In This, No Consolation by sallysavestheday

In This, No Consolation

There is a frog in the milk jug. And another crouching in the butter dish. A sleek trail on the tabletop and the shiver of the concealing cloth hint that a third might yet be found, lurking near or in the bowl of cream.

Ambarussa’s latest breeding project seems to have been a success, but the habitat their specimens have chosen leaves much to be desired.

Maitimo drops his head into his flour-coated hands, forsaking the mixing bowl in favor of a moment’s despair. He cannot indulge himself for long – there is never enough time for wallowing at Formenos – but his urge for a brief sulk in private cannot be denied. The cake had been a foolish whim: an effort to ignore the mud on the floor, the scattered gear and detritus of the youngest Fëanorians’ experiments, and the mess of their breakfast, long since abandoned to congeal on the dishes that they had refused to wash. He had hoped that the warmth and fragrance of pastry would banish the chill he feels, always and everywhere, in this home without a heart.

His mother has never been much of a cook. That is Fëanor’s province, and one he rules with the verve and flash and perfection that he brings to everything he touches. But she bakes, with pleasure, a simple recipe that makes magic out of flour and eggs and butter, sweet or tart as the mood takes her. Maitimo has spent many happy hours in a warm kitchen with his mother, mixing and tasting and decorating, laughing and singing and sharing his secrets and his hopes, soothing his wounds with sugar and spice. A cake is a solution to every puzzle, in Nerdanel’s capable hands.

Formenos’ kitchen echoes, and the fire smokes. Almost certainly there are mice. It is a far cry from the sunny workroom in Tirion, and his mother is not here. Maitimo abandons the cake, for want of milk and tenderness, and slumps in his rickety chair. In a fit of pique, he shoves the mixing bowl away; it tilts over the edge of the table and lands on the floor with a smash.

Makalaurë slips into the kitchen as the cloud of flour settles. His eyes roam from the broken bowl to the pile of Ambarussa’s dirty rags and tools of uncertain purpose, from the crusted plates to the dog tracks on the tiled floor. The frog in the butter dish blinks up at him, the jeweled bell of its throat pulsing as it waits for the next wave of the storm.

Maitimo seems similarly bewildered at the results of his own frustration, and Makalaurë can only laugh and ruffle his brother’s hair to free it of flour.

“Making Ammë’s cake, were you, Nelyo?” He claims the broom and sets to with a will and a whistle as Maitimo brushes flour from his sleeves, still wan and forlorn.

“I had thought to, yes, but Pityo and Telvo have left us with no milk, nor butter, in the success of their amphibian schemes.” Maitimo lifts the cloth on the bowl of cream and narrows his eyes at the small green creature hiding there, as he had suspected. “Nor cream, for that matter.”

He groans in exasperation. “If Tyelko must take them under his wild wing, I wish he would teach them to be more tidy, like the rest of his familiar beasts. None of the others of you were so disastrous. Not even Curvo at his worst, when he was melting and smashing things and boiling up noxious concoctions on the kitchen stove, before Atya stole him away to the forge.”

Makalaurë tuts and collects the fragments of the broken bowl. “The chaos is exponentially worse with two of them, isn’t it?” He piles the crockery on the counter and tackles the muddy floor with vigor as Maitimo rises, capitulating to the rhythm of tidying up, and sorts the dishes into the sink. “You must only have children one at a time, Nelyo, when you come to it.”

Maitimo shivers with a brief memory of Findekano’s furious face at their parting: his eyes snapping and his cheeks flushed with rage. There will never be another for him, he knows. It is not only their family that is broken. He cannot keep the grief from his voice, even as he tries to laugh.

“Not even that, Kano; have no fear.”

Makalaurë spares him a canny glance, all his lilting humor gone. “Is it as bad as that, then? All hope lost and only darkness ahead? And I thought I was the only one to suffer so.” His knuckles are white where they grip the broom, and his teeth flash for an instant in a bitter and unforgiving grin. He looks very like their father, in the moment, and Maitimo gapes at the sudden transformation.

Then the mood passes, and he is whistling again: some nursery tune from their own childhood, a legacy of warmer days, tangled in the memory of their mother’s soft embrace.

“Ah, well. Perhaps we shall end alone together, brother mine.” Makalaurë spins past Maitimo with the broom in his arms and drops a haphazard kiss on his cheek. “At least we shall never be plagued with twins.”