A/N: Thank you to all the kind reviewers and followers! I would like to especially thank Unicadia (FFN) for her two pieces of art for this story! I uploaded them to their chapters (9 and 14) of this story if anyone wants to check them out. They are amazing and I am so flattered!
Apologies for missing an update!
When Eve came to in the early morning, she blinked her eyes open and realized her head rested on something warm. She straightened up, noticing that both Nelyo and Tyelko sat chatting quietly. Moryo sat nearby reading a book as he leaned against a tree.
"She awakens." Nelyo chuckled upon her shifting away from Findekáno.
"You're not a bad pillow," she told Findekáno with a small laugh. "Sorry."
"It is fine," Finno assured her, standing to stretch.
She undid her braid and ran her hands through the wavy and almost knotted auburn locks. She vaguely remembered their conversation the night before.
"We're heading back home today?" She gave a tiny frown. "That's what we decided last night right?"
"Correct," Nelyo nodded. He handed her a pastry filled with a red filling.
She took a bite and grinned. Through her full mouth she muttered, "This is amazing!" Huan ran up to her and she laughed, hiding her food. "Hey that's mine!"
Tyelko called for his canine friend. Huan barked and trotted back over to him, sitting down at Tyelko's feet and dwarfing everything around him. "I am staying an extra day," he said to Eve. "The Hunters are meeting together tonight."
"That sounds fun," she smiled, finally satisfied with her hair. She put her white flower crown back on. "How many are you?"
"Twenty-five." Then he paused and shook his head. "Twenty-six now including Hrávien."
They continued to chat for about twenty more minutes. Káno showed up eventually carrying a bag of supplies. The soft grin on his face made them all pause and demand answers.
"I found paints and canvas and brushes for Eve at the market," he revealed, opening the sack to reveal a dozen tubes of paint, eight horse hair brushes, and a roll of canvas. "It was time someone made good on their promise."
Eve gasped and took out one of the brushes. She felt it absentmindedly, half checking the quality of the hairs, half just feeling it for comfort. "Thank you so much!"
Káno nodded and offered to carry the bag for until they reached their horses. She thanked him again profusely. Now that all the brothers and Eve had packed up, they set off through the fair grounds to the massive stable where they had left the horses. Eve's face fell upon mounting Alassë. She did not want to leave the festival. But after several moments of sadness she reminded herself that there had to be a hundred things just as grand in this place.
Several days later they reached the inn which they'd stopped at on the way South. They stayed the night again. Eve placed her pack in her room and sighed to herself. The scent of alcohol didn't bother her quite as much this time around, but it still brought back unpleasant memories.
This time, all her companions decided to go drink. Eve did not fancy sitting in her room alone for hours. Therefore she took a deep breath and made up her mind to join them. She looked in the bag of art supplies and saw a small sketch pad and pencils. Eve decided to bring this along with her.
She sat down at a comfortable corner table. Findekáno and Moryo had gone to get glasses of wine for them all. Tyelko, Nelyo, and Káno chatted together as Huan sat curled under the table nearly too big for it but just fitting somehow. Eve took out a pencil and began to sketch what she remembered of Alqualondë's great domes and towers. She fell full engrossed into her work, not even noticing when the two other elves returned until they spoke.
"Five glasses of Laurornë wine, and from a good year, too," Moryo told them as he set the glasses down. Findekáno handed him the large bottle before both took their seats. Moryo began pouring. "You are sure you do not wish for any, Eve?"
"Yeah no. Thanks though," she said with a small smile.
Findekáno leaned over and peeked at her drawing. "Alqualondë?"
She beamed, glad he could recognize her sketch. "Yeah!"
"A nice drawing," he added, smiling back at her. "Perhaps you could draw something from your home for us?"
The others elves immediately sat up, intrigued by the prospect. Evidently they were interested. Eve nodded.
"Sure." She flipped the page of the sketch pad and paused. Deciding what to draw was harder than deciding to draw in the first place. "Okay. This is what we call a car."
Her hands flew across the page, starting with a loose outline of the car body. She decided on a basic commuter car, four wheel and low to the ground. After picking the final line from the sketch lines, she darkened the outline and added the wheels and extras like handle, door frames, and windows.
"What is a car?" Tyelko asked as she showed them the picture.
"It gets us around, sort of like horses but a lot faster." She pointed to the front half. "A driver sits here and steers with a circular wheel to tell the car where to go."
Moryo frowned, "But it is not alive?"
"No definitely not," Eve laughed. "It runs on electricity and gas, but don't ask me how that works. I've zero idea."
They frowned but eagerly nodded. Káno paused before asking his own question. "What sort of instruments did you have?"
"Millions," Eve joked. She turned the page again and sketched little images of a piano, an electric guitar, an ocarina, a drum set, and a recorder. She spoke their names. "Do you have any of these?"
"We have some similar ones," Káno nodded. "The one you called a recorder we have a version of. Drums we have. And that ocarina looks like a version of a flute like instrument. But the others are foreign to me."
Eve nodded. "I was okay at piano. The recorder is something that we were taught in school as children."
Nelyo leaned over and looked more closely before turning to Eve. "What of your alphabet? Can you write in your native tongue?"
"I hope so," Eve murmured. She took her pencil and made the shapes of each letter of the English language. It took a lot of concentration, but she slowly managed to recite their names and a few English words to combine them with. "This is just one of thousands of language spoken where I come from. It's English, my first language. But not everyone speaks it."
"Intriguing," Finno nodded eagerly. "You must show these to Findaráto. Of all of us, he will be the most intrigued."
For an hour or so they sat and drank, eating small helpings of food and watching as Eve became lost in her own little world of art. She had started sketching herself and her friends and fell out of the conversation. She was focusing on getting Christopher's nose right when she realized everyone but Findekáno had retired to bed. Findekáno himself was finishing of some sort of grand desert and a last glass of wine.
"Wow I really wasn't paying attention," Eve chuckled as she realized they were gone. "Sorry."
Findekáno chuckled. "Do not apologize. They had too much wine and decided to retire for rest." He gestured to her sketch pad with a fork. "May I see what you worked on?"
She paused, hesitating. But she turned it towards him and explained what it was. "That was me before I got here. Big difference is the shorter hair. Those are Sophia and Christopher, and that one there is my dad."
"Ah so you were beautiful even as a pure Secondborn," he said with a tiny smile. He immediately blushed, wondering what had come over him and all he could think was how thankful he was Nelyo had not been present.
Eve paused and blushed, a smile growing on her face until she couldn't contain it. "Thanks!"
"You are welcome," he mumbled, playing with his food. He suddenly felt much less critical of his brother's way with Elenwë, or Findaráto and Amarië. He could only hope they would take pity on him and not relentlessly tease Findekáno back. "Are those the types of clothes you wore?"
She glanced at the pants and shirt she had drawn on herself and Sophia. "Pretty much. Tight pants and boots and a long sleeved shirt plus a scarf tends to be my winter wardrobe."
"A nice wardrobe," Findekáno chuckled. "Very different from us here. But no less good, I think."
Eve turned to him. "So, of all your cousins, who's the best?"
Findekáno laughed hard. "You cannot just ask me this question!"
"I just did." Eve poked his arm. "I bet it's Nelyo."
"Nelyo is essentially my brother," Findekáno admitted with a nod of his head. "As the eldest in my family, he became an older brother I did not have by blood. That being said, Findo and I are good friends as well."
"So the oldest all stick together," Eve chuckled. "Do you pick on the younger ones?"
Findekáno rolled his eyes with a half smile. "No more than they require. Angaráto and Moryo are the easiest to upset, and Turvo is my brother so I must with him."
"Of course!" Eve nodded sarcastically. "Why would you ever not!"
With a quick sip of his wine he smirked. "Glad you see it as I do." He paused as she laughed. "Believe it or not, the Ambarussa are more a nuisance than I am."
"They're just kids," Eve protested.
Findekáno nodded. "Yes. Smart ones."
They each returned to their rooms soon after. Eve wanted a couple of hours of sleep and Finno did not keep her longer. They bid one another goodnight at their doors and Eve ducked inside her room. She smiled to herself, blushing terribly as she looked at the drawing of herself and her friends. He'd called her beautiful, and for some reason she found that a higher compliment than she'd ever received.