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“Carnistir!”
The Feanorian camp scatters in the wake of a tall, brown skinned elleth, her dark, wavy hair braided back by a simple, though skilfully wrought, iron clasp. She stops in the middle of the forming crowd, hands on her blue-robed hips.
“Well? Will none of you summon him?”
A spatter of movement from the direction of the largest of the wood-and-stone buildings that make up the encampment on this side of Lake Mithrim. Better constructed than those early attempts left to her and hers. Given that the word is that they will soon be scattering off to war, it is hardly an issue.
The crowd parts again, as her fool of a husband storms his way towards her.
“Sanyadilmë,” he says. It is the first thing he has said to her in three years, since she broke his nose. It looks like someone – probably Makalaurë – has sung it straight, though his face is flushed with what is probably anger.
Good. She is still angry, though she has no intention to bring things to blows again. Shouting will do her a world of good.
“Carnistir.”
He looks thinner, though not unhealthily so. More muscular. Leaner. Gone is the delicate embroidery, which his father always lauded and coveted in equal measure, in its place a thick padded jacket and linen trousers; she presumes they are an underlayer for armour.
“You –“ he looks at the crowd. “We should talk inside.”
“By all means.”
He gestures and begins walking back the direction he came. The eyes of the crowd are still fixed on them, though as they move, so to do their curious watchers. No doubt returning to whatever it was that was consuming their attention before she came thundering through.
She follows him through the camp. It is a hive of activity – a roof being repaired here and a door being dismantled there. The din of the forges is a nigh constant clamour in the background, though the place seems to have been designed to keep them non central and downwind. Every free patch of ground has been dedicated to farmland, and they still have scaffold that presumably once held lamps before the sun rose. All in all, it looks like Fëanaro’s workroom in Formenos projected out onto a far grander scale, though with a degree of thoughtfulness that her late father-in-law never quite had the knack for.
“You have taken an interest in urban planning, then, I see,” she says. They have never been silent at each other. With each other, or at other people, or silent apart, but this pointed awkwardness is not something she will tolerate. “Our camp seems far less smoothly arranged.”
He glances at her, then at the cogwheels of organised chaos unfurling around them. “We learned a lot from that first experiment. I apologise if it is not to your satisfaction.”
“I should hope you did. I, personally, am fine. It does not sound like we will be staying there long, anyway.”
That earns her a longer look. “Nolofinwë intends to leave soon?”
It’s not a question, not really. Not surprised enough. Whatever has been happening behind closed doors, he is at least partly privy to.
“Mm – there’s some ceremony happening in a few days. After that, I believe. I’m sure you don’t know what that’s about, though.”
“I wouldn’t, no.”
“Hm.”
“Hm.”
Well. She leaves her pushing for now. Better to wait until they’re behind closed doors of their own.
He leads her up the steps to the large building at the centre of the settlement. It is certainly the best made, all stone with a slate tiled roof. There is an elegance to all the buildings here, thoughtfulness in the arches of the doors and the swooping of the rooves, but some relatively skilled stonecarver has taken hammer and chisel to this one. They’ve gone for rather appealing geometric designs, fractals dancing over each other in endless repetition. Even the steps are impressive. Good, solid stone, with enough gravitas to make it clear this is a building of some import.
The same attention has been paid to the inside. Wood panelling, the same patters carved in as a neat mirror to the outside. The floor is covered in thick rugs, like those favoured in Formenos, though without quite the same ostentation. Tapestries, mainly landscapes, though some featuring the various members and familiar hanger-ons of the house of Fëanaro decorate the walls.
“Yours?” she asks Carnistir.
“For the most part.” He opens a door and gestures her into what is clearly his office, if the scattering of burned down candles and piles of paperwork on the desk are any indication. None of his brothers have quite the same taste for burrowing themselves in their work.
He shuts them in with a rather satisfying clunk. All the doors are pleasingly thick, in a way that bodes well for the privacy this probably requires.
They stand there in silence for probably 25 seconds.
“Tea?” she says, just to break that.
“You can’t – you’re the one who said you were done. What are you doing here? No – what the fuck are you doing here? You can’t just – disturb everyone, show back up here like –“
“Like what, Carnistir?”
“You punched me!”
“You deserved it!” Ah. She’s shouting now.
She goes over to the door, opens it, Carnistir still sputtering away in the background. There are a few attendants carefully not hovering a few metres from the door.
“Would one of you mind getting us some tea?”
They look between them. The youngest, an ellon with dark hair twisted up into an elaborate bun, and almost shockingly pale skin, still in the lanky stages of near adulthood, dips a quick bow and strides off.
She moves back into the room, shuts the door.
Carnistir is facing the window, back a tense, angry line.
“I am furious with you, just to be clear,” she says.
“Oh good. I’m furious with you.”
“Your nose is fine.”
He turns at that, revealing his perfectly fine nose, and bright, angry eyes. Stars, they were one of the first features of his she noticed, back outside the Hall of Mathematical Sciences in Tirion, the way that the treelight seemed to reverberate through them.
“It’s not about the nose,” he grouches.
“Then pray illuminate me. Or shall I give you my perspective?”
“You’re the one whose been avoiding me,” he says. “You don’t get to just come over here, disrupt my people, start giving out orders – you chose to stay over there with – with those traitors.”
“Traitors?” she says and is amazed at how steady her voice is. She wants to tear his eyes out right now. “You. Left. Me. Do you understand that? You left me. You – my father followed my mother from Alqualondë to Tirion, and I followed you from Tirion to Alqualondë and you tempered your blades in the blood of my kin, and I followed you.” She is leaning over him, using all her height to her advantage, driving him against the wall like he pinned the Teleri against the sea that was their haven.
“Should I have been more worshipful about it? I worshipped your father all my life – his proof that some infinities could not cover others? I fell in love with it at five years old. That has defined my life, how could I not – he swept through disciplines, his slightest idea could change the direction of an entire field of study. Tell me where I betrayed him, Carnistir, tell me where I betrayed you, and I will leave. But by my reckoning, I –“
There is a knock on the door.
Carnistir slides around her, and she clenches a fist, breathes around it. He tugs unruffled clothes straight. “Enter.”
The young man from earlier, teapot, two mugs and saucers, steps in. “Your tea, my prince.”
Carnistir purses his lips slightly. “Thank you, put it on the desk.”
He does so, carefully not making eye contact with his red faced lord or Sanyadilmë, her hair static with rage.
“Anything else, my prince?”
“Thank you, Celolamo, that will be all.”
Ah.
Celolamo, last she saw him, came up to her waist and would rarely move out from behind his father’s leg. He looks like him, come to think of it. The same eyes. That straight dark hair is his mother’s, the nervous twist to his lips is all his own.
He bows, heads for the door. Hesitates for a second before closing it behind him.
“Little Celolamo,” says Sanyadilmë. “Taller than I thought he would be.”
“His father stayed in Tirion,” says Carnistir. He is not making eye contact with her, studiously fixed on the door.
“And Feryawendë?”
“She was with my father when he died.”
“And so you, what, put their son to work? He would have been a child then.”
“And you have cast me as the eternal -!” He stops, breathes. Clenches a fist and then releases it. “I am trying here, Sanyadilmë. What do you want from me – shall I yell at you? Of course you’re the wronged ones, you all love to tell us what monsters we are. Well, you had a choice! You chose to follow Nolofinwë, you chose to come here – you chose every single consequence that follows from that. Stop blaming me for your own fucking choices, alright?”
There it is. “I don’t blame you for my choices. I made them, I do not regret them. I blame you for yours, and for the heedless, needless suffering that resulted. What difference would it have made – look me in the eyes, oh husband, and tell me what difference it would have made if we had crossed with you?”
He looks, then, finally meets her gaze.
“Itarillë would have a mother. That’s a difference. Perhaps you would have a father, perhaps we would already have won this war. Perhaps your brother would be here now, because fuck knows that your aides would have summoned him the second they heard raised voices. That is what came from your choice. All I chose was to follow.”
She holds him there for a second, two, three, and then he breaks. He crosses over to the desk, pours dark tea into the two cups. She follows, takes hers.
“We trade with the Laiquendi for it,” he says. “There’s opportunity there – metalwork, wool. Defence, also.”
There’s consideration. Surprising. The tea is edging on stale, though not notably so. It is a richer flavour than he used to prefer.
“Come here,” he says. Takes her over to the window, overlooking the camp. The bustling hive continues to prickle with chaotic coordination.
“If you mean to tell me that this is a war camp, where everyone must contribute their part, I assure you, I am well aware.” She takes another sip of her tea.
“Well, it is, but that’s not the point. You – I didn’t make Celolamo start what, serving my table, building weapons, whatever it is you’re imagining. I wouldn’t – he was a child, orphaned, or as good as, for our cause. He stayed with his aunt, we made sure they had what they needed its – just look outside. Please. Tell me what you don’t see.”
She turns fully to face the window. “There are many things I do not see. Orcs, thankfully. Flying boar. The point of this exercise.”
“Celolamo would’ve been a poet if we’d stayed,” says Carnister, quiet now. “Or a master of lore, or he’d have painted his father’s pots. But he has no real gift for Song – we tried seeing if he could heal, maybe, but no.”
“Am I to note some lack of artistry? You forget, I have grown used to practicality. Compared to that...”
He is silent, and then, “No – that’s. There’s artistry. Of course there’s art, am I to assume that your side have completely abandoned beauty? What would separate us from our enemy, then. No, it’s – I watched him. This boy who should’ve grown up to make poetry, who has no stomach for violence, no knack for healing. I found him a place here, because that’s what I do, and I made it one where he has time to be what he could’ve been because that’s what I owed to his mother, even if his father betrayed us – me – and he does not write poetry.”
“What does he do, then?”
“He goes out into the camp and he helps with fixing roofs, or gather the harvest, or train with the sword. Everyone does – artists only in the pursuit of function. We do not create for the sake of creation, even if what we do create is beautiful. We don’t – no one plays.”
“There’s no children,” says Sanyadilmë. “Of course there aren’t. Is he the youngest here?”
“He has a few months on Tyelpë, but that’s it. I watched him stop playing and start working, start dedicating himself to ‘avenging his mother’ and I thought – that’s it. That’s the end. No one new, until we finish this, avenge all our dead. Nothing new, nothing –“
“I’m an engineer now,” she tells him. Keeps her gaze fixed outside. “Or an architect, maybe. I’ve been helping improve the housing. I haven’t even sat down to think about that paper I was working on; I suppose it’s all still on my desk back in Formenos.”
“And I’m Nelyo.” She feels his eyes on her, turns to face him. “Part of him, anyway. Kano is another part. Tyelko can’t be, Curvo is needed running the forges, and Ambarussa. Not an option. So I stand next to Kano, and I try to stay calm and keep this place running, and I try not to start more wars, and I am furious –“ he turns, strides back towards the desk, leans over it with his back to her – “I am this constant, frothing font of rage and if I let it show, even for a second, in front of the wrong people, I –“
“Carnistir the peacemaker,” she says. “And Sanyadilmë, builder of cities. What a pair we make.”
He looks back over at her, gazing out the window, sipping her tea. “’Laurë is declaring Nolofinwë regent king, as Nelyo’s eldest living relative. That’s what’s going on.”
Unexpected. She allows herself a second to process it. “And that will solve all our problems, then.”
“Father would be furious – I am furious. We are furious – our house dishonoured, our throne yielded to a power-hungry half-Vanyar traitor fool.” He turns on her. “And the ships – should we have blinkered ourselves, to turn a blind eye Finwë-Nolofinwë’s grasping reach! No, he will have everything he wanted and my father, my brother, how low we must have fallen in their esteem. But we must apologise.” He spits out the last word, like it burns him.
“Hm,” she says. “And yet.”
His voice rings with disgust. “And yet.”
“Where are we going, then?”
Now that cuts through. “We?”
“Well, if we’re scattering from Lake Mithrim, I assume you have a destination in mind.”
“A place called Thargelion,” he says, still slightly awkward with the Sindarin. “It’s – here.” He grabs a furled scroll, straightens it flat against the table. “Look at the map.” It’s in the East, bounded by rivers and mountains. “’Laurë wants me out of trouble.” His mouth twists, but doesn’t quite make it to a scowl.
“Well. I suppose my newfound city building expertise will soon be put to the test.”
“I assumed you’d stay with your new friends,” he says, lovely and acerbic.
“Like I said, I chose to follow you long ago. I’d rather we go together, but I will do as I must.”
He dips his head, drinks some tea.
“So?” she prompts.
“There’s a lake – you can see it there,” he says. “I thought I’d set up there. Fresh water, and it’s apparently between some Dwarf cities, and the rest of Beleriand, so there’s trade opportunities.”
“Helevorn.” She tastes the word.
“Don’t tell anyone about ‘Laurë’s plan,” he says. “The regency – I shouldn’t have told you.”
“Same as it ever was, then.”
She sets her cup down on the tray, takes his from his hand and places it next to it. She reaches up, cups his cheek. This close, there is a faint silvery line across the bridge of his nose.
“You should have stayed in Valinor.” There is something quiet there, in the shifting of his jaw under her palm. An axiom, a fundamental truth at the heart of this conversation from which all else has spiralled.
“So should you,” she says. “I don’t forgive you, just so you know. I don’t know if I ever will.”
He presses into her hand. “I know.”