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“I’m bringing something for my brother,” he said, almost bouncing on his toes. “Is he here?” Unlike his elder brother who was tall and strong, Arafinwë was short and lithely built, his hair was golden where his half-brother’s was black, and he had a perpetual smile on his face where Feanor usually had a look of intense concentration. The only thing they had in common was their eyes.
Poor thing, Nerdanel thought, watching his clear excitement. He still hasn’t figured out Feanor hates him. But she wasn’t going to be the one to break that to him. She nodded down the hall. “Second door on the left, there’s a letterbox. I’ll see to it that he gets it.” She gave him a welcoming smile and didn’t mention that Feanor would most likely burn the gift.
Then she went back to her sketch.
It was several minutes until she heard another noise from her nephew. First, it was a loud, shrill scream. Then a crash.
Nerdanel jumped to her feet and ran toward her, a desperate prayer on her lips. “Arafinwë!” He didn’t answer.
Her newest sculpture was in shattered pieces on the floor, and there was no sign of her brother-in-law. She ran forward, stumbling over more of her art, pushing it out of the way and not caring if anything else broke in the process. “Boy!” she shouted. “Arafinwë!”
The broken sculpture had been much larger than Arafinwë, some of the pieces that remained were larger than him still, and she looked under them frantically for any sign of him. She sniffed deeply but didn’t smell blood.
“N-nerdanel.”
Her head turned sharply, revealing Arafinwë, hiding under a table, unharmed. She only let her relief wash over her for a minute before shouting, “What were you thinking!?” She fell to her knees and pulled him out from under the table, dragging both of them to their feet. “Are you hurt?” she demanded. When he didn’t answer, she shook him and repeated her demand, “If you’re hurt tell me now.”
“I- I got under the table before-”
“Then you had better offer your thanks to whatever Vala protects fools,” she released his shirt and leaned back against the table, shaking. He had almost died. She took a deep breath, running her fingers through her hair.
“I- I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as you will be when I’m through with you.”
He winced. “I’ll help you fix it,” he offered weakly.
“I don’t want your help!” she cried. “I don’t want you in my workshop! You were meant to take your gift, leave it in the letterbox, and go.”
“I- I saw it through the door.”
“And thought you’d invite yourself in? Did your parents teach you no manners?”
He said nothing, looking down at his feet. She sighed and grabbed him by his wrist, dragging him roughly from the room, not looking to see how much damage had been done. All that mattered was that he was still breathing, not a bloodied smear on her floor.
She grabbed a ruler on their way out, and a slight tremor ran through Arafinwë. “Don’t act as though you’ve never been paddled before,” she snapped.
“Father uses his hand,” he said weakly, stumbling along behind her.
“Well, I’m not your father.”
She pulled him back to her drafting room, pulling the chair out of her desk, sitting, and yanking him across her lap. “Stop!” he yelled as she yanked down his pants.
“Hush,” she said and flicked the ruler across his skin.
“You can’t do that! You’re not my mother!” His words ended in a choked sob as the ruler landed twice more.
She paused for a moment, letting him balance himself over her lap. “You could have died, boy, do you understand that? What would your mother think if you had?”
“I didn’t think,” he whimpered. “Please Nerdanel.”
His pleas went unanswered, and she struck the ruler against him again. “I’m not going to let you die on my watch, Arafinwë. And if this is the only way to get through your thick skull, then so be it.” She fell into an easy rhythm, trying to tell herself that she was striking stone at a forge, not a small child.
He had an impressive lung capacity, and Nerdanel was once again grateful that her husband was out for the day since Arafinwë’s cries echoed off the walls hauntingly. But every time she thought of showing him a bit of mercy, she remembered how much smaller he was than the smashed statue, and the blood she’d envisioned on the floor.
Finally, when his cries had turned to muffled sobs, she stopped, dropping the ruler onto her desk and instead rubbed her hand over his reddened skin.
“Shh,” she murmured, helping him sit up. “Everything’s well now.”
He only sobbed in response.
“Do you understand why I did that?” she asked softly, stroking his back as he wept, cradling him close. “It’s because I care.”
He sniffled. “You hate me,” he accused, “just like my half-brother.”
So he did know about Feanor’s feelings toward him. A part of her was sorry for it. “Little boy, I care a great deal for you, regardless of what my husband thinks.” She carefully brushed her fingers through his hair, over once neat braids that had become frazzled over the course of his near-death experience and punishment. “I can’t stop him from hating you, any more than I can stop myself from loving you, do you understand?”
“No.”
She chuckled. “If you ever have kids of your own, you’ll understand why I paddled you.”
He hiccuped, leaning into her soft touches. “I am sorry about the statues,” he said. “I- I can help clean.”
“No. You need to be gone before my husband returns.”
Nerdanel helped him off her lap, gently pulling up his pants, rubbing the last of the tears from his face. “I’ll walk you home-”
“No!” he shook his head, then hiccuped. “I- I can walk myself.”
“Very well.” She ruffled his hair. “Stay out of trouble, and take the back path, Feanor is less likely to use that way.”