The Ballad of Fengel

Chapter 4

Disclaimer: This all belongs to the great J.R.R. Tolkien. Although he would never claim this story!

Rating: Okay, there has been a change, just to be safe, to M, for scenes of implied incest, non-con, and violence against women. I just want you to be aware, if you have been reading, that that can be disturbing to some readers, so please be mindful of that.


The passing of my brothers was a blow my father never thought he would have to bear in his lifetime. It nearly brought him to his knees in grief, but he was a strong man, and an even stronger king. He battled the foe of anguish the way he did everything else; that is to say that he met it head on and did not allow himself to cower under the crushing despair of it all.

Instead, he sent his sons off in the glory which they had earned, choosing to dwell in pride that they had died a warrior's death in battle, which we all aspire to. He deified them, and we moved on.

The halls of Edoras would never recover, but that was not to be dwelt upon. These were new times, and if it felt as if a shadow had fallen over us, well, then, we would feast in the shade. My father had not built his kingdom up to be the finest working establishment under the sun to see it fade because of the tears of an old man. He grimly set his will to what was left to him. And his gaze fell upon me.

I was not ready to let go of my sorrow quite so easily. My brothers were my lifeblood. The tragedy was that both their lives had been cut short, at twenty-seven years they were in their prime when death called on them. I felt lost and without a rudder, completely in shock. All of the fancy words and accolades bestowed upon them rang false to me. Who cared if they died a noble death, they had lived a noble life! Did no one care about that? It mattered not to me if they dwelled forever in the house of our grandfathers if I would never again cross swords with Fastred on the field, or see Folcred nod to me when I mastered a difficult move. Who would understand me? Who would guide me? All was lost. It lay buried in two mounds of earth. The most vibrant of lives, reduced to gentle slopes covered in flowers, as if they had not even existed.

The pain was not just in my heart, it was a fog that had settled over me like a miasma, threatening to suffocate me. I stumbled through life, but I couldn't bring myself to see anything that I was doing. Everywhere I looked, I saw absence. Everything I saw, I beheld loss.

My father was finally made aware of my struggle and called me to him. He cleared the hall so that we were alone. I felt his eyes upon me, piercing me, as if he could see everything. He sighed. "My son. Fengel. Do you not think that I, too, have a heavy heart? This is the will of the Valar. You must rejoice that your brothers have served their purpose and died in the way that brought them to their destiny. Lay aside your troubled mind and look to your future. This brooding does you ill."

Horrified, I felt the lump that seemed to be ever present in my throat grow from an ache to an overwhelming pain, and hot tears started to well. I tried to sniff inconspicuously, but I fear I failed, and the resulting anger helped me master myself. Interesting. Anger was an effective antidote to this crippling weakness of pain. I filed that piece of news away for later and concentrated on redeeming my own honor in front of my father. It was fast sliding away from me, and I could hardly conjure the words to defend myself. For the first time in my life, I was at a loss. I batted roughly at my drippy nose.

"Fengel, you are my only son and heir. You must find it in yourself to do your duty. I understand your feeling of desolation. I too, share it." My father gestured a little helplessly. "You must know that whatever your personal feelings, you must be a man now and get a hold of yourself for the sake of your people. They look to you now, to us, to see how we bear our burdens in these difficult times. They must see strength as the template, so that they may mold their own character into the vision of that which they wish to become." Father looked hard at me. "You may be as heartbroken as you want, but only in here." He reached over and tapped my breast. "To the world you will present the ideal. Otherwise we will crumble."

I looked back at my father, my king, and I saw that he believed all of the noble truths that he lived by. That was what had made him so beloved by both his subjects and his neighboring peers all of these long years. He was a fool, I decided suddenly, the resentment rising like bile, too bitter to swallow back down. Once I saw it, I couldn't deny the vision any longer, and it was before me in every line of his face, every gray hair on his head, which had previously endeared me to him. A sham! Those same lies had sent my brothers to their deaths, and they were buried in the cold ground for his notions of a better kingdom.

I would not be taken in so easily. A crafty gleam entered my eye. I shoved the sadness down, deep down, somewhere inside where it lodged like a dark glittering stone. I could almost feel a pit there, but now I could breathe, and think of other things. The new me was here. Father was right. The time had come to talk of other things; the future. But it would cost him to do so.

"I am the Crown Prince." I said these first words flatly, without a tremor in my voice.

If my father was surprised by the seemingly unrelated topic my words brought forth, he only raised his eyebrows a bit. Perhaps he thought I was reaffirming my status to him and myself. "Yes. The one and only."

"Yet you have not declared it in formal ceremony. When are you planning on naming me your heir?" I stared him down.

The King blanched, unprepared. "I...uh..." He was floundering, something I had never had the occasion to witness. "I may be misunderstanding the situation. You...require proof of your line of ascendancy? In formal ceremony? While we are a country in mourning for your brothers' deaths? Perhaps I did not hear you correctly!" By the end of his speech, his eyes had gone round, and his voice from stilted and incredulous to louder and angry.

I did not back down from his bluster, but stood quietly and let the little voice inside me guide my actions. The little hard knot that I didn't want to think about seemed to have incredible power and energy. It had been grief, but now it seemed to be a force that just wanted to inflict pain on others, in the highest price possible. After all, I had had my heart ripped out, why shouldn't everyone around me suffer in kind? I may not be allowed to cry, but I would extract my revenge in kind. Perhaps I could have fun with this. The ways were many for this sort of sport, if you had a creative mind and nothing to lose.

I let an unfamiliar smirk creep over my mouth. The insolence fairly radiated off of me. "I am entitled to what is mine. If I am next in line to the throne, I will have my due. You will treat me as the prince that I am." I said this calmly, gauging his reaction.

The king's eyes fairly bugged out of his head. "You...little...!" He appeared to be speechless. "I thought that the reason for your lackluster these few weeks hence was melancholy over your brothers' demise! I cannot credit the absolute cheek of it!" He fell silent. "You know, this does not do your character one bit of credit at all, Fengel, not an ounce," he began pacing and talking to himself, but to my surprise, the anger had leached from his voice and was replaced by consideration. "However, I have to confess myself astounded by the position you have placed me in. You, a mere whelp of a boy, dare to order his king into an advantageous position, favorable to you and second highest in the kingdom, witnessed by the entire public, a few scant weeks after the murder of your closest kin? It is brilliant, if depraved of you. You have the makings of a very strong ruler, politically, if not emotionally."

I stood stock still, letting only my eyes follow him. The little boy who hung on every word of his was gone, replaced by this cold stranger. I could feel the change in me as surely as if I was a whole different person. It mattered not to me what transpired here, I was merely marking time. I felt dead on the inside. Couldn't anyone see it?

The king stopped his pacing. "All right, Fengel, you have a point. I am not merely accepting you as my heir, I am proud of it. Although we are still officially in mourning, I will give you the ascension proclamation you so desire, and I will declare it immediately, but we will forgo a formal feast. Will that suit?"

"Nothing less, Your Majesty." I clicked my heels, bowed, and left him standing there. He could shove the whole thing up his arse, I thought, my jaw clenched, but there was an interesting lesson to be learned from this. I pondered the vagaries of human nature as I made my way to my bed chamber. It seems that I had crossed an unforgivable line, and yet I walked out a victor in some battle I hadn't even known I was fighting. This bore thinking on. Perhaps the way to getting what one wanted was by simply reaching out your hand and taking it...and just not caring any more about anything.

As was so often the case, I felt the need for a release of tension, and in casting about, I came up empty of targets save one. My feet seemed to know their course before my head did, and before I realized it, I was at the door to my sister's chamber door. I mockingly knocked, as if that would be enough to deny me entrance should I choose to enter. Then I impatiently flung the door open anyway, not waiting for her admittance.

Feowine was there, as she always was. Indeed, she was a woman of seventeen now, but she was so meek she rarely left her chambers. The last time I had seen her for any length of time had been at the funeral. She was embroidering a piece of fabric, and she couldn't help looking startled at my sudden presence. She nervously clutched the linen in her hand, and I noticed a drop of blood bloom across the white where she had inadvertently pricked herself with the needle. She didn't appear to notice it at all when faced with the greater threat that I presented, but I was fascinated by the spread of the stain. The darkness of the blood contrasted with the delicate beauty of the stitches, and it spilled over, tainting it all irrevocably. The omen it presented made my lips curve in a smile.

"Leave," I growled at the one woman keeping her company, and the maid jumped up and rushed out without a question, slamming the door behind her. Feowine was frozen.

"Don't you rise to your feet when your ruler comes in the room, my sister?" I asked, my voice a deceptive purr. My eyes bore malice into hers.

Feowine recognized the antipathy directed at her. Always she had been able to appease me, but she sensed today was different. Her eyes were round in her thin face. "Would that make you happy, little brother?" Her voice was quiet, but she rose on shaky legs I could see from across the room.

"There is nothing little about me!" I crossed the room in three strides and towered over her. "As you shall soon see for yourself, Sister," I sneered.

At my words, true fear crossed Feowine's face. "What do you mean to do, Fengel? Always I have done your bidding, but I am not your slave."

"Shut up, Bitch!" The rage that rose up in me was blinding, and I wanted to strangle her. For a minute, I was shaking with suppressed rage, and all I could see was red. How dare she question me, my right to do as I wished? I could do what I wanted in this world, there was no one to stop me, least of all her!

I backhanded her across the face, and she went reeling, as easily as if I had knocked a child down. I may be two years younger, but she was especially slight of build, and I was particularly robust, and spent all my days in physical labor. She was mere fluff to me. She didn't stand a chance. The sight of her sprawled on the ground just annoyed me more, though. "Get up!"

She warily got to her feet, and I saw that her lip had split like an overripe fruit, the blood trickling down her chin. It reminded me of the sewing. She reached her hand up to wipe it away, but I grabbed her wrist before she could touch her face. Her bones were as fragile as a birds wing in my grasp. I could snap them with just a little more pressure.

I wasn't a sadist, however. I was stuck by the tableau of her skin, with the blood and the bruise forming. All of a sudden, I was overwhelmed by a hunger I didn't know I possessed, and I leaned down to kiss her. She was as still as a statue underneath me, and I tasted her lips, the swelling making them lush, and the blood adding a metallic taste that I was intoxicated by. I wanted more, I wanted to consume her, and I kissed her as deeply as I had anyone else before. My tongue demanded entrance, and it danced across her teeth, and delved the moist, warm recesses within.

I didn't care, or even notice, that Feowine was rigid with fear and revulsion at my assault upon her. I was not tender, and surely she was virginal, but at that moment I was unmindful of anything but sensation, and I was giddy with it. I plundered her, and only came to my senses when the aggravated blood flow from the split lip became too noticeable to ignore.

I broke from her, a little muddled at the spell I had been under. I stumbled away, and realized that I had been clutching her to me as I would a lover. She also stumbled back at the sudden loss of support, not meeting my gaze. I couldn't work out what had just happened. This was not right, of that I was sure. You were not supposed to be doing-or wanting to do that- with your sister. That was a crime. That was unnatural. I turned on my heel and left as abruptly as I had come.

As I made my way back to my own room, the thoughts whirled in my brain. Was I monstrous? The idea that I had done something morally wrong made a bad feeling, guilt, rise up somewhere in the depths of my belly. This was an unfamiliar sensation. I quashed it. It must not be so. As Crown Prince, I was not accountable to the same reasoning as others. I could have what I wanted. Isn't that how it worked? Wasn't that what always happened? After all, I risked my life for the people, I gave my life in servitude for them. The payoff was that I got to make my own rules. So it had always been for me.

Satisfied, I got ready for bed, the niggling conscience assuaged. Feowine had better watch herself. She had better look out double, now. The world was my oyster, and I was going to make sure that I got what I wanted, one way or another.