(This is a thing I wrote some time ago, when I was feeling down, and I keep looking at it, and I don't want to touch it anymore, but I do want to post it, so here it is.)
(It feels not enough, but it does feel some… I don't really know. You have been warned.)
(And yes, I'm still running with the Losgar thing. You know.)
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Five is so few. Five brothers instead of seven.
One is so incomplete. One twin instead of two.
He feels fractured.
He feels torn.
He feels an empty space, always by his side, and turns to see no one.
He feels numb.
He feels light, like ashes on the wind.
He holds his russet head high, and feels a limpid shade.
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Red.
He is beginning to despise it.
There used to be three of them, one the eldest and two the youngest, bearing the mark of their mother. It used to be a joke – "start the best way, end the best way" – and he laughs when he remembers it.
The sound of his laughter scares the few present.
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War is no time for grief.
At times he wishes they never cease being at war.
It has to be very precious, this war they sacrificed so much for. This war their father desired and died in, this war they lost two brothers for.
This war that leaves the remaining no time to grieve.
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They do not speak of it.
They barely speak at all.
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Kanafinwë appears a pale waxen doll, standing tall and grimly proud but at once deeply vulnerable, as if the slightest touch could leave a lasting mark. Pityafinwë is almost tempted to brush his brother's dark hair aside and search his temples for any dents where the crown sits.
Yet Kanafinwë's voice is strong still, true to his name, and his tone is edged with steel.
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Fire.
(It was not fire, it was Spirit of Fire; and he burnt also.)
At times he thinks he can feel it on his skin, a scorching blister; and at times the sensation is cleansing.
It is a peculiar perversion that draws him to fire, and he is constantly telling himself, not yet.
Not today.
Maybe tomorrow.
But not right now.
It has to wait.
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'He was my brother also, Pityafinwë.'
'And Nelyafinwë mine, Makalaurë.'
The elder brother glares, and Pityafinwë expects a cold rebuke, such as Morifinwë received the previous week, but the moment passes and it does not come; and he is grateful, because Kanafinwë's features have suffered dents enough.
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No one utters the name Ambarussa.
No one mentions the name Russandol, either.
There are times when something in Pityafinwë screams Umbarto, Umbarto!, but it never reaches his throat and so dies inside, unheard and unheeded.
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Turkafinwë is difficult to locate; he is being sent out to hunt or scout more often than not.
Morifinwë is easier to locate, but always occupied, and so is Curufinwë, with Tyelperinquar ever by his side in the semblance of an astray shadow.
(Here and now, they are all their father's sons.)
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It is a grim and forlorn place, the camp on the northern shore of Lake Mithrim, and their life there is punctuated with silent glares, grudging if swift obedience and a distinct lack of familiarity.
Not one of them complains; not anymore.
There is no one left to complain to.
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The three of them may have received their mother's mark, but their father's mark was on them also, on all seven.
Is on him, and on his four remaining brothers.
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And so it goes, until one day they see a great fire rise from the West.