Tengwa malta by Sky

“There, unseen by others, from now on

They are ruling undividedly…”

(Lora Bocharova They)

***

I wake up because something metallic is pushing my knee. When you’re riding the subway and you’re on your feet and it’s early in the evening, there’s nothing strange about that. But when you’re sitting and it’s half an hour to midnight and the carriage is almost empty… I open my eyes a little and see a scabbard. A long black scabbard with the thick hilt of a great sword sticking out of it.

Here we are.

The scabbard is tightly belted to a black velvet surcoat. The surcoat is long and embroidered in silver. Down below, very close to my feet, standing solidly on the swaying floor, there are two giant feet in muddy leather boots. It’s obvious I’ve got nowhere to run, it’s silly to pretend I’m still sleeping - so I raise my head.

Above me, like a mountain over an ant, towers a great warrior with dark-red hair reaching down almost to his buttocks. He is so tall that the horizontal handrail above is level with his chin. With his elbows in their scarlet silk he’s leaning on the iron handrail as nonchalantly as if it were some not very high fence. On his black surcoat a big eight-pointed star is embroidered in silver. The warrior is staring down at me from the ceiling a little guiltily.

“I’ve hit you? Sorry…”

“Ma…Ma…” – that’s all I can force out.

“What – mama?” – he misunderstands me.

“Maitimo?” – I babble in a husky voice.

At this moment, the train starts and the Feanoring, who has just leaned down to hear me better, at once bangs his head against the handrail.

“Maitimo!!”

Oh, now he is going to tumble down on me with all his weight…

But the elf just shakes his head, tosses his hair aside from his face and with some perplexity touches the small hollow in the handrail. I jump to my feet.

“Are you all right?! Bend down please!”

He stoops obediently and I plunge my fingers into his hair, groping for the bump which surely must be already swelling … but there’s nothing. No wounds or bruises.

“Excuse my curiosity, - he mutters in my ear, - but what are you doing?”

“I’m looking for a bump!”

“A bump? – he looks at me perplexedly, then starts laughing and straightens up again, leaving me face to face with the eight-pointed star. – From such an impact I couldn’t get any bump”.

“But the handrail,” – I mumble, watching as if hypnotized by such a wide chest going in and out in time with his breathing.

“You’d better sit down. Or you’ll fall.

I plump back down on the seat obediently.

“No doubt I’ll fall, and not because of the train,” – flashes through my head. Meanwhile Maitimo unhurriedly unfastens the scabbard from his belt and sits beside me, hitting the iron-clad point of scabbard against the floor with a menacing sound. But even having sat down, the stately Feanoring towers above me by more than two head.

The woman opposite me is white as a sheet, with her eyes full of terror. Poor lady…

The Feanoring is sitting silently and quietly watching dirty wires and walls through the windows of the carriage. In the electric light I perfectly see his profile with the proud family nose, stubborn chin and fine pointed ears. I might be going to faint now…

I lower my eyes. Very close to me, on his right knee, lies the handless arm, hidden by the sleeve which is tightened and tied with a lace. His left hand, gloved, lies on the silver pommel of his sword, swaying with the movement of the train.

“Don’t be so afraid of me, please,” – Maitimo bends over me so that springy curly tresses shadow the window and the seat on the opposite side.

“I’m not afraid, - with an effort I restrain the desire to touch them, - just… You know, it’s not every day that the crown prince of the First House enters your subway carriage just like this.”

He makes no answer and I raise my head. The Feanoring is watching me from his impressive height gently and mockingly. He doesn’t smile with his lips but wrinkles appear in the corners of his eyes and it suits his stern face very much. It seems – from the point of view of this elf – that only a child couldn’t understand the obvious reason for his appearance on the Moscow underground in full court dress and with a long-sword at his girdle.

“You wanted to write down one of my conversations”.

Maitimo pauses, waiting for my response. Yes, I was walking in the Kolomenskij park this morning, with my sister Earin, and we were composing an atrabeth of Maedhros and Fingon in our heads, while rustling through leaves and splashing through puddles.

“I came to dictate it to you”.

Shiver me timbers! This isn’t for real, is it?

“Maitimo…”

“Yes?”

“You are just a dream”.

It sounds awfully silly. The Feanoring throws back his head and laughs aloud, showing even, white teeth. And it’s too much for my poor head.

“Not a bit! - he traps the tip of the glove under his right wrist and pulls it off easily. – Am I warm?”

I reach out to him shyly. His long fingers with their shortly cut nails are dry and roughish and indeed warm. My palm on his hand looks like a child’s.

“Yes”.

I don’t want to pull back my hand at all. I’m already opening my mouth to ask the elf to pinch  my shoulder, just for sure, but realize in time that the bruises after such a request will likely last for a couple of months.

“Have you got a pen and paper?”

It seems Maitimo is eager to take up his duty as a story-teller on the spot.

“No… only at home”.

“So, at home”.

“And what shall I say to mom?”

“She will be frightened like you? Like all these people?”

I have time to picture my mom’s reaction in all detail. Oh, you bet she will…

“I think, much more than me”.

“But why?” – the warrior is obviously upset.

“Maitimo, they are afraid of the sword. Of how tall you are, how you are dressed, - I totally don’t want to go into details about Tolkien role-players and public opinion concerning them. - There’s nothing you can do about it. I’m sorry that is how it’s organized here”.

“Why are YOU apologizing? It’s not your fault”.

“It’s not, but I live here”.

“You didn’t choose where to live, did you?”

I have nothing to answer to these words. Moreover, the red granite columns of my own station start flashing behind the windows.

“Time to get off”.

Obediently the Feanoring rises to his feet and, bending his head, steps onto the platform. The passengers who stay behind see us off with eloquent looks which I feel on my back even through my jacket and, because of this, my pride literally flowers, purrs and shines in every possible way.

At my station almost all the passengers stream out from the train. Maitimo slowly walks behind me in the crowd, with his armour rattling, hitting legs with the scabbard and apologizing every minute or so. His red head and broad shoulders in their scarlet silk tower over the sea of black caps, shaven heads and dyed perms like the sails of a four-mast frigate over a flock of excursion vessels. On the escalator, the elf stands a step below me, but still he’s noticeably taller. I stare dumbly at the scarlet collar of his shirt and the line of his chin. Maitimo’s face is serious but his eyes are smiling. Oh my god… I hide both hands behind my back and frantically pinch my arm. The Feanoring is still there and what is more – it’s quite obvious that other people see him too. Right. So, we’ll get on as circumstances allow.

************

Here, mom is already opening the door. I steel myself, but instead of an amused or leading question I hear:

“Hello, dear. Do you want your dinner heated?”

“Mom. We do”.

“E-er?”

I meet a perplexed look. I turn to the Feanoring, but he stands leaning against the doorpost and examining a paper lamp on the ceiling.

‘It’s nothing. I’ll go and change my hide.

Leaving my mom to meditate about this “we”, I walk to the farthest part of the room and turn to the Noldo:

“She doesn’t see you?”

“You said – she would be scared”.

“It means you can decide? To be seen by some people and not to be seen by others? Well… - I sit down on the bed and draw my legs under me. – Such a fox you are, lord Maitimo…”

By way of an answer he just smiles contentedly.

An hour later, the Feanoring is walking around the flat just as he likes and, making use of his selective invisibility, is commenting on our actions and phone conversations, and it’s very hard not to answer…

***

I’m sitting at my computer, and Maitimo is walking carefully around the flat, looking closely at one thing after another. Now and again he’s glancing up at the ceiling, taking care not to brush against the lamp. Poor him…

He comes up to me, stepping noiselessly.

“Tell me, have you got any kahve?”

For two days, I’ve been getting used to say “kahve” instead of “coffee”, “bundle” instead of “packet” and “quenilas” instead of “tea”. This morning I put a shopgirl in a spot by asking for “some green quenilas, a special kind”. I should say that Maitimo likes green tea with maple syrup, a bit of which my sister had brought, but it’s not a dainty to be found in every supermarket.

“Yes, - I respond without looking, – a square black bundle in the kitchen, on the shelf above the table. And the turka is in the cupboard.

“Our Turko is in the cupboard in the kitchen? Our Celegorm?”

“Oh no, not Turkafinwe, - turka! Coffeepot!”

Maitimo is frowning and it takes all my efforts to keep even the appearance of seriousness.

“A pot to make coffee… kahve”.

“Coffeepot! – Maitimo throws back his head and laughs aloud. – Coffeepot, come and help me in the smithy!”

Three days later, me and my sister, being a little crazed with the lateness of the hour and bent over with laughter, decide that: let Makalaure be a quenilas-pot, Ambarussa – tea-cups and Carnistir and Curufinwe – pots for salt and pepper. Maitimo, coming back from the bathroom, hears only the end of our dialogue, but he gets it right and a punishing hand of threatening size is rising over the back of my neck.

“Sorry-sorry-sorry! Maitimo! We’re not serious!”

I’m not afraid of the hand – but I’m awfully afraid that the red-haired Noldo will take offence and leave.

“Be in peace”, - the Feanoring announces mercifully, and I hear by the sound of his voice that he was joking too.

***

I’m sitting on the cold steps and unwrapping a packet of cigarettes. My fingers are trembling – maybe from anger, and maybe – from desire to make something crash on the floor and weep aloud. Five pages in one day – it’s a piece of fun. I’m working as a journalist on the weekly supplement of a major newspaper. Like every person who likes his work sometimes I hate it.

Suddenly I hear a familiar tinkling and soft steps of the light boots on the marble on the landing below. Not this… it’s a bad time to see me. With a quick movement I grab the cigarette-lighter and the cell-phone but I have no time to get up and disappear. My wonderful Feanoring, my tower in black and scarlet, is already beside me. He squats down to face me. Looks closely.

“What’s happened to you?”

“Nothing special, - I shake my head and take a drag on the cigarette. – Just a couple of things that are wrong”.

Maitimo sighs with upset, just like a parent at his useless kid, silently saying “well, what is there to be done”. Then suddenly he reaches out his hand, pulls the cigarette from my fingers and casts it away.

“Doooon’t!”

“Don’t inhale this filth”.

 “May I ask you a question?”

We’re sitting in the darkened kitchen drinking tea. There’s a plate on the table, full of green grape, transparent in the lamplight, and wrinkled brown dates; now and then the Feanoring neatly snaps a date with his slender fingers from under the grape-bunch and  sends it to his mouth.

“Yes?”

Another date prevents him from saying the word clearly.

“Tell me, why are you so calm?”

The Noldo raises one brow and looks at me skeptically, but without anger.

“And you presumed I’d smash the crockery and crash the furniture?”

“No, - I’m feeling awkward. – But… I didn’t suspect you could be so… domestic”.

Maitimo lowers his eyelids and keeps silent for a long time. So long that I have time to get scared of him rising up and leaving, offended by my question.

“You probably know that everything described in the books happened long ago, - he looks intently into my eyes, into the very pupils. – Very long ago”.

I nod.

“I’ve spent a long time in the Halls”.

I keep silent.

“But you are wrong to think I’ve forgotten what had happened to us”.

The even tone of his voice doesn’t change, but I become tremendously ashamed of myself.

“Did you ask because you wanted to see?”

I quickly look up at him, but his face in the frame of thick dark-bronze tresses is totally serene. There isn’t a new crease anywhere.

“You don’t need to remember. Forgive me. I’m a senseless chunk of wood”.

There must a very guilty look on my face because the Feanoring puts down his cup with quenilas and lays his hand on my knee. He doesn’t say anything, just watches. And suddenly in the very depths of my thoughts about him and my awkwardness,  new thoughts appears, words and feelings, which didn't originate in my own mind.

It feels like a thick grey curtain has been drawn away.

Maitimo’s lips are closed, but I hear his voice clearly – rather deep for an elf, with purring soft R’s.

“You’d better tell me if you’re really sure you want to be concerned with it?”

I nod, dumbfounded. It must be very funny to watch.

“Answer just like you saying a phrase in your thoughts”, - he advices.

“Cool, it’s osanwë!!” – I think in response.

Maitimo no longer keeps back a grin.

“No, not this one”.

“All right, - I think and try to concentrate, but instead that first evening comes up in my memory, when I woke up in the underground and saw before me the black scabbard and the surcoat with the star.

“The first time of gosanna – is like the first time in bed”, - a very silly thought flashes after it.

“I hear you”, – Maitimo says it with his usual voice, and I’m ashamed again.

“Forgive me”.

His left hand is still lying on my knee, but suddenly he stops smiling.

“Concentrate on the word you want to say. Think intently”.

“I’m thinking. Do you hear me?”

“I hear”, - it sounds in my head at once. I look right into his eyes. Into the amber, intent eyes with dark streaks and tiny spots in the iris. The air around us feels clear and charged for a second. And then I'm crushed with warmth that is almost pushing me from the seat and out of myself – it's like falling through the wide-opened door into the cold yard.

Thin lines appear, trembling and tightening in the space between our faces. They resemble telegraph wires.

I close my eyes.

***

He is kicking the leaves fiercely – as though there is anything that can still be done.

He is raking them with his sopping boots, the color of which can no longer be recognized under all the stains – the leaves are yellow, soaked, icy to his touch.

 “Where are you looking for me? I’m – here. I’m – here”.

He is singing it in a husky voice, looking straight ahead with wide-open eyes. Long tresses of red hair are tangled and wet from the fine water spray hanging in the air. He is brushing tree trunks as he walks and the right palm of his hand – the iron one – is catching sodden bark, gathering it under the plates of the joints.

Maitimo stops and leans his forehead against a wet coal-black trunk, staining his face. Lowers his eyelids.

“Where. Are you. Looking. For me. I’m here…”

He and Findekáno used to sing it while playing.

He opens his eyes. On the black bark there are deep slick furrows.

What was the game about?

He can’t remember.

Five days ago, after the battle, in blood and mud, that wasn’t quite Finyo. The soul and the flesh can be divided, right? Finyo is. He still is. And down there, on the ground, it wasn’t properly him.

“I’m here… I’m here…”

The unbroken yellow carpet under his feet gives off a painfully spicy scent – a scent of pungent autumn, wet leaves, their red stalks. The sky is grey, the lake is grey, grey is the mist which is covering the ridges of wooded hills on the right and on the left. With grey puffs it is sliding into the valley, fills the lungs, giving comfort, settling down on the hair and clothes with tiny beads, cooling his burning head, shoulders and back.

Finyo was fond of color grey.

Maitimo withdraws his hand from the trunk and slowly trudges up the hill, slipping on the clay ground. The iron hand is swaying with his steps, weighting down the arm. The iron hand can strike brutally, but there’s hardly any other use of it.

Five days ago he tore a tent with it. He was punching at the sheet wall and the central pole until the plates of the hand bent and couldn’t move properly. Deep jagged furrows were left in the pole, revealing the whiteness of the wood, the tissue was coming apart with heart-rendering sound, gaping like a wide-open mouths. He thinks, he may have screamed. Yes, he surely was screaming.

He can’t remember.

Maitimo stops halfway up the hill and presses the hand to his face.

Finyo was fighting for a very long time, one could have tried getting to him for help. Even considering the presence of the dragon, one might have managed. Why didn’t he call?

 “Why didn’t you call me?” – Maitimo grinds the words out. – Why didn’t you call, why?!”

With a cry, he turns around and slams the iron hand into a tree trunk. Again. Again!

There is no Curufinwë here who will grip his shoulders and hiss into the back of his neck: “Stop raging!”

Why!?

There is no one here who will give him a meaningful and compassionate look, dropping in as if for a whetstone.

Why!?

One of the plates is sticking in the wood. Maitimo is pulling and jerking, but he can't free the artificial limb.

“He was afraid I could be slain or captured – that’s why.”

He leans his forehead against the wet furrowed trunk again. For some time he is standing like this, chained to the trunk by his stuck iron palm. He is doing nothing, just breathing, for a while.  Then, without raising his head, he starts unfastening thin belts that hold the artificial hand in its place. He pulls the stump from the leather handcuff, turns around and starts walking up the hill again. The iron glove, clenched to a fist, absurdly sticks out of the trunk at the right angle as though somebody has thrown it like a big ugly javelin.

Maitimo doesn’t see the leaves before him now. He is touching his right arm with the fingers of his left hand, closely examining the skin - light, almost without marks, and the bump of the bones underneath it.

 “Finyo was afraid I could be put under torture again”.

Maitimo is smiling. At least, there was one fair punishment. For those stains of blood on the gangways and the inaction during the great fire. A hand of one arm isn’t a great price – but it is.

He covers his short wrist with palm of the other hand. It is also – Findekáno. After all, his father always said that scars were the best way to remember.

“Where are you looking for me? I’m here…”

It was their password for hide-and-seek.

Yes, indeed, they called each other this way when were playing hide-and-seek. It was meant not to reveal where one was hiding, but to confuse. Once grown-up clever Maitimo had been looking for Finyo under a cliff and fallen disgracefully into the duckweed-covered pool, in his tunic and boots and all. The boy was misleading him by thinking about snowy peaks, and Maitimo had decided to seek for him where it was deep and muddy. And Finyo had been sitting behind the willow-branches on the shore.

Finyo is jumping on a log, across the river. Finyo is gripping his sword-hilt and watching agitatedly from the darkness, full of flashing torches. Finyo is bending over him, softly brushing his naked chest with the tips of his braids. Embracing him and trying so hard not to hurt him. Saying something in his affectionate voice.

He hasn’t gone anywhere. He is with him now and will be forever.

“Where are you looking for me?” – Maitimo is whispering it totally differently now, not in his own voice, and carefully holds his right wrist with his left hand. “– I am – here. I am – here”.

It’s five a.m. outside and the massive autumn rain is pumping against the window-sill. I’m sitting inside and running my fingers through heavy glistening tresses. A rare occasion when one can see the top of the Fëanoring’s head. Maitimo is sitting on the carpet, leaning his back against the sofa on which I am sitting.

His eyes are closed, his face is calm, but not sleepy.  It’s good when he is like that. No things dropped down, no people scared, nothing to be amused about, no questions asked, no jealous looks to be attracted from all around.

A tress to a tress. At the top, they are straight, slightly curling further down.

Can you imagine any other person who had such a sweet pastime as combing the hair of the the eldest Fëanoring and, to my firm conviction, the most handsome of all princes of the Noldor?

Only Findekáno, maybe…

“Tell me, did your brother comb you hair even once?”

“Which of them?”

“I mean, Findekáno”.

The red-haired Noldo raises his eyelids for a moment and casts at me a meaningful look. If rendered into spoken language I think it would sound like: “You bet!”

“Of course he did,” - he says after a little pause. – “Once he attempted to braid my hair”.

“And what?”

“I gave him a beating,” – Maitimo shrugs.

“Just like that, on the spot?”

“No, I had to chase him for quite a long time,” - the Fëanoring says in an utterly serious tone of voice. Then he opens his eyes again and smiles: - “I’m joking. Finyo braided my hair the way he did his. When father saw me he gripped my hair and threatened to cut this disgrace off  to Tulkas' armpits if I didn’t unbraid it right then and there”.

 “Can't you live even one day without a wrangle in your family?”

Maitimo closes his eyes again, then the corners of his lips creep into a small smile. An expression of barely hidden tenderness sneaks onto his face.

“No.”

“I see,” - I continue running my fingers through the abundant tresses. – “Would you like me to use a comb?”

“I… Yes, I would,” - the Noldo responds leisurely, totally dazed by this simple and chaste massage. Cut me into slices and eat them with butter, but this Elda is – a King. My King. The king who likes to drink tea from a cast-iron pot.

I take the juniper-wood comb and run it through his mass of silky dark-red hair. I don’t reach the lower tips so I have to crawl down to the floor and kneel behind the Fëanoring’s back. The comb is sliding through smoothly, almost without catching, and leaves the copper tips somewhere near the carpet with a barely audible dry rustle.  An unbelievable experience.

“May I ask an improper question?” – Maitimo speaks up suddenly. His head is lowered to his chest so his voice sounds muffled and a bit sleepy from the position of the neck.

“Affirmative to listen to an improper question, lord”, - I respond. Maitimo chuckles.

“What would you say about going to sleep now?”

 “Positive.”

But I would like to stay awake for some time, of course…

“Don’t be offended. If you want, I’ll comb you tomorrow” – the Noldo turns, takes the comb from my fingers and looks into my eyes seriously. I stiffen like a  partridge before a fox. Obviously, he looked this way at his younger brothers when they were children.

“All right. Take you at your word.”

***

Maitimo is sitting on the narrow bed, bending his head obediently. Behind his back, Findekáno is sitting cross-legged, braiding his cousin’s hair with a victorious look on his face. Two of the braids, the thin ones, are stretching from Maitimo’s temples to the back of the head and there turn into the one, tied round at the end with a leather lace. Two more braids, somewhat thicker, begin at the back of the head, one on either side, and lie atop all other hair. Finyo’s deft fingers are entwining one of these braids with a silver lace. It looks just splendid on Maitimo's hair, softly braided into tresses like copper spilled over with red wine.

The Fëanarion’s eyes are closed. His eyelids are trembling a little, but he is not dreaming.

It seems he is simply enjoying the moment. Finyo’s hands are pulling and running through his cousin’s hair. From time to time, the boy softly cups the nape of Maitimo’s neck and the back of his head with his fingertips and quietly asks him to bend his head. The minutes are passing very slowly.

 “Maitimo,” - Finyo suddenly says in a low voice. – “Are you all right?”

The red-haired Noldo opens his eyes and makes an attempt to turn round.

“Everything is fine. Why do you ask?”

Finyo smiles with a gentle smile. It seems that his eyes, light grey with lashes thick like fir-tree needles, are made just for this expression.

“You usually say that you have to go, and how soon will I finish plaiting, and why did you agree to it in the first place. So I thought that maybe, something is wrong?”

Maitimo answers with a smile of his own.

“I like it very much when you are doing my hair”.

“Then why are you always fighting back?”

“I’m not fighting back. I’ve got many things to do”.

“Maitimo, - Finyo ties the last knot on the silver lace and puts his outstretched arms around his cousin’s shoulders, - “Just because you were born the first, it doesn't mean that you have no right to your own life.”

“With my father, it does.”

Findekano lowers his eyes and leans his forehead against Maitimo’s back, atop the flood of hair. For some time they are sitting this way, then Maitimo sighs deeply and leans back, his neck touching Finyo’s shoulder. Quickly, Finyo embraces him. The eldest son of Fëanaro shows affection by himself very seldom.

Maitimo’s eyes are open, he is staring at the ceiling without focusing on anything. Finyo sits pressing his cheek to the Fëanárion’s temple, crowned by a neat braid.

“If you ever think of running away from home, even dream of doing it without me”.

Maitimo smiles slightly – Finyo is still such a boy. Then he closes his eyes.

He is striding ahead of me at a brisk pace. He is offering his upraised face to the dense autumn rain, merrily floundering and squelching with his boots along the mud-flooded road, casting rich brown drops onto his trousers and mine too with his heels. He is so prone to staining, tearing clothes, wetting through, leaving traces and forest litter everywhere…  unconventional, strange, wonderful elf. Without any daintiness, if you understand.  Without a streak for dancing in the glades all day long. I absolutely can’t understand dancing in the glades.

“Me neither,” - Maitimo turns back and smiles with one corner of his mouth. It looks very dashing.

 “Getting into my head again without permission?”

“Sorry,” - without stopping he slightly embraces my shoulders. – “You think very loudly”.

It’s so pleasant to lean into his warm side that I forgive that osanwë without permission at once.

“It’s all right. But tell me, what will you do if I’ll be musing about something improper?”

“I’ll blush and run away,” - a content laugh sounds somewhere above me.

Today he has been teaching me to fight. We went into the forest, and for three hours were clashing our blades on the rotting autumn leaves, crying wildly and effectively pretending that we were overcome with battle fury. The special, family one, you know. During the first hour my blocks were being crushed into dust by the onslaught of the giant long-sword, my feet refused to act in accordance with the rest of my body, and my fingers were trembling and wished, it seemed, to let go the iron bar and give oneself to the mercy of the fearful, seven feet high, scarlet-black-red opponent. But then, little by little, the hilt ceased to be so strange to the hand. I felt it and hit once, and twice. Slashed like with a saber, with the very tip, pulling it back to myself right after the stroke.

My feet got used to the position, the head cleared. Maitimo still fooled me with a feint every two minutes, stopping his awful sword a few millimeters away from my mortal flesh, but I ceased backing up all the time, at least.

By the end of the training several blisters swelled on my palm. It meant the day was a success.

 “What do I look like when I'm fighting?”

To tell the truth, I’m not in a battle mode right now. It’s very cozy and warm to walk under Maitimo’s shoulder when it’s pouring cats and dogs, so who in the name of Sauron's aunt wants to talk about swords?

 “You look fierce.”

I'm so pleased that I have to close my eyes, savoring the moment.

***

When, after walking along the wet dark streets for half an hour we finally reach the straight road to my house, the battle fury has totally dissipated from my head. Embracing Maitimo around the waist, I feel I am now hanging on him in the most disgraceful way. The wet silk and velvet under my fingers make me anticipate the warm house ahead where we can dry it all up, make me anticipate a hot shower and the heated sides of the cast-iron pot.

Without slowing his pace, the Fëanoring bends to me:

“If necessary, I can carry you.”

“Maitimo, you offend me.”

“As you wish,” - judging by his voice, the tall elf is smiling somewhere above me with the corners of his mouth, and I begin to fiercely regret my conceit at once. But there’s no way back.

“A warrior mustn’t shy away from exhaustion,” - I grin.

His crippled handless arm lies on my right shoulder. His elbow embraces my neck so softly that it’s hard to believe that there was a time when this Elda could be overcome with fury and was slaying and slashing living bodies on his way.

“A warrior has to pace himself sensibly,” - the Fëanoring says calmly.

“What else?”

Maitimo turns his head to me.

“Often think about his enemies.”

His face is floating over me, lit by the faint light of wet street-lanterns. There are dark shadows under his eyes, and his lean cheekbones, nose and chin, his high forehead rounded at the top, seem very pale. His hair, wet, dark-brown in the twilight , clings to his cheeks.

He has been thinking.

“You can’t compare our enemies. From your point of view, I have none”, - I say.

“Why not? Everyone has enemies on his own level.”

“Ha-ha... You’re right. Mine are just venomous children who can’t even master their own lives.”

“But they can ruin somebody’s else life,” - the Noldo remarks.

 “Maybe, maybe”.

Suddenly Maitimo stops and willy-nilly I turn to him.

“When you're taking revenge, above all you must  be eager to look into your enemy’s eyes so he can see his doom in your face, - he says with utmost authority. – Are you ready to do that?”

I picture the annoyed, weak-chinned face with its focused expression very clearly.  And my jagged iron bar in the foreground.

 “Extremely ready.”

Maitimo smiles and slams his palm onto my shoulder so that I barely manage to avoid falling on the wet asphalt.

 “So, everything’s fine!”

He slightly touches my braids, entwined with a golden lace.

“Let’s go home.”

***

I didn’t expect that the hilt would match his hand so neatly. Findekano is standing before me and thoughtfully shifts the blade from hand to hand not knowing with which one it would be better to fight.

“Use your right hand”, - I suggest.

Finyo hesitates, then gives me a serious scowl.

“For what purpose would you need such great knives?”

“Not knives, firstly, these are swords! And secondly… Finyo, for additional strength! What if we have to defend someone?”

“From whom?”

I shrug. What does it matter?

Findekano stands before me, holding the blade in his relaxed hand. The point of the sword is hiding among the grass stalks.

“Let’s start!” – I step up beside him and raise my blade. – “Look here”.

I stop an imaginary hit to the left shoulder and come round with a sweeping move, again from the left, and stop my blade, slightly touching his shirt.

Finyo laughs.

 “Can you copy that?”

The Nolofinwion narrows his lower eyelids and smiles at me menacingly.

“Well-well, my boy!” – I think calmly – and barely have time to beat back the attack flying at my right shoulder. Instinctively I hit from the right, too, - but the blade meets such a resistance that it is almost flung back into my face. With some barely perceptible move Findekano turns up behind my back and with the flat of the sword hits my… buttocks?!

 “Are you out of your mind?!” – I turn round, so angry that I actually throw the sword into the grass.

Finyo can’t stop himself from laughing out loud, which hurts still more.

“Well!..  well… you!” – I’m totally lost for words. To tell the truth, above all I want to curse in a very offensive way right now.

“What?!” – Finyo continues laughing. – ”You showed me that trick yourself!”

Some cause for laughter! I turn round to check my clothes. They are unharmed…

“Maitimo, don’t be offended,” - Finyo is smiling, but no longer in mockery. – “It’s just a game”.

I understand that the conflict should be settled, but hold my offended silence. The Nolofinwion picks up the sword by the guard and holds it out for me, hilt forward.

“Will you teach me more?”

“Langolin!” – Maitimo’s voice, polite yet loud, reaches me from the bathroom over the gushing and noise of the shower which I left working so as to warm up the room. – “Can you come here?”

“He must have found the hair-dryer. Quite the explorer…” – I think and trudge over to him. The light is on, the door is closed. I open it.

If I had all the three Silmarils in my hands and Morgoth’s crown on top of them I would have dropped it all anyway . In my small bathroom, under the shower, with his back to me there’s the Fëanoring standing. Naked. Totally.

His powerful back is covered with the wet dark-bronze snakes of his tresses. Like sea-weed. The skin is very light, absolutely untanned,  almost the color of mother-of-pearl.

His hair hangs down to his waist and involuntarily my glance follows it, and I begin to feel that I’m blushing up to my ears, quite embarrassingly.

Maitimo is looking at me from the corner of the eye over his shoulder, but seems not to notice my perturbation.

“Forgive me for interrupting you. Can you soap my back?”

At first, I want to shout out and call him an obscene fellow but remember in time that the Eldar have no shame of nudity.

Fortunately, he is now turning his back on me…

With my hand trembling like a hare’s tail, I take the sponge and a fragrant piece of soap from his large palm. With a titanic effort of will I suppress my desire to break ranks, retreat in panic, shut the door and slide down the door-post.

We’re ashamed of walking naked because we’re – imperfect mortals.

How lucky are those Quendi to be saved from such a huge amount of stupid qualms…

I pull myself together and move the heavy, soaked tresses away from his skin. Gather and move. Gather. They cling to my hands, making the impossibly hard quest even harder.

At last all the tresses are moved aside. For several moments I lack the courage to touch his back – his wet, hot, impossibly broad back. Good grief, if his father looked like that, I perfectly understand why poor Nerdanel gave birth to seven kids…

The white soap-foam is flowing down the steaming, clean, slightly pink skin and it is beyond me to look at it. Nevertheless, to turn away my gaze is also impossible.  The part of my mind that is somehow is not shocked about the situation and isn’t inwardly crying –  “There’s a naked prince in my bathroom!” – is applauding with enthusiasm and calls for further delights. Damn!

As for Maitimo, he seems to feel not the least bit awkward.

He is standing bare-foot, ankle-deep in the hot water – and he’s absolutely fine.

“Thank you very much,” – he says and makes an attempt to turn round.

Lord, save my soul, - flashes in my mind.

 “Wait, let me wash away the soap”, - I keep my voice calm with my last ounce of strength.

Wash away the soap, hand the shower over to Maitimo, turn round and leave quickly.

“Thank you!” – his voice follows my retreat.

Damn. Damn-damn-damn!! I sit down on the sofa and drop my wet hands on my knees. What should I do if he comes out from the bathroom naked now?

I really don’t want to explain my embarrassment to him…

In the meanwhile the gushing noise of water stops. There’s no way to escape.

“All right. Pull yourself together. Don’t blush”.

From the bathroom the Fëanoring appears, clad – thanks Eru, clad! – into a red towel, wrapped around his waist.

“Would you like some quenilas?” – Maitimo asks innocently and sits down beside me. He's implying that it will be my task to make the quenilas. Of course, his majesty is weary after the shower…

I obediently trudge into the kitchen and put on the electric kettle. Take the lid off the cast-iron pot. Pour tea. Pour water. Good evening, Lady Langolin, it’s your autopilot speaking.

I carry the tea and two cups into my room. Maitimo is lying on my bed in his scarlet towel, gracefully leaning his elbow on the pillow. His drying hair snakes down the white fabric, falls onto his shoulders and chest. You, cynical part of my mind! Keep silent! Freeze in fear!

 “Quenilas,” - I say in a low voice.  Morgoth take me, anyone would be eager to serve such a lord.

Said lord nods his head gratefully and takes a steaming cup. Engrossed into contemplation of his figure, I distractedly neglect a flashing thought about the somewhat strange scent of the tea.

“E-er,” - Maitimo sniffs the cup doubtfully. – “What kind of tea is this?”

“Kind?” – I always keep only one kind at home.

I bend in and take a sniff.

Oh, yes. No doubt. I’ve made dill.

 “Sorry!” – I snatch the cup from his hand, pour its content into the pot and disappear into the kitchen. Well, so much for my autopilot...

A minute later, barefoot, hunching up against the cold, Maitimo comes in.

“Are you tired? Let me do it myself”.

“Get to it”, - I agree with a glum feeling and hand him the pot, briefly touching his warm fingers with my hand. He didn’t notice anything. Well, thank the Lord.

***

“Tell me something”, - I ask.

It’s late in the evening . We are sitting on my bed, laid with a coverlet, –  there’s hardly any other place to sit on in my room,  only the floor and the carpet on it.

“Mmm,” - the Noldo gives me a cunning look with his amber eyes.

– “About what?”

“About Valinor.”

He utters no word, but things around us suddenly assume a different kind of clarity, texture and meaning. The smell of fallen leaves begins to soak into the open ventilation pane like a cowberry-red trailing sleeve.  The cast-iron pot on the floor by the bed is warm like a open  palm,  like the hilt of a blade cooling down in the smithy.

The velvet pools of the irises opposite me are drawing my glance into them irresistibly – and I obey.

******

There's a lyre standing in the grass.

In the high, slightly dried up grass with its solid stems.

The stems are moving in the light wind and brush over the lyre strings. The strings tremble, letting forth low quivering sounds. Not in tune and not in any discernible rhythm.

The smooth grass-carpet with green and yellow patches is stretching all around as far as the eye can reach. My one hand holds up the lyre by its rounded side, the other hand picks a dry prickly ear of corn. I put its stem into my mouth. It’s hollow inside and rough to the touch.

I get up, walk forwards. The soil is springy under my feet, stems are brushing my clothes with a rustle.

“Brother!” – the clear voice comes from somewhere ahead of me. At some distance, I see the slender and graceful figure of a youth, dressed in blue, hidden in grasses up to his waist. He’s moving towards me.

Finyo.

Black braids, entwined with golden laces, are lying heavily on his shoulders. There are only two of them, and they are plaited right behind the ears. The rest of his hair, shiny and jet-black, parted down the middle, is spilling over his back and shoulders.  It is moving softly like a flag in the air-streams. Finyo is smiling and there’s a grass-stem between his teeth, too. His pupils are undilated and his eyelids narrowed in laughter. The brows are dark, straight,  unbent. There's a  soft flush on his cheeks.

“Oh ho, you’ve brought a lyre!” – the Nolofinwion says and deftly shifts the grass-stem from one corner of his mouth to the other.

“I have,” - I answer and feel embarrassed when I utter my request. – “Will you play it?”

“Me? Am I continually tortured by Macalaurë’s lessons?”

“If I play, the water in Ulmo’s sea will turn sour.”

Finyo laughs. I catch up with him and we walk on side by side. The sky above is flooded with an even, gray, shining tone.

He is walking beside me, plucking his thumbs in his dark leather belt. There’s not a wrinkle on his smooth forehead.

“Did you tell your father where you were going?”

I shake my head. Telling Fëanáro that you’re going to the sea to play the lyre with Findekáno is the most stupid of all the ways I know to be send to the smithy to work the bellows.

Finyo is much more careless then me. He is lucky with his father, though I would never agree to move to his family. Fëanáro and mom are counting on me. And Curufinwe is still a baby.

Twilight covers us with its soft blue-gray palm.  The sky has by now turned totally gray, and it’s the darkest hour. I like the gray color and I like twilight. I didn’t ask Findekáno but I guess that since he is so eager to get away walking in Telperion’s hours, when all decent Eldar are lying in their beds sleeping, he's probably not too fond of bright lights and crowded streets either.

The earth under our feet starts to slope downwards little by little.

 “O!” – Finyo suddenly cries and breaks into a run.

I raise my head and see that we have already come to the place we were heading for. The fields are still stretching to the right and to the left up to the horizon, but in front of us they are taking a turn like a ship’s deck in a storm. At the end of it, behind the edge of the cliff that's covered with the tough grass, lies the sea.

My father deems me too grown-up for such things and usually I agree with his assessment. But somehow I don’t care this time.

I rush forward.  It feels as though the earth itself is pushing me and the slope is speeding up my run. The cool breeze that is rolling up the hill from the sea is hitting my cheeks fiercely and rushing inside the neck and the sleeves. Finyo’s little figure is moving in the high grass, very far ahead now. The sea is barely gleaming, the fields appears already brown, and before this background Finyo in his cornflower tunic, with his braids jumping with his movement, looks like a living jewel.

And the desire to overtake him is overpowering.

I speed up and the distance begins to shorten. Yesterday I attached a broad belt to the lyre and now it’s jumping behind me and painfully hitting the small of my back, but on the whole it’s nothing compared to the possibility of overtaking Findekáno on this hill even once.

I've come quite close now. Come on. Come on!

I dart past him in one breath, managing to clap him on the shoulder from behind with my open palm. In several bounds I cover the last yards to the cliff and stop, catching my breath.

 “Nelyo!” – Finyo’s voice sounds bewildered and I know that he is offended. This plaiting-fancier calls me by my father-name only when he wants to make me mad.

”What?”

“I should take to working the bellows too, that’s it!”

He stops beside me, out of breath and disheveled.

“Why do you always do everything better than me?”

“Finyo. I play the lyre much worse than you”.

Sometimes he is behaving so childishly, upon my word...

“That’s true,” - Finyo agrees and, suddenly appeased, lowers himself onto the dry grass. I sit down at his side.

The quiet, dark sea is lying under our feet, almost entirely without glittering reflections. I’m drawing circles in the air with my big toes and try to reckon how far it is from us to the water.

“Maitimo, will you give me the lyre?”

Finyo has already forgotten that three minutes ago he was upset. He is sitting cross-legged, his knees drawn far apart, and this position seems funny to me. Makalaure almost always sits this way on the bed or on the carpet. He maintains that it’s comfortable to play music in this position. I don’t know, for me personally it’s uncomfortable to play music in any position, like I’m to be hung by my feet from the crossbeam, like a bat. Hmm-m… better not to suggest this bright idea to my father…

I take the lyre-belt off over my head and hand the instrument to Findekáno. Immediately he places it on his knees and begins to run his fingers over the strings thoughtlessly. The breeze is touching his disheveled braids with their soft tips, playing with the open neck of his shirt. His gray eyes are watching the gray sea and the gray sky.

I don’t turn around but I know that the golden rim of the light put forth by Laurelin is already rising behind us, across the field. But it is a long time till this light touches us.

I am fond of gray.

Yes. It seems, most of all in this life I love the color gray.