Lotr_Silm: This kind of life

There is shouting.

The air in Macalaurë's bedroom simmers with anger. I can only imagine what it must be like to walk down the hall and open my parents' bedroom door; it would knock me over; it would be like the heat that festers inside an oven and blasts forth when you open the door.

"I cannot do it!" Atar's voice rises until I can hear his words and not just his anger. "I am tired of everyone expecting that I should sit my life's work aside so that I can teach their sniveling brats to hold a hammer! I am not a damned teacher, Nerdanel, I am a craftsmen, and I was not meant for this kind of life!"

His last words erupt in a scream, but Amil is not afraid, and she starts before he has even finished: "You are selfish, Fëanáro, and that is it! Selfish! Selfish!" She wields that word as though it was a sword and she wants to cut him with it. "You are so selfish that I am ashamed sometimes of you! Always have you been selfish, but now you make me bleeding sick!"
I sit up carefully, trying not to disturb the air, imagining that if they were aware of my tiny movement, then they would turn their anger on me.

Nelyo is sitting back against Macalaurë's headboard now, and Macalaurë leans back against him with Nelyo's chin in his hair and his face turned into Nelyo's chest. There is a book open on the bed, and Nelyo's fingers are splayed across its middle, holding his place, but he is not reading it because his eyes are closed. Macalaurë looks both littler and older at the same time: as little as me, helpless and scared, and as old as Grandfather Finwë, who has seen his wife foreverdead and lived in the dark, in another time and place. With his other hand, Nelyo strokes Macalaurë's hair, and his fingers tremble.

"You will do it, Fëanáro! You will take your brother-son as a student, or I swear to Manwë himself that I will not go with you to Formenos. I will stay and teach the child myself, and I will not go to Formenos. And so shall our sons stay in Tirion, where they belong, and you can cry your delusions to your cold bed at night!"
"You are less a wife than you are a traitor and a fool!"

Turko's hands crumple what little progress he has made on the puzzle. He looks up at me; his blue eyes shimmer like polished glass. His face changes, becomes firmer as I have seen Nelyo's do when I come suddenly upon him in a moment when he thought he was alone-standing outside the laboratory, where he was holding counsel with Atar, and biting his knuckles-and I realize for the first time that hot tears course down my cheeks.

Turko crawls over and crouches next to me, and we embrace and rock each other like we are both the baby and the father at the same time. His breath is hot and quick in my ear, and his silky hair tickles my neck. His arms are stronger than I knew, stronger than the arms of a fourteen-year-old should be.

They are interrupting each other now, both in such a rage that their words are too fast and too mingled for me to understand. I cry silently against Turko's shoulder, and he lifts me up, puts me on the bed, and with his arms around my chest, drags me to Nelyo. The book snaps shut as Nelyo embraces us. I want to reach out and touch Macalaurë's cheek-so close now-to give him some comfort, but his face is rigid and intent, like he is counting Nelyo's heartbeats to keep from hearing our parents fight.
I snuggle into Nelyo instead, and I feel his thought trickle through my head. 'I wish I were not the oldest'.

I bury my hoarse sobs in his tunic.

Another Man's Cage by Dawn Felagund www.silmarillionwritersguild.o…

This - oh God, this! I don't know where to start with praising this fanfic - it had me laughing and squealing and crying and whimpering all the way through and I was devastated when it was over! If ever anyone has felt like they couldn't understand Feanor and his family, they ought to read this - all the characterizations are wonderful!

This particular part is from Carantir's point of view and it's amazing how weird that child is! Carantir is 5 in it, Celegorm 14, Maglor 39 and Maedhros is 47. This of course means that Curufin and the twins haven't entered the picture yet, but that's about the only minus with this. Seriously these brothers! This family! they are all adorable and they are all insane

I picked a rather depressing part of it to draw for starters, but that's only because it resulted in a pile of feanorians and I just simply can't keep my cooing down when I read it