Send “❥” for my muse’s reaction to catching yours naked.
One of the twins was crying again. It seemed every time she got herself comfortable for some rest, something distressed one or the other. After five children, Nerdanel thought she could handle anything - until two had come at once. Not that she did not love them, of course she did, but... but two at once. It was enough to drive anyone to a mild case of frayed nerves to say the least. Heaving herself up from the couch, Nerdanel padded towards the nursery chamber and poked her head in. In one of the cots, Ambarussa was standing up and pulling and pushing on the bars, shrieking and wailing as if the world itself was coming to an end.
"Oh, my sweet," Nerdanel murmured wearily as she scooped him up. He did not settle in her arms, and gave her hair a sharp tug. "No! You do not do that, little one." Her firm tone quietened him and at least the child had the decency to look momentarily ashmed. Shifting him to her hip, she sighed. "What is it? What's wrong?"
After a long moment during which Nerdanel began wandering through the house to the gardens, and during which Ambarussa seemed to strain himself with deep thought and contemplation (although thankfully in silence this time) he finally decided what was wrong: he was hungry.
"Hungry?" Nerdanel repeated. "Well, we can fix that, can't we? Your brothers went hunting yesterday and brought home lots of lovely things to eat; would you like some of that? Would berries make you not hungry?" The idea of fresh berries appealed to the small child very much and he began chattering away to her in what was mostly nonesense to her, but to him she was sure it made perfect and logical sense, so she nodded and gave the expected "really?"s and "oh that sounds splendid"s when he paused expectantly.
It did not take long to get from the nursery to the kitchen, and Nerdanel lit a small candle in the otherwise dark room. During the hours of Telperion's light, few servants worked in the house. It was dark, yes, but it wasn't as quiet as it should have been. Freezing, Nerdanel heard something or someone rustling around in the pantry. She quickly set Ambarussa on a stool and held her finger to her lips in a sign that he ought keep quiet, and with a gleeful smile he pressed his hands over his mouth as if they were great conspiritors in one of their games. Nerdanel gave her son a reassuring smile, before silently creeping over to the doorway of the pantry. Her hand raised and heartbeat quick, she pushed open the door.
"And who under the stars are you?" The surprise in Nerdanel's voice was overpowered by the sheer indignance of finding a woman standing as naked in her pantry as the day she was born - naked and with an armful of bread and cheese. "Well? Do not just stand there! If you are in my house and eating my food at least speak your name!"
From outside the kitchen, somewhere down the hall, Nerdanel heard the soft call of one of her older sons, and she gave the naked woman another indignant look. Her sons were devils, bringing their playmates into the house at all hours, the sanctity of courtship utterly lost on a few of them, it seemed, and she closed her eyes, more weary than anything. "If you have forgotten your clothes it does not surprise me that you have forgotten your tongue also," Nerdanel eventually said, relieving the young woman of the need to tell her her name in this particular moment. "Go. Take the cheese and the bread and join my son. There is also some apple cider under the counter in the kitchen, should it interest you." Better this woman be found by her than Feanaro, Nerdanel thought - and if she had been so inclinced, perhaps once she would have been raiding Finwe's pantry in-between playdates with Feanaro. She dismissed the woman with a flick of the wrist and wry smile, rubbing her temple. Perhaps she would learn her name come the light of Laurelin.
