"On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East, and upon all that will follow them it shall be laid also. Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass. The Dispossessed shall they be for ever." – J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, "Of the Flight of the Noldor"

They all thought me dead, and some mourned, no doubt.

They would wish me dead if they knew I lived, hanging from the side of a mountain by nothing but my wrist.

They – my brothers, my people, surely not those we abandoned.

(Would Findekáno still care? I abandoned him long before the Helcaraxë, long ago in Tirion: "I never want to see you again, Findekáno son of Ñolofinwë!"

Tears ran down his face. "You don't mean that, Russandol!"

Tears came from my eyes as well, but I did not take back my words. I turned away, and I did not speak to him again for many years.)

The pain seared through my body, day and night, ripping though my skin, preventing the wounds from my torment prior to the band of steel upon the Thangorodrim from healing.

I longed to die. I once attempted strangling myself. But it is a hard thing to maintain a firm grip on one's throat as one loses air. I would pass out, nothing more, though it would be a welcome escape from my torment. My nightmares pursued me, but they never surpassed reality.

I hallucinated, and I heard voices. Voices, beautiful and fell – they kept ringing in my head:

"We alone shall be lords of the unsullied Light, and masters of the bliss and beauty of Arda!"

"Woe until world's end!"

"Nay, let us be gone!"

"We renounce no friendship . . ."

"The Dispossessed shall they be for ever."

"Let the ships burn!" [1]

And more recently, those voices of the orcs, the foul creatures of Morgoth, my twisted, sullied kin. (They fell, a long time ago, before my mother birthed me.)

"All hail the High King of the mighty Noldor!"

"What lovely hair! Let us relieve you of it."

"Where is your crown, O High King of the Noldor?"

"You will share in the fates of your father and grandfather, princeling!"

"Does this hurt?"

"Behold! It bleeds!"

Then Morgoth raised a hand to silence the hordes of orcs surrounding me, as I coughed up my blood, choking back my screams of pain. When he spoke, it felt like the weight of the sky coming down on Arda:

"You shall have the finest throne in all of Arda, little king. You shall have my lofty peaks to gaze upon the lands, lands you will never own, and the winds and waters will be your royal raiment." A black grin split his face. "But first, I will break you, body and spirit."

They cut my curly, flame-red hair ("Red, like your spirit," Ammë told me once. Copper-top, Findekáno called me), spit on me, mocked me, tortured me, while their lord gazed down on me, the three jewels of my father in his crown, so close, I could have touched them. The Oath burned in the back of my throat, so close to fulfillment. ("Is this what you seek?" He loomed over me, pointing to his crown, laughing. "Come and get them!")

Many years later, irrationally, I thought that if I could have gotten them then, perhaps we could have prevented so much . . . perhaps my brothers could have lived, perhaps Findekáno could have lived. But I was bound, my legs broken, and surrounded by a thousand foes. (Not to mention Morgoth himself.) And the jewels would have burned me even then, for I slew my kin, at Alqualondë long ago. And then the Silmarils passed from my sight, and I saw them never again, not for many wheeling years . . . but it is passed.

Then Morgoth bound me to the mountainside, laughing all the while. "Fare thee well, Nelyafinwë Maitimo!" He remembered my name; my father once introduced us to him, before he was Morgoth, when he was Melkor, a Vala with much to teach. "My eldest and heir . . ." (If only my father had known.) A fine king I made. High King of the Noldor, strung on a cliff, naked and exposed, marred beyond full recovery.

My brothers, my people, they thought me dead. I knew they did, for they did not come to my rescue. At first, I cursed them (they abandoned me), then I wept for them, though I was the one with his wrist carrying all his weight above unfathomable heights (they could not do much – but ever others have proved more valiant and noble than the Seven Cursed Sons of Fëanáro).

As I hung there, with time enough to contemplate all things in Arda, I thought about the bewildered, guilty people I left so suddenly. They must have crowned my brother, little Makalaurë. (Not little, I reminded myself countless times. But then, on the cold cliff-face, I could only remember him as the child with the voice like one of the Ainur, who would rather sit in his room by himself and compose music than play with his friends; he also hated going to bed.) Second-born, Makalaurë, king. High King Makalaurë. None of us could have foreseen it. My grandfather should have remained High King of the Noldor for all eternity, in the deathless land of Aman.

But the hand of fate was ever upon us, and now my second brother, Makalaurë, gold-cleaver, Kanafinwë, commanding Finwë (once again, if only my atar had known), now led the broken – doubtless, disillusioned – host of the Noldor, him and his sad, childless wife, Eärlinel.

I hung on the cliff-face, a throne-less, crown-less, people-less king, till the Valiant one came. And then I remained throne-less, crown-less, and people-less, and became the Dispossessed.

[1] Quotes from Chapter 9 of The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien, "Of the Flight of the Noldor."