A Difference of Interpretation, A Similarity of Intent by Rocky41_7

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A Difference of Interpretation, A Similarity of Intent

Feanor's desire for Nerdanel to like him vs. Feanor's need to talk about himself at least 6 hours a day

I love these two so much and the more I love them the more their story hurts :') Anyway Nerdanel does not think it should be that sexy to listen to Feanor talk about inventing an alphabet, but it IS.

This was a tumblr request from Am_Fae <3

Mahtan was busy that week, and so thanks to his inconvenience, Nerdanel was honored with taking his place on the Council of High Artisans. When her father, strapped for time on a commission he had promised to have done two days from then, had asked if she would be willing, Nerdanel had leaped at the offer. Given her dedication to her craft, no one was much surprised, and it was expected that someday, Nerdanel would have a seat on the council herself. She was even attempting to take notes, though she wasn’t sure her judgement on what was worth noting for her father would match up with what Mahtan thought was necessary to know.

Then again, he was likely to hear it all again from his friends on the council anyway; Nerdanel was only expediting the process.

But that would not take away from her efforts!

That was why, when movement outside the window caught her eye, she determinedly kept her eyes on Hróva, who was speaking, even when the motion continued, and sounded quite a lot like small stones being tossed at the window.

Whatever it was, it was surely no business of hers. Most likely just some immature little Elflings playing a game while Ammë or Atar were at work. It went on for several minutes, disrupting Nerdanel’s ability to note-take with the amount of effort she was putting into not noticing it.

When it finally stopped, she let out a silent breath of relief, and listened appreciatively to Róne discussing a new vein of marble her studio had discovered beyond the hills outside the city and they discussed plans for distributing it evenly. Nerdanel’s peace was short-lived enough, as a courier entered not fifteen minutes later. It did not even occur to her that the message could possibly be for her, until the Elf was bending over by her ear.

“A gentleman to see you,” they said.

“Is it my father?” she asked, although she assumed if it was, the courier would have said so. “Because if it is not, you may tell him I am busy.” The courier hesitated. “Is there some emergency at hand?” she demanded, her cheeks starting to flush as the others fell silent, waiting for Nerdanel’s disruption to end.

“He did not say so.”

“Well, then, let us have our meeting in peace!” Nerdanel hated being made to blush; it clashed abominably with her hair and it was such a terrible betrayal of her ability to appear composed. Hardly the image to present to Elves she hoped would someday vote her onto this council herself!

The courier vanished, and discussion among the council turned to the upcoming “New Beginnings” festival, which was meant to showcase works from all applicants symbolizing the titular theme. There was much work still to be done in preparing the town square where they planned to hold the month-long event, and the amount of coordination for what Nerdanel had regarded as a rather minor event turned out to be staggering. She had never considered there needed to be a discussion on who was going to label each of the works, or take care that none of them were damaged by weather over the time they were on display, if they still intended to hold the event outdoors (and this was also a topic of discussion), and that was to say nothing at all of the catering discussion.

      “Lady Nerdanel.” The courier was back, and Nerdanel almost choked.

      “The matter is urgent.”

      “And who,” Nerdanel hissed, feeling her flush spread down her neck, “is gripped by a terrible emergency which now my aid requires?” The courier hesitated again, and then said:

      “Prince Curufinwë Fëanáro.”

      Fëanor. Of course it was Fëanor. If every eye in the council had not been on Nerdanel before, they were now.

      “Please, excuse me,” she breathed, rising to her feet with a half-bow to the council. She hurried out of the room, passing by the courier on her way to the front entrance of the ostentatious building that served as home for their chapter of the artisans’ guild.

      Fëanor was waiting there by the door, impatient, as he usually was. That day, his glossy black hair was pulled back into a truly impressive series of braids, gems dangling from the clasps buried therein, and the close cut of his dark red robes flattered his figure more than Nerdanel wanted to acknowledge. He must have had plans, or been attending his father—most often when she saw Fëanor, he looked like he had only just been dragged out of the forge, fingers still poised to grip a hammer. He was looking not down the hall for her arrival, but up at the sconces on the ceiling, into which later construction artists had carved imitations of the stars.

      “Fëanáro,” she said, to draw his attention as she came near. Fëanor’s attentions had only recently begun to cease baffling her, though not so with the rest of the Noldor. Fëanor was not known to have an overabundance of friends, nor had he ever opened a serious courtship, to the chagrin of King Finwë. Not that he was courting Nerdanel…not officially, that was…or at least, Nerdanel had not asked, although…she was not empty of reasons to think it could come to that…in any case, there was enough for the gossip-mill to be running full tilt, and the Noldor to be speculating on what, exactly, their crown prince wanted with one such as Nerdanel.

She tried not to take offense at that.

“Nerdanel! Good. I had begun to wonder what more it would take to pry you from that room.” He turned his attention promptly to her, with no indication he would have simply given up on this task, or, Eru forbid, come back later.

“What calls so urgently for my attention?” she asked.

“Come with me,” Fëanor said simply, pushing open the door and looking back only for the sake of holding it open for Nerdanel to follow. Thinking he preferred a more private location for this discussion, and wondering with a pang of anxiety what it could be, Nerdanel came along wordlessly, balking only when Fëanor carried around to the stable where his horse was tied.

“Where are we going?” she asked, halting in the courtyard.

“Out,” he answered. “Out of the city.”

“Fëanáro! I was told this was an emergency!” Fëanor, fiddling with the reins of his horse, could not suppress the twitch of a smile on his lips.

“It is,” he said. “I was bored.” Nerdanel snorted a most undignified snort.

“And our esteemed Prince Curufinwë Fëanáro is not capable of entertaining himself?” He turned more fully to look at her, and Nerdanel tried her very best to hold firm fixed with a softer look from Fëanor’s burning brown eyes than most anyone else ever saw.

“Not half as well as with you,” he said.

Shit, Nerdanel thought. Atar would have to hear the rest of the meeting from Hróva. She joined Fëanor in mounting up on her horse, and together they rode out of Tirion. With only a slight gesture of her hand, Nerdanel indicated which path she preferred to take that day, and Fëanor silently agreed. When the city began to disappear behind them, they dismounted, and led their horses along behind them at an ambling pace. The sun overhead was mild, warming Nerdanel’s back without overheating her, and there was a slight breeze that was pleasant on her face.

“I have solved the problem of the silver leafing,” Fëanor had announced without preamble, as he did often, simply assuming Nerdanel could track the source of the conversation. She usually could, although sometimes, out of annoyance with his assumptions, she would feign that she did not.

This time, she was certain he was speaking of a diadem on which he had been working when they last spoke.

            “I was not aware there was a problem,” she said.

            “It was not thin enough,” he said, which was less likely that it was not serviceable, and more that it did not meet Fëanor’s standards, which he was not above inventing new techniques to meet. It was also possible he had decided this was a problem between their last conversation and the present one. “But I have found a better way of preparing it that I might beat it as thin as I need it without it tearing, so the detail work will not be lost.”

            The sun gleamed off his dark hair, and Nerdanel’s eyes drifted to the loose grasp of his hand on his reins. She had felt those calloused fingers on the back of her neck once in the studio, and the memory of it threatened to bring that detestable heat to her cheeks again.

            Fëanor was still talking, but Fëanor would often talk quite a while without expecting any response. It was only an issue when she tuned back in and he had changed topics while she was daydreaming, or staring at his jawline, which was most certainly not something she did.

            “…have not yet had time to consult with Rumil, although I am sure he will approve of my changes…” Somehow they had gone from the diadem to the—what was he calling his new alphabet, these days? Was it still Tengwar? “The new characters will allow for a far more accurate phonetic translation of certain key diphthongs.”

            “Only you, Fëanáro,” she said, “would set yourself to creating a new alphabet when we have a perfectly serviceable one already.”

            “Why should it be merely serviceable?” Fëanor asked. “Why should it not be the best one we can create? Would you settle for a sculpture that was merely serviceable?” There was a phenomenal amount of disdain in that single word; Nerdanel was frankly impressed. One never had to second-guess if Fëanor was genuine in expressing himself, and she did appreciate that.

            “And from you will come the best of what the Noldor can create?”

            “Why not from me?” he asked, lifting his chin, not in the least chastised by Nerdanel’s raised eyebrows. “Perhaps another could do so, but they have not tried!” She doubted Fëanor truly thought someone else could do as well as he could, but he did have a point in that few others had Fëanor’s ceaseless energy for the new and untried, for the improvement of everything around him, for the insistence that they could do better, that there was always more, always something of which they had not yet thought. He was many things, but never complacent.

            Queen Miriel named him well indeed, Nerdanel thought, not for the first time.

            “I will send you another sample of it,” he said, following without hesitation as Nerdanel meandered off the path to stand below a tree and look to the ocean in the distance. “Then you can see for yourself. I am sure you will see the value in—”

            Fëanor did not get to finish his sentence, because Nerdanel leaned down and kissed him first. When she drew back, she caught a glimpse of his wide-eyed look before she started laughing, and at once he drew up like an offended snake.

            “What’s funny?” he asked. “I have said nothing to make you laugh.”

            “You,” she said. “You’re so…” She shook her head, smiling. “Sure am I there is none else in Eä like you, Fëanáro.”  Fëanor clearly could not decide whether she meant that as a compliment or not. She could have taken pity on him and told him she meant it well, and if she had not, that she would not have bothered to come out with him at all, but instead she carried on their original path, her horse following without guidance.

            “Nerdanel,” Fëanor began, coming along after a pause.

            “Hey,” she interrupted. “See you that tree, there?” She pointed. “I will race you to it.” Fëanor, seldom able to reject a challenge, flashed that crooked half-smile again.

            “And what shall I receive when I win?” he asked, rubbing his horse’s neck. Nerdanel snorted.

            “When you come down from your delusion and see that I have won,” she said, grasping her saddle to hoist herself back up onto the horse’s back, “you will take me somewhere suitable for dinner.”

            “And should lightning strike your horse, and I reach the tree first,” he said, “then you shall admit freely that I am far more amusing than your silly council meeting.”

            “You know, most had expected you to be on the council, Fëanor,” she said. His talent for smithing alone would have bought him a lifetime appointment, and the artisans’ guild was frankly still smarting from the fact that he had never shown the slightest interest in being involved in any of their activities, nor were the alone. All of Tirion’s many crafting-related guilds and councils had eagerly awaited Fëanor’s choices in association as his skill in the forge became known, only to one by one be crushed with the realization he meant to chose none of them.

            “For what do I need some idle council?” he asked. “That I could be cajoled into planning festivals and coerced into lecturing for some audience? I have real work to do, Nerdanel.”

            “I plan to join that council, Fëanáro.”

            “It will suit you better than I,” he said. “You are more…” He waved a hand in some motion Nerdanel did not follow.

            “Insipidly social?” she asked, quoting something he had told her before about artist’s councils. He at least had the grace to blush, having his words thrown back at him.

            “No! Not…I meant it not that way.”

            “Hm. You should be very grateful I have not a thin skin for slights,” she told him. Fëanor could be a powerful speaker when it suited him—she had heard him sway a room to his argument before and was still something in awe of that—but in personal conversation, he was often brusque and not infrequently offended, through carelessness or refusal to withhold for civility’s sake. Nerdanel, to his good fortune, was not easily offended, and had learned not always to take what he said seriously. “Now, be thinking of where you shall take me for dinner,” she instructed him.

            “That will not be necessary,” he said, grasping the pommel of his saddle.

            “I think it will!” she said, digging her heels into her horse’s flanks to jolt it into movement.

            “Nerdanel!” Fëanor’s shout chased after her as she picked up speed, racing across the grass. “I wasn’t ready! Nerdanel!” She could hear the sound of his horse’s hoofbeats behind her, and she laughed into the wind, urging her mount on faster still. “We have to start over!”

            “Catch up, Fëanáro!” she called back.

            “Nerdanel!” She laughed again, and bent low over the horse, and behind her the peaks of Tirion vanished behind lush green hills, and Fëanor struggled to defeat the insurmountable lead she had, and she decided she that official courtship with Fëanor was probably overrated anyway—they did well enough without it!

 

 

 

Chapter End Notes

There are probably several thousands guilds and councils in Tirion and there is not an absence of competition between them. Elven artisans' guild politics would make for some very worthwhile fic explorations.

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