Confessions of a Teenage Drama Prince by eris_of_imladris

Chapter 1

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Tano was feeling restless that night, his wanderings drawing him past where most of Mahtan’s apprentices spent their time. It had been a day off, thanks to his master’s visit to Aulë’s forges, and he had taken the unsavory decision to return home. After being reminded of his father’s wish for him to be a woodcarver instead, the debate came to a head yet again as if it hadn’t enough times already, he left with a sour taste in his mouth. He was a smith in his heart, and that was the only thing he was going to pursue.

He was too deep in thought for the raucous culture of the apprentices’ quarters, filled with pallet beds of rowdy young men who had too much energy and nothing to spend it on, not even some menial chores to keep them occupied. The noise flowing under the mostly-closed door was enough to turn Tano away, leading him closer to the master’s house and the sculpture garden off to the side.

It was there that he found an elf hunched over, fingers moving in a disjointed pattern over something in his lap. His dark hair fell over his face, obscuring the elf’s identity until Tano got closer. As he walked over, he noticed that the elf was sewing, but not in the usual relaxing way usually taken by purveyors of the craft; this elf’s needle was taken in hand in a very deliberate manner, the pale yellow thread pulling through the white fabric just the slightest bit too rapidly and too tight.

The approaching footsteps alerted the seated elf to the new presence, and he bit back a yelp and quickly drew a finger to his lips, sucking on a bright bead of blood. He turned his head to look over at Tano, who blurted out the elf’s name.

“Narvo?” he asked, unable to believe that his fellow apprentice was there. After all, he didn’t live in the apprentices’ quarters; he returned home when his work was done and then arrived by dawn the next morning, theoretically sleeping at some point in-between. But he was never here this late… not to mention that it had been a day off. Theoretically, he should not have been there at all.

“Tano,” Narvo said, popping the finger out of his mouth and curling it into a fist with his others, bunching the fabric on his lap. At closer look, it was a tunic, sleeves flopping over Narvo’s knees – and not just any tunic either, but something finer than Tano or even his father would be able to afford, but wrinkly and worn in the place where the needle still protruded.

“I did not know you could sew,” Tano said hesitantly.

“I cannot,” Narvo replied, his formerly even-toned voice sinking into a funk Tano had never heard from his fellow apprentice before. Surely Narvo had hard days as well, but he always seemed so happy at the forge… well, more than happy – he seemed fulfilled in his work, not even complaining to do the most menial of chores or clean soot until his arms were black as coal. Not to mention that he was so skilled… why was he trying to learn a new skill when he had one that already worked? And if he sought a new skill, why was he here, on this day of all days?

“You are quite skilled in the forge, I see no need for you to learn a new craft,” Tano said, and Narvo let out a long sigh, picking up the needle and sticking it into a seam he was creating slightly off-center by the shoulder.

“I may need it from now on,” he said solemnly. “Things will change after this night.”

“I can see no reason for things to change, especially with you passing your novice exams,” Tano replied. He then thought of one alternative… “Does your father need you at home?”

Narvo laughed. Not the kind he was wont to do in the forge, elbow-deep in a new project, beaming to show off his work to Mahtan if he was near, or the easy way he spoke of language, laughing at his own wordplay. This laugh was bitter, as if he wished to rub Tano’s face in an unhappiness he had never displayed around him before.

“I do not know if I even have a home anymore, save for here,” he grumbled, looking down at the needlework in his lap again.

“No home? But you go home even from here, to your father…”

“My father has conveniently forgotten that I exist, so that may not be guaranteed,” Narvo said confidently, but the look in his eyes was far from assured. His gray eyes sparkled like the tools he worked with, but with wetness rather than fire, daring Tano to mention the first sign of weakness he had ever seen in his fellow apprentice.

“But how could your father forget that you exist when you go home to him every night?”

“He has not seen me for many months, and that is being generous,” Narvo snarled. “If I was speaking the truth, I would say he has not seen me truly since I was a child.”

“And yet he pays your fees here,” Tano said. “That must account for something, yes?”

“Even that is likely to end by the morning.”

“And that is why you are sewing?”

Narvo looked down at the shirt in his lap. “Not exactly, although I do suppose it could be useful if I need to find a way to make a living. But it is not as easy for me as I would have thought… as I would have hoped.” He ran his fingers over the seam he made, not quite a straight line, but a bend between two lines, each of which led to another line. It was hard to see the thread against the light fabric, but it looked almost like a bolt of lightning or a lopsided star.

“You do not need to be good at sewing if you have your skill in the forge,” Tano said, trying to be helpful, but it seemed to be the absolute worst thing he could have said.

“I do not need to be a good smith,” Narvo said. “That is all selfish desire. If I was trying to do what my father wished me to do, I had a clear path until today. But now, there is no role left for me to fill, no place to claim…” His words trailed off, and he left a long enough silence that Tano was about to speak again. But then Narvo turned to the sewing in his lap, running his finger over the lightning-star and speaking so softly that Tano almost couldn’t hear it.

“All I wanted to do was please you,” he mumbled. “All I ever wanted was to be enough for him when you were gone, but I cannot even do that…” He looked up at Tano then, the tears beginning to spill from his eyes at last. “I have never been enough. After all of this, my work here, my study of linguistics at home… nights spent awake trying to fill my mind with everything I could imagine to be the best son ever… and now it is not enough. It has never been enough… I have never been enough. All I have succeeded to do is fail my mother once and for all.”

Tano fell silent, thinking of the words his fellow apprentice just spoke. Narvo was never forthcoming about his family, occasionally speaking about his father who he strove to impress like many of the other apprentices, but he had never mentioned a mother before. Even when the other apprentices spoke of their families, he remained silent, using his work as an excuse to leave the conversation early.

He was about to ask what Narvo spoke of when the boy’s gaze returned to his hands again, to his lap where the sewing rested. The sewing was what finally put it together in Tano’s head, the clues of years of sharing a forge, of Narvo listening to others’ problems but never stating his own, looking so happy to do any work whatsoever, and now he sought sewing as comfort… sewing… there was only one story for which that behavior made sense. Tano looked up abruptly.

“It is my mother-name shortened in the form typically given to a father-name,” Narvo finally spoke up in a dangerously even tone. “If I had said Curvo, you all would have known.”

“And why not tell us?”

“It was Master Mahtan’s idea at first,” Narvo – Fëanáro – explained. “But I decided to keep it later for reasons of my own.”

“Why?” A hint of betrayal edged its way into Tano’s voice. How often had he spoken of his own troubles with his father who wanted him to choose a different path in life, little knowing that his confidant’s father was trying to groom him to become a king?

“Well, first of all, it would have taken away any chance of honest speaking with any of you,” Fëanáro said, “and think of it, what would your reaction have been if you knew that the High Prince got to take his exams so early? You would not have seen skill or practice, you would have seen nepotism, and it would have spoiled you for the craft, and for me. I could not afford to lose what fragile ground I have.”

Much as Tano wanted to rebut his point, he found himself unable to. Nothing Fëanáro said was untrue – he would have made those assumptions before, for he had heard the rumors of the High Prince being arrogant and hot-headed and entitled. But now he was raw before him, open, his soul splayed out like the tunic across his knees, and yet a strength shone through the tears in his eyes that was matched only by his determination in the forge.

“I know this is a cue for me to learn my place, but my mother did not die for me to think that my place is at the bottom,” Fëanáro said, his voice rising. “She did not sacrifice her life for me to sacrifice my rightful place. I will not let this new son of my father take what is mine, not if I must fight every day for the rest of eternity.” Even in Mahtan’s old tunic, even with red cheeks and the slightest slump, determination flowed off Fëanáro in waves.

“So it is a boy, then?” Tano asked, wondering how in the world he was supposed to help through this problem. Yes, he considered the boy who he had known as Narvo to be his friend, but now he felt unsure and small, almost like the elf – the prince – in front of him.

“It is a boy,” he nodded. “And my father has no need of me anymore. Now he has a son from his Valar-blessed marriage, a son to take everything that I could have ever thought was mine.”

“Perhaps he does not feel that way,” Tano said tentatively. “Have you spoken to him of it?”

“I have no need to, for he has shown me with his actions today,” Fëanáro replied. “He summoned me early this morning to meet the child – who looks unbearably like him, by the way, as if it were not insult enough – and he has given the child a name that is a direct affront to me. I left then in my anger, and I have heard nothing since. He has not even sent a servant,” he concluded, anger rising in his voice.

Tano tried to think of something, anything, to dissuade Fëanáro from his conclusion, but he could think of nothing. The fact that the High King was likely busy by his wife and new baby’s side would likely be little comfort. He stayed silent for too long, letting the awkwardness fester as he discarded every argument he could think of. There was no way to know if his father loved him, or even if he thought about him at all, when the truth remained that Fëanáro sat upon a bench in Mahtan’s old tunic, his fine tunic draped across his lap for repairs, the blood pulled from the needle his only reminder of his once-living mother.

When the silence became too much to bear, Tano hesitantly said, “We should tell the others.”

“And have them know of my weakness?” Fëanáro blurted out. “I do not think that would be wise.”

“It is not weak to seek help when you need it,” Tano replied, echoing Fëanáro’s exact words when his metal had congealed into a cold lump on his anvil. “And it is like Master Mahtan says – we are supposed to be a fellowship of crafters, a family of sorts. It sounds like you need a family tonight.”

Fëanáro considered his words carefully, eventually turning up to him with a hesitant look. “I cannot be strong all of the time,” he admitted in a quiet voice.

He followed where Tano led, back to the room with the bright lights and raucous noise Tano had fled from not long before. It would quiet down, Tano knew, when Fëanáro shared his explosive news. And yet, even just hearing the noise comforted him. He and Fëanáro both had a family here, with the other apprentices and with each other, and hopefully their family of choice would be enough to carry them through life’s myriad problems.