I own nothing.

The armies returned to their camp, bearing news that the High King was dead. He had fallen to the advance of the Enemy's Balrogs. They did not have Fëanáro's body; there was not even a body left behind. His sons reported that, at the moment of his death, his body erupted into flames and left only a pile of ashes on the mortal plane. The prophecy Míriel Serindë had given at the naming of her son had come to pass. The Spirit of Fire had consumed his body in entirety.

She wept when she heard it. She wept, for he of all people should have left a corpse. There should have been a burial or a burning, a tomb raised for him. It seemed that cruel fate had moved its hand again, to deny his children even that much. And he would have left a magnificent corpse. Being his mother's son, it might have been appropriate.

But he was not the person he had been as a child. He was not the person Yávië had known.

"Fëanáro? Fëanáro, where are you?"

She found the boy sitting in a quiet corner of the gardens, huddled in the shade of a massive bush festooned with showy blue flowers. Fëanáro stared into the grass, where Yávië could see a large frog waddling ponderously towards a nearby pond.

Yávië stared down at him, breathless. She was relieved to have found him, certainly, but her relief soon gave way to anger at his having slipped away from her company. "Fëanáro, why did you slip away without a word?"

At last, the boy lifted his head to look at her. His pale eyes were not so bright as they normally were. "I wished to be by myself."

"And you could not have asked me?"

He gave no reply, except to shake his head. As if Yávië was no longer even there, Fëanáro reached out and took the frog into his hands, staring curiously at it.

Fëanáro was no longer the person he had been when she knew him. When Yávië knew him, he was a lonely young boy, alight with a fire and hunger for knowledge, but seemingly aimless. He confided in few, and never in her. He alternated between periods of frighteningly docile calm, and just as frightening (though rather less unexpected) periods of horrible temper. She had cared for him since he was a baby, but only on rare occasions had he ever confided in her—even then, she suspected that he hadn't done so purposely.

When Fëanáro was no longer in need of her care, Yávië was dismissed from her post and returned to her old line of work, growing fruit and vegetables for her family and for their income. Fëanáro never sought her out, never wrote letters. Once she was out of his life, he seemed to forget that she had ever been a part of it, even if only for a few short years.

He became a different person. The next time Yávië heard anything of Fëanáro beyond normal news of marriage and births, he was rabble-rousing. He was butting heads with Nolofinwë in public. He twice threatened his half-brother with a sword. He was banished to Formenos. He had grown fell and fey, everyone said, and so everyone called him. Nolofinwë's followers held him to be dangerous. Some of his own followers held him to be dangerous. He was marked by all as a brilliant speaker, eloquent, masterful, skilled at any craft he put his mind to mastering, but also unpredictable and impulsive.

And yet, Yávië still chose to follow Fëanáro out of Aman and into Endóre. She had her own reasons. She chafed at being forced to dwell only in Aman, the same as many of the other Noldor. Why should Endóre be barred to them? Why was it that they were barred from traveling the seas to see the kin they had left behind? And why was it that certain strains of knowledge were forbidden for them to learn? Why were there certain branches of smith-work that they could not touch? Why were there certain strains of magic they could not research and learn? The Valar never answered these questions. Their response was only to say that it was their will that things be the way they were, and that it was best for things to be the way that they were. But that wasn't good enough, so here Yávië was, laboring in the dark in a freezing camp, wondering if she would ever see light again that wasn't the light of the pale orb in the sky (and always half-obscured by mist, no less). So here she was along with botanists and florists and herbalists and farmers, consulting with the Mithrim, the local Quendi whom the Noldor had met not long ago, to discover which of the native plants were safe to eat.

Perhaps she felt some residual sense of loyalty, as well.

After all, it had been Yávië who had cared for Fëanáro since his earliest days, even before his mother died. Míriel was too weary to tend to her son and her breasts could not produce milk. There was a concoction of herbs that an apothecary in Tirion (one who had remained in Tirion, as it happened) knew, that could increase milk production in nursing mothers and stimulate it in those who weren't, but it was deemed too dangerous for Míriel's fragile state of health. It had fallen to Yávië, in that case. She held him in her arms as he fed at her breast, smiling, feeling warm and content and wondering if this was what it would feel like, if she ever had children of her own.

For those few years, Yávië had cared for Fëanáro as though he was her own child. It was she who heard him thrashing about in his sleep when he would have bad dreams—it did not matter that it was his father he wanted; she was the one who soothed him first, telling him that his dreams could not harm him. It was she who aided him when he stumbled in learning Sarati, in the days before he invented his own script and the Calaquendi adopted it wholesale. It did not matter to her that he never saw her as anything but his wet-nurse, never held her at anything approaching the same level of esteem as his parents. It did not matter that he never contacted her after they parted. That bond was not one soon forgotten, not by her.

But now, Fëanáro was dead, and his son Maitimo had taken his place as High King of the Noldor.

Yávië watched him, trying to measure his performance as King against his father's, but mostly, she just watched him.

Maitimo looked remarkably like his father. Not in every way, and the ways in which he didn't tended to lead many to remark that he did not resemble Fëanáro at all. He did indeed have his mother's red hair, her dark eyes, her warm, ruddy complexion. But the shape and contours of his face was his father's. The gleam in his eyes was less keen and piercing, more level-headed and temperate, but it was of the same type, just as discerning as his father's. In that, the resemblance was startling.

To all appearances, he seemed to take the loss of his father well, better than others, at least. Maitimo was dry-eyed. His voice did not crack, nor did his face falter. He seemed more like a King than like a son mourning the death of his father.

Signs of strain were there as well, though. Yávië watched Maitimo as he attempted to rule and govern in just the way that Fëanáro would have done. He did not delegate, not at all. Every order was given by him personally. Every meeting meriting the King's attention was held with the King. Maitimo could have appointed one of his brothers or one of his lords as a representative, and simply have them report back to him later, but he chose not to do so. Fëanáro was capable of this; Fëanáro was possessed of inexhaustible energy. But Maitimo was all too clearly not. In the torchlight, the bags under his eyes and his haggard features were thrown into sharp relief. He moved through the world in what seemed like a constant state of near-collapse.

"My Lord?"

Yávië slipped quietly into the King's tent, making sure the flap fell shut behind her. Maitimo was sitting at his desk, half-bathed in lamplight, half-shrouded in shadow, poring over documents, quill in hand. He looked up and straightened, watching her as she dipped in a curtsey. "Mistress Yávië," he said quietly. "Is there something we needed to discuss?"

"I believe so," she replied, looking at him and feeling pity stab her heart. Maitimo really did look as though he might collapse; he was leaning into the chair as though he needed it to prop him up.

Maitimo motioned to the chair opposite his. "Take a seat, then."

Yávië sat down, pulling her cloak closer about her shoulders. There was a fire burning here, but the cold still seeped into everything, and she could not fully escape it. She saw no need (and had no desire) to prolong pleasantries before getting to the point. She could only hope that she sounded earnest enough to convince him of the truth in her words. "I do not suppose that your father ever told you, but I was his wet-nurse when he was a child."

For a few moments, Maitimo stared at her blankly, and Yávië's heart sank, but then, his eyes cleared and he nodded. "I… do believe that I heard my father make mention of you, actually." He smiled slightly as his gaze drifted off to the side, glazed over and tired. "I've wondered, at times, what he was like as a small child."

She chose to ignore the fact that Maitimo had probably heard plenty of stories of Fëanáro's childhood from his grandfather. This was actually quite convenient. "He…" Yávië stared down at her hands and swallowed. "He was a difficult child, to be honest." Her voice sounded thick, but she didn't care much. "What he really wanted, he would not accept from me, nor from anyone else." The only one he might have accepted it from was dead. All too aware of it was he.

Maitimo laughed harshly. "I can believe that." He ran his finger up and down the quill in his hand, his mouth twitching all the while. In the light of the lamps and the fire, his face looked like nothing quite so much as the skull of a dead Quendë with skin stretched tight across it, and no flesh between.

Yávië grimaced. "My Lord, Fëanáro accomplished much. He was gifted beyond the lot of all Quendi, and seemed never to tire. We all aspired to be like him."

He gazed steadily at her. "Your point, Mistress Yávië?"

"My point…" Yávië paused for a moment to measure her words. He did not seem offended by what was already a greatly presumptuous thing for her to say; there was likely no need for greater caution now. "My point, my Lord, is that you are not your father." Queen of the Earth, please let my voice sound gentle to him. "You are not your father. You can not be him. I do not think that you should try."

Maitimo shut his eyes, a line creasing his brow between his eyes. He sat like that in silence for what seemed a ponderous eternity, the air between them growing progressively thicker. The young King looked gray and drawn, like a child kept awake for far longer than he should have been, but he also looked like one advanced in years, pensive and weary. The strain was telling on him, and pity pierced her heart again, for Yávië remembered how Fëanáro would look sometimes when he woke from his terrible dreams. Never did he confide the details of those dreams in her, but he looked so wan and worn and pinched that she had to wonder, had to wonder what could be so terrible that he could look to be on the verge of collapse.

When Maitimo finally spoke, he was quiet again, but his voice was clear and unhesitating. "Thank you for your observations, Mistress Yávië. But if you would, I have work to do." He nodded towards the tent flap, and Yávië understood that this interview, if it could even be called that, was over.

She hoped that her advice would take root.

-0-0-0-

Not long afterwards, news came that the young King had been captured by the Enemy. The Enemy had sent to the camp of the Noldor that he was willing to treat with them. Maitimo and his brothers had suspected treachery. They suspected treachery, and yet, Maitimo had still gone to the appointed meeting place, confident that if it came down to a fight, he would be able to prevail. His confidence had been misplaced.

Yávië saw that her advice had not sunk in, after all. She would not try to give it again.

Fëanáro—Fëanor
Nolofinwë—Fingolfin
Maitimo—Maedhros

Endóre—Middle-Earth (Quenya)
Quendi—Elves (singular: Quendë) (Quenya)
Calaquendi—'Elves of the Light', the Elves of Aman, especially those who lived there during the Years of the Trees (singular: Calaquendë) (Quenya)