To Build The Bonds That Tie by ThatFeanorian

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The First Friend

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Caranthir hates the beginning of every new school year. New classrooms, new classmates, and a new teacher who will look at him like he is an odd specimen of bird she has never seen before. Each year it is the same, because how could it not be. In the bright happy colourful classrooms and among the other laughing bright-eyed children, he sticks out like a sore thumb.

And yet every year his parents insist that he cannot be homeschooled; that this is the only option. Squeezing his mother’s hand tightly, Caranthir walks into the classroom half-hidden behind her. Before the true start of school, there is always a day when parents and students are invited to come and tour the classroom, meet their teacher and learn what materials they will need for the coming year. In the past, his parents have allowed him to skip this day, going by themselves and allowing him to pretend that autumn’s presence has not yet usurped his freedom, but today Caranthir has been told he must come with them, so he hides behind his mother and pretends that he is invisible. 

He wishes it were his father were here with him, but Cel claimed Náro’s presence in his fifth-grade class a week before, his eyes glinting maliciously at Caranthir as he did so. In the room, bright golden streamers hand from the ceiling and happy music plays from the computer in a corner. Already, the classroom is full of children leaping about and destroying the decorations that Caranthir’s new teacher has worked so hard to put into place, tearing at the golden streamers and popping balloons left and right, laughing at the loud noises they make. Caranthir cringes, squeezing tightly to his mother’s hand as one pops only a foot away from him, the noise almost destroying his eardrum. He wants to clap his hands over his ears, but he is afraid of letting go of his mother’s hand, and even more afraid of the other children laughing at him as they go about their wild play. 

Caranthir is six, he cannot let himself be scared of a loud noise anymore. As they make their way towards the teacher who stands near the computer chatting with a few other parents, Caranthir presses closer to his mother’s side, eyes flitting around the large room with all of its brightness and the big windows that look outside onto the playground. On the wall behind the teacher is a big bulletin board that says,

‘We fit together like a puzzle!” Each oversized puzzle piece below it features a child’s face, and Caranthir can see his own school picture from the year before, scowling out at the classroom. He looks away quickly because once again he realizes just how out of place he is here next to the bright happy smiles of the children around him. The other parents have moved away from the tall woman who Caranthir supposes must be his teacher, and Nerdanel steps up, still holding his hand and smiles at her,

“Hello, Welcome to first grade!” She says cheerfully, taking Caranthir’s mother’s hand and shaking it with a smile, and then, to his surprise, she reaches down and takes his as well,

“I’m Ms Adler, I’ll be your teacher this year.” She tells him, and Caranthir blushes, leaning back to hide behind his mother again because he wants nothing less than to talk.

“Thank you,” Nerdanel steps in, pulling him back in front of her by his hand, and Caranthir scowls angrily, trying to hide how uncomfortable he feels,

“I’m Carnistir.” He mumbles, hoping this will be enough, and to his relief, it seems to be, as the teacher smiles, and his mother allows him to duck back behind her again.

“Do you want to go explore a little bit while your mom and I talk?” Ms Adler asks, and Caranthir shakes his head, but his mother smiles and lets go of his hand anyways,

“That sounds lovely, baby, why don’t you go make some friends while we talk about adult stuff over here?” She turns away from him and back to Ms Adler, leaving Caranthir with little choice but to walk off, skirting around the edge of the classroom to avoid the popping balloons and ripping streamers and what looks like an indoor game of tag involving climbing over chairs and hanging from the ceiling. Instead of joining in, as his mother and the teacher no doubt wanted him to, Caranthir spots a small library behind them and makes a beeline for it, taking the biggest book off of the shelves that he can find (which is not all that big and turns out to be extremely boring and useless) and opening it to the first page. He finds a soft beanbag chair nearby, and curls up on it, hoping that if he stays still enough he will not be noticed or trampled by the other children. 

The book is one he could have read when he was in pre-school, something silly and useless about a dog and his lost bone. It is not at all the sort of thing Caranthir likes to read, incredibly unlike the large thick books his father has about the government and the idea of justice, but when faced with a choice between silly dogs and the shrieking blob of children behind him, Caranthir would choose the dumb book every day. 

“Hi!” Caranthir looks up, an angry glare already settling itself onto his face, and he meets the eyes of a messy-haired blonde boy with a big crooked grin on his face,

“Go away.” He growls, not at all pleased with his scheme of camouflage failing. The boy’s smile falls slightly, but he doesn’t leave. Instead, he moves closer and sticks out his hand,

“I’m Findaráto! I think we’re cousins.” Caranthir tries to glare harder, but it hurts his forehead so he settles with a sneer,

“I don’t have cousins.” He says firmly and turns back to his book without a second glance. It is quiet for a minute, besides the obvious sounds of screaming children, and Caranthir is sure the boy has given up and walked away to go join them, but when he sneaks a glance up from the pages, Finrod has simply dropped to the ground in front of him and is watching his face thoughtfully,

“I think you’re lonely.” He says slowly, his light watery blue eyes locked on Caranthir’s dark ones, and Caranthir scowls again, kicking at him,
“I am not lonely. Go away!” The boy doges his leg, and crawls over to lean into the chair beside him, looking down at the book he’s reading,

“You are. I think we should be friends because that’s what cousins do. I’m friends with all of my other cousins, but I don’t know you at all.” Caranthir gives up on reading, slamming the book closed and glaring at this dumb boy who has dared to intrude on him and try to get him to talk,

“We aren’t cousins, and I don’t have friends.” he gets up and stomps off back towards his mother where she stands with Ms Adler and a new woman who is petite and blonde, her hair tied up into an elaborate bun at the nape of her neck. He grabs her hand and pulls at it,
“Mom, can we go now?” He pleads, and his mother looks down, a large smile spreading over her lips,

“Oh good, Caranthir, you’ve already met your cousin. I hope you two will become very good friends, yes?” Caranthir looks behind him and nearly stomps his foot, which he knows would get him in trouble because he is too old to express his anger in his fists and feet. Finrod, however, simply smiles wider and waves up to his mother,

“Hi, Aunt Nerdanel! Moryo told me to go away because he doesn’t have cousins.” He says, with the big smile still in place, and Caranthir blushes furiously, glowering at the ground with enough force to create a deep hole to the centre of the earth. 

“Moryo!” His mother scolds, “Please don’t be mean to Finrod, he’s just the same age as you and I am sure if you just give him a chance you two will become friends,” She presses, spinning Caranthir around with her hand and turning him back towards his cousin,

“Go play, I will be ready to go in a little bit, baby.” Finrod looks at him hopefully, but Caranthir simply stalks past him and towards the door. There is no way he is staying here in this hell-hole for a moment longer. A hand reaches out and grabs his, and Caranthir recoils, jerking his hand inside of his sleeve and looking back to see (to his disgust) that Finrod has followed him out of the classroom and down the hall. 

“That was my mom.” He says simply, and Caranthir assumes he is talking about the fancy-haired woman who had been standing with Nerdanel and Ms Adler. 

“Cool, I don’t care,” he mutters in reply and shoves open the door at the end of the hall that leads to a playground outside. Finrod makes a noise of excitement as he sees the play structures, but instead of making his way towards them, Caranthir walks towards a row of flowers that line the front of the building. They are beautiful and bright, ranging in tones from a deep purple to the bright yellow of buttercups. He sits down in front of them, and gently reaches out, stroking the velvet soft petals and marvelling at the tiny intricate details of the pollen clinging to their insides. 

“We have a big garden at my house.” Finrod’s voice is quiet now behind him, sounding almost reverent in a way Caranthir is surprised to hear. This voice does not sound like the obnoxious pest he just left behind in the hallway, 

“There’s big sunflowers and tall tall trees that I like to climb and a little river that goes through it all and sings me songs at night.” Against his will, Caranthir’s frown slips off his face, and Finrod drops to the ground beside him, apparently not caring that he is ruining the pristine white pants he is wearing with dirt and grass stains. 

“My Dad likes to keep the plants alive because he says that keeping our own spot of nature means we will never have to go away for vacation. He says we can just walk out into the backyard and be someplace completely different.” Caranthir’s hand softens on the flower, and he glances over to Finrod, seeing a pensive frown on his face as his big eyes take in the flowers in front of him. Caranthir finds himself nodding, his expression no longer angry,

“Yeah, we’ve got one too. My big brother Nelyo and my mom are the ones who do all the work though. It doesn’t really look like much right now because Tyelko’s dog just trampled all of the roses, but it used to be super nice.” Finrod giggles,

“You’ve got a dog? I’ve always wanted one, but Mom wouldn’t let me.” Caranthir nods and shudders,

“Don’t ever get a dog. They’re terrible.” He responds, and Finrod laughs brightly, reaching over to pull a buttercup from the dirt,

“Look, my dad says that if you hold it under your chin and it turns yellow, then you like butter.” Caranthir shrugs noncommittally but watches curiously as Finrod places the flower beneath his chin, and the top of his neck is illuminated with yellow,

“Is it there?” he asks anxiously, and Caranthir nods,

“Yeah, it is.” Finrod pulls it out, and scoots forwards, pushing the flower under Caranthir’s. He giggles and pulls it out,

“It worked for you too. Do you want to go find bugs?” Caranthir smiles a little and nods, trying to brush off the back of his pants when he stands, but as Finrod follows suit, he cannot help himself, letting out a snort of laughter at the mess of black, reddish-brown, and green smeared over the back of his clean new pants.  Finrod peers over his shoulder and laughs too,

“Yeah, I think my mom’s used to it by now. She’s gotta get new ones like once a month because the stains can only come out seven times and then it starts to show.” The sun shines above him, summer hot air still in the sky as Finrod pulls him towards the edge of the playground and the two boys begin to dig in the dirt there, flipping over rocks and examining the things they find underneath. The air is filled with Finrod’s squeals of delight, and Caranthir’s reluctant laughs as both of their pockets slowly fill with worms and stink bugs that they find in the deep cool soil under the rocks. 

By the time their mothers arrive, exiting through the same door the two of them did, their clothes are thoroughly muddy, Finrod’s absolutely unrecognisable as the pristine white they had been before and more of a sandy dirty brown. 

“Moryo, time to go, your dad and Tyelko are waiting for us at the car!” Nerdanel calls out, and Caranthir’s shoulders slump in dismay. At home, there is his economics book and the comfort of his locked bedroom door, keeping everyone out, but here there is Finrod who is pouting sadly, a worm dangling half-way out of his pocket. 

“Okay.” He says reluctantly, and attempts to clean his clothes a fraction so that Cel doesn’t laugh at him as he walks towards his mother,

“Wait,” He turns, and Finrod is running after him, joining at his side as they walk the last few feet towards their parents. 

“Friends?” Finrod asks, and he reaches out, taking Caranthir’s hand. For once, the pressure on his skin does not feel oppressive but comforting, and he offers Finrod a small smile,

“Yeah. but…” He trails off, flushing again with embarrassment as he leans forwards,

“Can you keep a secret?” Finrod nods, curiosity shining from his eyes as he leans closer so that Caranthir’s mouth is an inch from his ear,

“You’re my first, so I might mess it up.” He mumbles into Finrod’s ear, and the boy pulls back, taking his mother’s hand with a grin,

“That’s okay, I’ll be your friend anyway. Bye Moryo!” He skips off in the direction of the parking lot, and Caranthir reaches out to take his mother’s hand, smiling gently, but making sure she can’t see. It would be far too embarrassing to admit to Nerdanel that she was right, but as they follow Finrod and his mother, she hums softly, and Caranthir gets the feeling that she knows anyways.