Chapter Text
Tirion was in uproar of dooms and oaths and red sands in Alqualondë, her husband’s rashness and cruelty, how there was nothing and nobody he would spare for his greatest treasures.
Nerdanel knew it to be true.
Except that his greatest treasures were seven, not three.
Nerdanel was allowed in Tirion, she grew up there, tall and muscular, with a crooked smile of uneven teeth, yet just beautiful enough to have been given a name and a permission to reach adulthood.
Until now she had not set foot in the city for as long as it had taken her to raise her seven sons.
Nerdanel would never say, her seven children.
Because she had nine.
As she lay in dead faint after three full days of labor, Eärwen and Anairë visited their new kinswoman to cast their blessing and their judgment, as fits the custom of those selected to bear the light of the Valar, which could only grace the most symmetrical of faces, the smoothest of skins, the most melodious of voices.
She never learnt what happened to her twin daughters. Which aspect of them was considered insufficient.
Afterwards, Anairë tried to console her, it happens to every Elfwoman, she said, she herself had to give up four children by now, for how could one befoul the Light of Valinor with less than perfect stature?
Nerdanel screamed and raged. Fëanor rushed into the room, face pale, the fire in his eyes ready to reduce Valinor to ashes.
Never again, they swore.
They would not forsake their children, even if that meant exile from Tirion. They would not even use their Noldor names anymore, not since they have learned Sindarin from newcomers in Mandos.
(Only once Nerdanel begged Fëanor to forgive, to visit his half-brother, when she found out that Anairë had yet another son, and considered him too short in stature to be allowed to live. Fëanor stormed into Fingolfin’s chambers, a teenage Maedhros at his side, their armor splendid in the light of Telperion, their eyes burning with fury and determination, and Maedhros swore to protect the still-nameless baby with his life, just as Fëanor was threatening to take the lives of Fingolfin and Anairë both, unless they let their son survive – him and all their children to come, regardless of their perceived deficiencies.)
Their sons grew in care and challenges and joy, and bedazzled them with their talents. Maedhros's swordsmanship. The music of Maglor and the woodscraft of Celegorm. Curufin’s forges and Caranthir’s potions. The maps drawn by Amras in such detail they were prized by the Teleri only below their boats. The Elves who seemed about to walk right out of Amrod’s canvasses…
And if Maglor could barely see, it was a reason for Fëanor to learn to melt glass and for Nerdanel to hammer a frame for a pair of spectacles.
If Celegorm the Fair’s white skin, white hair and red eyes were burned by the light of the Trees, he would hone his hunting skills clad in a cloak and hood, sometimes accompanied by Caranthir the Dark, whose wine-dark patches spread like one of Amras’s beautiful maps on his face, who cared about the properties of plants more than the exhilaration of the hunt.
The Ambarussa morphed into a single name of a family shorthand, easier when the twins went everywhere together and Amrod did not speak to anyone save his twin anyway, in a language of their own, quickly adopted by everyone in the family, though Maglor would sometimes complain when he would not be able to follow the gestures with his eyes.
If no forge in Tirion would accept Curufin, Nerdanel built her own, and told her son that since she did not expect him to dance a jig on the anvil, why would he worry about his legs?
Eventually Curufin designed a pair of intricate braces for himself, and how he wished there were others who could use them too. But theirs was the only family he knew who chose to defy the Valar and the Eldar alike with every breath, every inch they grew, every time their names left their mother’s lips.
Fëanor swore he would not let the Valar claim any more of his creations, and everyone thought he meant the Silmarils.