Don't You Ever Look Away by Elrond's Library  

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Chapter 1

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Her lover arrived at Findekánë’s little home looking harried and furious, her intricately braided hair still immaculate despite the cloak and her agitation. Findekánë rose from her couch by the window, east facing, to catch the light of the Trees that were no longer shining. With a dramatic flair, Maitindë had cast off her cloak, hitting the back of the high-backed armchair she favored, and it had subsequently fallen to the floor in a disordered heap. 

Maitindë seemed not to notice as she paced back and forth in Findekánë’s living room. Findekánë herself picked up the cloak and hung it on the appropriate hook, waiting, nerves clenching her gut into nausea.

“I cannot make them see sense!” Maitindë raged. She kept pacing, her skirts swishing dangerously close to the fire crackling happily behind the grate. “They are intent on going, on recovering Atar’s work from the Moringotto. All of them, all my brothers. Argh! Do you know what they said to me?” Maitindë’s voice had kept climbing, becoming louder and shriller the longer she talked. 

Findekánë just shook her head and shrugged, leaning against the armchair’s back. 

“They won’t take me! They, in no uncertain terms, think that it would be best for me to stay here. Atar said he needed me to ‘represent our family’s interests’ and ‘keep myself safe.’ Bah!” Maitindë stamped her foot. Valar, she was beautiful when she got worked up like this. “As if I’m not the best swordsman among my brothers. As if I haven’t been training with them since this whole mess began. As if I wasn’t there when the Moringotto took Haru Finwë from us. I can handle myself.”

Findekánë nodded, a little trickle of relief easing the clenching anxiety. “Of course you can, love.”

“It’s fucking infuriating. They’re smug, insufferable, chauvinistic, controlling, and I have half a mind to sneak into the caravans and join them anyway, Atar’s ban notwithstanding.” 

All at once, the energy holding up Maitindë’s rage seemed to dissipate. She sank into the plush cushions of the couch with an audible sigh. “I’m sorry, Findekánë. You wrote saying you had news.”

Findekánë shrugged. She sat in the armchair, took a long moment to compose herself, arranging her skirts artfully around her ankles. Oh, how she revelled in it. 

“My Atya gave me a choice about staying or going with him to the lands across the sea.” She paused, twisting a ring on her thumb absently. “I have made my decision.”

Maitindë tilted her head to the side, bird-like and curious. “And?”

“I have decided to stay here.”

Findekánë watched as Maitindë’s face drained of color, her freckles standing out starkly against her pale skin. 

A second passed. Two. Five. “Why?!” Maitindë finally exploded. “Ñolofinwë gave you a choice and you didn’t take it?”

Findekánë nodded. “He did. If anything, he wanted me to come with them.”

“So why not go? I’d be going in a heartbeat if Atar wouldn’t beat me black and blue for it.” 

Findekánë shook her head. Fëanáro had never raised a hand in wrath or discipline to any of his children, as far as she knew. If Maitindë was mentioning such a thing now, things must have really devolved in the House of Fëanáro. 

“I think the only reason he gave me the option is because he still thinks of me as his firstborn son,” Findekánë said, old grief and frustration making her sound bitter. “But, perhaps that’s not true. Írissë is going.”

“I’m not sure he could deny Írissë,” Maitindë said dryly. “She is fiercer than any mountain Maia.”

“And I am not my sister,” Findekánë snorted. “I’m not going. Ammë is staying. And you know me, beloved. I gave up on ambitions of political power when I put on my skirts. And my physical prowess …” she laughed self-deprecatingly. “If this had happened before Írissë was born, then maybe my situation would be different. Now … now there’s no place for me in Atya’s host. They are going to war , Maitindë. It’s not like Tulkas’ Games.” 

Maitindë scowled, leaning back into the couch with a petulant thrust of her lower lip. “They can’t just assume we’ll let them leave us behind.”

“But they are, and they will. Our fathers are the Heads of their Houses. Fëanáro is king . Defiance would be treason, beloved.”

“I am his firstborn.” 

“You are his only daughter.”

“I have done everything to be the son he wished me to be.”

“And yet, you are not.”

Findekánë said this with all the kindness she could muster in her voice. When she had realized her true nature, and begun to dress and act accordingly, it was as if a spark had kindled in Maitindë. She had confessed to Findekánë that she had started to refer to herself as Maitimo, had taken to wearing tunics and breeches outside of hunting with her brothers, even braided her hair in the style of unwed bachelors. But, Maitindë had ultimately decided that she was a woman, albeit a woman who enjoyed challenging the barriers her femininity put in front of her. It had been the work of many a long year to get the courtiers of Haru Finwë’s court to respect Maitindë’s ideas and political acumen.

The fight that had started to brew in Maitindë deflated with a heavy sigh. “I hate this.”

Findekánë smiled. “I know.”

“Being a woman is such a fucking burden sometimes.”

“Choosing womanhood is the best thing I’ve done in my life.”

“But you don’t deny it is, at least occasionally, a horrendous burden.”

Findekánë shrugged. “Perhaps.”

Maitindë frowned. The edges of her eyes slipped in and out of the diplomatic blankness she was so known for. Findekánë waited. “You want me to stay with you,” she finally said.

Findekánë nodded. Wryly, she said, “I had dared to hope.”

“I’m losing everyone. Haru, my Atar, my little brothers. Even the twins, they’ve barely reached their majority. Void, I’d be expected to go back to Nerdanel’s house.” 

“Stay with me then.” Findekánë shrugged. “It’s not like I don’t have the room.”

Maitindë gestured non-commitally. Not a no, which Findekánë was hesitantly pleased by. “I’ll have to face her eventually.” Maitindë’s relationship with her mother was fraught, she knew, from the years spent in support of her father’s ambitions. The years going back and forth between Tirion and Formenos had taken their toll on more than just Findekánë’s relationship with Maitindë. 

“We can cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Maitindë sighed. “I really thought you’d choose to go with them.” 

Findekánë gave her lover a crooked smile. “And now that you know that is not the case, what will you do?”

She hoped Maitindë would listen for once in her Void-forsaken life and stay. That she would be selfish and do whatever she wanted for herself. That she would finally choose Findekánë over Fëanáro. 

“I’ll have a think about it,” she said mulishly, arms crossed. “Do you have anything to eat?”