~ Departure ~
A fanfic based on the Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien. Told in Finrod Felagund's words.
Genre: Angst
Rating: G
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[A darkness lies behind us, and we have turned our backs to it, and do not desire to return
thither even in thought. Westwards our hearts have been turned, and we believe that there we
shall find Light.]
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Under the canopy he slept, his breaths thin and querulous. His skin bore a pallid
translucence, green-grey veins snaking beneath its surface.
So many lines. It was almost as if they had been cut into his face and hands. Over two
score years I had watched each line, each blemish appear in turn. And though he had already
been past the prime of life at our first meeting, his hair had been dark and unkempt then,
not the cascade of silver arrayed now upon the pillow.
I sorrowed to see the decay on a face writ upon by his patience, and his unfailing loyalty.
This face had been serene in peacetime and wrathful in battle, gentle under
moonlight and grim by the red of torchflame, yet always honest. Honest too was his hale
laughter, that had a tone quite unlike Elven laughter, yet was wholly welcome to hear.
He pressed my hand. Walking between dreams and wakefulness his eyes remained closed, yet
some part of him knew that I was at his side; he knew that I could hear his thoughts without
spoken word, as I had done four and forty years ago on the first evening near the Springs of
Thalos.
[Listen! The harp!]
I too closed my eyes, and at once we were beneath a sky vaulted with stars, while the
wisps of cloud overhead were lit to a pale blue. In my hands I could feel the rough wooden
panel of the harp and its crude strings made from the dried gut of wild beasts. It was made
with more spirit than skill.
Once more I told them of the splendour and majesty of the Valar, of the unending West, of
Aman the beautiful. I spoke - no, sang of white-walled Tirion where I had spent my childhood
in long-gone days before mortal Men had arisen in Middle-Earth. That was before the pollution
of our innocence with suspicion and jealousy and rash action, for the Silmarils were yet
unmade and Morgoth had not yet desired them.
I opened my eyes. The open heavens faded to the embroidered canopy and the carven
ceilings of Nargothrond. Beor too had awoken from his dream, and his eyes were bright with
moisture, for the images had seemed too real to us both. He had not the strength to speak,
but I walked in the footsteps of his thought - in his heart there was Nargothrond, there
were his sons and their children, and a surety that all these things he loved would endure
into future generations, far beyond his own ending.
With these hopes, he smiled as he left. While I for that moment I felt as if my own son
was departing from me on an uncharted journey.
I do not know how long I sat there in silence. The lamps glowed unceasingly with no
movement of the shadows - were we, the Eldar, like unto such lamps? Yet outside of these
caves the sun was setting.
"Finrod." It was Orodreth who approached me. "Finrod."
I looked at my brother wordlessly.
"We knew from the beginning that it must be so. Beor was a loyal servant, but he must
suffer the Doom of Men. You said this yourself - that Men's lives are a fleeting season
compared to the years of the Eldar."
"Did I..? He was more friend than servant. Why, Orodreth, why is this wasting of the body
and mind called 'the Gift of Illuvatar'?"
Orodreth did not answer, but took me by the shoulders. He must have felt the weight of my
burden then, for he released me quickly and shook his head. Finally he said, "I came to warn
you against needless anguish, Finrod. The lives of men are too short and their struggles too
petty for us. They are children, but children that wither. We must beware of becoming
entangled in their small existences."
Beor's aged hand still rested limply in my own, so unnaturally smooth and brittle as it
was. There was a grain of truth in my brother's words, yet I found it repellent. For I did
not wish to find Men contemptible, as some of my people did. Once Elves too had been lost
children, needing guidance and care. The journey to Aman, and later our return to
Middle-Earth, was a measure of our growth. Beor's people were the aftercomers, yet one day
they would achieve their full stature.
"If you will love children for their innocence, Finrod, will you not also grieve when
they have become as learned and as despairing as their elders?" Of us all, I had always
known that Orodreth most regretted leaving Aman. He had been an unwilling rebel, and thought
often of our Father, who had turned back towards the Valar in repentance. Yet for all his
warnings I saw clearly that one day he would become bound in the fate of Men.*
"Then I will grieve. I will grieve for them, and for us all."
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This was once a beautiful place, before the Enemy overran it. Tol Sirion we named it, an
isle of green grasses and cool breezes, and upon it I built this tower, Minas Tirith. I
recognise the very stones, even now when they are darkened and foul; and the chains which
twist about my arms are set into walls which I myself fashioned. It is a far deeper wound
when the weapon is of one's own making.
"They shall come next for me."
He speaks without fear, only regret. We are the last; our companions have been slain one
by one in this pit, taken by a beast whose luminous eyes glitter with conscious cunning.
Edrahil's death was the cruellest, yet even in his torment he died silently. I would weep,
if I were not still guarding my mind from Sauron, who ever seeks to read our purpose.
"I have only one wish." His voice is beyond exhaustion, beyond despair. "That I were
suffering this alone, and that you were still King in Nargothrond."
I look to him: Beren. I remember the names of all who came before him; Barahir, Bregor,
Boromir... His forefathers have walked alongside me over a hundred and fifty years. I
watched the summers of their youth pass into silvered winters, and mourned when death took
them. I saw the likeness in their faces; the hardiness and nobility that passed from fathers
to sons, mothers to daughters. They gifted me with their trust first of all, then loyalty
and friendship without price. In my world we had but walked a few steps of a dance while
their lifetimes slipped away, and though I would have held them in my hands I could not keep
them. I could not...
"Your voice is very like to Beor's." For a moment I lose caution, and the words escape
me.
Beren looks up in sudden wonder. He has aimed high and given his heart to Luthien, and
yet the longevity of my people still is strange and mystifying to him. His lips twist in a
self-mocking smile. "But unlike Beor I shall not die of old age, having lived loyally and
fought valiantly for many years. No. Nor am I like my father Barahir, who was at least of
some use to you. Instead I have asked you for help on a fool's mission."
"Barahir who saved my life." I sigh, resting my weight on the chains awhile, even though
they cut into the flesh. "Do not blame yourself, Beren - so your father snatched me from
ruin, so it must be that the debt is repaid. And this is no fool's mission."
Beren hangs his head. Hate and greed and the oath of the Silmarils have driven us to this
place, yet his love for Luthien has also brought us here. I do not wish to see Beor's
descendant die in Tol-in-Gaurhoth, without knowing that in the wide world the bloodline will
be perpetuated. Over the years I have remained childless, yet Beor's children I considered
my own, and they have indeed risen up into nobility. I should have liked to watch over them
for many centuries yet... an empty wish.
[[Kill the Man first, we shall keep the Noldorin lord awhile...]]
Sauron allows us to hear his thought, relishing the anguish that it must create in us.
There is the sound of rusty iron scraping against stone, the drip of water into massive
mechanical wheels. Once again I hear the foul breath of the werewolf, and the padding of its
feet in the wet filth. It blinks slowly in the darkness to taunt us, and in its eyes is
something more than hunger - it is a lust for life and an end to life; a fire that must take
flesh as its fuel.
A part of my mind is calm, for death is, and death must be. A part of my mind is in pain,
for I have long seen in my dreams a loss irredeemable. But my heart sees Luthien drawing
ever closer in her search for Beren, and my heart sees Amarie whom I left far behind in
Valinor... No, she is not behind, but standing before me, with her hands outstretched, and
in this moment I feel the chains endeavour to slice through me, and the walls trembling with
the strain. I do not know which breaks first, yet I am free, and in that enraged roar of the
beast, in Beren's horror-filled cry, there is a strength which I did not know I possessed.
"King Felagund! Finrod!"
[Friend!]
Beren's cries seem all around me, yet far away. In my arms I see that the werewolf is
torn - I am torn. But my promises are whole, and my dreams have come full circle; the lamps
are extinguished, and day passes into night.
"It may be that we shall not meet a second time in death or life... for the fates of our
kindreds are apart."
Forget despair, Beren. Luthien is coming, even as I leave.
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[A darkness lies behind us, and we have turned our backs to it, and do not desire to return
thither even in thought. Westwards our hearts have been turned, and we believe that there we
shall find Light.]
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~ The End ~
AlexeCinz, July 2001
http://www.btinternet.com/~reitaira/izumi.htm
-Notes: * A reference to Turin Turambar, and the fall of Nargothrond, which would by then be
under Orodreth's rule.