Okay, I admit it. I love the happier moments rather than the tragic, angsty moments in Tolkien's Middle-earth "history." This little story was not only what I imagined happening just after the birth of Finwe and Indis' first-born son, but I also wrote this as a pre-baby gift (or maybe it was post-baby) gift for Rhapsody after the birth of her son. I gave the summary of this story as: A brief glimpse of a happy moment in the House of Finwe. As the House of Finwe seemed doomed to tragedy, I thought a little one-shot fic-lite of what had to be a precious, happy moment deserved time in the spotlight.

hy does he cry?" Finwe asked. He was hesitant in taking the child, even though his hands were held out to receive him.

"You woke both of us up, dear," she replied with only the slightest hint of sarcasm. Finwe looked as if he would leave immediately, so she put the crying baby in his hands, making him hold their son. "But I will not deny you your first meeting with our firstborn." She reached out and caressed his face and ran her fingers lightly through his dark hair.

Finwe smiled and then looked down at the baby. He unwrapped the blanket, and proceeded to check fingers and toes, just as she had done not an hour before. Finwe's smile widened each passing moment, and it warmed Indis' heart. Wrapping the baby back up, Finwe retrieved a chair and sat down, holding his son close to him. It was the perfect picture of father and son that Indis was sure she would see nothing else in her dreams.

That is, once she had the opportunity to sleep.

Smiling at her husband and son, she relaxed into her blankets. She watched the two as they bonded: the baby cooing instead of crying, and Finwe making little baby noises and making faces. A tiny hand reached up for Finwe's face and patted it as only babies could.

My love for Tolkien and his books started when I was 9 years old and stole Lord of the Rings from my parents’ bookshelf. After I devoured the trilogy I stole Silmarillion and encountered my first crush, Maedhros. I read the books over and over without breaks until my parents took them away and hid them to get me to read something else. That is when I started writing my own stories, although at that time I had never heard the term fanfiction...

  good son, my aunt had told me, would stand by his father at this time. After all, my father had lost his first wife to the birth of his firstborn, a not so subtle reminder that I had cost my mother her life. A good son would look forward to the birth of a baby brother or sister. I was not a good son; I already hated the brat trying to push its way out of that woman’s body. She was not a second wife, she was a whore, a concubine to a king, nothing more. Why would I celebrate her bastards, even if my father was so besotted by lust that he acknowledged them as his?

My father paced the hallway, anxiously looking at the door before looking at me. I knew he wanted to say something, wanted me to say something, to reassure him that no one would die this time. I said nothing. I met his eyes in sullen silence and prayed, for the first time in my life, that Namo would take the bitch and her mongrel like he had once taken my mother. I wanted them to die. I never prayed again after that.

If The Lord of the Rings is a story, The Silmarillion is an outline. The first provides hints of a deep history and untold back-stories for the characters and events it portrays, the second provides names and places. Writing about the first is filling in gaps; writing about the second is creation. The stories in The Silmarillion are not in The Silmarillion; they are in the minds of the readers. There is no better challenge.

We know the least about Ingwe and nothing about the first Elves. We may create the most.

ngwe looked at his friends Finwe, Olwe, and Elwë with a question in his eyes.

“I see what you do but I know not what it means.” Olwe said.

“We should be quiet; we are not to be here.” Finwe whispered.

Ingwe stood and said, “Let us leave, but also let us find one we can ask of.”

“What seek you to know?” said a deep voice from behind them. They turned and saw the Thirty-Seventh male to awaken. “Move toward the waters and we may talk.”

The group walked to the shores of Cuiviénen and sat where they could hear the sound of the water.

“What have we seen?” Elwë asked. “Three females enter the hut and three and a baby leave. Was that an awakening?”

“No that was a birth and it is more than an awakening. We were awakened by the One Who Can Do All. We ourselves bring about birth.”

“Were you awakened?” Ingwe asked.

“Yes.”

“Was I born from my parents or awakened by the One?” Olwe asked.

“Born.”

“Am I greater or lesser than you?”

“Each of us is, all else is detail.”

And they all sat and looked at the water and thought.

The House of Fëanor was what first drew my fascination as a Tolkien fan and inspired me to write stories based on his work. Nothing is black and white about these characters; all is done in shades of gray begging for exploration in story. I fell hard. And so--bad pun intended--a new Silmfic author was born.

Take Fëanor himself: here is a character whose actions brought about more destruction of almost any character short of Morgoth ... or Túrin! Yet, without Fëanor, the Noldor would likely never have gone to Middle-earth, Morgoth quite likely never would have been apprehended by the Valar (at long last), the Rings of Power would never have been forged, and Sauron would never have been ensnared and destroyed.

The first short story I wrote about The Silmarillion was called "Lament the Morning" and was set on the first night after Míriel Þerindë's "death," told from Finwë's point of view. It seems appropriate for the subtopic of Birth for a number of reasons. Personally, it represents, in many ways, my birth as a fantasy and Silmfic author. At this point, I'd written a novel, a novella, a play, and a short story set in Tolkien's world. No longer could I call my new hobby a passing fancy; it seemed it was here to stay. (It was.)

Literally, the story is about birth: Fëanor's birth. Symbolically, the story is about birth as well. Míriel's death marks the beginning of the discord among the Noldor, which would later cause their exile. With Fëanor's arrival, the Noldor were born into a new fate: one where they were no longer content to live in "bliss" with the Valar but set to create their own happiness and destiny in Middle-earth. As mentioned earlier, this marked the beginning of salvation for the citizens of Middle-earth.

inwë Fëanáro."

sparkled in her eyes when she made the pronouncement, joy like diamonds, like chips of light fallen across her face.

Finwë Fëanáro.

And I was a father.

A father! How I was seized at joy with the thought--I, who went always without a father of my own--suddenly the part-creator of the marvelous little being that cried and kicked in my wife's arms. I wanted to pound down the stairs and into the court, where my stone-faced lords awaited word of the new prince; I would kiss each of them on their marble-carved faces until they collapsed into smiles; I would laugh and seize handfuls of their robes in my fists and shake them and demand, "Do you know that Finwë your King is now a father?"

A father!

There were my hands, reaching out to take my son--my son!--from my wife. So tiny he was, yet so perfect! I marveled at the tiny hands swatting at the air, each capped with a miniature fingernail, and at his wide gray eyes and the downy black hair upon his head.

In my hands, he stopped crying. His gray eyes blinked, and he looked at me. He held me in thrall. For this tiny creature, unable to walk or speak, small enough to lie in my hand--I realized--I would do anything. No sacrifice would be too dear. I would take a hammer in my hand and smash anything of value. For this little being--my son, my Finwë Fëanáro--had made all of it worthless to me.

I sank onto the bed and stared at him, unrelenting, while he stared, unblinking, back. Beside me, Miriel wept. Don't make me let him go, I thought. Please, don't make me.

I will do anything to keep him.

Anything.

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