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Today, Atar’s nose thwarts Maitimo’s progress. Yesterday, it was his left eyebrow.
He sighs, setting the charcoal on the flat stone beside him. He is too indulgent of himself, if he pretends that a single feature keeps him from perfection. He is too indulgent, by seeking something else to blame.
“Drawing the birds?”
Maitimo claps shut the notebook guiltily. “I draw no birds,” he says. “Why, are you fond of them?”
“Aye,” Findekáno answers, and flops down the grass, seemingly uncaring of what anyone should think of him—or perhaps knowing that the person whose opinion he cares for most is also very fond of stretching out upon lawns.
“What manner of bird? Large, small?”
“The sparrows sing charmingly enough.” Findekáno tips his head back so that, to Maitimo, the arrangement of his eyes and mouth are reversed. Yet he does not look ridiculous, for there is something very steady about Findekáno’s eyes, whether they are upside down or not. “But then—my heart soars at the sight of Manwë’s eagles. Only imagine, Russandol, what it would be like to ride on the back of one!”
“I would not do so willingly.”
“Would you not? Feathers for reins—wind in your hair—of course, if it were you, the people would think you a sky-god.”
He does not know why he draws Atar at all, why he attempts a project that can never be successfully completed, at least by him.
He says, “I’ll have to ask Manwë to make me one. A sky-god, I mean.”
“Don’t be all—blasphemous,” Findekáno says, sitting up hastily.
“Were you about to say, Fëanoarian?”
“No.”
“You were.” Maitimo smiles despite himself, despite the fact that he can’t even give the sketch to Amil, for she will forget her own discerning artist’s eye in her love for him, and will show it to Atar as if it is one of Pityo or Telvo’s stone-studded mud-pies.
Atar will think it worth about as much.
“What were you drawing? Will you not show me?”
“I would rather show no one,” Maitimo says ruefully. “I have no skill.” He means to say for sketching, but the sentence ends where it does, and is no less true.
“You could sketch me. I would be pleased with it.”
“I have sketched you.”
“You have?”
“Yes, and then Tyelko tore it up in a rage.”
“Of course he did.” Findekáno frowns blackly. Though he is between Makalaurë and Tyelko in age, his rivalry only runs towards one of them.
“I’ll draw you now, if you hold still.”
“Really?” Findekáno is practically giddy with excitement. He fusses with his robes, with his hair—“Like this? Like this, Russandol?”
“Yes,” Maitimo answers. “Exactly like that.”
“Findekáno?”
“What is it? Do you need anything?”
There is nothing left to need. “No. I was only thinking—the eagle. We came here on an eagle, didn’t we?”
“Yes.”
He smiles despite himself, despite the fact that even smiling hurts. “I’m glad I do not remember it.”