The House that Fingon Built by Himring

Chapter 4

Years of the Trees

‘Maitimo, Maitimo, wait! Wait for me! Makalaure!’

I was running as hard as I could, partly because I wanted to catch up with you as soon as possible, but mostly because I was still afraid that there might be somebody on my trail, sent to fetch me back to Tirion before I could even reach you.

You heard me just as you were about to disappear around a bend where the lane dipped down among a grove of willows. You stopped and turned and waved. I laid on another burst of speed and dashed towards you, pell-mell. Grinning, you held out a welcoming hand. I gripped it tightly, but found that I could not make myself stop in time, and stumbled on past you, whirling you around like a top. You laughed and, managing to seize my other arm, quickly spun me around once more, so that Makalaure had to dodge hastily out of our path.

‘Findekano!’, he exclaimed. ‘So, Uncle decided to let you come after all!’

He was doing his very best to sound pleased and welcoming, but I could tell that I had interrupted an important conversation that Makalaure considered unsuitable for my tender ears.  Although you two spent so much of your lives together, a privilege I envied Makalaure, I knew that in the household of Feanaro the chances of having a truly private conversation in which you could be sure of not being interrupted at some critical moment were few and far between.

‘Girls,’ I thought, with all the wisdom of one who knows nothing whatever about the subject.

If I had been told then that the pure and shining joy I felt at being allowed to spend a couple of days with you and your family was not entirely unrelated to that subject, I would never have believed it. And you, although you were already more troubled than I was, had no inkling of it either. We were Noldor; we prided ourselves on our independent thinking and had no idea, then, how rule-abiding we were at heart in many of our ways. It was not until we reached Middle-Earth that we realized how much of what we believed to be natural law was a set of conventions laid down by our grandfathers or even by our fathers. By then, of course, we were also fighting for our lives, and the discovery was terrifying as often as it was liberating...

…but also—in that one case, from that moment on when you took me in your arms and the gentle pressure of your lips seemed to slice through me like a very sharp knife—as inevitable as breathing, as irreversible as the first rising of the Sun.