A/N: I'm terribly sorry this update took so long... Uni has been eating me alive. I hope it's worth the wait :)
Chapter 2
Arafinwë couldn't say how long it took them to travel the last miles back to Alqualondë, but it felt like an eternity.
On this journey of despair the light of the stars, which had been a source of comfort to the Elves when they made the trek from Cuiviénen to Aman, seemed hollow and sinister instead. The eerie flickering of the Valacirca, still partly obscured by thick, black clouds of smoke, now felt like a mockery.
Arafinwë couldn't say how long it took them to get close enough to the city to be able to see clearly the damage their now exiled kin had wrought, but when he did, for the first time since they had turned back, he stopped walking and stared.
Where once the beautiful, pearly-white Haven of Swans had been, now only blackened husks remained. Alqualondë, the city of his heart, his home, was gone, and with it a part of himself.
He wanted to scream, to rage, to cry, but he knew he couldn't. He owed it to the people following him to be strong until the end. They looked to him for guidance, not so much with words, for still none of them had spoken any since they had started on the journey back, but with their actions. He owed it to them to be strong, to be the proper prince of Eldamar Nolofinwë had always wanted him to be.
As they stood there in the darkness, looking out upon the remnants of broken, burned Alqualondë, the adults among them couldn't help but finally break their unspoken vow of silence, not with words, but with tears.
Soft sobs turned into quiet wails, turned into broken whimpers, and Arafinwë knew he owed it to them to be strong, even if they could not, especially if they could not.
He violently blinked the unspilled tears from his eyes.
"Let us hence," he said, his voice, hoarse from disuse, sounding foreign to his ears. The soft Telerin lilt to his vowels that often came when he was sad or angry or in pain felt to him like a vicious mockery of reality.
They seemed to have come to an unspoken agreement on the way that they would return to the city their brothers and sisters had so ruthlessly wrecked. To apologize, even if there was no reason for the Teleri, the Lindar, and their king, his own father-in-law, to forgive them.
Arafinwë couldn't say he was afraid. Certainly not for himself, as in his own eyes he deserved to be punished as much as Fëanáro did. Not for killing, but for allowing the people of his heart to be killed by those of his blood.
If he was afraid at all, it was for the children, but not because he feared for their lives. If he had learned anything at all about the King of the Lindar during the years he'd spent living in Olwë's city, it was that he was a just and compassionate king.
He would not allow the slaying of innocent children, not even if their parents might have brutally murdered his own.
If Arafinwë was afraid at all, it was for their future. He knew not what the children would be returned to in Tirion. He himself had known when he turned back that he would not see the city of his birth again, and he knew the other adults did too. Olwë might have some compassion left in his heart after all that had been done to him, but his people would not. They would demand revenge, and even Olwë, kind, gracious, gentle Olwë would not deny them what he knew they rightly deserved, he rightly deserved.
The last short distance to the city they walked, once again, in silence. He had not ordered them to follow him, but they did nonetheless. Arafinwë didn't know if they actually walked slower that last distance, or if time just bent around them to make it feel like they were going slower, but the eventual result was the same.
With a forced confidence in his steps he crossed the last metres to the city gate, pulling the child in his arms a little closer, and then he stood still.
The gate, what was left of it, was closed. Arafinwë had never seen it closed before, not since the first time he'd visited the Lindar. Usually open and welcoming, the busted silver doors were now reduced to a silent foreboding of the pain that was to come.
Arafinwë took in the sight of the broken gate, once the symbol of the kind acceptance the Lindar were known for and proud of, and then he rested his shoulder against the cool metal and pushed. For all its warped appearance, the gate easily swung open, designed to be opened and closed even if it had never really been meant to.
He hesitated for moment, and then he stepped inside.
Quietly they walked through the deserted streets. If not for the burn marks and the deadness that seemed to hang heavy in the air the city would have seemed almost peaceful.
Arafinwë couldn't help but be reminded of the awe he'd felt when he had first visited Alqualondë as a child. For all that Alqualondë was younger and less architecturally diverse than ancient Tirion on Túna, and the Swan Haven's pale white stone and sweeping arches had easily reminded him of the city of his birth, Alqualondë had always possessed a tranquillity and a sense of freedom that Tirion lacked.
He had instantly felt at home, something he hadn't felt in Tirion in a long time.
He didn't feel at home now, he couldn't, not with the knowledge that it was his own family that had destroyed this place which held nearly all the good childhood memories he had. It pained him now, to remember. He could almost fool himself into thinking it was a different city he was walking through, not fair Alqualondë. It didn't look like it had in his memories, covered in ash, the streets sullied with innocent blood spilt for an impossible cause.
He tried to close his mind to the memories, needed to distance himself so he wouldn't break. That might have been easier if he hadn't seen the shocked face of his brother-in-law lying dead, bled out on the quay. He remembered how Nénarion had looked at him when on his second visit to Alqualondë Arafinwë had dared to push him off the footbridge into the water. He remembered the altogether different look of shock on the younger elf's face, and it brought tears to his eyes.
Arafinwë felt lost, adrift in a swirling river of emotions and memories he struggled to control, trying to stay strong, keeping up appearances for the sake of his people, but inside he was drowning.
They didn't encounter anyone as they made their way into the city, and Arafinwë briefly wondered if the slaughter had been such that none had survived for them to find upon their return, but he knew it could not be so. He himself had been chased out of the city by Olwë and his two remaining sons, after the swan ships had already been commandeered by Fëanáro and his and Nolofinwë's hosts had moved on as if they had not just committed the most vile crime in the history of Aman and beyond.
The closer they got to the harbour the more destruction they found. While the outer city had been cleared of the most gruesome reminders of death, the inner city had not been fully cleared just yet. Like in the outer city they found no bodies, but here dried blood still covered the paved walkways, and the pungent smell of death hung heavy in the air. Arafinwë wished he could spare his people the sight.
When they came upon Alqualondë on that fateful day the fighting had already been mostly over. He had sent his people on past the city and made his way inside on his own, needing to see for himself the evil his people had wrought. The sight did not hurt any less now than it had then.
As they made their way deeper into the seemingly empty city the silence was replaced by the sound of voices. Soft at first, barely audible, but there nonetheless, cutting through the curtains of the darkness with clarity, but so filled with despair that their sound did nothing to lift them.
Telerin mourning songs.
Arafinwë had heard them before, at the winter solstice, when the Teleri remembered those they had lost on the Great Journey from Cuiviénen. He remembered how he had stood next to his father-in-law, who had wrapped his arm around Arafinwë's shoulders to comfort him as the songs took him back into the past to a place he had never been, and made him weep rivers of tears for people he had never known.
Arafinwë was so caught up in his memories that he didn't notice them coming until the first stone hit his shoulder. He cried out as a sharp wave of pain made the fingers of his right hand tingle and go numb. His eyes went wide as he saw a swarm of faces coming towards him with expressions ranging from furious to vindictive. Behind him he felt his people hesitate. They had followed him into the city to die, but now that they were faced with that very possible reality instinct told them to flee.
He did not have time to find out the choice his people made, because suddenly he was in the middle of an angry crowd. He felt himself being pushed around by a swirling current of angry hands and accusing voices. He curled himself around the child in his arms to protect her as painful blows rained down on him. Clubs aimed at whatever part of him they could reach, kicks to his legs attempting to bring him down and make him an even easier target.
"Have mercy on the children," he cried out, but his voice was lost in a storm of vengeful clamour.
An agonizing kick to his right knee made him loose his balance and drop to the ground. He caught himself on one hand and made to get back up when another kick to his ribs made him cry out in pain. Hunched over with the young orphan in his arms he struggled to breathe. With his eyes swimming and wave after wave of dizziness crashing over him, he barely noticed when the blows slowed and then stopped coming.
"Arafinwë?"
He looked up and between the black dots clouding his vision he recognized the face of the second prince of Alqualondë, his brother-in-law.
"Uinendil," he whispered, his voice barely audible.
Arafinwë looked at him with pleading eyes, remembering the countless times they had played together on the shore.
"Take them to the palace," the prince ordered with a voice like steel, "tell the king the traitors have returned."
Arafinwë tried not to wince as he felt someone roughly grab his shoulders an pull him to his feet.
The remaining walk to the palace went by in a blur. Arafinwë could barely stand and had to be held upright and dragged along by two guards. A few times he tried to catch Uinendil's gaze, but the Telerin prince studiously avoided looking at him. Eventually Arafinwë gave up and focused on breathing through the pain his bruised and broken ribs were causing.
The palace square looked nothing like it normally did. Normally a marketspace, it had now been turned into a refugee camp for those whose homes had been destroyed and made uninhabitable by the flames.
Arafinwë was acutely aware of the faces looking at him as they made their way through the crowd, the people gracefully stepping aside to let their prince through as he lead his newest catch across the square on their walk of shame.
When they reached the steps leading up to the palace Olwë was already waiting for them.
Like Uinendil, the king looked at him with hollow eyes, his brow creased in a frown. His clothes were plain, his long silver hair a mess of tangles, dark circles under his eyes like he hadn't slept in days - and he probably hadn't -, without a crown or circlet on his brow to signify his authority.
And yet there was something in his stance that made it clear to anyone that this simple Teler in dirty work-clothes with the blood of his fallen people still caked under his nails and on his boots had more sense of what it meant to be a king in his left thumb than Fëanáro had had in whole his body.
Arafinwë looked at the king standing at the bottom of the steps leading up to the palace and he realized for the first time that the king stood alone. He scanned the row of guards lined up at the top of the steps and saw Eärrámë, the king's youngest son, among them, but he did not see the queen, nor did he see the king's heir, Falatirion.
He tried not to falter in his step as a sharp pain shot through his skull and he briefly had a vision of Eärwen standing on the steps of the palace in Tirion, waiting for him like her father stood waiting for him now. The knowledge that she might never forgive him tore at Arafinwë's heart.
They came to a halt a few metres from where the king stood. A deadly silence hung over the square, and Arafinwë realized Olwë was waiting for him to make the first move.
For the first time since they had turned around he gently lowered the child in his arms to the ground. She whimpered and clung to him and for a few tense seconds her muffled cries were the only sound in the square, but then she let him go, as if she knew that Arafinwë's next actions would decide her own future.
With his hands raised in a placating gesture he approached the king. Arafinwë kept his eyes on the ground and his shoulders hunched when he knelt before him. Only then did he raise his eyes to meet the king's gaze.
"Your majesty, I-" he was cut off when the king's fist forcefully connected with his jaw and he was forced to jump to his feet and take a step back not to be sent sprawling. Behind him he heard the child crying out for him.
Arafinwë gasped and raised a hand to his face, now throbbing with the promise of a spectacular bruise. He tentatively looked up and was surprised to find the king not looking at him in anger, but with sorrowful eyes filled with unspilled tears.
"Hinya…"
Suddenly Olwë's arms were around him and Arafinwë found his face buried in the king's tangled silver hair. He could feel the king's hands shaking where they rested on his back and at the nape of his neck.
"I'm sorry," Arafinwë whispered, and that was all it took to break the king's resolve. He felt a hand sneak into his hair as Olwë's shoulders hunched and he bowed his head and cried into his son-in-law's, the traitor's, shoulder.
Arafinwë wrapped his arms around the king, his bruised body loudly protesting the movement, and pulled his father-in-law as close as he could while grief-stricken sobs wracked the king's body.
Standing there, in the broken city he used to call his home, with the people of his heart looking at him with expressions ranging from hatred to disgust, with their king sobbing in his arms, Arafinwë thought of all that had been lost, all that had been broken and he wondered how the Lindar's revenge, how his death could ever set this right.
Standing there Arafinwë closed his eyes and finally allowed his own tears to flow.
A/N: Next chapter will, among other things, see Arafinwë and Olwë having a much-needed conversation about revenge, justice and reparations. Sit tight, thid might take a while again, if so my apologies.
