Dancing In The Dark by Grundy

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Mithrim

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Curufinwë hated these visits.

He accepted the necessity, of course – he was no fool, and knew that if he and his brothers were to have any chance of ever fulfilling the Oath he rued more with each passing day, they would need more than just themselves and their own forces for the assault on Morgoth.

To maintain their ties with the rest of the Noldor, those who had followed their half-uncle and their cousins, they must keep in contact. And the only way to keep in contact was to send messengers, for even if Nolofinwë were not against using the work of his half-brother’s hand unless absolutely necessary, not a single palantir had the High King of the Noldor in all his brilliance thought to bring with him across Alatairë.

The son most like Fëanaro has never quite been able to decide whether it was overconfidence or folly on his father’s part to leave such a vital tool behind in the Blessed Lands, where communication had never been a problem. The worst that might befall a traveler on the road from Tirion to Valimar was a lamed horse or a twisted ankle.

Here in Endorë, death was a possibility at any time. Palantiri would have made the distance between the lords of the Noldor less dangerous, and perhaps gone some way to healing the fracture lines between them. Even now, it does not take much to set them fighting amongst themselves. A single careless word can do it, and has on several occasions.

Curufinwë took his turn without complaint every few years, when it fell to him to serve as Nelyo’s messenger to their half-uncle, little though he liked Mithrim or Nolofinwë. These visits had been less of trial before Turukano had vanished with his people and Findarato had gone off to his hidden caves- not to mention before Tyelko had pitched such a fit about not knowing where Irissë was that Nelyo had banned him from returning to their uncle’s halls.

Now instead of every five years, the duty falls to Curufinwë every third year- for not only Tyelko, but also Nelyo will no longer go to Mithrim. (Ambarussa, of course, has never been sent. Since Losgar, he has always been kept within sight or sound of one of his older brothers. Curufinwë’s suggestion that it might actually help Ambarussa to be near Irissë – before she had vanished with Turno, obviously – had fallen on deaf ears.)

He had survived his initial audience with his half-uncle unscathed, and was idly wandering the halls, wondering if he’d be permitted to visit the pitiful shed that passed for the royal library here – a scant two rooms, barely full, a travesty compared to the massive collection his grandfather had commissioned an entire multi-wing building for in Tirion – when the commotion made him prick up his ears and return to the main hall.

Artanis and two of her brothers had just arrived, and unexpectedly it seemed.

Curufinwë wondered if he were the only one who noticed the gleam of gold on her finger, or merely the only one who had not heard that his youngest cousin had married. He and Tyelko might hold lands closer to Doriath than their brothers, but they got precious little news from the Fenced Land.

It was not Artanis, but rather Aikanaro and Angarato’s words that had drawn the attention of all.

Someone – and given who it was that had been expelled from Doriath, it required no genius to guess who – had finally let slip the tale of Alqualondë, and the Grey King had responded in predictably high-handed fashion.

The courtiers were muttering amongst themselves as they heard the tale of the banishment of the Arafinwions. Curufinwë could hear that reactions ranged from dismay to rage.

Both Nolofinwë and his remaining son kept their faces neutral and held their tongues as the court was dismissed. Then the King – Curufinwë refused out of loyalty to his eldest brother to call him High King in the privacy of his own thoughts– motioned for his family to join him in his private hall, where they could speak freely.

The group that gathered was smaller than it had ever been in his lifetime – besides Nolofinwë and Findekano, Curufinwë, Irimë and Laurefindil were the only non-Arafinwions. Aikanaro and Angarato looked grim, Artanis unusually pale. Artaresto had excused himself from the gathering, murmuring that he did not wish to leave his Sindarin wife alone in unfamiliar surroundings.

Curufinwë imagined it was more ‘did not wish to leave a lady of the Sindar alone surrounded by angry Noldor who have just been told that her holier than thou uncle has barred the speaking of the Noldorin tongue’.

The door had scarce shut securely behind them before the true feelings of the House of Finwë came bubbling over.

“Banned! How can he presume to ban our language?” an outraged Findekano demanded of his father.

“Simply, cousin,” Curufinwë drawled. “By saying it is so. After all, Elwë holds himself lord of all Beleriand. Surely he has only to give a command and we will all trip over ourselves to obey.”

“Peace, Atarinkë!” his uncle snapped.

Curufinwë preferred his father name, but from his father’s half-siblings, he answered without complaint to the name his mother had bestowed on him, understanding that it was strange for them to use Fëanaro’s father name for him. Especially since Losgar, family relations ran smoother if his aunt and uncle spoke to Atarinkë rather than Curufinwë.

“We now find ourselves between a rock and a hard place,” Nolofinwë said, sounding both resigned and weary. “For we either give up our tongue, or we make an enemy of Elwë.”

“Why should we worry? He is our ally in name only,” Curufinwë retorted, seeing at a glance that he was far from the only one appalled at the King of Doriath’s brand of justice. “The only Noldor he will suffer to enter his guarded kingdom are the children of Arafinwë – not one of their followers has he permitted within the bounds the maia queen has drawn about their realm. And now he expels even them, kin though they are to him, regardless that the sons of Arafinwë shed no blood at Alqualondë.”

He did not think it necessary to remind anyone that the daughter of Arafinwë had extracted plenty of Noldorin blood in defense of her mother’s people. Indeed, he cannot for the life of him understand why Artanis should share her brothers’ exile from Doriath when she alone had defended the kin Elwë claims to be so upset over.  By his reckoning, as Olwë’s granddaughter, she is as closely related to the Sindarin king as any that fell at Alqualondë except her mother’s brothers.

“Elwë and his folk come not forth to battle,” Curufinwë continued, “nor do they aid us in our endeavors save that the Greymantle deigns to grant us lands they themselves did not hold. For his nebulous good will we should give up the language of your father and mine? And, I assume, tolerate his poor treatment of my uncle’s children?”

Artanis meets his eye at that, and he shot her a brief smile, wanting her to know that even if Findekano will not, her other cousins will take up for her in her eldest brother’s absence. Tyelko may feel differently – for he was the one who had actually crossed swords with her – but Curufinwë has never held Alqualondë against her. In her place, he might well have done the same. He surely would have held a sword one way or the other – not stood by gaping like an idiot as her brothers had all done.

“He has not treated us poorly,” Aikanaro said. His voice rang hollow, however. “Only sent us from his realm while his anger is hot.”

“Oh?” Curufinwë asked. “He has not mistreated you? His wrath does not lie on you as well as on us whose actions deserve it? Where is my little cousin’s husband, then, that I may greet him and offer my hearty congratulations on their recent union?”

Artanis flinched, and that more than Angarato’s scowl told him that he had struck true.

Nolofinwë looked truly discomforted by that, as if he had only just now noticed the gold that wreathed his niece’s forefinger – and the lack of husband at her side.

“Your words are not the kindest, cousin,” Angarato growled. “Have a care-”

“I am not the kindest person, so my words should not surprise you,” Curufinwë pointed out brusquely. “Yet kind or not, they were not aimed at your sister. Artanis, was it your husband’s decision or his king’s that sent you here without him?”

“I go by Galadriel now, cousin,” she replied, more subdued than was her wont, but her voice firm. “And it was at Thingol’s command that Celeborn remained in Doriath, not his own choice.”

Curufinwë did not want to single out his baby cousin further when she looked so unaccustomedly fragile, nor did he trust that any words he might say to her while so angry on her behalf would not be taken amiss by her older brothers, so he simply nodded and turned back to his half-uncle.

“If such are the actions of King Greycloak when he is our ally, I do not see how it helps us to retain such a friend. He is not Lord Cirdan, who fights the Enemy at our side. He would have us give up much to salve his anger, yet if we do not, what consequence to us? He will not make war on us – he will keep within the protection of his wife’s borders to the bitter end.”

Nolofinwë did not dismiss his words out of hand, which was heartening. Curufinwë could tell it sat no better with his half-uncle or his cousins to submit to this ban on Quenya than it did with him.

“Irimë, what say you to this demand?” Nolofinwë asked. “It is plain enough what the younger generation thinks, for none have contradicted Atarinkë.”

Curufinwë stifled his smile. To phrase is as a ‘demand’ meant Nolofinwë did not believe Thingol had the right to issue such a decree, and might yet refuse. And his cousins would not have hesitated to argue against him were they not just as furious as he was. He was the least popular of his brothers – even Carnistir’s hot temper was generally readily forgiven once his anger subsided. (Artanis and Irissë’s ongoing feud with Tyelko had taken on a life of its own, and Curufinwë was far from the only one staying safely out of it.)

His aunt shrugged.

“Atarinkë seems to have the right of it,” she sighed. “We either anger Elwë or give up our language and all that goes with it. We gain little by yielding to him, and lose much.”

“Though there might be some small benefit,” Laurefindil piped up.

Curufinwë tried not to sigh audibly. His aunt’s golden-haired son wasn’t the cleverest, and probably at a loss for what to do with himself now that his four younger cousins were all elsewhere – one in Mandos, one with his older brothers, one wherever Turvo had dragged her, and Artanis now married and someone else’s to look after.

Assuming the marriage survived the current crisis, of course…

“Oh?” Nolofinwë asked, intrigued. “And what might that be?”

“My cousin would be Curufin were his name Sindarized,” Laurefindil said with a smirk. “Which his father never used, and though not his preferred name, would probably be more to his liking than Atarinkë.”

“Yes, Glorfindel,” Curufinwë growled, willing to show that two could play that game “clearly we should all take up an entirely different language merely so you can see me and our uncle discomfited in equal measure.”

It was the first time in far too long he had heard Artanis laugh. Under the circumstances, he’ll put up with Laurë’s twisted logic if it will bring a smile to her face.