Category: Tolkien-Universe
Rating: M
Couples: -
Warnings: AU, blood, mentions of torture, character death, Loss of bodily autonomy (no Non-con)
Chapter: 10
Copyright: Characters & places © By Tolkien Estate, Plot & OC´s © by me
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He found the letters as he was going through his father's things. It had been something done in despair, after he had send his sister to Melian - hoping that Doriath would prove still safer than any of the elvish strongholds - and Fingolfin had returned to Barad Eithel.
The locked wooden box had held letters to several family-members, including himself and even Maedhros. So he opened the one adressed to himself, sitting curled up in what had briefly been his parent's armchair.
My Son,
I write these words to you in case I perish before I can tell you what I need to tell you. If you have happened to stumble across this while I am still alive, please do not read beyond this point. Preferably, burn the paper and inform me if you having found it before I intended you to. I do wish to explain myself in person, rather than some lines of Tengwar on paper.
I hope that you have received these after my funeral, or if not, that the box also held a leather bag. See to it that they get to your cousins. As well as the other letters to their recipients, or on the off-hand chance that this is the only one I have managed to write before it all went wrong, copies of this letter.
I have stolen the Silmarils as I was in Angband, Ingoldo. You have found them either among my ashes, or in the leather bag enclosed alongside. If you happened to have put my body in a tomb without burning, please, disregard that I am your father and remove them with all haste. I dare not consider what would happen if the Sons of Fëanáro realize that their Oath pulls them no longer North. I fear they might see my delay as 'treason of kin unto kin', an attempt to claim their father's work for myself, rather than necessity since I am too weak to survive their removal - at least, as I write these words.
I apologize for this deception, but the Leaguer will not hold indefinitely, Ingoldo, we both know it, though perhaps you would try to deny it to yourself. 'To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well', the Doom of Mandos says. But I was pardoned of it, so I had to take the chance that I could change it. I have succeeded, with the aid of Mairon, in removing all three from Morgoth's crown, and needed but hold out until the forces of Valinor will come.
Of course, since you are reading this, it probably means I did not. If so, give this letter to your mother also when next you see her, if it is before I see her. I fear in my surprise at the commencement of our plan I threw my marriage-bond with her open too wide, so she will have questions... I am unsure how much she has seen, but it will certainly have been some.
If Mairon happens to have survived, do forgive him for this. He did not do aught to me I did not allow. I have to be the broken, pathetic excuse for a son of Finwë Morgoth believes me to be, so that time may be bought for the Valar to intervene. I had to pretend to be the thrall he assumed he had turned me into. Though if you are reading this, I either played my part too well, having incurred some wrath from somewhere, perhaps as the Second Kinslaying, or not well enough and I had to send these letters out with the gems as an army bore down upon me.
If by some happenstance Morgoth has regained the Silmarils somehow, then I apologize for my Pride. In that case, let it be known I tried.
Either way, for my defiance against the Valar by this plot I will no doubt join Fëanáro as a permanent prisoner of the Halls of Mandos - did you all ever even learn of this decree of theirs? - and we hopefully shall never see one another again, for doing so would mean that you would have joined us in there as well. I might just find out if one can fade from grief in the Halls if any of you joined me there, so please make sure you and your siblings do not do so.
I love you, my son, though perhaps however long it was since my escape from Angband does not make it seem so. If I failed to write letters to your siblings before my loss, please convey my love to them as well, shallow and hollow as it might seem with how I treated you. I tried to spare you all the grief of losing me once it came to a head.
Of course, by that reasoning, I ought not have written any of this and left it all in the dark until the Unmaking of the World, or some such.
Both my brothers did always say I was a poor diplomat, though they perhaps did not count on my having to learn by getting the crown shoved at me.
All my love, and what pleas of forgiveness you would hear,
Arafinwë Ingoldo Finweon, your father.
Finrod wept like a baby as he read the letter, clutching it to his chest.