Category: Tolkien-Universe
Rating: M
Couples: -
Warnings: AU, blood, mentions of torture, character death, Loss of bodily autonomy (no Non-con)
Chapter: 35
Copyright: Characters & places © By Tolkien Estate, Plot & OC´s © by me
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Maedhros felt it went marginally well at first. Of course, any probing offers from his father were turned down, but that was to be expected. Gorthaur would not make it easy for them, that was certain.
It was when his father tried to arrange for them to even just see them that things soured.
While the buying attempt had been firmly turned down, the attempts to just see them were at first just half-jokingly turned down.
He could tell when his father crossed a line, simply from the look the Maia had. It reminded him of nothing so much as when he'd done something to infuriate his captors back in Angband.
"If you will not show them to all, then at least let me see my children to know I am not bargaining for corpses." Fëanor had said, pleading to the one that held practically all the cards currently.
That, Maedhros could tell in the split second before disaster, had very much been the utterly wrong thing to say.
"You will not see them at all, unless you can pay their ransom." He wondered if his father had realized the mistake, and simply did not have time to correct himself, or if Finu's eldest legitimately had missed the shift in the burning eyes.
"Why?"
Something sprouted from that question, something dark that burst into an inferno. "You will not see yours, while I mourn mine." Maedhros lunged forward, dragging his father back from the minor torrent of fire. "You will not see a hair of your children, while I mourn mine!" Flames lashed at the walls and the six fire-bowls briefly became inferno-bowls.
"Your...?" Opposite them, the Maia forcibly pushed himself back into a form of flesh rather than flame, searing his throne with his hands alone.
"Yavanna is not the only Ainur who pours her all into her craft and being unable to repeat the feat afterwards." Gradient-hair only sluggishly became hair again, drips of magma running down the body as would in other people sweat. "I poured a great deal into my wolves. And I felt when my craft was destroyed. I felt the blades, the arrows, the Eru-damned wall." He added in a hiss, murderous expression passing over Fëanor's shoulder, to where Maedhros knew Fingolfin sat. "It was my regard for Finarfin that made me acquiesce to his desperate attempt of preventing me from repaying you in kind. If not for him, I would have torn your broods to shreds then and there."
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Finwë was a ghost in these Halls, moreso than one might usually assume from being disembodied. He lingered outside the corridors of his kin, unable to bear looking at them, but equally unable to tear himself away.
He wondered when it had all gone so wrong as to end up here.
Should he perhaps truly not wedded Indis, as his firstborn had so often decried? Would things have gone better if there had been no source of poison for Morgoth to dip into, to tear his family apart to the extend that his children would have to deal with this?
"Finwë Noldoran." They still greeted him like that, despite both his younger sons being Kings in his stead.
"Lady Vairë." He greeted the Valie, eyes falling to the tapestry over her arm. "An update?"
"As so many before it, yes." She opened it, showing him the subject-matter. It showed the five he knew to have traveled after Arafinwë and his two grandsons, facing a wall of fire and shadow. "You no longer attend these corridors, do you?"
"I cannot." He admitted, lips pressed closed as he noted the three insets that showed the three that had been stolen by Sauron. "Is this my fault?"
"In what way?" She bypassed him, heading deeper into the maze of his family.
Wanting to continue the conversation, he had no choice to follow. "This did get started by the Silmarils... and my death. Would it have gone this way if either of those had not happened?"
"Perhaps." He ignored the tapestries they passed which he had not seen yet, currently unable to deal with the sights. "Consider however... how much worse could it have gone instead?"