Disclaimer: I do not own any characters, plot or franchise of the Silmarillion or related world that the esteemed Tolkien built.
Another update - the next ones will take longer because life is busy for me again and I have other projects to do. I will try my best, however.
Regarding names, if you need a guide please see the end of the first chapter.
The door had shut a while ago leaving Fëanáro alone with his son. For a small, irrational moment when the door had closed, the elf had wished his half-brother would return if only so he could not face this alone.
Ñolofinwë had not returned.
Fëanáro did not care. It had been a moment of weakness, nothing more.
The smith's fingers creeped once more to the copper hair of his son. It had been cropped – Fëanáro himself had done the wicked task, taboo as it was to cut an elf's hair so drastically. None had objected to his role in this. None had dared. The once beautiful hair had been rank and mattered and filled with lice, and the kindest thing to do was to let the father of its suffering owner do what needed to be done. It would grow back in time, though it was thinner than it once had been. That too would be rectified. As he had gently washed what remained of the copper locks, Fëanáro had silently uttered both blessing and prayers over it, and though it was not smithery, the magic had been drawn through his fëa all the same.
Crafty fingers paused, once more unable to breach the final distance needed to touch his son. Instead Fëanáro focused on the slight breaths he could hear.
The room was strangely quiet. Almost eerily so. Before there had been the words between himself and the only son of Indis, before that the singing of many healers trying to undo what the Enemy had done. Still, Moringotto did his work well, no one could accuse him of otherwise however vile that work might be.
Findekáno… Findekáno – never had Fëanáro felt such gratitude for a son of Ñolofinwë. Bold, brave Findekáno who had retrieved his eldest son where he himself could not, where an army armed with the finest swords he had been able to make had not, when a company of warriors containing some of the greatest fighters had not, nor any elf who had thought to make themselves a name, nor any brother of the one who had been caught.
In fairness, Turcafinwë might have been able, but Fëanáro had been loath to lose another son. He had forbidden any such action in a very heated argument. Indeed, it had been more heated than the one he had with Nelyafinwë at Losgar. Reluctant promises had been made, but the King had also overwhelmed his restless third son with work immediately after up until Ñolofinwë's return and Findekáno's disappearance. Now he wondered if he should have let Turcafinwë go, alone or with a company. Perhaps Nelyafinwë would not have been so ruined. Yet, this thought warred with another in his head – he could not have stood losing another son.
But Findekáno had done it without any help and against the will of his father. It was admirable, worthy of praise. Yet, Fëanáro felt discontent with Ñolofinwë's first son. His actions may have been great and noble, but the look on his face when he had gazed upon Fëanáro from the back of the eagle had sent chills through his spine. That the young elf had mustered up enough will to hack his own, most beloved cousin's hand off-
Still, Findekáno had been distraught over it as the healers had forced him to recount exactly what he had done. Ñolofinwë had held his half-brother's shoulders the entire time. It had been unnecessary and insulting. Fëanáro would not have hurt the one who returned his son to him against all the odds and a lost hand was better than endless torment at the hands of a murderer.
The smith shook his head, freeing it from such tangled musings. His son was returned and the relief that filled him was only upstaged by his wrath at what had been done.
Well he remembered the moment when he learned what had occurred. Barely woken from his own slumber that damned balrog had induced, he had called for Nelyafinwë with vengeance singing in his frenzied blood. It had been his second oldest who had answered, a grim look upon his countenance.
"What?" he has asked, snappish and rearing to bite back at the monster that had bitten him. "What is it? Where is your brother?" When the elf had not answered, that crazed frenzy was replaced by something else. "Bring all your brothers to me. Now!"
It had taken a while – Turcafinwë had gone hunting (though his father suspected that it was not deer or rabbits that he was looking for) and Fëanáro had ordered him to be brought back by the entire army if necessary.
"The army is not as whole as it was," Kánafinwë said whilst Ambarussa both had gone to fetch the other.
"What has happened? Tell me," his father demanded. "Where is your brother?"
Fëanáro had only ever struck his sons twice. Once in a misguided action at Losgar and once then in utter fear. While his sons had not forgiven him for the first, save the one whom he had struck (too much like his mother, like his grandfather), none there had decried the second. Kánafinwë had grabbed his hand, but it was as much to offer comfort as it was to stop it from happening again.
Much more of that day the smith did not remember. So grieved was he and wild and fey, desperate to regain his eldest before he lost him permanently too, that the healers had drugged him into sleep once more simply to keep him abed. The lock of copper hair brought by an enemy soldier he had kept clutched in his hand thereafter, refusing to let it go for anything.
Yet, to the dismay of some, he had also refused the ransom Moringotto had demanded and sent no further message to bargain. Kánafinwë and the Lords who counselled him and been wise – the Vala lied. Yet, too, Fëanáro was wise enough to know and fear that his decision was made by more than just wisdom. Hatred flooded his veins whenever he looked towards Angamando, but so did something else.
Thus, Nelyafiinwë had been left to the mercy of his captors.
The first letter had come after his return to the battlefields of Beleriand. It had been months before he was well enough to do so, and, even then, it was against the advice of both his sons and the healers. Still, Fëanáro would not be deterred. The orcs he had come across fell swiftly to his rage and grief. It was a small victory, one that had won them only a little more undisturbed land than the Noldor previously had. The letter itself had been found later in the mouth of a Sindar elf's severed head left outside their gates, dripping in blood both black and red.
To the Greatest of the Noldor, it had begun, I am pleased to hear of your recovery. I had thought you perished at the flames of my Balrog. No matter. You can be assured his punishment will be adequate for daring to do what was not his place to do. When the time comes it shall be a Vala who smites your flame, my dear one, I will make sure of it.
But I speak of things that have yet to pass when I have not even spoken of the things that have already been! I am sure you long for news of my newest guest. I have done you one better – a sketch is enclosed painstakingly wrought just for you. I do hope you appreciate it. My little jailbird spent his best blood for it, I am sure.
And more than the lines of damning red that followed below was the use of the name Fëanáro himself had bestowed upon the dark Vala. The elf had succumbed to a tremendous fit of rage. He had screamed. Had torn the paper up where that cursed signature lurked and torn it up further until his son's lifeless face was in pieces so small no one could tell whose face it was. But Fëanáro knew. A father always did.
To the flames he had fed the pieces, one by one, cursing and weeping. By the time Kánafinwë and Curufinwë had appeared in the wake of panic, fearing, perhaps, that their father had gone mad once more, the Noldor King had fed the remaining possessions of his absent son to the fire as well.
"He is dead!" he had yelled. "He is dead. He is dead. He is dead."
Like a prayer to ward off some nightmarish thing, he had held onto those three words: he is dead, he is dead, he is dead. But he was not dead. His Nelyafinwë was not dead and now laid before him neither hale nor whole.
If he ever saw Nerdanel again, she would skin him alive and rightfully so.
"Oh! What have they done to you, Maitimo? My little Maitimo," he cried. The name tasted like ash on his tongue. Where to begin?
Where to begin?
His eyes scarcely knew what to settle on first now he had glanced up once more. The deep scarring on the skin around his eldest's wrist that likewise appeared on the skin around his ankles. Lighter scarring, but still damning enough, laid around his throat in a perfect circle. It was clear what these were from. Then, too, there was silver lines that danced over prone lips, over cheekbones and his son's jawline. The edge of whip marks and burns atop his shoulders where they peeped forth from the blankets. Another uglier scar across his throat that came from something more sinister than chains, though Fëanáro did not know what. Wounds across his face, some still fresh and raw from where he had no doubt turned his face into the rock to find some semblance of shelter from the elements. For the rest of his skin, there had been none. It was red and blistered and bruised, stretched too tight over the frame it hung on.
Nelyafinwë's nose, however, was the thing that most captured Fëanáro's attention. Once so straight and regal, it was now crooked like the foundations of a poorly built house. How many times had it been broken? It had been straight when he had last seen the younger elf. It was straight. It was straight…
However much he wished it, it would not become straight again. The bone had healed but had done so crooked. To fix it would require another breaking.
So much pain. His son had suffered so much pain.
Fëanáro bit his hand to muffle the wail that ravaged his throat. Absently he noted that his son now had more freckles than before. He could hardly tell through the burned skin and the bruising.
More letters had followed that first. They were sporadic in appearance, sometimes a dozen appearing in the course of a few days and sometimes none at all for months until finally one was found attached to the headless corpse of one of his patrolling warriors. After the first thirty, Kánafinwë had begged him to read no more. All his sons had begged, frightened by what the dark Vala's words did to their father and in this their father heeded them. All the letters, bar the first, opened and unopened, had thus gone into a box in his forge.
What he would have given now to have read each and every one of them. What he would have given to have read none at all.
Damn you, he cursed, Damn you to the Pits where you kept my son and to the Void beyond it! Moringotto I named you and now I see just how well fitting and deserved it is. I will rend you apart more fully than Tulkas ever could! I will rip yours hands from your arms and yours arms from your shoulders so that you may never touch him with them again. I will rip your eyes from their sockets so that your foul gaze may never again rest upon him. Damn you and damn you again a hundredfold!
But he did not swear this. Something stayed his tongue in its urge to declare unto Iluvatár himself the fate he would heap upon Melkor's head.
Still, rage was enough for now.
The fire in Fëanáro burnt hot and bright and he longed for a connection with the one before him. Crafty fingers stilled again where they could not bring themselves to touch, but elves had more than one way to connect. Almost unconsciously, the smith's mind reached out to brush softly against his son's like a fair day's slight breeze in Tirion, warm and kind and good. It was a mistake. Though locked in a deep slumber, Nelyafinwë's mind was a tempest of all the things that shadows wrought in the fair of face and heart.
At first there had been nothing. Fëanáro reached and there had been nothing to receive him, just an empty place with a sense of absence so strong that the elf almost recoiled from his task. But this was Fëanáro. He was greater than that. So he pushed forward a little more, still tentative and soft lest his eldest should think him an enemy. For a moment, nothing. Then the nothingness cracked and something terrified and hurting and rank with despair whirled past him, at him, through him and around him with no coherent thought bar one: Out! Out! Out!
There was no strength to the presence, no strength to his son at all. In the span of a second the barriers around Nelyafinwë's mind rose and fell, and rose and fell, and did so once more. When risen they were iron clad or shaking. When fallen everything spilt forth in flashes too fast for Fëanáro to comprehend. And still that presence whipped about him, wild and feral and fearful and in pain. It was too shattered to grasp, too primitive and animalistic. Perhaps Turcafinwë would have better luck, but he was not there. An incessant wailing started, heard only by the two who were sharing minds. It grew louder, more desperate as the intruder lingered. There was agony in it, raw and undiluted and so potent that it felt as if the nerves of the other elf were on fire as well.
Fëanáro recoiled. He would remember this action with shame for many years after.
His son had not recognised him. He would remember this too.
(He had missed the moment in his immediate absence when the wailing had ceased long enough for one hesitant, clear thought to form: father? But its speaker was too weak to reach beyond the realms of his own ravaged mind.)
For a while the elven smith sat with his head in his hands, unable to process what he had just witnessed. It was- He had no words. It was a crime, a wrong, a vile and horrifying deed. It was an evil so abhorrent that it should have been unconceivable to anyone, even Moringotto. Someone had gone into Nelyafinwë's head without permission, someone had forced their way in and mutilated what they had found there as well as they had mutilated his son's body. Brief though his attempt to establish a connection had been, he had seen the scars on the other's psyche, great bleeding rents. Would they heal? Could they heal?
It was half with despair and half with determination that Fëanáro extended his fëa itself over the room, searching for that of the first child he had helped create. It took a while, but he found it glowing faintly in a shadowed corner of the ruined hröa that kept it.
So faint…
Like one trying to appear harmless to a wary dog, Fëanáro knelt down – though his physical self remained seated in that chair – and simply stayed there. The fëa before him was as mutilated as the mind and body that it sustained. Indeed, the rents upon it seemed greater, more vicious and wretched. The hurts dealt to this fëa had been deliberately cruel. So too were the rope-like shadows that clung to it, Elven and Valar-made. It was flickering madly and this, more than anything else, caused Fëanáro to weep.
The elf kept still and silent, not wanting to repeat the same mistake he had with his attempt at oswanë. For this he would be patient lest the consequence be greater. Vulnerable – that was the only way to describe his son, his Nelyafinwë. In the young elf the eternal flame given to all elf-kind by Iluvatár was very dim like a candle burnt down to its stub. One breath and in another life it would be blown out.
But dim though it was, Nelyafinwë's fëa was searching.
His father perceived this only after a long while had passed, when the fëa of his son nudged against his own ever so slightly. It was like an extended hand groping, half blind, for the only other thing in an otherwise empty room. Fëanáro's breath caught in his chest. Hesitantly, the smith opened himself to greet it and let love, though sorrow tainted, warm the embers of his fëa and that of the one who dwelt with him. The eternal flame of his son seemed to glow a little more solidly for it, a little more now tying him to the living world than a single worn thread.
Nelyo-
"Fëanáro! Are you deaf as well as dumb?"
With a curse, the King was pulled back into his body. He scowled at Lalwendë as she tapped the tray on his lap. "What," he growled, "Is so important that it required my immediate attention?"
To her credit, his half-sister simply raised an eyebrow. "I thought you might want to eat as you have not done so since this morning, I believe." Then, when he made no move to touch what she had brought, "You will not aid your son's recovery by letting yourself starve."
"Starve?" He laughed humourlessly and not a small bit without sanity. "My son is starved and half-starved again! You can count every rib on him and he was no doubt hanging on that forsaken mountain for years. Where were you with you tray of food when he was hanging there?"
Lalwendë regarded him with disdain. "Do not blame me for what happened to your son."
"Then do not blame me for all that happened on the Helcaraxë," he replied. He could have laughed again, almost with a dark glee, as his father's second daughter turned on her heel and stalked out of the room without another word.
Fëanáro rubbed his face. His mind had not felt quite right for a long time. Nerdanel would- But she was not there.
He looked at the tray on his lap. It had been kind of Lalwendë to bring him food unasked. The smith was not too proud to admit that he was too proud to beg food from either of his half-siblings and their followers. He was not too unaware of himself to know that he could not eat while his emaciated eldest laid in reach of him.
Taking up the cup of water and placing the rest of the tray with its reasonable contents on the floor (ignoring the whispered comments from the greatest depths of his mind that it was poisoned), the elf resumed his vigil. Once more he reached out with his fëa and once more he found his son.
From there the three days passed quickly, especially to Fëanáro who had not once left the side of his eldest son. If the healers complained, he did not hear of it and no one else dared ask him to leave. If they knew what he was doing, they did not comment on that either.
There was a pattern to things: Lalwendë would come with breakfast and to take away the dinner he had not eaten, though she did not speak to him again, angry as she still was; then would come the healers to hum and tut as they examined Nelyafinwë and changed his many bandages, fretting over his fever and the lack of healing of his traumatised stump; then a lull before more healers came to sing over their charge in the hopes that this might help, invoking many prayers to the Vala Lórien for all they had forsaken him – sometimes Fëanáro would also join this singing, softly enough that none could hear him but strong enough that even mountains could not block out its sound; another lull and more healers, before Lalwendë came again to replace the uneaten breakfast with a dinner that would also remain uneaten.
In all this time Fëanáro did not sleep. What moments were not spent singing or watching the healers with suspicious eyes were spent coaxing his son's fëa a little further into his embrace. Three days was not long enough to allow for any kind of success in this, but at least his son knew he was there.
There was a window in the room, though it had been shuttered to keep out the sun's burning rays as much as the cold winds that blew, and to keep in the herbal infusions and incense the healers had been burning ever since Nelyafinwë had been placed in their care. Still, the sun's light was strong and would dimly show through the shutters when risen. Now it began to come through once more, the fourth day of Fëanáro's stay.
He did not want to leave his son, no father would, but he would have to. This was a deal he could not break. Determined to steal every last moment he could, however, he refused to move until another should enter and ask it of him.
It was his half brother who came. Of course it was.
"When you are ready…"
For once muted in tone, Fëanáro nodded. "Shortly. I must bid farewell."
Still, it was a command as much as a request. One that Ñolofinwë, whatever else he currently thought of the King before him and whatever hurts the snow and wind had left him with, understood and obeyed. He left the room again, door closing softly behind him and footsteps fading away. There had been the scarcest trace of sympathy in his eyes.
How was I to know he would cross the Ice? The fool! He turned back to where Nelyafinwë laid prone. Our father's House is full of fools.
What had possessed his eldest son to attempt to treat with Moringotto, the son least like him and most like his mother, his grandfather from whom he had inherited his copper hair and temperament? Mahtan had not the wells of wisdom his daughter did, but he was wise nonetheless. Most definitely a competent teacher and father and grandfather whose advice, more often than not, was sought after in times of hardship and was now sorely missed.
Then again, Nerdanel had loved to regale how Mahtan had once stolen Aluë's favourite hammer and took it to bed after allowing himself to become incredibly drunk.
It was the beard, Fëanáro thought. It made the copper haired smith seem older than he truly was. Then again, what fool was he to equate age with wisdom? The Valar were far older than any Elf and yet they were far more prone to dimwittedness. To mistakes that hurt his family.
But he was stalling.
"Nelyo…" What to say? What he was feeling could not be expressed by words.
Closing his eyes, Fëanáro let his fëa speak what his mouth could not. My heart will weep to the time when we will meet again. Dream well, little one.
"Your half-uncle will care for you while I am gone," he said aloud on the off chance his son could hear. "Should you need me, however, I will come. You need only call."
Standing, the smith brushed his fingers gently the hollowed cheek before him. The last time he had done so, both he and Nelyafinwë had thought the older to be dying, had believed it so fully that the former had asked the Oath to be sworn again and the latter had done so without question. Even in his anger, still lingering from Losgar, Nelyafinwë had sworn it again alongside his brothers. Such loyalty…
What have I done?
Refusing to think of the shadows that hung over his eldest's fëa, refusing to let tears fall now he was leaving, Fëanáro stepped through the room's door. He did so with great reluctance but did so nonetheless. Ñolofinwë was right, at least so much as the mood of his followers were concerned. It was far less dangerous for all that the Noldor's rightful King lingered no longer.
The room led out into a plain hall lined with other doors – rooms for the descendants of Finwë who had survived the crossing. They had brought Nelyafinwë to Ñolofinwë's dwelling, in part because it had been closer than the buildings for healing and in part because it was more isolated from the bustle of everyday life. In retrospect, it had been a wise decision. Anyone who was angry enough to mean harm to a son of Fëanáro would be less likely to attempt anything in the home of their own Lord whom they had sought to betray Fëanáro for. Ñolofinwë would not let harm befall his already severely ill nephew. Fëanáro knew he would not.
(He knew this, though that same small part of him that whispered about poison whispered about this too.)
Head held high, the King strode through the house as though it were his own (and it was in the sense he had built it years ago). Through the hall and into the main area that led to the entrance he went as though his heart was not almost failing with grief and fear. There was a trick to being seen as a King and in the thirty years passed, Fëanáro had mastered it. The gait. The position of his shoulders. The way to move as though he was sure of everything and afraid of nothing. It was different to being a Prince and yet it was not. The results were the same and they were not. (If it sometimes felt as though a hand rested on his shoulder, familiar and safe, a guiding presence to steer him right, then Fëanáro let that presence steer him.)
None of this impressed the elfling he came across.
Itarillë looked up from where she sat, her mother's hair and clear blue eyes familiar in such a way it was as though a ghost that had settled over the child. She bit her lip when she saw him. Frowned and pulled her doll closer to her.
It stung a little that the child should recoil from him.
"Mother drowned while we were crossing." Still worse was the bluntness only children could have. (So often he had preferred children because of this for children did not have the guile to lie and play conceited games.)
Fëanáro's lips turned down and an old ache returned to him with vengeance. "Losing one's mother is hard. They are given to us for a reason and no one can truly fill the void they leave when they are gone." In retrospect, that may not have been the best he could have said to a grieving child. Perhaps, then, the words his father had often repeated to him. "Know that she loves you still in the halls of Mandos where she now dwells. Nothing can ever quench a mother's love, not hurt or fear or death."
The Noldor King winced internally. They were still not his most eloquent words.
"Father says she still watches over me." But it seemed Itarillë had another matter on her mind. "He says you are to blame. Did you want my mother to die?"
Fëanáro shook his head in earnest. "Of course not. I wanted no one's mother to die. Well I know the pain of a child deprived of the one who birthed him, or her, into the world and I would not wish it upon anyone else"
"You burnt the boats," she pointed out.
"It was a mistake." To no else he would admit such a thing (though perhaps to his eldest son, if it would wake him from the terrible slumber he was caught in). "It was a mistake to burn the ships. I thought you would return home."
For Beleriand was not their home. Not the trees. Not the land. Not the creeks and brooks Huan and his master loved to dance in. There was the sun and the moon, and the stars of Varda above them, and across the sea the ones they had left behind.
For perhaps the first time, Fëanáro did not think of Nerdanel with disdain or hurt at her choice to remain behind. Even Mahtan he could not begrudge for his old mentor had loved Nelyafinwë, his Russandol, the best of all his grandsons and it would break his heart to see him now as surely as his mentee had when he had first turned his sword on his kin. This did not mean he missed the touch of his wife any less, nor the hearty laugh of her father.
No, Beleriand was not their home so long as family dwelt on opposite shores.
"What do you want?" The voice came sharp and full of contempt, though it was reigned in for the child who could also hear.
Fëanáro turned and saw his half-brother's second son staring at him, a deep frown creasing his forehead. Fëanáro stared back, head high once more and grey eyes like flint.
"You should be gone by now," Turkáno said.
"Where I should be is not your concern," his half-uncle replied. A nod of courtesy to Itarillë and he went towards the door to the house.
The other elf stepped in his path, every bit as foolish as his father. "It is my concern. Why are you still here?"
"Come now. Do you think that you could play at being King?" Fëanáro pushed past Turkáno without a second glance. Still, his next low spoken words rung clear. "Do well by her. She has no mother now, only you."
If the other elf was startled or outraged or otherwise moved by this, Fëanáro did not wait to see. If he noted the underlying message beneath the words, Fëanáro also refused to see. It would only carve an old hurt deeper into his heart should his half-brother's second child spur the advice.
The door led out to fresh air untainted by the smoke of herbs and Fëanáro breathed it in. The sun had not yet fully risen and the settlement itself was barely stirring to life – Ñolofinwë had chosen to keep to their deal to its strictest criteria. It was somehow amusing.
The smith strode over to the small stables at the end of the house's yard. His half-brother was waiting there with a horse in hand.
"The guards will lend you my sword at the gate," Ñolofinwë said. "I know in all the chaos from before you did not have yours with you."
It was true. They had been together arguing over a map of the known terrain in Angamando – too sparse for thirty years – when news of an infraction between their sides had reached them. Nearly too late they had arrived on horseback to Fëanáro's soldiers goading Ñolofinwë's who were chomping at the bit for a fight. Neither had taken their weapons, too hurried were they to try and stop a misunderstanding from turning into an all-out war. Then the eagle had come and the only weapons that were thought of were the ones applied to the hapless elf upon it.
Still. "I would have thought your guards would prefer I have no sword in case an orc came upon me."
Ñolofinwë looked like he had swallowed a sour grape. "I should say none of my guards would ever stoop to such a level, but I know you could kill an orc with your spite along so what difference would it make? Take your horse and get out of here."
"I am trusting you with my son, Ñolvo," the older of the elves said as he swung himself upon his great steed. The threat was very much implied.
The other's returning smile was as brittle as ice. "No wars shall be waged over your son between us. Be safe, brother."
"Be safe, half-brother," Fëanáro replied and spurred his horse into movement.
Through the settlement he rode, past the houses he had helped build, past Findaráto and his brothers as they returned from some errand. The youngest two regarded him with cold looks, but the face of Arafinwë's eldest remained blank. No doubt their insolent sister watched from some hidden corner with her haughty dignity. Of the rest of his kin, only Aredhel and Findekáno he had not seen. Of course, what they did was of no concern to him. He declined his half-brother's sword and went on his way.
About halfway to his own new settlement a figure met him, coming to dance around the legs of his swiftly irritated horse.
"And to I would have thought your master would be the first to greet me," Fëanáro said, bending down to scratch at Huan's ears. The hound looked at him and whined then resumed his mad barking. The elf sighed. "What trouble has he gotten himself into now? One son too ill to leave bed is one more than needed already. Alright," he said to Huan. "Lead on."
His third son's loyal pet seemed to slightly cease his rapid gait as an air of solemnity drew itself around Fëanáro like a cloak. This, at least, ensured the elf that the matter was not a grave one. If Turcafinwë were an elfling and they back in Tirion, he most likely would simply be stuck in a tree. Still, his child was no longer an elfling and it was not Tirion they were in.
Fëanáro urged his horse to go a little faster.
With Huan leading, it took no real time to find Turcafinwë and the mess he had gotten himself into. The sight of it pulled Fëanáro up short and his horse snorted irritably. The smith blinked, sombreness briefly chased away by bewilderment. "You fell into a thornbush?"
"How is Nelyo?" Turcafinwë said, ignoring his father. "Is he awake yet? Has he said anything? Has Findekáno said anything? When can we see him?" he asked. Catching the grief that flitted over the other's face, he swallowed. "How bad is it?"
"Let me get you out of there first," Fëanáro replied.
"Father!" The young elf began struggling again, trying to tear himself free of the thorny branches that had entangled him. It only worsened the problem. "How is he? Answer me!"
"He lives," the elder replied. "Now be still. I will tell you no more until you are free."
Reluctantly, his third son did as bid. It was not an easy task and took longer than Fëanáro had expected, especially when Huan, in trying to help, had gotten tangled too.
"A fine pair you make," the Noldor King said as he regarded both with a critical eye. Both were scratched and bleeding, the master more than the hound.
Turcafinwë waved him off. "I've done worse simply riding a horse in a paddock. It will heal."
"Then let us return home, lest your brothers worry more of their family has disappeared."
But the younger elf stopped him with a hand to the shoulder and by sending Huan to block the path to his father's horse. "What of Nelyo? Tell me fully."
"I will tell you alongside your brothers," Fëanáro said.
"No!" And now his hasty temper rose to the surface. "You were the one who stopped me from going after him. If Findekáno can walk into Angamando and free him, then I certainly could have. That knowledge will haunt me for the rest of my life. Twice now I've done nothing as he was hurt; no more will I stand aside where my brother is concerned. Tell me now and tell me plainly of all his hurts."
Fëanáro had named him after his strength and it was his strength Fëanáro felt now as the other's fingers dug into his shoulder. "I am your King and Lord and father."
"I don't care! Tell me!"
"Then release me." Fëanáro waited until he did so, taking a moment to straighten his ruffled robes. "Your brother is unconscious still and will be for a while. His hurts are too numerous for me to list now, but his right shoulder and arm are of primary concern to the healers, as is his wasted state and laboured breathing."
"Why isn't he returning home with you?"
The smith regarded his son. "He is too ill to move for the foreseeable future. He will stay with your half-uncle until such time as he is."
"What?" Turcafinwë frowned. "You just left him there? You could have sent for one of us. You should have-"
"Enough, Turcafinwë," Fëanáro ordered. "I have my reasons and you will learn them when the rest of your brothers stand before me. I do not wish to waste time imparting news more times than is necessary."
His son huffed and turned to grab his discarded bow. He pulled himself up onto his horse in a similar wordless fury. Turcafinwë had never needed words; his actions had always spoken for him and the stiffness of his body were message enough to his father.
Fëanáro refrained from sighing in exasperation, nearly at the end of his mental fortitude as it was, and hulled himself onto his own horse. So they rode onwards in silence, Huan loping joyfully between them.
"How did you fall into that thornbush?" he finally asked, a truce of sorts.
Turcafinwë, his anger usually as quick to leave as it came, shrugged. He was no Morifinwë, but his face turned red as well. "I was chasing a deer."
A raised eyebrow. "And?"
"I chased it right into that blasted thicket," the other mumbled.
Now Fëanáro did sigh, shaking his head as he did so. "I see you failed to catch the deer for your troubles."
"I will catch it on the morrow," Turcafinwë declared. "With the limp it had, it will not be getting far and will be easy enough to track that even Curufinwë could do so."
"I have no doubt. Still, it is unwise to be so unaware of your surroundings. You should not be so reckless here," Fëanáro admonished.
"Huan would have stayed with me until I got myself free."
"Huan cannot defend you from everything." The older elf looked at his son. "Be more careful. Such carelessness will get you killed."
"Like it almost got you?"
Well named his third son had been by his mother: Tyelkormo or hasty-riser. She had been referring to his quick temper mostly, which had been as fast to come as the trouble he had made as a babe still in swaddling. Yet, it suited other parts of his character as well. Too often he spoke without thinking.
Fëanáro stopped short and sent him a heated glower. "Do not use my misfortunes as an excuse, unless you want to be confined to the house for the foreseeable future."
"I am an elf grown," Turcafinwë growled.
"You are still my son," Fëanáro replied, ending the argument there.
Another silence grew between them, interrupted only by Huan's panting as he ran to keep up. The old ache in the older elf's shoulders and back made itself known, worse, no doubt, from his extended period of sitting in that hard-backed chair. The whip of the balrog who had struck him down had to have been enchanted with some black magic for the scars still lingered even with his elvish healing. Turcafinwë saw him wince but said nothing. The gratefulness his father felt at this would have swiftly faded if he had seen the look upon his son's face as the fair-haired elf concentrated on something else.
"Where's your sword?" he asked suddenly.
Fëanáro kept his focus ahead. "At home. I didn't have time to fetch it when the scuffle began."
Turcafinwë looked aghast. "And they did not offer you one upon your return here nor any guard as accompaniment? You are their King!"
"They offered," his father replied. "I declined. I am well versed in combat by hand should the need, highly unlikely in any case, arise."
"Nelyo was the best of us and look what happened to him."
"Your brother was besieged by a force ten times that of his own," Fëanáro snapped. "Do not seek to blame him for what happened."
"I'm not!" Turcafinwë cried, but no more was said on the matter.
The guards at the gate greeted their King and prince with short nods, eyes turning back to the road they had travelled upon. The other elves they passed on the path to their house were more open with their respect, bowing low to their King and prince, though Fëanáro barely took the time to greet them in return and Turcafinwë failed to do so at all. Indeed, their journey home was hasty and like the gales that blew over the plains they had found Fëanáro crashed through the door with Turcafinwë close behind.
Four expectant faces looked up at him.
"Where is Curufinwë and Morifinwë?"
"Father's finishing up at the forges," Telperinquar answered from where he sat around their table. "He wanted to organise things for your return."
Fëanáro nodded. That was well enough. While his fifth son was the only one to inherit his skill at smithing and the patience for it (Pityafinwë, for example, had the former but not the later: he could shape any hunk of metal into a fine goblet or circlet provided he could do so in as long as it took for an elf to blink), Curufinwë was very different in his method of organisation. The younger elf favoured the 'so long as he knew what was where' approach of his mother – yet another ultimately Mahtan inspired trait. His father, on the other hand, was meticulous. Every tool had its place. Ever ore type was stored separately in a labelled container. So it was that his son always found the need to tidy up whenever he found himself using Fëanáro's forge.
"And Morifinwë?" he asked again.
Telufinwë snorted. "Moryo is chasing down a few small discrepancies in the logs that kept count of how many leather shoes we had stored. He might be a while."
"At least until Turko deigns to tell him Huan ate them," Kánafinwë said dryly.
"Only when Pitya admits he left the door open for Huan to get in," Turcafinwë shot back.
"That mutt could have opened it for all you know," sulked the brother Turcafinwë had accused. "He's intelligent enough."
"He's-"
"Enough!" Fëanáro frowned at his bickering sons. "Do you want news of your brother or not?"
His sons looked appropriately abashed. Telperinquar bit his lip. "I should fetch father."
"Yes," his grandfather said. "Pitya, get Morifinwë. Telvo, get something to patch up your brother who thought himself good enough to go frolicking in a thornbush."
The twins both snorted at this. Fëanáro ignored the scowl Turcafinwë shot him and sat down at the table, resting his chin on his steepled hands. His sharp grey gaze locked itself onto his eldest son there.
"Is there anything pressing that I should know about that occurred while I was gone?" he asked.
Kánafinwë shook his head. "Things have been subdued here. The anger and lust for a fight from before both have faded. Most simply wanted to inquire after Nelyo's health. Someone started a vigil for him on the first night of his return and they have been holding one every night since. You wouldn't have heard them, but they have been singing too. You might hear them tonight."
It warmed Fëanáro's heart to know that those who followed him could care so much for his sons. Perhaps, with enough voices singing, Lórien would hear them and answer their prayers. "Is there anything else?"
"They are anxious for news." Kánafinwë bit his lip, an old habit he had only recently regained. "Tell me, please. Does he live?"
And the anguish in his golden voice Fëanáro could not stand. "Yes. For now."
His son sat back down at this.
"He'll pull through, Káno," Turcafinwë said doggedly. "Nelyo would never let us down."
Silence followed those naïve words, filling the room like an unwanted guest. In it, Kánafinwë began humming a simple tune. It was one Fëanáro recognised and knew to be one sung to Iluvatár that the great being might himself intervene on behalf of another. Though the memories were hazy, he remembered it being sung around his mother's bed as she faded. If Turcafinwë recognised it, he only responded by more doggedly clinging to his belief in his oldest brother.
This world will break him. It was a pessimistic thought, more pessimistic than any Fëanáro had ever had. But it could be nothing but true.
Huan laid his head on his master's lap and the father of his master begged him to watch out for his son. The hound, as if he had heard, snuggled his head closer into Turcafinwë's belly.
The minutes passed by, each one as filled with tension as the ones that had come before. Kánafinwë continued his humming until Turcafinwë snapped at him to stop, the younger fiddling with anything he could reach until his brother told him to stop. It almost seemed like a blessing when Curufinwë entered with his son, the former still covered in dirt. Then Ambarussa appeared dragging Morifinwë behind them whose protests died when he caught sight of his father.
"Nelyo?" the ruddy faced elf asked almost breathlessly as the others took their seats. The same question danced in the eyes of all the others present.
"Nelyo lives, but has not woken," the head of their House said. "His injuries are numerous, and the healers do not know when he will wake. For now, there is nothing more we can do."
"What are his injuries?" Kánafinwë asked.
Fëanáro pressed his lips together. "Bruises and cuts, many superficial and many not. The worst of it is on his back for he was hung from the face of Thangorodrim when your cousin found him. A few cuts are infected, but the healers are confident this will quickly pass. He is malnourished, severely as you must have seen. His right shoulder and spine are also out of alignment for it was from this arm, and this arm alone, that he was hung. Even now the healers sing to fix this. There is also much scarring – I do not know if all of it will heal."
At each new hurt he listed, the faces of his six youngest sons and his grandson paled further. Ambarussa clutched hands and leaned in on one another as though each could shield the other from his words. Turcafinwë's petting of Huan had grown more vicious until the hound growled and his master checked himself. Telperinquar had succumbed to his father's grasp, pressing his face against the chest of the now stone-faced smith. Morifinwë cursed and cursed again at every new piece of information and Kánafinwë- If he had not been sitting, the musician would have collapsed.
"There is more," their father said grimly.
"More?" Pityafinwë cried in disbelief. "What more could there be?"
There was much more – a crooked nose and crooked fingers, a crooked leg the healers had broken once more to set straight so that Nelyafinwë had a chance of walking. A missing rib from where Fëanáro had counted them in horror. A dim fëa and ravaged mind. But there was one hurt more grievous and more pressing to discuss.
"I want you to know this from me first," he said, face turning stern. "There will be talk of it no doubt, but gossip has a way of twisting things into what they are not. Your cousin, Findekáno, was forced to cut off your brother's right hand." Amidst the cries of shock and outrage and grief, the smith continued. "He found Nelyafinwë chained to a mountain by his wrist and no dagger or sword or word or song he tried could break it. Nor could he free the chain itself, so deep was it nailed into the mountainside. Perhaps if he were a smith… But he is not, and he did what was necessary."
"But-"
"What Findekáno has done is a great deed," Fëanáro declared, cutting Curufinwë off. "None of you will give him grief over this."
Kánafinwë shifted. "What if Nelyo should die from the wound?"
"Then he will not die alone and in the clutches of the Enemy," Morifinwë snapped, his face reddening. It was clear he was furious, yet, for all his volcanic temper, he had always been amongst the more reasonable of Fëanáro's sons.
"Your brother will not die," Fëanáro said and this he was more certain of than anything else he knew.
The others digested this with some small relief.
"Where is he?" Telufinwë asked in the lull that followed. "Did you not bring him home with you?"
"Nelyo's too ill to move," Turcafinwë said dully.
"He is right," Fëanáro cut in quickly before any of his other sons could protest. "Ñolofinwë has agreed to care for your brother until he is well enough to survive the journey without any irrevocable harm."
"Then who is to stay with him?" It was a logical question that Morifinwë had asked, but one that his father had been dreading.
"No one."
"What?"
"How can you say that?"
"What do you mean no one?" Kánafinwë's voice was the loudest.
Fëanáro held his ground. "The situation-"
"How can you expect us to abandon our brother again, our injured brother?" Turcafinwë yelled. "It is bad enough that you left him. I will not."
He stood but the action stoked his father's fire into an inferno.
"Sit down," he raged, though his words were not yelled. He turned his ire on the rest. "The situation is complicated. My half-brother's followers are unhappy with us at best."
Curufinwë shifted. "You think they mean our brother harm?"
"It is possible," Fëanáro said. "But less possible if none of us are there to incite their anger. Treacherous though my half-brother is, he would not harm Nelyo anymore than he would harm another sickly elf and he will not allow anyone else to harm him either. He is in a precarious position already with his people for having agreed to house your brother in the first place and more for letting me stay there for as long as I did. I don't care what trouble he is in, but it is best for Nelyafinwë that he remains in power. So we will do as he has asked and stay away. All of us, including you or else I will be forced to confine you to the walls of this settlement. Should any of you disobey me in this then the consequences will be severe."
"But it could be months before he is well enough to return!" Telufinwë exclaimed.
It could well be more than that, but Fëanáro had enough tact no to say as such. "It is only until he wakes," he said instead. "I will negotiate another deal upon that moment. Until then, you will do as I say even if I must make you swear it."
"Yes, father," his six sons muttered and Telperinquar gave his assent as well.
"There is no need for us to swear," Curufinwë added almost snidely. Fëanáro ignored him.
"I will be receiving reports daily from your half-uncle and the healers who are responsible for your brother's care," he said. "If there is anything further you wish to know then ask me. If there is anything you know that might help, then tell me so I might pass it on."
"They could use him as a hostage," Morifinwë pointed out.
Fëanáro knew this already. He would simply have to trust his brother. "There is nothing we can do about it now. He cannot be moved." The elf sighed and regarded his sons and grandson with sad eyes. "Pray for your brother, that his recovery might be all the swifter. For now, however, take some time to yourselves then go about your duties as usual. Our people look to you after me and in these dark times they need guidance. I will tell them of Nelyafinwë tomorrow."
"What of you?" Kánafinwë asked. "You looked tired. Will you rest?"
"Have some food brought to me," the smith said. "I will be in my forge. I am not to be disturbed for the rest of the day. You may leave as you will."
His sons did just that, Curufinwë immediately sweeping Telperinquar off to oversee a building project that had just begun. Morifinwë strode out with his book and a quill in hand, intent as ever on getting to the bottom of their missing leather stores. Unsurpisingly, Turcafinwë fled with Huan back to the forest, taking the sniggering Ambarussa with him.
Kánafinwë lingered for a moment, stroking absently at where a locket hung around his throat that Fëanáro knew contained the lock of copper hair the elf had saved from his father's madness, though this fact went unspoken by all. His second son seemed like he was going to speak. His mouth went so far as to sound the first syllable, but then closed to silence once more.
"Yes, Kánafinwë? What is it?"
The younger elf pressed his lips together and all but fled the room. His father sighed. He would question his son later. For now his fingers itched to wield a hammer.
Stripping out of his dirtied robes and down to his breeches and boots, Fëanáro took up a leather apron and donned it. From there he went to his forge, tutting at the mess Curufinwë had left. It did not take long to clean and the familiar process soothed some of his raw nerves. The rest he beat out on a hunk of metal once he had eaten. His grief and anger and fear he beat out too, working himself into that mindless focus he often sought refuge in before. So he passed the rest of the day well into the evening.
Then the singing started as Kánafinwë had said it would.
His second son's golden voice rang clear in the night, beseeching mercy for his brother, but it was not alone. Not all the voices sung well. Some were as tuneless as a gull on the coast. Yet all sung with sincerity, with a plea in their voice and a prayer on their lips. Like the song of birds at dawn and dusk, the sound rose and fell and grew in number, the power of it formed by the sheer will of those who sung. And the song itself was as an elf kneeling before their Lord:
"O, praised be mighty Lórien
that he look down on all
'neath Varda's endless silver stars
where evil's shadows fall.
O, praised be mighty Lórien
that he might hear our song
and answer true the prayers we sing
to mend a grievous wrong.
Have mercy, mighty Lórien,
for our beloved Prince
who dwells in that sweetest limbo
where others passed on since.
Take him not like his grandfather,
our once beloved King,
but save him from the dreary halls
and him from limbo bring.
Sooth his hurts, ease his pain, we ask,
we plead, we beg of you;
repair the flesh and knit the skin -
make our poor Prince anew."
On and on it went, the same verses repeated as a mantra that might reach beyond the mountains shielding Valinor.
Fëanáro put down his hammer. Took it up again to smash to pieces the sword he had been forging. A breath later the elf instead stood back and let it cool. It was a crude thing, ugly even by a child's standards, still it would suffice. A base was all he needed to work with for now, a skeleton to build upon – no Valar-killing weapon could be crafted in a single night, but for his kin dead and sleeping the great smith would try. He had made the Simarils, this he could make too, though the required magic alone might kill him.
Fëanáro smiled at the flames in his forge. His son would wake and that thrice-damned Vala would pay.
Note that the farewell Fëanáro says to Maitimo is in fact a farewell in Quenya (translated to English because for now they are all speaking Quenya - English here - and it wouldn't make sense for that one line to be in Quenya). I thought it was the one that best fit the situation.
Apologies for the song if it's bad - I did my best. I also know nothing of how to forge something so please forgive me for that poor description as well.
I'm not sure how old Idril was when the crossing ended, but I assume she was at least over 30? I don't know how that translates to human years so I've left it vague for now. If anyone can be any help here... Also, if anyone has any information about specific Lords or minor characters that I should know about in either Noldor camp, please message me. I would be eternally grateful as I don't have time to go back through the book in detail.
I hope that you enjoyed this chapter! Now I'm kind of up to where everyone is and how they got there in this story (for the most part), the next chapters will have more action and people talking about things in them. Maitimo won't be waking for a while, but I have a few ideas to play with until then. It would be awesome if you could leave a review - I love receiving them and hearing what you think about this.