This Dull Flame, This Crooked Heart by Agelast

Chapter 1

When I first got my cards, this particular prompt jumped out at me and I thought -- that poor woman! Why would anyone marry Caranthir? And while that number wasn't called, the other number I used for this was, so!

(And there are reasons someone might marry Caranthir. He's tall, dark, and handsome. Probably. Honestly, I'm only sure about the dark part. As for that bad temper, well...)

Read Chapter 1

Thump! Thump!

She hadn't meant for it to go on so long, making this bread. Her hands worked on their own accord, kneading the dough again and again, squeezing the air from its body. Idly, she imagined the knot of dough to be Carnistir's face, and punched it harder than she ought to. 

Her knuckles ached at the impact. She bit her lip, hard.

Then she sighed and straightened, extracted her fingers from the dough and sprinkled flour over the top of it. 

She patted the surface it, satisfied. 

That was quite enough of that. 

The dough was trundled back into the bowl and put away in a cool, dark place, to rise again. 

+ 

She had not stayed for the oath-taking at the square. There seemed to be no point to it, nothing to gain -- it was true, her father-in-law's voice had stirred her to action -- but the action was walk -- no -- to run back to the only place in Tirion she knew. Her own parents lived a day's ride from the city, and in this perilous gloom, no one ventured that far from the torches that lit the streets of Tirion, however fitfully. 

She went to Nerdanel's house, in fact.

It was her turn to make the bread.

+ + + 

When she was first married, her mother-in-law had taken her aside, with a smile. She put her forehead to hers and was quiet for a turn. Lastandë, unused to the way her new family -- touched, all the time -- hesitated a little, and then smiled, and embraced her new mother-in-law. 

"You must not mind -- how they are," said Nerdanel quietly, as she pulled away. She spoke so quietly that Lastandë strained to hear her over noise of the boisterous party. 

Nerdanel continued. "They can be quite unbearable at times." 

Lastandë studied her mother-in-law intently, this woman who had become a legend on her own right, who had brought up so many children, who had not, ever, lost herself, or her talent along the way. 

(But. She was even now, a stranger at her own son's wedding feast.) 

Lastandë, who had been holding Nerdanel's hands only loosely, gave them a small squeeze. 

"I understand," she said, sincerely. 

Nerdanal's white teeth shone in the dark. "Oh my dear, you don't." 

She patted Lastandë's head.

The younger woman felt like a child being gently chided for her lack of understanding. 

Nerdanel said, smiling, "Well, he loves you, at least. No one could make Carnistir do anything he didn't have the idea to do first. Not even when he was little." 

Lightly, Lastandë said, "He's very stubborn." 

Nerdanel sighed then, and she looked -- weary, old, nothing like the spirited woman who had come, unannounced, though not unwelcome here, who had stood unbowed as the crowd had gathered around her, seeking her attention. 

She only nodded. "Good luck," she said finally. 

As if she already knew it would do no good. 

+ 

Lastandë woke around midday, and stared at the ceiling (the beautiful, ornately carved ceiling) for a while before getting up. The chamber still smelled of flowers, and she wondered if she should clean it up. A soft knock interrupted her hurried attempts to clean -- picking up a discarded shirt of his -- and she went to open the door. 

The sight of the young servant jarred her enough so that she -- clutching the door-frame (it was a beautiful door-frame), she peered out, asking a silent question. 

The girl curtsied hurriedly. "If you please, m'lady, we would like to freshen up the chamber." 

"Ah," she said, feeling foolish, "Of course, you may." 

The girl and others that Lastandë had not seen, waiting in the blue-filtered hallway, trickled in. 

- 

She took care to dress well for her first day with her new family. She looked critically at her reflection in a mirror of exceptional clarity and brightness. She was confronted, as she always was, by an pale oval of a face and nose too long for beauty. Her chin was decidedly firm. 

Her lips called for no comparisons to flowers of any kind, they simply were.

Her eyes were thoughtful and gray, and quite common for that. 

Her hair had been braided up by the girl -- "Méle, m'lady", the girl said, and they shared a shy smile. 

Her hair was black, of course, and unlike her sisters' hair, which brought to mind the thought of raven's wings and such, Lastandë's hair was just that. And it was prone to tangles.

But she were to be honest, which she tried always to be, she had to believe that she was not without her own charms. 

She smiled into the mirror, and her reflection winked back, approvingly. 

Now she was dressed -- and her dress was a beauty, lovingly embroidered by her mother. It was nothing approaching the quality of Míriel Serindë's work, but that was, surely, to be expected. But still, it was well-wrought, and it was not without a little pride that she stepped out of the room and made her way to the dining rooms, on the ground floor. 

It was empty.

Indeed, save for a few servants who never stayed long, she was alone. 

She was alone, she could do what she liked.

The whole day was spent thus: exploring as much of the -- it did not seem right to call the place anything but a palace, sprawling as it was over several floors and many, many rooms. It was built, clearly, with a large family in mind. They certainly wouldn't be living as some did in the city, in rabbit warrens, generations and generations piled on top of one another. 

No, each member of the family had a space meant only for them. 

Carnistir's rooms had been carefully laid out, with him in mind, as she was coming to realize. 

Someone -- not Carnistir -- had thought to paint some of the walls a calming shade of blue. 

(She quite liked it. And since it persisted, he, perhaps, liked it too.) 

In her explorations, she passed rooms filled with instruments of every kind, harps made of all kinds of wood, of twisting, glittering metals, even ponderous stone. A trembling note seemed to follow her as she wandered away, from a small white harp that seemed to be made of bone...

Everything was beautiful (and not a little oppressive.) 

She turned sharply away from a hall full of animal skins (she could swear she heard a distant muted roar) and towards two towering doors of gleaming black wood. She pushed it open -- to be greeted by the familiar scent of books.

A library! She was only too glad to wander here, peering at the spines, climbing up the ladders, and running her hands experimentally across the polished wood railings that seemed to adjust for a person of her own height. Finally, she chose for a book of myths about the Outer Lands, and and settled into leather chair. 

After contemplating the apparent freedom of the Avari, she promptly fell asleep. 

A soft cough pulled her from her revelry. She looked up. And up again, to see the face of her new brother-in-law, Maitimo Nelyafinwë. Lastandë made a move to stand, but was stayed by the other's gesture, hands wide and splayed across his chest. I come in peace! 

"We've been looking for you," said the handsomest man in the land, the one all her sisters sighed over (the one everyone sighed over.) 

She apologized, but he only shook his head. 

(How her sisters envied that hair! That color! And yes, she was among them there.) 

"I'm afraid the situation now is a little," he hesitated, "fraught." 

(This, she would learn, was the a favorite thing of his to do. Making such dramatic understatements were at odds with Feanaro and his house, where the tide pulled the other way.) 

+ 

He was rude, and aggressive to the point of near-absurdity. He kept hold of grudges for years and years, holding fast to them as they had changed, mutated from the grief at the original offense into to something new and entirely inexplicable. 

His legendary grudge against his younger uncle's family stemmed from an incident during his childhood, long-forgotten by everyone else, who had deemed it to be too insignificant to bother with.

Everyone but him.

Oh, he was strange. 

Subtlety was beneath him, politeness only insulted him. 

He was maddening to be around. 

And so, when he came through the door, steps slow and uncharacteristically hesitant, she stayed seated, eyes never leaving the pages of her book. However sanguine a picture the author painted of life in Middle-earth, it seemed to her that things could not be so very good as all that.

He stood before, impatient for her attention, but it was not until she had finished the page that she looked up and waited for him to speak. 

He said, carefully careless, "I suppose you are very angry at me?" 

She put her book down and considered. "That you should take leave on our first day as a married couple --" 

He made a sound of protest, which she ignored.

"I was surprised, it is true. But I can only assume you have a good explanation?" 

"I do." 

"You can tell me all about it, later." 

He stooped down, knees on the floor -- she could chide him for getting his clothes dusty, but she was not his mother. He was muttering something, teeth grinding. Thoughtfully, she wrapped a finger around a lock of dark hair. Then she, deliberately, firmly, reached out, and caught his chin, and planted a firm kiss on his lips. 

A clanking of teeth, and indrawn breath and --

He pulled away first, a dull red heat washing across his face. 

(His very own namesake.) 

She asked, sweetly, "Surely you look forward to explaining it all to me?" 

"Ah. Yes." 

He regained his composure quickly, leaping up and taking her with him. Her book clattered on the floor, disregarded. He pulled her hand impatiently, and she hurried to catch up. Somewhat breathless, she asked, "What about dinner?" 

"Bu-- ah, forget dinner. They can send something up." 

+ 

"We'll have to change it, of course," she said, a lazy flick of her wrist, including the whole of the room. "All of it." 

He stirred beside her, still fucked mellow. "I've had it like this since I was a child." 

She turns to him, smiling. "Exactly." 

Moving closer to her, pushing aside the sheets, he said, "My brother was right." 

"Oh? Which one?" 

"Curufinwë." 

"Ah. The one whose reputation is almost as bad as yours, yes, go on. What did he say?" 

"First all, I am quite misunderstood -- don't laugh -- I'll wait until you've stopped." He waited patiently until she did stopped, wiping away the tears from her eyes. He went on, saying, "He said than once you marry, your wife will want to change everything about you."

"Oh, he's married? But he can't be more than --" 

"He's extremely precocious. And you're changing the subject." 

"That seems to be a family trait." 

He muttered something that sounded like you're in it now. 

(Which was quite true.) 

Serenely, she went on, saying, "Well. I suppose. But if you had no wish to be changed, you wouldn't have married in first place."

He said then that he was tired of talking. So they did something else instead. 

+ + + 

They compared systems and economies, argued over the best way to conduct business. He derided her soft-silly heart, she took his off-putting behavior to that heart. The genius of his family came to him in different ways -- he was born too late to invent banking entirely, but he did more to it than anyone else. 

After all, even in blessed Aman, there are people who want things they cannot quite have.

Mortgages were his idea. 

Dizzyingly high interests rates were too. 

(And whatever he said about it, he was always the one who benefited the most.)

"I don't understand," he said, after one client burst out the room, quietly swearing under his breath, never to return again. Lastandë looked up from the accounts, quill pen hovering over the inkwell. "What about?" 

"Never mind." 

Accounts could be tallied up, everything had to make sense. Not so with people. 

But in any case, it was time to get back to work. 

+ + + 

Formenos was raw and unfinished, green fields stamped flat and muddy with the tread of many feet. The air was always smoky -- choking at times, when the wind blew the wrong way. Formenos could hardly be called city, though its people seemed to burst through its meagre seams. 

Formenos was still half a blueprint on Fëanáro's desk; a paper town, to be written about, to be written on, but not truly a place for people to live. 

It was a place for waiting, a defiant place. 

Its inhabitants took their exile to their hearts, to their minds. 

But. In Formenos, one could see the stars, if one wished. 

+ + + 

Outside Fëanáro's house - it was a fortress in truth -- there was a vegetable garden. 

And the day came when Lastandë found herself weeding this vegetable garden, rather disconsolately. It wasn't she thought herself above such things -- not really -- although she did hate it...

"Scowling at them won't make them leap out of the ground," said Marillë. The wife of Curufinwë offered her a hand, which Lastandë took gladly.

"There's a first time for everything," she said with a groan. They stood together, comfortable in each others' presence. 

"I'm not sure what I'm doing," Lastandë admitted at last, looking over plot of land in dismay. 

Marillë leaned on her hoe, and said delicately, "Ah, but you were a fine lady in the city, I forgot." 

"Not at all. I was from the suburbs," said Lastandë. She sought to change the subject, and asked, "Where is the baby?" 

"Sleeping," said Marillë with a sigh. Finally, her stance seemed to say. 

They worked companionably for a time, Lastandë following Marillë's movements as best as she could. Hours seemed to drift past, and Laurelin began to fade when a shout rang out in the still air. 

Down the broad path that skirted near the garden, Finwë went, a straw hat covering his head. 

When he saw them, he gave them a broad wave. 

They waved back, and he ambled along, seemingly content. 

"He has to keep in practice, after all," said Marillë, and Lastandë began to laugh. 

+ + +

A single candle was not enough to penetrate this unnatural darkness. 

Not far away, there was a distant sound of sobbing. Lastandë did not allow herself to wonder who it was, or why she (always she) cried aloud. Instead, she pressed her hand against forehead, and wished for... Nothing. 

When she heard the clatter of hooves outside, her movements were slow, sluggish in the dark. She lit a lantern and took it with her out into the murky gloom. He had already unsaddled, and was rapidly approaching her.

She braced for impact, which did not come. Instead, he stood an arm's length away from her and said, "I don't suppose you'll come." He wanted confirmation, and then to be gone. 

Well, she thought rather savagely, I can give it to him. So she shook her head -- and realized that in pervasive dark, he could not see her. So she said in a voice that barely quaked, "No." 

"Then waste away here," he said, grimly, and she couldn't help but laugh. Oh, it was a strange, muted thing, and she wondered if she was going mad. Such feelings were in the air. 

She pulling herself straight and said, "I will not wait for you." 

He hissed, "I do not ask you to!" 

She opened her mouth to make a tart reply when a faint smell of smoke reached her. 

"Oh Eru, the bread!" 

After a mad dash into the kitchen, she hastily yanked the bread out of the oven. The two loaves were a darker brown than she had hoped for, but still edible. She put it down on the kitchen table with a sigh. She sat down with a sigh, and felt a hand on her shoulder. 

Quietly, as he did not truly wish to speak, Carnistir said, "You could come with me."

It wasn't a plea, exactly. 

"I couldn't." 

"But I --" 

"Must." 

She stands, and went to find something to wrap the bread in. What she found an old but clean cheesecloth, and wrapped the loaf in it, and handed it to him. 

"For the journey," she said. 

Half-admiringly, half-ruefully, he said, "You know, when we first met, I wondered if you would be as stubborn as I am." 

Eyebrows quirked, she asked if he had found out that this was so. 

He said that he had.