Tengwa malta by Sky

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Chapter 5

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“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.