Sunrise Before I Ever Saw the Sun by Himring

Bedtime Story

At the end of a difficult day in the Feanorian household.

Using Quenya names (Carnistir=Caranthir, Findekano=Fingon, Macalaure=Maglor,Tyelkormo=Celegorm). Also: Atar=Feanor, Amil=Nerdanel.

Maedhros:

He sits bolt upright in his bed, my little cousin, and says: ‘I want to go home’.

He’s very much not crying, his voice is almost too steady, but it is a crushing defeat and the admission is clearly costing him. I was afraid it would come to that. These last evenings I’ve felt a tightening in my stomach, as I knocked on his door at night to check up on him.

I sigh and sit down on the edge of the bed. ‘It’s been a difficult day, hasn’t it?’

It’s been another difficult day. All the artists in our family are simultaneously caught up in the throes of their creativity. So Atar is surrounded by a cloud of acrid fumes and even more mercurial than usual, blowing hot, cold and indifferent in a completely unpredictable pattern, and Amil has withdrawn almost completely into her workshop in self-defence and surrounded herself with a cloud of marble dust in her turn. Most absent-minded of all, Macalaure, who has no workshop door to close between himself and the music, didn’t notice this morning when Tyelkormo switched plates on him and not only buttered an old shoe sole liberally, but even tried to chew it, before I caught up with what was going on.

‘Macalaure,’ I said, ‘the quality of the cooking round here may have gone downhill during the last few days, but I can assure you our bread isn’t quite as tough as that.’

He blinked.

All of this makes Tyelkormo doubly restless and Carnistir doubly tense. And they took it out on Findekano, I am sure, when my back was turned. Not that he is going to tell me, even now. His mouth is firmly shut.

Findekano has standards to maintain. There have been tactless remarks by those who should have known better, and now he is upholding the honour of the descendants of Indis in general and his father in particular. When Findekano attempts to copy his father’s behaviour, the result is charmingly dignified. This very straight look he’s giving me just now seems to be his interpretation of the Nolofinwe glare. The determined set of his jaw is very endearing. I feel this ought to teach me something about Nolofinwe as well as about Findekano—except I am too tired at the moment trying to hold this household together so that the abstracted artists will have a place to come back to when they’re done and I can’t really concentrate on such things.

Meanwhile Findekano is obeying a set of rules that forbids him to kick back when Tyelkormo kicks him under the table or to complain about it. He’s been fighting with one hand tied behind his back for weeks now, my brave cousin. No wonder he’s worn out. And because of those stupid prejudices between our families, Tyelkormo and Carnistir can’t even be made to understand he’s holding back. If Findekano ever decides to let fly, I think Tyelkormo won’t know what hit him.

But that does nothing to make things easier for Findekano just now. ‘Let’s talk about it again tomorrow evening, shall we?’, I suggest.  ‘If things don’t improve and you still feel you want to go home tomorrow, I’ll talk to Atar about it.’ With luck, Atar might have finished his whatever-it –is tomorrow.  Or Amil’s statue of Varda might come out the way she wants it to.

Findekano nods and swallows.

‘You’re not planning to sleep with your hair in those braids, are you?  That can’t be comfortable. They look awfully tight. Why did you do them like that in the first place? Let me undo them for you and I’ll tell you a story while I do it.’

He assents, so I pull him closer and begin: ‘Once upon a time in Cuivienen...’

By the time I’ve un-braided his hair, his stiff back has relaxed and he allows me to put my arm around him and cuddle him a bit while I finish the story. When I’ve reached the conclusion of my own rather convoluted version of what Unborn Elf said to First Dog and First Cat, he’s snuggled up against my side and half asleep.  So young to be away so long from home and in semi-hostile territory, too! But I don’t want him to leave and not just because he clearly would regard it as running away.

 I don’t want to lose my star pupil. He was meant to be Atar’s, but Atar passed him on almost immediately to me for a thorough grounding. I soon began to be afraid that he might be about to ask for Findekano back. I’ve never seen a kid dive like that into algebra, dignity forgotten, eyes sparkling, braids flying, not so much because of a fascination with numbers in themselves, but simply because it was new. Just when Tyelkormo was beginning to infect me with his increasing boredom... Teaching Findekano is an adventure. New subjects are exciting territories to explore, like those unknown vast lands east of the sea. It keeps the walls of this house from closing in around me, as they sometimes threaten to do.

I’ll just have to figure out how to protect him better, without giving Tyelkormo and Carnistir enough reason to get unmanageably jealous and actually making things worse. Somehow.

Chapter End Notes

I imagine the story Maedhros tells Fingon as rather resembling one of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, but not exactly the same as "The Cat That Walked By Himself."