Fëanárë Curufinwë Finwiel

         Nerdanel did not need to look up to know who had just slipped into her workshop. Few came in with such surety - most lingered in the doorway seemingly half afraid she might scold them for disturbing her, or something equally ridiculous. Picking up a long scalpel, she traced the line of the eyelid on the likeness she was working in clay. It cut smoothly, satisfyingly, and she tilted her head to the side. Cutting wet clay was so soothing.

Her impossible demands.

She licked her lips, caught herself halfway through the action when the taste of carefully and rarely applied rouge reached her, and retracted her tongue, still watching Nerdanel.

She should... memorise this, Fëanárë felt her palms itch and her nails ache, ready to grab paper and begin planning. She should draw this scene before her, or write down a description of Nerdanel as she was now. Maybe try her own hand at sculpting... or perhaps she could create a mould and grow crystals of various colours into it.

For the first time the fact that copper crystals were green annoyed her. Maybe topaz? Carnelian was too bright.

"We have had a issue arising that we have needed to sit down and spend more than a passing evening talking about," she inspected her hands which shook still, and twisted the unfamiliar rings on them.

Her father and she had been talking about (discussing, arguing, demanding), as usual lately, what had become an obsession of her father's. And in realising it was an obsession she had realised the power it gave her and for a moment the curtain had been drawn back and she could understand politicians. If at least in a rudimentary way.

And coming away from that with politics sticking to her like a strange unpleasant residue she felt, for the first time in her life, out of place in this area of creation, and tucked her still trembling hands behind her back. She moved around Nerdanel, looking for somewhere to sit with no care for the grey-brown dust accumulating quickly on her hem which would take someone a small age to wash out.

Her skirts swirled around her as she at last found herself a perch, an uncommonly generous amount of material unsuited for here; pitch-black yet strangely lustrous silk she had commissioned when at last the explanations by twittering court ladies and her own observations had revealed to her the science of dressing to influence another.

Around her hips in a low girdle designed to create the most aesthetically pleasing curves large white gems were sitting, fiery in any light for she had cut them with precision so that they cut the light and made it sharp.

Then there was nothing more but that lustrous black till her chest was reached and pavé white stones made elegant if minimalistic arcs back and forth, crisscrossing one another with bold strokes where they hung from a tight necklace that was simple two rings of yet more white gems separated by frighteningly dark ruby drops.

Her hair was up, and twisted and pinned and braided till it felt like she was wearing her own anvil on her head.

It wasn't anything she ever wore. Never intended to wear again hopefully. She didn't know what she'd do with it whether her day spent with her father was success or a failure, if that was the right definition for either his agreement or rejection. Dismantle the jewellery, there were better things she could do with the jewels.

Maybe use the dress for jewel polishing rags

"Was your day productive?" she watched Nerdanel's hands move, then followed the minute flexing of muscles up to her wrists and then her arms.

She needed to memorise that especially, the way those hands moved.

“Curufinwë was her name, but by her mother she was called Fëanor, Spirit of Fire”

1, 2 - Ted Nesbit, 3 - can no longer find source, 4, 5 - Noldorin Shields | House of Finwë by ~Luis Bejarano 6, 7, 8, 9 - can no longer find source, 10 - can no longer find source

If you see your image here and would like it removed please tell me. (It might take me a while as I’m in course at the moment)

It gave him the courage to lean his head briefly on her shoulder as they walked.  ”Thank you, Amme, for the freedom of your library, and for speaking up for me - it is one thing to know they’re wrong, and another to hear it, especially from you.”  

Anticipation leapt in him, half eager and half queasy, like a stomach full of frogs.  She wanted to see - ! When he was ready.  Oh, Eru, with that to look forward to, would he ever be? It would have to be perfect…but then, she could help him improve it, too. 

"It…it is a language of music," he ventured, after a moment, darting a glance up at her face, "because there is no unified script, and so the student of one master must learn not only the canon but the writing of another and, to make it worse, often they are just similar enough to make the differences all the more confusing."

"That is something I have never heard of. You will face some troubles introducing a unified version of music writing, those who write their own styles will wish to hold onto them. Still, that is part of the challenge is it not," her eyes gleamed, "people can be bent and convinced. This language will need to be created first."

A language of music.

Her heart swelled with pride as she glanced to her son again. To envision such a thing. To want to create such a thing.

"I wished the same thing," she said, "when this happened to me. I was but a babe, even younger than you. Thankfully we must only endure this the one year. Afterwards it ceases, and does just as you propose, the body goes back to sleep but thereafter it is ready to have a child.”

She eyed her daughter, “I do not need to tell you why having a child in the near future is inadvisable Makalaurë, you are a very smart child.”

She filled one of the soaking buckets with cold water, and put the smock and her child’s breech cloth into the water.

This was the laundry, and there was clean clothing on the table that the maid had been working at. She got her daughter a new breech cloth, and showed her the square basket with the rags.

But it was the last part of the information that concerned her. “Two hours?” Her brows knotted up together. “Two hours—how long is the bleeding supposed to last? Is it regularly two hours throughout the bleeding?”

Makalaurë grabbed one of the rags out of the bin and considered it with great seriousness. It was solid enough, but she wondered if she could tolerate something thicker than this.

Just a year.

She put breech cloth and cloth wad together and handed it to her daughter, "now go put those on, it might feel a tad uncomfortable or unwieldy to have the cloth positioned so but you will adjust."

It took a moment of hunting to find Makalaurë a new smock which was a testament to how well behaved and neat she was.

It gave him the courage to lean his head briefly on her shoulder as they walked.  ”Thank you, Amme, for the freedom of your library, and for speaking up for me - it is one thing to know they’re wrong, and another to hear it, especially from you.”  

Anticipation leapt in him, half eager and half queasy, like a stomach full of frogs.  She wanted to see - ! When he was ready.  Oh, Eru, with that to look forward to, would he ever be? It would have to be perfect…but then, she could help him improve it, too. 

"It…it is a language of music," he ventured, after a moment, darting a glance up at her face, "because there is no unified script, and so the student of one master must learn not only the canon but the writing of another and, to make it worse, often they are just similar enough to make the differences all the more confusing."

"I find it amusing that many seem to think that Nelyo is the pacifist in our family," they were beginning to make their way through the streets. Fëanárë could smell the fires within the houses where food was being turned out for the Lords and Ladies within. It put to mind that she had not thought to prepare anything for the evening meal. She altered their course, heading toward a bakery she knew would likely not yet be closed. 

Hopefully they might have something she could serve. Bread even. They had enough cold pickles and jams. They could eat plainly for a night. It wouldn't hurt them.

"A language of music," she considered. She knew the technicalities of music but her own grasp of it was slim. She had been taught to sing as a child by her mother. but her mother had not sung with words, or followed any known music. Whatever music her mother had taught her, the origins of it had gone with Therinde into Mandos. Fëanárë sighed outwards, realising she would likely be of no use to her son.

Send me one of the below prompts for a three-sentence drabble!

And, what, we cut up lady instead? /duck