Disclaimer: Tolkien owns the Silmarillion
Pairings: Fëanor x Nerdanel
Characters: Fëanor and Nerdanel (mentions of Mahtan, Finwë, the Valar and a couple other random elves)
Warning: canon-compliant, possibly a touch cliche, blatant allusion to masturbation, some mildly sexual situations, but nothing scandalously explicit (just ogling at each other's butts is all)
Song: A Moon Filled Sky
Words: 1,734
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puzzle (noun): something hard to understand or explain
http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/puzzle?show=0&t=1365641126
Never before had Fëanáro encountered a puzzle or a riddle which he could not solve or piece together, which he could not unravel and dismantle and reassemble again forward and backwards and with his eyes shut. Not mathematics, nor literature, nor politics, nor the dimwitted societal circles of his father's court could hold his attention for long.
It was one of the reasons he had turned away from the demesne of duty to the art of craftsmanship. The burning need for a new challenge, for new discovery and new creation settled itself in his gut as a ravenous hunger, as a parched thirst that could not be sated by any amount of heady, rich wine or fresh, cold spring water. It consumed his restless spirit, embraced his rabid creativity to its breast and allowed him to be free.
And then he met her. Immediately, she had kindled a lust in his heart (and his loins) which he had never experienced before.
Her and her hair softer than any expensive fabric he had ever run over his fingers, the color of flame snapping through the curtain of darkness. Her and her skin so fair, so white, yet dotted with what he could only name abominably precious freckles from cheek to cheek. Oh, how he desired to sit and hold the perfection of her heart-shaped face between his callused palms, feel the softness of red-flushed cheeks on his rough skin. He would draw her close, close enough to count the speckles bridged over her nose--close enough to name every hew of her blazing green eyes.
But there was a problem, one that he had not anticipated.
Nerdanel Mahtaniel despised Curufinwë Fëanáro with all her white-hot, divine spirit.
And for the life of him, he could not understand what he had done to make her so upset with him. He could not division what it was that she wanted from him, what words might mollify her unexpected rage, what it was that he was doing incorrectly in her eyes. Never before had a woman befuddled him so--the ladies at court were all too easy to woo and soothe with hushed words of flattery and gentle kisses to the knuckles.
When he had used that trick on Nerdanel, she had given him a black eye that lasted an entire week.
If only he knew what made her tick, how her gears functioned so that he might predict what would bring her the greatest pleasure, what might make her smile broadly at him, all sweetness and glory and affection. But she was not like a clock, with parts that all fit together in a perfectly logical assimilation. Nor was she like mathematics, where numbers always added or subtracted or somehow interacted to provide a concrete answer. A right and predictable answer.
There was nothing predictable about her. One moment, she would be playing an innocuous young maiden sculpting in the afternoon light of Laurelin, and the next she would be hissing like an angry she-cat, baring her perfectly aligned white teeth in what Fëanáro supposed was meant to be a threatening gesture.
Honestly, he found the display to be rather cute. Telling her that had earned him several broken toes and the insult "sleazy, misbegotten, bull-headed son-of-a-goat-farmer" thrown in his face. Who knew that copperware could be so blasted heavy? Or that being insulted could sound so Valar-be-damned arousing?
Similarly, any form of gift-giving had been swiftly rejected--"What should I even do with a necklace this extravagant? I am the daughter of a craftsman, not a frilly, empty-headed peahen of court!" Flowers, too, had been thrown to the wayside; she had not stopped giving him strange looks for several weeks after that incident, and it was not until later that he realized red tulips had a rather strong connotation, and by no means was he prepared to throw himself off a cliff to prove his undying love. Even Fëanáro would admit that he rather deserved being kicked for such a presumptuous gesture, especially to a woman he was not even officially courting.
The prince had been sure to read up carefully on the delicate language of bouquets, despite the odd looks he had received from some of his father's prestigious librarians, who could not understand for what underhanded purpose a wily creature like Fëanáro could possibly want to know about the meaning of flowers.
The next time, he sent graceful orchids in a shade of vivid purple which he imagined would complement her hair rather attractively. He did not understand what she found so offensive about being labeled a "rare beauty"--as she certainly was rare and beautiful both at the same time--because, the next day, she had turned redder than a ripe tomato and tried to hit him with the nearest fire poker. The woman should have been flattered!
All in all, Nerdanel did not make a lick of sense to the genius of Fëanáro's mind. It was like trying to predict the shapes of tomorrow's clouds! Why she could not follow the same established laws of nature as every other feminine creature between Tirion and the edge of the world, he did not know. All he knew was that it left him absolutely frustrated beyond belief.
She was the one puzzle he could not seem to put together in his head, the riddle he could not answer without tangling his tongue and botching his honeyed words.
It certainly did not help that she was constantly present in and around the forge, her shapely behind framed by the elegant gowns she favored. Did she have any idea what such a sight did to him? The sheer amount of "bathroom breaks" Fëanáro had taken outside in the trees left the prince blushing in mortification even when there was no one around to put two and two together to get four.
Well, two could play at that game.
He deliberately forswore his shirt in the forge, his naked upper body blanketed only with thick leather and the glisten of hot sweat over rippling muscle. With (an embarrassing amount) of forethought, he would every so often lean down and let his trousers pull taut around his perfectly shaped (as many women had whispered just within earshot) buttocks when he caught her head turned in his direction from the corners of his eyes.
And whenever he walked by her, he always smirked and pressed a hand to the wall by her shoulder, leaning closer than propriety would dictate. "Has something attracted your attention, my lady?"
Her answer was always "No".
Teasing her only seemed to make her fiercer, seemed to stir up her irate nature and to stoke her temper until it was almost tangible in the air. But then her face flushed that (delicious) shade of cherry red, spreading across her cheeks and to the tips of her finely shaped ears and down her elegant, swanlike throat. And--By the Valar!--when she huffed up at him and yanked at her braided tresses, he could not help but feel as though his legs melted beneath him.
Eventually, the mystery that was Nerdanel Mahtaniel consumed his world.
Thoughts of new designs slowed. Inspiration seemed only to come from the thousands of shades he could see in her emerald eyes and the gentle waves of her thick curls and her slender back. He found himself seeing her everywhere, her form ubiquitous, appearing in the essence of graceful movement, the cant of her shapely hips in every angle, the curve of her delightfully round cheekbone in every shadow.
It took a humiliating amount time for the genius to realize that he was in love with her.
And she still hated him.
But he only ever teased her, only ever smirked and snarked and purred. Vulnerability never sat well with Fëanáro, and the desperation that was eating away at the cavity of his chest was most definitely vulnerable--the soft belly of his unbreakable armor of arrogance and urbanity.
He started taking longer breaks from the forge. Though her mystery continued to vex him, it was painful to stand before her malice, to watch her lips purse in a stern frown whenever he smiled. Her displeasure was unbearable, and her rejection stung fiercely, worse than any concoction any healer had ever rubbed into his scrapes or bruises. And then it twisted and jerked and it took all Fëanáro's tremendous willpower not to flinch.
Eventually, he decided to altogether forgo her company. It was for the best that he did not continue to tantalize himself by putting himself so near the one thing he so desired but could neither understand nor possess. It was best if he drove her visage from his mind and returned his concentration to his art and his passion towards creation.
So for one last time he stood before her, plastering a feigned smirk on his lips, giving a sultry, half-hooded look from beneath his thick, dark eyelashes. "Has something attracted your attention, my lady?" And his hands clenched in the leather of his apron, because he knew what was coming and it was going to feel like a blow to the gut, was going to rend him clean off his feet and steal the breath right out of his lungs.
How he longed to cover his ears. How he longed to be able to block out the "No" that he could almost taste bitterly on the tip of his--
"Yes."
Wait? What did she--?
He blinked dumbly.
And then she kissed him. Staggered, he breathed in the heady cinnamon burn and the scent of sculpting clay that had molded itself to her being. Tasted her unique sweetness on his tongue, so different from the bitterness of unrequited affection. It was purely her, and it was marvelous.
And when they parted she looked so very pleased with herself.
Fëanáro could not help but wonder what exactly he had done to deserve this and how exactly he could seek to bring about a repeat performance from the woman of which he could make neither heads nor tails. She had him bamboozled for life.
In the end, he settled with the knowledge that Nerdanel was a puzzle he would never solve. And he could live with that one simple truth, seasoned with a dash of vexation and a pinch of vulnerability.
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Because if Nerdanel didn't completely mystify Fëanor, he never would have been able to stand being married to her. Nor would he have a fanatically large amount of children with her. I can see why some people write Fëanor as a nymphomaniac, but perhaps it's just that they have very awesome sex. I, for one, don't buy into the theory that elf couples simply become uninterested in sexual relations after having a kid or two; just because they're "wise" and "ethereal" doesn't mean they don't like sex just as much as the rest of us.
Well, anyway, I found this amazingly pretty song today and was bummed that it really wasn't sad enough to write real angst to, and thus this story was born. Because I can't think of a better person to be stumped than Fëanor, the genius whose inner gears turn at a million miles an hour. But I'm getting off topic. The song I was listening to was A Moon-Filled Sky from Ef ~ a Tale of Memories OST by Tenmon. What can I say, I'm a sucker for violin and piano together (those are the instruments I play, after all).
And here is a lovely picture of the lovely couple together: Nerdanel and Feanor by ~Righon on dA. Can you tell I'm a fan of ~Righon's art? I love the lineart and the crosshatching and especially love some of the vivid colors used... *cough* I swear I'm not an artist--mostly.
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