Chapter Text
“Are you just going to sit there?”
Celebrian thought to reply that she was, in fact, planning to just sit there. It was enough that she’d gone into the gardens (although that had only been because her uncle had threatened to carry her there if she didn’t go herself).
“That’s not going to solve anything you know,” the woman continued, marching over to stand beside Celebrian and squint down at her.
Finally, Celebrian looked up and then pulled back slightly at the sight of the woman in front of her. Although they’d never been formally introduced, she knew immediately who she was speaking with. There was a short list of people who had her fiery hair, and only one that Celebrian could think of that would be inside the royal gardens. “Lady Nerdanel?” she asked in surprise.
The sculptress huffed, “And you are Lady Celebrian, yes?”
“I- yes.”
“Then I will repeat my question: are you just going to sit there Lady Celebrian?”
“And if I am, Lady Nerdanel, what does it mean to you?”
“Sitting there won’t solve anything.”
“It makes my uncle happy, and that’s enough for me,” Celebrian replied. Nerdanel seemed to give up after that and retreated back to where ever she had come from. Celebrian tried to pretend she wasn’t sorry.
Finrod failed to get Celebrian to the garden the next day, or the day after that or the day after that. When threatening to carry her failed to make he tried to make good on his threats, only to have her cry out in fright, pulled into her past, remembering the last time she’d been carried against her will.
He’d left her alone after that, sending Turgon in his stead, attempting to bribe her with sweets. She’d locked her door, but the former king found a key and let himself in.
She was hiding in her closet when he found her, and he gave her the sweets wordlessly and sat with her in silence.
The next morning, Nerdanel marched into her room, threw open the curtains, and announced, “You need sunlight to sculpt.”
Startled from her sleep, Celebrian stared at her from the bed. “I don’t know how to sculpt.”
“Which is why I am here. You can’t learn sculpting from your uncle. Believe me, I’ve tried to teach him.”
She tried to teach Celebrian as well, once she got the younger woman out of bed. But Celebrian seemed to have her uncle’s talent for sculpting, which was Nerdanel’s way of saying she had no talent for it at all.
“It looks like a frog,” Nerdanel said, looking at the sculpture Celebrian had struggled with for hours.
“It’s my son,” Celebrian protested, although she was aware of how weak her protest sounded. She wasn’t even certain which of her sons it was meant to be, although that didn’t really matter seeing as how they were twins.
“Your son looks like a frog.”
For a moment Celebrian just stared at her, unable to believe anyone would say such a thing. Then a soft giggle erupted from her lips. “I suppose.”
“Mine tried to eat one once.”
“A frog?”
Nerdanel nodded. “Tyelkormo snuck it into the house and he and Atarince thought to convince Carnistir that it was a delicacy.”
Celebrian tried to picture what Nerdanel was describing. Maedhros and Maglor she had heard kind things about from Elrond, but the middle three seemed to be the most hated (or feared). “He believed it?”
“Oh he was a stupid boy,” Nerdanel said dismissively. When Celebrian gaped she explained, “He knew his way around books, certainly, but lacked any common sense. Eating that frog was one of the smarter things he ever did.”
She seemed saddened by that, as though recalling the other foolish things her sons had done, but at last she shook her head and said, “Next we’ll try painting, surely you can manage that.”
“I know how to paint,” Celebrian protested.
“Who taught you?”
“My mother.”
The older elf merely snorted. “Then I can only imagine what a travesty it will be.”
Nerdanel came the next day, as promised.
Celebrian was expecting her, that time, and was already sitting up in bed. “Not even dressed yet?” Nerdanel asked, raising an eyebrow. Finrod trailed behind her, offering excuses for Celebrian still being in her nightgown. Nerdanel ignored him. “I wasn’t planning to start with nude paintings, but if that’s what you want-”
Celebrian threw a pillow at her before stalking to her bathing chamber to dress. Once she was dressed she emerged to find Nerdanel positioning Finrod by the window, pushing flowers into his hair and swatting his hand away when he tried to assist.
“Wouldn’t it look better-” he began.
“You’re here to be pretty, not use your brain,” she retorted. Celebrian hid a grin. Finrod opened his mouth to protest and Nerdanel shoved a large blossom into his mouth. “Last time you tried to do more than just be pretty you got yourself eaten by a wolf for your trouble.”
Whatever protest he might have come up with was abandoned when Celebrian started laughing. After that, he sat silently and allowed them to paint him in peace.
Celebrian’s painting ability was marginally better than her sculpting ability. “I’ve always been better at landscapes,” she said by way of explanation.
Nerdanel was having none of it. “Any fool with a bit of paint can make a landscape. Capturing expression is where talent lies.” She looked at Celebrian’s painting and shook her head. “From what I’ve heard, your uncle looked better when he was dead.”
Finrod spit the flower out of his mouth. “I beg your pardon?”