12 Days of Christmas 3 - A Fresh Start
Dec. 27th, 2023 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grundyscribblingAuthor: Grundy
Rating: FR13
Summary: Anariel's laying her plans, even if she doesn't entirely know what she's doing yet.
Word Count: 1225
Anariel looked around the room.
She was sure there was a rhyme and reason to how everything was laid out, but it wasn’t exactly as if she could ask. (Well, she could, if she was willing to involve her sister. Or possibly if it turned out she could visit the Halls independently. But either way might tip Grandpa Butthead off and risk spoiling the surprise.)
Most disconcertingly, she wasn’t sure where she could scribble down ideas. This place was getting a white board, stat.
Oh, wait. That looked like a chalkboard. Which meant there had to be chalk somewhere…
It was a split second decision. She started pulling drawers open at random until she found what she needed.
New plan: learn her way around Fëanor’s workshop first, then start on the assignment to write down everything she could remember about records and CDs. (She’d sort of blended both concepts together when trying to explain to Mahtan. But she was thinking record player was probably more achievable. She was fairly sure CD players involved lasers. That seemed like an advanced concept. Also, one with considerably more potential to do damage.)
Arador poked his head in half an hour later, with an air of great caution.
“No one’s ever allowed in here, you know,” he said, seating himself gingerly on one of the stools near the chalkboard.
Anariel smirked.
“Yeah, but I’m the grandkid. And he’s not here to tell me no.”
“Also, the one who bagged a couple balrogs. After that, I suppose even Uncle Fëanáro can’t be that bad.”
She giggled.
“I’m telling him you said so.”
“You better write it down, I think he’s going to be a while.”
Arador was considerably more circumspect about poking into things, but he did agree with her that a whiteboard was both more modern and easier to clean up than the ancient chalkboard.
“You’ve never even used one of these, have you?” he asked.
“Actually, I have. When I was little.”
At his pointed look, she gave him a mock glare.
“Little like a little kid!” she elaborated. “They had them in school. I liked clapping the erasers clean. It was one of the classroom jobs, and I always picked that if it was my turn to be classroom helper.”
“I can’t see you wanting to get chalk dust all over yourself,” Arador frowned. “Even if you were as into everything as Mírimë.”
“Clapping erasers meant you got to go outside at the end of the day,” Anariel replied. “I loved going outside. Also, we got to clap them on the side of the building, and it was fun to see how big a mark you could leave on the brickwork.”
They were still having an amiable bicker about chalkboards and classroom helper chores when Uncle Moryo poked his head in.
“Just making sure you haven’t destroyed the place,” he murmured.
“I’m not trying to destroy it, I’m trying to figure out where things are,” Anariel replied, opening the cabinet underneath the windows. Were those paint pots?
“You could ask,” Uncle Moryo suggested pointedly.
Anariel blinked.
“You know where stuff is in here?” she asked. “I thought you had your own workshop?”
“We all had to spend some time in here with Atto,” he said wryly. “Which means I do know the organization and layout.”
Anariel grinned.
“Pretty please show me?”
Uncle Moryo needed an explanation of why she thought ‘pretty’ was a reasonably modifier for ‘please’, but once she’d finished that digression through Califonria, she spent the next couple hours following Uncle Moryo around taking notes in the blank book he helpfully grabbed from the drawer underneath the work surface next to the door. (Using the pencil from the drawer next to it, which turned out to be chock a block with writing implements.)
He’d started with where the things not to touch were.
“I doubt you know enough to be messing with any of Atto’s experimental materials, so don’t. They’re in those cabinets, and should be locked up so small people who shouldn’t be touching them can’t.”
“Hey!”
Arador didn’t even try to cover up the laughter, and her glare was as much at him as it was Uncle Moryo.
“Stop glowering. The last small people who shouldn’t have been touching them would have been Ambarussa,” Uncle Moryo clarified. “Tyelpë wasn’t ever here long enough to get into anything.”
She eyed him suspiciously, but he looked steadily back until she accepted he meant it.
“You told me you didn’t start worrying about making weapons or armor until you came to Imladris. Given how little time you had between all your other projects, that means you’ve got less experience than my armorer in Amon Ereb. Give it another few long years and I might have sufficient confidence Atto won’t take my head off for being irresponsible enough to let you play with things even he worked up to. For now, you’ll be safe enough with anything in these, or in the storage room. I handed you the book, but you’re responsible for replacing it – by Atto’s rules, you either bring your own or replace what you borrow.”
Anariel was able to assure him she did know her way around a hot shop, not that she planned on doing anything requiring a furnace just yet.
The organization of the tools and where they were stored made sense once she understood how Grandpa Butthead had worked – and that while he had usually had apprentices and assistants, he tended to do most of his experimental work on his own.
By the time Uncle Moryo insisted they break for dinner, she was feeling pretty happy with her newly appropriated workspace.
“You do realize you could take over any of my brothers’ workrooms?” Uncle Moryo asked wryly as they entered the kitchen, where she was happy to see Aunt Silmë and Gran Lindë.
“Yeah, but why? Grandpa Butthead’s not here to need his. And anyway, I already took over Uncle Celeg – Tyelko’s room.”
She was doing her best to work on the Quenya names for everyone. It was taking some getting used to, though, given she’d learned them all in Sindarin first. (And the Sindarin opinions that went with some of them, to boot.)
“I have that circlet for you to try on when you have a moment,” Aunt Silmë informed her as she handed her the salad bowl to bring to table. “You’re not hurrying off after dinner, are you?”
Anariel shook her head.
“I was thinking I’d stick around for a few days unless anyone comes looking for me,” she told the room at large as they sat down.
“Any chance you’re ready to tell us about this mysterious project of yours, darling?” Gramma Nerdanel prompted. “Or do we need to wait until you’ve got a prototype?”
Anariel only hesitated a moment. She’d already told Grandpa Mahtan…
“I’m going to add music to the silly fountain,” she said.
She hadn’t decided on the tune yet. But she was thinking either the Imperial March or the Indiana Jones song. Tinu would pee herself laughing at either one. (She’d briefly considered Yackety Sax, but decided that would only really work for her, Tinu, and Nana. Better to go for something the Noldor could appreciate without any further context.)
There was a split second of silence, and then the questions started flying.
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