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They are not in Tirion, and Carnistir is listening to the birds.
It is a punishment; not one imposed upon him by some forbidding force of parent or brother, but one he makes himself. Just yesterday, he stumped heavily through the underbrush, not heeding Tyelko’s cry of warning, and crushed a nest of eggs.
He was only exploring, but such explanation did no good. Tyelko was all flashing fury, his unbound hair falling over his face and hands as he stooped to inspect Carnistir’s destruction.
“Ruined!” he cried, and turned with his fists clenched tight.
At any other time, Carnistir would have put up a fight. Would have clenched his own fists and bloodied Tyelko’s nose without thinking a moment further. But the fragile shell fragments, smashed by his heavy, stupid boots, seemed to dance before his eyes.
(He ran away.)
They are not in Tirion. Sometimes, when the days feel long, Atar grows weary of the city and they ride north. North is where the trees tangle thickly together and the sky is freer.
At least, that is how Makalaurë sings of it. Freer.
Carnistir thought he would like it here, but he rarely gets anything right.
He listens to the birds, now, and thinks that four new voices will never join them. There were four little shells in the nest. He holds his breath until his face has turned as red as his mother named it. He deserves this, for being clumsy. Blockhead, Atarinkë calls him, and that isn’t fair because Atarinkë is a decade younger. Of course, Atarinkë has been full of insolence since he was barely in breeches.
Blockfoot, more like, Tyelko might answer, even before the unfortunate incident with the nest. Carnistir has neither of their light treads.
If Tyelko said that, Carnistir would lower his head and drive it right into Tyelko’s stomach, since that would get him in less trouble than would pummeling Atarinkë.
“Don’t worry,” Nelyo told him once, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “Soon Atarinkë will be old enough for you to fight.”
Carnistir’s mood had brightened at that. “Really?”
And Nelyo had laughed, for he was teasing after all. “No, Carnistir. You should not fight your brothers.”
A foot prods him, and he opens his eyes and blows out his breath, expecting some belated retribution from Tyelko.
It isn’t Tyelko—it isn’t one of his brothers at all.
“Artanis?” He sits up, surprised.
Uncle Arafinwë insisted on accompanying them on their journey north; Atar grumbled but did not outright refuse, as he would if Uncle Ñolofinwë asked.
(Uncle Ñolofinwë would not ask.)
Uncle Arafinwë brings with him his three sons, who get on well with everyone, and little Artanis, who gets on with nearly no one.
She is not, Carnistir supposes, so little any more.
Her hair is like the light of Laurelin, Atar said once, marveling. Arafinwë and his household had departed after a day’s visit. Why do none of our children wear such a color?
Do not test me, Fëanáro, Amil answered. I have given you seven sons, and they have plenty of hair between them. Then she stalked away to her room of statues.
“You look like an overripe apple,” Artanis announces. She has her glorious hair tumbled back behind her ears and tied up in a strip of leather. She is wearing what looks like one of her brother’s surcoats. She has her hands on her hips.
Carnisitir feels a flare of annoyance, and then weariness. He has been grieving for the birds, and it is not like him to think long on any such torment, and thus he is tired now.
“You look like a hog that has been rooting about in the leaves,” he fires back, and expects her to flush with rage. But Artanis’s eyes—a bluer grey than any of his brothers’, than his own—twinkle.
“You’re in a foul mood,” she says, and sits down beside him without invitation. “Thank Eru.”
“What?” Carnistir asks awkwardly. He is not good at this—knowing what to say, at the best of times. Clumsy.
“The rest of them are comparing earrings and bracelets,” Artanis sniffs. “Findaráto dresses like a peacock, wherever we go, and your brothers are envious. Or something. I care not.”
“Nor I,” Carnistir answers, quick and suddenly sincere. He has long since given up on being the fairest of Fëanáro’s sons. What is he compared to Maitimo’s perfect features, or Makalaurë’s light-drenched voice? He has Amil’s square bones without her womanly curves, and he has Atar’s hair and dark brows, only his are coarse and bushy. “What was your plan for today?” Even if she is his cousin, she’s still a girl—a maiden—and he is half-sure she is teasing him with her attention.
“To slay a monster,” Artanis says, chewing at her lips. They’re as chapped as Carnistir’s own. His skin is delicate, the only delicate part of him, and he does not protect it enough from the wind here. Tonight, surely, Amil will be at his heels with a pot of some healing cream, and then how his brothers will laugh! As if Nelyo does not worry over his freckles—as if Atarinkë does not draw a line of kohl along the lids of his eyes and pretend it is for protection in the forge, when in fact it is for vanity.
“What kind of monster?”
“A dragon,” Artanis answers gleefully, and she stands up on steady feet, reaching beneath her lumpy surcoat. She draws forth two short practice swords: wooden, painted in the house colors of Arafinwë.
“I’m not a child,” Carnistir grumbles, because appearances must be kept up.
“Nor am I! We are warriors, today.”
Would she cry or be shamed, if he scoffed at her? He thinks not. He thinks his little (not-so-little) cousin would blast him with her blue-grey gaze, and toss her head, and run into battle without him.
Carnistir takes her offered hand, and the second sword.
(They run away.)