This Is My Family by Grundy

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

Tyelkormo’s first love was the forests and wild places, they say.

As ever, ‘they’ are wrong.

The third son of Curufinwë Fëanaro and Nerdanel Istarnië was no different than every other of his kind – his first love was his family.

His mother, whose beauty in his eyes would admit no rival for many long years, with her warm hair and hazel eyes and freckles that so few among their kind have, and her gentle wisdom. He could imagine no better mother. His father, who may be famed for his genius among their people, but who to his sons was merely Atto, the genial, loving, laughing father who took delight in his children.

His brothers – Maitimo, so tall with hair that stands out among the dark heads of most Noldor like a beacon, to the point that the first time he cannot find his family in a crowd, he does not look for Ammë or Atto, but for Maitimo. (Not only is he easier to find, he is not as upset as Ammë or stern as Atto about Tyelkormo wandering off.) Makalaurë, with his magical voice and music that can make pictures in the mind.

Tyelkormo was still fairly young when they returned to Tirion from Formenos, where Fëanaro had taken his family not long after the birth of his third son. It was then that Tyelkormo learned to his surprise that he had family beyond his parents and older brothers and his mother’s parents Mahtan and Rilmë.

His grandfather Finwë looked like Atto, but his spirit was less a bonfire than a hearth fire, gentle and warm and cozy. It was easy to love him, for Tyelkormo’s entire family love him as well. Grandfather is delighted to have them back in Tirion, and to take his youngest grandson around with him and make much of him before his friends and counselors.

Indis is a puzzle, though. She is not his grandmother – his Atto is fiercely insistent on that. But she is married to his grandfather, and little Tyelkormo has never known anyone to have someone not their grandmother married to their grandfather. She does all the things a grandmother should – cuddling him, and adoring him, and seeing to skinned knees when he falls out of the tree in the gardens that seemed so perfect for climbing.

He doesn’t understand why his Atto yells at her for tending his knees, and for keeping him safely in her lap the rest of the afternoon, petting his hair and singing soothing songs. Nor would he understand the words she threw back at him in what sounded awfully like hurt until he was older – “Miriel was dear to me, too, Fëanaro, and it is no crime to see her in her grandson! Nor is it your right to set boundaries on who others may love!”

It is his Ammë who sits at his bedside that night and explains to him that Miriel his grandmother died, and what that means, and that she will not return, and though of course his grandfather loves her dearly, he loves Indis also and has married her, and the Valar themselves had said that it was lawful.

There is no word for what Indis is to him and his brothers – for no other elves need such a word, and Fëanaro, otherwise the consummate wordsmith, refused to grace her with one – but she is kind and grandmotherly. Even though as he grows Tyelkormo comes to realize how fiercely his father resents and dislikes her, she is his secret friend and ally, and he will call her haruni when no one else is around to hear. (It is perfectly normal to have more than one grandmother, he tells himself, so it is not disloyal of him.) She is also the only one who will tell him anything of the grandmother he inherited his silver hair and hasty temper and gentle hands from, for his father’s mother died before Fëanaro was old enough to know her, and it would be unkind to remind his grandfather of his grief.

Return to Tirion meant more than just Grandfather and Indis – it also meant meeting his father’s brothers and sisters. He had not even known that Atto had brothers and sisters, but no matter how much he disliked Indis, Atto was fond enough of his younger siblings.

Uncle Nolofinwë is so like Atto in face and form that the first time Tyelko ran in from the gardens breathless to find his father to show him the marvelous jewelbirds flitting around the flowers, he grabbed the wrong hand, and dragged his uncle halfway to the door before anyone intervened. His Atto was not pleased, but Ammë laughed before she introduced him to his uncle – who was happy to come see the birds with him if his Atto was determined to sulk.

Uncle Nolo is married to Aunt Anairë, who is kind but insistent on rules like not running into the formal rooms with muddy shoes. Ammë has never bothered about such things, so it takes some getting used to, but Aunt Anairë is also very good about things like finding something to feed the poor little squirrel he found injured, so he does his best with her rules.

Their son Findekano, it is explained to him, is not his brother, but his cousin. It is a new word to go with the new face, and he likes to say it. Findekano looks very like Makalaurë, but unlike Makalaurë, who is nearly a grownup, Findekano is young enough not to object to a little one trailing after him at every family gathering.

“Oh, don’t fuss so, Fëanaro – can’t you see how proud young Finno is to have someone looking up to him for a change?” he overheard his mother say late one evening when he had done his best to model himself after Findekano all through dinner and the horribly long concert that had followed. (Sitting still through all the music before Makalaurë’s had been difficult, but Findekano played quiet little games with him to pass the time.) “He’s far more used to looking up at our oldest two!”

“If Findekano needs someone looking up to him, then Nolo and Anairë should provide him with a younger brother of his own!” had been Atto’s cranky reply.

Aunt Findis and Aunt Irimë are both unmarried, and don’t have any ‘suitors’, whatever those are, so young Tyelkormo is guaranteed their undivided attention whenever he visits his grandfather’s palace. Findis takes an interest in healing, so she soon becomes his first port of call for helping the animals and birds he always seems to stumble across. Irimë is a sure path to cookies and other treats, as well as a good ally if he has done something naughty (but not dangerous – for he discovered to his surprise that his merry, laughing aunt can be as stern as Atto or Aunt Anairë in such cases) and needs help to avoid getting into trouble.

Uncle Arafinwë puzzles him at first, for he is not all that much older than Maitimo. But he is an Uncle, not a brother or a cousin, and has to be treated and obeyed as such – at least, that is what Ammë says. Atto does not dislike Arafinwë as he does Indis, despite their shared golden hair, but he often snorts when Ammë reminds Tyelkormo about how she expects him to behave with Uncle Arafinwë.

Tyelko can’t quite understand how his uncle can be a Vanya as Atto says he is when their family are the royal house of the Noldor, nor why being a Vanya should be a bad thing, and besides, Uncle Arafinwë is as kind-hearted as Indis and seems quite happy whenever he gets to spend time with his nephews. He is also the only one of his aunts or uncles who will take him outside the city to the peace of the woods and meadows, and teaches him more about birds and beasts than he could have learned within the palace walls.

For some time, that is his entire family, and Tyelkormo is quite content. But not long after Uncle Arafinwë married Eärwen of Alqualondë and went to live with her there that his parents announce that they have begotten a fourth son. He was rather reluctant to give up his place as the youngest – at least until Findekano cheered him up with the notion that it was exciting to be a big brother, and something Finno might even envy him.

He also has the consolation of a dog, for on one of their trips to the woods, Lord Oromë chances across Arafinwë and Turkafinwë. (Tyelkormo was somewhat surprised to be called by his fathername, much less recognized by a Vala at all.) The Lord of the Forests reassured him that, as an older brother himself, Findekano told him true that it is something special, and before they parted, gifted him Huan.

It is as well that he had Huan to play with, for Morifinwë is not exactly as Tyelko had imagined a little brother. At first he is too small to do anything – and his older brothers and Findekano all laugh when he says this, pointing out that he was once that small himself. He is indignant at that, because he does not remember being that small, and he couldn’t help being small when he was only just born anyway. Ammë reassures him that Moryo will grow, all babies do.

But even when he grows, it seems unlikely that Tyelko and Moryo will be as close a pair as Maitimo and Makalaurë are. Their tempers are too similar – both inherited from their father, Ammë sighed, but from what Indis has told him, Tyelko knew better, for it was Miriel’s quick temper they both have in spades. (Though if they are swift to anger, their anger passes just as swiftly and they forgive readily.) Moryo has something else from his grandmother – her talent with a needle, though his tends more toward practical tailoring than toward the intricate embroidery for which all Tirion remembered Miriel the Broideress.

Tyelkormo finds himself passing on the wisdom from Findekano about being an older brother sooner than he expected, for to general surprise, his parents and his uncles and their wives all beget their next children (in Uncle Ara and Aunt Eärwen’s case, their first) in the same year, while Moryo is still quite young.

When he looks back later, Tyelkormo will wonder if this isn’t the point where things began to go truly wrong, but at the time everyone was simply overjoyed to see the House of Finwë growing. Even Atto was cheerful at the prospect of his fifth son having cousins the same age, who might be playmates and comrades from the cradle on.

But when the babe is born, after having given his oldest son the name Nelyafinwë, Atto suddenly decided that it is this child that should have his own fathername Curufinwë. Tyelko is an adolescent by now, so he is old enough to understand the private conversation that turns into a fight between Atto and Uncle Nolo – and to feel both confused and guilty that he secretly agrees with his uncle that if Atto had not passed his fathername to his eldest son, he should not have passed it to any of the others.

“Perhaps not now, when he is so small, but at some point it will make for hard feelings between your sons, Fëanaro! How can you not see that?” his uncle demanded in an urgent undertone, trying to keep the quarrel from their parents and their wives, entirely ignorant that one of his nephews was sitting on the stairs above them. “You have given your four older sons names of their own, why could you not do the same for this child?”

“Yes, Nolofinwë, I bow to your superior knowledge of children and how to raise them,” Atto sneered. “Come speak to me after you have named more than one son.”

His uncle had flushed.

“This has nothing to do with how many children I have named, and you know it,” he replied. “I can no more help being younger than you than little Curufinwë can help having four older brothers.”

“Oh? That is not what I have heard,” Atto fired back. “You envy me both my place and my children, and this time you go too far in your interference with them!”

“Interference?” Uncle Nolofinwë asked, sounding utterly dumbfounded. “When have I ever interfered with your boys? I have far more often asked your advice than offered any myself, and always found it sound. That is why it is such a surprise to me that you cannot see that this name is not likely to be a blessing for the little one!”

“Your advice, if such you call it, is ill-thought and ill-timed. The name has been given and it is too late to change it. I will hear no more of this!”

Fëanaro would have whisked his family off to Formenos immediately after Curvo’s public presentation were it not for the fierce objections of both his father and his wife. Tyelko was relieved that Atto was overruled, for he and his brothers had all been looking forward to meeting their newest cousins, and to see how Finno liked finally being a big brother.

But no matter how warm the relationship between their wives, or the fact that Curvo, Turvo, and Ingo were as fast friends from the time of their birth on as their mothers could have hoped, the chill between Atto and his younger brother from that day could not be overlooked.

Curvo turned out to be not only Atto’s favorite, but the little brother Tyelko himself had been hoping for at Moryo’s birth. Perhaps the difference was him, old enough now to appreciate his baby brother properly, or perhaps it was that Curvo’s temperament was wholly different to his and Moryo’s. But whatever the reason, he was far closer to Curvo than to Moryo, and he knew that the fourth son of Fëanaro often felt a third wheel around his older brother and his younger brother. He felt bad about that, but he couldn’t help that he simply got along better with Curvo than he ever could with Moryo.

Uncle Nolo visited Atto less often, and Tyelko rarely heard him ask for advice anymore. Uncle Ara did his best to smooth over the distance between his brothers, but he never quite succeeded. Everyone but Grandfather seemed to see it. Tyelko knew it pained Indis, but she would not speak of it with him, and changed the subject at once the only time he attempted to raise it.

Time did not seem to heal the wound. His father and his uncle nearly came to blows after Arakano’s birth. Neither one would admit the reason for the fight to the rest of the family, but Tyelko once again chanced to overhear enough to suspect – this time his father gloating to his mother that Nolofinwë had been quick to cast stones about him passing his name to Curvo, yet here he was passing a name of his own to a younger son, and what a hypocrite that made him. (Tyelko thought Atto’s logic somewhat deficient since nobody but Indis called Uncle Nolo by his mothername, and both his older sons also had names that ended –kano.)

Tyelkormo was practically a grownup himself by then, old enough that though he still loved his father dearly, he was beginning to see that his atar had flaws much the same as any other elf, his odd attitude toward his brothers not least among them. He had also noticed that while Fëanaro was loathe to forbid Finno or Turvo to visit, he disliked that Nolofinwë’s sons were so close to his own. Perhaps it was for the best that young Aryo spent more time at Arafinwë’s house with Ango and Aiko.

Amid the rising tension between his father and uncle, Tyelko was only too happy to take several years away to ride with Oromë’s hunt, and he was not the only one. Irimë had married a Vanyarin lord, and much though she preferred Tirion, she wished to raise her son away from the constant bickering between her older brothers, so she went to her husband’s house in Valimar.

Poor little Lauro consequently found himself the odd man out, knowing few of his older cousins when everyone returned to Tirion for the birth of Tyelko’s youngest brothers.
Her pregnancy with the twins had been difficult, and Nerdanel and Fëanaro shared with their sons even before the birth that there would be no more younger brothers – or possibility of a younger sister – after this.

Even so, Tyelko agreed with his brothers that the fathernames of the twins were nothing short of provocation. His uncles, and probably also his aunts, had not yet finished having children, so to name the twins ‘Pityafinwë’ and ‘Telufinwë’ – the second one especially – was needlessly inflammatory. Not to mention, it also precluded the possibility of any of them chosing to give their own children names that contained the element ‘-finwë’. Tyelko himself had yet to find a nis he would consider marrying, let alone beget children with, so for him the possibility was mainly theoretical, but he had to think that it was less remote for his older brothers. (Particularly Makalaurë, who was on the point of announcing his betrothal to a Lindarin composer.)

Tyelko therefore joined his brothers in calling the twins primarily by their mothernames – though even that was not simple. Fëanaro insisted they call Umbarto Ambarto, which angered Ammë because that was not the name she had given. So the twins became Ambarussa and Atyarussa to their brothers. The family at large attempted to compromise by shortening them Pityo and Minyo. (Telvo seemed an odd thing to call a child, and with Ango around, they needed something distinct, so rather than Ambo, they took Ambarussa as Minyarussa. There was also a bit of playful ribbing in it- playful except perhaps from Nolofinwë – calling the child his father had named ‘Last’ ‘First’.)

It was perhaps fortunate that the next children in the House of Finwë were at long last girls – the first since Irimë, and born within two weeks of each other. Fëanaro was the only one in the family who didn’t coo over and spoil Irissë and Artanis shamelessly. (Tyelkormo was certain that was due to jealousy. His father, great a prince, genius, and craftsman as he might be, could be utterly ridiculous about his little brothers having something he didn’t, particularly when it was something he wanted.)

While it was primarily young Lauro who took the twins and girls under his wing, Tyelkormo was by now old enough to assume a more helpful role in their education and upbringing. Riding, archery, survival and forest skills, all these were things he could teach and did. Not to mention, it was clear that Curvo was not about to assume the role of steed, much less of monster, in the little ones’ games. So it fell to him to be pony, troll, wolf, or orc as the occasion demanded, all the while making sure his young kin came to no harm.

No matter how tense things might be between his father and theirs, his uncles seemed to be pleased that he (and Huan) kept a watchful eye on his baby brothers and cousins alike. He could not imagine that would ever change.