Marisa stayed a long time that night, but she and Fëanor didn't talk very much. All too soon, though, their time together had run out: Edward was returning from Sweden the next day (no, today. It was two in the morning.) and Marisa needed to be there when he got back, the obedient wife who'd been sitting at home keeping house rather than away with an immortal being.
"Well," said Stelmaria when she had left. "A child."
"Yes," he said. "I don't think I'm going to be a very good father. Not after I messed up so spectacularly last time."
"That was thousands of years ago," Stelmaria replied. "Maybe this is your chance to make up for it."
"The Valar have no power in this world. And I have more important things to worry about than a child, however special. We're going to destroy the Authority, and the places we're going will not be safe."
"What are we going to do with it, if not take it with us?"
He paused for a second. "The gyptians," he said. "I know I can rely on them to keep it safe and look after it. I can find a nurse for it and keep it in my manor for a while, and it can be brought up gyptian. I'll just be a distant relative or family friend."
Stelmaria nodded. "That seems sensible. But we should tell it who it is – what it is."
He laughed bitterly. "No child would want the burden of being mine."
"We need to write it down," said Stelmaria. "Write it down, so when they're old enough they'll have everything. If we don't survive this, I want them to be able to know who we were and what we did."
He sighed. "That will take time. Time we can't afford to spend. But yes… we should do it. You're wise as ever."
"Maybe if you'd had me to advise you back then, things would have gone differently," she suggested.
"Maybe," he agreed. "Unlikely, though." He felt better, now: he had a plan to deal with the situation. "You were right," he admitted. "I never should have gone near her. I was lucky to get away with this."
"So it's over, then? No more seeing her?" asked Stelmaria.
He nodded. He knew if he didn't end it now, he might never be able to. What did she matter, anyway? She was just a mortal with a pretty smile and half a brain. He had much bigger things to worry about.
"Stop lying to yourself," said the dæmon. "You do care about her, whether you should or not. But it'll go away in time. With any luck once the child's born you'll never have to see her again."
Stelmaria was right, he knew. She was always right. It would have been annoying if she'd been anyone else other than an extension of himself.
He felt the urge to do something, anything, to distract him, and the first thing that caught his eye was the book Marisa had nearly destroyed. It was proving to be very interesting with regards to the shamans of the North. They had knowledge of the other worlds, it appeared, and he needed to find out what.
He'd have to track one of them down on his next expedition to the North. And he felt a sudden urge to bring it forward to, say, about eight months' time. He'd take the baby away, give it to the gyptians and get out.
"You should probably rest," said Stelmaria.
"You know I wouldn't be able to," Fëanor replied. "Not now. Rest is hard at the best of times, and after that news… I wouldn't be able to stop myself thinking about – " He stopped and sighed. "About the past. And we know the rules: no thinking about the past."
It was too late: memories were already flooding into his mind. Memories of Nerdanel – how different she was from Marisa! How ordinary, how sensible, how practical! But he had loved her, he would never stop loving her. "She wasn't ambitious enough," he said. "But Marisa is too ambitious."
"You don't need a partner," said Stelmaria. "We have each other, and that's enough."
It wasn't. Marisa, he knew, was the closest he would ever get to an equal, and even she was bounded by constraints. Sometimes he thought he was the only free person in any world. Sometimes he thought he was destined to always be alone.
"Destiny," he laughed. "Listen to me. What's happening to me? I don't believe in destiny. I will make my own future."
"We will," she said. "We chose our path long ago, and we are strong enough for it. It's just a shock, that's all. Just a surprise. And it changes nothing. Give it a few days and you'll be perfectly fine."
"I'll never be fine," he said, laughing. It was a wild, strange sound: the sound of someone on the edge of madness. "I'll never be fine. Never be okay again. Not after everything."
"You really need to rest. To recover from this mood."
"Resting won't solve anything. Making progress will."
"We can't make much progress at two in the morning. We could start writing to the child."
He sighed. "I suppose. Let me fetch paper."
He did so, and Stelmaria gripped a pen in her jaws and carried it over to him. He sat down at the desk and began to write.
My name is Curufinwë Fëanoró. My story will take some time to write.
I was born in Tirion upon Tuna, city of the Eldar in Valinor, son of Finwë High King of the Noldor and Mìriel Selinde. My mother died soon after I was born, and my father, fool that he was, remarried…
He hadn't thought about the events he described for hundreds of years. It was painful, but there was happiness there too in those earlier years before Morgoth had ruined everything.
And he would have his revenge, soon enough.
