From the radiance of stars to mundane flames by Calendille

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To be beautiful enough

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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.

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Chapter End Notes

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