Not Unmade ~ Curse of Mandos AU: Prequel
They decide to put him in the Void.
It is not as much of a decision as it is a collective assumption of sorts—Fëanáro damned himself; let it be as he swore. The Silmarils were lost, the Oath unfulfilled and there is plenty of room in the Void.
The Valar are considerably all-knowing in the ways of Arda and Aman and the workings of Eä itself—but none of them had experienced the Void as it is after the Valaquenta: condensed into a furious tempest of tangible darkness. Swirling, churning, vying hungrily for the barest shred of Not Chaos.
A being like Melkor—overpowered when weakened, wholly corrupted, soul as black as soot—would only bat the tendrils of the Darkness away as they swirl around him and tighten their clutches.
Not so for Fëanáro, who is a being born of the Imperishable Flame, burning bright beneath his grief and anger.
But he has damned himself.
Not even Balrog's most fiery whip or Moringoþo's most despicable torments can compare to the agony of the Void. Fëa stripped bare and wavering uncertainly, Fëanáro is tossed into a furnace of blue fire—a fire of darkness that does not burn but instead devours.
Like a sea of otherworldly tempests, the Darkness tears into Fëanáro's unarmored fëa as a beast with iron teeth crushes the frail bones of a newborn fawn.
Without a hröa, Fëanáro cannot cry out. He cannot beg for mercy or play along to some cruel game of torment. He can only be. He can only exist as best he can as black tendrils of chaos coil around him, searing what feels like his eyes, pushing their way down to clog what feels like his lungs.
Now there is more than one fire alight in his chest. One is him, his fëa, the other is the fire that cloys at its burnt edges to delve in and tear it apart.
How could it be that a dead man can feel this measure of pain? That is what Fëanáro would have asked himself had he breath to spare.
That is how Fëanáro lay, the vicious tendrils wound around every part of him. A dead man cannot suffocate, so they chafe and chafe and chafe at his very essence, shredding bits off of him to devour in their own carnal pleasure.
The Void is not empty. Not in a way Fëanáro initially presumed a place with such a name to be.
Images flash in the broiling murk like lightning in a sea of black clouds. Images of battles and blood, falling crowns and crushed bodies.
Then horror sears through Fëanáro's body, more painful than the Darkness could ever be: His sons will follow him here.
The devastation he sees flashing through the Void—scenes from the havoc in Arda, no doubt—are almost pleasant in comparison to the thought of his children in a place like this.
Fëanáro knows better than anyone that he is the only being that can survive a place like this. His sons cannot come.
Fëanáro watches them, slivers of his fëa wafting away like sawdust beneath the vigorous grating of sandpaper. He watches the infliction of every injury, sees every cry of pain of his sons.
He watches Nelyo for what feels like an eternity. Hears chains clanging and screams ringing and smells the stale blood that always comes with Nelyo's appearance.
It is a hell worse than anything his mind has ever conjured.
Nelyo is in that place for far too long. Fëanáro can only pray. Pray to anyone who might listen. He does not know if they are heard, he does not know if they are heeded, but against the odds Nelyo is rescued. Fëanáro does not see much of him for a long time.
But then the images begin to flash more rapidly. Fëanáro fights the Darkness corroding his being, but it only seems to gain strength as he weakens. Fëanáro sometimes wonders how much of him is actually left. How much can be taken from him until he is no longer classified as Existing. He wonders why being Unmade feels less like death and more like being sandstone in a rushing river; torn apart speck by speck.
He wonders most of all if they intend to leave him here 'til he is no more. Even his thoughts begin to waver in his mind, unsteady. Sometimes they waft about uncertainly as if utterly lost.
It is impossible to ignore the flashing images, as they come with more crushing from the Darkness. If he had bones, they would be shattered. If he had a brain, it would be bleeding.
Even a fëa as brilliant and furious as Fëanáro's has its limits.
The Darkness of the Void presses forward and chafes and chafes and chafes, and the images flash, and the screams echo, and the air reeks of blood and it is with the slap of Curufinwë's hand across Telperinquar's face in one of the cloudy images that clips the thread.
And suddenly, Fëanáro Is Not.
oOo
There is humming. Humming from… a woman. Yes, an elven woman. Flowers must be nearby, for the air is sweet.
Light is dappled across his closed eyelids, but there is led in his limbs. He feels as if he is chiseled from a single block of marble, with his heart toiling laboriously against its cold, sleek walls.
Fëanáro is not aware long enough to marvel at how strange Not Existing feels. He is out again indefinitely.
The disembodied woman strokes pale, slender fingers over the tattered fëa in her lap; he is too weak even to assume a cohesive elven form.
Most horrifying of all, his fëa is entirely black, as if he had been dropped in a pile of ash.
She knows there may be no hope. She knows he might never be the same. She continues humming.
oOo
The next time Fëanáro wakes, he knows he is dreaming. He knows he is dreaming because he sees his mother's gentle face shining down at him, like gossamer silk stretched over the clearest ivory.
But most of all, he knows it is a dream because she is smiling down at him.
A disfigured, flickering hand lifts to brush her face as he had wanted for so long. The blackness covering him dissolves over her crisp whiteness, the hand collapsing back to his chest in a shower of ash.
Somewhere, someone is weeping. Fëanáro is out again.
oOo
When he returns, Fëanáro realizes with dim surprise that it cannot be possible that he is Unmade.
Things that do not exist cannot smell grass and moist soil. They cannot feel wild daisies brushing their cheek.
He finds that this time, he is more together, as if someone had shoved his fëa into a mould and packed him into the proper form; an image of his old self.
Fëanáro is not sure if he likes that. Too much hatred is pent up in his old shell, too many things went wrong. But he has no choice, so he will say nothing.
Then Fëanáro realizes how very unlike him that is.
He opens his eyes, glances in each direction. Anar is bright and stains the air with warmth, the sky is an uninterrupted cerulean. This time when he lifts a hand, it is no longer black. Every part of him aches, as if someone has scrubbed his skin with gravel. It is fitting, Fëanáro supposes, for the Spirit of Fire to have been christened by just that.
Now he only feels weak. Dull. A candle burning on its last stretch of wick.
Fëanáro gets to his feet. A figment of his raven hair licks his cheek as directed by the breeze. It is the strangest thing to be in such a bright place after rotting in the suffocation of a sea that was Nothing and wanted him to be Nothing as well. It is strange to feel free when he has been fettered for so long. It cannot be right. This cannot be all, he knows. Even the agony of the Void for a millennia is not enough of a punishment for the sins of Fëanáro Curufinwë. He knows it best of all. The flashing images of his children's suffering told him so.
That is when he sees Míriel running towards him. And Fëanáro is puzzled. Puzzled as to why he is paralyzingly terrified.
Míriel stops in front of him. Even after all these years, her fëa seems almost frail, delicate, overly translucent.
Fëanáro watches her through hollow eyes. It feels as if some emotion is trying to stir in his chest, but he is empty, scraped raw from the inside.
Míriel lifts a hand to his cheek, the shape of her thin lips warring between a smile and a sob.
Her touch sparks against his skin. Fëanáro feels the jolt from the backs of his eyelids all the way to the tips of his fingers.
"My son," she says. Fëanáro falls to his knees, forehead pressed into the soil.
"Forgive me," he whispers hoarsely. It is an ugly sound, coming from a ruined throat and a ruined being.
Míriel does not kneel in front of him. Suddenly her presence feels colder than he ever imagined her in his grief-conjured delusions.
"For what, my son?" The tone of her voice is not forgiving, nor is it gentle. It is reprimanding, as if asking what is it that you regret the most? (Many mistake Míriel's soft face for a soft persona. They are wrong. Fëanáro takes after his mother.)
"For what I have become," he responds, the mulling of several millennia behind his words. "For what it did to others."
Míriel's hand drops to his head. A pulse of light shudders through him, trying to coax that old Flame awake.
"You have my forgiveness, but do not make this your purpose, Fëanáro. Be humble. Own your mistakes. Change, and I will be proud."
Anything, he wants to say. Anything for you, mother. Emotion begins to stir, or at least it wants to. The eons-old scream screeches through his hollow mind. Why? Why did you leave me?Where have you been? Fëanáro silences it.
He keeps his head bowed as she pulls him to his feet. "Come. They wish for me to take you to the Halls."
So it is, then. With a kiss to his brow, Míriel hands Fëanáro over to a host of Maiar. It is the last he sees of her.
The Maiar march him through winding corridors, deeper and deeper for hours on end before they arrive to the compact, windowless cell designated for him. Seven others stand in a row on either side and opposite his, and crippling relief seizes his throat: they will not Unmake his sons in the Darkness.
Fëanáro collapses into his compartment. The door swings shut with a bang. It is dark, lonely, and cold, but it is not the Void, and for that Fëanáro is grateful.
The images still flash on the walls of his prison, but now he can watch each of them carefully as the hollowness inside is filled up with grief and regret. Fëanáro weeps. He weeps for all he has wronged, weeps for centuries until light flares across his face; the door cracks open.
"Lady Nerdanel has summoned a trial. You are to be present," a Maia informs.
Nerdanel.
Figures flash outside his cell door, and squinting Fëanáro recognizes each of them instantly.
His children. His sons.
"Atar," one breathes, and the mere word sends a tremor through his fëa.
With Fëanáro's knees shaking, they are led out. And after eons of death, his Flame sparks to life.
oOoOoOo
A/N: I did it I wrote something lol.
I know this one is kinda boring but feedback would be appreciated!
Next up: At Least it's Not Eternity--A vision of Maedhros' death comes upon Nerdanel as it had with all her other children, and yet little does she know he will be the last. A trial is held to officially condemn the Fëanárin to be restrained in the Halls of Mandos for an eternity. But Nerdanel will not standby and watch as doom descends upon her family. Not this time.