Tyelkormo's Great Escape by Aprilertuile

At home

It hadn’t taken long for Nerdanel to discover the plot, all things told. Far less time than Maitimo had hoped, honestly.

She had consoled Makalaurë as best she could, but that evening when she realized that Tyelkormo didn’t come to eat all day long, and no one had seen him in hours at best, she went to check the stables and found her son’s horse gone.

She had gone back inside to interrogate both Maitimo and Makalaurë who remained silent on the subject of their brother’s whereabouts, which seemed to annoy her to no end, when Fëanáro had come home in the surprising company of Findekáno.

Maitimo was quite surprised that his father even tolerated his cousin long enough to come home with him.

“Nelyo!” Findekáno exclaimed, coming to hug him cheerfully.

“Hello Findo.”

“I don’t suppose you saw Tyelkormo?” Nerdanel asked her nephew in a resigned tone of voice.

“He was in Tirion earlier. I tried to tell him hi but he left like he didn’t see me.” Findekáno answered with a shrug even as Makalaurë signed hurriedly to him to shut up.

Nerdanel emitted a sound of frustration and left the room in a hurry.

“Where are you going?” Fëanáro called her.

“To find that moody child before he does something I’ll regret!”

Fëanáro raised an eyebrow at that, watching her back as she left the room. He then turned at his two eldest, ignoring his nephew, and crossed his arms over his chest:

“Alright you two. Spill. What is happening in this madhouse?”

“Well… Mom was going on and on about the fact that Tyelko needed a new robe for the season and absolutely needed to be nice for the balls and she was going on and on about the fact she confirmed his presence at the winter balls to grand-father Finwë and how he absolutely needed to be on his best behavior or else if he wanted to have a chance to find a good match…” Makalaurë said.

“And you know what Tyelko thinks of that.” Maitimo pointed out.

“And so your brother made his escape I suppose?”

“Uhu. We uh… Sort of… Helped? We sort of distracted mom long enough for him to leave and… Well…”

Fëanáro snorted in amusement at that.

“Alright then. I take it that your mother is furious at your brother’s escape. I suggest you two make yourself scarce before she adds two and two and come up with a reliable four regarding your involvement here.”

“That was the plan, dad.” Maitimo answered amused.

Fëanáro shook his head:

“Do I even want to know where your brother went?”

“Up north.”

“… Say that again?!” Findekáno exclaimed, clearly sharing in Fëanáro’s own surprise at the idea.

“We thought that it’d be less likely that mom could catch Tyelko in time to force him to attend the winter events at the palace if he went somewhere hard to access. Also he’s a hunter of Oromë, it’s not like he’s not used to living in stupidly hard conditions. If he went to Oromë, mom would get him back in a heartbeat just by being stubborn about following him around and being just in the way of things if necessary. And same if he went to Valmar or Alqualondë or remained in Tirion so…” Maitimo explained.

“Very well then. I know nothing, and neither do you, child. You do NOT get in the middle of that mess.” Fëanáro said, warning Findekáno.

“Uh… obviously, yes, I know nothing. But really you realize it’s only confirming that Tyelko’s weird !”

“Hey!” Makalaurë exclaimed, offended on his brother’s behalf.

“Who wants to go up North , in the cold, in winter?! Absolutely no one sane!”

“If you’re here to insult my sons, any of them, you know where the door is!” Fëanáro intervened firmly.

“We’ll go to my room!” Maitimo said, grabbing both his brother and his cousin and leaving.

Their mother would already be in a terrible mood, there was no need to add their father’s anger to the mix.

In the room, as soon as the door closed behind them, Makalaurë started laughing.

“So… Does someone want to go into details about what happened?”

Maitimo sat at his desk, looking on with amusement as Findekáno and Makalaurë settled on his bed, Makalaurë going into excruciatingly dramatic details about what happened, making their cousin laugh at the ridicule of the situation.