Boundaries by Dawn Felagund

I love this story! There is so much to love! It is certainly the longest gift-fic I have ever received from you (and perhaps the longest ever, including some awesome fic swap entries in this fandom over the years).

AND it is about my two very favorite characters and their relationship with one another.

I cannot post the final and adequate comment on this story this morning. But I want you to know it is coming soon--I am writing it in my head as I type. Meanwhile, I raced through this story and now am re-reading. 

Thank you with all of my heart. It is chock-full of awesome elements and I intend to tell you what I think they are.

Later!!

This story is packed with so many rich and varied details! I'll have to re-read it.

My favourite bit probably is your description of Maglor's music: both how wonderful it is, as an experience, and its effect on the listeners.

It's extremely well-described, that moment when Fingolfin is inspired to be friendly to Feanor and how that impulse dissipates. It also made me sad, as all those other hints of the deterioriation of relations among Feanor's family and the rest.

At least Turgon manages to follow through on his friendly impulse!

(The different fighting styles of the brothers are also well described.)

Fingon is almost as dogged, pursuing elusive Maedhros all the way through Valinor, as he will be later on... Even if he was at fault, to begin with.

Oh, I was also amused by the chard!

First, chard! Ha! I was dying in sympathy with Fingon about this. We buy chard every week, but throw out half of it (and I hate to waste food!). My favorite method of preparing chard takes two days! (*--see recipe below.) I am the master of preparing meals in the summer from all fresh food and having them ready and on the table in less than an hour without heating up the kitchen. But chard annoys the hell out of me. And a lot of it goes bad before I can summon the energy/foresight to prepare it. I understand why Maedhros buys it. I also understand why a little goes a long, long way for Fingon. I am assuming that Maedhros does the cooking.

There is so much to unpack from this story! I love how it fits with AMC verse and some of my stories heavily derivative, but different from AMC. Wow!

On a purely emotional and storytelling level I adore the romance and contrast between the two in their styles. Fingon is the aggressor but actually is a needy, pushy-bottom if one has to make those distinctions. (I think in real life it is rarely that simple. And it is not in this story either!) I absolutely adore the descriptions of Fingon making the first moves, but Maedhros blowing his mind with his intensity and forceful responses.

He knows me and that I don’t care for being crushed beneath him (he’s tall!), and I know him and that he prefers to do the crushing.

* * *

He pulled me into bed with him and flipped me onto my back. “Damn it, Findekáno,” he said and crushed me.

* * *

It was helped by a bottle of lemon-yellow Telerin mead that must have gotten the bees drunk making the honey because it left Nelyo utterly uninhibited to where I would have worried about the amount of noise he was making if, one, I wasn’t thoroughly drunk myself and, two, we weren’t in Alqualondë where attitudes toward sex are decidedly less buttoned-up than in Tirion. Anyway, Nelyo uninhibited in bed? Is a force of nature, like making love with an electrical storm.

I cannot even wrap my mind around how hot that last part is without being the slightest bit explicit. Less is more in this case, although I have been thinking that myself in recent years. No wonder Fingon chases after Maedhros--who would be willing to let that go!

This next part is WILD! And absolutely perfect characterization!!

I tried to make small talk with them—“Are you enjoying the summer? Get any deer lately? How’s the weather been holding up?”—but talking with the twins was like throwing pebbles at a mountain (Ambarto) where they made not even a whisper of sound or impression or into a big cloudy pond (Ambarussa) where you know the words went in but what happened to them? Never for me to know.

Feanor's banner(s)! Where have your principles gone, Feenie!? 

I'm trying to figure out less who knows what is going on between Maedhros and Fingon--almost everyone? More interesting is who hasn't guessed? ["I mean that all forms of love are accepted here. All forms.”] And, if so, why not? M/F seem pretty obvious to me. I remember discussions about that kind of thing in my family--like when one of my nephews brought his "best friend" to Thanksgiving and had never come out as gay--and how there were those who did not see the obvious while others had known long before the couple themselves had acted.

The family stuff in your various Finwean story-verses never ceases to kill me! You always nail it. (And this praise is coming from someone with a BIG and often contentious family.)

You have a way of making me feel so unexpectedly tender toward Feanor. You bring tears to my eyes. No matter what kind of an ass he has been earlier in a story.

“Your son, he’s nothing short of extraordinary,” and Fëanáro said, “I know,” for once not sounding arrogant but slightly surprised, like he-who-knew-so-much had discovered something new too. 

Speaking of Maglor, OMG! You outdid yourself with that entire description of Maglor's artistry--so many canon references covered by that. For example, of course, I thought of the ability to elevate the power of music to a form of magical communication and power. We see examples of Luthien and Finrod in canon texts, but imagine what Maglor is capable of... Wonderful stuff in those passages.

And Fingon and the little harp!! 

“Our Cousin’s favorite song can be played upon such a harp, in fact, small enough to be carried in a pack on the Great Journey.”

* * *

“I brought this back,” I said, “to serenade you—after I broke into Grandfather’s study, of course, and forced him to reveal where you’d gone—and win you back by playing that song you love? The one you discovered with Macalaurë?”

Jeez, Dawn! You are not above pulling out all the stops on the organ here, are you?

This is killing me--the entire story is echoing just how far Fingon is willing to go to find Maedhros when he goes missing. I am envious that you wrote this, but my gratitude outweighs my envy.

I need to send this without proofing. I have written so much that if I accidentally lost it I would slit my wrists!

I adore this. Love it so much!! You knocked it out of the ballpark again! Thank you so much.

*Chard recipe: easy but requires planning--remove the tough veins/stems from mature chard (throw those in the freezer and use in soup another time or use baby chard) slice into ribbons, massage with olive oil and lemon juice, mash up avocado as though one was making guacamole, stir into the chard mixture, marinate overnight--or the chard will be bitter and tough--and, finally, dress with more slices/or chunks of avocado the next day and serve. (We salt to taste at the table.) It is ambrosia! If you try to prepare it with less than the overnight marinating, it's likely to be bitter and tough. But despite the ambrosiac results, it is a p-i-a. Who feels like doing that even once a week? Not me. Wow! But guests rave over the chard salad when we can manage to produce it.

I read and savoured EVERY WORD of this, not only reading but enacting it in my mind- imagining how Findekano would do this, and then that- and Nelyo's expression, his hands- because you have PERFECTLY described every moment. It is like drninking the telerin mead you describe. Utterly gorgeous, absorbing, layered, affectionate, perfect.

From the moment, Kano tumbles them  ridiculously down  the steps, imagining the silly romance he has been reading, to the harp- he absolutely has me falling in love with him- and for me it has always been Nelyo then Kano. But this made me see him differently- I love the narrative voice-his impetuous headlong rush to pursue Nelyo is slightly surprised and bemused- and yet he is accepted so easily (Love the visit to Formenos!)

I really enjoyed the scenes/ progress of their relationship, how hopefully Findekano listened (not quite listening but squirming in hope and anticipation) to Nelyo's oh so sensible caution.

Or, mostly, I wanted to impress Nelyo that I was capable of being adult about all this. I did become aware that I was twisting my fingers. They hurt. And I’m afraid I was rather pop-eyed with anticipation and hope that was not dying an easy death, and my mouth was open a bit. My heart was pounding so loudly that I might have heard him wrong? Oh, let me have heard him wrong!
But, no, when I said nothing, he went on. “Surely you understand, Káno. Even if it weren’t a double taboo—two men! and first cousins!—our family is in such a delicate situation right now, a situation that, if not resolved properly, could be ruinous for our people. We have to walk so, so lightly, and another scandal—”
“Half,” I said.
He’d clearly prepared the words he was saying to me. I knew the way he blinked when derailed from a lecture he’d intended to deliver straight-through; Tyelkormo and I used to do it intentionally, when we were children and he was trying to teach us. He blinked at me now. “What?” he said.
“Half,” I repeated. “We’re half first cousins.”
Just as it used to, his face firmed into that you’re-being-ridiculous look of disapproval. My heart broke a little inside me.

Desperate last line! And then there is this WONDERFUL, blissful piece of writing:

I took myself down the hall to his room. I knocked but was already opening the door when he called for me to come in. He was in bed, nodding off over a book. His crimson hair was unbound and fanned behind him on the pillow. It was a hot night, and the thin silk sheet that covered him from the hips down was clearly all he wore. I went and sat on the edge of his bed and took the book from his hands and clapped it shut and put it on the night table. There was a bookmark there but fuck it.
“Ulmo’s water, Findekáno!” He was groggy but clearly upset that I’d lost his place. He reached for the book, so I gave it an extra shove that sent it out of reach and almost to the floor. “What in the—”
I touched his face.
Instantly he stilled and quieted. “Boundaries are meant to be crossed, Nelyo,” I said. “When our grandfather and Ingwë planted those flowers between their cities, they didn’t do it to stop people from coming over. They did it so people would know, hey, the rules have changed here! I need to be a little different on this side! So there’s a boundary for us. That doesn’t mean we don’t cross it! Oh, we cross it, my love, but we just act differently on the other side. Carefully.”
His hand had risen to my wrist. I believe he meant to toss my hand away, but when I said “my love,” the touch changed. He covered my hand with his, slid it from his face to his throat, his chest. I could feel his heart thundering under my palm. I think he wanted to slide it further down, but he lost his courage there, so I helped him by leaning over and kissing him.

Fangurrrllll screaming! 

I love the little jokes, chard, the sword fighting positions, and the glimpse of Formenos - although the changes are marked and emphasised indeed just how much Nelyo's work is important, that delicate balance, the arguments between Feanaro and Nelyo and their denial that they were anything but. These layers of meaning in your writing give it such depth and it is succincnt and whilst not sparse, never wasteful or indulgent or hyperbolic. I am always envious of your self -discipline!

The other two scenes, the warm pool and telerin mead scene ( oh. my) wonderfully understated and so much wilder because of just that one word: unihibited; and then  Macalure's concert -which is stunning- these two scenes I have read over and over. And then this lovely detail:

“Our Cousin’s favorite song can be played upon such a harp, in fact, small enough to be carried in a pack on the Great Journey.”
Turukáno watched me for a moment, then pushed the harp in my hands. “Take it then. Maybe it will help you find him.”

Oh yes!

Gorgeous.

More than liked it-adored is not a strong enough word for how I feel when I see you have posted something. I do give a fangurrrl scream- frightens the cat!

I don't know this challenge so will google it but I wish you posted elsewhere as well as SWG- your writing should have such a wide and appreciative readership. I know you have some stories on Ao3 and Faerie would welcome you (small select readership). I just love your writing and am so excited that you are writing another Caranthir fic. You write him better than anyone else.

Ha- chard. There is a place called Chard in Somerset, England. When we go past it we always pronounce it with a very strong rhotic rrrrrrrrrrr like some Somerset yokel.

Didn't know about YOUR website!!!! 

I did realise there is a post about the challenges- might have a go at those next time. At the moment, I'm struggling with my own stuff but nearly finished the long one and am looking forward to a bit of freedom.