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No matter how smoothly Nelyafinwë’s birth went, Nerdanel’s labours still make Fëanáro’s stomach roll and his chest seize up. She howls and writhes in her pains, and birth has never yet failed to make him think of his mother, lost to him in the Halls of Mandos. Yet no matter how turbulous his thoughts run, they all slip smooth when it is over.
The baby is screaming and its arms and legs swing wildly, and the midwives take it and wrap it warmly in the blankets they had prepared, drawing it away. Fëanáro lurches, and for a breath he wants to follow, insist they give him his child— as he had nearly done with Nelyafinwë— and then Nerdanel’s laboured breaths reach his ears. He turns to her, brought back, and wraps her hand within both of his. He fears if he gives her only one, she would crush the bones within it.
Beautiful, Fëanáro cannot help but think, as he leans forward to press his forehead to her temple. She is beautiful, her face strong and powerful; at times, he wonders if she is not a sculpture herself, as much marble as the statues in her workshop.
Behind them, the baby howls.
Outside the door, Fëanáro knows Nelyafinwë is waiting, sitting next to his grandfather Mahtan, or perhaps in his lap, with his grandmother Liltisse waiting worriedly for the doors to open. Both of Nerdanel’s parents had come, as eager as their daughter and as fretful as Fëanáro.
It shrieks over the midwives’ whispers.
“I want my baby,” Nerdanel whispers raggedly. “Tell them I want my baby. I do not care if it is unclean.” Fëanáro smiles at her, extracting his hands from her grip. She is beautiful, and glorious, and he wishes for nothing but to see her face in their child, as he sees in Maitimo; his mother’s spitting image.
He draws up and turns to the midwives, cradling and rocking and whispering. His child is red-faced and open-mouthed, and his ears are open now to its bloodcurdling cries. The midwives look up when he nears.
“A boy, my prince,” says the one holding his child. His son. “Would you hold him?”
“Yes, now,” Fëanáro responds eagerly. “Give him to me, please.” The midwife seems all too happy to pass the boy off, and he takes him gently into his arms, bringing the baby to his mother. Nerdanel’s arms are outstretched, and she leans forward only slightly, trembling.
“Another son, my love,” he tells her as he places him in her arms. “Do you know yet what you will name him?” Though she never said, at the time of Nelyafinwë’s birth, Fëanáro is sure that she was blessed with foresight— the name Maitimo is proving true now, as he grows into his features, but one may never say that babies are particularly striking. He wonders now if the same will come for this son.
Nerdanel waits only a breath, stroking a thumb down the back of the baby’s head and watching his face as he quiets. “Makalaurë,” she says. Fëanáro is struck dumb. Goldcleaver.
When Nelyafinwë was born, he couldn’t help but hope that the boy would grow to love the forge, as Fëanáro himself does. He’d held his son and placed gems in his little hands, let him sit under a watchful eye while Fëanáro worked. Nelyafinwë, however, had no interest in forging.
Goldcleaver. Fëanáro couldn’t help but, once again, hope for a son who shared his passion.
“Call them in,” says Nerdanel, tucking little Makalaurë closer to her chest. Fëanáro gets to his feet and opens the door. Nelyafinwë sits in Mahtan’s lap, whispering in his ear with wide eyes. Liltisse watches fondly, and Mahtan has a quirk to his lips.
They look up when they hear the door open. Liltisse is standing in moments, and Mahtan heaves Nelyafinwë up in his arms. “You have a brother,” Fëanáro tells his son. Liltisse pushes him aside to enter the room, and Mahtan grins.
“What’s his name?” Nelyafinwë asks. Fëanáro steps back into the chamber, his law-father a step behind.
“Your mother has called him Makalaurë,” he says. Mahtan lets Nelyafinwë wriggle from his arms and drop to the floor, going straight to his mother’s bedside. “He has quite a powerful voice. Could you hear him, Nelyo?”
Nelyafinwë laughs sweetly. “Yes, Atya, even through the door! Haruni said that he must have sounded even louder inside.” He crawls up onto the bed next to Nerdanel and reaches out to touch his baby brother.
“Gently, now,” Nerdanel says. She takes hold of Nelyafinwë’s hand and guides it to rest on Makalaurë’s head. “He did! You’re very lucky he’s quiet now, or you might not be so inclined to get close.” Makalaurë gurgles, and Nelyafinwë laughs, leaning over his mother to better look at his brother.
Liltisse coos, leaning against Mahtan. “Oh, Nerdanel, what a darling. You’ve done it again, sweet girl. Fëanáro, have you a name for him yet?”
He doesn’t. He pulls his eyebrows together and watches his sons, and thinks again about Goldcleaver. Almost, he wants to say he does, wants to follow where his heart is leading him and say Curufinwë. But however many great things he may be known for, Fëanáro is not blessed with foresight, and that is a name he does not want to give lightly.
He shakes his head instead. “No. I think, at the moment, all I could come up with would be Bruifinwë, which is not very charitable at all.”
“However truthful it may be,” Nerdanel adds with a laugh. She sits up straighter and dislodges Nelyafinwë from where he is near-wrapped around Makalaurë. “Come, mother, hold him.”
Liltisse takes Makalaurë gently in her arms and hushes him with whispers when he threatens to cry. Mahtan leans over her shoulder and smiles widely, reaching out a large hand to brush gently against the baby’s face. “Oh, beautiful,” says Liltisse. “They’re so beautiful when they’re this small.”
Nelyafinwë frowns, settled now at his mother’s side, and Fëanáro laughs heartily. “She isn’t saying you’re not beautiful anymore, Nelyo,” he says. “How could you be? You’re my most handsome, delightful, radiant son– nay, the most handsome prince of all the Noldor!”
Makalaurë gurgles, most surely in agreement. Nelyafinwë harumphs, but smiles, pacified. He pulls free from Nerdanel’s hold and tugs upon his father’s pant leg instead. Fëanáro leans down and takes his son in his arms, swinging him up high so he rests upon his shoulders. His fingers curl in Fëanáro’s hair.
Mahtan is holding Makalaurë now, rocking him side to side, face split in the broadest grin. “Another grandson,” he says amusedly. “You two are in for great fun, most assuredly.” Nerdanel rolls her eyes.
“My sons are nothing like my brothers, I expect,” she says. Fëanáro knows from experience what her brothers are like; during their last visit to Nerdanel’s parents, the two broke the plumbing and charred the meal they had been ordered to make as part of their recompense. “And if they are, we can always take a nice long visit to their grandparents.”
Nerdanel wearies soon after, and Mahtan and Liltisse take their leave. Nelyafinwë is curled up at his mother’s side, little Makalaurë asleep in Fëanáro’s arms. The dirtied sheets and towels have been taken away, and when he looks out the window Laurelin’s light is waning.
“Shall I take you to bed then, Nelyo?” Fëanáro asks lightly. His son shifts and grumbles, rolling free from his place at Nerdanel’s side and thumping to the floor on his feet. For a moment, Fëanáro marvels at it; may he listen this well forever.
He places Makalaurë gently in the bassinet they’d prepared in the corner of the room and picks Nelyafinwë up, one hand on his head where it rests against his shoulder. Their oldest’s room is straight down the hall from theirs, and the door is still ajar.
“What do you think of Makalaurë?” Fëanáro asks as he lays Nelyafinwë down on his bed. He tugs the blankets over him and sits on the edge.
“He’s cute,” Nelyafinwë replies sleepily. “I think I like him.”
“Good,” says Fëanáro, smothering a great sigh of relief. He’d feared jealousy. “He’s your brother, and he will be with you for your whole life. I expect you’ll grow very close, the two of you.” He smiles at his son.
“Why aren’t you very close with your brothers then, Atya?” Nelyafinwë asks. Fëanáro freezes.
Only a little over a year ago, they’d taken a trip to Tirion, the three of them— they live now on a stretch of land on its outskirts, far enough from the palace and the bustling city that it is quiet, but not so far that family is out of reach. He and Nerdanel had agreed on regular trips to visit Fëanáro’s father. His half-brothers had been there at the same time, and there had been a very stiff introduction of Nelyafinwë to his half-uncles, before he’d ushered them away and back to their rooms.
He hadn’t thought his son noticed very much of it at all, but he supposes he was wrong. “Oh, sweet boy,” says Fëanáro, stroking Nelyafinwë’s hair. “It’s not quite the same. Does that worry you? That you and Makalaurë will grow up and not be close, like how I am with my half-brothers?”
“Sometimes. I don’t want us to hate each other. Do you hate your brothers? Why is it not the same?”
Fëanáro lets himself sigh now, shifting so he can look his son in the eye. “I don’t know if I can explain it very well to you right now, but I don’t hate them, Nelyo. It’s… it’s very complicated. It’s hard to talk to them, and I get angry sometimes, but that’s not really their fault. Alright? And nothing like it will come between you and Makalaurë, or any other little siblings you might end up with.”
Nelyafinwë’s eyes are very wide, but he nods. “Okay, Atya. That’s alright, then. Thank you.” He smiles sweetly. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Nelyo,” Fëanáro says, and presses a kiss to the crown of his son’s head. “Go to sleep, now, and perhaps you can hold your little brother tomorrow.” He rises and blows out the candles they’d left burning, closing the door gently.
When he returns to he and Nerdanel’s shared room, the light of the candles is absent and through the window comes the silver of Telperion, rather than Laurelin’s gold. He shucks his robes and pulls on sleepwear, settling in bed next to his wife.
She turns to him, then, and Fëanáro settles a hand on her cheek. Her eyes are weary, and half-closed, but he knows she wishes to speak. “No thoughts on a name yet, my love?” She asks. He exhales and lets his eyes fall closed.
“Not yet,” he says. “Nothing has come to me.”
“You did not take very long to come up with Nelyafinwë,” Nerdanel says wryly. Fëanáro opens his eyes to see her grin at him. He snorts gently. In the corner of the room, their second son coos and gurgles.
“No, I suppose I did not. I don’t know. I’ve had thoughts.” Goldcleaver. Curufinwë. “But nothing feels right yet.”
Nerdanel hums. “That’s alright. I don’t say this as pressure, I was only curious. Goodnight, Fëanáro,” she says, pressing a kiss to his nose. She rolls away from him, and very soon her breathing smooths out evenly.
Fëanáro lies on his back, considering. He’d made a decision, with Nelyafinwë— an honour to his father. No matter what Nerdanel, nor Ñolofinwë, nor any other elf who knows he and his hate thinks, his son’s name is not an insult. It was not meant to be.
He truly had only picked Nelyafinwë for its symbolism, and to honour his father: Finwë’s first grandson, the beginning of the third generation, and greater than his father— what is it they say, ‘the third time is the charm’? Nelyafinwë is a depiction of the boy himself; what he is, what he has begun, what he represents. Fëanáro would have the same for his second son.
Curufinwë it is not to be, then.