Chapter Text
[Some time in the Fifth Age, in Aman...]
"A living language changes, you blithering idiot." A familiar, heated voice rose unprompted from across the room, over the genial hubbub and burble of the fountain show gala. "If it does not, then it must be dead indeed, for it cannot be being sustained by the breath of speakers! The only 'uncertainty' in this 'debate' is how you can call yourself a linguist if you do not understand this basic principle!"
Fingolfin barely processed the words, not in that voice. If he had, he would not have believed his own ears. If he had somehow believed his own ears, he would have suspected mockery, or a ploy, or perhaps necromantic possession.
Fortunately, his reflexes for winning arguments were faster than any other working of his mind.
"I knew it!" he shouted, rounding on his brother from across the wide hall. He abandoned his conversation partner entirely in order to advance on Fëanor, alight with righteous victory. "I knew you agreed with the basic principle! You stubborn, contrary, illogical—"
"Oh, shut up, Nolofinwë." Fëanor likewise dismissed entirely the upstart linguistics professor he'd been haranguing, in favor of his older foe. A corridor had opened between them, as party-goers scrambled out of the crossfire or backed up to get a better view. "You've never met a principle of study nor logic that you didn't wish to twist to suit—"
"'A living language changes!'" Fingolfin quoted back over him, too elated to rise to any other bait. He drained his entire wine glass, slapped it down on the lip of a fountain in passing, and advanced enough to jab Fëanor in the chest with one finger. He grinned. "I knew it. You knew it. I was right."
Fëanor's face had, over the course of this exchange, made a very rapid shift from his original proud irritation to the embarrassment of being caught out to a familiar fiery sneer. It now settled into an even more familiar murderous glower.
"I have reconsidered my past positions in the face of new evidence and argument," he hissed. "It is the sign of an intelligent, ever-developing mind at work. I only wish you could say the same—"
Hands pushed them apart, followed by arms, followed by an entire Lalwen, aided by the stylish circumference of her skirts.
"Sweet Erudition, neither of you has changed a whit," she muttered.
Gripping the front of both their robes in a way that suggested that she could be choking them if she wanted to, she said more loudly, "My dear brothers! Joyous though I am at our collective ongoing reconciliation—" (she discreetly twisted Fëanor's robe in an ever so slightly choking manner, to remind him that she, too, had been entirely correct the entire time about the stupid thorn)—"perhaps we should take any further discussion outside? This is, after all, a debut of liquid forms, not a forum of linguistic debate!"