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“There is something wrong about the Crown Prince,” is the way to say it in polite company.
Not There is something wrong with him, although many believe it, but There is something wrong about him. King Finwë loves his son deeply, despite — everything — and Curufinwë Fëanáro is one of the first children born in this land, and it would not do to claim that there is anything wrong with the young prince where others, others who are perhaps more inclined to see the King’s view of things, would hear.
But there is something wrong about him. That is non-controversial enough.
“How many eyes?” Finwë asks, every time they leave the palace. Sometimes he wants to not, sometimes he wishes Fëanáro would learn to control himself around others, sometimes he wishes Fëanáro simply were not marred, but he does ask. It is important that Fëanáro has the best life he can have, despite — everything — and that means control.
“Two,” Fëanáro says, and adjusts his face accordingly. He’s scowling, but with Fëanáro, Finwë calls it good enough.
“How many arms and legs?”
“Two of each.”
“How many mouths?”
“One,” Fëanáro says, “and only on the face.” He’s a bright child; he could speak in full sentences should he choose. Finwë considers reminding him of this, and decides not to.
There are seven fingers on his left hand rather than six. Finwë doesn’t push. One extra finger is not enough that people will call him wrong, or flinch back when they look at him; one extra finger is not a large enough battle to fight.
From the way Fëanáro looks at him, and then looks down at his left hand, Finwë suspects Fëanáro kept the extra finger on purpose.
There is something wrong about him, they say in Tirion, and Fëanáro knows they mean that he is wrong.
Finwë tries to keep the rumors from his ears, but Fëanáro is a bright child and a curious one, and Finwë could never have been careful enough. If Fëanáro were older, he would say that it is better to be told an unpleasant reality than a half-truth; as it is, he says nothing, but listens as closely as he can.
There is something wrong with me, he thinks, and then, I am wrong.
He does his best when he is in public — two eyes when he remembers to keep track of them, two arms and two legs, six fingers on each hand except when he forgets to hold the number in his mind, one mouth and only on his face and under his clothes if he can't stick to just the one — but still, people glance at him and then immediately look away, skirt around uncomfortable topics, and address his father when asking questions clearly meant for him. Fëanáro is a bright child. He can tell when nobody wants him around.
Fëanáro practices in his room in the palace as carefully as he can, watches as fingers branch into more fingers, watches his skin blossom into shifting rainbows, sprouts as many eyes as he can keep track of and adjusts their colors and shifts them in slow-moving patterns, tries again a week later and can keep track of more. He teaches himself control, not by practicing an Elven form, but by practicing everything else.
It isn't really surprising when he leaves the city.
There is something wrong about the Crown Prince.
They call it Míriel’s legacy, when they know the King will not hear of it, and marring, when he will. When the King marries Indis of the Vanyar there is a scandal in Tirion, but there is also a sigh of relief.
Her children will not be marred, they say.
They are right. Her children are not marred.
Nolofinwë is born when Fëanáro is two and forty, a young adult just come back to Tirion. Nolofinwë is born a perfect child, but Fëanáro was too; it wasn't until after Míriel died that the marring set in.
Here is the difference, as far as Tirion is concerned: Nolofinwë stays a perfect child. He has two grey eyes, two arms and two legs, one mouth which is positioned on his face, six fingers on each hand, a single head, a stable hair color, a stable skin color.
Here is the difference, as far as Finwë is concerned: Nolofinwë will never need to arrange his face by checklist, and nobody will ever look at him and instinctively flinch away.
Here is the difference, as far as Fëanáro is concerned: Nolofinwë is what his father hoped for from him, for all that he is less intelligent, less talented, and less. Nolofinwë is what Fëanáro would have been were he not marred.
He had always half-hidden it, before, kept his marring in his hands and under his clothes where nobody would care. But if Finwë now has a child he can be proud of, then Fëanáro will take the marring, and be proud of it.
“Your son is horrifying,” Indis says to Finwë, when she thinks Nolofinwë can't hear her.
She means Fëanáro, of course. If she meant Nolofinwë she would have said our son. Nolofinwë leans against the closed door and strains his ears to hear; he is always hungry for news of Fëanáro.
“I know,” Finwë says, “you are not the first to tell me so, he's been — you know he doesn't live in the palace, there is only so much I can do —”
Oh. So they mean Fëanáro's new habit of going in public with an altered form. Nolofinwë has already heard about that, although Finwë and Indis have tried to keep it from him. He might not be Fëanáro but he isn't stupid.
Nolofinwë keeps listening, but it is only reassurances from Finwë to Indis that the marring in Fëanáro cannot infect anyone else, that Nolofinwë will not sprout new eyes in a year or new limbs in a decade.
Nolofinwë closes his eyes, of which there are only two. He hadn't considered that, but Fëanáro is his father's first and most beloved son — for Fëanáro is brilliant, and Finwë loves him deeply even despite everything; this Nolofinwë knows — and maybe, just maybe — he knows people find Fëanáro horrifying but to Nolofinwë he is nothing but fascinating and Nolofinwë doesn't see why Finwë is horrified when he finds Nolofinwë sitting in front of his mirror, concentrating so hard on his forehead so hard that he's gone cross-eyed.
“What are you doing?” Finwë asks, and Nolofinwë says simply, “Trying to make more eyes.”
Finwë and Indis don't speak of Fëanáro after that, or at least, not where Nolofinwë hears it.
Finwë loves his first son deeply, despite — everything. This is a well known truth.
This does not make it easier when Fëanáro decides that a typical elven form is beneath him, and walks through Tirion with three sets of arms to carry all of his books and eyes on his shoulders and a second mouth at his wrist, and all of Tirion’s eyes turn to watch Finwë’s reaction.
In public, he has none. Fëanáro is an adult, or nearly, and if he chooses to show a face that will only hinder him, he is old enough to make that decision.
In private, things are different. In private they are not King and Prince but father and son, and in private their interactions can be wholly personal.
(This is not, strictly speaking, true.)
But even so, in private, things are different. In private Finwë does not say “you are an adult, Curufinwë,” but “Fëanáro, how could you?”
“As if he was the one wronged!” Fëanáro says to Nerdanel, later. “As if it was him that the Valar declared marred by Melkor! As if it were my fault that I'm —” and he gestures to his entire body.
The body in question has feathers, and four sets of arms. Nerdanel doesn't comment.
“He's not going to change his mind there,” she says, and then looks at Fëanáro consideringly. He isn't ugly, whatever they say in Tirion, she thinks.
“I know,” Fëanáro says. He might be resigned, if Fëanáro were ever resigned to anything.
There's a comfortable silence, and then Nerdanel says, “Do you want to get married?”
And Fëanáro looks at her and smiles. It reaches his eyes, all seven of them; Nerdanel smiles back.
Nerdanel names their first child Maitimo, well-formed. He's beautiful, with flaming red hair and six silver eyes and sharp white teeth in his wide-open mouth.
Fëanáro holds his child in one set of arms and Nerdanel in the other, and there is nothing wrong with Maitimo, and there is nothing wrong with any of them.