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Curufinwë alone had looked back at the burning docks as his father’s people set sail.
He had sent three – all three – of his captains, his most loyal soldiers, the most highly renowned in combat, and still they had failed to retrieve his only son from the boy’s mother. They had still only told him after there was truly nothing to be done about it. Curufinwë didn’t quite remember what venom he had spat at the three shame-faced captains in that moment. The rage burned away quickly anyways, replaced with numbness.
He had not told Atar yet, he was far too busy marshalling his people on the first leg of this great voyage, bolstering them with words of fire and fury. Makalaurë and Telufinwë had been the most shaken by the slaughter they left behind them, and had been drawn aside by Nelyo to be whispered words of comfort and promises about this new land. The rest of his brothers paced here in the flagship, the wild light of adventure burning in their eyes.
Curufinwë did not tell any of them until they had already docked. There was no words of comfort even Atar could give him by then. He had never lost a child. Káno and Nelyo tried, drawing him into hugs and preaching about how at least the youngest of their family was safe and sheltered from this strange new land until Curufinwë drove them away with harsh words and occasionally blows.
As always, Tyelko was the only truly helpful one. He had wept raggedly into Curufinwë’s shoulder the night he was told, Huan curled tight around the grieving brothers, and then the next morning refused to allow anyone to even mention Tyelpé’s name.
And then Atar died. And then Nelyo.
Something in Curufinwë shut down for good after that, the moment he watched a still blood-streaked Tyelko crown a shaking Káno before their surviving people. The bronze crown had fallen a little over his second-eldest – no, his eldest brother’s ears. To his credit, Káno had managed to not break down into tears that very moment. He had even managed to cobble together a short speech of vengeance for the crowd before disappearing into his tent.
Atar would have expected so much better, Curufinwë thought numbly, as Moryo vanished into the tent on Káno’s heels.
Time passed, and the Noldor of Middle-earth put down thin roots into the charred land they were besieging. The tents turned into houses. A proper forge was set up under his careful eye, built practically into the nearest mountain. His own dwelling was put together nearby, complete with a couch that Tyelko occupied more often than not.
Tyelko practically shadowed his every move these days. Curufinwë would have snapped at anyone else for hovering if it weren’t so plainly obvious that Tyelko’s hovering was as much for his own sake as it was for Curufinwë’s. More skirmishes, never quite evolving into full-blown battle, occurred between the Noldor of Lake Mithrim and the hosts of Thangorodrim as the camp grew. Tyelko and Huan flanked Curufinwë in combat, and Tyelko fought with a ferocity beyond anything he had ever before witnessed in his brother – most orcs fell in shreds long before they had the chance to meet his blade. The twins clung to each other similarly. Moryo drew into himself more and more, despite how his time was occupied with the captains and chief strategists.
Curufinwë barely saw Káno at all, but his voice was ever-present: calling orders across the camp, singing violence and rage into their people in the battlefield, arguing loudly with his captains in command tents.
Káno had never been meant to wear a crown. Not even Nelyo really had, for all Atar had presented him as his crown prince. None of them had been capable of imagining Finwë’s death, let alone Atar’s. “Crown prince” had been pretty words with no real substance in Aman.
“This is going to kill him,” Tyelko had muttered when they did see Káno. Káno was always performing for their people these days, but this time putting on the grim-faced countenance of an elf twice his age with experience of leadership and battlefields rather than a care-free minstrel princeling. He was thinner than Curufinwë had ever seen him, and there was a hollowness in Káno’s eyes that he didn’t like. Curufinwë still couldn’t bring himself to bear any of the high king’s burdens, and any words of comfort or hope turned to ashes in his mouth and churned in his stomach long before they could reach his brother's ears.
He had lost his son, and then his father, then his eldest brother, and it was all too plain that the rest of his brothers would not last long like this. He could not last long like this, it was merely the aching fury over the murder of his father and the comfort of Tyelko and Huan at his back that had kept him going this far.
They continued like this for thirty years, and then suddenly Curufinwë got his family back.
His son looked so, so small in Tyelko’s arms when they had rescued him from the Nolofinwian encampment, and like he had been battered against every rock between Lake Mithrim and Aman.
Tyelpé was never going to leave Curufinwë’s sight again.
Not even a month later, a breathless Moryo crashed through his door with the news that Nelyo was miraculously returned to life by Findecáno and currently being tended to in the Nolofinwian camp. The High King had, evidently, mounted his horse immediately and ridden off like a madman at the news, with his honor guard scrambling to keep up.
The rest of Nelyafinwë’s brothers were not far behind.
It took some time for Curufinwë to be comfortable with the idea of allowing his son to visit Nelyo. The sight of his flawless, immovable older brother starved and mangled had been nearly too much for him to bear. His little Tyelpé did not need to see his Uncle like this. Besides, although Nelyo had slightly improved after being transferred to his brothers’ camp, strange moods and delusions took him often, and some turned him to violence. The thought of his tortured older brother falling suddenly into one of these moods and harming his baby made him feel sick.
“Please,” Káno begged him quietly from Nelyo’s bedside. The minstrel’s voice was still steady, despite the fact that he had been singing songs of healing over his brother nearly non-stop since his return. Nelyo was sleeping soundly between them, having finally been sung to sleep after a particularly bad fit. “We will keep them far apart. He doubts all this already, perhaps he needs to see something different than what he left behind to be convinced fully of his rescue.”
“Tyelpé must miss him, too,” Findecáno put in rather loudly. Both brothers shushed him, eying their sleeping brother nervously. He did not stir. Nelyo had refused to let anyone near him without Findecáno in eyesight, or else Curufinwë would have tried to have the idiot removed back to his own camp by now. “Sorry,” Findecáno whispered. “But I’m with Laurë on this one. It would probably be good for them both.”
“That is High King to you, and I am perfectly capable of knowing what is and what isn’t good for my son,” Curufinwë hissed back. Káno had the audacity to roll his eyes, but he looked exhausted enough that Curufinwë didn’t turn on him immediately. Besides, it would be a little hypocritical of him right after he had corrected Findecáno. He could wait until the Nolofinwian was gone to get on his brother’s case.
In the end, it was Tyelpé he finally caved to. The child pestered him with relentless questions, anxiously asking after his uncle’s health every time Curufinwë returned to their house. Oddly, the elfling had seemed hyperfixated on whether or not Nelyo had returned to them with all of his limbs attached, and Curufinwë had done his best to ignore anything that implied about what exactly his baby had witnessed while crossing the Grinding Ice. The elfling had himself only recently been released from bedrest, although he still needed crutches to hobble about.
Curufinwë had to leave him alone (with Tyelko and Huan, but still) to visit Nelyo, and that more than anything is what led to him finally agreeing to bring his son for a visit.
He waited for one of his brothers to report that Nelyo was awake and having one of his better days, and that both Findecáno and Káno were already with him, to bring Tyelpé to see his brother.
The distance was too far for Tyelpé to walk with his crutches, so he carried his son through the flap of Nelyo’s healing tent. Káno was sitting in the sunlight by his usual corner, playing on a cedar harp and singing sweetly, while Findecáno was fluffing one of Nelyo’s pillows.
“Tyelpé!” Findecáno called cheerfully as soon as they were inside. Curufinwë immediately regretted allowing his son to leave the house as his son waved enthusiastically. “You look so much better!! My brother and sister have been asking after you non-stop, they were so disappointed when I wrote to tell them I hadn’t seen you yet.”
Nelyo interrupted before Tyelpé could reply.
“My nephew did not leave Aman with us,” he said darkly, and studied Curufinwë and his son with deep caution. “I remember when Curvo told us – he was so upset and would not let anyone but Tyelko near him. I know my nephew stayed in Aman.” Findecáno tensed, and took one of his hands between his own.
“No, no – he left with me and my family, remember? Káno told you all about it,” he told Nelyo gently as Curufinwë hovered with Tyelpé at the entrance of the tent.
“Hmm.” Nelyo replied. He was beginning to glower, as if he had finally put the pieces to some horrible mystery together. This was a mistake, Curufinwë thought anxiously, and began to leave the tent immediately. He was stopped by Tyelpé's voice.
“Morgoth,” his son said clearly, “is the least of the Valar and only resorted to theft and murder for a lack of any other discernable talent. Also, he is ugly.”
Silence reigned in the tent for a long moment as even Káno halted his song to stare at Tyelpé.
“...What.” Nelyo finally asked flatly.
“I said that Morgoth was ugly and the least of the Valar. And had no talent,” Tyelpé repeated easily. “You were looking at me like you didn’t think I was really here, so. Would the Enemy have allowed himself to be talked about thus in his own fortress?”
Nelyo blinked once more and then threw his head back in a loud, rough cackle. The sound was like sandpaper dragged over iron, like he hadn’t laughed in a thousand years, but Curufinwë still smiled to hear it.
“No,” Nelyo allowed when he had subsided. “No, he would not have. Forgive me nephew! And, brother, don’t linger in the door, I want a better look at both of you.” Curufinwë smiled and allowed Findecáno to drag a seat over for him and his son. He settled with Tyelpé in his lap and tried to hide that he was keeping him well out of lunging distance. Behind him, Káno regained his composure and took his song up again. “Hmmm. A little skinnier than I remember!” Nelyo finally pronounced, and frowned at Tyelpé’s clearly injured legs. “And what happened there? Surely you weren’t playing too roughly with Huan and Tyelko again?”
“Ah, that was a parting gift from the Ice I’m afraid," Findecáno said apologetically. Curufinwë glared at him over Tyelpé’s head.
“It’s not bad! I’m already walking around again. But maybe I could convince Huan to allow me to ride him around in the meantime,” Tyelpé said thoughtfully.
“Absolutely not.” Curufinwë said sternly. “You’re already moving more than the healers recommended, we hardly need to add more falling hazards.”
“It is good to see that I am not the only one being mother-henned in this camp,” Nelyo said, reaching out to ruffle Tyelpé’s hair. Curufinwë stiffened and drew his son away closer to himself, and then immediately regretted it as his brother dropped his hand back to the bed. Nelyo's eyes were downcast and his lips pinched. It was Findecáno’s turn to glare at Curufinwë, now. An awkward silence fell.
“Speaking of mother-henning. He actually slapped Ambarto for that when we first got Tyelpé back,” Káno said, still strumming out soothing chords on the harp. Nelyo laughed again, and they all pretended the sound wasn’t painfully forced.
Tyelpé huffed, and before Curufinwë could stop him, hauled himself out of his father’s lap and into the bed with his uncle.
“Ionya,” Curufinwë said sharply, standing while Findecáno also rushed over urging Tyelpé not to jostle Nelyo’s shoulders.
The two sat staring at each other for a moment, ignoring the commotion. Oddly enough, it seemed to Curufinwë that some sort of unspoken understanding passed between the two of them, although of what he couldn’t possibly say. Nelyo was frowning, though, as Tyelpé crawled the remainder of the way up the bed to tuck himself into his side. Still, he wrapped a careful arm around his nephew with a tentative look at Curufinwë.
“Did you see that Uncle Káno is having a wall built? I think he means to encircle the whole camp,” his son said absently, as if the moment had never happened. Somehow, it was the right thing to say as the concern was replaced with annoyance on Nelyo’s face.
“Really, Laurë. I know you never preferred strategy lessons, but surely you played enough games with Tyelko and Curvo when we were children to know that putting yourself in a corner cannot be a good thing?”
“I thought–” Káno began, but his attempt to defend himself was cut off by his brother working himself into a truly impressive lecture about siege tactics.
Curufinwë wasn’t paying attention. He was watching his son, who looked rather smug from where he was drawing a blanket tighter around himself and his uncle. How he had known the exact right words to say, Curufinwë would never know, but then his son had always had a more delicate hand in these matters than he did.
Still… No, but it must have been something about the Helcaraxë his son had been thinking of, that must have also been where he learned to handle broken elves so expertly, where he had developed the ability to not react to obvious signs of starvation or torture. Really, as much as he hated to think of it, Curufinwë didn’t know everything about his son’s life anymore.
…Findecáno hadn’t known what to say to dispel Nelyo’s fears so immediately, and had also been through the Helcaraxë and knew Nelyo better to boot. Curufinwë shook his head as if to physically rid his head of the thought. He was being ridiculous. Both his son and his brother had been miraculously returned to him, he wasn’t going to nitpick the pilgrimages they had taken to get here.
The sun was moving down into what the minstrels were dubbing “golden hour,” now. He did his best to quiet his suspicious mind as Káno strummed out a new tune in the golden light. Findecáno had drawn away Nelyo’s ire and was animatedly recounting one of the more light-hearted tales from the Grinding Ice. Tyelpé was beginning to yawn a little from where he was slumped into Nelyo’s side, carefully avoiding his shoulders. One of Nelyo’s thumbs was rubbing Tyelpé’s arm as he laughed along with the story.
The laughter was still forced. Both his son and his brother were still liberally wrapped in bandages. Nelyo still looked more like a skeleton than the older brother he remembered. Still, for the smallest moment in the warm sun, Curufinwë could almost convince himself that all would be well after all.