#post-darkening

Aunt Eärwen was here and she offered Eäraumo lodgings in the Noldoran's palace, but him staying in a place where there would be portraits of the kinslaying royal family? No, it was best for Aunt Eärwen and her husband that he stayed at the Academy even if his room ceiling was a little mouldy and his bed was made of rocks. At least there wouldn't be any ruined paintings or vandalised furniture here.

Apparently, Ingwë was sending his grandson, Ing-something, here as well (he stopped bothering with remembering the names of the Vanyarin princes and princesses, they all began with 'Ing'). Because obviously, all of them suddenly needed to have a loremastery. Eäraumo bet the Vanyarin king and the Telerin king thought they were being very slick, but Eäraumo could smell these things like a shark scenting blood in the vast ocean.

Olwë probably sent him here in hopes of some kind of inter-kindred cooperation and friendship. Jokes on him, Eäraumo was always crap at making friends. If only he sent some other grandson of his to do this, but oh wait - they're all dead.

Thank fucking you, Noldor.

But really, a grandson of Ingwë, a grandson of Olwë, all a great royal party would need was one of Finwë's whelps.

---

He should really tell his mind to shut up. What was that saying? 'Thoughts become words, words become actions, actions become habits'? Oh, but they seemed to skip the words part entirely and jumped over to actions.

Arafinwë and Indis was just here and they brought bags and cases with them, but left without those items. He was praying to Ulmo that Findis Finwiel miraculously had a child or something, because there was only one grandchild of Finwë left on these shores and he was not liking who her immediate family were. Or maybe Aunt Eärwen had another baby she didn't tell anyone about. Eäraumo could tolerate that better, because then that baby would be kin. The non-kinslaying kind.

A little voice in his mind chided him, saying it was unfair that he was already judging the girl for something she didn't even commit or was even her fault. But she was here and the sinners were not. Besides, did being kin stop his golden cousins from going forward despite the carnage? No, it did not. The fuckers. He never did like Nerwen.

Unfortunately, neither Findis nor Aunt Eärwen had secret kids. The grandchild of Finwë dropped off was just who Eäraumo expected, and he'd never really interacted with her. He also was not going to be interacting with her under any circumstance. One, because her father and brothers were kinslayers. Two, Eäraumo wanted to cut her cousin's throat open. Three, she was just fucking weird. Really!

The first day, she sat in the mess hall with her food forgotten on the table and simply stared at the people that came and went. On the second day Eäraumo saw her grab a book to read under the shadow of a willow tree and when a group of students were about to pass in front of her she disappeared, and when Eäraumo blinked she was there again. Eäraumo didn't know what kind of hijinks the Noldor got up to, but he was certain that disappearing into the shadows was not one of them.

Aistindë was as beautiful as people said she was. But her beauty was to be a cold, merciless perfection which resulted in her neutral expressions (because Eäraumo has yet to see her smile or cry) ranging from frosty to semi-murderous. And no, he was not exaggerating thank you very much.

She was quiet, unfailingly polite and calm when speaking, but her eyes were particularly piercing and people squirmed whenever she looked at them for too long. She answered every question tossed to her in class with soldier-like efficiency, her voice oddly sweet for her icy beauty and despite the speed at which she spoke - because Ulmo, she talked as if she was being chased by hounds - she remained perfectly articulate and each word was pronounced properly. The icing on the cake was that she very much 'sa-sí'ed occasionally, which was surprising since Eäraumo was half expecting Fëanàro to break out of Mandos just to correct her pronunciation.

Master Rúmil both hated and loved her. He would praise her work as if it was the best thing since Ulmo sung the Sea into being, but whenever there was the slightest hint of mistake - oh boy, Old Rúmil teared her apart like a starving wolf. He criticised her as if Aistindë had eaten his firstborn child that morning. Eäraumo didn't particularly care for her, but it was damn brutal most of the time. A source of entertainment that was both amusing and pitying, Master Rúmil was never that critical with any of them.

(No one speaks about the times he calls her 'Fëanàro' instead of Aistindë)

To her credit, Aistindë takes his criticisms serenely and defends herself methodically on occasions. But her defenses only served to aggravate Master Rúmil even more, so these days she only nodded and apologized for any perceived wrong. But unfortunately for the master, she never corrected the 'mistakes' Rúmil had spent the last hour lecturing her on. Eäraumo would know, because he was the worst student in class (and proud) and the stain on Master Rúmil's otherwise pristine teaching career, as such he was the one designated to collect papers as some form of punishment for being a terrible future loremaster, and out of curiousity he had read Aistindë's 'corrected' paper once which did not contain any of Master Rúmil's earlier corrections.

The first week of the semester, Eäraumo wondered where Ing-something was. Aistindë and he were supposed to arrive and begin at the same time, but he has neither seen hair nor hide of Ing-something. Golden hair was quite noticeable as most people in the Academy were dark haired, with a few exceptions. Out of pure wonder of course did he ask around, since Eäraumo wanted another victim to relate to with regards to a grandfather's 'go make inter-kindred friends' scheme. But then he heard from Noldo #1, who heard from Noldo #2, who apparently heard from Aistindë (she spoke to people? What the fuck?) that Ing-something broke his ankle because he tripped over some repainted training spears being left out to dry in the sun and thus was delayed from attending the Academy for a few days.

Ing-something seemed like a massive idiot already.