Golden Days by Lyra

Chapter 23

In which Elves spit out watermelon seeds. They're clearly only human.

Chapter 23

An then the harvesting season was truly and well upon us, and all hands were needed in the fields to cut the corn. Those were days of intense labour, aching knees and backs and sore muscles. It was completely different from our usual kind of work, and the fields of Yavanna seemed to stretch out forever. The back-breaking work was sweetened by the knowledge that it would feed us for a year, by Yavanna's gentle support, and by the prospect of the feast that lay at the end of the harvest. Of course, the city folk had it even worse than we who regularly swung hammers or chopped wood, and soon, they fell far behind. Even further back were the Vanyar and Teleri, and in between ran the children who went through the lines of sheaves to pick up fallen grains (if they remembered to do so).

The professional farmers, of course, were ahead of us all. They cut whole swathes of corn and bound them into sheaves in the same time it took most of us to just cut a single sheaf. The metalworkers always came close behind; we were the quickest to sharpen our blunted blades again, and thus managed to catch up a bit whenever the farmers had to work with their grindstones. This time, however, the farmers seemed to be even faster than usual. I had a certain suspicion why that might be. Involuntarily, I glanced back to where Fëanáro was working – surrounded by doting girls from the city, of course. Why he was trying to help with the harvest at all, I did not understand. The king's household didn't normally join in this labour, instead going ahead to Valmar to prepare the celebrations that followed the harvest. But Fëanáro had insisted that he belonged to Father's household rather than the king's at the moment. Fair enough - but he barely touched the corn. Instead, there was a lot of talking and laughing going on, born over to where I was working with Helyanwë and Cermion and the others. I shouldn't have cared – laughter was a good way of keeping the exhaustion at bay, so it did serve a function – but it grated on my nerves.
No matter. I was wasting my time, and quickly returned to the labour at hand.

Yavanna came around to offer us watermelons, a welcome refreshment in the mid-day heat. We sat down to enjoy them and rest a little. Even as Timosanwë cut up our melon into handy slices, footsteps rustled through the straw stubble. Erenwen, Sarnië and Mother's apprentices had decided to join us. Unfortunately, Fëanáro followed them. I would rather have seen Alcyo, but although we had exchanged waved greetings earlier, he remained with his father on the other side of the field.
I vowed to ignore Fëanáro, but he made that impossible. He not only sat down right next to me, he also addressed me at once.
„Hey,“ he said, with a grin that looked open and friendly and, a week ago, would have made my heart flutter. „You're pretty far ahead.“
I shrugged. „I'm not new to this,“ I pointed out. „Your new sickle isn't helping?“
He laughed. „It's a good tool, but it can't work miracles. Actually, I was wondering whether you wanted to have it. It's totally wasted on me, I'm a hopeless harvester.“
Helyanwë gave him a wide-eyed stare of mock surprise. „Such harsh judgement!“ he said. „I didn't know you were capable of that.“
Fëanáro glared at him. „I am as honest with myself as I am with others,“ he said, „aren't I, Nerdanel?“

I made a non-commital noise and pretended to be extremely interested in the pieces of melon that Timosanwë now handed out. Sarnië's greedy little hands were faster, of course.
„Are they special watermelons?“ she asked before taking a big bite out of her first piece.
„They are very good melons,“ Timosanwë said mildly.
„No, but I mean, are they special melons? Do they have powers?“
Raised eyebrows all around. „What do you mean by that?“
„Well, if they grew in Yavanna's garden...!“ Sarnië explained.
I was a little embarrassed by her naivety, even though she was small enough for such ideas. „Well, they are probably especially sweet and juicy,“ I tried to satisfy her curiosity.
„They have just as many pips as normal melons do, though,“ said Fëanáro, spitting out a few. „Hey, maybe they do have special powers. They could be oracle melons.“
„Oracle melons,“ I said flatly. I had never heard of such nonsense.
„Oh, yes!“ Sarnië sounded hopeful. She really wanted Yavanna's melons to have magical powers, apparently.
„You mean, like oracle groats?“ asked Erenwen, apparently ready to humour either our little sister or Fëanáro. We made oracle groats on the first day of the year, as probably everybody did, asking questions that supposedly were answered by the number of seeds you found on your spoon.
„Exactly!“ Fëanáro said cheerfully. „Ask a question that can be answered in numbers, and the melon pips will tell you the answer.“
Sarnië clapped her sticky hands. „Oh, yes! Let us try!“
I heaved a sigh. „He's being silly,“ I said. „There's no such thing as oracle melons.“
„There might be,“ Erenwen protested. I felt myself getting more annoyed than I had any reason to be. Maybe I was suffering from heatstroke, even though I was wearing a broad-rimmed straw hat to protect my head from the intensity of Laurelin's glare just like everyone else.
„Stop talking such nonsense,“ I hissed.

The corners of Sarnië's mouth went rapidly down, and I felt guilty at once. The others were frowning at me, too. „Peace,“ Cermion suggested, and Helyanwë said, „It's just a game, there's no harm in playing it.“
I didn't want to play any games, least of all one that Fëanáro had suggested, but Sarnië was looking at me with such pleading eyes that I didn't have the heart to say no. „Fine,“ I snapped, „but don't be disappointed if it doesn't work.“
„It's just a game,“ Erenwen echoed, and immediately began. „Helyanwë, how many years until you become a master craftsman?“
Helyanwë took a bite out of his melon slice, chewed thoughtfully, and eventually spit nine seeds into his hand. He groaned. „Oh no. I didn't know I was that slow.“
Fëanáro of all people tried to console him. „You aren't. They probably aren't going to let another of Master Mahtan's apprentices pass in a hurry.“
„Oh, yes,“ Helyanwë said, sounding relieved as though he really believed in the melon oracle. „That's probably true. Right, Fëanáro, how many years until you become a master smith, then?“

Fëanáro, to the laughter of all, took a massive bite out of his melon. He blinked in surprise, and showed us the pips his melon had yielded. Two. „I stand corrected,“ he said.
„You swallowed the rest!“ Sarnië protested, but Fëanáro shook his head. „I promise I didn't!“
Helyanwë muttered something under his breath that I could only guess at. I hoped that Sarnië wouldn't hear it.
Fëanáro rolled his shoulders. „Well, it's just a game,“ he said. „Next question! Nerdanel...“
My heart sank.
„How many children?“
Of all the silly questions! „I'll need a seedless watermelon,“ I said dryly, and took the smallest of bites. It was no good. The seeds seemed to multiply in my mouth. I spit out seven, to uproarious laughter.
„Whoa!“ Lindo exclaimed. „Really?“
„Who's going to be the father?“ Helyanwë asked with a sly glance.
I hoped that my face had already been red from the heat. How silly to blush at such a stupid game.
„The melon won't say,“ I said, trying to sound nonchalant. „But now we know for certain that it isn't working. Nobody has seven children.“
„Next question!“ Fëanáro called us to order. I gave him my angriest glare; he innocently raised his eyebrows.
„Erenwen,“ I asked. „How many books are you going to write?“
It really could have been a harmless game, but I was not in the mood to laugh it off. It didn't get better, either. The others got reasonable answers to the questions pointed at them – Sarnië was going to begin her apprenticeship in five years, Roitariel was going to eat four pasties for supper, Timosanwë would dance with six girls at the harvest feast, Lindo would continue his studies with a different master in eight years, Helyanwë would finish his next project in four weeks. But I had no luck at all. „How many years until you marry?“ Helyanwë asked me with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes.

„Is that a proposal?“ I tried to play down my embarrassment. Nobody expected me to get married in a hurry, of course.
Helyanwë snorted. „Just curiosity. How long until you find the mysterious father of your seven children, huh?“
I stuck my tongue out at him, but there was no stopping the game. I finished off my piece of melon, and to everybody's surprise, ended up with a mere three pips.
„Whoa!“ Erenwen exclaimed this time. „That's soon! Is there something I should know?“
„You should know that these melons have no clue about the future,“ I said angrily. „I told you it was nonsense.“
„Calm down,“ Erenwen said in a rather annoyingly aloof voice. „I'm just joking.“
„Yeah, right,“ I grumbled, annoyed with myself. „Timosanwë, how many more hours are we going to work today?“
Timosanwë cheerfully held up four seeds. „Until supper,“ he said. „Looks about right.“
„It is working!“ Sarnië said.
„Coincidence,“ I muttered.
„Of course,“ Timosanwë agreed cheerfully. „It's just good fun. Fëanáro, how many princes are you going to give to the Noldor?“
„Or princesses?“ Lindo threw in.
„At least one more than my father's wife has,“ Fëanáro said decisively, taking a huge bite out of the last piece of melon. „Here we go,“ he said once he had swallowed the pulp and counted the remaining pips.
„Seven...“ Erenwen said thoughtfully.
„Well, well!“ Helyanwë said. „Where have I heard that before?“
Even Sarnië, in her childish innocence, picked up on the concurrence. „So you'll both have seven children!“ she said in amazement, looking from Fëanáro to me.
Fëanáro shrugged and said nothing.
Cermion smirked. „The interesting question is, are you going to have them together?“
„Don't be absurd,“ I snapped and got to my feet. „This is only a silly game. There's no such thing as oracle melons. Now excuse me, I need to take a leak.“ I hurried into the shade of the forest. My stomach had tied into a knot. At the back of my memory, I heard the voice of Ravië ring through the misty bathing house at Alastondo. The next thing you'll tell me is that you're married and got seven brats running after you... Nonsense! I was taking this much too serious.

When I came back into the field, our group had split up and returned to work. My sickle was still lying on the old pillow I had been using to protect my knees all day, except that it wasn't my old sickle anymore. It had been replaced by what clearly was one of Fëanáro's new sickles. I had to struggle down the childish impulse to toss it far off into the field. It would have been much too dangerous; someone could have stepped onto the blade, or one of the children could have grasped it when picking up a handful of grains. Besides, whether I liked the craftman or not, it was still another person's work effort, which I had been brought up to respect.
And it was easy to respect this piece of work. It wasn't simply a tool, it was beautiful, too. I could see at once what Fëanáro had been talking about, welding soft and hard steel together. The different varieties were clearly recogniseable as incredibly thin, lighter and darker lines in the surface of the blade, zig-zagging and swirling like plumes of smoke or tufts of cloud. The edge was a darker, almost blueish cloud; the flat side had been polished to mirror smoothness. That by itself was beautiful, and because the blade – supposedly – wouldn't be worn down as swiftly as our usual blades of soft steel, Fëanáro had also dared to give it a sleeker, more elegant curve. He hadn't just gone to extraordinary efforts with the blade, but also with the handle. We normally used simple, untreated pieces of beech wood for those; there was no point in wasting a lot of time on something that had to be replaced frequently. Fëanáro had considered his sickle worth more effort; he had chosen the more valuable plum wood with its reddish-brown colour, the lines in the wood recalling the cloudy patterns of the blade. The handle had been smoothed and oiled so it had a pleasant, velvet-like finish. This could have been a bad idea, making it prone to slipping from a sweaty hand, but Fëanáro had thought of that, too. He had cut slight grooves into the wood so one's fingers found a better grip.
Astonishingly, even though my hands were supposedly so much smaller after his – he had complained about my tiny flintstone, hadn't he? - the handle of his sickle fit my fingers exactly. I would have liked to assume that he had mistaken the measurements, but considering the overall perfection of the sickle, such an error was unlikely. I was forced to suspect that he had made this sickle for me from the start, to show off his superior skill.
Well, I acknowledged it. In spite of my frustration with Fëanáro as a person, I rejoiced for the fellow craftsman who had achieved this work of art.

It was also a joy to work with. Once I had gotten used to the different balance and slightly changed angle, the blade cut through the corn stalks with hardly an effort. And it just didn't stop. In the remaining three and a half hours we spent in the field, I didn't need to pause and sharpen the sickle even once. I soon caught up with the others again. Not that it was a race, of course, but it felt nonetheless good to be among the fastest cutters.
Like it or not, I would have to speak with Fëanáro in the evening, to congratulate him on his achievement. Praise where praise was due. Right now, I couldn't even feel anxious about it. The work was going too well, and the afternoon was beautiful. The light lay golden on the ripe corn, the sky was a brilliant blue, behind us, the Vanyar were singing as they worked, and a gentle breeze cooled my sweaty brow. My temper, too, cooled. It had been silly to get so worked up. After all, it had only been a sily game. What did melons know about the future?

„Good work,“ I told Fëanáro as we walked home in the evening.
„Yes, I think I'm beginning to get the hang of it,“ he retorted, as though I had been talking about harvesting.
„Not that,“ I said, rolling my eyes. „I mean, the sickle.“
„Ah!“ His eyes lit up. I wished he wouldn't act as though my opinion mattered to him, but he did. „I was hoping you'd like it. You can use it much better than I can.“
„That might be because the handle fits my hands better than yours, don't you think? I wonder why that might be.“
He had the grace of blushing a little. „So you noticed.“
„Please. I'm not that stupid.“
„No, you aren't,“ he agreed in a shockingly sincere voice. „You're right, I made it specifically for you. I wanted you to be one of the first to work with one of my sickles. There. Mock me.“
I was glancing around to see whether the others were listening to our conversation. Sure enough, Erenwen and Roitariel were paying apt attention, as of course was Helyanwë.
I sighed. „I normally would, but that would be graceless. It's a precious gift, and I must be grateful for it. Of course, I can't help but wonder what you expect in return.“

Fëanáro studied me for a while, and I was hard put not to squirm under his smoldering gaze. I secretly hoped that he would stumble or run into something while his eyes weren't on the road, but he managed to walk along just fine.
„Can't you guess?“ he eventually asked. „Praise.“
„Praise?“
„Yes. Praise from the praiseworthy is a valuable gift.“
„As is one of your sickles.“ I resisted the urge to bite my lips. „Thank you.“
„I'll let that count,“ he said with the hint of a smile. „You're welcome.“
„You've got one of Fëanáro's sickles?“ Father asked from behind. So he, too, had been listening. „Lucky you,“ Father went on. „I keep hearing good things about them. It seems they're really worth all the time you put into them, Fëanáro.“
Fëanáro beamed. It appeared that he had been serious about his desire for praise. „Thank you, Master,“ he said in a silky voice.
„I hope you'll show us how you're doing it once we're back in the forge.“
„Certainly,“ Fëanáro said. „I already told Nerdanel the theory of it, and I'm perfectly willing to share the practice, too.“ No wonder he was already looking forward to teaching his teacher, I couldn't help thinking.
„Excellent! I already have a couple of ideas where this new technique might proove exceedingly useful.“ Father clasped Fëanáro's shoulder, giving him a broad smile. „Well done.“
Following Father's words, of course, everybody wanted to have a look at this miraculous new sickle, so I removed it from its sheath and handed it around. Fëanáro practically shone with pride and happiness, I thought. And yes, he deserved it. Still, I couldn't help but being annoyed. Roitariel and Helyanwë and probably all their friends would be having a field day about Fëanáro's precious gift for me. Why me? Why hadn't he made his showpiece for Father in the first place? Why did he have to single me out like that?

Chapter End Notes

The oracle melons (and the related oracle groats) have been inspired by the medieval custom of Lammas bread (bread made with hard seeds or peas inside that supposedly foretold the future as part of the harvest celebrations). A side helping of Skandinavian New year's groats may have been applied. - Whether the melons from Yavanna's gardens really have magical powers, or whether the seven pips are coincidence, I leave up to the reader's interpretation.