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Winter in Híthilome was chilled as the lands around Formenos, and cold, damp winds bit at Tyelperinquar's fingers and nose. He should have thought to bring a warmer cloak. A wrap for his face.
Not that he'd intended, when he left, to go any farther than just the lakeshore, with its sedate lapping waves chunked with ice.
And he hadn't. Not really. Each step he took was still parallel to the sandy shoreline, one and another and another, sometimes halting and peering out over the water at the colourful peaks of tents and flags, or to the mountains hazy in shadow that seemed to encircle them all around. Up on his tiptoes, more steps; a rock in the sand that he kicked like a child's ball so that it made a small plop into the water. And they were all at the lakeshore.
How many times had he been told off for being too literal?
Tyelpe did not know what he'd expected from the Ñolofinwean camp. A hollow straggle of people haunted like uncle Pityo? Dark blue and silver on every defiant chest, and charred remnants of mockeries of his grandfather's heraldry? (His father said that his half-uncle jeered at Feanáro's love for Finwe; was it far to stretch that his people would mock Feanáro's death? Tyelpe doubted.) But they did not look so strange as any of that - thinner, yes, with clothing faded and torn, or else in finery unsuited to the tasks they partook in.
And perhaps that was why none had taken any notice of him, either; for though his cloak was made of rich, heavy fabrics, he had not donned the one embroidered with his House's star.
He stopped his ambling walk when he realised he'd penetrated some distance into the camp - if the tents were arranged in rows of a sort, he had gone the length of several of them inside. Not, he realised then too, that he could even say precisely why; why had he come to Ñolofinwe's camp, telling nobody? (Better than telling somebody, for that somebody would have scolded and shooed him back inside.)
Tyelperinquar stared aimlessly at a woman a short distance from him who was skinning a hare, while he pondered - the dead hare offered no answers, but then he hadn't expected many.
When he turned away, blinking slowly and lost in thought, if thought included a curious blankness garnished with unease - the next head of hair he saw was a golden Vanya blonde.
"Cousin?"
Tyelpe was too startled, or so he told himself, to recognise her immediately. His mind spun then, a moment too late sent into panicked motion as he tried to recall - a Vanya girl; no, not Findaráto's, she was too young for her -
"Itarille?" he said, asked, and hoped the question would be registered simply as surprise.
"Tyelperinquar." Quieter. Wondering why on earth he was here? She was hardly alone.
What was he supposed to say? Father's told me I've met you before but I can barely remember? You look well? "You're pretty far from your family's camp." Well it was true - he could see the Ñolofinwean standard quite away in the distance, rising above the peaks of the other pitched tents. Many more than were in his own camp.
Itarille raised an eyebrow. Not that Tyelpe had truly believed anything he said would come across as reasonable, though. "As you are. Moreso than I."
"I - yes." Denying a fact so plainly observable would be absurd; even if he did not like the implication he heard in her voice. He drew his arms to cross in front of him. Should he be saying more, to Itarille, to this cousin he barely knew? What did one say in such a situation? If he knew more - all he knew now, he realised, as it came over him in a sudden rush, was that her mother had died, when they - crossed the ice.
Tyelperinquar remembered uncle Macalaure, shouting at his father when they were supposed to be talking in private, and he was supposed to be in his own tent.
But now she was looking rather unhappy, and - he should just leave, turn around and go back to his own camp before his father or one of his uncles discovered him gone - but instead he opened his mouth as if he were any good at speaking pleasantries, and what came out was, "Do you like it here at Lake Mithrim?"
Itarille blinked, and stared, and her brows knit together for a moment. And the next moment, simply silence. Finally, "Not particularly."
As though there was any other answer. Even if it weren't freezing, her mother had just died, how could anybody enjoy a place that surely reminded…
He did not think of his own mother, or the lavish feasts provided by her kin in the north, when the house of Feanáro would journey past Formenos to their great wooden halls, in a place not so different from this.
After some time, she said abruptly, "Is it hard without her?"
A few barely-audible stammering noises came from Tyelpe's mouth, while time seemed to drift before him, stretched and not entirely concerned by his existence. His insides might well have been rolling themselves into knots.
And then, with a rapid heavy thump of footfalls against the frozen ground, Tyelperinquar was saved from whatever blunder he was about to craft next. A pity not from those that had already led him here.
Itarille turned sharply, to see Turukáno bearing down upon them - he could tell it was Turukáno, who else could it be, projecting such fury and protectiveness over Itarille as he was? even though his face…
"What are you doing with my daughter?" he shouted, hissed almost with a dryness in his voice despite the volume, the anger… Tyelpe shrank, taking a step back.
"Atar he's not doing anything, I simply saw him and greeted him, as a kinsman - "
"And you think Curufinwe's son is in our camp simply to make conversation? You think they are our kin still, with how many they have killed and the crowns they still place upon their own heads? Itarille you cannot - "
How much shame did Tyelpe incur, for wishing then that he might make an escape, while his father's half-cousin had his attention turned on his daughter. Less at least than had he truly done so, rather than merely imagined, desired; and he could thank, if such a dubious thing were thanks, the paralysis of his limbs at that time for any movements but the slight quiver about his hands.
He should say, say something - "I was merely taking a…" His voice faded before the sentence was done, and only after did Turukáno turn again toward him, hard shining eyes and lines in his face twisting to grotesquerie with his anger. Merely taking a walk; a walk where, a walk simply to this side of the camp, where none relished the notion of company with any of the Feanárioni, why, why? He would not be able to answer, not to Turukáno, nor even himself. The latter perhaps because the reason shuddered dark and cold somewhere in him, like the ruins of his grandfather's fortress.
"Merely taking a little excursion outside the care of his minders," came a sudden voice from behind him, carrying loud over Tyelpe's shoulders. When he flinched back to look, startled, he felt his uncle Tyelkormo's hand close warm about his upper arm. Turukáno's glare was poison and flame, now. Could he sink to his knees and plead innocence, forgiveness? No longer; Tyelkormo would hardly let him.
"I am certain you would like us to think as much," Turukáno growled, and Tyelpe stepped back into his uncle's side. "Not counting tents, so you might know how many torches to bring and burn us all to the ground? Clearly it would be beyond you."
He could feel his uncle tense beside him, before he gave a bark of laughter. "Oh, hardly indeed! We don't know after all whether Ñolofinwe still thinks he has some claim on the crown, do we? He might have changed his mind last night, and then that would be quite the crime, wouldn't it?"
Ñolofinwe claiming the crown. The words echoed in his ears again from years past, the words of his father and uncles and grandfather fierce and furious with what they heard, raging fire and smoke, smoke in his nostrils and wrapping about his head until he could scarce breathe. He imagined this entire encampment in such a state, and did he even managed to process aught that was said afterwards besides?
Something of Ambarussa. Something of Turukáno's wife. Tyelkormo's snarl, asking if Turukáno would have such poor self-control as to throw another punch to somebody's face. Tyelperinquar shivered beneath his cloak.
No, no wonder; uncle Tyelkormo did not stand warmly at his back any longer; he'd taken several steps away, palms raised, glare still twisting his features. And Turukáno had retreated as well, grasping Itarille's shoulder tight and looking as though he might murder Tyelpe's uncle by osanwe alone, were such a thing possible.
Ñolofinwe stood between each two of them, a tall fury in silver and blue. An ornate circlet rested atop his dark braided curls.
"If any of you put paid to any sense, I should hear no reports of such disgraceful quarreling in the public grounds of my campsite." The words were near a low hiss - though every one of them clear as the light of the sun.
He realised, suddenly, how very exposed he was. Directly before Ñolofinwe, nobody else around him. His head buzzed.
"Tyelperinquar. Why are you here?"
Tyelpe felt his uncle stir behind him, with an indignant noise and tension of his limbs - Ñolofinwe held up a hand with an icy stare, stopping him before he'd moved but a pace. Turukáno received the same look, briefly, for the matched snort he had given to the question. Itarille's paled face gave up no thought, not to Tyelpe's eyes.
"I, I, wished to take a walk outside our own campsite. From boredom. I was not instructed to come here, I merely… I was following the lake shore," he finished lamely. Should he have added that he should not have been walking about by himself even to begin with? He couldn't see the harm himself, but surely it lurked hidden, some flaw he could not notice that would be easily dug out by his father's careful scrutiny - he could not trust Ñolofinwe with such information, of that he was certain.
He shivered, slightly, under Ñolofinwe's gaze, how it heightened the cold wind fluttering at the edges of his cloak and biting his nose numb. It was a shameful relief when he turned it on his uncle instead.
"Take him home, Turcafinwe. And keep him there, under a better watch than what you have thusfar used. My family and my people have no need of any further disruptions such as this."
For a moment, Tyelkormo looked as though he might argue. But then he stepped forward, no less fury written on his face, and silently took Tyelperinquar's hand. And Tyelpe followed - what else was there to do?
When he glanced back, all he could see was Itarille's face, still unreadable, but perhaps for some small hint of regret.