Chapter Text
The third thing Laurefindil asked for upon his return, after basics like hair-products and clothes (but not food: apparently, it took the reborn a while to regain their appetites), was art supplies.
“Of course, take anything you want from my studio,” Loswë told him. “What do you plan to work on?”
“I want to capture my memories,” her son replied. “Of my previous life, out East. Before they fade.”
That made sense. Based on his stories, he had witnessed not just the expected horrors, but also much beauty. Still, Loswë suspected he would find himself painting the horrors, one day.
—
The cityscapes and landscapes were very well done, on the whole. Laurefindil had clearly chosen his colour palettes and media carefully, conveying a variety of atmospheres. The background figures were delightful too, with well-observed lifelike postures and gestures.
The foreground figures, however, tended to look stiff and idealised: paragons of beauty, rather than real people. And overworked, as if Laurefindil had tried to fix them. So, Loswë refrained from critique.
“I prefer this white city of yours to Tirion,” she said instead. “I like the asymmetry, how it echoes the mountain background.”
“Thank you.” Laurefindil kept frowning at the foreground.
—
“That life-size oil painting in the toolshed is yours, right?” Loswë asked. “It gave me quite the scare.”
“Sorry.” Laurefindil grimaced. “It is a failure, I know. That is why I hid it.”
“You could paint over it, perhaps?”
“I plan to! Well, over the face, anyway: the armour came out well.”
The armour was indeed rather lifelike, for all those jewels and spikes. “Is it supposed to represent something? The rage of the Exiles?”
“No. It is no allegory, it… We all looked terrifying at times, even me,” said Laurefindil.
His soft, uncertain expression made this hard to believe.
—
“Here.” Laurefindil placed a stack of paintings on the tea-table. “I have finally portrayed ‘the horrors’ everyone always asks about. What do you think?”
Loswë picked up the first. Teals and violets tended to soothe, but not when they had such jagged forms. “The Ice, I presume? But there are no people.”
“It is no place for people. But that one features some, if you look closely.”
She did look closely, past the red-orange shapes of flames and buildings and the smears of black smoke. Some of the dark marks could be figures, and not charred beams, she supposed.
The next picture was a contrast in every way: a cool, calm, detailed rendition of a mountainside.
“I see no horror here,” she said.
“Oh, that is where I died,” said Laurefindil. “On a path I had walked many times before, in my leisure hours. But please do not worry.” There was nothing forced about his smile. “The Halls have helped me come to terms with all that.”
But not with everything. Though he spoke of the past willingly and in light tones, Loswë was often aware of some constraint, some strong emotion.
But he would share it when ready, surely.
__
“Can I have the shopping list?” Loswë asked.
“Sorry?” Laurefindil looked up from his scribbling.
“I need it. I am going to the market.”
“What do–” Laurefindil flipped his sketch over. “Ah. I apologise; I grabbed it without thinking. Should I make you a clean copy?”
“Why? What have you done to this one?” Loswë looked down, at a bold sketch of a flautist surprised in mid-performance. “Oh, that is good. So lifelike. I will happily take this musician shopping.”
“Lucky you.” Laurefindil muttered. “But will you bring him back, please? It is one of the few attempts I like.”
—
“Here you go.” Loswë laid the flautist next to the sketch Laurefindil was currently working on, which showed a resting spearman. “I took him on a little detour into the toolshed, to verify the likeness. I assume that this new portrait is more accurate as well as less terrifying?” She took another look at the spearman, who looked similarly familiar. “Both of these new portraits, I mean.”
“Yes, I think so.” Laurefindil moved the drawings closer together. “It is so difficult to capture a person in a single image.”
Or in a hundred, apparently. Loswë recalled all those foreground figures. “Classically beautiful people can be the trickiest; all that impersonal harmony, nothing distinctive. Unless…” She waited until Laurefindil had looked up. “Is it possible that your memory of this particular person has been affected by, well, your feelings for him?”
“My–” Laurefindil stared at her, then down at the sketches. When he looked back up, he had a small smile. “No, if anything he– No, he really does look like that. Also, his expressions tend to be subtle. So yes, he is particularly tricky to capture accurately. And then, I am finding memory much harder to paint from than reality. It has been… frustrating. However…” He sat up straight. “I really wanted to have at least one good portrait. Before I, er, introduced him to the family.”
Loswë felt his tension, felt how it concealed a great joy. “We do not have to discuss this now. I can wait for that portrait, if you like. And for the formal introduction.”
“No… You seem to have guessed much already. And I am sure you have heard me mention… Ecthelion,” he indicated the pictures, “before.”
“A few times, yes.”
“I could not help it. Even if he were not so frequently on my mind, he plays a role in so many of my stories. That said, I really want him to be more than a story to you.”
The pictures would help with that, of course, as would Laurefindil’s tangible emotions–which still included that nervous undercurrent. It made her feel worried for her son; protective.
“I have not heard the two of you mentioned together, by the historians,” she said. “Was it… complicated?”
“No!” Laurefindli bristled. “Well, maybe in terms of the general situation. But our feelings were uncomplicated and mutual. Are still uncomplicated and mutual, I believe. Only, The King–Turgon–wanted us to be discreet. So we were. For centuries.”
“Centuries?” That could not have been easy, for Loswë’s open-hearted son, but it did explain that constraint that the Halls had not, apparently, cured.
“Yes, centuries, and even before that… We have faced much together. Starting with the exact same ‘horrors’. So it makes no sense that I am here, but he is not.” Laurefindil lifted the sketches. “Well, not in person, anyway.”
“He will be, one day.” Loswë laid a hand on his shoulder. “I look forward to meeting him then.”
“I am sure you will like each other,” said Laurefindil.