Many Journeys by Elleth

Fractious

Good days and bad days in the House of Fëanor.

One, two, three, four...

She could tell it was a good day from the way his hammer fell: Rhythmic, sure, fast and strong.

On bad days: Dissonance, long pauses (one... one two... two... one...) and the strength of his strokes seemed, aimlessly, to waver and sway.

On the worst days there was silence like the airs before a storm, silence that heralded brooding and anger she could no longer restrain. On those days she set the dinner table with cold meats and took refuge in her studio, emerging the next Mingling, to listen (breathless) to the sound of the hammer.

Chapter End Notes

fractious FRAK-shuhs, adjective:
1. Tending to cause trouble; unruly.
2. Irritable; snappish; cranky.

Fractious is from fraction, which formerly had the sense "discord, dissension, disharmony"; it is derived from Latin frangere, "to break."

(from www.dictionary.com, bold emphasis mine.)