Work Text:
As is the way of dreams, I know I have not stepped back onto Losgar’s beach. The wind that screams along the shoreline is none other than that of the mountain, swinging me as I hang, throwing my body roughly against the rockface.
I stalk away from the bay where rigging creaks like jangling iron and thread my way through a half-pitched camp. Common people raise tents, their hammers striking harshly like the thudding of my heart. It thunders with fear because I know, this time, that waves lull my unsuspecting brother to sleep, and hindsight has shown me where his death will lead.
The whole encampment moves in a synchrony of concentric circles: a great, surreal dance choreographed around one centre, one heart, and it has become rotten, eroded to madness by grief. Father stands before me, in the centre. I do not stand tall before him. I kneel. I plead. I mention no names. My tears fall, scorching as acid.
Father does not stand proud and unmoveable, refusing me, but crumbles and says, instead, “as you wish, Nelyafinwë.” Defeated, he yields before me, and somehow, this is worse: Fëanor undone. Dawn comes redder than flames in the night.