A/N: Timeline-wise compliant with chapter 13 of The Ransom of the House of Fëanor, but can be read entirely separately.

The Last Ember

Eirian Erisdar

Chapter 1: Flickering Embers

Seven thousand years.

For seven thousand years, Nerdanel had lived alone in the great, empty house that once rang with the sound of hammer on anvil and the laughter of seven sons.

And now, seemingly in the space of a breath, her house is full again.

Well, not precisely full – Atarinkë had of course gone to stay with Tyelpë, and Carnistir and his wife have their own house in Tirion; Makalaurë and Atarinkë's wives are still serving in Estë's gardens far to the west, and moreover, Makalaurë and Maitimo have chosen to remain at Arafinwë's house while Elrond recuperates there.

But there is sound and laughter and life in the great abandoned wing of Nerdanel's house at last, and Nerdanel finds herself– restless.

She is aware she should not be. Tyelkormo and the Ambarussa find their old rooms easily enough, and move about the house with a quiet grace that had not been present when they rode away with their father to Formenos all those years ago.

No. It is not Nerdanel's sons that cause her such restlessness.

It is her husband.

When he first returned, there had been a moment where he moved through the cheering crowds on the slope of Túna towards her, and she had looked up into the fiery intensity of his gaze with all the fury and longing and bitterness of a planned speech on her lips; but his mouth had quirked in that infuriating half-smile of his that she had fallen for as a girl under the light of the Trees–

–and all her carefully chosen words had slipped from her thoughts entirely. They had embraced briefly, the two of them, and Fëanáro had pressed his lips fleetingly to hers in a gentle greeting; the first time they had touched like so for millennia, since the day before he held a sword to Nolofinwë's throat.

There was an instant where his thumb had brushed her cheek, and it was almost as though he had simply returned from a week's hunting trip, and she was welcoming him home.

But then they had stepped apart, and had not touched since, save for occasionally brushing hands when passing dishes at family meals.

To her husband's credit, Fëanáro has so far been perfectly polite. He had expressed understanding that he and their sons were essentially intruding upon habits with which Nerdanel had lived for millennia, and had taken it upon himself to ensure she was inconvenienced as little as possible. She had not had attendants since the host of the Noldor had ridden east so long ago, and Fëanáro, for all his pride as former High King, had aided those of their sons who decided to stay with them in airing out their rooms.

There had been a moment of awkwardness that first evening where Nerdanel had bid him goodnight at the door to her room – not their old bedchamber, but a smaller one close to her workshop that she had claimed as hers after he had gone to Formenos – and Fëanáro had almost followed her, before catching himself.

She had looked over her shoulder at him as he walked away, and almost asked if he needed help airing out another room.

But the picture of his silhouette fading down the corridor was too much like his departure for Formenos, and Nerdanel had found herself suddenly far too angry to speak.

At breakfast he had been clear-eyed as ever. It later became apparent he had slept in the library that first night before moving into Atarinkë's old room, but Nerdanel does not feel the need to speak about it.

She finds the first trinket on her pillow two days after– a pair of exquisite earrings worked in silver, in the style she had used to like when Fëanáro had first started courting her in their youth.

Nerdanel examines them for a long moment before placing them in a drawer in the sideboard and going to supper.

Fëanáro glances at her unadorned ears at evening meal, and says nothing. Instead, he converses easily with those of their sons present, and serves her a second helping of her favourite stew without her needing to ask.

They speak of safe subjects, such as the comings and goings of the Fëanorian district, and of her garden and her craft, and the maintenance of the old wing of the house, which despite having had repairs sung occasionally these seven millennia, still needs much work.

They speak of everything and anything apart from their marriage.

Days pass. Nerdanel finds a bracelet set with emeralds on her pillow, then two days after, a necklace of such finely beaten gold that the chains move like water.

She crams both into the drawer in the sideboard, and pretends not to see the faint disappointment in Fëanáro's eyes each time she appears unadorned.

"You have to credit him for trying," Anairë says when Nerdanel visits for tea, two weeks after the return of Fëanáro and their sons. "But I daresay you two need to try speaking to each other."

"I agree," Eärwen says, stirring honey into her tea.

"We do speak to each other," Nerdanel says grumpily, reaching for a teacake.

"About the state of your marriage," Anairë says.

Nerdanel barks a laugh. "Ah, yes. Because he was so willing to discuss it when he threatened your husband with a sword, and when he rode away to Formenos."

"My husband has forgiven him," Anairë says. "And I was furious myself about the flight of the Noldor when Nolo initially returned from the Halls. We had a terrible row about it. It went well. He moved back in with me afterwards."

"Your husbands aren't quite as stubborn as mine," Nerdanel says.

"And you're quite a bit more stubborn than we are, as well," Eärwen counters. "Give it a try."

Nerdanel scowls around a bite of cake. "Fine."

(:~:)

So she tries.

She tries, but she cannot help that every time she looks at her husband she remembers the hungry look in his eyes when he had held the Silmarils, and how he had ignored her words of warning regarding them; how he had forged swords and helms for he and their sons without informing her, and how he had ridden away east to Beleriand from Formenos without stopping to bid her farewell.

On his part, Fëanáro does not seem to have lost any of his fire for her; the trinkets on her pillow turn to flowers, and he aids her about her tasks about the house and spends time with her when the duties of the forge and governing the Fëanorian district do not keep him.

He catches Nerdanel's hand in her workshop one day after he helps her move a large block of marble for her latest project; he holds on to her, even as she takes a half-step back in surprise.

"I've missed you," he says, low and earnest.

There was a time that those words would have stirred her heart, spoken so quietly in that intensity of his with his mind unshielded and the truth in his words shining from the flames of his fëa.

But now Fëanáro's words stir up thousands of nights of bitter anger and grief within Nerdanel; missing her husband so keenly those first few years when he was at Formenos, bitter betrayal when he rode east without saying goodbye, horror at the news of Alqualondë, and then grief, terrible, howling grief, when she had felt his passing.

I missed you, you cruel bastard, she wants to shout. I missed you so much I screamed with it.

"I see," Nerdanel says, and pulls her fingers from his to fold them behind her back so he will not feel them shake. "I– thank you. For helping me with this stone."

Fëanáro looks down at the empty space between them. She sees his chest rise and fall in a slow breath.

"You are welcome," he murmurs as he straightens. "Always."

There is something soft and aching in the tone of that last word that suggests he is not only speaking of aiding her work.

Nerdanel looks away, moving purposefully towards her worktable, and makes a business of organising her tools until she hears him walk away.

She does not call out after him, no matter the ache that rises in her throat.

(:~:)

Nerdanel does not idle. She helps Elrond and Celebrían reconcile, taking satisfaction in repairing her adoptive grandson's marriage where she cannot repair hers.

The taste of hypocrisy lays bitter over her tongue as she speaks to Celebrían, but Nerdanel grits her teeth and continues on.

Fëanáro has taken to giving her gifts in person, now; it leaves her unbalanced, tongue-twisted, caught by the necessity of expressing thanks but also unable to speak of the convoluted emotions she has regarding him.

"Thank you," she says, when he presents her with an intricately designed decorative hair comb, inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

It is almost the exact twin of the one he gave her at their betrothal, so long ago; only that this one is perhaps even more exquisite, with his skill as smith and craftsman even greater now.

He is looking at her wordlessly, sable hair dancing in the wind of the garden, and Nerdanel searches desperately for something more to say.

"It is beautiful," she murmurs, because it is.

Fëanáro smiles, and Nerdanel hides a quiet exhale of relief; perhaps now he will go, and leave her to admire the gift where he cannot see.

But he only gestures at her hair, and says, "May I?"

Nerdanel blinks, and nods before she truly understands what he means.

Fëanáro takes the comb from her hands, steps close, and fits it into into her hair behind her ear with achingly gentle hands. He has been rebodied no more than a month, but already his fingers bear familiar callouses from forge-work; they linger at the curve of her ear and the angle of her jaw, brushing feather-light against her skin.

It is too much.

Nerdanel takes a stuttering step back, and Fëanáro's fingers twitch in empty air.

"I'm sorry," Nerdanel says, breath coming short in her chest. Surely her cheeks must be aflame. "You startled me, I– I'm sorry."

Fëanáro has lowered his hands. He is looking at her now with veiled emotion in his gaze.

"No," he says, with the intense gravitas he always has, even when he is not speaking with words of power. "The fault is mine."

Fëanáro inclines his head slightly and steps back within the house, and Nerdanel is left wondering if she imagined the flicker of wounded pain in his gaze.

(:~:)

Nerdanel wears the comb in her hair for the rest of the day, silvery against her fiery locks, then locks it in the drawer in her chamber where all of her husband's gifts remain. Fëanáro pauses over breakfast when he notes that her hair is once more unadorned, but there is nothing different in his tone when he bids her good morning.

The days slip through her fingers like stone dust; Elrond recovers enough to return home to Avallónë, and Maitimo and Makalaurë return from Arafinwë's house. For a few joy-filled days Nerdanel's time is spent welcoming her eldest sons home, and Fëanáro also appears glad. It does not escape Nerdanel's notice, however, that Maitimo occasionally frowns at her and Fëanáro during family meals.

Maitimo knocks on the door of her workshop one afternoon. "Ammë," he says. "Is all well with you?"

"What?" Nerdanel looks up from her work and wipes the stone dust from her hands. "Yes, of course."

He looks at her with an unreadable expression. "And father?"

Nerdanel takes a breath. "Perhaps you should ask him."

At that, Maitimo pauses. "Ammë," he says, taking a step closer. "You– you do not mind us staying with you?"

Nerdanel startles, and stares up at her son. "Maitimo! Of course I do not mind. I have wished my sons to return to me for millennia! I am overjoyed you are here. Now come here. A little dirt won't hurt you."

Maitimo suffers to be embraced and even good-naturedly complains about the stone dust getting all over his tunic, as he used to as a boy.

But there is still something troubled in his expression as he leaves, and it is only after Nerdanel lays aside her hammer in favour of a polishing cloth does she realise that she had only expressed happiness in her sons staying with her.

She had said nothing of her husband.

Maitimo had always been the most keen-eyed of all her sons in matters of diplomacy. Nerdanel does not doubt that he had noted her omission, unintentional as it was.

She briefly considers going after him, but then a fresh shipment of stone arrives, and she is too busy to think on the matter again.

(:~:)

The gifts from Fëanáro stop abruptly a few days after Maitimo and Makalaurë's return.

Nerdanel tells herself she does not care in the slightest, and yet cannot explain the sinking feeling of disappointment every day she retires to sleep and finds her pillow bare.

Fëanáro is as intense and careful as ever, but he increasingly spends more time in the forge than he did in the previous few weeks; several times, Nerdanel glimpses him in speaking softly in conference with Atarinkë and Tyelpë, brow furrowed, as he used to long years ago when a new project consumed all his focus.

After the first few instances, she ventures closer to listen, but the subject invariably changes whenever she draws near, or Tyelpë or Atarinkë draw her away to speak of other matters.

Fëanáro still makes time to sit with her in the evenings, he with a sheaf of parchment in his lap outlining plans for something or the other, and she with her sketches for new sculptures, but Nerdanel finds it even more difficult to speak with him now, with his new focus on this mysterious new project. She attempts to ask about its nature a few times, just to satisfy her burning curiosity, and cannot help but find his replies jilted and evasive.

It reminds her of when he was crafting the Silmiarils, and strikes a chord of fear and dread deep within her that she thought was long dead.

So she shuts herself in her workshop, and throws herself into her own craft.

But, to her horror, a new issue arises.

Nerdanel creates sculpture after sculpture; the face of each turns into her husband's, though she does not intend it. Wood, stone, steel, clay; Fëanáro's face emerges from each. Even the faces of her smallest figurines, drafts for larger projects, gain features obviously similar to her husband's.

Furious with herself, Nerdanel attempts to portray different emotions; surely a statue with a snarling face or eyes wrinkled in laughter will not turn into a likeness of her husband.

But no, there is Fëanáro cast in silver, with his lips bared in a snarl as though in battle; Fëanáro in clay, with his aquiline nose scrunched in mirth and his lips open with laughter.

Fëanáro, Fëanáro, Fëanáro.

Desperate, Nerdanel abandons creating statues of Elves all together; she casts a flock of nightingales in iron, gimlet eyes lifelike, only to realise each of their feathers reminds her of the feather that Fëanáro tucked behind her ear when she snuck out of her parents' house in her youth to go traipsing through the woods with him. Next, a great mountain elk carved in wood, with proud antlers flaring towards to sky; but the look in its eyes, of pride and dignity, reminds her of the look in Fëanáro's eyes when he led his sons north to Formenos.

She straightens, furious, and looks about her at the dozens of statues with her husband's eyes, and nose, and lips.

Nerdanel feels as though she might scream with frustration.

Over there in the corner – a fired clay statue with Fëanáro's eyes, looking at her almost longingly in the light of the setting sun.

Nerdanel marches over to it and hurls the statue to the floor. It shatters in a spray of shards, and Nerdanel feels such a surge of relief that she moves to the next statue with her husband's likeness and does the same; then the next, and the next, taking hammer to silver and iron when it does not give, until Nerdanel stands in the center of her destroyed work, chest heaving, stone dust in her sweaty hair, sporting a vindicative grin of victory.

The door of the workshop creaks as it swings fully open.

Nerdanel twists in place, and feels the smile slip off her cheeks when she meets Fëanáro's gaze.

He steps into the workshop carefully, and stoops to pick up a piece of shattered clay fired in the unmistakable likeness of his eye.

"My wife," he says softly, and Nerdanel's breath catches in her throat. He had not addressed her thus since his return. "Do you truly despise me so?"

"No," she whispers.

He glances down at the piece of shattered clay in his hands, and raises his head. "If you wished to strike me," he says, with something like a smile, "You could have found me. I was only in my forge."

Between one breath and the next, incandescent rage fills Nerdanel. Her stone-dusted hands form fists at her sides, and she raises her chin, eyes flashing.

"Ah," Fëanáro says, dropping the piece of clay and brushing off his hands. "Now you are angry."

"How dare you," Nerdanel hears herself hissing, stalking forward to slam the side of her fist against his shoulder. "How dare you turn around and accuse me. Which of us forged helms and cruel blades? Which of us held a sword to their brother's throat? Which of us took all our sons with them when they went north? Which of us rode east without saying goodbye? Which of us turned the beaches of Alqualondë red with the blood of our kin?"

Nerdanel gasps in a breath; her cheeks are wet. The side of her fist hurts, where she had slammed it against Fëanáro's chest with each accusation. She expects him to shout back at her, to argue as they used to with blazing fire as they had so long before, but he does not.

He looks down at her, fëa shuttered closed, a wounded expression in his gaze. Fëanáro had taken each of her strikes without flinching; he raises his own hand to his chest to clasp hers, now, and she snatches back her hand before his fingers trap hers.

Fëanáro's inhale is sharp. Agonised.

"Which of us died in the east and left the other with no body to bury?" Nerdanel shouts. "Which of us had to wait throughout the centuries, feeling one son after the other slip away?" She gasps in a heaving breath, and pulls her bruised fist up one last time to collide with her husband's collarbone. "You promised me you would protect our sons when you rode north. You promised me you would remain with me when we were married. Did none of those oaths mean anything to you apart from the oath you made for your Silmarils?"

The word Silmaril makes him shudder under her hands; he opens his mouth to speak, but Nerdanel clasps his collar and shakes him hard, with all the fury and grief of seven thousand years in her hands.

"And your forge?" Nerdanel screams. "I could have found you in your forge? It was all I could ever do to find you there for decades before you were exiled! And even now you turn increasingly to your forge again, whispering in secret as you did when you forged those accursed gems."

Fëanáro's eyes widen. "Nerdanel, I was–"

"I am not finished speaking!" she shouts, so harsh and so loud the words ache in her throat. She slams him by the collar against the door of the workshop, and to her muted surprise he allows her to do so, despite being so much taller than her.

But looking up into his eyes, which she had loved so fondly, she finds she has no more words to say.

"You cannot do this to me again," Nerdanel whispers, the grief of her words lancing like fire over his chin. "I cannot bear it." She hears the crack in her own voice, and feels as Fëanáro's hand twitch by her waist as though he wishes to comfort her.

For a long moment, they simply breathe, her hands fisted in his collar, his fingers loose at his sides, their faces no more than a handsbreadth apart.

Fëanáro is plainly attempting to master himself; his breath comes slow against her cheek, and his fëa is shuttered closed, like the unreadable expression in his eyes.

Nerdanel becomes suddenly aware that they are standing far too close; she can feel his every rapid heartbeat under her fingers at his collar.

"Say something, damn you," she hisses, and takes a long step back, pushing him away so his spine collides with the solid oak of the workshop door.

Fëanáro closes his eyes briefly, and opens them again.

He remains silent. There is something in the working of his mouth that suggests he is struggling for words.

Nerdanel finds herself suddenly almost terrified. Fëanáro has never struggled for words, or remained so silent, not in the long years since she first met him, her father's gangly-limbed, fire-eyed apprentice.

"My lady," Fëanáro says, and Nerdanel stops short. That is not a phrase she has heard since he first introduced himself to her as a stranger in their youth.

"My lady," Fëanáro says. "I know I have wronged you more than I can imagine. I sought power over my brothers where I thought they abhorred me; I could excuse myself by claiming Morgoth's trickery influenced my actions, but I know as well as you do that is not the whole truth. I abandoned you, yes; I abandoned my sons in part, when I turned to the Silmarils. I rode west because I wanted to avenge my father, and reclaim what was my greatest master-work. One might argue that was a noble cause, but the oath I made was imperfect, and my methods wrong. I should never have allowed the argument at Alqualondë to turn to drawn blades, no matter which side drew them first."

Fëanáro bows once, deeper than any bow Nerdanel has ever seen him make, and even as he straightens she sees the effort it has caused him to lower his pride. "I apologise," he murmurs. "It is not enough, and I know it. I cannot return the years our sons were apart from you, nor can I repay the centuries of grief you endured for their deaths."

"You are right; you cannot," Nerdanel says spitefully, because in this moment she wishes to hurt him as much as he has hurt her – but looking at the new hurt this brings to his eyes only makes her own agony worse.

"That I well know," Fëanáro whispers, and straightens, despite the pain in the set of his shoulders. "I must also apologise for the pain my presence has caused you these past weeks since my return. You have built a life for yourself without me in it; you have graciously welcomed our sons back into it, but you are not obligated to welcome me. I should not have assumed otherwise, and I apologise."

Nerdanel frowns. There is something not quite right about those words; his presence had made things very difficult for her, yes, but perhaps–

"If there is anything I wish, it is that I do not cause you further pain," Fëanáro says quietly, his fëa shuttered so close now that his flames are barely visible. "As I recall, there is a cottage on the edge of the estate, with a passable forge. I will remove there. I might occasionally invite our sons to dine with me. I hope you will not mind."

Nerdanel takes a sharp breath.

She had not considered– she had not thought he would–

But is this not what she had wished? Not to be reminded of him every waking moment?

Fëanáro appears to take her silence as agreement. He looks about the workshop, at the many shattered images of himself, and smiles briefly, as though making a private jest to himself. When raises his head again to meet Nerdanel's gaze, and the raw, unadulterated pain there is so overwhelming for an instant that she cannot breathe.

"One more matter," he says, plainly and steadily. "I apologise for spending overlong in my forge, and for the secrecy. In truth, I was crafting a work for you." His smile turns bitter. "I should have known better than to involve Curvo or Tyelpë. But I wished to surprise you."

The breath is curdling now in Nerdanel's throat; she opens her mouth to say something, anything, but nothing emerges.

"With your permission," Fëanáro says, with the quiet, burning intensity of a last, smoldering ember, "I would like to finish it."

Fresh tears well up past Nerdanel's eyelids; she presses a hand to her mouth to stop the sob that crawls up her throat.

She nods. It is all she can bring herself to do.

Fëanáro smiles, and she sees the ghost of that smile she first fell for as a girl; but there is now the weight of new grief there that she had not seen before.

"Thank you," he says. "I will be gone before breakfast. I shall inform our sons. You need not concern yourself."

Then he turns, and is gone.

Nerdanel blinks at the empty space where her husband was, and takes a shuddering breath.

The light beyond the workshop window is turning grey where it had been dusky orange; the sun is almost fully set.

Nerdanel moves to the window. It overlooks the garden; she sees Fëanáro emerge, and cross the garden towards their sons' rooms. Halfway across the garden his step catches. She sees him stand there for a long moment, facing away from her, one hand rising to press to his chest. His braids have come undone, and his sable hair shifts in the wind like a mournful pennant.

Then he straightens his shoulders and moves on, purposefully, as he had appeared that last day Nerdanel saw him so long ago, when he had ridden for Formenos and left her with an empty home and a hollow heart.

Next up: Nerdanel ruminates, regrets, and takes matters into her own hands in classic Nerdanel fashion.

This fic will likely be a two-parter, so I'll have the second part up to two days.

If any of my usual readers missed it, chapter 3 of The Shadow of a Friend was posted yesterday. The fourth and final chapter of that fic will be posted tomorrow.

I thrive on comments! In all honesty, I feel like Aman needs marriage counselling.