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Fëanor is bad at sleeping, notoriously bad in fact. So, when Nerdanel awoke in the silver light of Tyelperion and found her husband's spot beside her in bed empty, long abandoned and cold it shouldn't have been alarming. Fëanor often worked on his many projects when others were sleeping.
He'd explained to her more than once that the best ideas came to him in reverie and the ideas demanded so strongly to be actualised, it felt like his flesh was burning if he didn't rush to go make them happen. It was an aspect of her husband that had profoundly annoyed her in the beginning of their marriage because every time he would get up out of their bed, it would wake her.
Then they had, had the children and having him already be awake when they cried, had been such a blessing.
Right now though, something was wrong. Nerandel tried to speak to Fëanor with osanwë but there was no answer from him. He was likely so engrossed in his crafting that he simply hadn't heard her. The children were all asleep in their beds. The cat was curled up before the fire. There was nothing strange about the house.
Yet, she could not shake this growing sense of panic that was rising in her chest.
She picked up her dressing gown, tying it tightly to ward off the chilly air and went in search of her husband.
He was not in the main part of the house, nor his study. He was not at the stable talking to Celegorm's horses about his mathematical problems, nor in the smithy he shared with Curufin. The same smithy that had been relocated to the end of the vegetable garden to prevent either of them from setting the house on fire, again.
Twice was enough.
She didn't think Carnistir would ever forgive them for burning his first attempt at a tapestry. The smouldering pile of terrifying to view wonky kittens had been a sore spot between them for many years now.
Fëanor then, must be at his 'secret' forge. A forge secret in name only to the children, Nerandel knew where it was. It was only held secret because it was where Fëanor stored the more dangerous materials of his trade and the more unstable of his experiments. Things Curufin, as advanced as he was in his apprenticeship wouldn't be able to make safe on his own without his father's help.
The feeling didn't get any better when Nerandel finally rounded the curve in the path that hid the simple stone building behind a large boulder and small coppice of stunted pine trees and found the building simply wasn't there. There was however, large pieces of stone lying everywhere and a startlingly, bright light that seemed to be flowing out from the ruin. A light so heavy and thick feeling that it behaved like a liquid, seeping into the grass growing around her feet, which in turn began to glow all on it's own.
Nerandel paid it little attention, scrambling her way to the epicentre, half in the desperate hope to find Fëanor and half in terror of what she would find there.
A large piece of twisted metal scraped the side of her leg as she passed too closely by it but Nerandel paid this also little heed. As she stepped into the ring where the wall had stood until very recently, she saw him laying there upon the floor, his raven hair splayed out around him like it had been perfectly styled to do so and in his hands, tightly gripped was a hammer and a chisel.
All around him and indeed all over him were shards of what she at first thought was shattered glass.
'I swear if you've taken up glass blowing again, I'm going to wring your neck.' Was Nerdanel's first thought but almost as soon as she thinks it she realised that it's not glass. This glittering dust was remnants of some great gem. Fëanor had been talking about perfecting his gem lamps recently. He'd had some sort of dream and as much as she loved her husband and took great delight in his creative process (almost more so then he did at times) Fëanor's excitement was just a little too obsessive over this than she could cope with.
He was warm when she touched him with shaking hands. Breathing too when Nerandel put her ear to his mouth and with great relief felt his hot puffs of air against her cheek.
Fëanor was not responding to her calls, neither through osanwë or speech nor would he respond to touch. The explosion may have knocked him unconscious.
She can't leave him to go for help and she can't carry him, so Nerandel called to her three oldest children for help. Maedhros her eldest answered first, she can almost see him jumping out of bed, desperate to race to them.
"Maedhros wake Maglor and Celegorm. Bring the healing bag and a thick blanket. Make Celegorm go get your grandfather Mahtan. Something has happened to your father. Let me know when you're ready and I'll show both Maglor and you the way."
She get's a glimpse of his rushed steps to Maglor's bedroom before the connection snaps closed once again. Fëanor is still lying prone in front of him.
Brushing the flecks of crystal from his face and chest was relatively easy, though the larger pieces stabbed into her skin like tiny little crystalline splinters.
Fëanor moaned and tried to move but Nerdanel held him down on the ground. Visually he looked to be uninjured but that did not mean that he had actually come out of this unscathed. Her husband had given himself concussion on more that one occasion. She wasn't going to risk potentially worsening anything without Fëanor actually seeing a medical professional first.
Nerdanel gently took his left hand into her own. The flesh was reassuringly warm.
"I know it must hurt My Love but you need to keep still so that the healer can assess you properly. I'm here. Everything is going to be okay." She tried to comfort him.
Fëanor's face was covered in a damp sheen of sweat, his brows tightly drawn together in pain.
There was the sound of running footsteps on the path coming up to the workshop. Maedhros was here.
"Your eldest son is here darling." She whispered before calling out to Russo and lifting her lamp so that he could better see where they were. Maedhros blanched at the sight of his father lying semi-conscious on the floor, surrounded by sparkling chips of some great crystal.
"He's still alive!" Nerdanel reassured him and gestured for her son to bring the bag of healing supplies closer.
He nervously approached, already undoing the ties to the bag's opening. Nerdanel blindly shoved her hand into it's depths, pulling out a vial of smelling salts and speedily uncorking it. It's smell made her gag but it was important that they try to raise Fëanor from his torpor. There was only so much she could do without being able to ask him where he was hurt and how it hurt. For such questions to be answered, Fëanor needed to be conscious.
Fëanor sat bolt upright, the second she held the opened bottle beneath his nose. Like magic Nerdanel had to quickly move out of the way in order to make sure she wasn't headbutted.
"Are you hurt anywhere?" Nerdanel asked.
"Where is the Silmaril?" Fëanor's eyes were crazed, his fingers still tightly holding onto the tools.
"What's a Silmaril?" Maedhros asked brow heavily creased.
"The crystal! The crystal I was working on!" Fëanor cried.
Maedhros scooped up a handful of the shattered crystal in his hands, careful not to impale himself on the sharp points of it. He held it up into his father's line of sight and Fëanor grabbed hold of his son's hand, tipping the contents out of it as though it might burn him.
"I'm sorry Atto. It looks like there was an explosion at your forge." Maedhros tried to gently break the news to him.
Fëanor started to maniacally laugh doubled over, as he laid upon the floor still too dazed to attempt to sit up or stand yet. Nerdanel and her eldest son shared worried looks over the top of his head.
"That's good. That's good!" He cried and then began to vomit blood. Nerdanel blanched.
"Where are you?" Her father's voice boomed from somewhere close by.
She looked and saw him emerge from the bushes and the fear began to subside slightly, even as Fëanor threw up more blood into his lap.
"What a state you've got yourself into son." Mahtan said in his comforting voice. He took over the first aid, assessing the likely wounds hidden on the inside. "Forge explosion?" He asked looking at the carnage that had taken place in the space that had been part of the forge.
"It's something to do with this crystal." Maedhros said pushing a little pile of the pieces together with his foot.
Mahtan nodded, leaning to pick up a piece before having it slapped out of his hand by his son-in-law who was laughing again. His bloody teeth and lips were a gristly sight to behold.
Nerdanel grimaced, using her sleeve to wipe his mouth clean. "What have you done husband?"
"I've saved us all from destruction my love. From the annihilation of our house!" Fëanor shouted before promptly fainting.