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swirlingthings · 7 months

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so… i accidentally wrote an entire scene based off an idea i posted on here about a month ago. it brought itself into existence honestly, i’m still not sure how it happened. never written anything like this before. it’s called ‘alien thing’. see if you can work it out before aziraphale does. enjoy :)

And perhaps, after a while, the team at the Saddlescombe and Poynings Observer newspaper office would be alarmed to discover that the crossword they had devised for today’s edition had mysteriously been replaced by one that nobody recalled sending to the printing press, or indeed seeing before at all. And in a cottage not too far away, Aziraphale would settle down into the sofa with the paper like he always did at this time of the afternoon; his slice of cake (Victoria Sponge today - “you can’t go wrong with a classic like that”, he’d told Crowley in the supermarket), his mug of tea and an HB pencil ready for him on the side table. And Crowley, on the sofa next to him holding a small book which had been miracled into existence the moment Aziraphale had gotten up to fetch the newspaper, would be so intent on doing everything possible to not look in the angel’s direction that he’d stare too hard at the potted plant across the room and cause it to wilt.

“How odd.” Aziraphale says, ruffling the page slightly as if he were testing to see if moving it would somehow change the way it was printed.

“What?” Crowley says, calmly. He was incredibly calm when he said this, calmly.

“This crossword.” Aziraphale replies, brow furrowing. “I think… look, look at this.”

Aziraphale shuffles across to the middle of the sofa, holding his arm out in front of Crowley so that he could see the newspaper clearly.

“Look. Here.” Aziraphale points with his pencil. “5 Down, six letters: ‘Luminescent dust between star systems’. I think it’s NEBULA.”

“Sounds plausible.” says Crowley, his eyes not moving away from the paper.

“Well, that’s not all. NEBULA gives us the ‘B’ for 12 Across, eight letters: ‘Parisian fortress’, which must be BASTILLE.” The pencil moves down and waves around a clue, then shoots back up again. “And the ‘E’ from that gives us SERPENT for 10 Down! Isn’t that funny?” Aziraphale says brightly. He looks up and beams at Crowley, who is still staring directly at the paper.

“Why’s that funny?”

“Well…” says the angel, his smile turning peaceful. “I don’t know. It just made me think of you, I suppose. What with your being a serpent in Eden, and rescuing me from the Bastille. And the nebulas, from Before…” Aziraphale laughs softly and settles back on his side of the sofa. “I don’t know. I’m being silly. I just thought it was funny.” he says, running a hand through his hair and picking up his mug.

And perhaps the minutes would pass, and Aziraphale would think between sips of tea and scribbles of pencil that there really was something rather odd about this crossword, wasn’t there? 17 Down, eight letters: ‘Machine run by rotating vanes’. WINDMILL. That was the name of the theatre in Soho where he had performed his magic show. Crowley had almost shot him. They’d had wine afterwards, in the bookshop. 2 Across, seven letters: ‘Remarkable and unbelievable occurrence’. That had to be MIRACLE. 21 Across, five letters: ‘Japanese vinegared rice dish’. SUSHI. His favourite.

And Crowley would sit excruciatingly still, in absolute silence, and make no attempt to actually read the book he was holding open in his lap. He would be far too busy trying to look cool.

“Crowley…” Aziraphale looks up at him, after a while, another smile creeping across his face. “26 Across is INEFFABLE.”

“Oh? You stuck?” Crowley says, stretching out his legs and keeping his gaze fixed on a page of the book. Wait… was he holding it upside down?

“What?”

“Well, if it’s ineffable you can’t describe it in words, can you? So you don’t have the answer?” Crowley slithers down the sofa cushion and holds the book in front of his face. He’s a very busy demon with important things to be busy with. “Finding the word’s the whole point of a crossword. You must be stuck.”

“No, I mean the answer is INEFFABLE, Crowley.” Aziraphale’s smile spreads wider. “You know full well what I mean!” he said, nudging him sharply with his feet. Another “Oh?” emanates from somewhere behind the book, which Aziraphale grabs and puts to one side.

“What on Earth have you done?” he laughs, his eyes first on Crowley then returning to the paper. “14 Down: ‘A small settlement without a church’... HAMLET! Oh Crowley, the play!” he says, jotting it down with the pencil.

Crowley smiles too. “How are you doing on the letters?”

“Yes, it’s six letters, HAMLET.”

“No, I mean the letters in bold. In the boxes. For the final bit.”

Aziraphale looks back at the paper, and notices that around a few of the letters he had already pencilled in, the margins of the boxes were heavier than the rest.

“It’s a puzzle thing. What’s it called… an anagram.” Crowley continues, leaning over on one arm and turning to face him. “Look at the letters in bold and it makes something else.”

Aziraphale gasps excitedly, and starts to note down the emphasised letters in a patch of empty space towards the bottom of the page. The ‘A’ from BASTILLE, the ‘E’ from SERPENT, the ‘L’ from NEBULA…

“Crowley…” he says smugly, and proudly folds the paper to his chest to indicate he is finished with it. “Is it AZIRAPHALE?”

“Don’t just guess. Work it out.” Crowley says gently. Aziraphale’s pencil resumes its scratching against the paper. He wonders how he ever lived in his flat in Mayfair, void of this softness and this warmth and this angel. They’ve been in the cottage now for a good few years. It’s all the things he loved about Aziraphale’s bookshop, with the added bonus of never worrying if he’s overstayed his welcome. It’s theirs, together, completely. He’s forgotten he was ever holding a book, let alone supposed to be busy doing something else, like trying to look cool.

“Oh, no, there’s the N from WINDMILL.” Aziraphale mutters, leaning forward to write on the paper which is now resting neatly on his knees. “Unless… I was wrong about that one?”

“Don’t look at me, I’m saying nothing.”

“No, I’m not wrong. Hold on.”

Crowley sits up a bit more, putting his elbow on the back of the sofa cushion and leaning the side of his head against his hand. He listened to Aziraphale continuing on - “I’ve got ALIEN. Hmm, wait…” - while he curled up his legs underneath himself. His nerves had eased slightly (Aziraphale’s smile had that effect on him) but had not dissipated.

“INHALE? No, no, there’s two ‘I’s. Oh, I’m still missing some!” Aziraphale says. There was another comfortable pause while he scanned the remaining clues.

“Right. 6 Across must be… PEAR. I love pears. That one doesn’t get us any further with the anagram, though.” Aziraphale says, looking over at Crowley as if he were learning this for the first time and might be disappointed by the news. As if he hadn’t snuck downstairs in the middle of the night on three separate occasions last week to draft every detail in a notebook which promptly ceased to exist once he’d finalised his plan. He’d sent off the miracle at one in the morning.

“16 Across, ten letters: ‘Destruction of civilisation’. Well, that’s rather dramatic.” Aziraphale looks up, a tad disapprovingly. “APOCALYPSE? No, that doesn’t fit with HALO - the penultimate letter must... oh, ARMAGEDDON! Of course. Wonderful! That gives us a second ‘N’.” he says triumphantly.

“Aren’t you clever.” Crowley says, which earns him another sharp nudge in the thigh.

“And then we have the ‘G’ from GARDEN, which gives us… the ‘T’, from BENTLEY. Is it definitely not ALIEN, then? I’ve got ALIEN THING.”

“No, angel, it’s not ALIEN THING. Stop guessing. You’re still missing some, look at it carefully.”

There’s another patch of silence. Crowley shifts uncomfortably on the cushion, unfurling his legs and stretching them out over the edge of the sofa again. He scratches the back of his head and resumes staring at the now fully wilted plant opposite him. His nerves are back. Not long to go now. Aziraphale’s clever, really clever, and he does one of these things every aftern-

As if on cue, the angel suddenly sits bolt upright.

The silence hangs in the air. Questions like ‘Why did I think this was a good idea?’ and ‘How am I going to pretend this never happened?’ start to creep into Crowley’s brain. His face feels hot.

“Oh, Crowley…” Aziraphale says, with almost palpable softness. Crowley dares to glance over: Aziraphale’s holding the paper with both hands and looking down at it, eyes beginning to water.

“Crowley…” he says again, frantically scanning every inch of the paper. He wants to be sure he’s right before he says anything. Crowley knows he will be, and briefly considers whether he could get away with stopping time, but it’s too late for that now.

“It’s NIGHTINGALES.”

Aziraphale looks up at him.

“Is it?” Crowley says, in a tone which he hoped sounded like he actually was learning this for the first time.

“Oh Crowley!”

He suddenly finds himself pressed against various layers of linen and wool.

“You sweetheart!” Aziraphale squeals, as he pulls him up from the sofa cushion and into the hug.

Crowley’s growl is muffled slightly by Aziraphale’s shoulder. “I’m not sweet, I-” Whatever he tried to say next would surely be drowned out by Aziraphale’s laughter anyway, so he lets it go.

“You’re so clever.” Azirpahale says, settling himself directly beside Crowley and reaching for the paper, which he had flung to the floor when he’d moved. He looks over it again. “It must have taken forever, to work out all of that.”

“Nah. It was nothing, angel.”

Aziraphale smiles at the paper. “Well, I am thoroughly impressed. I…” He turns to look Crowley in the eyes. “I should have worked it out sooner than that. I didn’t… I didn’t realise that’s what you were trying to say. That that was the point of it, I mean.”

“Don’t worry. I knew you’d get them all.”

“That was very romantic of you, you know. To do all of that and have it be about us.”

“Shut up.”

“Well, it was.” Aziraphale smugly folds the paper in half. “I love you too.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright. Make my day.”

He gets a kiss on the cheek for that.

“Gosh, I expect the rest of my tea has gone a bit cold now.” Aziraphale says, without any trace of complaint. He wiggles back over to his side of the sofa and has a forkful of cake. “Well, that was exciting. I didn’t know they let people submit their own crosswords.”

There was a pause.

“Crowley.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“Oh Crowley no, that’s awful. You should have asked for their permission.”

“Don’t worry.” He smiles at Aziraphale. “They won’t notice.”

the end :))

#good omens #good omens 2 #aziraphale #crowley #aziracrow #ineffable husbands #good omens story #well… it’s a fic really isn’t it #good omens fic

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netflix · 8 months

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Spotlight: Adam Stockhausen

Production Designer, The Wonderful Story Henry Sugar

Oscar winning production designer Adam Stockhausen (not pictured above, that’s Benedict Cumberbatch), whose work you may know from Wes Anderson films like The Grand Budapest Hotel, Asteroid City, The French Dispatch, Isle of Dogs, and Moonrise Kingdom, as well as titles like Bridge of Spies, and West Side Story (2021), took the time to answer some questions.

Which details from or aspects of The Wonderful Story Henry Sugar did you focus the most on while adapting it to the screen? How did you meld Roald Dahl and Wes’s worlds?

The details on this one started with Dahl’s writing hut! We matched the details pretty carefully and exactly. As soon as we step outside of the hut though we start to move through the world of the story and the world of the stage at the same time. Wes had the idea of how he wanted to do this from the very beginning. My main challenge was trying to figure out how to pull it off—making the parts move and getting each to have the right detail.

What’s a small change you made on a project that ended up having an unexpectedly significant impact?

Lots of times this happens—where what seems like a small thing at the time becomes a very significant turning point. I’m in Berlin now writing this and remembering being here scouting for East Berlin for Bridge of Spies. We were struggling to find a section of town that still felt old enough to show the early 60s, and decided to take a chance on a quick search in Poland. That quick search changed the whole production plan and ultimately gave us the look of our East Berlin.

How has technology changed the way you approach your work?

Technology has definitely changed the way we plan the work. We used to model everything in cardboard or sometimes just plan in two dimensions with pencil and paper. We can now plan in 3-dimensional space using modeling programs and see what real lenses will do. This allows for more accurate planning and makes scenery moves like the casino set in Henry Sugar possible.

Do you have any signature easter eggs you like to leave? Any small details that you are particularly fond of?

I wouldn’t say there are easter eggs in this one. But there are loads of special details! I think my favorite might be the levitation boxes where we painted a perspective view of the background onto a prop box. The actor sitting on the box appears to be floating in a very special and theatrical way.

Did you talk about reflecting the iconic Quentin Blake illustrations in production design? How would you go about doing that?

Not really. They are such incredible drawings and I’d say they’ve been inspiring me since I saw them as a child! But for this the starting point was really the machine Wes devised to move us through the story—and pairing that to specific references scene by scene.

There is such an intentionality to the aesthetics of a Wes world. Is there a set or frame that took you a long time to get perfectly right?

All of them! It’s a very labor-intensive process getting these frames right. Occasionally one will click right away, but usually it’s a process of refining and refining. The jungle for instance went from sketches to models to samples and back again several times before the final look settled.

If you had to present one frame that showcases the best of your work, what would it be?

Oh my. Maybe the jungle? I really enjoyed making the jungle!

With all the moving sets in the trailer for The Wonderful Story Henry Sugar, it feels reminiscent of a theatre production. Are there distinct differences in approach between film and theatre and how much do you blur the lines between them in your work?

I think the lines are blurred completely! Or maybe they aren’t even there. I love that Henry Sugar is so incredibly theatrical in its storytelling. It allows us to show the artifice of the sets all the time which somehow makes them even more satisfying when they finally do line up and create a complete picture. I think the casino set is a perfect example—the pauses where it all lines up for a second are even more enjoyable because we get to see it broken apart and sliding away.

Thanks, Adam!

#spotlight #entertainment spotlight #adam stockhausen #wes anderson #production design #filmblr #wes weaving #web weaving

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meidnightrain · 6 months

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SUBURBAN LEGENDS - furina

❝ i am standing in a 1950s gymnasium and i can still see you now. ❞

summary: your relationship with the hydro archon would be warning to the audience that the divine and mortals don’t mix, that was if you had taken legends seriously

warnings: reader is gn, fontaine archon quest spoilers

notes: day 20, the second last day of the event! i wanted to write something furina related so i tried my hand at this one.

taglist: @staretes , @rynnlvrs , @sentifua , @i-probably-sleep-too-much , @reilly34 , @qqingque , @akutasoda , @mhiieee , @starryshinyskies , @kazemiya , @pix-stuff , @inscaraithrust

furina de fontaine had people who worshipped, idolised her and send her letters anonymously in your peripheral vision. but you let it slide like a hose on a slipper plastic summer and forgave her quickly for it.

it was tough being an archon you knew and to be the lover of the god of justice was an honor. she was so magnetic, it was almost obnoxious. flushed with the currency of cool that she exuded, wowing her audience all the time that you were always turning out your empty pockets when it came to her.

you didn’t come there to make friends after all, you both were born to be suburban legends. your romance was one that captured the essence of the nation’s love for drama and theatre, a beautiful and entrancing tragedy waiting to play out.

when she held you up, spinning and leading you into a quick jive under the shining spotlight, it was like she was holding you together. the way that she would kiss you in a way that it would mess you up forever, erase the potential love interests in the story of your life for she would be the only one for you.

you had the fantasy that maybe your mismatched star signs would wow the whole crowd. that different authority and standing in the society wouldn’t deter you two from being together. love conquered all, crossed boundaries and transcended time and space. it would do the same for you.

when you ended up back on stage playing the role of the archon’s lover, you reveled in their shock. walking in with your head high for the first time and furina’s hand in yours. she would be more than a chapter in your story that would have its pages ripped out. she would have a whole section dedicated to her. you’d have a grand finale and a heartwarming epilogue with her.

but you were now standing in the crowd of fontanians, hidden in plain sight as she entertained them with a grin and twirled like a ballerina on stage without any care of you. you knew that she’d still remember that you were both born to be national treasures, fontaine’s picture perfect couple. when she would one day tell you that you’d get back together or so you thought before disaster struck and she was revealed to be a hoax.

tick-tock on the clock, and now you paced down the block of her new apartment in the aftermath of the flood. did she pretend to be in love with you, in an attempt to fool the crowd into thinking that she was truly the hydro archon? that playing with your heartstrings would distract them from whatever her real agenda was? in fact you didn’t want to meet her, it was neuvillette who had given you her address and suggested you reconcile and give her a second chance.

furina couldn’t deny that part of your relationship was for show either but it was real, at least to her. she had been so accustomed to being the center of attention she had forgotten what it was like to live without it, to live normally without a care of what other would say. what you had was real, a small speck of light in the darkness she had suffocated in for five hundred years but you were too close to foiling her plans.

you had gotten too close to her, you knew she was hiding something that was eating her up. that it wasn’t the fame that came with being an archon, no matter how hard she tried to pass that lie off. another one more step and a whole plan devised for centuries would come crashing down so she pushed you away under the guise of finding you boring. she broke her own heart because you were too polite to do it for her.

you missed her, waves crashing on the shore that you go surfing at during her downtime, dashing to the door whenever you heard the familiar click-click of her heels and her laughter. but she didn’t knock anymore and your whole life was ruined.

she missed you too, the comfort you’d bring in the chaos and weight pushing her head under the waves of the relentless sea. she had broken her heart, passed it off as a mere falling out or that you two were too different to ever understand each other.

“she was a god, you were a mortal,” she had said dismissively and it broke her own heart to say those words knowing that they weren’t true. she knew you paced down her block, watch your figure from the window with a hopeful heart. but you didn’t knock anymore and she always knew it.

you both were born to be nothing more than a story, a legend, a warning to the audience. a mess behind the scenes but captivating the media and world into thinking you had a picture perfect relationship.

now both your lives were ruined, all because of some prophecy and a part she played in a musical much greater than the one depicting your romance.

that was until she heard soft knocking on her door one day that made her dash to the door and drop the box of uncooked macaroni in her hand.

you had learned from the botched script you both read from and now things would be different because you’d do a retake of this whole relationship, cut the bloopers out and try again.

<- prev masterpost next ->

#🕊️ - 1989 event #・ nouveau livre ˎˊ˗#genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact x you #genshin x you #genshin impact x gender neutral reader #genshin x gender neutral reader #genshin impact x gn reader #genshin x gn reader #furina x reader #furina x you #🪧 - event: 1989 #🗞️ - genshin impact fics

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echo-bleu · 4 months

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shine still brighter (2/?)

Chapter 1 | On AO3. Deaf!Artanis bullet-point fic.

And I'm back with some linguistics! I barely have an idea where I'm going, but writing this AU is a lot of fun.

Three weeks later, Arafinwë brings little Artanis to Fëanáro’s office. She’s immediately entranced by all the shiny gems and strange little contraptions that are everywhere and she tries to touch them, and Arafinwë is terrified that she’ll break something and Fëanáro will explode.

“Let her,” Fëanáro shrugs. “There’s nothing in there that I can’t afford to replace. It’s mostly old prototypes, anyway.”

Right. His twins are a year younger than Artanis. He’s used to little children running around and being curious.

He brandishes a sheet of paper. “This is just a very rough sketch, and sign language is terribly frustrating because you can’t really write it down, but I’ve thought of ways to go beyond the basic mimic gestures and into the symbolic, which is really what you need for a language to express complex thoughts. We can use spatial variation to express basic grammar, such as tenses. A flexible word order can also take us a long way. Using the entire body opens up an incredible number of fascinating options, think of facial expressions alone! A smile or a frown could be used to modulate any statement into a question or an affirmation, or even something else entirely! We could have a specific mood for reporting speech whose origin is doubtful, for example. And the potential for spatial morphology! I really need to talk to some dancers about this, they might have new ideas. Or theatre comedians, maybe. Oh, and I’ve also devised a signed alphabet based on my Tengwar, for direct translation. It won’t be immediately useful, of course, but you’ll be able to teach her to read and write more easily, and it can be used for names and maybe homonym disambiguation.”

Arafinwë has not understood any of that, except that Fëanáro is very excited.

Fëanáro has never been excited at him before.

It’s a very intense experience.

“…can you teach us?” he asks, a little winded.

Fëanáro once spent a decade learning the languages of various wild animals, one after the other, so he could in turn teach them to Tyelkormo. Of course he can teach them.

“It’s not a complete language yet,” he warns. “I can’t make a language for her. She’ll have to make it her own.”

“…okay.”

“I’m calling it Mátengwië.”

‘Language of the hands’. Fair enough.

He goes to sit cross-legged in front of Artanis.

She puts down the shiny brass model of a windmill she was playing with and looks at him.

She doesn’t instantly scream in his ear, which is a good thing, because Arafinwë has clear memories of Fëanáro excusing himself from meals because of the noise he and his siblings were making.

“Hello,” Fëanáro says, deliberately moving his hands into signs. “I’m your uncle and I’m going to teach you some signs.”

Arafinwë’s heart jumps at “uncle” (Fëanáro has never forgotten the “half” before, when he even bothers to acknowledge them as family).

Most likely he hasn’t invented a sign for “half” yet, but that seems like a strange oversight on his part, given his insistence.

Artanis is fascinated.

“We’ll start with simple words.”

Fëanáro is speaking slowly, because he’s not fluent with the signs yet, but he doesn’t baby-talk. Arafinwë isn’t sure what Artanis actually understands of this – she can recognize some words from their lip-shape, but not consistently, and definitely not whole sentences.

The signs don’t seem to look like anything, not like the ones Findaráto made up. Those were all easily understandable in context.

But within a few hours, Artanis and Arafinwë both have a handful of new signs for everyday items and tasks.

Fëanáro uses clever ways of mimicking and pointing to explain them to Artanis, and she seems to catch on immediately.

Then she spends the rest of the lesson pointing at various things around the office for Fëanáro to name.

Artanis’s signs are a bit sloppy and simplified, because she doesn’t have much dexterity yet, and Arafinwë’s are self-conscious (because doing literally anything in front of Fëanáro makes him self-conscious), but they’ve communicated more in one afternoon than they have in the last two years.

And it’s thanks to Fëanáro.

Ñolofinwë is never going to believe it.

And Fëanáro was bearable the whole time.

Scratch that, he was nice. He teased a little, but it was never mean, and never directed at Artanis. And he laughed at his own mistakes just as much.

Arafinwë actually had a good time.

They go back the next afternoon.

And the next.

They get to basic grammar and full sentences.

Artanis is opening up again.

She still gets frustrated a lot, and she’ll slam the door and lock herself in her bedroom whenever that happens, but she retains and uses each sign that Fëanáro shows her.

Arafinwë does his best to keep up.

Findaráto is still not doing too well, but he notices the changes, and after a couple of weeks, he begs for permission to come with them.

Fëanáro seems a little doubtful at adding a teenager to the mix, but Findaráto, if he has sufficient motivation, is an excellent student.

He takes to signing like a fish to water, faster than Arafinwë, and faster even than Artanis, who doesn’t have the benefit of translation.

Within a few more weeks, Fëanáro and Findaráto, and Arafinwë to a lesser degree, are capable of basic conversation in the sign language, allowing Artanis, by imitation, to start moving beyond naming objects and easily demonstrable actions, and into the abstract.

It’s beautiful to witness.

It’s still not a complete language by any means. Fëanáro repeats that warning several times per session, though Arafinwë doesn’t completely understand why it’s important.

It’s important because as they make up more and more sentences, they’re starting to hit at the limits of what Fëanáro has built.

It is not long before Artanis and Findaráto are inventing their own words, at first by combining signs or miming things, but soon enough they’re using their instincts and coming up with brand-new signs. And sentence structures. And grammatical elements.

It’s fascinating to Fëanáro.

(Contrary to popular opinion, he’s not a prescriptivist. The thorn issue is specifically sensible to him because it relates to his mother and he’s entirely irrational about it, but he’s otherwise endlessly happy to watch language evolve and he’s tracked all of his sons’ linguistic progression from when they were born, with charts and all, well into their adulthood, recording all the teenage innovation that other elves tend to scorn.)

Findaráto’s innovations in sign language are mostly based on Quenya, making up signs to translate words from his mother tongue.

Artanis’s innovations are astonishing. Entirely new ways of expressing concepts, of stacking signs on top of each other, of using space and her body to explain abstract ideas.

She takes Fëanáro’s basic concept and elevates it in a way he would never have thought about.

He hasn’t felt the rush of shared creation since he was Mahtan’s apprentice.

He can feel it with Nerdanel when they try something entirely new that isn’t either of their fields (like, say, making children) but in his chosen fields, everyone else is too far below his level to follow him.

And now this tiny child, who is far from being able to keep up with his linguistics knowledge, is making leaps and bounds that he would have never imagined.

He is obsessed.

Arafinwë is getting a little concerned.

He’s also getting frustrated, because he was never good at the word invention games that many of the Noldor are so fond of, and now he’s getting left behind in his children’s learning.

Angaráto and Aikanáro are learning signs bit by bit, enthusiastically, uncaring about having atrocious grammar and form in the way only children can. Artanis frowns and corrects them with a serious face that’s absolutely adorable.

Eärwen is struggling because of her fatigue, but she’s better than Arafinwë at getting to the essentials, at mastering the phrases and signs that she needs first without getting into complex, abstract things. It means that she misses some of Artanis’s rapid development, but at least she can tell her daughter that she loves her

And to stop screaming in their ears to get their attention.

Generally, things are getting better. Findaráto is coming out of his shell, Artanis gets frustrated far less often, and astonishingly, Fëanáro is being nice to Arafinwë even outside of the lessons.

The lessons are really more of an excuse for Fëanáro to document Artanis’s progress, she doesn’t actually need his help any more, though she’s surprisingly open to his suggestions to make a turn of phrase more elegant, or a sign more economical.

Surprisingly, because she’s not taking anyone else’s advice.

On anything.

Being able to communicate hasn’t made her any less stubborn.

She insists on doing everything herself, and now that she has a language of her own, she’s started to resent people who don’t sign.

Findaráto’s translations, even though he tries hard, aren’t good enough for her.

She refuses to play with anyone who can’t sign to her satisfaction.

Understandable reaction—but unfortunately impractical, because she has little patience for anyone who don’t sign as well as she does, which means the only people she’ll voluntarily spend time with are Fëanáro, Findaráto and maybe Arafinwë, on a good day.

Fëanáro has shown an incredible amount of good will so far, but he’s very busy. Mátengwië may have become one of his special projects, it’s still only one of them.

Specifically, aside from his princely and fatherly duties, he’s working on ways to capture light inside gems.

He can’t spend all of his days with a child that isn’t even his.

Findaráto is about to start university and needs to focus on his studies, however much he loves his sister. And socializing exclusively with a child isn’t very good for him, coming out of several years of depression.

“Eärwen and I have been talking about tutors,” Arafinwë tells Fëanáro one day. “Artanis is more than old enough to need one now, but none of them can sign with her. And she doesn’t read or write yet.”

“Reading will be a challenge,” Fëanáro confirms. “She doesn’t know Quenya, she will need to learn an entirely new language and medium at the same time. But she’s very bright, she’ll pick it up.”

“But who can teach her? I tried to start, but didn’t make any progress, she lacks any patience for what she doesn’t understand.”

“That’s not strictly true,” Fëanáro chuckles, remembering hours-long conversations with little Artanis about subjects as varied as which of her brothers is the most intelligent and what should be the right hand-shape for the word “turtle”. “But this particular challenge is understandably frustrating. I will teach her.”

“Truly?”

“Yes. As for tutors, I suggest Tulcasar, once she’s proficient with writing.”

“The loremaster? They’ve always refused to tutor any of us, I know Father asked them.”

Fëanáro laughs. “They tutored me before you were born. They will only accept the brightest students, they dislike children who cannot keep up with them. They lasted two weeks with Findis.”

Arafinwë tries very hard not to feel offended. Fëanáro isn’t even saying it as an insult, he’s so confident in his own superiority that it doesn’t register to him that it might be belittling.

“They’re tutoring Morifinwë and Curufinwë part-time right now,” Fëanáro continues. “My eldest two were never as interested in academic pursuits. Tulcasar will enjoy the challenge of learning Mátengwië, and Artanis is bright enough to keep them on their toes.”

“Alright,” Arafinwë says carefully.

“In the meantime, for the other subjects, you might ask Nelyafinwë or Morifinwë. You know Nelyafinwë adores her. And Morifinwë could use the challenge. I think he’s been feeling a little inadequate since Turkafinwë was accepted into the Hunt and Curufinwë got me to promise him an apprenticeship. He hasn’t found his craft yet.”

“Does he even need a craft?” Arafinwë asks. “I don’t have one. Findaráto is showing no sign of choosing a single field, and neither has Findekáno. Or Father, for that matter.”

“He thinks he does, at least,” Fëanáro says. “Perhaps Nerdanel and I have encouraged that a little too much. He persists in learning to paint, thinking it will please his mother, but I doubt it will ever be more than a hobby. If tutoring Artanis could help him realize that his strengths are more in academia, I would be grateful.”

“Fine, I will ask him. On one condition.”

Fëanáro raises an eyebrow—they both know that Arafinwë isn’t the one doing him a favour, here. But Arafinwë persists nonetheless, because he’s been meaning to bring up the topic.

“Let Maitimo finish his apprenticeship with Ñolofinwë. You know Father is not a good teacher, and he dislikes statecraft, for all that he is the King. Your hang-ups with our brother are hindering your son.”

He fully expects Fëanáro to get angry, only hoping that he’s accumulated sufficient goodwill that it won’t be the end of what friendship they have managed of late.

But Fëanáro laughs.

“You have been away from court for too long, Ara. Nelyafinwë has been shadowing Ñolofinwë for years.”

Arafinwë frowns. “The change hasn’t been acknowledged.”

“Does it need to be?”

Maybe it doesn’t. Let Fëanáro keep his pride and his misplaced grudge intact. He’s been fairly quiet about Ñolofinwë lately, no need to push him into another bout of paranoia.

And so Artanis starts taking reading and writing lessons from Fëanáro in the morning and spends many afternoons with Maitimo or Carnistir. Arafinwë and Findaráto come along the first few times, but it quickly becomes clear that she’s in good hands, and that their presence is hindering her more than helping. Arafinwë starts spending more time at court, since the family are now in Tirion a lot more.

Fëanáro and Ñolofinwë are actually being polite to each other. It’s quite a sight to see.

Things are going quite well, really.

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