I did this one a little differently. It begins with Nerdanel in third POV, and then it switches to Fëanor in first POV. Enjoy! I will be having one last installment after this one, what I like to call "Bonus Celebrimbor."
Much love,
Unicadia
"Do not take them, Fëanáro, I beg of you!" Nerdanel screamed at her husband as he walked into the torch-flooded darkness, the crowds of the Noldorin people surrounding him. Behind him, the fire from the torches illumined the faces of her sons, wrought from shadows, sharp and distant, frightening, faces she did not recognize. Anger burned in their eyes, eyes burning with the fire they all possessed. She did not recognize them. (And she did not see the tears escaping her second-eldest's dark-lashed eyes.)
And Fëanáro, her husband, her husband with the silky black hair, the heated black eyes, the fire she used to love, the fire which consumed her, body and spirit – a strange elf stood before her now, the fire still burning, but cold, too cold for her. (She burned her hands on him too often.)
"They are my sons. They go where I go." His voice, which once enchanted her heart (long ago), now held only ice. (Burning ice.)
"They are mine as well!" The tears ran now, painful, casting her vision into murky pools. She turned toward them now, extending her arms toward them. "Sons! Maitimo! Makalaurë! Tyelkormo! Carnistir! Atarinkë! Ambarussa! Umbarto! Do not be foolish! Stay with me!" She choked on her words, her throat tight. "Do I not still hold your hearts, I who carried you before and birthed you?" (She almost followed Fëanáro's mother three of those six times . . .)
"We have sworn, Amil." Her firstborn would not look her in the eyes. "We cannot stay."
Rage filled her (she possessed fire also) and she whirled on their father. "You steal them from me! You steal my heart!" The words poured from her lips, heedless. "I will never see them again!" (Was she not called the Wise? Far-sighted? Did she not call her youngest Umbarto?)
(His fate was close at hand . . .)
A collective gasp escaped into the air. Indignation mixed with fear stagnated around them. Her sons stared at their feet, their hair billowing around them in waves of dark, silver, and red curls, and she could no longer see their fire-lit faces.
Her husband glared at her, his wrath rising like smoke.
"How dare you?" His voice rose, trembling with anger and passion, the same voice he used to sway the hearts of the Noldor, the same voice her fifth son possessed. "If you have so little faith in our quest, then rightly you remain behind, along with the rest of the cowards and cravens!"
Her fourth son spoke, his words hesitant, "Ada, perhaps –"
Her husband turned and whipped his hand across her son's face, and he staggered back, his eyes flaming. "Hold your tongue, Morifinwë!" Her son did not speak, but wrath burned beneath his endearing freckles and reflected off the torchlight.
She trembled with rage. "Do not lay your hand on my son, Fëanáro."
He ignored her. "We waste time. We set forth now."
She gazed upon them one last time, filling her eyes with them, though the tears flooded them.
Maitimo, so beautiful, his red locks burning in the firelight, standing straight and tall above everyone else, a king. (He would not break.)
Makalaurë, his delicate white hands clutching his sword, looking fierce and fey. (Though she did not see the tears.) (His voice could cleave gold, and make the stones weep.)
Tyelkormo, his grandmother's silver hair billowing around his shoulders, grinning wickedly. (He knew what he was doing.)
Carnistir, still wrathful, his gray eyes smoldering, his father's ring glinting on his finger. (He would prevail.)
Atarinkë, who hated his name, refusing to meet her gaze, instead holding out his sword and turning the hilt in his cunning, dexterous fingers. (He would not slip.)
Ambarussa, the laughter gone from his eyes, watching his twin. (Never apart.)
Umbarto (whom his father called Ambarto) was the only one who held her eyes. (He would burn on a white swan ship, far from home.)
She never saw them again.
Perhaps I should have listened to my wife. But she had no right to speak against me like that on that day. Nerdanel the Wise she may be, but I am (was) her husband and she should have kept her mouth shut.
I do not regret anything I have done . . .
But as my six remaining sons ('Umbarto,' indeed) bore me away on the makeshift bier after my fateful encounter with the demon of Morgoth, and I ordered them to swear the Oath anew, I felt in my heart the cruelty, the impossibility, the vanity of it all. They could never regain the Silmarils, I knew. But they were mine, my creations, my spirit poured into them, the greatest of all works, and I would rather be damned to the Everlasting Darkness than let Morgoth Bauglir possess them without resistance.
"My sons!" I cried, gripping Curufinwë's hand tighter. "Hold to your Oath! Avenge your father! Let not Morgoth get away with all he grievances he has inflicted upon us!"
They murmured their compliance. It was not enough.
"Swear again!" Blood filled my mouth, and I coughed onto Curufinwë's hand. He did not even flinch. I smiled through my pain. "Swear to me your Oath again!"
"Yes, Ada," said Curufinwë, his voice resonant and strong. He raised his sharp, gray eyes and began: "Be he foe or friend, be he foul or clean, brood of Morgoth or . . ." He broke off when his brothers did not join him.
Rage burned in me and I half sat up on the bier, causing Nelyafinwë and Kanafinwë to reach out to me, small cries stifled in their throats. I coughed again, spraying blood everywhere. I knew I did not have long. I met the eyes of each of my sons, wrathful. "Your brother puts you all to shame! Avenge me, or I will disown you and curse your names thrice! Say it!" I hated saying the words (I loved my sons), but I did not take them back.
Nelyafinwë's eyes flashed, and I could feel Morifinwë trembling beside me. Snarling, Turkafinwë began the Oath anew in his shuddering bass, "Be he foe or friend . . ."
". . . be he foul or clean . . ." Curufinwë joined him, his face dark. For a moment, he frightened me. (What end would he come to?)
Only a moment.
Kanafinwë continued in his sweet, ringing tenor, the words leaving his lips almost as a song: ". . . brood of Morgoth or bright Vala . . ." I was pleased, but a little surprised that he began before Morifinwë.
Morifinwë's ruddy, freckled face was contorted with anger (and maybe something else), but at last he joined his brothers in his lilting baritone: ". . . Elda or Maia or Aftercomer, Man yet unborn upon Middle-Earth . . ."
Nelyafinwë took up the refrain after another moment, and I could feel the weight he dragged with his soft tenor voice: ". . . neither law, nor love, nor league of swords . . ." (Did I imagine it, or did he hesitate ever so slightly over "love"?)
". . . dread nor danger, not Doom itself . . ."
They continued on, but I cast a pointed look upon my last son, Pityafinwë, who stared at the ground, his arms behind his back. Turkafinwë gave him a gentle nudge, and he raised his head. I heard Kanafinwë break off when Pityafinwë's face became visible, stained with tears. He stared at me with unveiled eyes, and the wound in my heart ripped open anew. I heard a badly-stifled sob, and I glanced round sharply at my sons, but all gazed back at me stoic-faced, and I knew not which one of them did it. Their voices trailed off and they looked away. I felt my physical body fading around me in a heavy embrace of pain. I took a deep, shuddering breath, swallowing the bile and the blood, casting wrathful eyes on my (now) youngest son.
"Say it," I hissed. "Or I will disown you. I will only have six sons."
Indignation flickered in his eyes. "You mean five."
"Pityafinwë Ambarussa!" I cried, my blood pounding in my ears as I tried to raise my voice above the protests of my heart and the waning of my body, even as I collapsed back onto the bier, "I hereby disown –"
"Ada!" Nelyafinwë interjected, catching my arm. I tried pulling away from him, but I had no more strength left. "Do not disown him!" He whirled on Pityafinwë. "You have already said it once, Pitya. You are still bound to it. Just say it."
Pityafinwë trembled, but at last he raised his voice as well, loud and clear and full of wrath (a true son of mine): ". . . shall defend him from Fëanáró, and Fëanáró's kin, whoso hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh, finding keepeth or afar casteth a Silmaril!"
All six of their voice joined together, beautiful and terrible, and though I would admit it to none, my heart quaked then when I heard them:
"This swear we all: death we will deal him ere day's ending, woe unto world's end! Our word hear thou, Eru Allfather! To the everlasting darkness doom us if our deed faileth. On the holy mountain hear in witness and our vow remember, Manwë and Varda!" [1]
The last thing I heard on Middle-Earth was the sound of my son Kanafinwë's last chilling note on the last syllable, after his brothers finished. It rang in my head, and I thought, I have cursed them all.
I know not what punishments await them at the hands of the Valar, but I do not beg for mercy for them. We must all reap the consequences of our deeds, righteous or evil.
And though I did not disown Pityafinwë that day, they were all of them the Dispossessed (dispossessed of all, law and love and league of swords), till the world's end.
[1] Quotes of oath from "The Annals of Aman" from Morgoth's Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien.
