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The first prototypes of the seeing-stones had been sitting in a box on his spare materials shelf, untouched, for over three years when his father got a hold of them.
He was in one of his moods; tearing through Curufinwë’s forge and scolding him for the mess like Fëanáro’s own forge wasn’t where he’d learned it from, acting as though his workspace was nothing more than the messy bedroom of a wayward youth.
Curufinwë was not paying him much attention. His father tended to tire of these moods in due time, and anyway he was an artist himself. He knew the worth of half finished projects, and had probably never thrown out anything in his life if he thought it could be reused later.
Thus, his whirlwind presence and blustering offence could be easily ignored. There was never any permanent damage. Perhaps mild irritation when trying to locate tools or materials no longer in their former locations, but he would gladly endure much worse for his father’s attention.
The seeing-stones, though, had been rather intentionally hidden. They were shoved into a smallish, unassuming box, itself tucked behind an overflowing tray of scrap wire bits.
He had created them in a fit of manic ecstasy over the course of three sleepless ré, scorning all attempts from his wife or family to leave his forge for rest. When he had finally given in and allowed himself to be steered into bed he had shut his forge up behind him, nervous without reason; paranoid without source.
Dear Ninquilas had nonetheless barred him from his forge for a full week in the aftermath, insisting he gaze upon the light of the trees as long as possible lest he transform into a mole. He had followed her directive with perfect obedience, and returned to his forge on the exact minute of Laurelin's first waxing a week later.
He had gazed upon those dark, round stones and wondered at them. In his fit of creation he had not kept any notes on his progress, and found himself perplexed by his own inventions. In his delirium he had made four of the stones, three of which were of an equal size, the fourth half again larger. It was not like his usual works at all. Rarely did he tend to bother with such complex and layered spellwork, and it took him a full afternoon to decipher the intention behind the matrix.
The base layers, he had determined, were related to vision, and something to do with time or location. It was difficult to tell, the scope of it vague. It was intended to be interacted with by ósanwe. The three smaller stones were linked to take cues from the larger master stone, but were otherwise independent.
They had not responded to physical touch, and lit up only weakly when handled with his imbued tongs. He had frowned and poked and prodded, vexed by these strange stones he had created and yet barely understood.
He had loathed to activate them. Among his family, he was not a strong user of ósanwe, and that was not something that could be remedied. It was an innate skill that he lacked, and he had never been more frustrated at his own inability until now.
Irritated as to why he had created such objects, when he himself had no great power of mind, and frustrated by their continued dormancy, he had acted carelessly.
Fine, he had thought, meanly, placing the master stone down onto the workbench with no small amount of force, and for a moment he had only stared at it. Then, gathering what mental fortitude he possessed, he reached—
and—
Of course, he had learnt how to shield his mind young. But it was much harder to protect your mind from the things you were going looking for.
—suddenly he was no longer in the forge, but watching great tongues of flame leap across green fields, watching as a fissure opened gasping in the ground, watching a towering wave loom over a city, watching the sky turn red as blood and a strange pale blue, catching brief glimpses of a thousand curious sneering startled angry proud searching unfamiliar faces, seeing them equally as he was seen, uncomprehending, frightened, being briefly swept up by a breathless burning hatred—
and then he had regained his senses, seen himself briefly four times over, reeled his mind back inwards, and collapsed to the floor in a heap.
Once he’d been able to stand, the seeing-stones had gone into the first box he could find. They had then been summarily shoved as far out of sight as possible.
In the years since they had not been forgotten about, try as he might. They had been the subject of several frightening dreams he refused to speak of, but he had not touched them, nor looked upon them.
And now his father was standing in the middle of his forge, finally still, holding that unassuming box and peering inside it, brows furrowed.
“Curufinwë, what are these?” He picked one out and turned it over, scrutinising. It was one of the three smaller stones. The sight of it in his father’s palm, even inert, sent a chill through him. For a brief and frightening moment it seemed to flicker, and activate; but it was only the lamplight reflecting off its darkened surface.
“Merely old prototypes, father,” he demurred, even knowing he was already caught.
“That I can tell. Do not be coy with me, these are rather intricate. Tell me their purpose.”
“They are seeing stones.” At that, the full force of his fathers gaze turned upon him, and it was a distinct battle to keep his mouth shut against uncontrolled babbling.
“What are they intended to see?”
He hesitated, remembering that awful assault on his mind, the incomprehensible visions he had been subjected to. He remembered every image, as clear as if he had just lived it. And, he would not admit this aloud, especially not to his own father, but he had often felt as if the creation of the seeing stones had not been entirely his own.
“Anything, father,” he swallowed, throat inexplicably dry, “everything, for those with a will strong enough.”
“Have you tested them?”
Curufinwë shook his head, wordless. It was not a lie, not exactly—what he had seen had not been the result of a test, but rather an accident he was not keen to repeat. Still, he did not keep much from his father, and the half truth sat uncomfortably in his stomach.
“Right, then. We will do so today. But first you must tell me how they were made,” Fëanáro demanded, and under his keen gaze it was as if a veil was lifted from his thoughts, and the details of the project came clearly to him as they had not before. The cogs of understanding often worked themselves away in the background of his mind without his conscious input, and so he was relieved to be able to explain, and revelled in the sudden clarity of it.
What followed was a flurry of note-taking and discussion and careful handling of the prototypes, and he found he was not afraid of them any more, not with his father at his side.
Together, they would be able to realise the full potential of the seeing stones, with Fëanáro’s natural gift for ósanwe. Perhaps it should have upset him, that he was to share this project that should have been his to take ownership of, this masterwork in the making that would have surely gone on to define his name for the rest of his life.
But he was only glad, and grateful for the companionship of his father.
Together, they would make something that was worthy of being proud of.