Ab Initio by Innin

Chapter 1

The knife was long and slender, with a handle of smooth bone. Wielded in one gentle hand, it nicked effortlessly through the leather fastenings of Curufin’s armour. He stood, broad-shouldered and his chin tilted upward, with both feet planted square onto the floor.

Finrod circled him. Another flick of the knife, and the second of Curufin’s bloodied spaulders clattered to the floor, leaving him bare-armed.

“I will expect this to be fixed.”

“You will receive a new set of armour for your troubles, or the materials to forge one yourself if you so wish. This is beyond repair.” Finrod’s robe, the hem heavy with thread-of-gold embroidery twisted into snakes, billowed around his legs as he resumed walking. “But I find the symbolism rather too enticing to waste.”

Curufin frowned, and said nothing, merely watching. In short order, the remainder of his armour followed, until the metal piled around him. Both, enticed by the handiwork, jumped when the dented, torn chestplate crashed down, leaving Curufin in his undergarments.

“An arming doublet, not even a haubergeon,” Finrod clicked his tongue and continued his circling, to pluck at the thick, soft cotton where it clung, soaked with red, around a wound – a stab from behind through a crack in the armour. “You are hurt – I am not certain whether through your foolishness or your arrogance – likely both. Disrobe.”

“I and my household come to you as fugitives from Aglon. Celegorm is wounded and you -“

”- ensured that Nargothrond’s best healers are tending to his every need.”

“And me you eviscerate, or nearly so.”

“Contrary, I am forestalling a future occasion of that kind. I know well that you are not above backstabbing, twice in short order when you took the ships and burned them, and yet here you stand trusting me to circle you with a knife, after having been backstabbed by some evil yourself. Be cautious, Curufinwë Curufinwion.”

“I stand before the Lord of this City, and the King of the House of Arfin in Exile. What choice have I?”

“Choice?” Finrod’s eyebrow lifted, as though he failed to believe Curufin’s words, or was too cautious to. “To repay my benevolence with trust, or depart once you are healed. I would not cast out kinsfolk in need with no roof to return to. The Arms of Gelion were forced, Thargelion ravaged, but my scouts tell me Himring and Ereb still stand, though both are besieged.”

He spoke the last words against the nape of Curufin’s neck, and his lips near enough to cause the dark hair on his skin to shift in the puffs of his breath. Curufin shuddered beneath him, and Finrod, with the merest twitch of lips, smiled. Curufin’s face twisted into an answering grimace, though neither saw the other. “How kind of you.”

His voice low, Finrod repeated, “I said to you, undress. You need healing.” Awaiting no further argument, he undid the knots on the doublet, leaving threads sliced easily in two, before he put the knife aside to shrug the garment off Curufin’s shoulders. Curufin let him, but at the touch of skin to skin, he winced. A shudder of goosebumps flickered over his skin, and was gone.

“What, you who endures a knife so close cannot bear touch?”

“At least the knife I know may harm. Touch, perhaps is lesss-” his words hissed to an end when Finrod’s fingers probed the edges of the wound. Not a clean slash, rather a ragged stab, bleeding again at the merest provocation.

“Less obviously dangerous?” Finrod laughed, soft and low in his throat. “Perhaps you are right.” His fingertips, when he offered them to Curufin’s lips, were daubed red, but the ring of office on his hand shone, leaf-green emerald, snakes and crown, unblemished. “I am warning you now,” Finrod said. “You are said to bring ill luck with you regardless, but I will do what I can to thwart it, and to protect mine and myself. Underestimate me at your own peril; this example was nothing at all like the things that I am able and willing to do.”

Curufin inclined his head, his grey eyes lidded by outrageous lashes. Light, refracted from the bejeweled ring, glinted on them before his lips closed over it, extinguishing the spark.