Fëanaro passes all his classes with results so incredible his crafting examination is almost disappointing. He fulfills his commission alright, at least technically, but the jury finds his aesthetical choices weird, and they almost get into a fight because Fëanaro obviously copies his mother's style rather than makes his own and doesn't appreciate at all when the craft mistress looks down at it works and calls the design misguided.

"Of course I didn't say anything. Mairon was here, I didn't want to anger him, but this foolish woman needs to craft herself a sense of taste."

"Aesthetical tastes are mostly cultural," Mirfin says, trying to soothe his little brother. Fëanaro likes to be praised and reassured, he thinks, because he take some things too much at heart, and never understands silent congratulations. Being much more reserved, Mirfin doesn't feel very comfortable doing so, but makes himself do it anyway. "She did say your work was technically very good."

"She said I have mediocre vision!" Fëanaro rages. "And average technique!"

"She didn't say average. It wasn't perfect, but you admitted yourself you didn't practice much in the past years. Considering embroidery has never been your craft of choice until a week ago, no one expected you to be perfect."

"Everyone expects me to be perfect!"

"I don't."

"Liar."

"Perfection doesn't exist. You are chasing after the gold rabbit if you think you can reach it."

"I did reach it. I crafted the Silmarilli."

Mirfin's mouth curves into a disgusted smirk.

"You doubt their perfection because you never saw them."

"And I hope I'll never have to!" Of course, it means Mirfin will never meet Melkor either, but he's not hoping he ever will at this point. The uruks can see Melkor, but none of them actually look like an elf. Mairon is hiding his alphas and betas. "I really don't understand how rocks emitting blinding light can be perfect."

"Because you never saw them."

"Really, Fëanaro? I questioned some of my uruks about them. They hurt. Some of them even had their eyesight damaged by them. Perfect art isn't supposed to hurt those who see the piece, especially if it wasn't intended to by the artist in the first place."

"The uruks aren't worth looking at them. They are bad judges."

"Can't you just admit that not everyone has to be swayed by the Silmarilli?"

"No. I can't. What is a gold rabbit?"

Mirfin sighs. Every time the Silmarilli come into play, they are unable to agree on anything. Fëanaro's love for them is something his brother can't uproot. The noldo can be quite good at arguing theoretical matters but not so when he is personally involved. Whether his refusal to be confrontational is new or has always been a part of his personality, Mirfin cannot guess.

"It's a rabbit made of gold."

"So?"

"Fluithin's tale. It's the story of a girl who runs after a gold rabbit. Because she runs all the time she's becoming very fast, but every rabbit she catches isn't a gold rabbit, so she runs faster and longer to find it."

"Does she?"

"No. She dies of exhaustion because gold is a metal, so obviously a gold, running living rabbit is impossible, and her mission was doomed to fail."

"That's an awful story."

"No it's not. It's a story about how we have to accept that some things are impossible and we can't devote our life to them."

"I don't think Fluithin invented this. It doesn't make any literary sense," Fëanaro muses. The pensive look on his face reassures Mirfin immensely: when Fëanaro starts to think about something, his anxiety tends to recedes. The Mulak summons his most interested face to keep him going. "If Fluithin had made the story, there would be a gold rabbit because it's a tale and Fluithin doesn't care if it's possible or not. The girl may not be able to catch it. Perhaps the rabbit is just too fast or jumps into holes where she can't fit. But the rabbit has to exist or it's not her style. Plus, the girl is running after gold, which means that gold is favored as an ideal of perfection, but it's not. Fluithin favors silver as a metal and cold, pale colors in general."

"She does wear a lot of gold."

"Mairon's gifts, each and every one of them. She wears them to please him but she doesn't like the color."

"How do you know?"

"I asked," the noldo shrugs. "Either an elf made the tale or Mairon did, but I'd be surprised if Fluithin did, unless there's a hidden meaning and the gold rabbit isn't perfection, but something dangerous that has to do with... envy, perhaps? Ambition? Wealth? Power? Then yes, if the rabbit is inherently bad instead of being good, I can imagine Fluithin imagining this tale, but then who interpreted this wrong? Anyway if you want to make Fluithin happy, I think the perfect gift isn't jewelry but fabric-based. She loves embroidery, by the way. I wanted to give the commission to her but it's subpar and..."

"Stop being foolish and give it to her, she will appreciate the gift."

"No. It isn't good enough."

"You don't have anything to prove to her. She will be happy to receive a gift, any gift from you."

Mirfin still feels tension in his brother's body, the way he avoids his eyes to keep his closed mind and his thought safer. He's a bad actor, though, and his shoulders betray him.

"Something is bothering you."

"It's nothing. I'm just annoyed because of the jury."

"Something else is bothering you."

Fëanaro's jaw works in silence. It takes a long time to get the venom out.

"The scarifications. What if I don't want them?"

"I can't do anything about that. You will never be respected here unless your status is imprinted on your face." Then... "It doesn't hurt much, nothing you can't handle. We use a very sharp razor and the cut is immediately closed with medicine. The scars actually disappear after a century or so. I have them done every fifty years. It's nothing compared to even a single lash."

"It's... not done. Among my people." Fëanaro turns glowing eyes toward him. Mirfin often wishes he could erase the light from them, but not as often as before. "Smooth, perfect faces are praised among us."

"It's not the case here. You aren't in Valinor anymore. An unmarked face is either the face of a recently captured prisoner or of a child. You look infantile right now. The cuts will make you more beautiful and certainly more respected."

"Not to my eyes."

Despite Fëanaro's misgivings, he proves remarkably dignified when he receives the marks of adulthood, stoic and unreadable. The audience is less adept at hiding their trouble, some of them going as far as disdain for the stranger, the murderer of their people, being granted a non-deserved place into their midst.

Fëanaro's new status doesn't change anything at first. He dresses differently, but otherwise his days are spent the same way as before, splitting his time between linguistics, the nursery, hospital and now embroidery. He dedicates all his spare time to his craft, and half his nights. Because he requires strong light to work he keeps Mirfin up as a side effect.

"I'm not going to sleep until I finish this," he snaps when his brother tries to coax him to their bed. "Aren't you bothered that they are blind to Miriel's genius? If I manage the perfect piece, they will have to see."

His dark mood doesn't improve when his next piece's reception isn't better than the first one. He spends two hours inflicting a furious rant to Mirfin about the absoluteness of beauty, his critics' lack of taste and his own incompetency. He accuses them of slandering his work because they don't like him, because he's a stranger and they are biased. When he's done ranting, Fëanaro throws himself at another design (Miriel's design), trying to remember how every single thread is supposed to fit and where.

"Why don't you make your own next time?" Mirfin proposes, worried when his brother rips his latest creation apart because "it doesn't remotely look like mother's version". "I liked this one."

"That was horrible. That didn't do justice to the original. Don't you see I'm trying to show them they are wrong in slandering our mother?"

Mirfin sighs and lets go of the subject. He has better things to do than keep Fëanaro from hurting himself by defending their mother's honor: he's a grown elf now, he can figure it out by himself.

Agarin dies two months after. Mirfin doesn't how he feels about it. Is he sad? Relieved? Now that she's gone, he can remember who she used to be, a reliable elf, too sensitive perhaps, yet not an artist at all. She loved children. She wasn't the most beautiful, but she was the kind of person who felt deep pride in worshipping her partner's body. Mirfin had enjoyed having sex with her, tremendously. They never sired children together. Ki-Barzil was almost over-populated at the time, so the need wasn't there.

Fëanaro's promotion as Gashan is announced three days later in order to give the illusion that it wasn't planned. There's no contestation, not that that would be allowed in any way, the choice being Fluithin's and Mairon's, but the acceptation is sullen. There are whispers (stranger, he's an enemy isn't he?), glares and smirks. Fëanor used to be the Mulak's exotic pet; now he's the scheming, foreign bitch who slept his way into power, as if everyone expects Mirfin to have actively lobbied the gods for the position.

"I always wondered," one of his fellow Mulaks asks him, at the end of the daily meeting. "Do you actually blindfold him?" And to Mirfin's questioning gaze, he adds: "When you fuck him, I mean. Those eyes of his must be a huge turn off." He laughs. "Unless you have a fetish for shiny eyes?"

Mirfin barely refrains from hitting him.

"You are speaking of my Gashan. Show some respect."

"He's not a Gashan yet." And he would never be if I had my say, the other Mulak conveys through mindspeech.

He is startled when he meets Fëanaro after his hair have been bleached. He kept his eyebrows and had them bleached too, and the change is startling. Mirfin finds that he doesn't look that much like Finwë once the shared hair color disappears, and that there's more of Miriel on his face that he'd thought. With his white hair, fair skin and pale grey eyes, the white clothes of the Gashan, his brother looks devoid of all colors.

"How do I look?"

"Like a true Gashan."

Fëanaro doesn't believe him.

"They all hate me, don't they?"

"It doesn't matter." Mirfin isn't going to lie. "As long as they respect you."

"They don't."

"You will make them."

He's worried, though. Fëanaro is too soft. He will need to distribute a few kicks here and there, but he won't be brutal enough, and what he will see as a moral behavior will only make him look like a coward or a weakling.

"Doesn't matter," Mirfin reassures him. He takes Fëanaro's hands in his. "You have to concentrate on the ceremony. I believe everything has been explained to you, but if you have anything to ask, I'll help."

"Do I have to paint my face?"

"It is done."

"I know, but there's a difference between law and tradition. If the makeup is required by the laws, I'll wear them but if it isn't, I'd rather remain like this. They make me feel dirty."

"You should at least paint your face for the ceremony. You can always not do it for everyday life. Would you like me to apply the make up?"

He nods and Mirfin gets to work like an artist making a portrait. Everyday make-up is fairly simple, while ceremonial one involves a lot of precise little touches he loves to apply. Each of them make his brother less a foreigner; the feeling enhanced by his closed eyes. The Mulak paints the skin in ivory and the lips in black. He lines the eyes with kohl, as far as the temples with thick, straight lines. The scars are made apparent with a gold pen, which he then uses on lips and eyes.

He then helps his brother fastens the outer layers of the dress, embroidered gloves and beaded necklaces. The last piece of the dress, the ornamented belt, is to be awarded during the ceremony. Only his hair remain untamed, flowing long and white to his waist, where it ends with a gentle wave. Going unbraided is the privilege of the highest order.

"You look…"

"… like I can't move at all," Fëanaro cuts him. He tries to raise his arms, but the outer dress is so stiff the shoulders don't really fold. He would be ridiculous but for the eyes, made feral by the black lines.

"I was going to say regal, but not-able-to-move fits." Mirfin grabs the nearby mirror to show him his face. "I'm rather proud of the painting."

The noldo tries some different angles, brows furrowed, as if trying to decide whether he likes it or not.

"Do you think father would recognize me if he saw me now?"

Mirfin doesn't have anything to answer to that. He doesn't know enough of Finwë to guess. He offers his hand to his new Gashan instead, feeling the soft material of the white gloves on the skin of his palm as he leads him out of their house.

Fëanaro's princely upbringing shows through the whole ceremony. He is tall, dignified, magnificent in his rich clothes and golden make-up, voice carrying far and strong. Mirfin stands a few feet behind him. He knows his brother to be terrified by Mairon's presence at his side, but the Gashan doesn't show his fear. He ignores the hostile glances, the whispers; he walks with the grace of someone who wore heavy, impractical clothes before, and manages to do so as if they weight nothing.

They make an odd couple, Mirfin thinks while he steps forward to drape the heavily ornamented belt around his brother's waist. Since Gashans are mostly intellectual, healers and crafters, they tend to be physically weaker than the Mulaks, bred and trained for war, most of whom try to build as much muscles as they can to intimidate. Mirfin, however, is both smaller and lighter than Fëanaro, whose shoulders and arms are starting to thicken back to their original strength, and who towers over him in a way that leaves no question as to who looks like the alpha male. Mirfin still believes he can easily beat him in most fights, but he's conscious this advantage would be quickly lost if Fëanaro were ever given proper combat training.

They are supposed to share a kiss at the end of the ceremony. The Mulak is afraid the very prudish noldo prince will balk, but no: he seems rather amused that he has to bow to meet Mirfin's lips.

The formal feast goes less well. All the Mulaks and Gashans are assembled here, thirteen of each, and most of them aren't happy to welcome the former Noldoran among them. None can openly express their resentment, though, since both Mairon and Fluithin preside over the feast. There is, however, a tendency to choose subjects that are bound to anger or embarrass Fëanaro, or to trick him into betraying his faked loyalties toward his new masters.

Fëanaro doesn't give them satisfaction and remains the ever docile and gracious star of the evening. Mirfin, who sits at Mairon's right, cannot decipher his attitude very well since Fëanaro is at Fluithin's left, but his voice remains calm, if slightly accented.

"I have heard elves from Valinor don't have sex at all," says the Mulak who, the day before, dared to ask Mirfin about blindfolds. Obviously, this one has a tendency to think about his cock more than he should. "Why is that? Do you actually cut some vital parts out of you, or was the noldorin civil war caused, in fact, by all those unfulfilled sexual tension you're sure to experience?"

"It is true that intimate relationships are far less… frequent, varied and public than they are here," Fëanaro answers with audible discomfort. Sex, Mirfin knows, is definitely a taboo subject among his people. "Since we do have children, however, I wonder how you came to the conclusion that sex doesn't happen at all."

"Well, having sex seven time in your whole life is not "no sex at all", granted, but that's still ridiculously low," the Mulak laughs.

Mirfin can picture Fëanaro's skin changing to a deep red; it wouldn't show under the paint.

"How generous of you, granting me one intercourse per son," the noldo retorts with more anger than humor. "Are you at least aware that it's statistically almost impossible to sire a child each time you have sex?"

"Granted. But if you don't have good fucks outside of breeding…"

"I do not recall gifting the Holy Tongue to your people to have it sullied by such coarse phrasing, Mulak Sigil," Mairon's interrupts him. As a sexually non-interested being, he's less than passionate about the turn of the conversation, though he hasn't begrudged his alphas with a bit of teasing thus far.

Fëanaro waits until they are alone, in their new, huge chamber, to explode.

He asks, first, calmly, for Mirfin's help in getting rid of the heaviest outer layers, while he, calmly, peels off the gloves. His body is tensed like a horse's barely reigned, stiff, immobile; calm, yes, but only on the surface, while he boils inside.

Once he's out and free to move, he grabs the first breakable thing available – a wooden low table of the highest quality – and smash it against the nearest wall with a furious scream. He bashes it again and again until it's so broken he can't handle it anymore. Fëanaro keeps screaming then, until his breath starts to choke from lack of air and tears stream black down his whitened cheeks.

"Are you…"

"Alright. I'm… I'm alright. Just… letting out…" His breath is starting to come back. "… don't worry. Just… give me time."

By the time Fëanaro is done half an hour later, his voice is hoarse, his face ruined, but he's finally calm – truly calm this time.

"Was I good enough?" he asks with a croaky voice. "Did I behave?"

"You were wonderful. It's not your fault if they acted with pettiness."

"They hate me all. Of them. The Mulaks, the Gashans, my own betas, all of them want me dead or enslaved at their feet." He sits warily on their new bed, a huge thing a few steps up the floor, and starts to untie his shoes. "How I am supposed to rule over them?"

"I will help," Mirfin reaffirms while he starts to clean his own make-up. "We are a team. I won't allow anyone to disrespect you, even your beta. Remember that disrespecting you earns them twenty lashes. That should make them think twice."

"I'm not torturing anyone," Fëanaro warns him. "And I won't have my betas flogged for my sake."

"It's expected of you."

"Many things have been expected of me in the past. I deliver if I find it acceptable, but flogging isn't."

"It's the law."

"I'll find loopholes. You aren't the only one who can read."

"Gashans aren't supposed to disturb order. It's a dangerous game."

"Why am I here then?" Fëanaro raises his eyes to meet Mirfin's, irises aflame. "Tell me, why did Mairon go to such lengths to make a Gashan out of me if he doesn't want me to disturb order? Why name a foreigner who barely fakes conformism if not to introduce change?"

"But it won't work! Your refusal to use the usual punishment won't be seen as progress or noble restrain! They will only think you weak and feel allowed to mistreat you!"

"I'd rather suffer their disdain than fight it by becoming a monster. I have accepted much already, far more than I have during my whole life, to fit in Ki-Barzil. I have accepted to remain silent while you pray to Melkor, to accept Mairon's authority and to participate in what is, truly, a war effort against my own people. I have allowed you to bleach my hair and cut my face. I speak your tongue, eat your food and dress like you. I already gave so much of myself I can't recognize my own face in the mirror, but I allow it because I don't have a choice. I won't, however, allow this place to corrupt the core of what I am, the values dearest to me, and what morality I can still uphold. There is a point where I can't give up ground anymore and have to stand, even if I have to stand against the world and everyone that lives in it."

"At least allow me to punish them in your name."

"No. Do whatever you want with your betas, but mine are under my authority and will be punished as I see fit if needed."