - it was all absolutely covered in paint.  Nothing had escaped the treacherous splatter, and there were tiny spots of the stuff ranging from the dark circles under the boy's eyes all the way down to his bare feet.

 

It was unexpected, and it made Rúmil smile.

 

He took the prince's outstretched hand and his smile faded, replaced by a wince, when he felt the wet squash of paint transferring from one hand to another.  Then there was another feeling.  A tingling feeling, not unpleasant - and a warmth that spread slowly from everywhere prince Curufinwë touched. 

 

"I thank you for coming to my father's home, Master Rúmil," the prince said, his tone sincere and less haughty,  "and I apologise for imposing my fëa upon you.  I have craved your conversation for a long time now, but never expected to have the pleasure, since my father does not exactly figure high in your estimations, nor you in his."

 

"I forgive you," Rúmil replied coolly, trying to pretend he was not flattered by the prince's admission.  "Just don't do it again, or expect to have the pleasure immediately and indefinitely withdrawn."

 

A small, vague smile caused the prince's lips to twitch slightly. "Your threat is duly noted and taken to heart, Master Rúmil.  This is an opportunity too good to be lightly cast aside.  Now if you'll excuse me for one moment, I will speak to Minyandil.  Then we can talk properly."

 

"Very well," Rúmil replied, as the young prince brushed past him and headed for the door.

 

Free from young Curufinwë's penetrating gaze for a blessed moment, Rúmil took the opportunity to pay a little more attention to something that had been bothering him the moment he entered the room: the strange symbols that the prince had evidently been in the middle of painting on his walls when he had so rudely forced open his door and stumbled inside.   

 

They were familiar, yet not, and were beautiful of form - all elegant, slanted ascenders and descenders and carefully curved bows.  There was a regularity that made him suspect a writing system, and, linguist to the core, Rúmil tried to make sense of them whilst in the background, only half-hearing their conversation, the prince dismissed Minyandil.

 

"Minyandil?" 

 

"Yes?" 

 

"Thank you for bringing Rúmil." 

 

"Not a problem, Fëanáro.  May milord Finwe expect you for dinner?"  

 

"No. I will be busy."

 

"Very good."

 

Lost in wonder, Rúmil hardly even noticed when the prince re-entered the room, so busy he was marvelling at the skill of the decoration. 

 

Curufinwë had painted his walls to look like the pages of a very fine book - from the column divisions, ruling and rubrics, up to the soaring heights of huge illuminated initials and generous borders filled with dense puzzles of animal interlace.  The king had mentioned he had his son occasionally copy books for him - and no wonder!  The boy was astonishing!  He had half a mind to tempt the prince into mischief so he could have a book made for himself.

 

The text itself, however, he could not make sense of. 

 

But he wanted to.  Oh, how he wanted to!

 

While he had been gawping, unabashed, at prince Curufinwë's work, the boy had once again retreated to his stepladder, sitting on its top step and regarding Rúmil with an expression unfathomable.

 

"This is stunning," Rúmil heard himself utter.  "Prince Curufinwë-"

 

"Do not call me that."

 

Rúmil was brought down to earth with a bump at the tone of the prince's voice.  His words were smooth, his voice quiet, but there was a steely note there that commanded and would not be gainsaid. 

 

"My name is Fëanáro. To you, and to all, I am Fëanáro."

 

"Your mother name," Rúmil stated flatly, before he could stop the words tumbling out. 

 

He hadn't meant to, but when the words passed his lips, they sounded like a judgement. 

 

A silence fell, in which prince Curufinwë - no, Fëanáro - looked at him for a prolonged moment, his unnatural eyes searching him, staring straight into Rúmil's own as though the prince could find what he sought written there as clear as day as a page from a very fine book.

 

And then he realised.

 

Fëanáro, too, was judging him.

 

Lowering his eyes, Rúmil smiled, for he knew exactly what to say in his defence.  His speculation on at least one cause of the young prince's rebelliousness had been vindicated.

 

"A fine name," he announced, "and a true and beautiful one.  Your lady mother chose well.  I shall abide by her decision - and yours."

 

When Fëanáro smiled, once again Rúmil felt the happy feeling of having won a small victory.  He had made a breakthrough, he knew it.  He had said the Right Thing, and now, the king's young son would, perhaps, deign to listen to him.  The boy held fast to the memory of his mother.  Anything attributed to her influence was special to him, and nothing more so than that most precious of things she gave him before she died.  His name.

 

Fëanáro broke contact then, and the moment was gone as he folded his legs underneath him and spun round on his backside, facing the wall he had recently been vandalising. 

 

The air in the room felt different now, Rúmil realised.  Bit by bit, the ice of reserve on both sides was beginning to melt away.

 

"I am redecorating," the prince announced, speaking to the wall. "Do you like it?"

 

"I am astonished," Rúmil said, truthfully.  "You have a great deal of talent.  But tell me, Fëanáro-" he almost hesitated calling him by that name, "-what do the words say?  I am champing at the bit to know!  There is regularity.  It must be a writing system of some sort."

 

From his stepladder, Fëanáro shot him a sly, sidelong glance. 

 

"It is a writing system, yes..." he said.

 

When it became apparent that he would offer no further information but was content to string him along, Rúmil summoned all of his considerable powers of sarcasm to the fore, and, throwing his hands in the air, exclaimed, "Well, now, that's just wonderful!  What an extraordinarily comprehensive explanation that was.  I shall be able to go back to the School now quite happy, having learned so many new things!"

 

He noted that a bit of sarcasm went down well with young Fëanáro, as the boy cracked another smile.

 

"Truly, you are interested?" he asked.

 

"Believe me, Fëanáro, if I were not, I wouldn't have asked you."

 

"Then it is a code," Fëanáro said simply, making a sweeping gesture over his handiwork. "My own personal writing system that grew from a little code I invented so I could write in my ledgers and notebooks and not have anyone poke their noses in them and report back to my father.  I also use it to write to a few people on occasion, and have given them the transliteration aid.  Now they, in turn, have begun to use it in writing to me, and to others.  I know that my friend Luiniar uses it to write to his beloved in Tirion, whilst he serves out his apprenticeship in Formenos."

 

Fëanáro paused for a moment, stopping to hop down from his stepladder and approach a large something covered by a dustsheet.  It was a desk.  From somewhere on his person, a small key appeared, and he busied himself with unlocking a drawer before riffling around inside and coming away with a small, battered volume.  In fact, it hardly warranted the name ‘volume'.  It was more like a collection of single leaves of paper bound together within a thin, plain kidskin binding.

 

"I can write anything I want and not be censored," he added, handing the not-quite-volume to Rúmil, whose fingers tingled as prince Fëanáro's brushed his.

 

Rúmil opened it.  It was a transliteration aid.  He flipped through it and noted that each of Fëanáro's symbols was dedicated a page, accompanied by copious notes and assigned sets of Sarati equivalents.  At the back, blessedly, there was an index of sorts, containing tables of Sarati on one side and Fëanáro's letters on the other, so that one could transliterate at a glance.

 

"Now that you have the guide," Fëanáro ventured, with an enigmatic smile,  "I wonder if you can read what I've written?"

 

"With a paper and pen, I'm sure I could," Rúmil answered distantly, already absorbed in Fëanáro's short treatise on letter forms and sound values at the front of the guide.

 

A paper and pen was fetched; Fëanáro's writing desk uncovered, and Rúmil sat amid swirling clouds of dust and worked on deciphering the young prince's code, whilst Fëanáro climbed atop his stepladder once again and resumed his work - a paintbrush in one hand, another clenched between his teeth, and clutched in his free hand, his working exemplar.

 

It was completely unexpected, but before long, Rúmil found himself having an obscene amount of fun, especially when it came to dealing with those new, little conventions the prince had devised to divide utterances into sense units (there was a treatise on that too.)  Short pauses, long pauses, signs denoting additional information, signs indicating questions and exclamations (there were a lot of those in the wall-text) - those did not exist in his Sarati, so he had to borrow the symbols from Fëanáro.

 

He progressed slowly at first, but letter by letter, Rúmil began to gain in confidence and the secrets of the wall-text were the more swiftly revealed.  Unfortunately, the more of its secrets he uncovered, the quicker he began to realise that it was not a text - or at least none that had ever merited a place in any celebrated book of lore, though it had certainly been widely-read.  It was a transcription of an argument - a heated argument - and its cutting exchanges were uncomfortably familiar to Rúmil.

 

" ‘I denounce you!  I denounce you, Finwë, Noldóran, and name you inconstant! I name you flawed monarch - unfit to govern our people! How should we accept your rule and obey the law of the Valar of Aman when you blithely cast it aside to satisfy your own lusts?' 

 

So said Master Rúmil the scholar.

 

‘Master Rúmil, I do not make this decision lightly! Nothing like this has ever before occurred in the Blessed Lands, and there is no law yet that forbids me to marry Lady Indis.'

 

So said the king before Master Rúmil, the scholar, overrode him in anger.

 

‘There is, my king, there is!  It is the law of common decency!  This is a law as yet unwritten, but it beats within the hearts of all our people - Noldor, Vanyar, Teleri, and the Avar who yet linger overseas.  You chose your wife, Finwë, Noldóran, in love, and you made a vow under the witness of Manwë and Varda that you would forsake all others and honour her until the end of days.  By seeking this unnatural course, by seeking to wed Lady Indis, you dishonour your wife - your rightful wife, Lady Míriel - and break your vow!  Unless you did not choose your wife in love at all, which would explain why you are able to cast her aside like an old boot!' 

 

So said Master Rúmil, the scholar, in a great storm of rage, who then ceased to speak and was forced to relinquish his platform, as Finwë, the king, made to strike him and had to be restrained."

 

With a little moan of anguish, Rúmil's head fell into his hands as he finished reading over his transliteration.

 

"Bugger it," he muttered to himself, feeling his cheeks flush red. He cringed at the thought of the king finding out what his son had taken so much time and care to scrawl over his walls.

 

"Bugger it, bugger it, bugger it..."

 

"Is there something wrong, Master Rúmil?"

 

He looked up to find prince Fëanáro watching him closely.  There was a glimmer of mischief in his eyes, and Rúmil knew that the boy was well-aware of what was wrong with him.

 

"I have wanted to talk to you for a long time now," Fëanáro added, an enigmatic form of explanation that now seemed to Rúmil to be one of the boy's more irritating characteristics.

 

"Does the king know about this?" Rúmil said sharply, waving Fëanáro's guide in the air.

 

"No."

 

"Good.  Will it stay that way?"

 

"My father has quite a few of my letters stashed away in his study, though he will not admit it.  I assume he is still trying to figure out the system.  If he had managed to, he would have come gloating, of that I have no doubt," Fëanáro replied, with a small smile.

 

"Excellent.  And you keep this thing well-hidden?"

 

Fëanáro snorted with mock effrontery.  "Of course!  I do not merely keep it locked in that drawer.  There is a false panel."

 

Rúmil, the eternal sceptic, opened the drawer and felt around for the tell-tale signs of a join where there shouldn't have been.  He found nothing.

 

"There is no panel!"

 

"Yes there is," Fëanáro replied, with such quiet certainty that Rúmil knew it to be fact.

 

"Then by the Valar, you are far too clever for your own good," he said, laughing and shaking his head.  Upon his step-ladder, Fëanáro laughed too, running a paint-spotted hand through his dark hair.

 

"I like to make things," he said, "and I like to make them well. So my secret - and your words - are safe within these walls. My father would have to have my desk broken to pieces before he could ever find it, and I know he would not do that to me."

 

"That is well," Rúmil said.  "I hate the thought of going back to the School, only to have the king drag me back here under the cover of night upon suspicion of planting dissident philosophies into his beloved son's head."

 

"I would deny it you know," Fëanáro said casually, though shooting him a sly, challenging look.  "I would deny all knowledge and tell him that you told me to write them."

 

"As if your father would believe that horrendous lie!" Rúmil snorted.  "You? Not knowing what you were writing?  Oh, please..."

 

"He would," Fëanáro countered, his voice muffled as he jammed the brush between his teeth again and resumed his painting. "He would believe it because I am, as you said, his beloved son."

 

"Well, I cannot believe you would sink so low as to use your family connections against me," Rúmil said, with a mock sigh, as he slapped the guide book down on the desk and opened it up to the tables at the back.  "You really are despicable, Fëanáro, and I suppose the only way for me to cover my own arse is to compose some sort of disclaimer to let the king know I had nothing to do with it."

 

"A what?" the young prince said, paintbrush still clenched between his teeth.

 

Rúmil picked up his pen and turned over the sheet of paper Fëanáro had provided.

 

"A disclaimer, Fëanáro," he replied.  "I'm sure you know the term.  And, in fact, I have decided!"

 

"Decided what?"

 

"That I shall need wall space," Rúmil announced.  "That very corner at the bottom right, where you have stopped ruling.  I shall compose my disclaimer and write it there - using your system, of course."

 

"As you wish," Fëanáro replied dismissively, though a wry smile betrayed his amusement.

 

 

 

***    ***    ***    ***    ***    ***

 

 

 

It had not been his intent to stay so long. Outside, the light of Laurelin was waning, and the sky was set ablaze with the fiery hues of twilight. Indeed, he had not even noticed the time until he and the young prince Fëanáro, having finished their work, had retreated to the generously accommodating window seat in order to chat awhile. 

 

The room was saturated with the stink of paint, and Fëanáro had thrown the windows open wide, the panes banging against the white walls of the palace, startling a flock of doves into flight.  The prince had sat down, and invited Rúmil to do the same, and they had fallen into conversation.

 

Rúmil was glad for the fresh breeze blowing in from the open window, for it kept him alert - and if there was one thing he'd learned in the course of his encounter with young Fëanáro, it was that you always had to be on your toes when engaging with him on any sort of topic that sparked his interest.  The king had mentioned his son possessed a quick wit.  That, Rúmil had decided, was an understatement. 

 

The boy was preternaturally sharp, and while in debate would stare at those who would engage him with his brilliant grey eyes that seemed almost uncanny in their ability to burn away all the fripperies of rhetoric, leaving only your logic and facts exposed, ready to be picked apart by his merciless intellect.  Rúmil pitied the king ever having to chide a boy like Fëanáro.  He imagined that every explanation the king would put forward as reason for punishment, or performing an undesirable duty, Fëanáro would come back with a swift, contrary reply - relentless in its logic - that would force the wind out of the king's sails, leaving him unable to counter and his son with the liberty to do what he wished.

 

Therefore, although the setting for their conversation was very informal (Rúmil was himself now covered in paint and sitting less than a foot away from Fëanáro, their feet almost touching) he felt like he was on trial before a penetrating young judge. But he loved it.  Absolutely loved it.  It was the thrill of true, stream-of-conscious debate, with no tradition and format and rank and status to constrain and warp wild flights of fancy into mediocrity. 

 

Before him, Fëanáro sat cross-legged, orating on the disadvantages of his Sarati.

 

If so challenged by a colleague at the School, Rúmil would have launched into a blistering invective in his defence, as he had fought long and hard to get the Loremasters to accept his system over others. 

 

But when those criticisms came from Fëanáro - it was odd, but he did not mind so much.  Fëanáro was not a Loremaster and their conversation was private, therefore there was no danger of losing face. There was, however, a less selfish reason: he had never seen the prince so animated, so obviously happy as he was now.  Fëanáro spoke, his young face was suffused with a feverish glow, barely restrained, as he made quick, darting gestures with his hands. His strange and nebulous, but brilliant, thoughts came out rushing and disjointed, as though they would disappear into nothingness if he did not say them aloud. 

 

It was clear to Rúmil that Fëanáro had, indeed, been wanting to speak to him for a long time.  The boy's enthusiasm was infectious, and in spite of the subject matter, Rúmil was inspired - his own thoughts and imagination coming to life, as embers kindled to flame.

 

"So my system," Fëanáro explained, "is designed to accommodate any language you could care to think of.  It is a template for sounds to be mapped onto."

 

"Clever," Rúmil mused.  "You know your phonology.  I can see why it would be useful."

 

"And efficient.  There would be no more situations like what has transpired with your Sarati, Master Rúmil, where there are now hundreds and hundreds of locally specific Sarats. More and more groups of people are gravitating to these local Sarats, and it is becoming more difficult for those outside their locality to understand them. Our people as a whole are in danger of closing ourselves off from each another - communicatively, I mean."

 

"Yes," Rúmil said.  "I have noticed that myself.  I write to some of my old friends on Tol Eressëa fairly regularly, and if I had not grown up there and known the dialect from when I was an infant, I would certainly find their spelling eccentric."

 

"You were born on Tol Eressëa?" Fëanáro enquired, in a brief diversion.  "How interesting. There must be a lot of mixed languages there."

 

"Actually, I was born on a boat when our people were crossing the sea," Rúmil said, laughing a little. "I have no birthplace, but I consider Tol Eressëa my first true home. And yes, there certainly were a lot of languages floating around on that island.  A lot of crossed wires and misunderstandings. Quite amusing at times.  I have been around long enough to notice the changes taking place."

 

"And that is why a system such as mine would be useful," Fëanáro stated.  "For all our languages may grow apart, at least we would have a common way of writing!"

 

"Communication is important, yes.  It is the most basic purpose for writing.  I think that people forget that sometimes..."

 

"I agree," Fëanáro said earnestly, with another one of his rapid gestures.  "The purpose of writing is communication, and the purpose of communication is to convey meaning clearly. That is another way the Sarati fail to deliver-"

 

"Fëanáro!" Rúmil cried, half amusement and outrage.  "What now?"

 

"But Master Rúmil," the young prince pleaded, "please, I must tell you this!  It is no fault of your own, but rather that of those who have adopted your system-"

 

Rúmil was laughing now, still marvelling at his patience in taking such bare-faced criticism from one who had scarce left childhood.

 

"Very well, Fëanáro!" he said, holding his hands up in defeat.  "Go ahead.  Speak your mind."

 

The young prince squared his shoulders and Rúmil had to suppress his laughter as the boy launched into another happy moment of soaring conjecture and possibility.

 

"If the purpose of writing is communication," Fëanáro said, smacking his fist into his palm, "and the purpose of communication is to convey meaning clearly, then the Sarati fail in their obligation.  Why?  Because there are so many ways of writing.  You can write up and down from the right or left corner.  You can write from left to right, or from right to left.  I have even come across texts where the scribe has begun writing from left to right, got to the end of the line and switched from right to left, his words slithering from top to bottom like a sand snake's tracks in the desert. 

 

When I have to spend time trying to figure out which way a text is meant to be read, I can tell that the way in which it is written is inefficient - and certainly not clear enough.  You have not given enough guidance, Master Rúmil!  There are no restrictions in direction, so all the others have went mad putting their own spin on it.  Free choice is admirable, but not when it causes confusion."

 

"You touch upon a matter that has long plagued me," Rúmil replied, truthfully.  "Believe me, I would love nothing more than to see a standard develop, but you have obviously never encountered the twisted souls who inhabit the school.  They claim to value knowledge above all else, but they are jealous of every success that is not their own.  Certain colleagues fought bitterly against the acceptance of my Sarati, and I struggled for a long time to get them to see reason - that my alternative was the best out of all the others.  You may understand, then, when I say that I do not wield enough authority to impose a standard - and certainly not enough to stamp out variation, if that is even possible."

 

"Then they are fools," Fëanáro said, his eyes flashing.  "I am familiar with all of their other systems, and yours is by far the best.  That is why I based mine on yours."

 

"Why thank you for that faint note of praise, Fëanáro," Rúmil replied, with a rueful smile.  "Perhaps one day our dreams of a standard will come true-"

 

They both turned round at the sharp rapping on the door.  Minyandil's voice could be heard yelling from the other side.

 

"Fëanáro!  Fëanáro?  Is Master Rúmil still there?"

 

"I am here!" he called out.

 

"Did you forget you were dining with the king tonight?"

 

Launching himself from his seat, Rúmil let forth a stream of curses.

 

"Shit, shit, shit, shit!" he moaned, as he paced the floor, grabbing fistfuls of his hair - hair that was coming free of its braids and spotted in paint and in no fit state to present to the king.

 

How could he have forgotten?

 

At the window, Fëanáro sat and watched him impassively, his strange eyes following him about the room.

 

Of course... Fëanáro.

 

The door opened, and Minyandil hurried across.

 

"Do not fret, Master Rúmil!" he exclaimed, grabbing him by the arm and steering him out of the room.  "Lady Indis has arranged for your things to be collected from the School and delivered to your rooms, so your best robes will likely be there for you to choose from and I have had a bath run for you, just in case.  Moicallë has agreed to braid your hair if you would like," he added, casting a doubtful look at Rúmil's hair as though he didn't think it was exactly worth fixing.  "She is one of the queen's maids and she is very experienced."

 

"Fine, fine, fine!" Rúmil snapped, being dragged to see the king for the second time in less than a day.  "Just take me back to my rooms, because I have no idea how in the name of the Everlasting Darkness I got here-"

 

Just as he was about to leave the room, Fëanáro's voice called out.

 

"Have fun, Master Rúmil!"

 

He turned just in time to get a brief glimpse.  Fëanáro was still sitting at the window, legs crossed, arms folded.  A wry twitch of the mouth betrayed the boy's amusement, and the look he gave Rúmil seemed to say: You will not have fun.  You should be here with me. Then you would have fun.  I know it.  I understand you.

 

And he did.

---

Chapter End Notes

Names:

Nost-Na-Lothion - courtesy of Darth Fingon's article 'Elven Holidays and Festivals: What do we have to work with in the First Age?' from the Linguistic Foolery series.

Minyandil - courtesy of the Quenyan Name Generator. It means 'First Friend'.

Finwion - Fëanor's first father-name, before Finwë added the 'Curu-' prefix.

Moicallë - another one courtesy of the Quenyan Name Generator (though I'm not sure how accurately Vanyarized the name is. XD) It means 'Gentle' (the 'llë' is a diminutive suffix.)

Ascar - the river I made up that runs through Tirion. It means, 'rushing' and is courtesy of rialian dot com.

Why did you do that?

Possible canon picker's quibble: "Ummm... Fëanor didn't invent his Tengwar until 4750. WTF, Silm-fandom n00b?" To that I reply that writing systems do not come into being overnight. It takes hundreds of years for written standards to assert themselves - and that is in human societies, who do not possess the long memories of elves and their tendency towards preservation, rather than change. So I am inclined to interpret the 4750 date as when Fëanor unveiled his Tengwar, officially presenting it as a viable alternative to the Sarati, or even as the date when his standard was accepted by the Loremasters of Aman.

Possible general criticism: "Manuscripts, language, writing, yawn, boring, boring, boring!" Not to Fëanor, they weren't. He was deeply interested in writing and linguistics early in his career, and since I have a pretty weird background in medieval manuscript studies and historical linguistics, it seemed a shame not to dedicate a little bit of this story to some of Fëanor's great loves. :)