The Staff Dancer by Calendille

For the first years of my life, my half-brother was nothing more than a remote, otherworldly being. He was much older than me, smarter in a way that meant all his conversations were out of my league and frankly uninteresting. I would spend my days with my sister, tutors or other little girls, most of them children of my mother’s maidens. Fëanaro and I lived in different worlds that met at the dinner table, where we were forced to sit together but did not truly interact.

They did not mingle until the Pink Robes incident.

I do not remember anything else from this peculiar day. Most days were a repetition of common bliss in these times, and it seems to me that they all merge into each other to become one huge mass of memories filled with pastel colors, gold and silver Light, songs and soft silk, broken only by the recurring quarrels between my older brothers. Nolvo would sulk for hours if not days afterwards, while Fëanaro would behave in a weirder, passive-aggressive and vicious fashion. Most of the puns, stunts and pranks I did not get, but apparently they made Nolvo look stupid most of the time.

This evening, Fëanaro came to our family diner dressed in girl’s clothes.

I was too young to be anything but amused. Girls and boys wore specific clothing: pants and shirts for boys, skirts and dresses for girls; then there were the kind of clothes worn by both, robes or knee-length tunics that varied in colors but not in shape. Fëanaro’s robes that night were baby-pink and white, embroidered with pale yellow flowers, and he wore his hair free upon his shoulders like those of a maiden too young to be courted. He walked with confidence, like a prince performing in front of the court, though his lips were pinched and he pointedly refused to look at Nolvo.

“Naro –“ my father started. He did not finish his sentence.

Fëanaro was not impolite unless something bothered him, and when he was bothered, Father tolerated much from him, which was why he did not reprimand him.

“According to Arakano,” Fëanaro began with a haughty tone that sounded weird because his voice was not steady these days. He used to call my brother by his mother-name, as if he could erase the fact the Nolvo was our father’s son. “Embroidery is a girly pursuit and a boy practicing this noble craft is laughable.”

“That is not what I said!” Nolvo shouted.

Fëanaro had a tendency to twist Nolofinwë words into worst versions of themselves, I later understood, and that always infuriated him. My father did not tolerate yelling at the table, though, and demanded that Nolvo calm himself. That, too, angered my brother: that he would often be reprimanded when Fëanaro was not.

“This is not what you said,” Fëanaro conceded. “But you did laugh and joke that embroidery is for girls. Your actions,” he explained pompously, “speak for themselves.”

“Is that why you decided to wear this for the evening?” Finwë kept his tone calm and curious. He was used to Fëanaro being weird from time to time.

“I do not see why I should not wear pink. I do not recall any law about which colors should be worn by whom.”

“That’s because everyone knows it is silly and you look ridiculous,” Nolofinwë said sullenly.

“These robes,” Fëanaro threw back before my parents could reprimand Nolofinwë, “were made by Queen Miriel Therindë herself. They are infinitely more beautiful than anything you will ever wear.”

My mother stepped in with all the terrifying authority my father never wielded. She could be cheerful and friendly and nice, but like Manwë, she could turn thunderous in a moment and deliver tongue lashings that stung like hail.

“Thank you for your input, boys.” She gave them the stare and they knew better than to keep squabbling. Mother was not above sending them to their beds without a meal. “Now, girls, what about your day?”

Her smile was golden as Laurelin. Findis talked first because she was older than me. I did not really listen to her because Findis always did the same boring things, so I watched Fëanaro instead. He wasn’t listening either, but Fëanaro never really listened to our stories. Father said that he had too much things in his head and couldn’t help thinking about his studies; Nolvo said he just hated us. It was true that Fëanaro’s robes were pretty. The light pink softened him a bit, as did his flowing hair.

Findis finished speaking about her last lesson, something about the theory of painting that was boring. Why would anyone want to speak for hours about painting when they could paint instead?

“What about you, Lalwendë?”

“When I am older, I will marry Fëanaro!”

You see, that was the kind of things I did when I was little. I would drift in thoughts and when someone talked to me, I would say whatever I had been thinking about. I had just started to think that he did look really, really pretty and would perhaps lend me Miriel’s pretty robes if I were to be his wife.

“Of course not,” Nolofinwë said scornfully. “Brothers and sisters cannot marry.”

“But Fëanaro is my half-brother.”

My father winced, as always when someone mentioned the half factor in our family. That someone was usually Fëanaro, who came to my help with a small smile and helpful tone.

“Actually, there is nothing in the laws that stands in the way of Lalwendë’s request. The law stipulates that no parent may marry their child, no sister may marry with their brother; cousins shall not wed, and neither shall uncles with their niece or aunts with their nephew. You will all conclude that there is no legal obstacle to us getting married.”

I did not understand, then, that my innocent request picked the cords of a sinister instrument. I was too young to understand the emotional burden of Miriel’s death and how it weighted on my family, though I felt the effect.

“Does that mean you will marry me?” I asked. I looked hopeful and I smiled in a way that showed my missing baby tooth.

“I will think about that,” Fëanaro said, and for me that meant yes.

***

I did not marry Fëanaro.

Back in the old days, we celebrated weddings as if the world depended on it. They happen only once in our lives, after all, and they are a unique day to remember, like the birth of children. We wove the most beautiful robes, crafted new dazzling jewels; our parents, siblings and best friends attended to welcome the bride and groom into a new family; but Fëanaro did not have a mother to braid his hair and bring Nerdanel into her House, and that meant that the half part of our family was creeping into our happiness. So that duty fell to me, because Finwë wanted my half-brother to share the most important steps of his life with us and because Fëanaro and I got along reasonably well.

My half-brother had not been at home very often after Arafinwë’s birth. He had left us as a smart but sometimes awkward teenager; his voice had deepened during the long years of his apprenticeship and he’d grown into a sensual, self-confident creature. The way he talked about Nerdanel, too, made him sound a little too grown-up for my young self. I had never given serious thoughts to the matter of love, even less to lust.  So I did the first thing I thought of to dispel my embarrassment, and that thing was to slap his behind with the sash of his weddings robes.

“How dare you!” I complained playfully. “Torturing your abandoned betrothed with endless talks about the new love of your life!”

 “Are you jealous?” He asked me. He sounded serious. Now that I am older, I wonder if he was pretending to humor me, but I am not quite sure. Fëanaro could be oddly literal at times.

I laughed. I had outgrown the little girl who believed she could marry him. The honest answer was, really, that I was not. I had heard the rumors: that she was far less beautiful than he, with a too wide mouth and square shoulders; there were others who said he was marrying her because the craftsmen and devout were angry that Finwë had remarried after Miriel’s death. The House of Copper was beloved of Aulë and Yavanna, highly respected by the industrious and pious, and most masters of metalwork and jewelry were either members or friends of the House. 

All of this was true, but no one who had seen them together would claim that they were not deeply in love. I was happy for him.

He wore long robes that trailed on the ground: dark blue silk, black velvet speckled with constellations of diamonds, misty-grey mousseline so thin and fragile it probably wouldn’t last until the end of the day. It was the work of the Lady Capindë, a childhood friend of my half-brother. Like many of our women she was forgotten by lore, but she was talented and some of this talent went into her grandson Tyelperinquar.

“How do I even walk with these?” The train of his robes was thirty feet long, longer than that of any of our mother’s, and the longest in our history, because we all agreed that we had gone too far with this one. Not only was the train far too long and heavy, Capindë and the best embroideresses who still followed Miriel’s style had covered it with a stylized retelling of the March to Valinor. It was beautiful work but the miles of threads, pearls and jewels added to the stiffness and the weight. It had been carefully piled up behind his stool by the seamstresses who had fitted the robes on him and I had to be careful not to step on it as I worked on his hair.  “I think I will need someone to carry it or I will never reach the Gallery.”

“You should ask Aro. He will be delighted.”

“Capindë would never forgive me. You know how she is.”

I knew. Capindë’s mother had been Miriel’s closest friend. She despised Indis and she despised us and Capindë had inherited her scorn like she had inherited her pointy shin and deft fingers.

“Just ask her then, she probably knows what to do with it.”

I finished the braids and reached for the ribbons. The fabric was dark as ink and embroidered with Star-Flowers. Miriel had made these ribbons during her pregnancy and Finwë had kept them for decades. I wonder if she had known that she would not live to make them after the birth of her child. They still felt soft and I suspected she had sung a spell into the fibers.

Fëanaro had crafted several stars with silver and diamonds to compliment his mother’s work. When I wove the ribbons and jewels into Fëanaro’s raven black locks, they looked like a piece of the lightless skies of Araman. It is strange that I should think of such details in my exile: that the sky, at the death of the Trees, looked like Fëanaro’s head on the day of his wedding; but I have few recollections of Fëanaro that are as bittersweet at that moment, and I treasure it as one of my most precious memories. I kissed the top of his head before we went out to join the others. He laughed nervously, breathed deep, and we were ready to go.

All the weddings in my family took part in the Gallery of Mirrors, a four hundred feet long hallway. No child born after the Darkening can picture the magnificence of the Gallery as it was then. The light of the Trees poured from the huge windows on its western wall; the eastern one was covered with mirrors that reflected the Light, so that the gallery looked like both sides were facing Laurelin and Telperion. Their mingling rays danced on crystal chandeliers and paneling gilded with leaves of gold; white marble statues of the Valar looked west; pillars soared until their top, carved in the shape of leaves, merged with the sky painted on the ceiling. 

A small altar of precious wood was set in the middle of the hallway for such occasions. My father and Mahtan waited on either side, my father in silver and gold and Mahtan in highly polished copper that shone like fire. I recognized Fëanaro’s best friend by their side, the silver smith Telperimpar, who would act as witness, though the young couple did not really need any: the Gallery was packed tight with the most important individuals in Tirion, as well as High King Ingwë and King Olwë and their own families. Fëanaro and I came in from the north door, while Nerdanel and her sister arrived from the south; we would walk slowly and meet in the middle, where they would exchange rings and vows.

I was overwhelmed. I knew these people, but there were many of them. I was Finwë’s fourth child and second daughter, and still very young; never before had I been the center of attention. Not that I was, but any who would look at Fëanaro would see me, and that was terrifying.

We walked into the Light and they gasped.

They gasped because Fëanaro was stunning. He was like a newly cut diamond; he drank the  Light, their love and admiration and reflected it tenfold, with eyes that shone like stars, skin that glowed with joy and hair that returned the silver rays of Telperion with the blueish hues only true raven can achieve. They gasped because he wore the pride of a dozen craftsmen and women and wore it well; he made it look like it was effortless despite the weight and stiffness. They gasped because he walked as if Arda was his; as if the ribbons and stars I wove were Varda’s crown.

They gasped because Nerdanel’s attire was no less incredible than his. She was a living flame of orange and red hues, of gold that called for Laurelin’s attention; she was the eldest maiden of the House of Copper and she was as good as her prince. Her train was shorter than Fëanaro’s, but it was covered in scales of gold, copper and bronze. A corset of cut-through gold on crimson velvet climbed up her bust to become a high collar, etched and inlaid with rubies; her sister had pulled her hair up with  elaborate combs. Her lips were painted with gold.

Of the ceremony, I remember vows of eternal love, warm velvet in my brother’s voice and smiles that inflamed my father’s eyes with pride; I also remember the awkward moment when Miriel should have stepped forward to welcome Nerdanel as a daughter. I was afraid to be inaudible and was too loud instead, and I named her my sister; then Nerdanel’s sister Sarnië did the same with Fëanaro, and I think that, prior the Darkening, there weren’t a lot of couples who deviated from the tradition of mothers welcoming their in-laws in their families.

Of what followed, I remember the little things that will never be in the books: Nerdanel’s hilarity when we discovered Fëanaro’s train was too voluminous to fit into the carriage they were supposed to ride in to tour the city and Capindë looked like she was going to die when Fëanaro had to fold her chef d’oeuvre on the bench so he could sit on it; Finwë, Olwë and Ingwë joking in their oldest elvish so that none of us could understand what was probably a very dirty joke, and then laughing so hard Ingwë knocked down a full glass of red wine on my father’s chest, where it stayed until the end of the evening like a great flower of blood. I danced with Fëanaro and Nerdanel danced with my father; at some point I think I danced with her and she stepped on my foot. I remember her arm wrestling down a silly courtier and then flexing the muscles of her thick arms. She was drunk enough to pick her husband from the ground and pretend she was carrying him bridal style to their chambers, only to protest after three steps that he ate too much and was too heavy to be carried anywhere.

I remember the morning after, when I brought them breakfast. Fëanaro hadn’t undone his hair before he went to bed, and his head was a mess of ribbons and jewelry; there was a star hanging down his neck, caught in a loose strand of hair; he ate with ravenous hunger while I untangled the sorry mess. At some point Nerdanel shouted from the bathroom that the green marks left by her collar wouldn’t go, so Fëanaro waved me off and went to help her scrub it away.

They spent one week in a secluded villa outside Tirion before we left for one great tour of Valinor with our father. The Eldar had spread north and south of Tirion, and there were many of us who now lived far away from the main cities. Fëanaro’s wedding was an excuse to renew their bonds with the royal family; his one-year trip was a showcase of Noldorin craftsmanship. We left Tirion with a huge amount of luggage: tokens and chef-d’oeuvre from every craftsmen in Tirion, each more magnificent than the other. It was everything Fëanaro hated: endless parades, endless ceremonies of him being displayed like a bejeweled peacock. My father and my brothers could do this well, even enjoyed it, but it was torture to my half-brother. He would make sketches and take notes between ceremonies, in the little free moments when someone would fix his hair or before he went to sleep, but he could neither work nor study. The lack of intellectual pursuits gnawed at him; he fidgeted and grew quick to anger, prone to anxiety and dark moods.

Nonetheless, Fëanaro was a prince; he was born to belong to our people and the death of his mother forbade him from escaping his rank. My father wanted to reaffirm that he was still his heir despite being the result of a flawed marriage. It was a torture Fëanaro inflicted willingly upon himself to prove that he was the High Prince he believed we all wanted.

My siblings and I would take turns accompanying them, mostly Findis and I because Nolofinwë grated on Fëanaro’s nerves and Arafinwë was too young. I was a cheerful girl but my cheeks ached from smiling at the end of the day; I loved to practice the Staff Dance of the Vanyar, but I came to loathe it because I performed the same choreography over and over and over again and I liked to dance for myself rather than for a public.

“I don’t want to be a princess anymore,” I complained once. We were visiting one of the southern settlement and I sneaked into Nerdanel and Fëanaro’s carbet, because the houses here were just roofs on carved, wooden pillars, so I could guess right away if I was intruding on something too wicked for my eyes. He never allowed us into his apartments in Tirion, but Nerdanel missed her two sisters and he wanted to indulge her. “Being a princess sucks butts.”

Fëanaro glared. I laughed because the only ones in my family who ever mastered this specific stare are my mother, Nolofinwë and Fëanaro. Furthermore, he was lying on his back, his head on Nerdanel’s belly, and it is hard to be scared when you are looking down on someone. He could glare all he wanted; I knew Nerdanel kept whispering vulgarities in his ears, especially in public but not loud enough to be heard. I wanted to be just like her.

“We were born with a duty to rule. If you dislike your rank so much, be thankful that you were born in fourth position. Less will be expected of you.”

“Do you sometimes wish you weren’t the eldest?”

He sighed and looked away, focusing on an enormous bee buzzing in the pink laurel bush outside the carbet. For a long time he said nothing and I thought he would never answer me.

“Do you want to hear a secret?”

“If you tell her a secret, Narya, I fear it won’t stay a secret for much longer,” Nerdanel said fondly. I denied indignantly. It was true I was a blabbermouth, but I could keep secrets if they were important enough and said so with much conviction. “Alright, alright. I think Lalwendë wants to know the big secret.”

Fëanaro’s silver eyes focused back on me. I felt like an onion being peeled from its layers until he could feel confident enough that I wouldn’t betray him.

“When I was Ingoldo’s age,” he said, using Arafinwë’s mother-name, “I had an imaginary friend who was also my older brother. His name was Mirfinwë. He looked a lot like father, he loved being High Prince. He was very smart, reliable and steadfast. He was born in Cuivienen and he could tell a lot of amazing stories about the March.” Finwë talked very little about the March. Stereotyped tales were available but it was like every single person who came from Cuivienen was unwilling to expand on them. I was not surprised that Fëanaro had been frustrated as a child. “He did all the tedious work and I dreamt of spending all my time studying and making things.”

It is funny when I think about it now. Fëanaro’s imaginary older brother was everything Nolofinwë became, everything he hated in his little brother. But Mirfinwë was not a son of Indis, and Miriel was not dead in his childhood fantasies.

***

“I am going to teach the art of Lembas cooking to Lalwendë. I could teach you with her, if you want.”

My mother’s offer to Nerdanel had been born out of kindness, but it awakened the dread half factor all over again. We had returned from the Grand Tour a week ago. Nolofinwë and Fëanaro were already at each other’s throats, because Nolvo, who was in his late teen, had liked to be the resident Prince and resented his elder’s return, while Fëanaro was too worn to be anything but nerves and exasperation.

The art of Lembas cooking was taught to the Three Queens by Yavanna herself when my people arrived in Valinor. Queen Alcarië, my aunt, had passed her knowledge to her nieces because Ingwë had no daughters, and then to Findis during one of my mother’s visit to Valmar. What was left unsaid is that Fëanaro’s wife should have learnt from Miriel and, as always, he was not pleased to picture my mother in her stead.

“My deepest thanks for your kindness, Indis,” Nerdanel said. Her hand found her husband’s and squeezed it slightly. “But I fear that would be lost on me. I cook very good coal, but I fear edible food is not my strong suit!”

Nolofinwë was watching Fëanaro, waiting for our eldest to say something rude so he could go for the throat. Nerdanel and Indis chuckled. It sounded very forced. I thought that I would have liked to learn with Nerdanel, who I liked more than Findis, but Nerdanel’s polite refusal on Fëanaro’s behalf silenced me.

Learning with my mother was pleasant. I had not seen her in a year and hadn’t told everything I could of our trip; since I am (as Nerdanel said) a blabbermouth, I had plenty to say, though I kept for myself the most personal tidbits. I filled her lessons with tales of the Grand Tour. I liked that I had these intimates moments with her, and I discovered I liked cooking, the physical strength it took to work the dough into a cohesive bump that could feed dozens.

And I kept thinking about Fëanaro.

A week after the beginning of my lessons, I rose from my bed in the middle of the night. I expected to find him asleep with his wife, but a faint ray of light framing the door of his chambers betrayed that he was not. He was wearing nightclothes but seemed very much awake. He had been sorting his notes on the development of Noldorin quenya in the mixed-communities of the South, which was apparently as fascinating to him as it was boring to me.

“Do you want to learn how to cook Lembas?”

“What I want is irrelevant. Only women bake Lembas.”

“Says who?” I asked playfully. “Is there a law that forbids me to teach you?”

There is none, and soon we were sneaking into the kitchens like thieves to burry our hands in flour.

Fëanaro left Tirion soon after. He had inherited from his mother huge amounts of lands in the countryside outside Tirion and in the north, in the valley of Formenos; he pretended he wanted to build himself two great villas where he would be able to take apprentices and create a settlement from craftsmen close to the now overcrowded capital, but at the dinner table he told us he would not nurture his first child in the toxic atmosphere of the palace. Our father would not change his mind: he knew Fëanaro’s mood has been dark of late, and by the smirk on Nolofinwë’s face, he must have hoped that his two sons might come to like each other better if they lived apart.

When Fëanaro left, I wished Nolofinwë was the one to go. He was sullen. He was boring. It felt to me like he was doing everything he could to antagonize the half-brother I had learnt to love.

And he was annoying. Fëanaro and Nerdanel talked about the movement of stars, the properties of metal and wondered how the bee orchid came to look like a bumblebee despite not being able to see bumblebees, while Nolofinwë came to me with nothing except court gossips and things he must think girly like the ongoing fashion war between Capindë’s gang of Miriel fanatics and my mother’s tailor.

“When I have my own House,” Nolofinwë said pompously, “I will hire weavers, embroiderers and tailors to design a new kind of Noldorin fashion that will be neither Miriel’s nor Vanyarin.”

“What for?”

I did not see the point, unless his specific point was to anger Fëanaro.

“Because we need one for those of us who are not blind supporters of our half-brother and are yet proud to be Noldor.”

“This is stupid. You’re not even a full Noldo.”

This, Nolofinwë could not accept. He loved our mother but disdained his Vanyarin blood; I was not aware, but there were some who thought him less our Prince than Fëanaro because he was of mixed origin. He felt the need to prove, constantly, that he was as much a Noldo as our half-brother, and pushed away all things that were not.

Alone of my mother’s five children he spurned the Staff’s Dance I cherished. Upon returning to Tirion I stopped practicing for a time, only to return to it with renewed enthusiasm after Fëanaro’s departure. It is a demanding dance the Vanyar practice with long sticks, as heavy as a sickle’s shaft. We tie colorful ribbons at one end and rehearse moves for strength, harmony and balance. Much later, when our world darkened and my father’s body was burnt on the pier, my mother told me the Staff Dance had been the Spear Dance during the March, the moves designed to kill and defend; but in those days I did not know this, for the bloodiest pieces of our past were locked away.

***

Years trickled by. Fëanaro eventually returned to Tirion, but he never stayed for more than a few weeks before he retreated to his country estates. I thought he came back sorely because he missed father and wanted him to be a part of little Nelyafinwë’s childhood. I did not hear the whispers that he was neglecting his duties as a High Prince, as his mother had neglected her duties as a queen in her time for the pursuit of craft. It is highly ironic that us Noldor would praise our craftsmen so much, and yet entertain a court that would frown on politicians who would not devote all their time to it.

At first, I rejoiced at Fëanaro’s return. We had barely seen each other in the last ten years and I missed him. What I did not expect was the violence of his reunion with Nolofinwë.

Nolofinwë had strived in Fëanaro’s absence, the sullen prince metamorphosing into a charming, confident young man. He attracted friends and women like flies, though they were people of a different stock than those who favored Fëanaro: girls of noble upbringing with practiced modesty, artists seeking a rich patron, sons of my father’s councilmen. They were less brilliant and quieter, more polished, and they dreamt of ruling the world. By the time of my birth our numbers had been multiplied by three; when Fëanaro’s first child was born, there were five time as many Noldor as there used to be in the first days of Tirion. Nolofinwë believed our father would need more and more hands to help him rule, and he was not wrong.

His mistake was in believing that Fëanaro would let any other than himself carry this burden.

***

I remember one of the first quarrels that was more than two teenagers squabbling.

We were having breakfast with my father. He was speaking with Findis and Nerdanel about his project to take down many of the earliest buildings around the White Tower to create a Great Plaza. Not only would it give better access to the palace, but some of these had been badly constructed and were in dire needs of repairs. Some would be rebuilt stone by stone elsewhere in the city. My sister had taken an interest in architecture lately, while Nerdanel cared a lot about the artistic trends Finwë would favor. She was an artist of the avant-garde and Finwë was known to prefer more conservative leanings. It was all a game, really, because he gave a lot of money to Fëanaro to help him patron the young and the scandalous.

Nolofinwë dived into their conversations like a swimmer in dangerous waters.

“I would like to manage the Great Plaza’s project. I know I am still young, Father, but I believe myself able to carry it.”

“Should you not wait until your majority?” Fëanaro asked. His toast must have been more interesting than Nolvo in his opinion because he did not bother look up from the butter he was spreading on it.

“You were younger than I am now when you managed the construction of the University of Lores.”

“I was also an accomplished craftsman.”

Fëanaro liked to rub in Nolofinwë’s face that he was talented in the fields most beloved by the Noldor while Nolvo was not. I was not gifted myself, but I did not care as much as Nolofinwë did.

“Yes,” Nolofinwë conceded. “In what craft, please remind me? I don’t think your name was ever added to the wall of the Master Architects.”

“Boys!” My father let his disappointment show, which was usually enough to tame Fëanaro a little. “Your brother is right, Nolvo. You are still young for such a project. I was not even aware you wished to pursue architecture as a craft.”

“There are many talented craftsmen I could work with. You always say the best quality of a leader is his ability to select the best allies and delegate. I am sure I could reach a good compromise between conservatism and novelty. If I manage the delays, we could unveil the new Plaza for my fiftieth Begetting Day.”

“There is no need to keep arguing about this.” Fëanaro sounded annoyed. I think he did not like the whole part about leadership, being himself notoriously bad at delegating. “I am in charge of this commission already.”

“But it has not been made public yet, has it?” Nolofinwë sounded hopeful; he looked hopeful too when he turned to my father. “You can still change your mind and give it to me.”

“Why would Father want to do that?”

“Because you are in charge of too many projects already. It is common knowledge that you are unable to keep up with all of them.”

Fëanaro denied vigorously, but he sounded too nervous for the statement to be entirely false.

“Tell me, then, where is the necklace you are supposed to make for me? I am announcing my intention to court Anairë in two weeks and I have heard nothing from you.”

My father picked up Fëanaro’s embarrassment with a frown. There was a storm incoming, one that could have been avoided if my mother had been here, though she had troubles keeping the boys in check now that they were taller than she was. Nerdanel looked like she knew something we did not and, as she often did when hail was bound to fall, she took her husband’s hand in hers. It was enough to confirm whatever suspicion Finwë had.

“You have not told him?”

Fëanaro’s silence was so thick I could have cut it with my knife. The only one whose attention was not focused on him was Findis, who kept eating as if nothing was happening. She had learnt to ignore her brothers and pretend their drama did not exist.

“Fëanaro.”

Finwë usually had a blind-spot for Fëanaro’s shenanigans, or a tendency to brush them aside with a sad stare. On that day, though, Finwë’s favor was not enough to shield Fëanaro from his well-deserved anger.

“I will not make Lady Anairë’s necklace, ” Fëanaro admitted. Nolofinwë said nothing. He was breathless with astonishment. “But I can assure you that you will get the commission you asked for. Telperimpar is the best silversmith I know, even better than I.”

“Telperimpar?” Nolofinwë choked on the name. “I asked you to make a gift I could give to the woman I want to marry and you delegated that to your friend?” Fëanaro did not answer. I think that even in bad faith he would have found nothing to defend himself. “Were you actually going to tell me or were you planning to pretend his work was yours?”

“I would never pretend another craftsman’s work is my own!“

“And I never wanted anything from you! I asked you only so Father could pretend we like each other. At least now I can get something I actually like and if you have some decency, you will back down from the Plaza project!”

“This has nothing to do with the Plaza project!”

“This has everything to do with that! Everything must always be about you, you, you and always you! I ask for one thing, one thing and you cannot bear to let me have it! I liked you better when you were gone!”

“This is enough, Nolofinwë.” My father’s usually warm baritone dropped into ice, with a hint of menace like the threat of thunder. “Your brother has wronged you, but this tantrum does not befit you. You will return to your chambers, calm down and prepare yourself to present your case in a manner fitting for a Prince. You,” he turned to Fëanaro, seemingly at loss of words. “I thought better of you.”

He needed not add more. Those five words hit my half-brother like a whip and I thought he was going to cry. He suddenly looked very young and, if his casual dismissal of Nolofinwë had not been so grave, I would have pitied him. My father kept staring until Fëanaro could not bear it anymore and fled.

My brother’s departure left silence to fill their space at the table, broken only by the ting of Findis spoon on her teacup, and then by Nerdanel.

“He did not – “

“I do not wish for you to excuse him. I told Fëanaro two weeks ago to keep Nolofinwë up to date. He will have to learn to live with his brothers.”

“You know how he is. You know he meant no harm.”

“Yet the result is still harm. He will apologize to his brother. I have no doubts Nolofinwë will show remarkable understanding once the full situation is explained to him.”

Nerdanel looked doubtful, but my father was in no mood to discuss this further. She soon excused herself and left.

“If you want my opinion on this,” I said, though I am quite sure Finwë did not, in fact, wish for my opinion, “you should give the commission to Findis. She is older and more qualified than Nolofinwë and less overworked than Fëanaro.”

“I would rather be kept out of my brother’s quarrels.”

“But you studied architecture with masters! Why should you not lead the project?”

She merely repeated that she had no wish to compete with Fëanaro and Nolofinwë. I do not know if she spoke out of modesty or if she truly wanted to escape my brothers’ ire, and I did not think Finwë would listen to me; but at the end he did.

I did not receive this piece of news from my father but from my angry brother shouting in front of my door, and then throwing at my face all the sketches, studies and notes he had prepared for the Plaza; he must have worked on this for weeks before he tried to make his case to my father, though I had not known, and he now screamed at me to burn them. He believed I had wanted to hurt him on purpose on Fëanaro’s behalf. He was in no state to listen to me and left before I could deny his accusations.

I felt terrible. Findis was uneasy at the prospect of managing the project, Nolofinwë had seen his hopes squashed and been betrayed by Fëanaro, who returned to his country villa as soon as he could tie up all his obligations towards his clients. Even Arafinwë looked miserable. I now know that I was hardly responsible for what happened, nor from many such quarrels that happened later. The enmity between my brothers sprang from many flaws that were not of my doing: envy, insecurities, grief, anger and the sometimes crippling anxiety Fëanaro hid from all but his wife and my father. I had believed Fëanaro to have been callous; I had not known that he had worked for a very long time on Nolofinwë’s commission and not been able to produce a single thing he believed Nolvo would like, and then been unable to tell him. The result had been disastrous, but Nerdanel had been honest: he had meant no harm.

The pattern repeated itself in the following years. Findis married a Vanya and followed him to my uncle’s court. She never said she fled, but looked much happier when I visited her on the slopes of Taniquetil. Poor Arafinwë grew up in this incredibly toxic court, until my father sent him to Alqualondë for one summer and Aro decided not to return. He, too, was happier outside the palace than he was with us. I grew closer to Nolofinwë with time, because he was the only one who truly remained behind.

Fëanaro never left completely. He was tied to his circlet, he felt, until Miriel’s return; but she would never come back, and that meant that he would be a secretly reluctant High Prince forever. His life became a succession of great successes and bouts of crippling anxiety that gnawed at him like acid. He was dutiful, but after some times more and more people felt like they were drinking from a drying well when they petitioned him. They went to Nolofinwë, who took strength instead of suffering from being a courtier, and later to Nelyafinwë, who was more like Nolvo than Fëanaro in temperament. I do not think Fëanaro felt any relief: their betrayal only fueled the conviction that he would never be enough. I think, sometimes, of the elder brother Fëanaro had dreamt of, and about how things would been different if he had not been the eldest.

***

We felt like the World is eternal. Mountains were unmovable, the stars shone and the Light of the Trees mingled. I felt like all of this was true; and yet and it was not, and one day the Light was no more.

The world drowned into Darkness and, with it, my hopes that my brothers would reconcile.  What could have been mended before the death of the Trees fell to dust under the bone-white arch of Tirion’s palace. The hallways of my youth were filled with shadows, the colors washed out from the paintings and tapestries alike. It had become Fëanaro’s seat of power upon his return to Tirion. His supporters had returned to their former forges and workshops. People flocked to the capital then and Tirion was ripe with tensions once again.

I entered the Gallery of Mirrors from the north side, as I had done on the day of Fëanaro’s wedding. Blue lamps had been strung outside to illuminate the gardens, the ghostly light washing the long hallway in cold, dim hues. The Gallery looked narrower without the illusion of Light coming from both sides, for the mirrors reflected only darkness.

I was searching for Fëanaro but found Capindë first. The lamps had been hung for her sake, and that of the men and women who trained with her. They wore full armors that glistened, swords at their belts and spears in their hands; black and white were their shields, the eight-pointed fëanorian star engraved in silver. She shouted: “Shield wall!” and the first rank knelt, their shields smashing on the garden’s ground. The second rank locked their shields with them and the third carried theirs over their head. “Spears!”

The display fascinated me. Never had anyone in Valinor seen warriors who looked like an army. They were well armed, trained, disciplined in a way Nolofinwë’s followers were not. Our half-brother had not been idle in his exile, I understood then, and had either hidden many weapons from the Strife or made new ones in his northern settlement. But what struck me the most was that a third of them were women, some of them celibate, others the mothers of many children. I thought of Nolofinwë who said women shall not fight and felt sudden, burning envy.

“Five minutes break,” Capindë ordered. She strode toward me with the pinched expression she always had when she looked at my family. She had grown up into one of Fëanaro’s most malevolent supporter before the exile. Formenos had obviously not mellowed her. “Princess. May I help you?”

She sounded like she wanted nothing less than to help me.

“I am searching for my brother.”

“I heard Prince Nolofinwë has his court in his own home, as does Arafinwë.”

His title is High Prince Nolofinwë, you poisonous viper.

“I am talking about my brother Fëanaro.”

“The King is making Lembas. You may find him the palace kitchen.”

“My thanks for your assistance, Capindë.” I sounded kind because I knew that would annoy her more than anger. “My congratulations for your daughter’s marriage. She and Curufinwë make such a lovely couple.”

“They do,” she agreed. “If you would please excuse me, princess, I shall return to our drill.”

I found Fëanaro in the palace kitchen baking Lembas. The women of my family were doing the same thing at Nolofinwë’s house, but I had not expected to find Fëanaro thus occupied. I had almost forgotten that I had taught him years also. Macalaurë was baking too, singing softly over the dough, and it looked like Fëanaro was teaching the twins. Later, there would be whispers that Fëanaro had gone against nature in doing so, but the Lembas that came from his hands and the hands of his sons was as good as mine.

“What are you doing here?” He asked none too gently. I thought of the Fëanaro who had thrown flour at my face centuries ago. I knew better than to search for him on our new King’s visage.

“Nolofinwë will not let me have weapons. He says women should not fight.”

“Convince him,” he said. He wanted to dismiss me but I washed my hands and then moved at his side to help.

“You know how he is. Once Nolofinwë sets his mind on something, he does not budge.”

“I know how he is.” He lowered his voice. My shoulder almost touched his and the kitchen was noisy enough to create a feeling of intimacy. “This is why I do not trust his professed loyalty. He will want to replace me as King as he ever wanted to supplant me as High Prince.”

“He swore to follow you.”

“He is a two-faced snake.”

I did not answer. I disagreed but he was in no mood to be convinced; he had not been in a long time concerning our brother.

“I did not come to argue about Nolofinwë. If he will not let me have a weapon, then I want one from you. I want to fight Morgoth by your side, brother!”

He studied me, searching for treachery perhaps, but I had none to offer. I, too, am Finwë’s daughter. I, too, felt in my breast the devouring flames of grief and rage. They will say, the men who write our history, that I was unwise because I was not a mother, and lacked the foresight of the women of my House; perhaps that is true, but at least I did not lack courage.

“Seek Telperimpar in my downtown forge. You shall ask only for yourself. The password is Star-Flower.”

“Really, Fëanaro? Passwords?”

“Well.” He smiled, and I did not know if he looked sad or amused. “We wouldn’t want to have some nolofinwëans requesting weapons pretending I allowed that, would we?”

I was given a spear with a long and wide blade. They did not have the time to make her beautiful; she was all shaft and blade, with no ornaments, nothing but the elegance of her lines. But she could kill, and that was enough for me.

***

She tasted blood sooner than I thought.

It was the horn that alerted us, a great thing made from an auroch Tyelkormo had hunted with Oromë. We sped up a hill that overlooked Alqualondë and saw the harbor crawling with ants that shone with steel; ants that fought against ants that did not shine. Fëanaro was easy to find. The wind twisted his standard above a shield wall, each one showing the star that had been Miriel’s flower before it became Fëanaro’s diamond.

I saw my brother assailed; at my left, Findekano imagined his cousin pierced with arrows. We had lost Finwë. We would fight and kill and die before we lost more loved ones.

I trust my spear to the sky and shouted. “Finwë!” I shouted, and I ran forward.

It was a mistake.

You do not run until the enemy is close by lest you tire yourself before the fight even begun, but we did not know that then. By the time I reached the harbor, only the most athletic of us were still with me, for I had my mother’s swiftness. I did not think that this was dangerous, though it was and Findekano could have died from my folly. My foes were silhouettes in the dark, rendered faceless by fear and shadows and anger.

I forgot I knew them and danced.

I danced the Staff Dance I had always danced, only this time the ribbons at the end were a blade of steel and the color was crimson. I slashed up and down, span and followed the steps Ingwë had taught me on the slopes of Taniquetil. The moves Indis had perfected with me severed arms and opened throats. I was of the Vanyar and that made me deadlier than all the untrained elves who surrounded me.

I danced until the flash of my blade met the shine of Fëanaro’s star. Our foes were scattered then, but I flew on the wings of a music only I could hear. I was unstoppable, strong and beautiful, until all had fled before me.

I stopped then, and watched the harvest of my dance.

And I remember thinking, in a manner detached and proud: Who will dare say to me, now, that a woman cannot fight?