Chapter Five: The Heir

Nerdanel and I returned to her father's encampment in silence. Our hands were clasped as tight as we could manage without causing each other pain, and our faces must have seen dark with a sorrow seemingly too old for us to bear. I said a hasty farewell to the father and his daughter, and made my way home, dazed and unsteady.

I knew something was wrong the minute I entered my father's house. Finwë came to greet me in the anteroom, arms extended in welcome. His face bore a strange, cryptic expression--a mixture of taut-drawn worry and happy relief. When he saw me, pity entered his eyes and his face grew entirely somber.

"Oh, my son," he murmured, and held me close. I went slack in his arms, but did not resist. Something, though I could not name it then, was beginning to frighten and confuse me. All memory of my day with Nerdanel evaporated, along with all its happiness, and I looked my father in the eye with pure distrust written in my gaze. Never had I looked at him so before.

"What has happened?" I asked, words slipping slowly from my lips as though reluctant to leave.

"I wish I could tell you." The regretful tone in my father's voice both heightened and terrified my curiosity. "But--"

"But what?" I demanded, startled by my father's unwillingness. He had never hesitated to confide in me before. What force of perverse malice had so enmeshed itself within this house in my absence?

Finwë gave me a knowing look, as if he knew well that I was sowing the seeds of my own undoing. Yet he spoke then out of purest love for me. "Indis gave birth to our second child today. A son."

I staggered back in horror, a pit opening within me and swallowing my insides whole. My hands flew out behind me to catch myself but found nothing, and it was only just in time that I found my balance. Staring at him in disbelief, I almost wished he had withheld the tidings from me. It was almost as if he had said an heir instead of a son. The dread that had been gnawing at me in the silence before his answer mercifully released, leaving only a greater emptiness in its wake.

"A son?" I hardly realized my echo of his words, hardly knew that my voice was instinctively tinged with rising anger. Hurt threaded its way through my heart as the rage grew, a lesser poisonous thing seeking asylum from its larger, more violent cousin. Was I not enough? Was I not his heir, the heir to the kingship of the Noldor? I flinched away from Finwë's remorseful eyes. His every glance, wretched and beseeching as it was, seemed like a mortal blow to my spirit.

I took one last surprised look at my frozen father, then fled from the house. I ran through the door that had been left open upon my arrival and out into the gathering dark. That night, I had no desire to live.

I spent the long hours of darkness outside the gates of the house, my face tilted up to the stars. Even the comfort of sleep was denied to me for some time. My greatest wish in that hour was to lay myself down and die, as my mother had, and be the second to die in Aman.

It was deathly silent upon the lonesome hill, and the stars offered no pity, so I wept silently, shamelessly throughout the night. My tears would stop intermittently, only to return at the slightest thought of what awaited me in the place I had once called home. The city laid before me was still and slumbering, and no light shone from the darkened windows of the houses. If perhaps I had been in a lighter mood, I would have delighted in the hush and cold beauty that Telperion's light brought. But then I saw the world as only a dark cage in which I stood trapped, to be scorned by the winds and tormented by the shadows.

No one had any use for me, no one loved me. I was stunned and alone, lost in the web of night, with only my wounding hatred and miserable uneasiness, longing to die in the inner fires that burned constantly within me. So estranged was I in that night that I gave no thought at all to Nerdanel or her love, her trust, her hope.

Slowly, over the course of those creeping hours, my hurt grew steadily into a hot anger, anger and loathing of Indis and her accursed children. For the sake of my father, the last remnant of my birthright, I withheld my spite from his name. But as my wounds were haphazardly cauterized by my fiery resentment, I maledicted them over and over. Indis and her son. Between each surge of pain that came with my heartbeats, I swore passionately that I, and I alone, would be my father's heir, despite all that would stop me. The fire that was lit that night, fed by bitterness and ill will, would slowly die over the years in Aman, until a person I now loathe to name came to wake it again, stirring it up from the smoldering embers to spell the doom of all Noldor.

Finally, I managed to find feverish, troubled sleep. Nightmarish though it was, it brought me what little ease could be given to me then. When I awoke, the skies were bright again with the light of Laurelin, and the city stirred at the foot of the hill. With a groan and a stretch, I stood wearily to my feet, almost collapsing again as the memory of the night before returned.

I turned to face the dooryard of the house, and saw my father standing there, watching me in silence, expression both bemused and saddened. Suddenly ashamed by his state, I turned away. Finwë had no wish to see me here. I could go elsewhere for his sake. Live somewhere else, where he would never have to lay eyes on me and see Míriel's eyes staring back.

"Finwion," I heard him say behind me. It was not a behest, nor was it a curse. My father said it simply, plainly, as if weighing its value.

Confused, I turned to face him. He walked to the still-open gate, then stopped and stood before me, dark eyes not alight with their usual laughter, but flickering with something almost like pride, thought that could not possibly be.

"Finwion," Finwë said again, and this time the word was fraught with love. "I gave you that name. Do you know what it means?"

He asked so compellingly I could not help but reply blindly, "Son of Finwë. It means Son of Finwë."

My father nodded, but did not smile. "Yes. That is its meaning. And it also means that whatever sons come to me in the years to come, you shall always come first in reckoning and in my heart. I have not abandoned you. I will never abandon you, my son."

The words my son lit as lightly as birds upon my heart, and my anger began to falter for the first time.

"But then why do you seek other sons?" I asked, not willing to be won over so easily.

Finwë's eyes strayed to the horizon, his brow furrowing in thought. "I wish for a family that will be mighty enough to be the ruling house of the Noldor for many years to come."

"I am enough," I declared bluntly.

Now Finwë did smile, though there was a trace of sadness in his face as well. "Oh, you are enough, and more, Finwion. It is as your mother named you to be."

I abandoned all bitterness now. This was a story I knew well, and delighted to hear. "What did she name me?" I asked with all the curiosity of a child, though the answer was not unknown to me.

"Fëanáro. Spirit of Fire. And your fires have been especially heated and quick-tempered of late. I love you greatly, perhaps more than you know, and that love increases tenfold when I see your mother in you. Be at peace, Finwion, and cool that fire. I swear Ingoldo shall never replace you, either in my mind or in the matter of naming my heir."

At first, I was confused by the name Ingoldo, but then I realized it was the name of my half-brother. I felt anger, but it was edged with a fierce hope.

"But you promise you will not exile me or leave me for my half-brother?"

Finwë nodded. "Never. I shall always, always love you, my son." Almost crying with joy, I embraced my father.

I would never forget that day for as long as I lived.

Reassured by my father's promise, I lived the year without complaint, though I never fully opened to Indis or her children, and remained close to my father when I could.

Nerdanel and her father made ready to leave in the winter, on Ingoldo's first birthday, so I seized the opportunity to excuse myself from the house and go to see them off. I spent the day helping them dismantle the tents, then load the heavy forge and its tools onto Mahtan's sturdy cart. I took special care with the blacksmithing supplies, and my hands lingered upon the well-worn grip of the hammer and the coolness of the resolute anvil.

When the day dimmed, all was ready for them to leave. As Mahtan went to lead the horses from where they grazed and harness them to the cart, Nerdanel took both my hands and held them to her heart.

"Will we see each other again?" She asked, her fierce, sad eyes searching mine.

I looked down at her pale, worried face and felt her hands tremble. "I will find you in the mountains," I promised, pressing a youthful kiss into her soft, reddish curls, "You said your home was there. I will find you, even if it takes a hundred years."

Nerdanel nodded, but the solemnity did not leave her face. "Do you promise you will come?"

"Yes, I will, with the coming of next winter," I told her, my voice sincere, and she embraced me tightly in gratitude. We stood fast together for a time, her head nestled in the crook of my shoulder as I stroked the gentle curve of her spine and closed my eyes.

We did not hear Mahtan return to the cart with the horses, but he said nothing to us, and merely proceeded with the packing alone.

Author's Note

Well, I've hit the five-chapter-mark, and I hope you're enjoying the story so far. I'm certainly enjoying the writing aspect; Fëanor has always rocked my world. Thank you to everyone who's read and reviewed. I love hearing what you have to say and I'm immeasurably flattered by the praise some of you have given me. The sixth chapter is on its way, I promise, and until then, continue to be your awesome selves. I love you all!

Blodeuedd