#skilledincraft

"No, you have not! Curufinwë, look at me!"

He was in armour that reflected the torch in his hand, and from his helm flew a crimson plume. He looked just like his father. It brought a sickness to the pit of Nerdanel's stomach. All around them men and women and children darted, filling the dark streets with shouts and calls. Some carried bags and baskets, others carried nothing. There was a great panic in the air.

"You have sworn an oath but you can break it! You can break your word, abandon your honour but do not abandon me! Everything you love is here, your home and your workshop and your people! Curufinwë!"

Every one of her sons she had begged to stay, and she would, until she could beg no more. Their father was lost to her but they were not, and she clinged to Atarinkë's arm until he pulled it away.

Caranthir's breath caught and stuttered in his throat as he stared at the warriors being carried past them, the one with the white of bone showing through the torn flesh of his leg, another with an arm bent at an angle even elven flexibility could not achieve, a third wrapped and covered beneath a tossed cloak and far too still. Those not carried still limped, footsore and weary and coated in both rock-dust and the blood of their compatriots.

He whirled on his brother, fists clenched at his sides, his eyes flashing hot and bright as tempered steel. "An accident? An accident? We cannot afford such accidents, brother! Our forces are decimated as it is!"

Growling, he forced his hands to open, scrubbed hard fingers back through his unbound hair, felt old wounds pull and bite at him as he moved -- the burn he'd taken in the Bragollach, the arrow in the Nirnaeth, and the wounds that did not show, also, beneath the skin where only he could know they pained him.

// The remaining of Curufin’s wife in Aman is actually canon, not headcanon. From HoME XII, chapter “Of Dwarves and Men,” note 7: “[Celebrimbor’s] mother had refused to take part in the rebellion of Fëanor and remained in Aman.” Hope that helps!

//Ah, there we go then! I thought I might be missing something! Thank you :) Aj Tolkien and his love for 'wise wives that stayed behind' ;)

// y e s give me all the wedding advice

Send me § and my muse will react to yours pushing them against a wall and kissing them.

Fingon's words had very well been meant to provoke. He couldn't help it; something about his cousin's smug face and cutting words made him inclined to fight back in what way he could, and while his words might not have been as clever as Curufin's, he knew how to choose them to annoy. 

Will you not kiss your prince? 

He'd meant on the hand. Curufin would know he'd meant on the hand--had he deemed that offensive, as Fingon had hoped? Did the idea of kneeling, of showing deferment bother him? 

Either way, if Fingon had thought he'd been the one controlling the situation, he was quickly proven wrong. He had time to think, as Curufin steered him backwards against the stone wall, that he looked too much like his father, giving the encounter an even more unpleasant edge. 

At his father’s words, Celebrimbor glanced up. Officially they might have been at war, but otherwise life seemed to go on unchanged from day to day, and he’d been occupied with a page of dwarvish runes; his father’s notes decorated the margins. 

Interesting, in a way, but so too was Curufin’s statement. 

It sounded like a dangerous division of labour—to put the sword in the hand of one who was unlikely to think before using it. Celebrimbor still smiled; he knew it was unfair to think Celegorm was a witless man, even if he was prone to give in to impulse.