Familiar Stranger by StarSpray

Chapter 1

It was a dreary day. A chill breeze was blowing, and rain drummed steadily on the roof of Telpaltië's workshop as she put together the pottery wheel her father had given her. It had been many years since she had thrown clay, and her old wheel had been among her son's things when he had gone away, and she had long since thrown out or given all of that away. But now she had a new wheel and enough clay to make a great many vases and pitchers and urns, and she was greatly looking forward to it. She hummed as she worked on the wheel, half her thoughts on what she was doing and half on hazy ideas of what sort of vase she intended to make first.

So she did not hear the knock on her door. She did, however, hear the hinges creak when it opened. "Wipe your feet," she said over her shoulder but without turning fully to look, imagining it was one of her niece's children come in to watch her work and ask a thousand questions. But the footsteps that crossed the stone floor—after a soft scrape of leather soles on the mat—were too heavy to be a child's, and she looked up into a face that was at once familiar and alien.

Telpaltië sat back on her heels. "Oh," she said. "It's you."

Curufinwë crouched down, not quite beside her but not directly in front of her. His lips quirked in not-quite-a-smile. He was clad in pale grey, a plain tunic with no ornamentation, and his hair was loose around his shoulders, a few strands sticking to his cheeks and forehead, damp from the rain. "I did knock," he said. It was a line he had spoken often in their marriage, when she had scolded him for entering her workshop unexpectedly and startling her. Usually it had been followed by laughter, and a kiss.

Silence fell between them like a curtain. Telpaltië returned to work on her potter's wheel. "What are you doing here, Curufinwë?" she asked.

"I came to see you," he said, in a tone that suggested the question had been a foolish one. Perhaps it was—a husband would naturally want to see his wife, after he returned from Mandos. But one might also say that a wife would be waiting at the gates for him, or at least in Lórien where the newly-living went to get used to having bodies again. Telpaltië had received the messenger from Námo politely, and thanked her for the information, but she had not left Tirion. When Curufinwë had stepped out of the Halls of Mandos she had been on her knees in her garden pulling weeds from among the rosemary. "I wrote letters," he added after a moment. "I thought perhaps you hadn't received them somehow—"

"I burned them." Telpaltië finished putting the wheel together and got to her feet, gathering up her tools as she went. Curufinwë rose also, his expression a mixture of hurt and bemusement.

He followed her out into the covered walkway that connected her workshop to her sister's house. "Telpaltië," he said, but faltered. She had never known Curufinwë to be at a loss for words—he was most like his father in that way.

She whirled around to face him. "Did you think I sat her pining away for you all this time?" she demanded. She took a step forward, and he took one back.

"Of course not," he said. "But—"

"Did you think I had not heard the stories? That I don't know what you did in Nargothrond? In Doriath? I do not recognize the Curufin that no one can speak of while looking me in the eye."

His hands had balled into fists. "You weren't there," he snapped. "You don't know what—"

"I know that nothing your father ever made was worth what you did," she said.

He sucked in a breath, but exhaled without arguing. "No," he said, looking away. Beyond the walkway's columns the rain fell in steady sheets. From the house the screech of a child reached them, followed by a burst of laughter. In the distance thunder rumbled. "You are right," Curufinwë said, looking out at the rain. "We took the Oath without thinking, and then we couldn't get out of it."

"But less evil could you have done in the breaking," Telpaltië said quietly.

"The wisest thing Maglor ever said." It was strange to hear the Sindarin names come from Curufinwë's lips. Finally, he looked back into her face. They were of a height, but he seemed smaller, somehow, than he had been before. "I came today because I wanted to see you," he said. "Because I missed you, and I love you still."

Telpaltië wished she could say with certainty whether her feelings were the same or utterly changed. But she couldn't. She didn't know. "Where are you staying?" she asked.

"With my mother."

"All of you?" Telpaltië raised her eyebrows. "A crowded household."

"Not as crowded as we would wish." He took her hand and bowed over it. "I will take my leave now. Farewell, Telpaltië."

She stood in silence, watching him disappear into the rain and around the corner of the house. She did not hear the gate open or close underneath the rain. Then she turned and went back to her workshop, to lose herself in art for a few more hours.