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Sunset always drenches the world red.
"Magnifique," Daeron murmurs. "La viellesse du soleil."
"Had you forgotten it?"
"Never." His eyes are shadowed as he looks at her. "I couldn't."
"This is the land of the sun," Luthien says. "Yet I don't think it belongs to me." Her hands, her bare feet, are hued warm as Mama's blood oranges.
They have had this habit a long while, standing by the western windows as the sky bleeds into night. Now that Daeron has returned, it seems only natural to revisit their old haunts.
The sun sets late, because it is summer, and the days are long days, dry with heat. Luthien wears a gauzy robe over her sleep-shift. Her arms and legs show through it rather plainly, in the glow, but modesty is of little consequence when the only people who will see her are Mama and Papa and Daeron.
Luthien likes to be free.
"What belongs to you?" Daeron asks.
"Stars." Hope. "Maybe the moon, if I'm feeling bold. La lune, la Luthien. Can't you see it? It all fits."
Daeron clears his throat. "It does."
She is more aware than usual of his presence beside her. His knowledge of the outside world. Even if he hasn't seen Beren--and he hasn't, for he would have told her if he had--he has the scents and scions of foreign mysteries hanging about him.
Once Luthien has a thought, she cannot let it go.
"Papa," Luthien says, looping her arms around her knees, "I have question for you."
"Anything, dearest."
Daeron is translating a newspaper at the desk Papa keeps for him; a fine cedar piece. Papa is looking at a map. Luthien is looking for a future.
"No, not anything." She smiles, though her pulse quickens a bit. Just nerves. "Will you promise not to be angry?"
Papa immediately looks angry, but he also cannot quite keep a smile from the corner of his lips. "Tinuviel. Do not tease me."
"I am not teasing." Luthien answers, growing grave.
"Then what have you done?"
In her carved chair, Mama lifts a dark brow, and turns her embroidery wheel in her hands. She is stitching silver birds.
"It isn't anything I've done, Papa, but now you are curious, aren't you? I will not tell you what my question is unless you promise."
Thingol sets aside his map. "This is unjust." There is a moment's pause. "I promise."
"I cannot stop thinking," Luthien says, tightening her linked fingers, "About...Feanor's sons."
The air in the room seems to grow colder, but she is used to that. Daeron's pen has stilled, and Mama's needle dangles from her hoop.
"He had sons, yes."
"He was not--he was not a very old man."
(When I look at you, Beren said, I cannot see you to be afraid of anything.)
"No."
"His sons cannot be very old either." She turns her gaze to Daeron, who is watching her. Quickly, his eyes fall to his papers again. "I understand completely, Father, why you are not on friendly terms with any of them. But do you know how young they are?"
His silence is telling.
"Children?" Luthien whispers.
"Thingol," Mama murmurs, plying her needle again.
"Oh, maldito." Papa tosses the map down, now. "Yes, Luthien, his sons are still rather young. They were children when he left them to come and steal my diamonds. I would not be surprised if some of them are still children now. I was barely privy to any of this, but for his tendency to brag like a bullock."
"It is no sin to brag about your children."
The smile on Papa's lips is almost sad, but then he goes gruff and dark again. "It is a sin to throw them in the path of war. You hardly asked a question, daughter. What is it?"
"Can you..."
"No."
"You promised you would not be angry."
He waits. The whole room waits.
"Can you find out if his children are being looked after?"
Papa glowers. "They are at Fort Mithrim."
"But Rumil is unwell. Didn't you say so, Daeron? What else have you--"
Daeron rises and bows. "Begging your pardon, sir," he says, before Papa can begin to storm. "I told her only the essentials...of my news."
"And you decided what was essential." Papa leans down over the arm of his chair to recollect his map. "Luthien, I will not waste my time with worries over Feanor's spawn, no matter how young they are. And nor will you."
"Please." She does not want to speak Bauglir's name; she knows how it will hurt him, to hear it falling from her lips. But Bauglir shows no kindness to children.
Less than kindness.
"You asked your question," Papa raps out. He will not look at her again. "I am not angry, but the conversation is closed."
"Daeron," Luthien whispers, in the grey morning, at the door of the stables, from whence he rides to errands mysterious and free. "Bring back news."
"Cherie..."
"Of them. Please."