Category: Tolkien-Universe

Rating: M

Couples: -

Warnings: AU, blood, mentions of torture, character death, Loss of bodily autonomy (no Non-con)

Chapter: 20

Copyright: Characters & places © By Tolkien Estate, Plot & OC´s © by me

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Blood, he was standing in a sea of blood. The smell and taste of iron drowned out anything else he might have noted with those two senses. Fëanáro tried to find some kind of dry land - or even just a source of the sea - but could only see glowing red and darkness beyond that. There were bodies in the sea, though he could not see their faces.

"What...?" He had been reborn too early, much like Arakáno, and paid for it just as dearly. Still, this was new. This was not the painful convulsions he'd spend 4 days recovering from.

He was sinking, even as he fought against the suction dragging him down. In one of his visits to the family-corridors he had seen a tapestry of the Ice, Elenwë sinking below the ice as her clothes grew heavy with the freezing waters of the Helcaraxë. This felt similar like it must have for her, if slightly warmer.

"Father..." The sound of his son's voice sounded behind him.

He knew it was not true, that Nelyo was not truly here, but instinct drove him to turn around.

His eldest was emaciated, skin over bone in the truest meaning of the word. His open wrist added to the sea of blood, eyes wild and fey. His skin was cracked where it was not tainted red.

"Nelyo..." His eldest, who had to hate him the most. Finwë's eldest dared not approach, mostly because the pull was towards his son. He'd sink deeper faster.

"Father." Nelyafinwë's remaining hand reached for him, the boy's greater stature allowing him to cross the distance.

"No..." He nearly lost his footing on what amounted as the sea-floor, scrambling as slender fingers tried to find purchase on his clothes. "No." This was not real, and that was not his son. He knew it, knew it to be some subconscious punishment for re-birthing early.

"Father." A new voice, and a new hand. These fingers were not as slender, calloused from long labor. Like Uinen in her wrath and grief after the Kinslaying, his third son surged from the waves, his mirror image clawing at his eyes. "Father!"

"Curo!" He only barely dodged on time, nails scratching his cheek. Now his blood added to the sea as well, thick droplets making ripples on the otherwise calm surface.

"Brother." Like the rising Sun - and wasn't that a view he'd love being able to enjoy - Arafinwë rose from some proverbial horizon, his hair a circle around his head, fading into the blazing fire that grew behind him.

The distraction was enough, hands digging into the heavy linen of his tunic. "No!" His youngest sibling glowed with the light of the Eldar, towering over him like even the Valar had never managed. "No!"

"Father..." He did not know which of his sons were whispering the word, even as they dragged at his form.

"Brother." Black iron jewelry-pieces were the only spots of darkness on his sibling's form, fingers digging into the darkness as the massive form dragged itself forward.

The sea roiled with the motion, waves rising almost higher than his head.

And as his sons dragged him down, actually higher than his head.

"Brother." About the last thing he saw was Ñolofinwë rising to match their golden brother, as Telperion brightened to match Laurendil.

"Náro!" He was jolted almost painfully to waking, his cheek stinging from the slap that had torn him from the nightmare.

He did not have the energy to be upset at the liberties his once-greatest rival was taking, crouching beside him.

"A nightmare." He numbly looked at the hand still on his shoulder. "I guess I woke you?"

"You woke all of us." Indis' eldest son dryly stated, sitting back on his haunches. "It's from being reborn too soon, isn't it? Arákano had similar problems for a time."

"Yes." He pushed himself to sitting, mostly because they would hardly let him roll over and go back to reverie again. "How long did it take for these to stop?"

"A year... Sun-year, that is. There-abouts, at least." The hand slipped from his shoulder.

Lovely, he was barely a month into that. "I suppose I better take to camping further from you all then." He couldn't look at the other camp, and his sons. "Can't all have sleepless nights."

"Kano... well, Baby-kano, dealt with it better if he had more contact."

"I'll deal with it myself." He took several deep breaths to calm his raging heart-beat. His hair was a mess when he ran his own hand through it. He had been tossing and turning for a while before being woken, clearly. "Go to bed, I won't wake you again."

"I think you'll find you have no way to make me." Ñolofinwë's eyes were kind, and marginally pitying as they regarded him. "And besides, by the time any of us fall asleep again, it's time to move again anyway." He gestured to the East with his chin, where Arien's rays were starting to crest the mountain-range they'd been traveling beside for days now.