Tales of Thanksgiving: A Drabble Collection by Dawn Felagund

Curiosity

The early love and obsession of Nerdanel and Fëanor, for Angaloth.

Curiosity

I.

As a child, my father said, I was but a pair of wide eyes peering over tabletops. Under tables. Into hidden nooks and corners. My fingernails had crescents of dirt beneath them from putting my hands where they did not belong. I inspected the lock and built a key and used it to enter my father's forge, curious about the wonders I might find there.

He warned me, "Careful, Nerdanel, for your curiosity will burn you!" catching my small hands reaching for a chunk of coal that--still black on the outside--upon being broken glowed red within, with fire.

II.

Fëanáro served opposite me as an apprentice, and I would watch his hands as he worked: slender and pale and quick as spiders, hypnotizing to watch, making nimble work of the most complex tasks.

But he was careless and would cut or burn himself in his haste--his curiosity--fingers welling in blisters that pained me to see. "But Nerdanel," he told me, "it is worth it!" Lifting a finger to his mouth to cool the pain. I watched his hand. I watched his lips and envied them, for possessing his hand.

And envied his hand, for possessing his lips.

III.

On the day he put light into stone, he pressed it into my palm, and I claimed light.

He folded my hands in his, always warm and no longer scarred, for he was too skilled for that now.

Curiosity: it fluttered inside of me, plunked with a hot and heavy weight into my belly and burned there.

I reached across the space between us, only my father was no longer there to warn me of my curiosity, from unseen fire within the body that I touched in reverence, closed my eyes and kissed.

Stone--light--forgotten, we claimed each other.