A Walk down Memory Lane by Raiyana

Arm Guards and a Dagger

The work was good, hardened steel, finely decorated with a border of stylized Huans running down deer. He had used soft lambs-wool and some leather made from one of Tyelko’s own kills for the padding and straps. He had made the armguards for his brother – no particular occasion – and Tyelko had immediately decided that a Hunt was in order to celebrate.

Curvo wasn’t quite sure how that translated to him coming along on said Hunt – Carnistir was tagging along looking for some sort of rare plant for his dyes, and Maitimo was coming to keep an eye on them – let alone Kano who was working on a new play with Telperína and had coaxed her into coming along, armed with a lap desk and quill pens.

They rode out on a brilliant bright morning, Tyelko in the lead with Huan loping along beside him. Curvo found himself riding next to Telperína, Makalaurë having moved ahead slightly to needle Moryo about some thing or other – Curvo wasn’t paying much attention to his two brothers.

“You like the hunt, Curufinwë?” Telperína asked quietly, turning her head to look at him.

“Not so much as Tyelko,” Curvo chuckled, “I find more enjoyment in the making of my brother’s tools than their use, though I am no poor hunter myself.”

“My family are mostly fishermen,” Telperína said, “I’ve never been on a real hunt. I’m not sure why I’m here, really,” she admitted quietly, “I’ve never even shot a bow. I don’t know that I want to…” She looked somewhat apprehensive at the idea – Curvo silently agreed, having a hard time to imagining her revelling in the challenge of the hunt and the kill like his cousin Aredhel, for example.

“You won’t have to,” he promised softly. “Not if you do not wish to – but I can teach you to shoot at targets that aren’t alive, if you like?”

“Thank you, Prince Curufinwë,” she said quietly, smiling at him with obvious relief. “Perhaps I would like that,” she nodded thoughtfully, “though I don’t think I would enjoy killing – even for food.”

“With Tyelko and Maitimo along we’d never go hungry,” Curvo soothed. “And Carnistir is good at finding edible plants, too, and even Makalaurë is a good shot if he doesn’t get distracted by the tune of a new bird…” Telperína laughed brightly, glancing at the back of Makalaurë, who was leaning precariously far towards Moryo, apparently intent on whatever he wanted to say.

“Makalurë does lose himself in music betimes,” she agreed, “but perhaps I will take your word and remain in camp – I brought my pens and paper, thinking I should find inspiration in the wilds.”

At the end of the day, they had found a nice spot for their camp, beside a deep pool with a small waterfall and fine grassy banks dotted with shady-leaf trees.

Tyelko woke them all almost before the mingling of light had begun to wane – Laurëlin’s golden light was only just beginning to hint at the brilliance of day. Picking up his spear and bow, Curvo’s eyes were caught by the play of the shadows of the leaves above on the shiny blade of the weapon. Moving the spear slowly, the leaf-shaped shadows running across the metal in fascinating waves of light and dark gave him an idea. A knife, perhaps, though it could work for a spear, too, the leaves trailing down the blade in cast shapes and etchings, crafting the handle to look like the branch on which they grew. Perhaps he could make a spearhead that fastened to its shaft with vines of metal, dark iron with brightly polished highlights to form the veins of the leaves.

The design slowly took shape in his mind. Looking around, his eyes fell on Telperína, the light of Laurëlin making her silver hair shine. Some of the purple flowers that dotted the grass around them had found their way into her long plait, falling over her shoulder – the end had turned black with the ink it had flicked across though she had not noticed. The sight filled him with soft amusement. He almost forgot what he was thinking about, wanting to reach out to follow the curves of her braid with his fingers, finally discovering whether it was as soft as he thought.

“Can I borrow some paper?” he asked, pulling his mind away from her hair. Telperína jumped at the sound of his voice, her pen dropping a large blot of ink on her page.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, staring up at him, “I thought you had all left, Curufinwë. You startled me.”

“My apologies,” Curvo mumbled, feeing sheepish when he realised that she was right – he must have been lost in his imagination and his brothers had left without him. Left him alone with Telperína, whose capacity for immersion in her projects matched his own. “I was thinking about a new project,” he admitted, “and I’d like to draw a few sketches while it’s fresh in my mind.”

Telperína smiled. “Sure, málo,” she said, handing him a blank page from her stack, a small frown appearing on her face as she pulled out the pen-drawer and studied its contents. “I don’t have any drawing brushes along, though,” she said, giving him an apologetic glance up through the fringe of her lashes.

“I have a stick of charcoal,” Curvo replied, taking the paper and returning to his previous seat, using one of his own arm guards in place of a lap desk.

Silence fell between them, only the chirps of birds in the branches overhead breaking the hazy afternoon idyll.

Looking at his paper, Curvo tried to transfer the image of his knife from his mind to his fingers, but every time he tried to draw the curve of the edge, it turned into something else, until he was staring at a page nearly filled with the teasing curve of Telperína’s smile, the slant of her eyes, or the lines of her neck, waves of silver hair kissing the skin.

Staring at the drawings – no more than hastily sketched lines, indistinguishable to anyone but him as visions of Telperína – he knew exactly what they were. He huffed. Infatuation, he chided himself, that’s what this is. Infatuation and no more.

Turning the paper over, Curvo forced his mind back to the image of his leaf-knife, his fingers gripping the stick of charcoal tightly as he drew the design, painfully aware that Telperína had raised her head to stare at him but not willing to return her gaze, half-afraid that she would see…

Ignore it, it will go away.

Telling himself so did not make him any less aware that she was sitting only four feet away, her pen resuming the rhythmic scratching of letters. Curvo wondered what her play was about, but Kano was surprisingly secretive about the work, communicating in quiet whispers by the evening fire.

Sitting by the fire, a morsel of venison frying slowly on the end of the skewer he held over the flames, Curvo found himself staring at nothing once more, Kano and Telperína close together on the other side of the fire as she showed him the things she had written in their absence.

“You’re going to burn your supper, Curvo,” Tyelko chuckled, wrapping his fingers around Curvo’s wrist and yanking his skewer away from the flames. “Where is your head at, little brother? You’re supposed to be the best of us at fire!” He didn’t wait for a response, patting Curvo’s shoulder and turned his attention to his own meal. Beside him, Huan was grinning, expectation in every strand of fur. Curvo laughed at himself, punching Tyelko in the shoulder and throwing the wolfhound a fresh morsel as he waited for his own piece to cool enough to touch.

Across the fire, Telperína glanced up, her smile soft and warm as she looked straight at him.

Curvo blamed the flush in his cheeks on the heat of the fire, determinedly looking away from the Vanyarin playwright.

Infatuation, nothing more, he repeated in his head, and Atto doesn’t even really approve of our friendship.