Month: November 2015

curufinwefeanaro:

misbehavingmaiar:

The Vala sucked in a breath. –Fire–, or the idea of it, leapt from the mind of Fëanáro to his with a strong sense of warning, like a firm hand holding him back.

He had not expected that; he’d never had the mind of an elf touch his before. He had not know they could. For the most infinitesimal fraction of a second, he had a glimpse into the wheels and colorful fragments of the finest engineering brain the Noldor race had yet produced. It felt a bit like catching a glimpse of someone extremely beautiful undressing through an open window… Melkor felt a coppery blush spread hot across his face, realizing too late that he’d not heard a word that had been spoken for several seconds. 

”…a system of thirty-two graphemes…“ Fëanáro continued, voice low and intense, the voice that could famously enthrall a lecture hall in total silence with only a breath, or a all the kingdom with a roar.

As much as it had been tantalizing to gain knowledge of something so pivotal and cryptic as the written word, the chance to have uninterrupted, private audiences with the High Prince had been many times as tempting. He could only imagine what had drawn down the Spirit of Fire from his high disdain of the Vala to have a seat at this table…
Perhaps as the ‘least of the dwellers in Aman’, he was simply the only one of his brethren available for use in this (slightly blasphemous) experiment.

What a strain Vairë must be under, winding our two threads together… Melkor reflected, eyes tracking the elegant, meaningless strokes of ink that flowed across the scroll. They may as well have been geese flying across the open sky, for all they resembled language.
Could he learn? Did a being with no set biology, no childhood, whose raison d’être had been set from the instant of their creation, have the capacity to change?

“Who, if not I, Master Fëanáro? When there was Nothing, I learned of all there could be. When there was only Harmony I wrought Dissonance; when the elements were separate, I broke and recombined them; for the sake of my siblings’ law, I have had to–” Lie “–learn to become other than what I was in order to live. If The Mighty Arising cannot comprehend something new and unthought of, then surely, it is beyond all Valar.” Melkor gleamed, long tendrils of fire curling into a smug halo.
But then, with the candid spirit of the meeting weighing upon him, the Vala paused, thorned shoulders rising in a contrite shrug. 

“…That is, in any case, the only evidence I have to suggest that I can indeed learn of things beyond the continuum of my design. The truth is… I do not yet know.”

I wish to know… I am frightened NOT to know… the shadows of his mind whispered. What hope is there, if it is not possible to alter what was made? 

“Please. Explain how you devised such things. I am listening.”  

« And I would not be surprised, if it were beyond all Valar », Fëanáro answered, but not with malice. He pondered, almost on the verge of tilting his head like an attentive, curious child, but raising his chin instead. « I read… transcriptions of some of the councils in the Máhanaxar, those who were understandable enough to be written down. Again, from memory to parchment. » He was thinking about one of them, in particular, that council which had sealed his mother’s fate and his father’s choice into what Mandos had judged universal laws; he was thinking of the Statute, and he pursed his lips at the thought. « They struggle to understand needs that are not their own, and fail. »

          A tense note quivered in his voice, but as his eyes turned to Melkor again, and to his burning aura, the wrinkle between his eyes disappeared and his furrowed brows relaxed. « But I do not yet know either. » Yet Melkor was agreeing to experiment with him and give him an answer, and that for now was enough. He sought them, and thus answers would come, one way or the other.

          He sat down again, reached out for a new, untouched paper, and picked the quill up, the one whose tip had been blackened by the Vala’s hot breath. « Consider this, Melkórë. Each of the sounds that the Quendi produce with their mouths, their teeth, tongues and throats must coincide with a sign on the paper, and the correspondence must be conventional even as it is arbitrary. When you read those signs you will know to which sounds they correspond, and you will not have to hear them aloud to understand. That is the core of written language. And each of the Tengwar represents and is adapted to coincide to a specific point of articulation in our mouths. »

         He stared at the Vala for a moment, then leaned forward and dipped the quill in the black ink. « This is tinco », he said, and as he pronounced it he also wrote it. Upside down with regard to himself, so that Melkor could observe it from the right direction. His hand moved with a deliberate slowness, making it evident what it was writing: a long vertical line and a single bow on its upper right. « The sound it represents is— T. Voiceless dental occlusive, to use specific terminology. Your tongue must touch the upper arch of your teeth, which is why it is dental, air stops as it leaves the mouth and we cannot prolong the sound, which is why it is an occlusive, and there is no vibration of our throat », he then touched the lower part of his neck, only partially covered by his collar, « here, which is why it is voiceless. But I am being too specific. »

          He dipped the quill again. « Still, it is useful information, for the Tengwar are divided in four series, the témar. Four columns, and the first of them is the Tincotéma, called so because all the sounds represented by these graphemes are dental –or alveolar, which is simply, ah, the tongue touching your teeth’s sockets rather than your teeth themselves. » With quicker movements, he started adding other signs. « In the second row, under tinco, there is ando, then come thúle, anto, númen and… I shall leave out the sixth row, for now. » The quill rested in his hand for a moment, and he found out yet again that explaining in detail how his alphabet worked, and explaining it to a lay, to someone who knew nothing of the discipline, was difficult and tiring. Which was also why he only gave lectures and did not teach classes. He took much knowledge for granted and realising that, at times, it had to be explained was almost vexing.

          « When the bow is doubled », he added, pointing at the second row, « the voiceless letter turns into a voiced one. Tinco does not make our throat vibrate, but ando does. Raising the vertical stem above the bow, instead of below, turns the occlusive into the corresponding fricative– that is, air passes through a narrow channel and is not stopped. Tinco is the occlusive, thúle is the fricative. The fourth row is peculiar to sounds of Quenya, they are clusters. Shortening the stem like in the fifth row turns the letter in a nasal. Air passes through our nose. And all of these variations are valid for the other three colums as well, only that sounds are no more articulated against our teeth but with other parts of our mouths. »

           Fëanáro breathed in and twisted the quill between his fingers. « I trust that a Vala does not need me to repeat what I say more than once, even if it is the first time that he hears of such notions. But I would not be surprised if you asked me why I feel the need to attach so many informations to little glyphs. Would you ask that, Melkor? If you would, then I tell you: letters are not part of our beings. We are born with voices, with the involuntary instinct to breathe, with the need to eat, but remembering how to write means using memory, and creating a way to write means understanding the mechanism. Much like we need to understand how to farm the land, if we wish to make grow what can bloom with a single note of Yavanna’s voice. I made my Tengwar fewer than the Sarati, and thus easier to remember and to use, but that required much understanding. For you see, sometimes what looks easier is what has required the longest work. » He raised his brows and dipped the quill yet again. 

          « If you have no questions, I shall proceed. »

“They struggle to understand needs that are not their own, and fail”

He at once felt a stirring of resentment and understanding; he’d been the recipient of the Valar’s incomprehension time enough, and now he had the uncomfortable sensation that he had overlooked, nay, willfully discounted, many things due to that same loftiness.  It was something he would consider in the future, when calculating his own advantage— but it left an unpleasant feeling in his head, like the buzzing of an insect he could not see, and so he cast the thoughts aside.

It worried him to know that an elf could hear and record the speech of his brethren; that a lesser being could comprehend the divine dialect seemed to him like water running uphill. It was unnatural, shocking— intriguing. Just the sort of information he could tuck away for later use. He felt a small, whimsical swell of admiration for the sheer transgression of these simple creatures, spying on his brothers and sisters in council, learning their tongue. (He presumed they were spying. Even if they had been invited to attend, he was certain that the Valar took for granted the inability of the Children to understand them in their native speech.)

Fëanáro returned to his seat with a hiss of red silk. A sheet of cream-colored parchment slid between them. Quill touched paper;

A little symphony in susurrus. His ears twitched in anticipation.

The principle introduced was such a simple one he felt ashamed for not guessing it immediately— and yet, the longer he thought upon the trouble of producing a sign for every sound a mouth could make, the prospect became dizzying. But he nodded when the prince looked to him for response.

The first glyph was introduced. “Tinco”— Sharp sounds, like sparks from a fire. He watched his host’s mouth articulate the sound, while the quill scratched a little black line and hook onto the sheet with careful elegance.

Immediately, he felt the beginnings of a war within his brain. I already know what that sound is, get on with it! Screamed one voice, while another shouted equally loud, Stop! There’s no room in my head for this! Melkor inhaled and licked his lips, discreetly making claw marks in the table as he took measures to clear the slate of his mind.

“Tinco”, he repeated, and mouthed silently the postures of tongue and throat that Fëanáro described, testing the feel of them as if for the first time, though he’d been speaking them for an age.

It made perfect sense, what was being said. Each little sound was a particle making up a whole, each whole strung together to form an image in the mind, each image placed in context within a larger system of meaning. He understood this— he’d built the structure for gold, for carbon, atom by atom in his mind, before Singing it into the map of existence. Of course he understood! And yet…

Resistance. Or no, rather, slipperiness, was making sounds and information slosh about. There was no place for it to be stored, so it simply toppled through his head and out his ears again as soon as it entered. He struggled to remember what he’d just heard—

occlusive, fricative, rows, teeth, voiceless, tongue…

His secret grip on the table increased. Within he grasped at the fluttering shreds of knowledge he’d held intact for an instant before they’d been blown away by a fresh gust of information. He was drowning, but he did all he could to keep the signs of it from showing on his face.

“…I would not be surprised if you asked me why I feel the need to attach so much information to little glyphs. Would you ask that, Melkor?”

The Vala blinked. What? Suddenly he was reintroduced to the present conversation. How much time had passed? Seconds. He felt ill.

Fëanáro explained how he’d made his system of writing easier and simpler than the one before it. “What looks easier has required the longest work.”

Melkor felt himself swallow on a dry throat. “I have no questions. Only—“ his eyes fluttered shut for an instant, dizzy. “…Give me a moment alone to think, and look at what you have written.”