Home Alone: Forgotten in Formenos by Dawn Felagund

Chapter 10: Egg Salad and Cabin Fever

A three-bedroom suite awaits Fëanáro, Nolofinwë, and their families, ensconced in a cozy, turreted inn overlooking the town square of the little village of Falquopelë. True to predictions, the worst of the storm broke upon the spur of mountains, producing just enough snow on the other side to lightly frost the village. The Light of Laurelin—diffuse but unmistakable at this distance—spangles merrily on alabaster-draped eaves, and curls of woodsmoke unwind prettily upon the barest of breezes. The room is piled high with quilts, and a fire crackles affably in the fireplace. A shelf of classic Noldorin novels in matched bindings resides on a shelf along one wall, and a pot of mulled wine simmers over the fire, lending a sweet spiciness to the air.

Fëanáro immediately and wordlessly shuts himself into the coat closet with the memory stone he’d dug out of his trunk on the ride over.

Nelyo and Anairë assign sleeping quarters. Nolofinwë and Anairë will have one bedroom. They put Fëanáro in the other with Curufinwë (he does not respond to their knocks to confirm or reject the suitability of this plan). Nelyo defers receiving the third. Macalaurë is not so mannerly; he accepts and is dragging his trunk and his harp into the third bedroom before the question is fully asked.

Nelyo arranges himself and Tyelkormo, Findekáno, Carnistir, Turukáno, and Írissë around the communal living space. Írissë he assigns the couch on account of her being the only girl and the only one with legs short enough to fit. The couch is not overlarge. The other five he places on bedrolls on the floor.

The size of the three-bedroom suite—which elicited gasps of delight when they first entered—constricts like a fist squeezing down upon something soft and vulnerable now that they fully realize how many people it must house.

The fireplace, they learn, puts off less heat than the picture windows overlooking the green put off drafts.

Macalaurë emerges and serves himself a cup of wine and declares it heavily watered and dumps it on the fire in a fit of pique and reduces the flame (and heat) accordingly.

Which causes they to discover that the draft of the chimney is poor, when Tyelkormo—amid much bragging about how he can start a roaring blaze in wet, green wood—musters only a feeble, smoky flame.

“I’ll read us a story,” says Nelyo. There are few things, he has learned in his decades as the eldest grandchild, that a good story read out loud will not fix. But the books, when he takes them down, are disappointing abridged versions. Naturally, all that has been cut is what makes the story worth reading

It is also hard to see them through the smoke, so his excellent reading voice is diminished as he squints at the words on the page.

Anairë calls for room service. In her decades as an aunt and mother, she has learned that there is little that a tray of good, hot food will not fix. But the kitchen informs her that, due to shortages in south caused by increased exports to Taniquetil for the festival and shortages from the north due to the storm, there is toast, hardboiled eggs, and maybe a few crudités to be scrounged.

“And mustard!” adds the chef. “We can adorn it all with mustard!”

While they await the tray of food, Tyelkormo reads from one of the abridged novels. He is the only one who seems able to tolerate them, and the smoke. He likes the directness: how something happens, then something happens because of that, and so on—the same straightforward cause-and-effect of a stone plonking down a hillside. Írissë drops next to him and heaves a sigh.

After being ignored for several seconds, she follows up with, “Aren’t you just a little worried about them?”

“Who?” It takes Tyelkormo a moment to wrench is brain from the story, where a sword-girt hero is fighting a slavering wolf in such pared-down language that the book might be an instruction manual on how to slay a wolf in heroic style.

“Your brothers.” After a moment of no response: “The Ambarussa. They’re so little.”

“Since when do you care?” he asks. The book is getting good. In fifteen dizzying words, the hero’s head is in the wolf’s mouth.

She huffs. “You’re not the least bit worried about them?”

Realizing he isn’t going to find out the resolution to the head-in-mouth conflict uninterrupted, he claps the book shut. “No. I’m not. And here’s why. They’ve pushed it too far this time. Whatever happens to them is their own fault. And besides! It’s Formenos! It’s a dull little village in the middle of nowhere. If they haven’t managed to get themselves killed under my father’s feet in the forge or by pranking Carnistir, they’ll survive now just fine.”

Írissë does not look convinced, but she says nothing and Tyelkormo returns to his book.

A moment later, the tray arrives from the kitchen. Even Anairë and Nelyo can’t convincingly feign enthusiasm for the egg salad on toast they make with ingredients they find there, but everyone eats. And some complain about the food, some about the chill in the suite, some about the smoke. Some protest the location of their bedroll, and proclamations of boredom are oft-heard. All are weary, hungry, and cold and in too-close of quarters. Of all of these things, they complain.

But none suggest they should just carry on to Taniquetil without the Ambarussa.

Chapter End Notes

Thanks to Lyra for her help with the village's name Falquopelë.