Work Text:
“Are you deciphering the language of bees?”
Tyelkormo rolled his eyes and straightened up, allowing Nelya to see the parchment. Instead of tengwar, there were little charcoal doodles of bees.
“Fascinating”
“Shut up, Nelya. I’m a visual learner and translating the language of bees is a very tedious process. You have to translate their buzzing and dances into Quenya.” He paused and turned, flicking Ambarussa’s clumsy braids out of his face. “Why are you bothering me anyway?”
“I have developed a sudden interest in bees and also wanted to know if you have honey from your conquests. If you spend so much time around bees, surely you must have collected some sort of reward for your patience.”
“Aside from being stung, you mean,” he said, brandishing his arm where little welts dotted the freckled and tattooed skin. “You can just say you want honey. Besides, the kitchens have rows and rows of jars filled to the brim with different flavors as well. There’s new batches that have blueberry mixed in.”
“Yes, but this is fresh.”
Nelya sat on the other side of Tyelkormo’s workbench, pulling her skirts to the side to avoid the sticks of charcoal that had fallen on the stained wood. She pulled the bowl full of honeycomb toward her that Tyelkormo had tucked away behind his stack of books because of course she did and immediately grabbed a smaller piece.
They sat in near silence for a moment, interrupted only by the sound of the soft squish of honeycomb pinched between long, thin fingers and Nelya’s happy humming.
“Do bees have curse words?”
The question was sudden and Tyelkormo took a moment to process and then groaned, burying his face in his stained hands.
“This argument again? I don’t understand why you are so focused on vocabulary that you disagree with. You are allowed to swear, you know. You’re well past your majority and hardly live here anymore. Instead you spend half your time in your chambers in the palace or living in Findekáno’s pocket.” He lifted his face out of his hands, leaving smudges of charcoal on his forehead, nose, and cheeks.
“I refuse to limit my vocabulary to substitute words for anus, female dog, fecal matter and procreation. I’m sure there are others but those are the ones you say fairly frequently.”
Tyelkormo rolled his eyes again and reached across his desk, grabbed an eagle feather quill— something he had recently acquired while hiking through the forest and immediately started to fiddle with it. He ran his thumb across the side and enjoyed the pleasant sensation of the barbs sliding across his finger. After a moment, he remembered his eldest sibling was being a menace and glared at her.
“You cannot bother anyone else? I’m working and I want to show atar that I have done something in the past two months. I know he’s excited.”
“Ah yes, your incredible work of anatomically incorrect bees and honey.” She sighed and stood. “I suppose I’ll leave you to it.”
She snagged the bowl of honeycomb on the way out of his room, humming.