The Art of Speech Through Smithcraft by Idrils Scribe

Armour

Have no doubt that my father did, in fact, love me. If The Valar should ever call me to Máhanaxar to testify on his account, that certainty is all I can think of to bring forward in his favour.

Curufinwë’s actions in Beleriand centered on two driving forces. Naturally, nothing in Ëa could take precedence over his all-consuming Oath. Yet whenever it briefly loosened its black and bloody stranglehold on his mind, he would turn towards me like a disturbed compass needle righting itself.

The eve of battle of Lothlann was one such rare moment, though I did not know it then. With the clarity granted by time and distance, it stands out starkly.
My suit of armour was worthy of a Prince of the House of Fëanáro, and not once during the entire painstaking process of its making had it been touched by any hand but my father’s. I had of course attended him in the forge, a requisite part of my education in smithcraft, but I was made to stand aside, alternately being measured and watching in silence for entire days and nights as he moulded, tempered, engraved and refined.

The fruit of these labors was as molten silver given shape, fluid, light as a feather, its beauty sharp enough to cut to the quick. Even Tyelkormo, reared from birth in opulence so lavish it became a by-word even in Tirion, with sapphires common as pebbles in Fëanaro’s house, gasped when he finally held up the chest plate, blue steel tough as adamant with the eight-pointed star of Fëanáro overlaid in mithril.

Cendaro had unpacked it from its wrappings and hung it from a wooden stand in my tent. He stood at the ready to dress me by the light of a single blue lamp in the early hours before dawn, while I broke my fast with white bread and watered wine. Suddenly the tent-flap was pulled back to admit my father and uncle Tyelkormo, both fully geared for war.

“Leave us” my father brusquely ordered Cendaro, who bowed and disappeared.

His tone with me was equally curt. “Stand over here, Telpë.”

Only then did it dawn on me that he intended to dress me himself. I was immeasurably glad Cendaro had already braided my hair. Given Curufinwë’s melancholic mood, he doubtlessly would have insisted on doing that, too, an intimacy I would have found hard to bear from him.

As it was, I shuddered as he began his work, helping me into my padded red gambeson. He looked at me, searching for what ailed me as if he were determining the composition of some troublesome alloy in his crucible. As ever, he read me correctly.
To this day I wonder if it was the fey mood before battle, or a touch of foresight that made him speak aloud what had remained unsaid for all our time in Ennor.

“Sixty years has it been since I took you with me from Tirion, and still you cannot suffer me to touch you.”
The realisation did not keep him from deftly tying the shoulder straps of my breastplate.

“Necessity only was what drove me that day. Can you not understand, at least, so we might ride to war without a quarrel to divide us unto death?

My mood was as fierce as his, and the knowledge that he could not possibly go back on yesterday’s agreement with Maitimo emboldened me like never before.

“You could have left me with her.”

Tyelkormo had sat down on my camp-bed, idly drawing a whetstone across the already dangerously sharp edges of his spear.

“Left you caged, Telpë, to sit at the feet of the Valar? Are you so eager to be their serving-boy, while the murderer of two High Kings wears the heirlooms of your house unchallenged?”

My father remained silent, letting Tyelkormo’s words hang in the air like a whiff of toxic fume.
There it was, staring me in the face. That black rend Fëanáro tore into the fabric of all our lives, inescapable as a run extending ever further through our warp and weft.
It was not the Oath that barred my father and uncles from regret or atonement for their deeds, but the Fëanorian pride, a complete and utter inability to even consider the possibility they had been wrong.
No matter what fate he and I would meet that day, whether glory or doom, death or a taste of Maitimo’s long torture, my father would not, could not regret bringing me into it. All the ages of the world and the vilest of horrors unleashed upon his own son would not suffice for him to repent. The realisation struck like a blade to the gut: a lingering agony I have carried to this day.

My father’s hands danced over my shoulders and sides, tying and buckling, his eyes fixed on his work.

“I have only, ever, wished for you to grow up with dignity, and a sense of your own worth. How could you have that, coddled into weakness under Varda’s skirts? Your mother and I… please believe that I tried every possible alternative, Telpë. Every other way. She would not listen, could not see reason, so thickly had the Valar poured their poisonous meekness into her ears. I do not blame her, but I had to keep you safe.”

Suddenly I noticed the wet sheen to his eyes, the minute sluggishness of his darting hands. The sight of my father’s sorrow shook me more than any amount of spurting blood could have done.
Children are the most loyal creatures in Arda. Whatever atrocity their parents subject them to, a young child will cling like a dog to its master, ever in slavish pursuit of love and appreciation.
I was young enough then to still be subject to this inherent fallacy of youth.

“Atarinyë…” My voice cracked.

He had come to the very last act of the coördinated dance for two that is the donning of armour. Girding my sword-belt required him to put his arms around my waist. The strange mockery of an embrace took place wordlessly. Only when it was in place did he right himself to look me in the eye.
And I, young fool that I was in those days, I embraced him.
The resounding clang of both our suits of armour and the strange stiffness and distance they kept between us were entirely apt.

When he stepped back, his eyes were dry once more. “You will do us proud, today.”

It was all he said before pressing the red-plumed helmet into my hands and turning to leave. Tyelkormo rose to follow him.
I stood, staring transfixed at the tent flaps fluttering in the wake of their passage.
Outside the camp drew itself awake, the sound of entire companies of booted feet and hooves was swelling. Cendaro stuck his head through the flaps, wearing a mail hauberk of his own.

“My lord, your horse is ready.”

Having already suffered the first defeat of the day, I stepped forth into the darkness before dawn, praying the fortunes of war would bring me better luck.