Nerdanel strode over to the forge and turned the heavy iron handle; but the door was locked. The door never used to be locked.
"Fëanáro," she called softly. "A word, if you will."
She could hear the hammer clanging on the anvil within, loud, but not frequent enough that her husband could have missed her voice. The heated air rushed under the door as she shook the handle.
"Fëanor, let me in. I must speak with you."
The clanging of iron paused, and resumed.
"I am busy, my wife." His voice was muffled through the door, though it somehow remained cold and clear as a shard of ice. "It can wait."
Gritting her teeth in frustration, Nerdanel shook the handle once more. "No, it cannot wait! Let me in now, or so help me I will tell your father how you've been acting!" She paused, breathing hard, fists clenched at her side, and the door swung open. A blast of heat rustled her hair.
"Now. What is it that is so important you must interrupt my work, wife?" His voice was tense, annoyed, as though she were a small child endlessly nagging him. He put his hands on his hips and stared at her expectantly.
Taking a deep breath, Nerdanel braced herself for the inevitable anger to come. "You have changed, Fëanor. You ignore your sons and I for days at a time, your temper is out of control... You don't eat with us. I don't know if you eat at all." She let worry creep into her voice, saying, "What is wrong, my love?" She touched his cheek tenderly, but he knocked her hand away, laughing dismissively.
"Your wits have softened, 'Nerdanel the wise'. Nothing is different. Now leave me in peace and trouble me not with this children's nonsense," he said. He picked up his hammer.
Nerdanel looked down. "And you say you have not changed," she whispered, humorless smile twisting her lips.
Heaving a sigh, Fëanor replaced his hammer on the bench and scowled. "Why do you vex me so when I have work to do? Do you not respect me enough for this small mercy? Do you not love and honor your husband enough to listen to his requests?"
She raised her head, forcing herself to meet his eyes and acknowledge the mania within; the fire, long since grown wild. Nerdanel spoke quietly.
"I did. I loved you with all my heart. But I do not think I can love what you've become."
He looked at her for a moment, then snorted and turned away, picking up his hammer and returning to his work.
"Fëanor!"
His eyes flashed dangerously as he spun around again, livid. "I have 'become' nothing, wife! It would seem that you, however, would betray me as have all others."
"Betray'?" Nerdanel echoed disbelievingly. "And how, pray tell, have I 'betrayed' you, husband? I keep all confidence, think only of your well-being! But we are all worried about you, Fëanáro. Your brother Fingolfin says-"
"Ah, so here at last it comes out," Fëanor interrupted mockingly, moving towards her threateningly. "My own wife has become the whore of my half-brother, the thrall of my enemy in body and mind." His face was inches away from hers at the end, as he stared at her with eyes glittering darkly.
Nerdanel felt heat rise in her face. "How dare you," she whispered, narrowing her eyes.
Fëanor's eyebrow twitched as though he wished to apologize, but Fëanáro never apologized. He straightened up and she took a breath.
"You should not have said that, Fëanáro. If you are trying to prove you are the same man I met so long ago, you clearly do not remember him. His temper was never so violent, nor his words so suspicious and false."
"You say I slander you unjustly, yet you have taken council with my half-brother without my leave. Is not deliberate secrecy worse than innocent suspicion?"
"I need not tell you of every time I meet my kinsmen! I deliberately conceal nothing from you. Why do you not trust me?"
Fëanor scoffed. "You ask this, yet mere moments ago you admitted to meeting secretly with my half-brother. Nerdanel, you have no sense sometimes."
"I did not 'meet secretly' with Fingolfin!" Nerdanel said furiously. "Anairë and I met by chance in the market, and her husband was with her. I but mentioned the fact that you had been much in the forge of late, of an angry temper, skipping meals... and Nolofinwë agreed that something was amiss. He worries about you, Fëanor-"
He threw his head back and laughed violently, the shrill sound ringing on the anvil and echoing through the forge. "He 'worries about me'? Nerdanel, the only thought Fingolfin spares me is in plotting how to usurp my place with my father!" Fëanor snorted. "If you are not his deliberate conspirator, wife, than you are at least playing into his hands. For my half-brother's methods are crafty and his goals dark, even as his intelligence is little, and I fear he has managed to ensnare your weaker mind. He uses you to sow dissent and cause me to doubt myself-"
"Oh, please, Fëanor," she spat in disgust. "As if anything in all of Arda could cause you to doubt yourself. Your confidence has become arrogance, your sense of competition has become hatred, your vigilance has become paranoia! Even your love for your wife has withered to lust, violent as it is rare when you pay me any mind," she said bitterly.
She shook her head at him. "I'm leaving. If you want a meal tonight, come in when you are available."
As she turned on her heel and left, she caught a glimpse of him; eyes pits of darkness in the glow of firelight, impossibly fair and powerful as a sliver of steel. And, for once, standing stock still as though he had been caught wrong-footed.
Nerdanel returned to the house and ate dinner with her sons. Only after they were all gone did Fëanor appear, entering the dining room delicately.
"Nerdanel?"
She raised a haughty eyebrow, but did not respond or look up at him from her almost-empty plate.
"I may have been... overly harsh... before." His voice was low now, smooth and almost seductive in its perfect slowness.
She sniffed in agreement. A ghost of a smirk twisted Fëanor's lips at her indifference and he stole up behind her, pushing the hair back from her face.
"Lady Nerdanel is the wisest in all of Aman," he murmured into her neck. "Her foolish husband would be wise to afford her more attention in the future, and listen to her counsel." He pressed his mouth against her shoulder, slowly kissing along her collar bone.
"Oh, stop it," she snapped irritably, twisting to face away from her husband. "I have not forgiven you yet." He quickly moved to her other side, brushing the straight line of her jaw with his lips. He reached one arm across her shoulders and kept her face turned towards his as he kissed her neck.
"Let me apologize, love?" he purred.
Snorting in frustration, Nerdanel removed his hands from her body and stood. She tried to walk away, arms crossed tightly, but Fëanor caught up in two strides. He twirled her around suddenly and held her against the wall, breathless, then pressed his mouth to hers in a violent kiss.
Nerdanel caught her breath at the fervor with which he caressed her, the fire and hunger in his eyes. Caught in the moment, she could not help but respond to his love and desire, but she hated him for it. Hated him for not being the man she had fallen in love with, and for being just enough of that man, sometimes, to make her want him back.
He began pulling on the shoulders of Nerdanel's dress as he devoured her lips, one hand tangled in her hair, cradling the back of her head.
"Nerdanel," he whispered huskily in between kissing down the side of her face. "Let me love you now, wife."
Nerdanel gazed at him through lidded eyes, and smiled seductively as she pulled her dress down to expose her white shoulders and the top of her breasts.
"Ah me!" Fëanor murmured in feigned awe. "Nerdanel the wise, Nerdanel the beautiful!" He caressed her throat and pressed his body against hers, moving his head in to capture her lips in another aggressive kiss.
But Nerdanel grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, throwing him against he wall. She breathed heavily, enjoying the amused expression on his face.
"What is this, wife? Do you think to-"
She cut him off with a kiss so passionate and possessive that Fëanor cried out in surprise against her mouth, and she tasted his blood before pulling away. His eyebrows were raised when she looked at him, impression and arousal glowing with a fell light. He leaned towards her again, but she slipped under his arms and skipped to the other side of the room.
"Oh, Fëanáro." She let out a mocking, breathy laugh. "You think it should be so easy? No, you shall not love me now because you do not love me. Remember how, and I will be waiting... in my bedroom." She shrugged her dress back to its proper position and sauntered out.
It was possible that this could be the wakeup call her husband needed. If not, well, it had been fun.
Nerdanel smiled to herself as she walked down the hall. But letting herself into the bedroom, she bit her lip and fought back sudden tears.
Fëanor was an important public figure, and his mental state would affect everyone. Eru forbid she failed in fixing him. But she could not help being selfish for a moment, and allowed herself to cry simply at the though of his tender love becoming the sick display of power and ferocity she had just seen.
"I do not think I can love what you've become," she whispered again, almost choking on the words with a little laugh.
She wanted her husband back.