Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

What about us?
What about all the broken happy ever afters?
What about us?
What about all the plans that ended in disaster?
What about love? What about trust?
What about us?
- “What About Us?” by P!nk

- - 

“Am I going to regret introducing you to Daeron?” Fingolfin asked. They sat together in the great hall, which was quieter than usual as everyone prepared to listen to Daeron’s performance, the first of many that would last through the long night of Midwinter. “You keep glaring at him.”

“I am not glaring,” Fëanor said, but he averted his gaze from where Daeron was consulting with a few musicians in a corner, all of them smiling and laughing together. Daeron was always laughing, it seemed, and Fëanor did not know what to make of it. How could one who seemed to take nothing seriously be acclaimed so great a singer, and so learned and wise a loremaster? 

“I am very familiar with your glares, Brother,” Fingolfin said, always able to speak so lightly of the past, as though it really didn’t matter anymore, in a way that Fëanor never could. “What did you speak of after I left you the other night? I had expected you to like one another—or at least for you to be impressed by him. He is perhaps one of the greatest of the Sindar, behind Elu Thingol himself.”

“High praise indeed,” said Fëanor, “but I have seen nothing particularly great in him.” Only a strange mixture of wistfulness, when he spoke of the lands east of the sea, and a bright merriment that overtook that wistfulness with shocking swiftness, that made light of whatever fondness he seemed to harbor for Fëanor’s son, and also of his own status and skill. Fëanor did not understand it at all.

“Well, a single conversation at a party is hardly going to reveal much, is it?” asked Findis on Fëanor’s other side. 

“You will hear greatness soon enough,” added Lalwen, beside Fingolfin. She had been irritable and snappish the last few days, having slipped on ice and broken her ankle just in time to miss out on all the dancing of Midwinter. The mere prospect of hearing Daeron sing, however, had entirely transformed her mood. “Neither you nor Findis were at the Mereth Aderthad, of course, but oh, when Daeron sings! And when he and Macalaurë sang together! I’ve never heard anything since that can compare. Even the Ainur cannot hope to put forth so much joy into a song.”

“It is too bad Macalaurë is not here,” Findis said with a sigh. “I have greatly missed his singing.”

Fëanor kept silent as Lalwen agreed. Fingolfin also nodded, but glanced at Fëanor with a troubled look. He had been there when Fëanor had gone in search of Maglor, though as far as Fëanor could tell no one else knew what exactly Maglor had said. He had certainly not shared it, and he doubted whether Maglor had, unless it were with his brothers. Even if Maglor were in Tirion, Fëanor thought, he would not come to the palace, and he would not perform—for reasons that had both everything and nothing to do with what had passed between the two of them in Imloth Ningloron.

He tried to think of when he had last heard Maglor sing. Formenos? No, that wasn’t right. All of his sons had been very quiet in Formenos; there had been no laughter and precious little music, and Fëanor could not remember any voice accompanying Maglor’s quiet harp. 

Findis asked, “Daeron spent a few years in Celebrían’s house, did he not? And Macalaurë was there at the same time?”

“Yes,” said Fingolfin. 

“I’m glad of it,” said Lalwen. “They were very quick to become friends at the feast, and from what I have heard, Macalaurë is in sore need of friends. Oh, don’t glower at me, Fëanáro.”

Fëanor looked away and tried to school his face, tried to resist the urge to slouch in his seat in a way unbecoming of a prince of the Noldor. Daeron did not seem to him the sort of friend Maglor needed. Maglor had been furious when Fëanor had seen him in Imloth Ningloron, but he had also been shaking all over, with tears in his eyes, the scars on his hand red and livid and painful-looking. He had been fragile, in need of far more care than Daeron seemed inclined to give anything, even the music for which he was famed. Fëanor had wanted to grab onto him and never let go, to hold him until he had cried himself out the way he’d once done when Maglor was small, to shield him from whatever it was that frightened him. Of course he hadn’t, because he had been what frightened Maglor. That was all he was to all of his sons, save Curufin—and even Curufin had come to him in spite of his fears, rather than in the absence of them.

He had determined, after his meetings with both Maedhros and Maglor went so disastrously, to draw back, to let his sons come to him if they so wished—to ask no questions and not to pry. He was not always successful, and Curufin never hesitated to remind him of that promise as he refused to speak of any of his brothers except in the most general of terms. All Fëanor could do was trust that Elrond could shield Maglor from whatever harm Daeron might do in his carelessness—however fond he had seemed when he had spoken of Maglor that first night of Thingol’s visit. 

Finally, Daeron stepped forward. He had pearls woven through his dark hair, and was clad in shades of silver and pale blue, as though a bit of winter sky had been caught in his robes; he carried a small harp of dark wood inlaid with swirling designs of silver and blue enamel, and the other musicians arranged themselves behind him to begin to play. Daeron bowed deeply to Fingolfin and to Thingol, put his fingers to the harp strings, and began to sing. 

His voice was fair and bright—more than fair, it was astonishing—and the notes of the song seemed to hang suspended in the air around them. He sang praises to Varda Elentári on this the longest night of the year, and to the stars that blazed overhead as diamond and silver scattered across the dark velvet of the sky. It was as though his song had called all the stars down into the hall with them, and they faded only slowly as that song passed into others, of starlight and moonlight upon clear waters, of rivers and streams and woodlands and plains. Beleriand, Fëanor realized after a time, as images passed through his mind, as clear almost as though he were there. He sang also of Valinor, songs that felt newer, and his voice held the delight of one first encountering them, the cities and the wilderness, rather than the love of one who had known them all his life.

His last song was one of the darkness of winter giving way to the promise of a bright spring. That song sounded familiar, though Fëanor knew it was not one he had heard before. When Daeron sang of the deep winter frosts and the dark shadows of moonless winter nights it was as though a chill sank into all their very bones, and Fëanor felt, as he had never felt before, the grief of the barren boughs and the silence of the woods, the muted songs of the streams and rivers trapped under layers of ice—and then the relief of snow melt was like taking a sudden breath, and the sun’s warmth cut through the chill as crocuses and snowdrops burst out of the lingering snowdrifts, a splash of color to herald the return of life and joy and hope, was enough to bring tears to sting his eyes. 

When Daeron’s voice at last faded away, Fëanor blinked, finding himself back in Tirion beside his brother. The rest of the audience rose in applause. Daeron, smiling, bowed and thanked them, as cheerful and merry as though he had not just seemed to bring the whole world to a stop with naught but the sound of his voice. 

“I see why he is named the mightiest singer of the Eldar,” Findis said. She sounded breathless. “I wonder whose songs those were that he sang at the end.”

“Were they not his own?” Lalwen asked.

“They did not sound quite the same,” Findis said. “There was something…” She paused to consider. “Mournful,” she said finally. “There was something mournful in those last songs, though they sang of joyful things. Not like the songs he sang first. I think I will go ask him.” She rose from her seat and disappeared into the crowd. 

“What did you think, Fëanáro?” Fingolfin asked. 

“He was remarkable,” Fëanor said, “and well deserving of his reputation.” 

“It is no slight to Macalaurë to acknowledge it,” said Fingolfin. “When comparisons were being made long ago at the Mereth Aderthad, Macalaurë only laughed—I don’t think he cared.”

“He was too happy to find someone who could keep up with him,” said Lalwen. “And nothing ever came of it, of course, but I do believe at the feast Daeron was rather smitten.”

“You’ve been saying things like that for centuries, and not once have you been right,” Fingolfin said. “I saw no such thing, and I know for a fact you were too busy to be properly introduced to him, let alone—”

“I was not so busy that my eyes stopped working,” said Lalwen, “and I am always right about this sort of thing—”

“You were convinced that Elenwë was head over heels in love with Irissë before it came out that she and Turukáno were courting.”

“I was not—”

Fëanor left them to bicker, wondering vaguely if Maedhros felt this exhausted by his own brothers when they got going. He regretted the thought immediately, because it brought with it a knife-sharp stab of grief as he then wondered what they were all doing that night, whether they were celebrating Midwinter. Caranthir and Curufin were both in Tirion—they were across the hall at that moment; he glimpsed them speaking to Daeron, all three of them smiling. What all the rest were doing, however, Fëanor could have no idea. 

He had stopped walking, and made the mistake of watching his sons for a few seconds too long. Caranthir glanced his way, and his smile vanished; it was as though he transformed into a different person, a grim and forbidding stranger, in the space of only a second. Fëanor turned away and left the hall. There would be dancing and much more singing, everyone making merry all through the long night, but he was in no mood for it. 

He returned to his own rooms, and threw open the window. It looked out over the gardens and the cherry grove below, all barren now with the winter, and covered in snowdrifts that softened everything, turning corners into curves, as though a thick quilt had been laid out over it all. As Fëanor leaned out over the sill more snow began to fall. He inhaled deeply the fresh sharpness of the frigid air, letting it settle in his lungs, burn in his nose. A gust of wind blew a few flakes against his face, catching in his eyelashes and his hair. The sounds of merrymaking and celebration could be heard all over the city, lit with bright and colorful lights. 

The last song Daeron had sung kept playing in Fëanor’s mind—the verses of dark and frozen midwinter, when the world slumbered and the songwriter seemed to feel as though they would never be warm again. Fëanor thought that Findis had the right of it—it was not a song Daeron had written. Perhaps he was not quite as careless as he had seemed during their first conversation, when he’d laughed at the idea of mastery and made light of whatever sort of friendship he had formed with Maglor, but he still did not strike Fëanor as someone who had ever come anywhere as near to despair as the author of that song had.

Fëanor wondered, as he watched the snowflakes swirl past and his own breath make small brief clouds in front of his face, whether Maglor had written that song. He hoped not. He did not want to think of any of his children knowing that kind of grief—though surely if any of them did, it would be Maglor. He did not like, either, the idea of Daeron singing any of Maglor’s songs there in Tirion, where Maglor had once dazzled Finwë’s court with songs that knew nothing at all of grief or fear or despair.

The sounds of celebration in the city became suddenly unbearable, and Fëanor shut the window, latching it firmly. 

All of his sons save Curufin were out of reach, but Maglor seemed to be the farthest. He had spent too much time alone. He did not like to be seen, Elrond had said, let alone to perform as he once had loved. He was brimming with anger and hurt and there wasn’t anything Fëanor could do, because he was the cause of all of it. 

Fëanor sank onto his bed with his face in his hands. Maglor was no longer alone, and had not been for many years now. He had lived for years in Elrond’s household, and now he had gone to Lórien with Maedhros. It should have been a comfort—it was a comfort, to know they were together—but Lórien was far from Tirion, and Fëanor hated not knowing. He also couldn’t stop the knot of fear from forming in his stomach whenever he thought of it; there was no good reason for it, but still he remembered his mother and the healing she had sought there and not found. At least in Mandos he had been able to search for his sons in the weavings, to see their faces and know whether they were safe, whether they were happy.

He did not sleep that night, because to close his eyes was to see Maglor’s face, eyes flashing even as they filled with tears, or else Maedhros, not angry but instead seeming horribly empty, and the next day he went to see Curufin, finding him in his workshop. “Good morning, Atya,” he said, looking up from his drafting table with a smile, as different from his brothers as night was from day. “How did you like Daeron’s performance last night?”

“It was remarkable,” said Fëanor. And then, because he clearly had not learned to leave things well enough alone, “You’ve heard your brother more recently than I have; is Daeron the mightier?”

Curufin thought for a moment. “I’ve never been in a position to judge, in terms of power,” he said. “Maglor was always very ready to say that Daeron was the mightier, though.”

“Is Maglor a very good judge of his own strength, now?” Fëanor asked after a pause. It was the sort of question he might or might not receive a clear answer to; Curufin was scrupulous in protecting his brothers. Fëanor knew he should be glad of it, to know they had regained that kind of closeness, but mostly it just made something under his ribs ache. It was also a question to which he knew the answer already, which was a pain of a different kind.

“No, but I was talking of long ago—after the Mereth Aderthad. What does it matter, anyway? No one’s going to need either of them to sing any great songs of power here, unless it’s just to show off. In terms of talent and skill they’re as evenly matched as can be. At least they sound so to my ears, but I’m as musical as a rock, so I don’t know why you’re asking me.”

“You seem to have spent a great deal of time with Daeron since he came to Tirion. And it seems as though he has spent some time with your brother too.”

“We’ve been showing him around the city, since he’s never been here before. He’s my friend, Atya—and Maglor’s. Friends tend to enjoy one another’s company. Stop worrying about Daeron—there’s no reason for it. Now, Arimeldë wants me to put up some wrought-iron fencing around her roof garden come springtime. What do you think of this design?”

It was a blatant distraction, but Fëanor went along with it, glad to put Daeron—and Maglor—out of his mind in favor of something harmless and enjoyable. He thought that if there was real reason for concern, Curufin would say so—if there was reason for concern, Curufin would not claim Daeron as a friend. Still, doubt niggled in the back of his mind.

Later, at dinner, Fëanor found himself seated beside Elu Thingol. They had been thrown together a great deal over the last few weeks. Fëanor was not accustomed to feeling off balance or unsure of himself, but being confronted with the determined friendliness of his father’s dearest friend, who he and his sons had wronged so terribly, had done it. They had spoken of everything except the past—not a suitable topic of conversation for a visit full of feasting and merrymaking—and except Finwë. Fëanor usually tried not to think about his father, because it hurt almost as badly as thinking about his sons. He did not know why Thingol had not broached the subject. 

Except that evening, he did. “Are these halls much changed from when your father reigned here?” Thingol asked, his voice quieter than usual, passing unheard by anyone else beneath the general din of conversation and clinking glasses and utensils. 

Fëanor glanced around. “Not very much,” he said after a moment, “though of course it looks different, since the Trees…”

“Yes, of course.”

“Tirion is very different,” Fëanor said after a moment. “It is emptier, though you might not guess so, seeing it now when so many are back to visit. Many of the Noldor did not return here—they built other cities instead, or went to dwell upon Tol Eressëa.” He supposed they had all grown used to living scattered about, in Beleriand. He had studied many maps of it, tracing the routes between Hithlum and Himring, between Nargothrond and Dorthonion, and Vinyamar and Gondolin; between Maglor’s Gap and Thargelion, and Himlad and the woods of Ossiriand in the south. This scattering was a habit his sons too had retained upon their own returning, and had only lately started to change. “Is Taur-en-Gellam much different from Doriath?”

“As different as one forest must be from another,” said Thingol, but he smiled as he spoke, “and the Helethir sings a different song than the Esgalduin did. But my people remain my people, though like the Noldor, they are scattered between Taur-en-Gellam and Eressëa, and Alqualondë, and Alastoron and other places besides. But there is no grief in that—there is joy to be found in wandering freely and without fear, as we once did beneath the stars in the long years of peace in Beleriand.”

“Why did you not seek to cross the Sea?” Fëanor asked after a moment.

“There was no way to cross,” said Thingol. “The Valar would not send the island back for us, and we did not have the knowledge we needed for shipbuilding, in those days. I missed the Trees, but their Light was—and remains—reflected in the face of Melian, and with that I was content. I had wished for the safety of these lands, too, for my people—but with the Enemy imprisoned, the world seemed safe enough, and there were many among the Nelyar who had followed me or my brothers only reluctantly, not wishing to be parted from their kin and friends, rather than for any desire to leave the lands of their birth. There was hope, in leaving Cuiviénen,” he added after a moment, his gaze going distant and a note of grief entering his voice, “but there was also great sadness. There were many who did not wish to go at all, and so many families were sundered. Two of my brothers came with me, but we left behind another, much younger, for our mother would not allow it and she distrusted the Valar, though whether she was right or wrong I can no longer say for certain.”

Fëanor thought, suddenly, of the tales his father had sometimes told—of his grandfather, mostly, and sometimes of his parents. “What became of my father’s family?” he asked after a moment, when he could make his throat work.

“Did he never tell you?”

“No.” It had been too deep a grief for speech. Fëanor had seen that early. It was the same grief that had kept him from speaking of Míriel except to Finwë, and then only rarely. It wasn’t even a matter of wanting to speak of it or not—it was the sort of thing that closed up the throat and rendered the tongue useless. Words just wouldn’t come. He could speak of his old grief for his mother now only because she had returned among the living. He could speak of Finwë, now, only with great difficulty.

“Some were taken,” Thingol said after a moment, “some were killed, and those who remained refused to follow him here—like my own family. Finwë was the boldest of us, among the most strong-willed—and that will he has passed on to all of his children.” Thingol smiled at Fëanor, who could not quite manage one in return. “When he set himself upon a course he would not sway from it, though it grieved him deeply to part from his mother and his sisters, who were no less stubborn than he.”

“Sisters?”

“Yes. He had brothers and sisters—all either lost or remained behind.”

Fëanor hadn’t known that, but found suddenly that he understood many things about his father differently. He dropped his gaze back to his plate, and let the conversation end there. He felt as though he had been punched in the chest, and he wished to be away from the feasting and the merrymaking. A bright burst of laughter from a nearby table caught his ear, and he glanced up to see Daeron leaning back in his seat to speak to Curufin who had paused in passing behind him.

Thingol looked, too. “I have been pleased to hear of Daeron’s friendship with your sons,” he said as Curufin left Daeron to return to his own nearby table, which was filled with many of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain and other craftsmen.

“With all my sons?” Fëanor said, and then bit his tongue, hard. 

Thingol remained unbothered. “Yes, all of them—or all who are in and around Tirion. I have heard your eldest have gone to Lórien.”

“Yes, they have.”

“I am sorry it is needed, but glad that they are able to go together. Daeron is very fond of all your sons, however. He speaks very highly of them.”

“I confess I am surprised by it,” Fëanor said. It was even more surprising than Thingol’s own overtures—at least Thingol had his ancient friendship with Finwë. Daeron had no such connections.

“Many have been—I was myself—but of course Daeron has never cared much for what others think of him, and he cares even less now. It is my hope that our peoples, the Sindar and the Noldor, can come together truly as friends in this new Age, and though that is not why Daeron has sought their friendship, he and your sons are proof that it is possible, whatever history says, or what odds may seem to be against it. It is easier to follow Daeron’s example than, say, Elrond’s.”

“Elrond is…” Fëanor found he did not know what to say of Elrond. He settled on, “Singular.”

“He is, I think, the best of all of us.”

“I think he would object strongly to that,” Fëanor said, and Thingol laughed.

“I daresay he would. But I am his great-grandfather, and thus will speak as highly of him as I wish, and would do so even if he were here to be embarrassed by it.”

“My brother did invite him,” Fëanor said, “but he seems to leave his valley only rarely.”

“Long habit, I think,” Thingol said. “He tied himself to his home in Middle-earth not unlike Melian tied herself to Doriath when she raised the Girdle. It is my hope that now that Dior has returned to us, Elrond and his family will come more often to Taur-en-Gellam—though I suppose it is equally likely that I shall see little enough of my grandson, as he might choose to spend his time in Imloth Ningloron instead. Have you met my granddaughter yet, Fëanáro?”

“No. Lady Elwing comes very seldom to Tirion, I am told.” And only in the company of her husband—and neither, clearly, were eager to meet Fëanor. He could not blame them; he was not eager himself. What was there to say to those so sorely wronged by all of the events and horrors that he had set in motion? Not to mention the Silmaril. Fëanor had no interest in even so much as seeing it up close, let alone take it back, but if his own sons could not trust his words, he supposed it would be foolish to expect anyone else to.

There was, of course, music and dancing after the meal. Fëanor danced with Anairë and with Findis before retreating from the dance floor and calculating how much longer he needed to stay before he could escape without causing offense or concern. Once upon a time he would have delighted in such an evening—in such a series of days and evenings of festivities and merrymaking—but now they just felt empty. There was no shortage of people to talk to, old friends and new, not to mention his siblings, but with neither his father nor most of his sons in attendance, Fëanor was finding little pleasure. 

When he had first come from Mandos, he had thought of returning to Formenos, of rebuilding it and making his home there, away from everyone and everything, if his sons or wife would not see him. That had been before Fingolfin had insisted he return to Tirion instead—before new understanding and something like friendship had started to grow between them, instead of the rising again of old animosities and resentments or even just settling into cold tolerance. Lately Fëanor had been thinking again of Formenos, though—wondering if it would not be less lonely to go there and live entirely in solitude, rather than to be surrounded by everyone except those he missed most. 

“Are you weary already of dancing, Fëanáro?” Nerdanel stepped up beside him, resplendent in a gown of deep forest green. A circlet of gold and emerald rested over her braids, and a matching necklace glinted around her neck. They were not jewels that Fëanor had made for her, and the knowledge of it made that place under his ribs hurt again. 

“It seems so,” he said, keeping his arms folded across his chest lest he do something foolish like reach for her, as he leaned against a column. The marble was cool through the sleeve of his tunic. “I did not know you were here tonight.” 

“I have not been hiding,” she said. They stood with a foot of space between them and it felt like miles. It felt also like they had both said all that needed to be said already—of the past, of the present—and there was little point in doing so again, and yet there was nothing else for them to speak of. 

“Are you working on anything interesting?” he asked after a few seconds of agonizing silence. It was the only thing he could think of, work, and the only thing that seemed safe to talk about.

“No,” said Nerdanel. “Unless you count asking my brother to draw up plans to expand my house. I should have done it years ago, really.”

Her house had not been built with seven sons in mind. Only herself and the occasional guest or two. Fëanor swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat. “Why didn’t you?”

She looked at him, expression inscrutable. “There seemed no point,” she said, “if all of them were going to so scrupulously avoid gathering in one place. Only twice did I manage to bring them all together—the winter before you returned, and that spring. Midwinter was spent here in Tirion; when the six of them gathered in my house afterward in the spring, they held war councils in my dining room, and hardly looked at one another otherwise until they all left on their journey to Ekkaia.”

“War councils?” Fëanor repeated. “For what—?” 

“For you, Fëanáro. What else?”

Of course. He’d known that already, hadn’t he? When he’d stumbled upon Caranthir and Maedhros by the river it had been in time to hear Caranthir say, in a quiet voice that sounded so unlike himself, “It feels wrong. Just like it felt wrong to—to have to sit and discuss meeting Atar again like were were planning for a battle.” Fëanor turned away from Nerdanel, watching Findis spin across the dance floor, laughing, on the arm of one of Thingol’s attendants. 

“It was a glimpse of how they were in Beleriand that I did not like,” Nerdanel said after a moment, “though in that moment they were all getting along, all in agreement for the first time since they all returned from Mandos—even Atarinkë and Tyelkormo. They missed their brother, and they did not want to see you.”

“I know,” Fëanor said. 

“Maitimo sat at the head of the table, terribly grim, and exhausted and—well, you saw him only a few days afterward. The rest of them sat all in neat rows down either side in order of age, a far cry from the habits of their youth.”

Fëanor missed that chaos so much it was hard to breathe through it. The bickering and the jostling and the laughter. He tried to remember the last family meal they had had in such high spirits. In his mind he could only picture a time when the twins were very small—small enough that they preferred to sit on someone’s lap rather than in chairs of their own; most often one of them would claim Maedhros’ lap, and the other Maglor’s or Celegorm’s. Sometimes Nerdanel’s. Never his. 

“Yet they left a seat empty, at Maitimo’s right,” Nerdanel went on, “and they were all so very careful not to look at that empty chair, in a way that made it clear it was foremost in their thoughts. I think for a very long time it was Macalaurë who kept them together, in Middle-earth. When they returned here without him they did not know what to do.”

“Until chance brought them together again,” Fëanor said. Curufin had spoken a little of that meeting, of having gone all the way to Ekkaia only to find their brother there, beyond any expectation or hope. 

“Chance and a meddling wizard,” Nerdanel said with a small smile. “It was a shock to have all seven of them come back to my house at once—well, all eight of them.”

“Eight?”

“Daeron was with them,” Nerdanel said. “Surely you have noticed he is friendly with Atarinkë and Carnistir?”

Fëanor was suddenly acutely aware of Daeron across the hall, having taken up a viol to play rather than to take any part in the dancing. “I had noticed,” he said, “but I did not know he had gone all the way to Ekkaia with them.”

“He traveled with Macalaurë.”

Maglor had not been well when he had left on that journey. It was Fëanor’s own fault, but he still did not like the thought of Daeron finding him in such a mood, finding him so fragile and so deeply unhappy. He did not understand why Daeron, upon seeing Maglor thus, would then choose to travel so far with him, and then back again with all the rest of them. He did not now why Maglor would allow it, either. Curufin had spoken so little of that journey—he had not mentioned Daeron at all—but Fëanor knew it had not been a very joyful one, even if it had ended more hopefully than it had begun. 

“Do not frown so,” Nerdanel said. “Daeron’s companionship was precisely what Macalaurë needed that summer. Do you truly find him so unimpressive?”

“He is very impressive,” Fëanor said. “His singing is—wondrous—and I have heard he is a loremaster besides.”

“Yes, he is. He is widely traveled and widely learned. He created his own alphabet, even as you and Rúmil were doing so here. Did you know? His runes are used still by many in Middle-earth.”

“I had not known.” Fëanor did not know why it left a sour taste in his mouth. “How could I? It is hard to guess that he is so accomplished, to speak to him.”

Nerdanel raised an eyebrow. “Because he is merry—at a time of merriment? Why this suspicion? Because some would turn him into Macalaurë’s rival?”

Fëanor did not know how to explain the ill-defined uneasiness and the almost instinctual dislike he felt, how impossible it was to reconcile the impression he had gotten from the tapestry in Mandos to the reality of Daeron in person, in life. “He seems careless,” he said, because he did not know how else to explain. 

“That is certainly not true,” said Nerdanel, “though I know well that I cannot expect you to take my word for it. It is long since you placed any trust in anyone’s judgment aside from your own, flawed though it is.”

That stung. “Nerdanel—”

“If you do feel inclined to take my advice as you once did, you would do well not to make an enemy of Daeron of Doriath—for many reasons, not least of which being that he is one of great standing among the Sindar, and one of whom Elu Thingol is very fond.”

“I did not come back to make enemies, Nerdanel,” Fëanor said, keeping his voice low. He couldn’t tell if she was trying to goad him into losing his temper, but it wouldn’t work. It just hurt—however well deserved—and he was so tired. 

“I know that,” she said, “but you will, if you are as careless as you believe Daeron to be. A handful of conversations and pleasantries exchanged over a visit such as this is very little upon which to base any judgment of his character. If you want to earn your sons’ trust again, you must learn to trust them. Carnistir likes Daeron enough to risk having to speak to you in order to come to Tirion to see him, and to come here to the palace to see him perform.”

“I am not going to—”

“I know.” Her look softened, just a little. “But do you understand what I mean?”

“I do.” Fëanor looked away from her too-knowing gaze to watch Curufin and Rundamírë step onto the dance floor. It was a lively dance that time, with a great deal of spinning and leaping, and the ladies’ skirts and sleeves flew out like wings. The jewels everyone wore flashed and glittered in the lamplight. Curufin was laughing as he clasped Rundamírë around the waist to lift her into the air, his smile more carefree than Fëanor had yet seen since their reunion. It was worth lingering just to see that, he thought, but it still felt wrong to see Curufin there but none of his brothers. Once upon a time Ambarussa had been almost impossible to drag off the dance floor. Maedhros too had loved to dance, or else to stand to the side with Fingon or Finrod or his other cousins, watching and laughing and indulging in idle gossip. Maglor had done as Daeron was doing, more often than not, preferring to make the music rather than dance to it. Once upon a time Celegorm’s laughter would have been recognizable from all the way across the hall. 

That punched-in-the-chest feeling returned, and Fëanor longed to make his escape. If he wanted to earn Nerdanel’s trust, though, he could not just turn and leave her without a word. “Would you dance with me, Nerdanel?” he asked as the quick song ended and a more stately one began. It felt like a dangerous request. It would be the closest he came to holding her in his arms since long before the Darkening. 

Nerdanel regarded him with those soft blue eyes of hers. “Yes,” she said, surprising him and seeming to surprise herself. “Just one, though.” He held out his hand, and she slipped hers into it as they stepped out onto the dance floor. They did not speak through the dance, but it was one with familiar steps, and they moved together with the same practiced ease they had once enjoyed in far happier days. That was something, at least.

After the dance ended, Fëanor bowed to Nerdanel, not quite daring to take her hand to kiss her fingers, and bid her good evening. He left the dance floor and then the hall, exhaling once he stepped into an empty corridor. Before he could take more than a few steps toward his rooms, though, he heard footsteps behind him. “Grandfather?” He turned and tried to summon a smile. Celebrimbor looked every inch a Noldorin prince, as he must have once appeared as Lord of Eregion, with his hair braided elaborately with silver threads and beads, and with a matching circlet settled over his brow. His robes were richly embroidered, silver and gold upon deep blues and whites. Small silver rings set with diamonds glittered in his ears; the only ornaments he lacked were rings on his fingers. “Are you all right?” he asked. 

“Only tired,” Fëanor said, earning himself a skeptical frown. “Go back in, Tyelpë. Don’t worry about me.”

“You and my father and all of my uncles do love to say that,” said Celebrimbor. “It seems to me that only means there’s reason to be worried.”

“Not for you, and not about me,” said Fëanor firmly. 

“I’m not a child, you know,” Celebrimbor said. “I haven’t been for a very long time.”

“I know that.” Fëanor stepped forward to embrace him. “I do not mean to treat you like one. I really am tired, and just want to go to bed. Go back and enjoy yourself, Tyelpë.”

“All right. Good night, Grandfather.”

He really was tired, but once in bed he couldn’t sleep. His thoughts circled, as always, around his sons. The moonlight through the window, shining in silver squares on the quilt, brought Celegorm to his mind, and that was as bad as thinking of Maglor. He rolled over to bury his face in his pillow, but sleep still would not come. Tears soaked the pillowcase instead. He had shed so many tears since his return to life—more, he thought, than he had ever shed before his death.

Of course, it had been prophesied, had it not? Tears unnumbered ye shall shed, and so they had, his sons and his brother and his nieces and nephews, and all of his people. He had not—not after coming to Formenos to see what remained of the entryway, and the linen wrapped body that his sons would not let him near. He remembered the sight of it, of the bloodstains on the floor that someone had tried to wash away but without success, but he remembered very little else, unless it were his sons pulling him away, Maedhros and Maglor and Celegorm all together holding him back, pleading with him not to go to his father, not to look. 

Sometime after that his tears had dried and had not returned. He had been so angry, and he’d let himself get lost in it, because to do otherwise was to just lie down and follow his father and his mother into Mandos. There was no getting either of them back, but he’d been so foolishly sure that he could get his Silmarils back, that he would succeed where the Valar had failed—and all he had done in the end was burn, following his parents anyway and dooming his people and, worst of all, his children to nothing but war and death and darkness. It was as though something had broken in him upon Finwë’s death, and his greatest fear now was that it had not been repaired in Mandos, that something would happen to send him spiraling into that same madness all over again. There were many things he did not even remember clearly from his last days, between crossing the Sea and the battle that had killed him. It was a haze of pain and rage and a heat that just kept building and building until at last it ignited with the whips of the balrogs, and set his whole being aflame. Sometimes he wondered at the fact that he had come to Mandos at all—that his spirit had not just burned itself away into nothing instead.

The next day was the last full day of the Sindar’s visit. Fëanor would be glad to see them go, even as he was glad that Thingol had come. It should have been Finwë, rather than Fingolfin, there to greet him, but at least some of the pain and grief of the past could be set aside now. As Celebrimbor was so fond of saying, it was a new Age, and anything was possible. 

Fëanor had fallen asleep eventually, but not for long and he had not slept well. He retreated to the library in search of something to occupy himself, knowing he was too tired and distracted for forge work to be safe. He wandered through the shelves, looking for something even halfway interesting, and picked up a book of poetry more or less at random by someone whose name he did not recognize. 

He came to the end of the shelves and found Daeron sitting at a nearby table, leaning back against it with his head tilted toward the ceiling, a frown on his face. It is a look Fëanor had not seen before, and he stood for several minutes trying to figure out what it was that troubled Daeron so. He followed his gaze up to the painted ceiling. The library had been expanded and renovated several times since the Darkening, but the ceiling remained, a series of paintings Fëanor and a dozen others had made over the course of many weeks. It had been a delightful project, a challenge for all of them to paint something lying on their backs, and the end result had been far better than anyone had thought when the idea was first floated—worth all the paint that stuck in his hair and the ache in his arms and shoulders afterward.

Something rankled, seeing Daeron of Doriath scowling at the results. “Do you not like the paintings?” Fëanor asked him, and felt a small and spiteful sort of satisfaction when Daeron started. He sat up and turned, blinking as though coming out of deep thought, or a daydream. “You have been scowling at the ceiling for some time.”

And there was that smile, and a small laugh as Daeron rose to his feet. “Scowling? Surely not. I have been admiring them, though I confess I have also been wondering how one goes about painting such a high ceiling.”

Oh. Perhaps the frown was only one of thought, or concentration. The question was a fair one. “Much scaffolding, and a great deal of paint dripping onto one’s face in the process,” Fëanor said. “We practiced on the undersides of tables for months before tackling the real thing.” 

“Oh, is that your work? It’s beautiful.”

“Mine among many others. Thank you.” Fëanor fell silent, unsure of what else to say. The silence swiftly stretched taut. 

Daeron, of course, was unbothered, and filled the silence with compliments of Tirion. They spoke briefly of the city and of Daeron’s lost home; he sounded wistful again when he spoke of Doriath and its long-ago drowning. Yet Fëanor still could not reconcile that with his friendship to Fëanor’s own sons—how could one seem to care so deeply for one’s home and people and yet befriend those who had destroyed it? 

Then he spoke of traveling in the east, where the Silmaril as a star was praised and sung of, and Fëanor thought of the grandmother and the aunts whose names he did not know, who Daeron might even have met. Daeron spoke also of Men, of having lived among and fought with them, and that was surprising too—Fëanor had heard the Lay of Leithian, he had heard the tales of Daeron’s last actions in Doriath, and he would have expected him to have as little love for Men as for the Noldor. Yet it seemed that it was not so. 

“What brought you west again?” Fëanor asked finally. 

Daeron shrugged. “It was time,” he said. 

“So it was chance that brought you aboard the same ship as my son?” As he spoke Fëanor’s gaze landed on the pendant Daeron wore, so different from his usual ornaments. It was made of wood and rimmed with gold, worn on a slender golden chain. The wood was pale and silvery—mallorn wood—and it was inlaid with enamel in the shape of a many-petaled purple flower. Fëanor could immediately guess the maker; he remembered the clip that held Maglor’s hair, the day they had met in Imloth Ningloron, silver and purple with the shapes of that same flower, glinting in the sun as Maglor walked away from him. 

Something flickered in Daeron’s expression before he answered. “It was,” he said. 

“Happy chance.”

It was not hard to guess at the meaning of that pendant, at what lay behind it. Maglor had ever had an open and affectionate heart—and he did not love by halves. He was not like Daeron, who could apparently shed the past like a snake shed its skin; the past weighed on him, it had dug under his skin with barbs and would not let go. 

“That is a lovely token of his affection that you wear, Daeron of Doriath,” Fëanor said, because he still could not bring himself to leave well enough alone.

Daeron hand rose to grasp at the pendant, and his expression shuttered, all trace of his smile gone. “It is lovely,” he agreed.

He would hear about it from Curufin later—and probably Nerdanel—but surely it was better to have it out now, to learn what it was that Daeron was doing, what he intended to do. “It seems remarkable to me that you, of all people, should seek out my sons for friendship, and yet you’ve spent more time in Curufinwë and Morifinwë’s company on this visit than you have here, though you came as part of Elu Thingol’s party.”

“I’ve done my duty to my king,” Daeron said, and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking, what lay behind those dark eyes, “but I came along because I wanted to see Tirion, not because I was under any obligation—and, yes, I did come also to visit with any of your sons that happened to be here. I enjoy their company,” he said, echoing Curufin’s own words, “and Maglor’s most of all. I do not feel, however, that I owe you any explanations or justifications. It can be no concern of yours, with whom Maglor chooses to spend his time.”

Of course it was Fëanor’s concern. He bit his tongue and took a breath. When he felt he could speak evenly he said, “Maglor is my son. His wellbeing will always be my concern.”

Daeron’s reply was both immediate and flippant. “That will certainly be news to him.” Fëanor bit his tongue again, tasting blood. Daeron went on, “For myself, I have no wish for enmity between us—”

That statement was laughable. “Do you not?” Fëanor bit out. 

“—but that matters little, for in this rift between yourself and Maglor, I stand at his side.” Something had changed in Daeron, something indefinable, like a change in the wind that heralded a storm.

Yet he had no place in taking sides in whatever lay between Fëanor and his sons—just because he enjoyed their company. “You told me yourself your friendship was short-lived, and yet now you presume to come, almost a stranger, laying claim to things you have no right—”

“I am far less a stranger to him than you are,” Daeron snapped. “Do you think I wear this token without having given anything in return? You have no idea what has passed between Maglor and me!”

“And you can have no idea what has passed between Maglor and me,” Fëanor snapped back.

Daeron’s eyes flashed. He drew himself up, seeming suddenly taller, and shadows gathered behind him; and Fëanor was reminded suddenly and forcefully that Daeron was old, and he was powerful—he had known Beleriand under the stars and he had survived its wars and its sinking, and all the long centuries that had come afterward. He had been a student of Melian the Maia, and he was among the mightiest of the Eldalië, both Calaquendi and Moriquendi. “I know very well what it did to him, coming here to find you waiting for him beyond all expectation” he said, and the hair on the back of Fëanor’s neck stood up. “I found him on the road only days after he left you in Imloth Ningloron. I know what it looks like when he wakes up from dark dreams unable to remember where he is, rendered nearly speechless with fear, and I have wiped away the countless, bitter tears he has shed, and seen how the light in his eyes has dimmed, heard how his voice has faltered when he tries to sing, or how his fingers have grown at times clumsy over the strings of his harp, his heart broken and aching because of you.” He did not raise his voice, but it shivered through the air, a threat and a warning. “These are the fruits of the seeds you planted in poisoned soil long ago.” Daeron took a step back, and the look he gave Fëanor was stripped of all pretense—there was no cheerful carelessness in his eyes now. They were dark and hard, burning with the light of ancient stars, and behind them lay all the cares and all the trials and griefs and joys of all the years he had lived. 

“It says something of you, I suppose,” Daeron added, his voice now ice cold, “that you have begun to learn how to care for your children again—but it is much too little far too late, and you certainly have no right to question my intentions.” 

With that he turned and left. The shadows receded. Fëanor could not have replied even if he could make his tongue work. He felt not like he had been punched so much as stabbed. It was hard to breathe, and every inhale hurt. When he closed his eyes he could see Maglor, see him in the dark, hair falling out of its braid as tears fell down his face, shaking and shuddering with fear or with cold. He could see the scars on his palm, red and inflamed, could almost imagine what those burns had looked like fresh, put there by the thing he’d once called his greatest work, the jewel he had once prized above almost everything. It occurred to him only then to wonder if those scars were what made Maglor’s fingers falter upon his harp, if he could still play as well as he once had, or if his hand was rendered immobile and stiff, if it was often as painful as it had been on the day they had met.

Fëanor heard the library doors open, and cheerful voices echoing through the shelves. He dropped the book in his hand onto the nearby table and left, escaping out of a smaller exit at the back of the room. It led to little used corridors, and he met no one as he made his way back to his rooms, where he could lock the door and slide down to the floor, back against the wall. Tears unnumbered ye shall shed, Námo had said, and every time it felt as though he could not possibly shed anymore—there they were. 

The Sindar left the next day; Fëanor was glad to see them go. Once he was free from all obligations he shut himself in his forge and threw himself into re-mastering old skills. His mind still knew them, but his new body did not, and the lack of muscle memory was a constant source of frustration—but at least it was a frustration he could do something about. 

Curufin came looking for him after a few days. “It’s still very strange to have my uncle asking me how you are doing,” he said as he shut the door behind him. “Should he be worried?”

“I don’t know what he could be worried about,” Fëanor muttered. “I’m making nails, not blades.”

“The city’s carpenters will be grateful, I’m sure.” Curufin peered into the box of finished nails, and then hopped up onto an empty workbench, swinging his feet idly as he watched Fëanor thrust a new piece of iron into the forge to heat. After a while he said, “I did tell you not to worry about Daeron.”

“Is Nolofinwë worrying about that, too?”

“No. He doesn’t know about it, unless you’ve told him.”

“How do you know about it?”

“Where do you think Daeron went when he left you?” Curufin watched as Fëanor drew the metal out and picked up his hammer. “He went directly to my house to apologize to me and Tyelpë.”

“Apologize to you?”

“He was worried that you’d take your frustrations out on us.”

Fëanor bit his tongue again, in the same place he’d been biting it all week. It hurt. “I’m not angry at you, Curvo.”

“I know. Daeron did not tell us what exactly passed between you—only that you had words. This is why I didn’t tell you about his connection to Cáno, you know. I had hoped if you didn’t know you wouldn’t go and do exactly what you did. I suppose that was my mistake.”

Fëanor shoved the metal back into the fire. “I am many things, Curufinwë, but I do not think I am a fool. It wasn't hard to guess.”

“Was it not? Daeron certainly never intended to tell you.”

Of course it wasn’t. Not with the memory of that tapestry hanging in the back of his mind, in combination with that pendant around his neck. When he had first seen it, Fëanor had been focused on Maglor, on the strange way he was woven and the fact that he was on the ship at all—that he was coming home. Now, though, he could still remember it clearly and see the way that Daeron had been woven too, with an expression as though he saw nothing in the world except Maglor. It was so at odds with how Daeron presented himself, how he was spoken of by others, that Fëanor still did not know what to make of it. 

Well. It was not at all at odds with how he had acted in the library the minute Fëanor had suggested that he was still practically a stranger to Maglor. As though a few weeks so many years ago and then a few years here could mean anything else.

“Unless something changed very drastically between when I saw your brother and when he went to Lórien, I cannot believe—”

“A lot of things changed,” Curufin said. “But between their meeting on the road after Maglor left Elrond’s house, and our return from Ekkaia, Daeron was not one of those things. He was unwavering. But that doesn’t matter here, now.” He had dropped his gaze to the floor; now he raised it, and his look was one that Fëanor did not recognize. He seemed less like the son Fëanor knew and loved and more like the stern and hard Lord of Himlad of whom he had read, whose mood could be perilous. “What matters now is that if you cannot find it within yourself to make peace with Daeron’s presence, you will never see or speak to Maglor again. Is that what you want, Atya?”

“Curufinwë—”

“Would you like to know what I want? I want my family back, together and happy. That now must include Daeron, because he makes Maglor happy—so happy, Atya. Even if I did not like Daeron for himself I would love him just for that. But if there’s to be any kind of—of reconciliation, of peace, or anything even remotely like what we all had before, it cannot happen on your terms. We did that already, and look where it got us. It must happen on our terms, mine and my brothers’.” He slid off of the bench. “You know that I love you, Atya, but you cannot come first in my heart anymore. I won’t destroy myself like that again. If it comes to choosing, I will choose my brothers.”

“Would they really—”

“No, they wouldn’t.” Curufin met his gaze; his eyes were hard. “It was Maedhros who first told me that if I wanted to speak to you again, I should, regardless of what the rest of them did. They all love me more than they hate you, even Celegorm.” Fëanor flinched; his next hammer blow landed wrong, flattening the point of the nail. “You are the one who must decide now if you love Maglor more than you resent Daeron. If you love us more than your own pride. I know what the answer used to be; I hope that I know what it is now, but only you can prove me right or wrong.”

He left without waiting for Fëanor to reply, which was just as well because Fëanor did not know what to say. A blast of frigid air swept through the forge when Curufin pushed open the door, and Fëanor was left with a half-finished nail rapidly cooling on the anvil as the fire flickered behind him.

Chapter Text

We are problems that want to be solved
We are children that need to be loved
- “What About Us?” by P!nk

- - 

It was a cool day in early spring when Curufin came seeking Fingolfin. Findis was with him when Curufin found them in one of the gardens where the crocuses were all in bloom, looking troubled. “Uncle, did you quarrel with my father?” he asked. 

“Quarrel?” Fingolfin repeated, startled. “No, certainly not. Why do you ask?”

“He’s just left the city—for Formenos, he said.”

“I did not send him away,” said Fingolfin. “Is that what he told you?”

Curufin shook his head. “He told me nothing,” he said, “but I could think of no other reason he would leave so suddenly.”

Findis wondered if it really was sudden. Fëanor had spoken before, vaguely, of returning to Formenos—though that had been not long after his return, when he had been more uncertain of his welcome or his place in Tirion, and as he had grown more settled that talk had gone away. After this past Midwinter he had been withdrawn for a time, but lately that mood too seemed to have been lifting a little. But maybe he had just been waiting for the roads to clear of snow. 

“I can think of no reason either,” Fingolfin was saying. “He went alone?”

“He told me that he did not wish for company,” Curufin said. “But I do not—why would he wish to return there?”

“I think Finwë has been much on his mind lately,” Findis said. She had seen Fëanor looking at paintings and haunting the cherry grove as the first flower buds emerged. Curufin looked even more unhappy at that thought, as well he might. He knew better than either Findis or Fingolfin what memories that place held. Still. “There is nothing horrible to see there anymore, Curufinwë. He will come to no harm in visiting our father’s grave.”

Curufin left them only a little mollified. “I do not like this sudden departure, either,” Fingolfin said.

“Nor do I,” said Findis. “He has been unhappy since Midwinter.”

“Yet I cannot think of anything that happened then to make him unhappy, unless it were a conversation with Nerdanel,” said Fingolfin. “Elu Thingol’s visit went as well as we could have hoped for—and Thingol himself told me he was very happy to have met and spoken to Fëanáro at last.”

“Not with Nerdanel. With Daeron.”

“Daeron?” Fingolfin turned to Findis with a frown. “When would they have quarreled?”

“On the last full day of Thingol’s visit. I caught the tail end of it. I don’t know what Fëanor said, but Daeron spoke very harshly. They must have been quarreling about Macalaurë. Lalwen is not always wrong, you know. It sounded to me that Daeron is far more than merely smitten with him.”

“I did wonder,” said Fingolfin, “but Elrond and his whole household have been very tight-lipped, and Curufinwë even more so.”

“Let Macalaurë have his privacy,” Findis said. “I’m sure Daeron was responding to something foolish that Fëanáro said, but I can think of nothing else that would still be troubling him.” Fëanáro loved his sons, that much anyone with eyes could see, but it was also clear that his sons were not ready to receive that love again. Findis could not claim to understand all the reasons why, for she had never set foot in Middle-earth, nor seen with her own eyes what their Oath had wrought. This bitter separation made her heart ache for all of them. “I think I will follow him,” she said. It was not right that Fëanor should have to shoulder his grief alone—for his sons or for their father. 

Even as she spoke Fingolfin said, “I should go after him.” They both paused, and looked at each other. “Well, we might as well both go.”

“Should we ask Lalwen?”

Fingolfin shook his head. “No. She can cheer him up when we bring him back to Tirion.”

They left Tirion less than half an hour later, riding hard north toward Formenos. It was not terribly far, but it felt isolated, out of sight and sound of any other towns or villages. A lake lay beside it, often shrouded in mist, and the mountains loomed up in the east. In the years since the Darkening the lands had grown up, forests of pine now standing where once had been wide fields and meadows, growing even up to the walls of Formenos. 

No one had tried to preserve the place, or to rebuild it after it had been abandoned in the Darkening. The gates had been shattered and the doorway remained open; the walls were crumbling, covered in moss and lichen. Findis had never been there before at all, and she glanced inside as she dismounted, half-expecting to see evidence of Finwë’s last stand as fresh as though it had just happened. There was nothing, of course, unless it were a very faint discoloration of the stone floor—but even that might have been her imagination. She did not, however, only imagine the spots in the floor that sported cracking and breaks, all in the pattern of very heavy footsteps. “Did you come here after…?” she asked Fingolfin, keeping her voice low. It was a very quiet place. A haunting and plaintive bird call echoed up from the lake. 

“No.” Fingolfin’s gaze, too, lingered on the doorway. “I think he will be near the lake. That is where Ingwë said they built the cairn.”

They found Fëanor’s horse grazing calmly nearby, and left their own horses with it. Fingolfin took Findis’ hand as they walked around the outer walls of Formenos, following the sound of water as the lake’s gentle waves washed over the shore, lapping at stones and softly gurgling through the reeds. It was still early, and mist hovered over the water’s surface. In the distance Findis glimpsed a trio of dark swans gliding across the water. 

Some distance from the water’s edge stood a green mound, covered in snowdrops, ringed with purple and white hyacinths. A yew tree grew nearby, towering and dark green in the pale morning. As the sun rose higher the mist turned golden, shimmering over the surface of the lake. Fëanor stood by the mound, arms crossed, hair blowing loose in the breeze. If one could forget what happened behind them, Findis thought as they stepped up on either side of Fëanor, this was a beautiful place, lonely as it was. “Who made this grave?” Fëanor asked after a few moments. 

“Ingwë,” said Fingolfin, “and Olwë. They buried him according to the customs of Cuiviénen.”

Fëanor’s eyes closed as tears slipped down his cheeks. “I thought it would be easier, this grief,” he said, “because I already knew it. It should at least be familiar. But it isn’t—to know I was the cause of not one but both—”

“That is not true,” Findis said. “There was nothing you did that caused Míriel’s decline.”

“Morgoth killed our father,” Fingolfin said at almost the same time.

“He would not have been here but for me—”

“Ruin would have come to us one way or another, Fëanáro,” said Findis. “Melkor was bent upon it—bent upon you. You were pushed and pushed and pushed—it is any wonder that you broke in the end?” Fëanor did not answer. He lowered his head, raising a hand to cover his eyes. His hair fell forward like a curtain to hide his face. “Atya would not want you to continue to punish yourself, Fëanáro. Why did you come out here?”

“I wanted to see him,” Fëanor whispered. “To see—where his body rests, at least. I never—they would not let me see what happened. My sons. They didn’t…”

“They love you too much for that,” Fingolfin said quietly. “I know what happened to him because it happened to me. You could not have borne it, Fëanáro. I do not know how my own son did, except that he had already seen battle and war. I cannot imagine how your sons were able to withstand it—the shock of finding him thus.”

Fëanor was silent, but his shoulders shook, and after a few seconds he sank to his knees. Findis and Fingolfin knelt with him, and Findis wrapped her arms around him. Fingolfin rested a hand on his back. Findis had never seen Fëanor weep like this—or at all. By the time he had returned to Tirion after the Darkening his grief had hardened, and he had been all burning anger. 

Findis had had many years to reflect upon what had led to the Darkening and to the flight of the Noldor. She had been left behind to hold what remained of their people together, to try to bring them some sort of order and to devise ways of finding food and keeping warm in the absence of the Trees; Ingwë’s support and guidance had been invaluable. They had all been so afraid, even those whose faith in the Valar remained strong. Then Finarfin had returned, and the two of them had fought over who would lead the Noldor in an almost farcical mirror of their brothers’ feuding, with neither of them really wanting the crown. Finarfin had taken it in the end. After the rising of the Sun and Moon the fears had died down, and many worries were ended—and Findis had found herself with ample time to think. Over and over she tried to imagine what they could have done differently, what their father should have done differently, and she could think of nothing—to make better choices they would have had to have known, and no one had known what Morgoth was doing, not even the Valar. Not until it was too late. 

The Valar should have known, but there was no use railing against them for it, especially now. Morgoth was locked away and his lieutenant destroyed—both Valinor and Middle-earth could at last know real, lasting peace. 

Except that that peace seemed out of reach for Fëanor. He was still so new-come from Mandos, and everything Findis had heard from others who had died and returned suggested that time passed strangely there. It could not feel like six thousand years and more had passed, for him, and yet the world was so completely changed from the one he had known. He still mourned for Finwë as though he had only just died, and now he mourned the rift between himself and Nerdanel, between himself and his sons which seemed no closer to closing than it had upon his first returning. Míriel lived again, but she had her duties to Vairë and came so seldom among the Eldar. And they, she and Lalwen and Fingolfin, were a poor replacement for the family he feared lost to him for ever. Findis had been trying to give him space; after she had punched him in a fit of temper upon their first reuniting that had surprised even herself, they had been getting along so well, and she had feared to ruin it by trying to speak to him of things he did not wish to share.

That had, it seemed, been a mistake. And Daeron’s words at Midwinter seemed to have pierced deeper than perhaps he had intended. Findis had spoken to Daeron only a few times, but she did not believe anyone who could make music such as his did so with a cruel heart. Still, words spoken in wrath were often barbed, and could not be taken back. It might be said that Fëanor deserved no less, having hurled such words himself—crueler words than what Daeron had spoken to him—but Findis was wise enough now, had known enough heartache herself, to recognize the pain that was the source of Fëanor’s old furies, and to forgive it. 

After a time his tears seemed to slow, or at least he ceased to shake with the force of them. Findis said, “It is not too late, you know, Fëanáro. It is never too late to love your children.” 

Fëanor did not lift his head. When he spoke it was in a hoarse whisper. “Who told you…?”

“I was in the library that day. I did not hear all of it, but I heard that, and it isn’t true. Perhaps it is not your place to judge to whom Macalaurë gives his heart, but that is only because he has long been grown, old enough to make his own choices.” 

“I know I was a fool—”

“I did not say so, Fëanáro.”

“Yet it remains true. Then and now. I cannot remember the last good choice I made. Even the Silmarils seem now the most terrible mistake—”

“They were not a mistake, Fëanáro,” said Fingolfin.

“They cost me everything.”

“No. Morgoth stole everything—the Silmarils, our father, our lives. You are not blameless in our flight east, Fëanáro, but the time for blame and for punishment is long past. The Valar have said so, and all the Eldalië have agreed. That must include self-blame and self-punishment, Fëanáro.”

“No one doubts that you love your children,” Findis said.

A ragged, anguished sound tore itself from Fëanor’s throat, and he hunched forward as though in pain. Fingolfin caught him, so both he and Findis held him enveloped between them. Findis drew his hair back, and saw his face a mask of terrible grief, tear-streaked and with eyes shut tight as though the pale morning sunlight hurt them. “They doubt it,” he whispered. “Are they not right to? After what I led them into—”

“Curufinwë does not doubt it,” said Fingolfin. 

“He does not want to.” Fëanor covered his face with both his hands. Findis drew him closer so his head rested against her shoulder, and she could stroke his hair, as she had done in long years past for her other brothers, and for Lalwen, when they came to her in tears for whatever reason big or small. She did not think any of them had ever been so heartbroken as Fëanor was now. She caught Fingolfin’s eye and nodded back toward the horses. He hesitated for only a moment before squeezing Fëanor’s shoulder and rising. 

“Your sons are too much like their father, perhaps,” Findis said as Fingolfin disappeared around the walls of Formenos in search of the horses. “They feel so deeply, both great joys and great sorrows, and even now old hurts and fears linger in their hearts. But there is time, Fëanáro.”

“We all thought that once,” Fëanor said, so softly that Findis almost could not hear. “And then the darkness came.”

“It will not come again. Melkor is cast beyond the Doors of Night, and there he will stay. Your sons love you still, Fëanáro, whatever they might say, whatever they might believe themselves. I cannot counsel you—I do not know if there is anything more you can do, except to give them the space and the time they ask for. In the meantime, do not try to carry this burden alone. You are not alone in your grief, Brother. I am sorry if we have made it seem so.”

“You haven’t,” Fëanor sighed. He leaned against her, and lowered one of his hands from his face to her arm. Fingolfin returned with a flask of miruvórë, though he did not immediately offer it to Fëanor, only kneeling again on the grass beside him. “How did you know I had come here?” Fëanor asked after a moment. He sounded as though his tears had dried, leaving him spent. 

“Curufinwë came to ask if you and I had fought,” Fingolfin said. “I think he feared I had banished you back here. He is worried for you, Fëanáro.”

“I did not wish for company.”

“We do not apologize for bringing it,” said Findis, “for that is the price you pay for siblings that love you. There is miruvórë, Fëanáro. Drink some.” Fingolfin held out the flask, and after a moment of hesitation Fëanor took it. He sat up, and Findis drew his hair again back from his face, teasing out a few tangles with her fingers before weaving it into a simple plait. 

“Do you, really?” Fëanor asked, not looking up at either of them, instead appearing to examine the designs inlaid on the flask in his hands. 

“Full brother in heart, Fëanáro,” Fingolfin said softly. “So I pledged long ago, and so I pledge now.”

Fëanor did look up then, and then he reached out to clasp Fingolfin’s hand. “So I too pledge, and this time I will follow where you lead, Nolofinwë,” he said. A breeze swept up over the lake then, scattering the last of the mists and blowing through the flowers upon Finwë’s grave. Their sweet scents filled the air.

“Come home with us, Fëanáro,” Findis said. “Do not linger here in this place of exile and death. Our father is not here.” 

Fëanor looked at the grave. “His memory lingers,” he said. 

“He would not wish for us to,” said Fingolfin. He rose to his feet and held out his hand. Fëanor grasped it without hesitation, and then both of them offered a hand to Findis. She let them pull her up and then threw one arm around each of them. 

“I make no pledges, for I will go where I wish without care for who leads or follows,” she said. And in that moment she felt such an up swelling of hope as she had not felt since the coming of Eärendil to Valinor long ago. “But let no grief old or new divide us! What form it will take, I cannot say, but my heart tells me great light and joy awaits us in the coming years. Yes, even you, Fëanáro!” she said when he shook his head. “Look! This place was once desecrated by the Enemy and yet now green things have returned to it, and even the stones of Formenos are now overtaken by moss and wild roses! Flowers ever bloom upon the grave of Finwë Noldóran. It may be that even he will return to us someday!”

Fëanor shook his head again. “That is a dangerous hope,” he said. “It is not one I can hold onto.”

“Nor I,” said Fingolfin. “If you are wrong, Findis—”

“Of course I cannot know whether I am right or wrong—it is estel that I speak of, and is it not estel that has saved us all, over and over again?” Findis released their shoulders to grasp their hands. “Is it not estel that shines in the morning and the evening through your own Silmaril, Fëanáro?”

“It is not my own,” Fëanor said. “Not anymore.”

“Yet it was made by your hands. And have not so many other impossible things happened already? It was said once that you, Fëanáro, would not return from Mandos until the end of days! I say to you now: one day the House of Finwë will be united in full, united as we have never been before, when our father is returned to us.”

They turned back toward the grave, with its flowers shivering in the breeze, and toward the lake where the last of the mist had burned away in the bright spring morning. For a few moments they stood in silence, before Findis turned away and drew her brothers after her, back toward the horses and the road home. They did not look back—at the lake, at the cairn, or toward the doors as they passed by.

When they arrived in Tirion they found Curufin waiting for them by the stables, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, head bowed until the sound of their arrival drew him out of wherever his thoughts had wandered. “Curvo?” Fëanor looked surprised to see him. 

“Atya!” Curufin threw his arms around Fëanor the moment he dropped out of the saddle. Findis took the reins and led Fëanor’s horse away with her own.

“Are there any other impossible hopes you are determined will come to pass?” Fingolfin asked her as the stable hands came to take the horses in for brushing and fresh feed. 

“Do you speak of Fëanáro’s sons?” Findis asked. “I do believe that rift will be mended. They will return to him, given time.”

“Even Macalaurë?” Fingolfin’s eyes, the same shade of silver-grey as Fëanor’s, were troubled. “You did not hear him, Findis. I have never known him to be so angry.”

“Was it truly anger, or is that just the shape his hurt and heartbreak took that day?” Findis asked. “Yes, I believe even Macalaurë loves him still. They are all Fëanáro’s sons, and love no less deeply than he does.” She glanced toward Fëanor, who stood with his arms still wrapped tightly round Curufin as they spoke together in low voices. “Given time, they will remember it.”