Kill: XVIII




And Fingon is being
a good prince in Hithlum,


holding the centre, centre being.


He is truth. He is a dream.
Sadly also a memory, thanks to
rolling black leagues between his desert and
Maedhros' desert, and twenty years apart.
Desert, desert, all desert, lover.



God came to Fingon in a dream one night,
long ago, in Valinor. Now Fëanor appears.
"Uncle," says Fingon, not devout,
not afraid,
and not overly pleased.


He looks nothing like Maedhros. His hair is dark.
His frame is skeletal. His eyes
flicker.


Maedhros looked like that on Thangorodrim.


Shake. Fingon tries to concentrate.
Stare. Fëanor fixes his gaze on Fingon.


"I did nothing," Fingon tells him.
"Nothing your son would not do
for one he loves. I, at least


am called Valiant. My father never taught me fear.
But your son has known it, and grown strong.
And he, too, would walk
into hell alone. Never falter, not give up,
and come out of it alive.


I love him for it. Yes, I do.
I love him, because he lives, and when
he walks into a room, he fills it with a wanting
to live. A hunger, as it were,
to know what it means to survive.


Not merely in his brothers or me. In everyone. Almost a whole
civilisation. This is - " voice faltering,


"this is about him, of course? For ask not,
Fëanor uncle mine, of your jewels and
when they will be taken back.
I do not know. I am sorry I do not.


And
why should I, when sometimes,
in the dark, I can see by Maedhros' light alone?"


A wind faery puckers it's cold mouth and blows,
woo hoo.


Breeze. Breeze.


"He is beautiful," murmurs the ghost,
absently.


"Almost too beautiful to look at," agrees Fingon.


Silence. It shivers through the spectre,
billowing it.


Blue dark night.


"How do we know of day?"


Fingon frowns. "You tell me."


"Night," Fëanor says, "tells
us where it is."


"What nonsense, sir, you tease me. For then
you would say, we know of life
only when death descends."


The thin ghost smiles
a thin smile. He
lays his fingers' bones on the starless river,
Fingon's head.


Winds tear his body of air severally. Seven thin clouds.


White muslin curtains, flapping.


Gales.


Gales.


"I am sorry I had to cut his hand,"
offers Fingon. Eyes scorched. "I had to save him."


"Save him."
In a windy voice. Saaaaaave hiiiimmm.


Nod. His head shifts. "Yes, that is what I said."


He is alone.



Things fall apart...