From the radiance of stars to mundane flames by Calendille

The Alabaster Prince

"From the radiance of stars to mundane flames" can be read as a sequel to "Little Father" or as a separate work! It takes a lot from "The Staff Dancer", but they can be read in any order. I hope you will enjoy this story!

Enormous thanks to Idrils_scribe, who stepped in as a emergency beta!

Read The Alabaster Prince

 Curufin

The walls of the Hall of the Great Guild of Weavers swayed gently at Manwë’s touch; for they were not of stones, like those of the buildings of the great city of Tirion upon the hill, but majestic tapestries hanging from golden roofs and soaring columns of marble. They were the work of the best and most respected craftspeople of the Guild; silk and golden and silver threads woven into wondrous pictures of Vana, Nessa and Yavanna, the three mistresses of Spring, along with Vairë, the heavenly patron of the Guild’s craft.

The Hall never ceased to amaze me, because it was ever-changing. With each season all the walls would be replaced, the old mixing with the new; but always, some treasures remained unmoving.  I felt the usual rise of bittersweet excitement as I entered the lobby with Aicahendë, our fingers woven as closely as the threads of the vibrant tapestries. In front of us was a great staircase above which hung a stately painting of Queen Miriel Therindë, and under the portrait stood tall and proud a statue of alabaster, its eyes of diamonds seeking those of the deceased queen. The statue was that of my father, High prince Fëanaro Curufinwë Therindion, who had designed the lobby and staircase, carved with such lifelike delicacy by my mother that one would have expected him to move.

The effigy was adorned with the dark robes of silk, cloud-like mousseline and constellations of diamonds on velvet my father had worn at his wedding. ; yet even more impressive was the first masterpiece of Aicahendë’s mother, the Great Mistress Capindë Indyamien: a thirty feet long embroidered train retelling the Great March in silver threads. It cascaded from my father’s shoulders down the stairs, splitting them in two so that any guest may walk around it, look and wonder.

The Great Guild was a Fëanorian stronghold, and they were not afraid to show their colors.

We climbed the stairs in religious silence; I in devotion for my father, my betrothed Aicahendë for the work of her mother, and both of us for our One True Queen.

We stopped at the top.

I knew this statue almost as intimately as if it were my own face. It had always been a great favorite of mine: my father in his youth, not yet fully grown, with Miriel’s ribbons woven into hair of stone. He looked heavenly, and as a child I had often begged my mother and grandfather to walk with me in the recollections my father’s wedding. For what greater fairytale could move my heart better than my father’s? Fëanaro Curufinwë was the most radiant part of my soul, and I longed to relieve his happiest memories.

“Do you think I could wear them?” I mused aloud. “I would look just like him.”

I turned to face Aicahendë. She didn’t look nearly as enthusiastic as I had hoped, and a slight frown shadowed her grey eyes with the promise of storm.

“My father will agree,” I started. For my father never refused me anything that was dear to my heart.

“Whereas my mother would throw a fit at not being able to design a new set for you! You will tell her you want to wear your father’s impracticable train that doesn’t fit in any carriage and that you shall sit on it like your father did. I am warning you, I will not go to Estë’s gardens to pick up what will remain of you once she is done with you!”

“I will make a special carriage.”

“Then there is your father, who will be odiously frustrated at not being able to make a dozen new pieces of groundbreaking jewelry for you …”

“He could make yours.”

“My father will make mine, and they will both spend the whole feast comparing every single piece to know who bested who.”

“My father will win.”

“Not if it’s silver,” she countered proudly, and I smiled, because that was true; my father was talented in so many fields two hands were not enough to count them all, and unmatched in several, but Telperimpar was the most renowned silversmith of Aman, his obsessive loyalty toward this metal unwavering in a way that allowed him to compete with Fëanaro. Which was good, because my father needed some competition.

She smiled. Her mouth was too big and thin lipped to be ideal, but when she smiled it gave her a look of ironical joy I loved; that, along with her untamable dark mane, gave her a feral quality.

“Let us start by telling everyone we are getting married,” she says. Demands. Orders. With her, one does not always know. “Then ? We start quarreling about who wears what.”

 

***

 

“… and this is why,” my half-uncle Nolofinwë concluded with his usual aloofness, “I firmly believe Prince Curufinwë’s wedding wardrobe should showcase all Noldorin trends and not confine themselves to the Fëanorian style.

— I care not for what you believe,” my father commented sourly. I felt his irritation close to my heart, as always when Nolofinwë expressed an interest in anything that was not the weather. That his half-brother dared have opinions of what I should do only made it worse.  “What my son wears at his own wedding is no concern of yours.

— Given the deleterious atmosphere at court, I believe we of the royal family must send the message that…

— I do not recall your son Turukano or his bride Elenwë wearing proper miriellian clothes at their wedding, and as such see no reasons why the inferior craftsmen of your clientele should be welcomed at Curufinwë’s.

— Enough!”

Finwë’s displeasure cut through the dispute. There was Power in his voice, and I was startled that he would use it so soon; but then I had been startled as well that things had degenerated so quickly between my father and Nolofinwë, who usually circled around each other in passive-aggressive displays of pride rather than throw themselves at each other’s throat. I did not know yet that the most violent arguments exploded in the secrecy of the king’s office, and how tired Finwë was of them.

“Your petition has been heard. You may leave,” Finwë told my half-uncle. Nolofinwë nodded and stood to go. Ever docile, though only as long as my grandfather's eyes could see him; behind closed doors I knew he was a poisonous snake, hissing lies against us.

Silence echoed around Nolofinwë’s steps; it lasted after the door closed, until, Finwë turned to me. “I would have words with your father. Alone.”

Father declined: I was of age, old enough to give my own opinion about my wedding. We stayed. Finwë’s eyes hardened.

 “As your father I can understand and forgive, in part, your enmity for Indis and Nolofinwë,” my grandfather started, his voice brimming with barely restrained frustration. “As king however, I cannot but condemn your behavior. Your role is to promote harmony and inspiration rather than sow dissent and exclude those whose tastes are not your own!

— I give due respect where I find true greatness is!” My father exclaimed in outrage. “Nolofinwë can sponsor talentless amateurs if he fancies himself the patron of the mediocre, but I shall not lower myself thus, nor Curufinwë!

— Some opinions are better left to the privacy of your own thoughts! Do you not see how fractured the Noldor are? The results of your scorn?

— I see the results of Nolofinwë’s deceitful maneuvers!” Father shouted. He sprang from his chair and I caught myself at the last moment, for I was furious as well but dared not oppose Finwë as he did. “Put an end to them and the deleterious atmosphere shall disperse!

— Nothing shall disperse unless you understand you too are part of the problem!” Having risen as well, Finwë straightened to his full height; the King and the High Prince were staring daggers at each other. “Until then I shall not let you divide our people any longer, and though it pains me to do so, I shall order you if you cannot see reason!

— Order us then. For of our own free will, we shall not let Nolofinwë force tasteless rags upon us,” Father hissed, furious and betrayed and defiant in a way he never was in front of us, his children.

 That day I discovered the ugly reality they kept behind the star-emblazoned doors of Finwë’s office and the spells that kept any sounds from slipping out: that the unnerving tensions we had felt for years often broke into storms of razor-sharp words and judgements heavier than a hammer hitting the anvil, and it took all of Finwë’s and Fëanaro’s shared affection and self-control to hide the wounds under veils of pretense once those doors swung open again.

 

***

 

In the end, my grandfather did order us, and his secret decree started to pluck the blossoms of my childish fantasies like one would idly undress a flower. I could do nothing but press my newly forged seal at the bottom of the document, my youthful illusions melting with the red wax over the flame of the candle; the fairytales of my father’s wedding smashed and broken under the cold silver of my ring.

My father and I went to the Hall of the Great Guild in gloomy silence. No words were needed. His fury was mine, my sorrow his; our shared heart held no secrets. We walked up the stairs with the embroidered train of the Great March between us, and we looked as if a single prince climbed in front of a mirror. For in those days we would often dress the same but for my father’s more elaborate circlet, and we sported the same doublet of angry blood-red.

I stopped at the top of the stairs. My fingers brushed the sleeves of my father’s wedding robes with feather-like delicacy. Despite Aicahendë’s cool reaction, I knew I would have chosen to wear them. I did not care that overly impracticable clothes had gone out of fashion, that people did not fancy black at weddings anymore or that someone had worn it before (because this someone was me); walking past them felt like farewells. Then father took my hand and I turned to face him; behind his shoulder, my grandmother looked down on us with flat dead eyes.

“We have not yet lost. My father would not dare to force Nolofinwë’s base tastes upon me, and we have the best craftsmen in Aman to support us.”

I embraced him, pulling his warm presence against my heart. My disappointment melted in his fire; in the crucible of our shared consciousness, it became rage, and the drive to arm ourselves for a bitter battle. Were we not the children of the Embroideress?

I stared at the painting looming over us. Miriel had lived during a time when excruciatingly small and precise details were favored by artists. As a result her painting was so realistic I had no doubts the Great Mistress Capindë, my mother-in-law, would be able to recreate perfectly the texture and patterns of her genderless clothes.

I disengaged from my father’s embrace.

“If I cannot wear yours,” I said, gesturing toward his bejeweled robes, “then you must wear hers.”

 

To be beautiful enough

Read To be beautiful enough

Curufin

 

“I feel like I stepped into my half-brother’s wardrobe,” my half-aunt Lalwendë complained. “There is nothing in here he would not wear.

— We have the same tastes. I have been wearing his clothes ever since I grew into them, and he mines, of course. All that is mine is his.”

I tried not to sound aggressive. My grandfather had tasked Lalwendë with smoothing the edges of the fashion disaster my wedding was becoming, because of all our half-relatives she was the one my father liked best, and for that I resented her. Yet at the time I could still acknowledge that frivolous Lalwendë hadn’t picked a side yet. Antagonizing her could push her to her true brother’s arms easily enough.

“Have you ever worn anything that was not Miriellian?”

At least she used the proper denomination, unlike Nolofinwë and his insistence that we followed the Fëanorian trend.

“Of course. No one in their right mind would step into a forge in embroidered clothes.”

She translated my answer as a “no”. As a result she opted for some practical exercises that brought us in a part of the palace I avoided as if it were full of orcs: Indis’ wing.

While my father’s wing was the epitome of Noldorin aesthetic, with its high columns and arched ceilings covered with mosaics of silver and lapis-lazuli, Indis’ always made me feel like a piece of Ingwë’s palace had been dismantled in Valmar to be reconstructed here. It was washed white, almost empty, of a boring simplicity. Curtains light as smoke floated like jellyfishes in its long corridors. At times some of my brothers lost themselves in here, patient Nelyo first amongst them, but I was a new sight for Indis’ servants. Their stares felt like oil on my skin.

At last my half-aunt stopped in front of a door. It was heavily decorated with the sigil of the House of the Golden Flower and what looked like a busy labyrinth of stylized stems and leaves and blossoms. I readied myself as if to face a great evil, for that sigil was that of the Lady Olotië, Mistress of the False Queen’s Robes and a long time enemy of both my father and mother-in-law, but we did not encounter her: it was her son Laurëfindë we were meeting with.

Laurëfindë and I were of an age, but we knew very little of each other. He was a frivolous boy who jumped from one path inlife to another and showed very little promise. Neither a scholar nor an craftsman, I had heard he was an average artist, though not a dedicated one, and looked as useful as a butterfly idling from one flower to another. 

At least he is not dangerous, I thought as he welcomed us in with a silly smile.  He lacked his mother’s intelligence.

What I learnt first about Laurëfindë is that our body measurements were so close I could fit in every single piece of a considerable wardrobe that was the exact opposite of mine. Here were almost no practical things, and every possible style except for my grandmother's hung from carved coat-hangers. Lalwendë’s plans was for me to try anything that caught my fancy for inspirational purposes, but the sheer amount of everything overwhelmed me. I pitied the boy’s servant for having to manage him.

“You would look absolutely dashing in these,” Laurëfindë exclaimed, and these were already a dozen sets sprawled over half the furniture. “And in those, of course. But then you have the kind of face and body type that would look gorgeous in a potato sack. Have you decided what you will do with your hair? Has your mother completed your ribbons yet? What color will they be? Oh wait, not this one, it looks too much like cousin Elenwë’s sleeves on her wedding day. Do you have something against feathers? You know, I think you may keep these robes. Their color isn’t really flattering with my Laurelin-colored hair. What do you think?

— That would be inappropriate,” I answered. It seemed Laurëfindë could not stop talking. “Who made them?

— One of my mother’s apprentices. They keep giving me clothes to impress my mother, and because I do not mind standing for hours while they fit them on me.

— Do you think they would be happy if you gave the clothes they made to a Prince of the House of the Diamond?

— Well, they are my clothes now. I give them to whoever I want,” he shrugged. “Clothes are clothes. As long as you feel pretty in them, I don’t see why you shouldn’t wear them.”

I gaped like a dying fish. In what world did this boy live? His mother and my future mother-in-law had created the whole concept of weaponized garments! He must at least have some awareness of the political meaning of fashion given that he owned nothing from our faction.

“My mother will not allow her apprentices to make Fëanorian clothes,” he commented with what sounded like genuine sorrow, “and the Mistress Capindë will not let any of hers make anything for the son of the Lady Olotië, so…” His face lit up with a big smile. “Perhaps we could make an exchange! I give you some of my clothes and you give me some of yours! Can I try the tunic you came in? And the jewelry in your hair? Did you make it, or your father? It is so beautiful!”

I struggled not to wince when Laurëfindë began to touch my hair. His friendly demeanor was overwhelming. I was not unused to being at the center of attention. Many had admired the face I was born with, whether on me or on Fëanaro; I knew how they looked at him, at I, at us. Yet they were not the child of the enemy, and they were not so familiar, nor did they want to put my clothes on their own body. But Laurëfindë seemed so utterly oblivious I could not help but play along and spend the better part of three hours combing through his wardrobe for things I did not dislike. 

 

***

 

Peaceful family life was one of the first casualties of the Great Fashion War that was my wedding. In every civilized society there are events that divide; topics that must not be approached during the traditional weekly diner unless you wish to pass the salt across invisible frontiers. My family was ever so passionately opinionated that, in time of troubles, even such simple requests became dangerous.

That peculiar evening, my father and my mother had ignored each other from the start to the end of the meal. Maitimo had sided with her, Macalaurë and Tyelkormo with Father and I, Carnistir stewed in resentment of the whole world as he felt the issue was stupid, and the twins watched all of us with liquid eyes. At the end of the meal we fled to our own apartments or, in Tyelkormo’s, Maitmo’s and Macalaurë’s cases, to their own houses an hour’s ride away from ours. As tired as I was from the never-ending preparations, I was too nervous to settle in bed and ignored the bedchamber for my study. It was a crowded room: entire shelves filled with books, diaries, carefully labelled rocks and a collection of colored sands, and many other trinkets and misshaped childhood creations. In a corner was my father’s old rocking chair and a pile of notebooks filled with his writing.

I sat at my desk and spread out the drawings Laurëfindë had made for me. I hated all his proposals at first, but Lalwendë had insisted, and they looked more pleasing now in the solitude of my room. There was, I think, a part of me that was grieving for the robes I had dreamed off, and it was hard to allow wholly different ideas in to replace treasured childhood hopes; nor was it easy to admit that useless, oddly charming Laurëfindë’s designs were a lot better than I expected.

I felt my father approaching before he opened the door. He did not knock, merely entered and embraced me in a one-armed hug, his chin settling on my shoulder. I closed my eyes to revel in his proximity. The beating of our hearts fell into a common rhythm.

“How was the fitting?” I whispered. Not that I expected to be spied on here, but I liked the idea that father’s outfit was a secret we kept close to our chest.

“Capindë’s needlework is, as usual, peerless.”

“As will be Nolofinwë’s face when he will see you!” I knew something bothered him. His spirit suddenly felt colder against mine, almost removed; he always shared sadness less easily than he did joy or anger. In thought I nudged him gently, and he did not need more encouragement to confide, for the more he quarreled with my mother and the more I grew, the less he kept away from me.

“When I saw myself dressed like my mother, I thought of my father.”

“As he thought of me when he decided to ruin my wedding to please Nolofinwë?”

He pulled away with a sigh. I listened for his footsteps on the soft carpet and heard the small winces of the rocking chair. I pictured him seated there with me strapped against his chest. He had carried me everywhere until I started to walk, as close to his heart as he could, because I was his special one, the little part of his soul whose birth had weakened him more than any of my brothers.

I knew I remembered this specific memory because he wanted me to.

“When you were very small and I was sick,” 

My father had been sick from my birth. He did not say, but I knew.

“I retreated to the villa. I had chosen to give all my life to you, and I did not care that this gift left me unable to assume my duties. This was one of the few times my life seemed to belong only to myself. For ever since I was old enough to know I was the Prince; not a prince, but the sole heir of Miriel Therindë and Finwë Noldoran, I lived knowing that my existence belonged to the Noldor. And though I never wanted your life to be anything but your own, I never deluded myself thinking it could be so. Sometimes our Noldoran will sacrifice your happiness, as he sacrificed mine times and times over, because Finwë is King. I will be roused to anger, but never to hate.

— You will not wear it then?

— For my father’s sake and yours, Light of my Soul, I will not. Your wedding is neither the place nor the time to scandalize the court. I will wait for you to choose your own outfit, and either pick a more discreet echo which you will easily outshine, or something so different no one shall compare you to me.

— Why would I want that?” I sprang from my chair, all desire to ponder my wedding spoilt for the evening. I was tired. Tired because I could not begin to guess who had harassed father about me needing to find my own self. Finwë? My mother? Maitimo, who believed that his age allowed him to be my father’s right hand and speak of things he knew nothing of? 

I knew very well who my own self was: Curufinwë! 

“I do not want us to be different or you to be less than ourselves! I wanted to be as you were when you married, cannot, and now you cannot even be yourself? Why cannot they all understand I am your late-born twin and have no wish to be anything else?

— My Light.” He pulled me against his chest and the warmth of his soul, erasing the most painful suspicion of all: that he would want me to grow apart from him, to grow into something that wasn’t Curufinwë but a nameless thing I could neither describe nor want. Safely tucked in the circle of his arms, I suddenly felt so very young I could barely keep the tears out of my eyes. “My Light, I am afraid you will have to be quite alone during your first night with your wife.”

I unexpectedly chuckled.

We moved to my bedroom knowing we had very little night lefts to share dreams. I was happy to marry Aicahendë and hopeful at the prospect of sharing her thoughts; nonetheless I would miss such intimacy I had with my father, and the long walks in his memories and mine. 

I closed the shutters, then sat on my bed to watch him light the scented candles in the photophores scattered here and there. These devices I had made in my first years in the forge: simple bands of metal with smalls holes for the simplest, more complex constructions that moved from the heat of the flame for the latest.

This memory of him I carved into myself: how the fragile flames danced around his eyes and speckled his face with golden dots; how they seemed to follow him as he went from photophore to photophore to create this ephemeral, moving word of shadows and disembodied light bugs; his profile lined with an amber glow as he watched the dancing lights on my ceiling, sitting cross legged on my bed. When at least he was done, he came to lay beside me, close enough I just had to roll to put my ear on his beating heart. 

“Do not worry, Curvo. We all go to the altar trembling and wondering what will go wrong, but at the end our spirit knows better than to record the worst. You too, one night, will walk into idyllic recollections.

— What was not idyllic for yours?”

— Mothers weave ribbons into their children hair when their marry. Mothers welcome the bride in the family. Do you remember who braided my hair? Who it was who welcomed Nerdanel as a daughter of the House of the Star?”

I remained silent. I had walked in my father’s memories so many times feeling I had seen the whole thing – but no, I could not answer his questions. There were gaping holes his soul had always urged me to avoid; the truth and the perfect version reconstructed by his mind, so well done I had never, never considered the most basic of facts: that both parents welcomed the newly wed in their family. He would not be the only one missing one, as some Telerin families had been separated by the sundering of their people, but that was not the same as knowing she was dead.

“Who?

— At first, I wanted no one. My father insisted. I could not be seen preferring no one to my stepmother and half-sisters. I chose Lalwendë. She told Nerdanel “You shall now be my sister” instead of “daughter”. I did have my ribbons. Mothers and foresight.”

His fingers played idly with my hair. There was nothing I could say to erase the melancholia creeping into his heart but to sink into happier dreams, knowing he would follow me there.

 

***

 

Less than an hour before my wedding I looked at my reflection, pondering over the struggles won and lost since the beginning. My mother had woven red ribbons embroidered with golden flames into the most complicated braid I had ever sported. My robes shared the same color themes, from rust to embers to the light of Laurelin. In my dreams I had worn the white radiance of stars plucked from the dark skies of Middle Earth. I had fallen into looking like an inferior flame. A sudden bout of fear seized my heart and I wondered: was I gazing at the truth? That I was not the Spirit of Fire, but merely a mundane reflection of his greatness?

 “By Vana’s Golden Blossoms you look dashing!”

I rose from my bench, trying not to step on the terribly out-of-fashion train Laurëfindë had commissioned for the sole reason that if I wanted it, I should have it. I discovered the half-Vanya spawn of Indis’ best friend in the full Miriellian clothes I had offered him. The incongruous sight banished the dark thoughts as quickly as they had come.

He turned on his heels, arms spread, a delighted smile on his face. Miriellian suited him well. But then, Laurëfindë could have looked gorgeous in sackcloth.  

“Are you sure your mother agrees to you wearing those?

— I am quite sure she does not!” He admitted quite happily. “But are they not magnificent enough to risk her ire? Now they are mine and unless your own father comes to rip them apart, I am keeping and wearing them! Now, how do you feel?”

— I am absolutely delighted.”

I did not even know if that was a lie. I could not deny I was equally terrified. So many things could still go wrong and spoil the day, and what a day! I would only marry once and hoped to cherish that memory forever.

Was I satisfied at being deprived of my Fëanorian identity? No. At least Laurëfindë’s design had defied Finwë’s expectations, allowing me this small victory: my outfit looked nothing like any of the three trends I was supposed to represent, for he had taken freely their patterns, colors, textures and shapes and blended them too completely to be recognizable.

Did I find myself beautiful enough?

Absolutely.

---

Chapter End Notes

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