Noldolantë by Grundy

Prelude

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Alqualondë was a confusing mix of the familiar and the strange – more sprawling than Tirion, and more populated, yet somehow more intimate, a place where it was the custom to greet all and sundry as friends. It had taken Makalaurë several days to accustom himself to the dimmer light, for the light of the Trees passed through the Calacirya, but did not illuminate the city of the Teleri to the same degree as that of the Noldor or the Vanyar.

The architecture, though clearly influenced by that of the Noldor, was not much like Tirion. Oh, the harbor had a scattering of graceful towers, two of which were lit as beacons to guide returning ships safely home. But for the most part, the Teleri built out, not up, and wood was more noticeable than stone on most structures.

Even the promenade he walked on was wooden, weaving lazily over and around the water, connecting various quays and the more solid plazas finished in stone and studded with coral. He’s told it’s a popular place to stroll on all but the worst storm days.

He has yet to see any of them, for storms such as the people here speak of with awe, reverence even, do not reach Tirion. His hosts assure him he can expect to see at least one when winter comes.

He had been homesick when he arrived, and tried hard to focus on the honor it was to be taken as a student at the Collegium. It was difficult, though, when he sat his lessons alone, separate from the other students, for he had yet to master the tongue commonly used here.

In those days, it had been all too easy to believe the whispers in Tirion that this was no honor, but an implicit rebuke to his father. But Grandfather had been so sincerely pleased when his new law-daughter arranged the favor that it was hard to think he had any thought but that his eldest son would be pleased also.

For it had been vexing Curufinwë Fëanaro that his sons all seemed to be developing talents in which he himself did not excel and so could not instruct them. Maitimo, of course, was the easiest for him to understand, and if diplomacy and statecraft came easy to him, Fëanaro could at least console himself that it was less that he had not talent for it than that he had no time for it. And of course, Finwë himself was supervising the education of his eldest grandson.

But then there was Celegorm, whose love for the woods and wild places and affinity for animals was far beyond the casual interest their parents had for such things – and Ammë was more noted for her love of nature than Atto. Carnistir’s talent for needlework and tailoring seemed to unnerve their father more than please him, which had ceased to puzzle them once Celegorm overheard Indis compare him favorably to Miriel.

And, of course, there was Makalaurë himself, whose gift for music and song was unmatched among the Noldor. He has studied all he could learn there, but he was not so full of himself as to think that he knew all there was to know, or even all that was known to the elves. So he had eagerly accepted when Aunt Eärwen had offered to arrange a place for him in Alqualondë.

He found himself being hosted by Olwë and his queen Suyelirë, both as pleased to welcome him into their home as if he’d been a nephew rather than just the nephew by law of their daughter. Fortunately, as a friend and regular correspondent of Grandfather’s, Olwë spoke Noldorin, so while he was assiduous at practicing Telerin with Suyelirë and her sons, he did have the occasional relief of conversation not stilted by his own lack of competence. (Eloquence could come later, for now he would settle for being able to find a reasonable word without fumbling about.)

On his first weekend visit home, he had a quiet discussion with Maitimo about whether Atto’s insistence on not only Noldorin, but Noldorin as it had been spoken in Miriel’s day, might not be standing in the way of his sons’ educations. After all, unlike their Nolofinwion cousins, they have learned neither Vanyarin nor Telerin. Fëanaro had given them some cursory lessons on the elven tongue spoken prior to the completion of the Journey, but that wasn’t exactly useful for modern life.

Fortunately, the masters of the Collegium do not mind what elven language he speaks, so long as he is fluent in music. The notation used does not differ from Alqualondë to Tirion, nor do the gestures usually used when conducting. And of course, when one is focused on the music, it is not difficult to use osanwë, to bring one’s Music in tune with another’s. That too is a technique he is studying here, for the Teleri make more use of it than the Noldor. (The Vanyar do as well, he has heard, but he can hardly go study in Valimar.)

But for all that, he still finds Alqualondë a bit lonely, and all the more so since his parents’ announcement that Carnistir is no longer the youngest son. He has to strike a balance now between visiting home often enough that his littlest brother will not regard him as a stranger, but not so often as to hinder his immersion in Telerin and worsen his homesickness. Grandfather will be disappointed if he breaks off his study too soon.

In his current mood, it was fitting that he heard the song before he could see who was singing. It was a  cheerful tune, the notes dancing up and down, and if he was not confident he was catching the words, he recognized the playfulness of the song, and an undercurrent of hope. It lifted his spirits, and gave him the courage to follow the sound to its source.

He rounded another bend, the promenade hugging the outline of the harbormaster’s tower, and caught sight of the singer. Her hair was not the silver of Olwë and Suyelirë, nor the dark hair of most Noldor, but a shade of pale brown that he would have termed palomino on a horse, but was uncertain how to term on an elf.

“Well met, friend,” she said politely, interrupting her song.

“Well met indeed,” Makaurë replied, thankful that he could at least manage such simple phrases creditably.  “Please, do not stop to sing for me.”

The not quite suppressed smile told him clearly that he had not gotten that entirely right.

“Not to worry about,” she assured him – in Noldorin, to his surprise. “Certain am I not all my wordings in your tongue correct.”

He blinked, and since she has switched languages, he followed suit.

“You speak Noldorin?” he asked.

“Speak? Unsure,” she replied with a smile. “You know better than I. Try, yes.”

“You are better at Noldorin than I am at Telerin,” he told her ruefully.

“Lindarin,” she corrected. “If we give you your liked name, you should do us the same. How long are you learning? For I study some years with my cousin – she learned for her weddage? No, not the right word. How do you say in Noldorin when two are joined?”

“Marriage,” Makalaurë explained. “And in Lindarin?”

She gave him the correct word, and he added it to his constantly expanding vocabulary. It would certainly be more useful than the fish related terms he had picked up in the market.

“I suppose that was sensible if your cousin planned to move to Tirion,” he continued ruefully. “It’s very difficult not being able to have conversations.”

His singer laughed.

“Too fast! Too fast!” she chirped. “If learning yourself, surely you know how hard to keep time when all is vivace. Andante will be better.”

He couldn’t help but smile at the musical term, which he didn’t think was a general Lindarin usage, and his smile broadened when she emphasized her point by adding a few whistled notes at the two tempos with a frustrated face and a smiling face to demonstrate the difference.

“Very true, I beg your pardon. And in my excitement at finally having a conversation with someone other than my hosts or the music masters, I’ve completely forgotten my manners. I am Kanafinwë Makalaurë.”

He saw the split second of surprise and hesitation before his new friend answered.

“Lorilindë,” she answered, with the slight bow of her head that was good manners Telerin fashion.

He returned the gesture, hoping he was doing it right. Perhaps he should ask Suyelirë for the proper etiquette for such introductions. So far he has only learned what to do on formal occasions.  But the Teleri were generally informal, so it should be right if he simply mirrored her gesture…he hoped.

“Will you walk with me, Lady Lorilindë?” he asked, trying to find the right balance between Noldorin manners (which he knew were the butt of not always gentle jokes here) and Telerin ease. “I would be happy to give you a chance to practice your Noldorin, and you might return the favor and let me do the same with Lindarin.”

The hesitation this time, if there was any, was covered well enough that he did not catch it.

“I think that a good bargain, Kanafinwë Makalaurë,” she said.

There was a note of laughter in her voice, and it would not be until some weeks later that Lorilindë explains why. (To give both names was by Lindarin mores impossibly stuffy for a chance meeting on the promenade, even for a prince.) But for today, Makalaurë cared only that he had, against all odds, found someone outside the palace walls he could converse with, and may even be able to sing with.

Warming Up

My prompt for "A True Leader" was "A flower without fragrance draws notice, but not interest." 

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If Súyelírë thought it odd over the next few weeks that he was suddenly both an even more attentive student during their language lessons as well as much more enthusiastic about walking the boards, she did not say so.

Makalaurë was grateful that she did not ask, for the last thing he wanted to hear was that his new friend, lovely a singer as she might be, was no fit companion for a prince. If this were Tirion, his father would already have gotten wind of their meetings and put a stop to it. Of course, if this were Tirion, it was unlikely they would have met in the first place.

“Always prompt,” Lorilindë laughed as he joined her at their usual meeting spot, a small garden just off the promenade.

“I do my best,” he told her, pleased that she had noticed.

“Yes, so I am learning,” she replied with a smile. “Tell me, friend Makalaurë, do you sail also? We have been always on land, but some very nice spots there are a short way up or down the coast. I think you would like.”

Drat.

Thus far he’d largely managed to avoid boats. He had the comfort of knowing he wouldn’t embarrass himself by being sick in one, as one of Aunt Eärwen’s brothers had taken him out on a short sail in the harbor – just enough to determine whether or not he was a ‘seasicker’. But he had more than enough to do learning the local language to even think of taking up the most widely practiced local craft.

And he should probably try this in Telerin – no, Lindarin, he corrected himself. (Although the correction sounded suspiciously like Lorilindë.

“I ride in boats,” he said, praying he’d picked the right verb. “Sail the boats is for others.”

“Ah,” she nodded.

He must not have mangled it so badly that she couldn’t catch the meaning.

“You can be in the boat, but not in charge of it?” she asked.

He nodded.

“I must leave the sailing to those who know it well enough not to be a danger,” he explained. “Left to my own devices, it is doubtful I would get very far without capsizing.”

“Cap size,” Lorilindë repeated thoughtfully. “Another word for sink?”

“Capsize – one word – isn’t quite the same as sinking,” he explained. “Tipping over. Wrong side up!”

“Ah,” she laughed. “Lucky for you then that I can sail just fine. And have a boat.”

“It is not improper for us to go out without a chaperone?” he asked.

In Tirion that would have been asking for all manner of trouble – above and beyond just meeting so frequently in out of the way but undeniably public places.

“Lindar do not talk as Noldor do about such things!” Lorilindë laughed. “You even have a word for such talk, do you not?”

Now it was Makalaurë’s turn to laugh.

“Gossip is the word,” he said. “Is there no such word in Lindarin? I find that hard to believe!"

Her eyes sparkled with what he recognized as humor as she firmly denied it – he could tell that they did have such a word, but he suspected it got far less use than its Noldorin counterpart.

“The Lindar have better things to talk about than who is breaking a rule that everyone agrees is quite silly!”

“Mmm,” Makalaurë said skeptically. “But I guess you gossip about other things?”

That only got another merry laugh, as she took his hand to encourage him to walk with her toward some of the smaller southern docks.

“But really, it will not make any trouble for you?” he asked.

He valued her friendship, and not just because his progress with Lindarin was coming along much faster with a partner to practice with. He would risk no injury to her, even if it was just her reputation.

“I trust you, my friend,” Lorilindë replied with a smile. “Besides, if you behave unrightly, it will be a long walk back alone!”

“Badly,” he murmured. “I won’t. I only wanted to be sure I was not making trouble for you. What is the word in Lindarin, please?”

She repeated it, and once he heard it, he could see why she would expect the Noldorin construction to be ‘unrightly’. It was always a surprise when they discovered that despite the common origin, the two languages had sometimes made wildly different choices.

“Then we sail?” Lorilindë asked hopefully. “There is one spot in particularly I think you wish to see - sure to inspire songs!”

Her boat was only a small one, and he recognized it as one sailed for short distances or pleasure, not longer journeys or serious fishing. It would only fit a few people, and from the looks of it only needed one to sail.

“It is a nice boat,” he offered, aware that his sailing vocabulary was woefully inadequate no matter what he spoke.

That got a wicked grin.

“If you talk about her in Lindarin, you must use the right words! This is a sloop, not a boat,” she said with a grin. “But if we speak Noldorin, I will accept ‘boat’ – because I know you know not what the correct term would be.”

“Is it that obvious I’m a landlover?” he asked with a sigh.

“Landlubber!” she corrected, obviously trying hard not to laugh. “Though I think perhaps your word works also? Lubber is a clumsy person, someone who cannot handle their sails at all.”

“Are you making this up?” he demanded in mock indignation.

“No more than you made up ‘tin ear’,” she giggled. “Come!”

In the space of a few minutes, he found himself bundled on board and Lorilindë guiding her craft confidently out of the harbor.

He would have made conversation, but Lorilindë grinned and began a song he’d heard sung occasionally on the docks – but she was being more careful than the singers normally to enunciate the words so he could catch them all. Between that and the scenery, he was too taken to say a single word before they put in at a small cove nearly an hour later.

“Help pull Wavedancer up the sand?” Lorilindë asked. “The water is not quite high yet, it would be very bad if she floated away at its height.”

Judging by the pace they’d kept, Makalaurë could well believe it would be very bad – the walk back would be easily three or four times as long even if it was good terrain.

He listened to her requests – or more properly, her commands, for it was her boat and he was a mere passenger – until they had the boat settled on the sands to her satisfaction.

She grabbed a basket, which if his nose didn’t deceive him contained a picnic lunch, and led him up a rise to a glade overlooking the sea. They must have been below one of the smaller passes through the mountains that let the Treelight through, for though it must be waning by now, the glade was touched with Telperion’s light.

When he stepped beyond the reach of the delicious smells of the picnic basket, he found the scent was incredible.

“What?” was all he could say. “What is this?”

Lorilindë grinned.

“I thought you would not have experienced this before,” she said in satisfaction. “The combination of the salt air and the flowers does it.”

Makalaurë looked skeptically at the little flowers he would have taken for little more than weeds in Tirion. They weren’t anything in particular to look at – small, not showy, and the color a rather washed out shade of yellow. The fragrance, he discovered on closer inspection, was lovely all on its own, but when one stood farther off and breathed it in with the sea air, it became something very special indeed.

“What are they called?” he asked.

“Alatalmar,” she answered.

Makalaurë tried not to look as skeptical as he felt. He certainly wouldn’t have called them radiant.

Lorilindë laughed again.

“You are thinking they are named very wrongly!” she said. “But that is because we are seeing them too early. Wait a few hours until the starlight is stronger! Then they will show their color to better advantage.”

“Very well,” he said. “I will withhold judgement until the Mingling.”

“Glad to hear it!” she replied, still smiling. “The little alatalma may not look special compared to some of the showy orchids I have seen brought in from Tirion, but it got your attention all the same, did it not?”

“Most definitely,” Makalaurë admitted. “Please let me help – allow me to assist?”

Her smile widened.

“You are improving!” she exclaimed. “And as you are – I will tell you one of our sayings, which came from this flower. A flower without fragrance draws notice, but not interest.”

“High appropriate,” Makalaurë nodded, setting the blanket down carefully as she began to pull food from the basket.

“Highly,” she corrected, passing him a bottle of one of the chilled fruit juices he had discovered he particularly liked.

“Highly,” he repeated.

“You look frustrated,” she noted. “But you are coming along splendidly. You use…bigger words.”

“That wasn’t the word you meant?” he asked.

“For better speakers,” she explained. “Not harder…”

“More advanced?”

“Yes! More advanced.”

“I think you still have the advantage on me,” he sighed. “Your vocabulary is easily twice mine.”

“Yes, but I was learning Noldorin before you came to Alqualondë,” she reminded him. “I don’t wish to sound a child if I go visit my cousin!”

She mimed pointing at various foods.

“Please? Yes? No? Not Noldorin. How do you call? Can you imagine how all those clever Noldor would have looked at me?”

Makalaurë chuckled.

“You do not sound at all like a child, only like someone learning a new language,” he said firmly, although it occurred to him that a few months ago he might well have looked askance at someone having trouble speaking proper Noldorin. “Even if you were only able to say basic things, I think you would find most Noldor inclined to help, not mock. Much like your flowers, you attract both notice and interest.”

He didn’t know what had made her look so delighted, but whatever it was, he hoped he could do it again.

“Perhaps that is why my mother named me for them.”

Makalaurë blinked.

“Alatalma? That is your mothername?”

She nodded.

“I…do not usually allow those who do not know me to use it. But as we have been spending so much time together, you may if you wish.”

He looked from the flowers to her.

“I think the name is aptly given, especially since I know of the saying that grew from the flower, but I think it is not a name you are particularly fond of.”

She looked startled.

“That is true,” she said slowly. “The flowers must be seen in their own element, at just the right time, to appear at their best.”

“Yes, but those lucky enough to see them so surely do not forget it,” Makalaurë pointed out. “And you like them well enough to think I would write music for them.”

“For them, yes,” she said, perhaps a bit hastily.

“You were right,” he said thoughtfully. “I hope you will forgive me if I am quieter than usual while we eat. I find I cannot talk and compose at the same time very well.”

She smiled and made the Telerin gesture that indicated she had sealed her lips as they sat down.

The woman and the flowers were now firmly linked in his mind, and yet he couldn’t shake the thought that her father had been right to give her a name that involved singing.

In the privacy of his own mind, he thought he might have a name for her, but he wasn’t sure if he should say so just yet. It would be impossibly forward by Noldorin standards, but he had no idea how it would look in the eyes of the Lindar.

They spent the rest of the afternoon there, enjoying their picnic, watching the stars and the flowers, and singing. Lorelindë Alatalma had been right, he did write music about the flowers. But he hoped before long to tell her that she was in that music too.

Overture

For the Bollywood challenge prompt Pyaasa (Thirsty): the trials of an aspiring poet. (My mind went straight to young Maglor.)

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Over the next few months, Lorelindë remained a source of happiness for him – and a sorely needed one.

Homesickness was in full force now, as he found himself missing the festival of Aulë. It wasn’t one of his favorites. Father made a fuss about it, of course. But aside from new musical instruments occasionally being exhibited, there wasn’t much to interest Makalaurë. But it was a major event in Tirion – yet barely celebrated in Alqualondë. The assurance that he would see far more merrymaking at the upcoming festival of Ulmo had been scant consolation. Worse still, his efforts with the Telerin tongue seemed to have stalled, to the point that he scarce wanted to drag himself out of his rooms.

The thought that Lindë would be waiting for him was one of the few things motivating him to stir outside the palace walls for anything but his music lessons – and even those weren’t going well at the moment. His instructors were sterner critics than any in Tirion, and he couldn’t quite shake the suspicion that his mentors in Tirion had been too soft on the king’s grandson.

Lindë, for her part, listened to his troubles (in his terrible Lindarin, or occasionally in Noldorin, giving her a chance to practice – and unlike him, she was coming on by leaps and bounds) and then generally got him to laugh at himself.

“These troubles that seem so impassible now will make you a better musician,” she told him.

“Impossible, not impassible,” he murmured.

“Impossible, impassible, not important – because your situation is neither. You learn, you grow, you improve!”

He had to concede the point. If nothing else, learning Lindarin would open up new possibilities. Some concepts or ways of looking at the sea, for instance, demanded Lindarin lyrics, not Noldorin. And he grudgingly admitted that Lindë was correct when she said he’d had such a good, comfortable life in Tirion that he didn’t know what adversity was. It was cheek to compose, or even sing, anything on the subject, when a simple critique could have him down in the dumps.

“The masters are not the Hunter, nor his creatures,” she pointed out, eyes dancing, after one particularly self-pitying litany from him.

“Just as well, to hear them talk, my composition would only serve to lead them straight to me,” he sighed.

“Next time you will do better.”

And he did.

But she was becoming as important to him as his studies.

He didn’t think anyone else had notice.

It was not that he took any particular care to keep his new friendship – that he was hoping might turn into more than mere friendship – a secret so much as he took for granted that he had freedom to come and go as he wished in Alqualondë where he could not have in Tirion. In Tirion, had he been spending so much time with a girl not already part of royal circles, it would have not only been the talk of the town, it would already have come to both Father and Grandfather’s notice.

Father would disapprove. Grandfather… Makalaurë dared hope he might be more understanding. He often sounded nostalgic for the days before Tirion, when he claimed things had been so much simpler. If simpler meant one could move around without the formality and etiquette of Noldorin high society, Makalaurë was all for it.

So it came as a surprise when Suyelirë casually suggested he should invite his friend to partner him at the dinner celebrating her son’s birthday.

“We’ve all been curious to see the two of you together.”

He wasn’t sure if he should be alarmed or not.

“And of course, I’m not sure if I should be telling Lorelindë’s parents that their plan to send her to Tirion has been a waste of time, or if I should warn them that she’ll likely be spending more time there than they reckoned on.”

Now he knew he should be alarmed. It sounded worryingly as if the queen had concluded matters were much further along than they were. He hadn’t even formally asked her parents’ permission to see her yet!

Suyelirë laughed, which could only mean his effort not to let the panic show had failed.

“Dear boy, you like her, and she likes you. It’s a good deal less complicated here – at least, it is so long as your father doesn’t get involved too soon. But I think we can manage to keep him in blissful ignorance a bit longer. Ask Lorelindë if she’d like to partner you for the evening – and mind your words when you do, or you may wind up engaged before you mean to be.”

The only thing he could possibly do was nod his agreement, and hope Lindë could carry this off with the same aplomb she did sailing in rough seas or dealing with his minor tribulations.