you're in the wind, i'm in the water by atlantablack

Creon: Why did you try to bury your brother?
Antigone: I owed it to him. 

[…]

Creon: Polynices was a rebel and a traitor, and you know it. 
Antigone: He was my brother.

Antigone | Jean Anouilh

☀︎

the first loop

Fingolfin wakes up in his bed. This would not be notable except for two very important things. One - he is staring at the ceiling of a room he has not seen since he left Aman, following his brother into exile. Two - he rather vividly remembers viciously stabbing his sword through Morgoth’s foot right before Morgoth quite thoroughly killed him. He does not think that kind of pain is something one can simply dream up. Does not think Beleriand and everything it entailed is something he could dream up.

But the room does not yet dissolve into a dream and so, for lack of better options, he gets out of bed. Stands at the window staring at the light of Laurelin and waiting for whatever strange dream this is to evaporate. He has grown so used to the light of the sun that once again seeing the light of the trees is strange. It is not, precisely, that the light of the trees is not beautiful or that he does not still appreciate it, it is only that half of his heart lies in Beleriand and it is disheartening to him to know that the lands there still lie shrouded in darkness if the trees live.

He is, after spending entirely too long staring out the window, forced to concede that this does not seem to be any sort of dream. Everything he touches is solid, his fëa feels firmly anchored within his hröa, and when he pinches himself, the pain feels quite real. He does not know what exactly is happening, but he won’t figure it out standing here. So, he squares his shoulders, gets dressed, and sets out to figure out what year it is. It is impossible to make a plan if he does not know what has happened and what has not. And he must make a plan.

He does not have to wander far to find someone. Finds Atar in the library with both of his brothers. Wonders absently if he too was meant to be at this meeting but is too distracted drinking in the sight of his father to truly care. How very strange to have lived so long without his father and now, to have him here once again. It is one thing to know that you will one day meet your kin again after being reborn but another entirely to meet your kin once again when none but you are aware that any deaths have occurred.

“I see that your lectures on punctuality are just as hypocritical as I’ve always suspected them to be,” Fëanor says spitefully, a sneer on his face when Fingolfin looks to him.

He would have had a clever comeback for that before he knows, not that he would have ever shown up late before. Now he can only stare, struck by how tame his brother’s dislike of him is, for he cannot even call what he is looking at hatred compared to the madness and disgusted hatefulness that he’d grown so accustomed to at the end. It seems in his memories that it was always hatred. That he was born knowing Fëanor did not want him to exist. And now here is his brother and Fingolfin realizes that he does not recognize him. Has grown too used to being hated to know what to do when he is not.

“I apologize,” he says after his silence drags too long and Fëanor’s sneer has dropped in confusion. “I did not recall there was a meeting today.” Finarfin’s brow furrows in confusion but Fingolfin does not let himself linger on his little brother’s face lest he go back to staring. He never had managed to decide if he was grateful that his younger brother was safe in Aman with his mother or if he was terribly resentful at Finarfin for abandoning him. This certainly isn’t the time to try to figure it out again.

“Are you feeling well, Arakáno?” his father asks, concern creasing his face. Fingolfin stifles the startled flinch that wants to go through him at the sound of his mother-name. Cannot recall the last time he heard it.

“I’m quite well, Atar,” he says, smiling blandly and moving to sit in the seat next to Fëanor. “I was only pre-occupied with my thoughts and forgot.” He waves his hand dismissively when they all stare at him. He understands their disbelief of course. He had always tried so very hard to be the perfect prince, the perfect son, as if by overcompensating for all of Fëanor’s perceived flaws he could win more of his father’s affection. That had never had a chance of working, he knows now. But still, it would have been unheard of for him to forget any type of meeting no matter the year, especially one that Fëanor was going to attend. That Fëanor has beaten him to this one says much. He is not, truly, even sure how late he is.

They are, as it turns out, discussing the upcoming harvest festival and the parts their father wants them to play in it. He tries to think of a way to naturally work in a question regarding the year and cannot. Listens attentively though and learns that Morgoth is free already, annoying but not surprising. He is unsure as to why he is here, but he cannot imagine why he would have been sent back to a time before Morgoth. Unfortunately, this is all he manages to glean from the conversation. They are all infuriatingly useless in giving up any significant information that could narrow it down for him.

He does try to pay attention, truly, but once his father begins discussing Maglor’s musical performance with Fëanor he finds his thoughts drifting. Absently taps his fingers against his thigh and tries to decide on what his next move should be. First things first, he will go find the accounting books in his study and figure out the year. Easy enough without arousing suspicion. Second things second… he has not the slightest idea. How does one go about fixing an un-fixable relationship with their half-brother, saving their father, and preventing a kinslaying. And those only the largest and most imminent issues! He should perhaps worry about the trees as well, but he does not care to waste time figuring out a solution for that when their destruction will bring about the sun and moon. Let them die as long as their deaths do not pose problems for any future plans he comes up with.

He does wonder if he would stand a better chance in a fight with Morgoth while they are the same relative height. He had gotten in seven blows before, how many more could he get in with the advantage of surprise on his side? Even if it does not kill him it could perhaps force him to reveal his machinations earlier, saving them all a good deal of trouble. And if it does not… well. Perhaps it will be Fingolfin this time who gets sent into exile. That would be interesting. Or, perhaps, for the crime of attacking a Vala he would be exiled to Beleriand itself! The timing would be inconvenient but he could work with it. Still, this is not, he knows, a very practical plan. Only a very satisfying one.

He jerks sideways with a yelp as Fëanor jabs him in the side. Turns his head to glare only to realize they are all staring at him. Again. “Ah,” he says, trying to think of a reasonable excuse and coming up blank. “I apologize. Again. I was thinking.”

Fëanor’s gaze is very hot against his cheek. Finarfin and Atar both look far more concerned about him about than he thinks the situation truly warrants. “What has happened that has you troubled so?” his father asks, leaning forward intently.

“I am not troubled,” he says and ignores Fëanor’s disbelieving scoff. “Only easily distracted today it would seem.” Absolutely no one looks like as if they believe him.

“If you are sure. Still, perhaps we will finish this discussion at a later time. It is not so urgent that it cannot wait.”

“A reasonable plan,” he says, immediately standing and moving for the door. “I will speak with you all later.” He heads for his study as soon as he’s out the door.

It is, he finds after pulling the book off its shelf with hands that do not shake, the year 1435. He sits down heavily and stares at the numbers scratched out by his own hand. He has only fifty years by reckoning of the trees but hopefully that is enough time. He only needs a plan. And a sword. It is very unfortunate that no one has begun making them yet. If he wants one, he will either have to forge it himself or find someone to forge it for him which… will invite questions. He has never spent much time in the forge though. He’s perfectly capable of basic forging but it has never been his preferred craft and he’s not sure he would trust a sword made by his own hand. Not without spending more time than he cares to practicing.

He tries to imagine Fëanor’s face if he were to suddenly start spending time in the forge and has to swallow a hysterical laugh. It would only be another reason for his brother to hate him. His brother who is alive and not slain on a battlefield. His father who is not yet dead at Morgoth’s hand. His son, he realizes with a bolt of grief, who has not yet died before he could even experience the land he had crossed the ice to reach. All his children are still safely within his reach. His wife still stands at his side. He has grown so used to being without her that he had not thought to wonder where she is. He has to put the book down so that he can cover his face and cry. This does not feel real. How can any of this be real? To what purpose has he been sent back if not only to experience all the grief anew. For surely he alone cannot foil the net of malice Morgoth had woven throughout Aman.

“Are you still going to say that you are not troubled?” Fëanor asks sometime later. He looks up to find Fëanor standing in the doorway of his study watching him. Perhaps he should feel honored that Fëanor has decided that he needed to be followed. He mostly just feels annoyed.

“I am not troubled,” he says just to be spiteful. Fëanor scowls at him and stalks into his study to look at the accounting book he’d thrown on the desk.

“Your finances cannot be that dire,” Fëanor says, scowling even harder. "What is wrong with you? You are acting very strange."

“Nothing is wrong,” he says, ignoring scowl that earns him. “I’m quite well. There’s just…” he trails off, waves a hand through the air to encompass everything. “I’m fine, my brother,” he says, hoping it will nettle Fëanor into leaving. Fëanor though only narrows his eyes because of course he would choose this moment to see through that trick. Well, that’s fine, if Fëanor won’t leave he will. “Regardless,” he says as he stands, “I have things to do. I need to find Anairë and speak with her.”

Fëanor's eyes narrow even further. “Anairë?”

“Yes, you know, my wife. Is that a problem?” He doesn’t care for the queer look that Fëanor gives him. It's a bit too close to concern and Fëanor does not do concern when it comes to him.

“Anairë is in Alqualondë with Eärwen and has been for the past two weeks. They won’t be back for another two. Atar mentioned it earlier while we were waiting for you. You should know that.”

Fingolfin wonders if he can get a second restart of this day. One where he isn’t still mentally reeling from dying and everyone he loves being very much alive. “Right,” he says, at a loss for what else to say. He refuses to say that Fëanor looks concerned but there is definitely less dislike than normal. He decides to not attempt anymore lies that may not land and instead heads for the door. Perhaps walking through Tirion will help him think. It’s been so very long since he’s seen the city, it’ll be good to re-familiarize himself with it. He just needs some air, needs to make a plan.

Predictably, Fëanor follows him instead of taking the hint to go away. “I did not realize you were so awful at lying,” Fëanor says, sounding far too pleased about it. 

Fingolfin is not even going to grace that with a response. He is quite capable of lying. Perhaps not at the moment but he feels he has good reason to be a bit off.

He stops moving the moment he walks outside. Stands at the top of the palace steps and has to fight down the tears that want to come. He hadn't truly comprehended the sight of the city from his window earlier, too stuck in the idea that this may all be a dream. But here is Tirion, sprawled out before him, just as beautiful as he remembers it being. He had missed it. Despite how dearly he loves Beleriand, Tirion is still his home, and he wants to save it from the dissent and unrest that Morgoth is spreading like poison through it.

He wants Tirion to stay exactly as it is. Peaceful. Safe. Full of joy and love and music. No funerals. No oaths sworn.  He does not want those born here to ever have grief touch them if they do not wish it.

"Ñolofinwë?" Fëanor's voice shakes him out of his thoughts. He has been staring for too long again.

He doesn't answer, heads for the city. He has no destination in mind, only the desire to lose his brother so that he can think and be maudlin in peace. He just needs one day to come to terms with… everything. At least one day. He has time aplenty to take a few days to orient himself and plan but he must have at least one.

Unfortunately, shaking Fëanor when he has his attention set on something is an impossible task. Made even more impossible the moment he'd realized Fingolfin was trying to shake him. After the fourth failed attempt, during which he'd nearly run into three people and Fëanor had looked entirely too pleased with himself, he gives up. He doesn't know what it is Fëanor is hoping to accomplish other than annoying him, but he fears he will not be getting away.

Fëanor tries to start up a conversation only once and sounds terribly uncomfortable about it. But Fingolfin is not sure he can handle any type of conversation with any grace. Feels a little brittle, a little like the reality of what is happening has finally begun to truly sink in. Everything around him is very bright and loud and overwhelmingly real, emphasizing over and over again, this is not a dream, this is not a dream. Their people laughing and greeting him as he goes by, the way all their smiles look so very innocent to his eyes. Morgoth's lie have not sunk in so deep as to pollute the joy, his father has not yet been murdered and left a shroud of shocked grief suffocating them all. And this is not Beleriand where even the true smiles were tinged with an exhaustion that never quite went away.

They are all so alive. Meanwhile Fingolfin feels like part of him is still stuck in Beleriand, blood on his teeth and an all-consuming anger splintering out of control. Like he'll blink and once again see Morgoth's foot coming down. He wants. What does he want? He does not wish to be dead. He is, he supposes, grateful for this chance to fix things as much as they can be fixed. But he wants.

He wants for Fëanor to know him. Wants to work through all the ugly words and acts of violence that had divided them and come out the other side better for it. He cannot throw all the scathing anger in his chest at a brother who does not understand. Cannot scream at this Fëanor for burning the boats, for leaving them to the ice, for Elenwë, for Arakáno, for the countless others who had followed him and paid for it. And so what is he meant to do with the anger? He cannot swallow it all down forever and also salvage his relationship with Fëanor in this new song.

He wants, he thinks, watching a potter unmake a bowl that was marred, to un-sing himself as well. That would not solve anything, would lead only to a repeat of the same dismal future, but he does not want to be the only one to remember when he has all this anger inside of him, all this grief. They lost so many people. To the ice, to the battles, to a land that was hostile to them even as they loved it. He does not want to be so terribly alone. The sole grave in a city that does not yet know death.

He does not know how long he wanders the city lost in thought, knows only that Fëanor shadows him the entire time. Which is strange in and of itself. It has always been the other way around. For much of his childhood he’d found just as much safety in that shadow as he had suffocation. He hadn’t yet understood that his brother only tolerated him. Had followed him around, content in the knowledge that as long as he kept his footsteps in his brother’s shadow then nothing could harm him. It hadn’t occurred to him that hurt would come from his brother. And then he’d gotten old enough to realize that his brother tolerated him but did not want him. Had gotten old enough that his brother stopped blunting his words.

Eru, but part of him is still that same child clinging to his brother’s robes as he follows him from lesson to lesson. It feels like all he had ever wanted was for his brother to look at him and see him instead of a threat or a burden or a mistake. Stupid of him really. How do you fix a relationship that’s been rotten since it was created?

He is beginning to consider turning and heading back to the palace when he turns a corner and freezes, ignoring Fëanor bumping into him. There is Morgoth a bit farther down the street. He takes a deep breath. Reminds himself that he does not even have a sword and so attacking is simply not an option. Not that he should attack to begin with. And maybe, maybe, he could have walked away but he looks to the elf Morgoth is speaking with and everything in his mind goes as still and as white as freshly fallen snow.

Fingon is not smiling, does not look to even be particularly interested in whatever conversation is happening, but he is still talking with Morgoth and Fingolfin has had a very trying day and simply cannot be expected to bear the sight of Morgoth talking to one of his children as if he does not want them all dead.

"Fing— Findekáno," he calls, regrets how tight and furious his voice sounds.

Fingon's head snaps around, eyes terribly wide. He walks away from Morgoth without even saying goodbye which would be more satisfying if Morgoth did not take that as a fucking invitation to trail along after him.

"Atar," Findekáno says warily, eyeing Fëanor with no small amount of trepidation. It is uncommon to see them both in one place when not necessary. Uncommon for Fingolfin to speak to any of his children in anger. “Has something happened?”

“Come, I need to speak with you at home.” He tries to banish the anger from his voice and fails. Moves to leave, knowing Fingon will follow, but cannot get away fast enough.

“Prince Ñolofinwë,” Morgoth says, voice slick and sickeningly pleasant. “And Prince Fëanáro. How fortunate I am to run into you both at once.”

That terrible, jagged anger is clawing its way up his throat again. The same anger that had led him to an unwinnable battle and he must leave, or he will do something incomparably stupid. “We are busy,” he snaps, not even bothering with the pointless exercise of trying to stay pleasant. “Let’s go, Findekáno.” He forces himself to turn his back to Morgoth, despite every instinct telling him otherwise, and stalks off.

The noise of the city is strangely muffled, his heartbeat very loud in his ears. If only he’d had a sword. He is not sure if he will be better able to play nice with Morgoth once he has had a few days to cool down. Has an ugly feeling that he will not be able to ever speak to Morgoth with anything other than venom ever again. Which means, which means, he needs a sword. A terrible plan. He wants to say that he can do better than that but is not sure he can. Not while Morgoth is near his family. He simply cannot bear to let Morgoth slide more lies and hatred into the minds of those he loves.

A hand grabs his wrist, pulling him to a halt, the grip bruising, and he swings his fist without even thinking. Fëanor catches his fist and Fingolfin blinks at him in surprise. His heart is pounding like he’s run a race he realizes. Fëanor is frowning severely at him and when he looks around he finds Fingon staring at him with wide eyes.

“Where are you going?” Fëanor asks, voice surprisingly calm.

Fingolfin stares at him, looks around and realizes that he is… nowhere near the palace. “I—” he grasps for an answer and can only find the truth. “Away from Morgoth.” Fëanor’s frown deepens. “Melkor,” he corrects. He is not doing a very good job at whatever it is he was meant to do being thrown back to this time. He tugs his hands out of Fëanor’s grip and looks around once more. He must have either been walking terribly fast or he’s walked for longer than he thought, for he’s brought them out to the edge of the city. Close to Fëanor’s house actually.

“Go ahead,” Fëanor says, “tell me again that you aren’t troubled.” He raises an eyebrow expectantly.

“I’m not troubled,” he snaps. “I know exactly what the trouble is. That isn’t the problem.”

“But there is a problem.”

Fingolfin is not going to grace that with a response. Turns to Fingon instead. “I apologize, Findekáno. I am not angry with you, only… well. I am not angry with you.” He smiles apologetically and gets an uncertain smile in return.

“It’s fine, Atar,” he says, glances at his uncle. He looks terribly young and Fingolfin feels another stab of rage at how quickly his youth had been stolen from him.

“Alright, let’s go,” Fëanor says, grabbing Fingolfin’s arm. “We’re going to my house. You’re going to explain why you’ve lost your fucking mind overnight. You have never been so blatantly rude to someone before. Let alone one of the Valar.”

“Fuck the Valar," he mutters before he can stop himself. Ignores Fëanor's startled look. "I am not going to run away. You can let go of me.” he says, annoyed and slightly amused despite himself. He is not sure where Fëanor thinks he could run away to that he would not be found immediately.

“You have been trying to run away from me all day,” Fëanor points out. “And that was without me forcing you to explain what’s wrong.”

“It is amusing that you think you can force me to do anything,” he says. Tries to think of what he’s going to tell him and gets distracted by the idea that this is the closest Fëanor has come to showing concern for him since… Eru, since childhood probably. If he had realized acting wildly out of character would shock Fëanor into showing an emotion other than hate he’d have tried it a long time ago.

“I’m sure I can find a way,” Fëanor says mildly. It’s a bit unnerving how calm Fëanor is being about all of this actually. Still abrasive but… strangely calm. Fingolfin doesn’t trust it.

Findekáno breaks away from them when they reach the house. Gives him another uncertain smile and then makes a beeline for where Nelyafinwë is sitting under a tree. He should do something about that after Morgoth is dealt with. Proclaim his support so they don’t spend the next few centuries acting like their secret is well kept.

He is marched into Fëanor’s study and deposited in a chair near the fire. He blinks at him in bemusement as he sits down across from him. “I feel as if I’m on trial,” he says. “I can promise I have committed no crimes.” Yet.

Fëanor scoffs. “Well, that wasn’t going to be my first question, but good to know we can cross that off. Tell me what's wrong."

“Why? If I want help I certainly wouldn’t be here. It isn’t as if you've ever bothered pretending to care before.” It comes out far more bitter than he’d meant for it to and he wants to stuff the words back down his throat as soon as he says them. This is absolutely not helping with the goal of fixing his relationship with Fëanor. He has fifty years until the trouble starts, surely a year long sabbatical to remember how to function in an acceptable way wouldn’t be too awful. He is only going to make things worse if he is not left alone to pull himself together.

Fëanor is glaring at him but also clearly biting his tongue. “You are not,” he says after a minute, voice carefully controlled, “going to get out of this by convincing me to throw you out. I am not so easily fooled.”

Centuries worth of unspoken arguments try to claw their way out of his mouth. He clasps his hands together tightly, pretends they aren’t shaking. “I am sure I could convince you,” he says after he’s swallowed the worst of the arguments down. “After all, it isn’t as if I usually have to do much to set you off. Merely breathing seems to work most days. I’m sure if I keep talking I can do a much better job.”

Fëanor cocks his head to the side, eyes narrowing as he watches Fingolfin. "You are very combative today. Unusually so. What are you trying so hard to hide?" He looks so curious, like Fingolfin's a particularly interesting puzzle for him to take apart.

It makes him want to break something. Makes his throat close up. All he'd wanted for so long was for Fëanor to just pay attention to him in a way that didn't hurt. He never really outgrew that want. Stopped trying to achieve it, but he never stopped wanting it. But he's not. He doesn't want to be puzzled apart. He doesn't want attention only because he's sparked his brother's curiosity. Curiosity that once sated will leave Fëanor content to go back to hating him. "I am not a puzzle for you to solve," he says tightly, wondering if he can get away with just walking out. "I don't see why it's any of your business what's wrong with me."

"Ah, but! You admit then that there is something wrong!" Fëanor smirks at him and Fingolfin’s vision blurs. He blindly reaches for the vase on the table next to him and throws it at Fëanor's head. Hopes it's not too valuable. Has no intention of sticking around to find out. Fëanor ducks and Fingolfin makes it half-way to the door before Fëanor grabs his arm. "Nerdanel made that," he snarls.

"Well maybe if you weren't so unbearable she'd still be here and you could ask her to make another," he snaps. Doesn't care that it's a low blow, means every word.

"Don't fucking talk about things you have no understanding of," Fëanor says and shakes him.

Fingolfin punches him. His fist connects this time. He kicks one of Fëanor's knees and when it buckles, wrenches his arm out of his grip. Is out the door before Fëanor can recover. He spots an ornamental dagger on a shelf as he rushes out of the house and grabs it instinctively. It’s Fëanorian so it’ll be well made despite the fact that it’s mainly for show. It's not enough but it'll just have to do.

Fingon calls after him as he rushes down the road, but he doesn't have time to reassure him or Fëanor will catch up and drag him back inside. This is quite possibly the worst plan he's ever had. Worse even than riding up to Angband to challenge Morgoth. At least then he'd had a proper weapon. But he's rather done with whatever this nonsense is. If he dies doing this then maybe his death can be a nice rallying moment for the Noldor.

Hunting Morgoth down is not difficult. As Fingolfin had expected he's lingering in the city, near enough to Fëanor's house that Fingolfin would have to pass him to get back to the palace, not so close that it looks as if he's waiting. He is, to Fingolfin's satisfaction, engaged in a conversation with his back to Fingolfin. He sends a silent apology to whichever elf he is about to traumatize, slides up behind Morgoth as quiet as he can, and stabs the dagger into the side of his neck with all the force he can muster. Twists and slices sideways as he pulls it out and dances out of reach.

Morgoth is not the only one to scream, he's sure, but his scream is a bellow that drags like falling rocks through the air and drowns out everything else. Unfortunately, the wound does not kill him, but Fingolfin had not truly expected it to. Killing a Valar was likely beyond any elf. It does, however, noticeably weaken him. He staggers as he whirls around and Fingolfin should have moved with him, stabbed him in the back while he's weak, but he wants Morgoth to see his face, to know who it is that's harmed him. Hubris on his part but what does it matter.

And oh, good, he has cracked the mask that Morgoth wears, the hatred in his eyes sucks the light from the air. He grins, grips the dagger and waits for an opening. Waits to see what Morgoth will do. "Melkor the cowardly," he says just loud enough for Morgoth to hear him. “Unable to defeat us in truth and so you try to turn us against each other. I name you Morgoth. Name you enemy of all of Eru's children."

Morgoth snarls and inconveniently grows in size, though he is only twice Fingolfin's size, not towering over him as he had before. The wound Fingolfin has dealt him seems to truly be troubling him. Fingolfin darts forward as he's in the process of growing and slashes his heel, takes the risk of stabbing the dagger through the back of his knee as he moves past him. He barely dodges the kick Morgoth aims at him as he roars in anger.

Someone shouts his name but he doesn't check who. Barely evades Morgoth reaching for him, circles around trying to keep Morgoth's back to him. Waits until he wobbles from the wound to the knee and dashes forward, stabbing the dagger into Morgoth's heel, in the exact spot he'd slashed at earlier, hoping to unbalance him further. But his luck rather runs out there.

Four hits, he thinks as Morgoth manages to backhand him into a wall before he can get out of range, not bad considering the weapon I was working with. The yelling of the crowd has grown in volume but this time he’s sure he hears someone scream his name.

He pushes himself to his feet, ignores the sharp pain in his chest. Manages two steps forward and then sighs in resignation as Morgoth has already picked up an inconveniently placed anvil and hurled it at him. He does try to dodge. Goes to throw himself to the right but is a few seconds too slow. Locks eyes with Fëanor right before a shattering burst of pain cascades through him and thinks, he looks scared. Wouldn't have known what to do with that thought even if everything hadn’t gone black immediately after.

☀︎

the second loop

Fingolfin wakes up in his bed.

He blinks up at the ceiling, taking in the complete lack of pain in his body, and then pulls a pillow over his face and screams. When he had asked for a second restart to the day he had been fucking joking.

He gets out of bed, gets dressed, and decides that, this time, he definitely needs a sword.

Chapter End Notes

Fingolfin: I am good at planning. I was high king. Plans are my thing.<br />
Fingolfin after seeing Morgoth: Okay. So the plan is murder.

--

Fëanor: I feel like this abrupt shift in behavior from my half-brother is both suspicious and concerning....<br />
Fëanor arriving just in time to watch Morgoth backhand Fingolfin into a wall: WELL I AM DEFINITELY CONCERNED

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This is how it goes: God says, I will take you or your brother.

God says, You get to choose.

And Cain says, “When you split me and my brother in the womb, you did not divide us evenly. He got kindness, and I got longing. He got complacence, and I got ambition. I want to kill him sometimes. I think sometimes he wants to die.”

I have never made brothers before, God explains. That is how I thought they were made. What more do you want?

“I want to steal some of his kindness,” Cain says, and shakes his pocket knife out of his sleeve.

Hevel | Nathaniel Orion

☀︎

the second loop (continued)

Fingolfin wakes up in his bed.

He blinks up at the ceiling, taking in the complete lack of pain in his body, and then pulls a pillow over his face and screams. When he had asked for a second restart to this day he had been fucking joking. He is not sure what he is supposed to be doing but clearly he’d failed in his latest attempt. Though, he supposes that shouldn’t be much of a surprise considering he died.

He gets out of bed, gets dressed, and decides that, this time, he definitely needs a sword. Sketches out a rough idea of what he wants and contemplates who to ask to make it. Preferably someone he can pay for speed who will not ask too many questions. But he cannot think of anyone who meets both criteria. It is not, necessarily, that he believes any of the smiths in Tirion would needlessly gossip about his purchases. It is only, that if his memory serves him correctly, Morgoth had made friends with the smiths first, and Morgoth is the one he most needs to keep this a secret from.

So, he prioritizes secrecy over speed and tells himself he’ll simply have to find a way to avoid Morgoth until the sword is finished. It is easier to press the rage down and freeze it when he does not have to see him. Easier to remind himself that no one will truly be hurt for many years still and that there is, in truth, no rush. But, he fears that resolve will last only until he sees Morgoth’s face once again.

Sketch finished, he heads for the city. Belatedly remembers that meeting he had been late to the previous day and then dismisses it. He should, in all likelihood, put more effort into acting as if nothing has changed. But he’s never been so good an actor as to hide his entire personality. Court politics were simple, acting in a way, true, but not to the extent of hiding his entire self. He also, he decides, simply does not care to. It seems a pointless exercise when his entire plan centers around ridding them of Morgoth in the fastest manner possible.

He has the terrible luck of leaving the palace right as Fëanor is arriving. For a moment the image of Fëanor’s face before he’d last died flashes in front of him — the wide eyes, his mouth open on what might have been Fingolfin’s name, his right hand stretched out as he ran. The only time he can recall that his brother has reached for him and he’d died before he could reach back.

“Where are you going?” Fëanor asks, frowning as he pauses at the stop of the stairs. “Did atar not call us for a meeting today?”

“He did,” Fingolfin says, blinking away the image of an un-sung Fëanor. “I have other business to attend to. Give him my apologies.” He keeps walking, hurrying down the steps as if that will make the curiosity flickering to life in Fëanor’s eyes go away.

“Do you mean to tell me, that you were going to simply skip the meeting without a word to any of us?” Fëanor asks incredulously, easily catching up to him.

Fingolfin bites down the desire to tell him to kindly fuck off. “I’ve told you have I not?”

“And if you had not run into me?” Fingolfin does not answer, hoping Fëanor will just leave, but predictably he does not. “I always knew all your speeches on propriety were hypocritical,” Fëanor continues, sounding entirely too smug about it. “Tell me where you’re going.”

“No. You should go to the meeting with atar,” he says stopping at the bottom of the steps. “My business is no concern of yours.”

Fëanor’s head tilts, the curiosity flaring into a full fire. “Is it not? You are skipping a meeting that father has called for. I would say as his eldest child it falls to me to make sure you attend, even if I must drag you there.”

“If you touch me I’ll bite your hand off,” he says, perhaps a touch too viciously if the way Fëanor’s eyes widen is any indication. “I am not going to the meeting. I am busy.”

“By all means,” Fëanor says, giving a mocking bow and sweeping his arm out. “Go on then. I have not stopped you.”

“Do not follow me,” he warns, takes two steps away and frowns when Fëanor mimics him.

“Ah ah, I did not say I would let you go alone,” Fëanor says, high pitched and mocking, a terrible light in his eyes. “What are you trying to hide?”

“I am not hiding anything,” he gets out, grinding his teeth together. “Please, go away.”

The please, if anything, makes the light in Fëanor’s eyes even brighter. His eyes dart down to the design Fingolfin is clutching in his left hand and then back up. “Come now, Ñolofinwë, if you are not hiding anything, simply tell me where it is you’re going so that I may relay the information to atar.”

He debates the possibility of getting out of this conversation without giving some type of concession and comes to the sour conclusion that there is none. “If you must know, I am going to a forge.”

Fëanor’s blinks at him, confusion making its way onto his face. “Whatever for?"

“To have something made, as that is what people usually go to forges for in my experience,” he says dryly. 

“Which forge are you going to? Have you at least picked someone of decent quality?”

Truly Fingolfin should have known this would only inspire more questions. He should have lied. “That is none of your concern. Though I’m sure the quality will be fine.”

Fëanor’s eyes narrow. “What, are you having made?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing you’ve made before, you do not need to worry about it.” He curses himself the moment the words leave his mouth and Fëanor’s entire body tenses up in offense.

“And so you do not believe I could make it?” Fëanor demands. “Show me what it is. I can make it better than any other smith in this city.”

“I had no idea you were so eager to craft me something,” he says, just to watch Fëanor puff up even more in offense.

“I do not wish to make you anything. I will not, however, stand for this insult! Show me what it is you want made.” Fëanor holds his hand out expectantly, as if Fingolfin will simply hand over the design.

“No,” he says simply and walks away. Perhaps he can do a better job of losing Fëanor in the city this time. Unfortunately, he does not account for the treachery of brothers, and so does not anticipate Fëanor following behind him and snatching the design straight out of his hand.

“You! Give that back!” He makes a grab for it but Fëanor simply dances out of the way as he unfolds the paper.

Fëanor’s eyebrows shoot up as he surveys the design. “This is a weapon,” he says slowly, pinning Fingolfin with a piercing gaze. “What on Arda could you need a weapon for? And with such urgency.”

“I really do not see how that’s any of your concern,” he says tightly, feeling his plans for the day slipping out of his grasp. “Give it back.”

Fëanor studies him for a moment. Looks back to the design, brow furrowing as he examines it. “No,” he says finally, folding the paper up and tucking it inside of his pocket. “Tell me why you need it and I’ll make it.”

Fingolfin stares at him. Tries to make those words make sense. Perhaps none of this real, he considers for the first time. Perhaps this is some elaborate test designed by the Valar. A punishment of some sort for those who are dispossessed. It does not otherwise seem likely that he would have two days in a row where his brother is strangely civil.

“Come!” Fëanor says when Fingolfin doesn’t answer. “We shall walk to my house while you decide how to tell me what your need of such a thing is.”

He takes off without waiting for Fingolfin to agree and Fingolfin after a moment follows him. He could, he supposes, go draw another design and just try again. But he’s not sure Fëanor wouldn’t simply take to stalking him to figure out the reason and that seems unnecessarily complicated. “You’re going to miss the meeting with atar,” he says uselessly.

Fëanor flicks him an unimpressed look. “We are both already very late. And what does it matter? You were already going to skip it.”

He sighs. Spends the walk trying to think of a way to spin the story so that it sounds as if he’s simply put all the clues of Morgoth’s treachery together himself without any future knowledge at all. Does not think there were enough clues yet at this point for him to have gathered. Also cannot think of a way to explain why he would have jumped from this discovery to murder without, at the very least, consulting atar.

Fëanor is quiet as they walk. Though, if Fingolfin knows his brother at all, that is likely less because he is giving Fingolfin room to think, and more because he is too busy planning how to make a sword so well-made no one else will be able to make a better one. Still, if it were not for the conversation waiting for him at the end of the walk, he would find this peaceful. It’s comforting, in its own way, to have Fëanor whole and alive next to him. He had been too preoccupied with his thoughts and the overwhelming crush of emotions the previous day to truly appreciate having Fëanor follow him around the city. But, even though he’d still rather be alone, he can appreciate now the novelty of having Fëanor walk with him without the oppressive resentment lingering around them.

He wonders again if he should take this as a sign that this is some type of trick or Valar-induced illusion. Cannot help but think that would make more sense than the idea that time has bent itself around him. Would make more sense than the idea that the song of Arda is being un-sung and re-sung based on seemingly nothing but his own actions. But, he tells himself sternly, if it is not an illusion or a trick then every action matters; and as he has no way to know he must treat this as if it is all very, heartbreakingly real.

He does not, in the end, come up with anything at all to tell Fëanor by the time they reach his house. Follows Fëanor into his study and wishes he could apologize for punching his brother the day before without sounding like he’s rather lost his mind. Though, he could simply punch his brother again and then apologize. The idea has merit depending on how this conversation goes.

“Well,” Fëanor demands once he’s herded Fingolfin into a seat. “Explain.”

Fingolfin stares at him. Does not know what to say. Does not even know how to tell the truth. “Does it really matter?” he asks plaintively. “Can’t you just go back to not caring about what I do?”

“I cannot help but think that I will very much care about whatever it is you plan on doing with this,” Fëanor says, a strange expression on his face as he watches Fingolfin. “In fact, I feel that a great many people will end up caring about what you do with it.”

“Well, yes, but then it’ll already be done so I won’t care if you pay attention.” This is perhaps not the best thing to say if he wishes to alleviate suspicion.

Fëanor studies him for a moment. It is making Fingolfin uncomfortable that he cannot identify the expression on his brother’s face. “Is someone,” Fëanor pauses with a grimace. “This sounds absurd, but, is someone threatening you?”

“Well, I suppose in the most literal sense, yes,” he says. Fëanor’s face darkens and he hastens to add, “but not in the way you are surely thinking.”

“Please, enlighten me then. In what other way can one be threatened?” There’s a fury building in Fëanor’s eyes, made brighter by the way they catch Laurelin’s light.

“It’s fine. I’m handling it. There’s no need for you to concern yourself with it.” He pauses, considers how long a sword will take to be made. “There is also no need to bother anyone else with it.”

“Ñolofinwë,” Fëanor says, voice deceptively mild. “You are going to tell me who has decided it is acceptable to threaten a member of the House of Finwë or I am going to drag you to atar so that you can tell him.”

Fingolfin considers this. Briefly wonders how fast he could find Morgoth this time if he grabbed the dagger and ran again and dismisses the thought just as quickly. He doesn’t particularly feel like dying for no reason yet again. But still, it irritates him on a deep, visceral level that Fëanor is only doing this because he likely sees this as a potential threat against his children and not because he particularly cares about Fingolfin’s wellbeing. “No,” he says. Takes satisfaction in the irritated curl of Fëanor’s mouth. “And I’ve told you, if you touch me I will bite your hand off. I do mean that in the most literal sense.” He’s sure he wouldn’t make much progress before Fëanor simply knocked him out, but that isn’t the point.

“What are you trying to hide,” Fëanor says softly, cocking his head to the side as he studies Fingolfin. His eyes are two bright flames and Fingolfin thinks he would be more intimidated by Fëanor’s ferocity if he had not seen true monsters of fire in Beleriand. “We are not leaving this room until you tell me,” Fëanor says, completely serious and unfailingly confident in the idea that Fingolfin will break first.

He shrugs, makes himself more comfortable on the settee. “I had no idea you were so eager to spend time with me,” he says, wondering how far he would have to push to make Fëanor kick him out. Is sure he could accomplish it, but is just as sure that Fëanor would not be the only one furious and hurt at the end of it.

Fëanor doesn’t respond, only continues to study him intently, as if he can pluck the answers out of Fingolfin’s mind if he only concentrates hard enough. Fingolfin turns his attention to window, to the sprawling view of the land behind Fëanor’s house. Everything is so green, so healthy. There’s no rot hiding in the land, just waiting for an opportunity to spread. Is it shameful of him to miss Beleriand regardless? To look at all this beauty and want to leave it?

He knows, of course, that he has already done that once. That he had followed Fëanor into exile and even when he had been handed a convenient reason to turn around, he had still pushed forward. But that had not been about Beleriand. He had no deep connection to the land, only a burning desire to avenge his father’s death, to mend the relationship with his brother; and then he had simply wanted to prove Fëanor wrong. He had wanted, to arrive in Beleriand and throw Fëanor’s betrayal in his face and scream it out until at least a little bit of the splintering, icy hurt in his chest had melted away. And instead he had arrived to find that his brother was dead and his nephew taken. There’d been no fight to be had, nothing to sooth any of the hurt.

But now he simply wants to return because he misses the land. As dangerous and as marred as it is, he wants to go back. There had been something singularly satisfying about building something good and strong and beautiful there despite everything trying to stop you from doing so. Barad Eithel had been his in a way that Tirion was not and he wants it back. He wants his father safe and alive and for Tirion, for Aman as a whole, to be free of Morgoth’s poison, and then he wants Barad Eithel back. He wants to do it all better. Surely, with all the knowledge of what’s to come, surely he can do it better.

"What do you wish to do in Beleriand?” he asks Fëanor, who is still watching him. “You speak of wanting to go there. What do you wish to do when you arrive? Build a new city? Explore the entirety of the continent? Spend the next century fighting the enemy so that the land can be safe?” Fëanor had never actually gotten a chance to do much of anything at all in Beleriand. Had arrived and fought Morgoth's forces and died. Fingolfin has always wondered what it would have been like if he’d lived. If anything would have been better. If everything would have been worse.

Fëanor is quiet and when Fingolfin looks to him, he finds his brother has turned his gaze to the window, brow furrowed in thought. “Why must I pick only one of those?” Fëanor finally asks, looking to Fingolfin again, a puzzled look in his eyes. “Why do you care? You are always quick to speak against my desire to leave.”

“Yes, that is rather hypocritical of me isn’t it, since I’ll be going there as soon as I can.” He had been so sure back then that leaving Tirion was a slap in the face to their father, who had gone through much to lead their people to Aman. Had given little thought to whether he wanted to leave, only to how he might best use his brother’s folly to earn a little more of his father’s love. Only to how he might best carve a new gash into the wound between them. He does not know if it would have fixed anything to have supported his brother in this, but he does not think it would have made things worse.

Fëanor looks incredibly confused, an expression Fingolfin is unused to seeing on him. “You just said last week that it was useless endeavor and a folly to even consider such a thing,” Fëanor says, sounding rather pissed off. “What has made you change your mind so quickly?”

He shrugs. “Does it matter? I’m going to leave regardless of what’s changed my mind.”

He wonders for a moment if Fëanor will try to hit him, so annoyed does he look. “You do realize, I hope, that we do not actually have permission to leave. Which is what I have been petitioning for and you have been fighting me on.”

Fingolfin smiles. “I never said I was asking for permission. I simply said I’m leaving.”

Fëanor stares at him, mouth slightly agape, and then his eyes narrow in suspicion. “I do not believe you. I do not know what you are trying to accomplish but I am not a fool, Ñolofinwë. You have not changed your mind so easily.”

“Believe what you will,” he says, shrugging again. What a novelty it is to speak so freely. He will have to find his court manners once again eventually but for now, it is quite freeing to not worry overly much about what he says. “If I leave are you going to try to stop me?”

“Tell me who is threatening you and you’re welcome to leave,” Fëanor says, eyes still narrowed.

“You cannot keep me here forever.”

“I do not see why not.”

Fingolfin snorts. “Putting aside how terribly bored you will soon be, Atar will come looking for you eventually, at which point I’ll be able to leave.”

“I will tell him you are being threatened and refuse to let me help you.”

“And I will say you are lying.” He pauses, considers that sentence. “Also, you do not wish to help me. You only wish to make sure the rest of your family is safe. Rest assured that they are in no danger.” He is smart enough this time to keep off the caveat of, for now.

“Do not presume to tell me what I do or do not mean,” Fëanor snaps, “I have said I wish to know who is threatening you and that I wish to help and that is what I mean. You will not assign your own meaning to my words.”

“You never actually said you wish to help,” he points out.

Fëanor throws a pillow at his head, which he supposes is better than the vase he’d thrown the previous day, if not more childish. “If I did not wish to help I would not be wasting my time talking to you!”

He sounds so annoyed. Fingolfin holds the pillow that Fëanor threw at him and tries to think past the uncomfortable, lurching feeling in his chest. “But—” he frowns. “But you don’t like me. Why do you care?”

“You are still my father’s son. You are being threatened. Whether or not I like you is irrelevant,” Fëanor says in a tone that implies this should be obvious.

Fingolfin draws in a breath around the ice suddenly splintering apart in his chest. Feel’s very small suddenly and so tired of seeing Fëanor’s face that he thinks he might scream. “Right.” He blinks rapidly. The sword can wait until tomorrow. He absolutely cannot stay here a moment longer. “I have to go,” he says and stands. Moves for the door as fast as he can without running. Jerks away when Fëanor reaches for his arm and snarls, “Don’t touch me.”

Fëanor recoils, eyes very wide. He does not know what Fëanor heard in his voice and does not particularly care. He pays no attention to anything on the way back to the palace. Thinks he might have been terribly rude to several people and cannot bring himself to care. He does not stop moving until he is back in his room and then stands in the center of it breathing hard, trying to think past the, the. Fuck. It is hurt, he supposes. He should not be surprised that Fëanor can still hurt him, even now, with no knowledge of the history Fingolfin remembers.

He will, at heart, always be that same little boy, who had wanted his brother to call him brother in return. It is an old hurt and he hates that Fëanor manages to bring it so sharply to the surface even now. 

The day is not even halfway through but Fingolfin goes back to bed. He is very tired suddenly. Cannot bear to face his father who makes him want to cry, or his mother that he has not seen in so long he is not sure he can recall her voice, or his little brother who he had missed so terribly, or Findis who had hated him for following Fëanor, and he especially cannot face his little sister who had followed him to Beleriand and who he had seen die but been too far away to save. All of that to say nothing of his children. No, he does not think there is a single person in his family who is ready to face.

☀︎

His sleep is fitful. Haunted by deaths that happened and deaths that hadn’t. He dreams of ways that he could make all of this worse. See’s not only his father’s body lying dead in Formenos but Fëanor’s as well. Dreams of a world where Fëanor is never exiled and Morgoth grows tired of waiting and simply begins killing them one by one himself.

He dreams of the boats burning. And for a while that is all he can see at all. A great, mocking fire shining back at him from across the sea. He wakes to the sight of his ceiling and the lingering, imagined smell of smoke. Telperion’s light is shifting softly throughout the room and he feels no better than he had before he’d laid down. He lays in bed and spends a very long time carefully thinking about nothing at all until the tightness in his chest eases and the mingling of the trees begins.

He drags himself out of bed and gets ready for the day. Steels his spine and reminds himself that he was king and that he is perfectly capable of getting through a difficult day. He cannot hide away from everyone forever if he wishes to accomplish anything. It still feels like the most arduous task ever to simply leave his room.

It is still rather early when he emerges but unfortunately, most of his family, with the exception of Finarfin and Fingon, are early risers, and so the breakfast table is already full when he arrives. It is disconcerting how they all turn to stare at him as he enters.

“I told you he wasn’t dying,” Findis says after a moment of awkward silence, her worried eyes belying the tactless statement.

“I’m quite well,” he says mildly, moving to sit between her and Turgon. He ruthlessly pushes down every single emotion that is trying to bubble up his throat and blocks them off behind a thick sheet of ice. This is not the time. “Was there a reason you were concerned about my health?”

There’s a flurry of looks exchanged and then his father, at the head of the table, says mildly, “It is simply unlike you to miss any meetings. We were worried when we couldn’t find you the rest of the day.”

He hums in acknowledgement, focusing on the toast he’s buttering so he doesn’t have to look his father in the face. “I got caught up in a conversation with Fëanáro. It lasted longer than expected.” The startled silence that falls over the table would be funny if it were for literally any other reason.

“A conversation that lasted the entire day,” Aredhel demands, eyes wide with disbelief when he looks at her. She is so terribly young he realizes, a sharp pain piercing his heart, and it has been so terribly long since he has last seen her. It felt sometimes, despite knowing of her true fate, as if she’d simply vanished into thin air in Beleriand.

“Not the entire day. I simply retired early when I returned home.” This does not lessen the concerned and alarmed looks he is on the receiving end of.

“Arakáno,” his mother says, the demand in her voice quite clear. He clenches his jaw and breathes in deeply before looking up at her. It is his mother, pearls strung through her blonde hair, blue eyes intent on his face as she tries to pick apart what is wrong. He convulsively swallows down the sudden urge to simply put his head in her lap and let her sing the troubles away as she’d done when he was young. “Tell me truthfully, are you well? Did Fëanáro say something to you?”

He can see his father tense up out of the corner of his eye. His mother is usually more discrete when she questions him on what his brother has said to him. Perhaps she can tell that he has absolutely no intention of being alone with any of them if he can help it. “My brother said nothing unusual, amil. I simply found myself tired.” This also does not lessen the concern. He is not sure what else he can say to assure them he is fine. He glances around the table — his eyes linger too long on Argon and are stinging by the time he pulls them away. Everyone looks entirely too concerned about him.

He finishes his toast as quickly as he can without looking as if he’s rushing. Doesn’t bother with any other food. He’d only come to breakfast so that he could reacquaint himself with everyone’s faces. “Well,” he says, standing and ignoring his mother’s disapproving look at his plate. “I have business to attend to so I will—”

He is cut off by the door slamming open and Fëanor striding into the room. He is, Fingolfin notes, wearing dirty clothes that clearly indicate he’s only just come from the forge. His hair is braided and his eyes are so bright it nearly distracts from the dark circles under his eyes. “Ah,” Fëanor says, pausing for half-a-second to blink at everyone. “Yes, hello atar. Everyone else. Ñolofinwë, let’s go. I made your project.” He motions impatiently when Fingolfin doesn’t immediately move.

Fingolfin stares. Discretely pinches the inside of his wrist and keeps staring. “What?”

“Is there something wrong with your hearing?” Fëanor asks, rolling his eyes. “Let’s go.”

“No, what,” he demands. “It has not even been a full day. What do you mean you’ve made it?”

Fëanor snorts, waving a hand through the air dismissively. “I am simply very good at my craft,” he says arrogantly. “And Curvo helped me with much so it went faster.”

Fingolfin viciously reminds himself that it would be unbecoming of him to throw a goblet of juice at Fëanor’s face. “What?” he asks flatly. “Do you mean to tell me that you told your son?”

“Worried?” Fëanor asks. There’s a dreadful glint of amusement in his eyes that is sorely testing Fingolfin’s patience.

He bites back several nasty responses, including, if I weren’t opposed to kinslaying I would test it on you first. “You said, you would only make it if I told you why,” he says, keeping his voice carefully even, very aware of his family’s heavy stares.

“What was it you were so fond of saying yesterday,” Fëanor says, raising an eyebrow mockingly. “Does it matter? I’ve made it. Now let’s go.”

Fingolfin narrows his eyes, takes everything he knows about his brother and strips it down to the basics. An inability to allow anyone to be better than him at anything. An inability to not make something once he has an idea in his head. An inability to mind his own business. “You made yourself one too, didn’t you?” he asks resignedly. Fëanor’s pleased smirk is answer enough. “Yes, fine. Let’s go.”

“Boys--” his father starts in alarm, rising to his feet.

“I apologize, atar. This is really rather urgent,” he says smoothly, already moving toward the door. Doesn’t give him a chance to answer as he slips out of the room.

“Urgent is it?” Fëanor asks, eyes very bright when Fingolfin glances at him.

He sighs, debates the odds of accomplishing literally anything else without Fëanor curiously shadowing him. Finds the odds to be so near zero they aren’t worth mentioning at all. “Well,” he says, watching Fëanor carefully, “considering I’m planning on doing my best to kill Melkor, yes, I’d say it’s rather urgent.”

Watching his brother trip in shock will easily go down as one of his favorite memories. “You’re going to do what?!”

☀︎

Chapter End Notes

Fëanor: acts civil
Fingolfin: is this a reason to believe this is a punishment created by the Valar??

--

Fëanor seeing the weapon design: I am both intrigued and concerned. Mainly intrigued. Mostly intrigued. Maybe a dash of concern for spice.

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There wasn't a time / I didn't have / a brother. By the time / my eyes
opened, / he was already here, / but there's so little / time between
us, / he also can't remember / a time before me. / Our origins blur /into
a single birth / between us / and so between us / is a world / and its
beginning. / I tell myself / there's not a world / without my brother in
it. / I tell myself / I'd follow him anywhere / to keep the world / from
ending.

The World at Its Beginning | Dustin Pearson

☀︎

the second loop (continued)

They don't speak of what Fingolfin said on the way to Fëanor's house. Both of them aware of the odd looks and attention they're garnering from the people they pass who are used to them being at each other's throats, not walking calmly together. 

But the moment they are in Fëanor's workshop with the door closed Fëanor turns on him and demands, "Explain. Why have you decided to do something so monumentally difficult so suddenly?"

He does not, Fingolfin notes, say monumentally stupid, or even, you cannot kill a Vala. Only why something so difficult as if it is a given he could kill a Vala given enough thought. He would not be Fëanor without that arrogance but Fingolfin had nearly forgotten how incredibly charming and abrasive it was all at once.

He does not have an answer for his brother though. Tries, "Because he is evil and needs to die before he hurts someone."

Fëanor fixes him with a flat glare. "I am willing to believe that Melkor is a fiend as I've always suspected. But you have not suspected this. Explain why you suddenly do so."

"The sword?" He says helplessly, not sure what else to say.

"No. Explain."

He does not want to tell Fëanor the truth. He needs that sword. He would not know how to tell the truth even if he wanted to. He debates this with himself for a time as Fëanor watches him with a strange expression.

He comes to no other solutions. Still does not know how to explain. And so, with a resigned sigh he opens his mind to Fëanor and reaches out. Fëanor recoils and Fingolfin thinks for a moment that he will not let Fingolfin in. But after a second of suspicious squinting, he grimaces and reaches back.

Fingolfin thinks, look, and lets his memories pool between them for Fëanor to sift through. And he does. Immediately latches onto the worst of the memories, his talent for finding Fingolfin’s weak spots unmatched even in this. There's the cool steel of Fëanor's sword against his throat, his father's body, fire on the horizon and salt on his tongue, the blistering cold of the helcaraxë on his face, his vicious grief at waking and finding Fingon gone to rescue Maedhros and being sure he would never see his son again.

And then, Fëanor flipping backwards in confusion, the light of the silmarils, a dizzying rush of resentment and tension building through the years, Melkor always on the sidelines, until it erupts into violence. The sudden, all-encompassing darkness as the trees go out. His earnest, hopeful words, half-brother in blood, full brother in heart will I be. Thou shalt lead and I will follow. May no new grief divide us. Fëanor pauses on that memory longer than the others. The boats again, the helcaraxë, Arakáno's death, the news of Fëanor's death and Maedhros' capture. There's a vicious burst of panic from Fëanor at that and dizzying relief at the memory of Fingon staggering off the eagle with Maedhros.

Fëanor flips through the rest so fast Fingolfin wonders how he's even taking it in. Doesn't pause again until he reaches the war and Fingolfin staring out at the destruction, his heart a racing, jagged thing in his chest. He watches as Fingolfin rides to Angband and challenges Morgoth. Watches as he dies. And then, as he wakes up. He doesn't linger long on the first iteration of this day. Lingers on the last memory Fingolfin has of Fëanor's panicked face before he'd died. Let's go of the memories and thinks, what the fuck Nolvo.

He shrugs. "I don't have any explanations. I just need to kill Morgoth."

Fëanor stares at him, plucks at the memory of the burning boats and the betrayal it had carved into him; at the memory of the frigid pain that came from knowing it was not good to be unable to feel your fingers but being unable to figure out how to warm them up, considers them again. And in a move Fingolfin would never have predicted even in his dreams, Fëanor moves toward him and wraps his arms around him before Fingolfin can react. It takes him a few seconds to comprehend that Fëanor is hugging him. Fëanor steps back, an uncomfortable look on his face, before Fingolfin can decide on whether to hug back.

Fingolfin stares, at a complete loss for words. There's a hot, uncomfortable feeling building in his chest that he does his best to push down. "You have died," Fëanor says, as if that's an explanation. "Twice. You are not well."

"I'm fine," he says automatically. "I'm fine. I just, need the sword. I have to—"

"Yes, kill Morgoth, you've said." Fëanor frowns at him. "You don't have a plan."

"The plan is to kill Morgoth," he says, feeling incredibly confused by this conversation. "And then deal with the fallout I suppose."

"That plan has not been working well for you."

He shrugs. "It will eventually."

Fëanor makes a frustrated noise. Snaps, "When? After you've died three, four, five more times?"

"I hope it doesn't take that long," he says, not enjoying the idea of having to find a way to get a weapon so many times when it is such an awful hassle. "But I can only believe that the failure to kill him, or I suppose at the very least, to run him out of Aman without dying, is why I keep waking back up."

"That does not mean you cannot take the time to make a plan," Fëanor says as if that isn't one of the most hypocritical things he's ever said. Fëanor must see that thought on his face because he scowls.

"I have made a plan," he says again, wishing he already had the sword so he could just leave. "The plan is kill Morgoth."

"Eru help me," Fëanor mutters. "No. We're going to go inside. We're going to sit down and make an actual plan. And then I'll give you the sword."

Fingolfin mutinously wonders how much effort it would take to get his hands on one of the hunting spears. Doesn't get a chance to find out because Fëanor grabs his arm and starts dragging him to the house. They pass Maedhros on the way inside, who stops to stare after them with a befuddled expression. Fëanor doesn't slow down until they're in his study and Fingolfin rather wants to crawl out of his skin at being in here again.

Fëanor manhandles him onto the settee and sits down next to him. Looks at the empty fireplace instead of Fingolfin when he says, "Okay. How do we kill Melkor without dying."

Fingolfin stares at the side of his face and turns the word we over in his mind trying to make sense of this. Of anything. Is not sure he likes how out of character Fëanor is acting. That hot, uncomfortable feeling is still trying to expand in his chest. "We?"

Fëanor makes an incredibly aggravated sound and pinches the bridge of his nose as if Fingolfin is the one being unreasonable! As if this is not a perfectly natural question when his brother has never cared to help him with anything before. "Yes, we," Fëanor says slowly as if Fingolfin is being particularly dense, "I have told you already yesterday that I wish to help you. I still wish to do so now that the problem itself has been revealed to me."

Maybe, Fingolfin thinks, the real test is not killing Morgoth at all. Maybe the real test is whether he can handle Fëanor being almost nice to him without wanting to punch something. Without wanting to shake Fëanor and ask, why must it take me dying to make you care? "I—" he stops, not sure what he wants to say. Considers again the merits of just finding a spear.

"I do not want you dead," Fëanor says harshly, "You will let me help you with this."

Fingolfin thinks of cool steel against his throat and the explosive fury that Fëanor had faced him with. Does not know how to ask, is there a difference between wishing I was not born and not wanting me dead? Thinks too of how annoying it is that Fëanor never phrases stuff as a question. He feels so very tired suddenly. Fixing his relationship with Fëanor was meant to be a third task. Kill Morgoth. Deal with the aftermath. Fix his relationship with Fëanor so that it didn't implode later on down the line and turn everything into a fucking mess anyway. He does not want to deal with Fëanor and all the complicated, bitter emotions that he pulls to the surface now.

"Just, fine, do what you will," he says, letting himself slump and put his head in his hands. "It's not as if I have any say in the matter, clearly."

"I do not understand," Fëanor says, sounding pissed off and frustrated at having to say such a thing. "You were high king were you not? You did not look to be awful at it. You are always obnoxiously telling me that I do not think things through. Why are you so opposed to doing so now?"

"None of my plans particularly worked out," he mutters. "I thought to try your approach of blindly rushing in and hoping for the best. It nearly worked last time."

"You are being ridiculous," Fëanor says. Fingolfin is sure he's rolling his eyes. He does not respond and Fëanor does not say anything else, but after a sticky moment his hand comes up and settles on the back of Fingolfin's neck, squeezing lightly.

Fëanor is trying to be comforting and that disgustingly hot emotion goes roaring through Fingolfin before he can stop it, melting the jagged ice in his chest, and leaving a great gaping emptiness behind. He drags in a shuddering breath and tells himself sternly that he will not cry. There is no point. There is not even any real reason to grieve. Everyone is alive and well and he intends to keep them that way.

None of this stops his next breath from catching in his throat. Does not stop the tears from fighting their way free, warm as they roll down his face. Fingolfin has never been a loud crier. Has never seen the point of wanting attention when you were in tears. That has not changed now and if it were not for the way Fëanor's hand tightens on his neck he would think that maybe the tears go unnoticed.

"This is stupid," he says, sitting up and shaking Fëanor's hand off. He wipes the tears off his face and wrinkles his nose at how wobbly his voice is. "I don't have time for this. I have to—"

"If you say kill Morgoth again, I will punch you," Fëanor says mildly.

Fingolfin glares at him. "Well if you want there to be a plan so fucking badly then make one. Go on. How would the great Fëanor kill one of the Valar?"

Fëanor rather looks like he's considering punching Fingolfin anyway. He doesn't though. He also doesn't answer. Steeples his fingers together and puts his elbows on his knees as he stares at the fireplace. "I do not know that it is possible to kill a Vala. Are they capable of dying in the same way we do?" he says thoughtfully. "And if we were able to wound him deeply enough that we could capture him, could we hold him? I do not believe we can trust the other Valar to hold him without giving them undeniable proof of what he means to do."

"If you tell me to give up," he snaps, torn between absolute fury at the idea and sheer bafflement that it is Fëanor who is suggesting such a thing.

"Don't be stupid, Nolvo," Fëanor says. "I do not give up." He falls silent again and Fingolfin sighs, leaning back to wait.

There's a horribly bitter feeling curled up in his stomach that's begging for attention. Fingolfin wants. Has always wanted. Is this not what he had wished for when he was young? For his brother to look at him and finally see him. Why must it leave a bitter taste in his mouth now that it is happening. But he wants the same thing he'd wanted in the previous iteration of this mess. For his brother to know him. Not to just know of the events, but to be able to look Fingolfin in the face and tell him why he'd burned the boats. Why he'd acted as if he was the only one who was allowed to wish for vengeance against Morgoth. Why he'd had to go and get himself killed before Fingolfin could punch him in the face.

Useless, useless wants. Much of what seems to go through Fingolfin's head lately is useless. He thinks, in truth, he just wants to have simply stayed dead the first time. A selfish want but that does not make it go away.

"Perhaps we cannot kill him," Fëanor says thoughtfully, "but depriving him of his hröa would still inconvenience him would it not? Would still put a stop to his plans."

"Yes, but I do not pretend to understand how the Valar work. It may be that he can simply craft himself a new one."

Fëanor hums. "If we can sever his fëa from his hröa I may be able to trap it before he has a chance to do so. I will need to retrieve something from the palace. Come, I will see you back."

"You realize I am capable of walking to the palace on my own?"

Fëanor laughs. "If I leave you alone you will try to steal the sword from under my nose and rush off to fight Morgoth regardless."

Fingolfin absolutely refuses to confirm that he likely would have done that. But Fëanor laughs again at whatever is on his face. "Come little brother, there is much to do."

He herds Fingolfin out the door and out of the house and the entire time Fingolfin is silent, struck utterly speechless by the words that had so easily left Fëanor's mouth. Little brother.

☀︎

They pass Finarfin on their way inside of the palace. Finarfin who looks between them with wide eyes and then mouths, later, at Fingolfin. He smiles weakly, having absolutely no intention of letting anyone get him alone long enough to ask him about this. Though he’s sure that will be increasingly difficult considering the rest of his family surely still has questions about his abrupt departure from breakfast.

Fëanor leads the way through the palace and then turns down a hallway Fingolfin never goes down. He has the absurd urge to freeze like a child caught somewhere they shouldn’t be. But this hall, he knows, leads to the family rooms. The original family rooms. Míriel’s room was this way, her sewing room, Fëanor’s childhood bedroom. Fingolfin has never come this way and neither have his siblings. It’s always been an understood thing that this was not an area to explore even just out of curiosity. But Fëanor keeps walking and Fingolfin certainly isn’t going to ask if it’s really okay for him to be down here.

The room that he follows Fëanor into is obviously the sewing room. Bolts of cloth lay scattered on tables and leaned against walls. He sees a rack overflowing with spools of thread in brilliant, vivid colors. There’s a dark green fabric laid out on one table, pins carefully stuck in it, and scissors sitting next to it, just waiting for their owner to return and cut out the pattern they’ve planned. It feels a little like a shrine, a little like a graveyard. A lot like a desperate, wordless plea to let the belief that the room’s owner will return linger just a little longer.

Fëanor is in the back corner of the room, carefully picking through a box of stuff. Fingolfin stands very still just in the doorway and doesn’t touch a thing. Takes in the various half-finished projects and feels a pang of sadness that they will never be completed. Makes sure to keep those thoughts off of his face when Fëanor comes back over hands full of… something.

“I don’t know what my mother intended to do with this,” Fëanor says, voice unusually soft. “Or if it is a relic from Cuiviénen, but the power she imbued it with is strong.” He unfolds a finely woven net that is large enough it could be tossed over Fingolfin’s head and reach his ankles still.

Fingolfin gently touches the corner and flexes his fingers against the song of strength and captivity sung through the threads. “For hunting perhaps, or fishing,” he muses, marveling at how tightly woven it is. It would be extraordinary if this was made in Cuiviénen. It would be extraordinary even if it was not. “You think this can hold the fëa of a Valar?”

“Míriel Þerindë made it,” Fëanor says, eyes blazing when Fingolfin meets them. “of course it can.”

Fingolfin spares a moment to wonder if Míriel had also been as obnoxiously arrogant as her son is and then vows to never let Fëanor know he’d had that thought. “Does this mean you will finally give me the sword?”

“At which point exactly in your life did you lose all of that patience atar is so proud of you for having?” Fëanor asks, snickering when Fingolfin glares at him. “You may have it tomorrow. Morgoth walks the same path through the city every morning. It will be easy to ambush him.”

It is longer than Fingolfin wishes to wait but not so long that he cannot. Fëanor folds the net back up and wraps it in a piece of emerald cloth and Fingolfin follows him back out of the room. When they reach the main halls again they find both Fingon and Maedhros conspicuously lingering in a doorway not too far away. Fingon turns to look at them immediately. Maedhros at least tries to act as if they were not curiously spying.

Fëanor stares at them for a moment, eyes flickering between them, and Fingolfin knows what Fëanor is thinking about. “I am happy you two are friends,” Fëanor declares, nodding decisively. He walks off before Fingon can pick his jaw up off the floor or Maedhros can wipe the deeply startled look off his face. Fingolfin resists the urge to start laughing, tells them both to stay out of trouble, and follows after his brother.

If he ignores the crushing weight of responsibility on his shoulders, it is almost entertaining watching his family scramble to try and figure out what is going on.

☀︎

The sword that Fëanor hands him the next day is remarkably sturdy and well-balanced for being both his first attempt and made in such an astonishingly short time frame. He tells Fëanor as much and rolls his eyes at how smug he looks.

"I assume then that my swords were superior to the ones created by others?"

"Does the sun shine?" he replies absently, still inspecting the sword.

"What is the sun?"

Fingolfin looks up and stares at Fëanor in bemusement. How Fëanor managed to miss this when looking through his memories Fingolfin does not know. "You really did die incredibly early didn’t you," he says, amused when Fëanor scowls at him. He opens his mind and holds out a memory. Fëanor doesn't recoil this time, though he still hesitates for a moment before reaching back. The sun rises for the first time in the memory, bathing the world in warm light. At the time it had felt like a manifestation of their hope.

"Perhaps we should kill the trees after this so that the Valar are forced to make the sun," Fëanor says, laughing at the scandalized look Fingolfin throws him.

"I am not killing the trees," he tells Fëanor, only half-sure if his brother is joking. "Killing Morgoth will be the cause of quite enough problems."

"Indeed." Fëanor picks up his own sword. "Onwards then! I am eager to rid us of this nuisance!"

He's out the door before Fingolfin can react to Morgoth being called a nuisance. "A nuisance," he mutters. As if Morgoth was no more than an annoying insect. He wonders how badly it would piss Morgoth off to be compared to such to his face.

☀︎

Later, Fingolfin will curse them both as fools for having hope. Will curse Fëanor for being so fucking arrogant and sure of himself that he'd dragged Fingolfin along with him into believing that they could win this. But in the minutes before the fight, his brother beside him and on his side, his sword a comforting weight in his hand — in that moment he feels so fucking hopeful he can feel it in his teeth.

And then the fight happens.

Morgoth dodges their initial strike, dashing their hope of wounding him immediately as Fingolfin had done before. And for a few minutes Morgoth tries to keep his cover, likely in hope of using this as a way to ruin Tirion, but his hatred of them ends up being larger than his desire to keep up the ruse. Then there is the moment, when Fingolfin has the sick, startling realization of how much stronger Morgoth is without a preemptive stab wound to the neck slowing him down or the hallowed light of the silmarils burning him.

He does not have a weapon but he does as Fingolfin had feared he would and grows taller than the trees. Some part of Fingolfin thinks that he should just go ahead and give up and resign himself to once again doing this all over again. But the part of Fingolfin that had dug its teeth into the idea of Beleriand so firmly he had braved the ice rears its head and snarls. Maybe they can't win this, but that doesn't mean he won't try.

Trying, in the end, does no good. Despite Melkor's strength he still gets five hits in. Fëanor gets in six. And, oh, it is so terribly satisfying to hear Morgoth's furious bellowing, but the satisfaction crystalizes into frigid fear when Fëanor fails to move out of the way in time and gets caught up in Morgoth's hand. Fëanor looks like nothing more than a doll caught in Morgoth's fist and Fingolfin cannot bring himself to watch when Morgoth hauls back and throws Fëanor. Fingolfin has no hope that a throw from that height is anything but a death sentence. Finds himself nothing but bitterly relieved when a couple of minutes later he once again finds himself sprawled on the ground as Morgoth's foot comes down.

Perhaps this is just the way he's meant to die, he thinks, aiming his sword upwards so that even as he dies, he gets the glory of listening to Morgoth scream.

☀︎

the third loop

Fingolfin wakes up in his bed.

He stares at the ceiling, the silence feeling so very loud. There's a scream building in the base of his throat — fury and grief and a great weeping hopelessness that he cannot give sound to for fear of it overwhelming him. He breathes in slowly, focusing on the way his chest moves, all of his ribs in their proper place. Breathes out just as slowly, tries to let the tension out with it. Lays in bed for too long focused on nothing but the feel of air moving in and out of his body.

When he finally gets out of bed and gets dressed he finds that he feels brittle. Still a little too aware of his own breathing, everything else feeling very far away. He feels a little like it would take little more than a bumped elbow on a doorframe to send cracks running through him. He does not actually have a plan when he leaves his room. Stands in the doorway for too long trying to decide where to go and is thankful no one happens upon him.

He finally settles on heading for the gardens. If he goes to the city he stands the chance of running into Morgoth again and he is not sure what he will do if he sees him again so soon. What he does not account for, as he heads for the gardens, is how long he's taken to simply get ready and leave his room. Turns a corner, finds Fëanor walking toward him, and freezes in his tracks. Realizes far too late he's forgotten that stupid meeting again. It always seems so small and unimportant in the face of everything else.

He does not know what his face is doing but Fëanor stops walking as well. "Ñolofinwë," he says cooly. "The meeting is the other direction if you've forgotten how to get there."

Fingolfin cannot respond. Can think only of Fëanor caught in Morgoth's fist. It is not as if Fëanor is the first loved one he has seen die. But there is something unsettlingly jarring about seeing someone die and then having them alive and well in front of you so soon after. To say nothing of the sick feeling in his stomach at once again hearing Fëanor speak to him as if he's never wanted to do something less.

"What is wrong with you?" Fëanor asks after the silence has stretched entirely too long. He's scowling and glances past Fingolfin, clearly wondering if walking away and leaving Fingolfin to his break-down would be the preferable option.

"I—" he tries, has to stop when the word catches in his throat. He had listened to Fëanor in the unsung day, say little brother like he almost meant it, and Fingolfin hadn't realized it at the time, but there'd been a shard of hope stitching itself onto the part of him that has always wanted to fix what was broken between them. Feeling all of the stitches unravel is abruptly too much. This is all too much. He thinks he means to make some excuse before going back to his room but the only thing that comes out of his mouth when he opens it is a tiny, wretched noise that settles loudly between them.

He shakes his head, turns and leaves. He will not call it running but Fëanor calls his name and his steps quicken.

☀︎

He ends up sitting in the window seat, knees hugged to his chest as he stares out at Tirion. Anairë loves this window seat, cites it always as her favorite part of their rooms. Had enjoyed sitting and reading under the light of Laurelin while Fingolfin worked at his desk. The silence only ever broken by her reading a particularly interesting passage out loud for him or by him asking her opinion on one thing or another. He would finish his work and sit with her then, content to listen to her read.

Those days had grown fewer and fewer as his tension with Fëanor had stretched itself tighter and tighter. She had never fully left him as Nerdanel had Fëanor but at the end the space between them had echoed every time they spoke. Their marriage bond a small, tightly coiled, miserable knot in the back of his mind that he didn't dare touch. It is fully present in his mind now, a garden arch covered in freshly bloomed roses where he could easily walk through and find her on the other side. He doesn't dare draw her attention to the icy wasteland that is his mind currently but just knowing that he could is a warm thought to take comfort in.

He does not know what to do. Closes his eyes and sees Fëanor flying through the air. Opens them and can think of nothing but the way the failure stings. Closed them and thinks of Arakáno, of Írissë. Of Turgon building walls so high it locked even his family out. Of how he'd left Fingon to run a kingdom doomed to fall. Opens his eyes and blinks against the way they burn.

He does not enjoy crying but that does nothing to stop the tears from spilling over. He does not know how long time will continue to be sung and unsung. Does not know if he has a set number of attempts. If one day he will die and that will be the unfortunate song to stay sung . Or, perhaps worse, there is no limit and he simply tries and tries forever until he gets it right. This is only the third song, perhaps the fourth if he counts the original, and he already feels too brittle to do anyone any good.

He has no plans. Once again has no sword, not that it had done him any good. And he is so very tired.

He stays sitting by the window, silently crying on and off, for some indeterminable amount of time, until someone knocks on the door. He stays silent hoping whoever it is will simply leave. Knows better the minute Fëanor loudly says his name. But just because it is a lost cause does not mean he will speed up the outcome. He stays silent and keeps his attention on the view outside of the window. Doesn't react when Fëanor barges in after presumably having sung the lock open.

He does not have the energy for Fëanor. For all the awful three-pronged emotions he pulls forward just so he can find the softest spots to stab them back through. His brother makes him feel like a little kid still clinging to the robes of someone Finwë had taught him to idolize. Makes him bitter and angry with nowhere to put either emotion.

"Ñolofinwë, what is wrong with you?" Fëanor demands the very minute he walks in. "You have been missing all day and I have heard atar enquire after you one too many times. I will drag you out of this room if I must.”

Fingolfin considers responding but the idea of speaking is exhausting. He continues staring out the window instead. His eyes are traitorously burning again and he dearly wishes Fëanor would leave so he can be miserable in peace.

"Ñolofinwë," Fëanor snaps, before falling silent as he gets close enough to get a good look at Fingolfin's face, which he is sure is a blotchy tear-stained mess. He watches Fëanor’s reflection in the glass as he takes a step back and then awkwardly hovers there, clearly trying to decide if he should leave or stay.

Fingolfin closes his eyes, presses his forehead against the cool pane of glass. “You can leave,” he says quietly, “just don’t tell atar, please.” He does not think he can bear to face his father. Does not want to lie to him and does not want to spill his secrets and have to lay all of his failures at his father’s feet.

He waits for the retreating footsteps but they never come. Instead, after another minute of dithering, Fëanor’s gaze hot against his skin, Fëanor determinedly walks over and seats himself opposite of Fingolfin in the window seat. Fingolfin opens his eyes as the cushion shifts to find his brother sitting cross-legged across from him, considering him with a heavy gaze. The window seat is small enough that their legs nearly touch, would touch if Fingolfin uncurled from the position he’s in.

“What has happened, Nolvo?” Fëanor asks, voice too serious to be comforting, but too quiet to be abrasive.

Fingolfin thinks of his brother in his workshop, watching Fingolfin with serious eyes, saying, you have died twice. You are not well. Thinks maybe Fëanor had been right. Wishes very suddenly, with a sharp pang, for his brother to hug him again. Wouldn’t know how to ask for that even if Fëanor did remember the unsung days. But the wanting still gnaws at him and has him closing his eyes again, ignoring the tears that start up again.

Fëanor makes a frustrated sound and pokes his knee. “Nolvo, what’s happened?”

And Fingolfin is tired and grieving and is not sure if this is some twisted chance to fix things or a divine punishment and he selfishly wants the previous version of Fëanor back who had looked at him and seemed to actually see him. He is too weary to speak but. But it’s easy to once again open his mind. Easier now that he has a better idea of how Fëanor will react.

Fëanor still recoils before hesitantly reaching back, but he has, Fingolfin notes absently, reached back every time. It’s almost interesting how Fëanor flips through the memories in almost exactly the same order. The only difference being that this time Fëanor lingers over the previous unsung days. Lingers the longest, oddly, on the memory of himself barging into breakfast to announce he’d made a sword.

He says nothing when he’s done. Let’s go of the memories and goes to close his mind off again but hesitates when Fingolfin’s mind stays pressed up against his, showing no signs of wanting to retreat. Fingolfin should apologize for that but it is comforting having the blazing maelstrom of Fëanor’s mind pressed up against his. It’s impossible to feel alone when Fëanor is so vividly, achingly loud and alive.

“You fucking idiot,” Fëanor says on a sigh. He stands, forcefully pulling Fingolfin to his feet as well, and before he can do more than make an irritated protesting noise, Fëanor has already pulled him into a hug. Fingolfin goes still, expecting it to be over as quickly as it started. But Fëanor gives no indication that he’s going to let go and so, Fingolfin hesitantly hugs back. There’s an ugly, painful sob trying to claw its way up his throat as Fëanor’s arms tighten around him. He tries to swallow it down, tired of crying, tired of all this unfathomable grief. But with their minds still pressed together Fëanor must be able to feel the emotion even without Fingolfin directly sending him the thought, because he lets out an aggravated sigh, and very quietly, like he’s worried someone else will hear him and start spreading the gossip around Tirion posthaste, he says, “You must let it all out. Your mind feels like a tightly coiled spring. Cry little brother. We will figure out the rest after.”

Fingolfin sucks in a desperate, gasping breath, thinks of firelight against the water and salt on his tongue, and feels a long frozen hurt crack down the middle as the first sob finally breaks free.

 ☀︎

Chapter End Notes

To Fëanor's deep surprise he does not in fact like watching Fingolfin die. It keeps activating his big brother sleeper cell instincts all at once and his internal dialogue is just a lot of stressed out, angry yelling

[insert B99 meme of Rosa holding the dog] - Fëanor: I have had Fingolfin for one day but if anything happened to him--<br />
Findis: you've literally had him for his entire life? He isn't new.

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I: That scar I gave you, how does it feel? 
Y: Like love. 
I: I thought we hated each other. 
Y: That too. 

Joan Tierney

☀︎

the third loop (continued)

Fëanor stays quiet while Fingolfin cries. Tightens his hold when Fingolfin begins to feel as if he’s going to shake apart and lets Fingolfin’s mind stay curled up next to his, even though he can feel the way Fëanor’s mind wants to snap closed. By the time he’s finished crying he feels hollow. All the grief he’s been lugging around for centuries feels as if it has been temporarily scooped out of him, making it blatantly obvious how much space it had been taking up. All the poisoned thoughts he’s been pushing down about dying, about the prospect of facing death again and again, feel as if they’ve been mercilessly wrung out, filtered through him, and come back clean.

When his breathing finally evens out and Fëanor steps back, a distinct air of relief about him, Fingolfin collapses back down onto the window seat, taking the handkerchief Fëanor offers him gratefully. He leans against the window and watches in bemusement as Fëanor disappears into the bedroom. There's the distinct sound of drawers opening and closing, something he should likely be worried about, but there’s no sense of anything alarming coming from Fëanor’s mind, so he really cannot be bothered.

He takes a deep, freeing breath, and is almost surprised to find that he no longer feels two steps away from cracking apart. He still feels overwhelmed and has no idea where to go from here, but at least he doesn't feel like the entire world is trying to compress him into nothingness. This is why Fëanor is so obnoxiously arrogant of course, because too often, he's right.

Fëanor walks back into the room, carrying one of Fingolfin’s travel packs that he seems to have stuffed full. "This is what we're going to do—" he starts, only to be cut off as the door to the room slams open.

"Nolvo, where have you been?" Lalwen demands, breezing into the room. "Are you—" She pauses, her eyes catching on Fëanor. She stares at him for a moment and then slowly turns her gaze to Fingolfin's face, which he can only imagine looks terrible. "What," she says to Fëanor, in a voice that promises great violence, "did you do to him?"

"Peace, Írimë," Fëanor says, amusement in his eyes. “I’ve done nothing. He is merely having a difficult day.”

Lalwen looks as if she’s never heard such a ridiculous statement in her life. Moves over to his side and wraps her arms around him, her chin settling on top of his head. “Tell me the truth, háno, did he say something to you?”

He hugs her back, happy that he seems to have done all his crying, or he’s sure that having his little sister hug him would have set him off again. “He’s done nothing, I am merely having a difficult day as he said.”

She pulls back to stare at him, looking no less doubtful now that the words have come from his mouth. “And what has caused such a difficult day? Is there someone else I should go threaten?”

“Please do not threaten anyone,” he says, smiling at how very serious she is. It was easy to think that being in Beleriand had made her into the stubborn, laughing, vicious warrior she’d been, but the core of her had always been so. Quick to laugh but just as quick to anger. “No one has harmed me. I am only very tired and overwhelmed.”

“Yes, which is why we will be riding out of the city for a few days,” Fëanor announces, smirking when Fingolfin stares at him in bewilderment. “It will do you good to get out of the city.”

“But…I have things to do. I cannot just leave!”

“Those things are going nowhere,” Fëanor says, waving his hand dismissively. “We will deal with them when we return.”

“We?” Lalwen asks, eyes very curious as she looks between them. “What things need to be done that have inspired you both to work together?”

“It’s a delicate matter,” Fëanor says before Fingolfin can think of a lie. “You will find out later.”

Not technically untrue but he does not think it appeases Lalwen. She still looks terribly curious and he’s sure that the minute they arrive back in the city he will have to worry about her shadowing them. He really does have the nosiest family. “I see,” she says, smiling guilelessly. “Then I shall inform the rest of our family of your well-being and where you will be going.”

He sighs, not even bothering to hide it. Translation: she will be ruthlessly gossiping with the rest of his family as they try to figure out what could possibly have Fingolfin and his brother working together. The nosiest family.

☀︎

A few hours later they are on the road. The minute the horses carry them out of Tirion a great weight lifts from his shoulders and a small ball of anxiety at leaving his family in the city with Morgoth settles in his stomach.

It is, he knows, very unlikely anything will force Morgoth to show his hand this early unless it is Fingolfin himself attempting to murder him. A cold comfort. But a comfort nonetheless.

"Do you have a destination in mind?" He asks after they've ridden in silence for a while. "Or are we simply riding in aimless directions."

"We shall ride north until we reach Formenos or until we tire," Fëanor says with an unconcerned shrug. "The destination is not the point."

"And what is the point?"

Fëanor glances over at him, an unimpressed look on his face. "The point is for you to spend time free of Morgoth's shadow so that you may face him with a lighter heart."

"I do not believe my heart shall ever be light again while Morgoth roams free amongst my family," he says darkly.

"I did not say it would be," Fëanor says, rolling his eyes. "I merely said it would be lighter than it is now with the constant shadow of death shrouding it."

Fingolfin quiets at that, considering his heart and his brother's words. There has been a shadow on his heart since Morgoth began his assault against the Noldor and the men of Beleriand. Perhaps even before that, the shadow taking form the moment Fëanor held a sword to his throat. A shadow that had darkened into a rage so black it rivaled Morgoth's hatred. It is death that shadows it, that is true, though he does not believe his own troubles him as much as the deaths of his people.

"You are being strangely calm," he says, instead of responding to Fëanor's words.

"There seemed to be little calm in the last few songs that you lived through. Taking into consideration that they all ended in one or both of our deaths I do not believe my anger would do anything other than hasten that same end." Fëanor's voice is strange and calm but his jaw clenches and his fingers are tight around the reins.

"But you are angry?"

"Of course I am angry," Fëanor snaps before forcefully adopting that strange, calm tone again. "Do you believe I enjoy leaving my family in the city with that fiend?"

"We did not have to leave," he counters, sounding sulky even to his own ears.

Fëanor shoots him a look that says his opinion of Fingolfin has clearly dropped. "If you could refrain from being both repetitive and stupid."

Fingolfin swallows the petty retorts that spring to his lips and stares straight ahead. They ride for a few more minutes without speaking but Fëanor does not suffer silence well when he has nothing to do with his hands. "There is—" he hesitates, an uncharacteristic move that Fingolfin seems to keep inspiring in him lately. "There is," he tries again, the words slow and reluctant to emerge, "a chance that this song will not end well either. But if we are to have a chance you need to be at your best." It clearly pains him to admit to even the possibility of failure.

“And if it is still not enough?”

“Then we will try again.” He says it so calmly. So assured. As if his help in every song is an assured thing when he cares so little for Fingolfin before their minds open to each other.

Fingolfin thinks he hates Fëanor for that a bit. The idea that he must again and again hand Fëanor all his worst memories to gain his brother’s concern is deeply unpleasant but also, traitorously, the idea that Fëanor cares at all still makes that twisted hot emotion go curling through his ribs. This is all Fëanor has ever been. A mess of conflicting emotions that leave Fingolfin’s heart a war zone.

"Tell me of Beleriand," Fëanor says, when the silence once again stretches too long for him. "I wish to know what it will be like."

"You saw it in my memories," he says, his brow furrowing in confusion.

Fëanor waves a hand dismissively. "Yes, quickly and with little detail. Tell me of it."

He thinks of arguing but it is not an awful topic and he finds that he enjoys speaking of the land. Of the sloping hills and jagged mountain ranges. He does not speak of the Helcaraxë or Lake Mithrim and their bitter memories. He speaks of the trek to Hithlum, of the building of Barad Eithel. Speaks of Dor-lómin and how it looked blanketed in snow. He speaks of the few times he'd seen Himring and Helevorn and Himlad and the wide-open fields that Maglor defended. He talks about the forests and the peculiar joy of watching sunlight filter through the canopy of trees, the beauty of the dappled light, juxtaposed against the knowledge of the danger that could lurk behind every tree.

He tells Fëanor of the Edain. Of the men that Finrod had so dearly loved. Of their peculiar quirks and their vicious loyalty. How they aged so quickly but absorbed knowledge eagerly and passed it on down their lines so that it was never forgotten. Tries to explain the sensation of meeting men and knowing that they will die and be sundered from you forever no matter how much affection you hold for them.

He does not speak of the pain and the death. It lingers in the shadows of each story but he talks around it. Finds himself surprised by how much he has to speak of that is good and feels that deep well of longing to return bubble over again. He wants to do it all better. He wants the chance to do it all better. A chance even to find out what Beleriand is like without Morgoth's influence.

Let this work, he prays, give us a chance to build something good.

They don't speak much once Fingolfin has run out of words. Fëanor looks to be lost deep in thought, whether because of Fingolfin's words or the problem at hand or some other reason, he does not know. But he is content enough to ride in silence and just breathe in the fresh air and listen to the quiet. Is content to relish in the novelty of knowing that his absence from Tirion will harm nothing.

Please, he thinks again, watching the way Laurelin’s light catches on the grass and the deep green of the trees, let this be enough. Please, let us fix this.

☀︎

Once, Fëanor looks over at him, eyes narrowed, and says, "You took joy in being king."

It is not a question and Fingolfin is not sure if he wants to laugh or cry or perhaps throw his saddlebag at Fëanor's face. “Considering the cost the kingship came at, I do not believe joy is the word I would use,” he says, eyeing Fëanor’s expression carefully. He will be so very cross if Fëanor has dragged him all the way out here just to yell at him. “But yes, I find the duties of running a kingdom satisfying.”

To his great confusion and relief Fëanor merely frowns at him and turns his eyes back to the road. He thinks of pushing the matter and just as quickly decides he does not wish to actually start a fight. But later, right as the mingling is beginning to fade through the air, Fingolfin finds himself saying, "You keep helping me."

Fëanor cuts an unimpressed look his way. "And what else would you suggest that I do? Leave you to get yourself killed by Morgoth repeatedly."

"It's what I expected you to do," he says bluntly. “It's what I expected everyone to do. I can handle this well enough on my own."

"You," Fëanor says, each word crisp and clipped in a way Fingolfin knows means he's swallowing much crueler words down, "are a fucking idiot."

"Yes. So you've said." There’s a fury suddenly kindling itself in the base of his throat. The ease with which Fëanor speaks of helping him makes his stomach twist and his throat burn. As if it is given. As if Fingolfin should have expected it. As if Fingolfin should be grateful.

"Do you enjoy dying then," Fëanor snaps, twisting to glare at him. "Because that is all you are accomplishing by yourself."

"It is all I accomplished with your help as well," he bites back, sneering at the way Fëanor's nostrils flare in offense. "Do not delude yourself into believing that you could have done better—" the words spill out of him, quick and viscous and covered in venom "—don't forget you died first and left me the mess to clean up. You—" he cuts himself off sharply. This Fëanor has done nothing yet he viciously reminds himself. You, he had been about to say, burned the boats and left us and if we had not been so foolhardy as to brave the Helcaraxë then Maedhros would have died or hung there another century and Maglor would have been High King which would have led to no victories at all. A cruel view of things. But he has spent far too many nights lying awake and playing out in his head how it all could have gone.

Maglor was a good lord and protected the gap well. But he was not Maedhros, able to corral the rest of his brothers with a look and a word. And the sons of Fëanor left to run unchecked while grieving and furious would have accomplished nothing other than more death. For all that he would never have given Fingon his blessing to sneak off to Thangorodrim, he cannot deny that it had been a blessing for the political side of things as well.

Fëanor is watching him, eyes glittering; the light in them always shines so painfully bright when he is mad, and Fingolfin has had many opportunities to learn the different ways the fire in them flickers. Fëanor opens his mouth, likely to say something cutting that will burrow itself beneath Fingolfin's skin, but he does not want to hear it. Instead urges his horse into a gallop and does not think about the last time he'd been astride a horse, galloping towards his death.

☀︎

He rides until his horse begins to tire and then dismounts, guiding her off the road. It's easy to begin setting up camp. Easy to keep his mind perfectly blank of anything except the next task, like the strike of hooves against the dirt had driven all the painful thoughts into hiding. Easy. Until Fëanor catches up and then it all tries to come roaring back to the front of his mind. All that bitter anger that is so good at hiding itself when Fëanor is acting uncharacteristically thoughtful and throwing Fingolfin off-kilter, only for it to come flooding back in with no warning and leaving his tongue blistering.

Surprisingly, Fëanor does not immediately confront him. Only stares at him darkly as they go about their business and so he keeps his silence as well, sure that anything he has to say will make matters worse. They lay on opposite sides of the fire to rest and Fingolfin does not know if it is the weight of Fëanor's anger on the camp or the lack of a weapon while sleeping outdoors — but it takes him a very long time to fall asleep.

☀︎

When he awakes on the second day the mingling is nearly at an end, Laurelin cheerfully tossing light through the sky. He spares a moment to simply stare at the sky, surprised that he's slept for so long. Surprised too at the lack of nightmares. When he does rise he finds Fëanor sitting beneath a tree, sketching a design in his notebook, brow furrowed in concentration. Fingolfin wonders if he even truly slept.

He finds that he does not wish for the oppressive fury of yesterday to linger — the anger and resentment having once again cooled and hidden itself away — and so once he has food in his hands he seats himself at Fëanor's side. His brother tenses but he does not tell Fingolfin to go away. Nor does he tell him to mind his own business when Fingolfin curiously leans closer to peer at the design.

"Swords," he mutters, laughing under his breath at how predictable it is.

"Tell me of the weaknesses in the one I made you previously," Fëanor demands.

Fingolfin almost can't believe Fëanor would even admit to there being weaknesses but then, he thinks perhaps Fëanor just assumes that there are always weaknesses, always ways to improve upon anything he touches — whether that be his craft or the people in his life. "The balance was slightly off," he offers. "The hilt far more ostentatious than needed for a fight. And I would have preferred it to have had a marginally longer reach, though I know others would disagree.”

Fëanor’s sketching pauses for a moment as he surveys the design with a critical eye. Fingolfin closes his eyes and leans back against the tree when Fëanor goes back to sketching. It’s peaceful, the cool breeze, the sound of birds greeting the day, the quiet scratch of Fëanor’s pencil against the paper. He knows of course that the anger is still there, simmering in his chest. But he wants to enjoy this. He wants to be able to look back later and finally have some good memories of Fëanor to dwell on instead of all the bitter ones left to him.

Maybe that’s why he reaches out. Or perhaps he just reaches out because he wants the reminder that this is all real. Despite the anger and the bitterness and the impotent helplessness that is lurking in the wings of his mind — perhaps he just wants the reminder that this is real and the people he loves are alive. Fëanor, when Fingolfin’s mind delicately curls up next to his craving the warmth, sighs heavily in annoyance, but still opens his mind a crack so that Fingolfin can bask in the overwhelming cacophony of noise and heat that spills out.

He must doze off again at some point, for he finds himself standing on the battlements of Barad Eithel staring out at the mountains covered in a blanket of freshly fallen, untouched snow. It is so quiet. There is not even a whisper of wind to indicate another snowstorm approaching. There is also a distinct lack of noise coming from Barad Eithel. No yelling or clashing of swords from the training grounds. No chatter carrying through the wind as people go about their days. Not even the sound of a horse’s hoof striking the stone. He thinks that if he were to go and look he would find himself completely and utterly alone.

And then, the air shimmering and shifting sideways, a great veil seems to be lifted from his eyes, for he beholds suddenly that the land in front of him is not empty, but instead scattered with his kinsfolk, all running towards the gates of Barad Eithel as a great vat of flame belches from the sky and melts its way down the mountain. But it seems to him, and to them as well if their dismayed cries are any indication, that no matter how much they run they never draw any closer even as the molten flame creeps closer and closer.

He looks to those farthest back, those closest to the flame, and finds, to his deep grief, Fingon and Maedhros. But not as they were last he saw them. This is the ash covered face of a Fingon who has only just slid himself from an eagle’s back and the bloodless face of Maedhros, eyes barely open as he half-slid, half-fell into Fingon’s arms, seeming to cling to consciousness only through sheer stubbornness. And still, despite the wrongness of it, the flame creeps closer and he cannot close his eyes, cannot force his feet to flee to the stables, cannot force his voice out of his throat, he can only watch as the flame creeps closer and closer and —

—then he is staring at the sky as he’s forcefully jerked awake, Fëanor’s grip on his arm brutal, and the blazing maelstrom of Fëanor’s mind seeming to have done its best to burn the nightmare away. He had not even been aware that you could do such a thing. Is very sure that you should not do such a thing. He stares at the sky for a long moment, heart racing, still feeling frozen, mind sluggishly trying to re-orient itself. Cannot decide if Fëanor is still a comfort or a suffocating heat threatening to burn through him.

He drags in a deep breath and sits up, flexing his fingers and shaking Fëanor's hand off his arm. He does not, in the end, close his mind; only sits there, listening to his heartbeat slow. Fëanor does not try to ask him about it and after a moment, when it becomes clear Fingolfin will not be speaking, he goes back to sketching — but he keeps his mind pressed against Fingolfin's, a warm presence to lean against.

☀︎

Mid-day, when Fingolfin begins feeling restless, unused to so much inaction, they pack up camp and begin riding in the direction or Formenos again. Fëanor talks out loud about the sword designs, bouncing ideas off Fingolfin, though he has little input to give. And when he grows tired of swords, he turns to the other fights he'd seen in Fingolfin's memories. More importantly, he turns to the dragons and the threat they present.

In this Fingolfin has ideas. Fëanor is the inventor but Fingolfin had lived and fought there - from a tactical standpoint he is the more experienced. It is a novel experience, the two of them bouncing ideas off each other and arguing little. It does not, precisely, help him settle in his skin. For this is not a reality he knows how to settle into the shape of. But it does help further calm the prickling anxiety beneath his skin.

The camp is calmer when they finally stop to rest, none of that anger suffocating them. It still takes him a very long time to fall asleep, his ears always straining to catch the sound of an oncoming threat and his hand itching for a sword to be within reach. But eventually, lulled by Fëanor's steady breathing and the crackle of the fire, he falls asleep.

☀︎

His dreams are not kind.

It is the ice. The slow creaking that haunted their steps and sung below them as they slept. The screams that always broke out every time they lost another to the unforgiving icy water. Sometimes, the ice would groan as it shifted, an aching sound that always heralded a shift in the currents beneath the ice.

The animals that survived, or worse, thrived, on the ice were monstrous and hungry. Beautiful white bears larger than a horse, with teeth sharp enough to kill you in one bite. And that was if you were lucky. Because if you did not die immediately then your death would be a slow, torturous affair. They tried to save every single elf that was injured. They did. But it was blisteringly cold and resources were spread thin and the wounds just seemed to sap whatever energy an elf had until they quietly died.

They could not even bury them. The best they could offer was to let them slip into the icy water so that at least their body would not later be mauled by an animal.

Fingolfin had never enjoyed the cold. But he thinks for many of them, by the time they made it to Beleriand, they knew the cold so intimately that it was easier for them survive in the colder regions. He had taught himself to appreciate the biting wind on his face when he stood on the ramparts of Barad Eithel out of spite. If he could still love the heat that fire gave them after everything, then he could make himself still love the cold as well.

His dreams are not kind.

He dreams of Fingon gone to Thangorodrim and never returned. He dreams of Fingon gone to Thangorodrim and hung up beside Maedhros, their only comfort whatever weak words they may offer each other. He dreams of Aredhel being pulled beneath the trees of the forests she loved so well.

Dreams of Fëanor standing in front of the gates of Angband, a shade of flame and smoke, who looks at him and says, even if I had known the harm you were capable of dealing him, Ñolofinwë, even then, I would still have burned the boats. Did you think any of it would matter to me?

He jolts awake, heart racing, and his cheeks wet with tears. The mingling has already passed, Laurelin's light drifting through the air. Fingolfin puts his hands over his face and tries to think of anything but the sharp ache in his chest.

When he finally sits up, feeling more tired than he had before he'd lain down, he finds Fëanor sitting near the fire, quietly watching him as he spins a hunting dagger between his fingers. There are dark circles beginning to appear beneath Fëanor's eyes and Fingolfin spitefully hopes that some of his memories are haunting his brother as well.

He pushes himself to his feet and moves to Fëanor's side, dropping down next to him and pressing their shoulders together. Fëanor tenses for only a moment before relaxing against him.

"Is it truly hatred that you feel for me?" he hears himself ask, voice tired and thin, the echoes of his dream lingering in the space between each word. Fëanor does not answer and Fingolfin stares into the ashes and thinks of his childhood. Of knowing early on that, though he would never admit it, atar loved Fëanor best. Findis had known it too and had resented it. Mimicked Fëanor and escaped the palace as soon as she came of age, going to dwell with their mother's people. Fingolfin though.

Fingolfin had listened to atar speak of Fëanor and had thought, I want to be just like him. Had thought, atar wants me to be just like him. It had taken him so long to figure out that those were separate things. He knows now of course, that no one could ever hope to live up to the bar that Fëanor set. Knows now, that even if he could, it would not have mattered.

"It must be hate," Fëanor says finally, the words slow and heavy. "I have hated you for so long. It cannot be so easy for me to change my feelings within the course of only a few days."

"Maybe. Maybe it is so easy because you did not hate me. Not in truth."

Fëanor scoffs, shooting a disparaging look his way. "You are a fool if you think that."

"Then perhaps I am a fool," Fingolfin says with a sigh. It would not surprise him if he is simply reaching for smoke. "But why does the truth have to be a battle? Why can it not simply be a storm that has passed."

"A fool," Fëanor says again, but there's no bite to it and he does not move away from where their shoulders are pressed together. Fingolfin doesn’t think that’s enough to build hope on, but he will regardless.

☀︎

They discuss ways to immobilize Morgoth in a fight as they ride farther north. All their ideas though hinge on being able to slow him down enough that they have an opportunity to trap him. And that is where they falter.

"Maybe we don't need to immobilize him, Fëanor says finally. "Only stay alive long enough for one of the other Valar to appear."

"You trust them?" he asks doubtfully. Unable to imagine a world where Fëanor trusts the Valar.

Fëanor laughs. "Of course I do not. But if they approach he will either flee and implicate himself, or they will restrain him from killing us and we can argue as to why he should be thrown back into the void." It is not a bad idea and they put it as their backup plan.

When they grow tired of planning Fingolfin finds himself speaking about the children, about what they accomplished in Beleriand. He had not been able to protect any of them as well as he'd have liked. But it did not mean they had not accomplished much, even if some accomplishments came to him only by whisper.

Turgon and Aredhel he can say little on for he knows little. Galadriel he knows little of other than she'd disappeared into Doriath and had seemed to have no interest in coming out.

He speaks briefly of the aftermath of Maedhros being rescued. Not of his injuries or his nightmares but of the stubborn will he'd set to recovering. The way he'd dragged himself through recovery and what he couldn't find the will to push through Fingon and his brothers had pulled him through. He speaks of Fingon and Maedhros sparring. Of how he had grown in skill despite everything.

He speaks of all the children setting out in different directions to build their own fortresses and how he'd wanted to keep them close even as he knew they'd never let him. He speaks and he speaks and then must stop for the grief of what all has been lost wells up inside of him and threatens to overflow.

Yes, there had been death and war and blood and destruction. And it was easy for his mind to go there first. But when he speaks to Fëanor he remembers that there was also much that was good. They had built homes and planted roots and it pains him that all of that is gone. That only he will be able to truly remember how brutally Morgoth had tried to beat them down and how they'd managed to thrive despite that. Despite the doom. Despite everything.

"I want to go back," he says plaintively.

Fëanor stares at him with dark eyes and says, "I know. I can hear the land in your voice."

☀︎

Later, when they're quietly eating dinner, Fëanor looks over at him and says, "You took joy in being king."

Fingolfin sighs. "I believe I already responded to that."

"You were good at it." This is not a question. "You loved the land and the people."

Fingolfin stares at him, throat tight. Fëanor stares back, mouth pursed unhappily. "What do you want me to say?"

Fëanor shakes his head. "I wish for you to say nothing." He does not elaborate further and Fingolfin does not push.

But as he stares at the sky later, trying to fall asleep, he thinks of everything Fëanor hadn't said. The stark consideration in his eyes. And Fingolfin will not allow himself to truly hope, not yet, but a spark still kindles in his chest.

☀︎

the fourth loop

Fingolfin wakes up in his bed.

He stares uncomprehendingly at the ceiling. Is sure that he had still been outside beneath the sky when he’d fallen asleep. He is just as sure that he had not died. And yet, here he is, back in his bed, and he knows without checking, that time has un-sung itself again. Knows without checking that Fëanor has once again forgotten everything.

The understanding creeps into his thoughts slowly, held back only by his unwillingness to acknowledge what some part of him has already grasped. He does not want to understand. But he cannot push it away forever and — three days. He had, has, three days. Because it is not enough that he must repeat this again and again until he wins safety for his family! No! He must also do so within a set number of days!

He has to pull a pillow over his face and scream. He screams until his throat feels raw, until the pressure in his chest no longer feels as if it is going to collapse his lungs. Then he gets up, dresses in his hunting gear, and stalks out of his room in hunt of a spear.

It’s easy enough to grab a spare hunting spear and then, as an afterthought, because it certainly can’t hurt, he straps on a couple of hunting knives and slings a bow and quiver of arrows onto his back. He does not feel angry precisely. Not in the way he had when he’d stormed the gates of Angband and called for Morgoth to face him. His mind is eerily silent, focused only on the best manner in which to begin the fight. He feels deadly furious in the same way the Helcaraxë had during the times the wind had died down and they’d trekked across it in a blanket of white silence. It had no need to do anything but wait until one of them stepped in the wrong place, until one of them simply ended up with the cold too far into their lungs. Similarly, he has no need for subtlety when one way or another Morgoth is going to flee from his hand. If it’s this song or ten songs from now - Morgoth will run from him.

He could of course do many things. Could go find Fëanor. Could sit down and piece together any one of the plans he had outlined with Fëanor. But there is, in the end, nothing to lose and everything to gain from simply going for Morgoth immediately. At worst, he dies and once again wakes up. At best, he ends this.

Grievously injuring Morgoth with a knife to the neck had prevented him from growing quite so large, though why precisely that was so effective he couldn’t say. But it stands to reason that if he can wound Morgoth in a similar manner before the true fight begins then he’ll have an advantage.

He did not linger in his room overly long this time, so there is much time left still before that meeting and Fëanor is not yet present to interrogate him. He still slips out the back of the castle, into the gardens, and moves toward the city from the side. He refuses to be waylaid this time.

Fëanor had been correct when he’d said that Morgoth walked nearly the same path in the city every morning. And it’s simple enough to find a corner to linger in on the outskirts of the city while he awaits Morgoth’s approach. Best to attack before he gets into the city proper. Less opportunity for anyone else to get in the way.

The surprise, is that this works.

He sees Morgoth approaching and crouches in the shadows, breathes in slowly, and as soon as Morgoth’s back is visible breathes out in a rush as he throws the spear straight and true. It is a pity that the Valar do not seem capable of dying at the hands of an elf, for Fingolfin would have just struck the killing blow. The bellow of pain that erupts from Morgoth as the spear pierces his belly seems to shake the ground, but Fingolfin does not let himself stumble or hesitate.

He draws his bow and shoots once, twice, thrice — the first misses as Morgoth whirls to face him; the second grazes his cheek as all his treacherous beauty melts away to reveal eyes so full of loathing that they suck the light from the air; the third buries itself true in Morgoth’s shoulder and his yell of pain shakes through the streets once more. And then, with a sickening squelch he reaches behind him and pulls the spear out of his body, staggering to the side when it rips free. Fingolfin really wished that the Valar could just die like the rest of them.

He throws the bow to the side, finding it useless now that Morgoth is moving toward him with murderous intent. His movements are jerky and Fingolfin palms a knife in each hand, wary of the spear’s reach and unsure how much strength Morgoth still has.

He waits until the last moment, until Morgoth is so close that he is pulling his arm back to strike, and then he feints left, darting forward on the right and slashing his knife across Morgoth's arm. But either Morgoth anticipated the feint or can move faster than Fingolfin had thought possible, for even as his knife draws blood Morgoth is grabbing for his throat and there is one awful cut off second where he cannot breathe before Morgoth throws him across the street. He lands poorly, a sharp pain radiating through his chest and, if the searing pain is any indication, his left wrist is now broken.

He ruthlessly pushes the pain away and gets to his feet quickly, keeping his left hand tucked against his stomach. Finds Morgoth already striding forward and braces himself, bends his knees just slightly, knife clutched tight. If he’s going to die again, he’s going to at least make the bastard hurt as he goes out. Morgoth is three steps away and Fingolfin’s mind is very quiet and —

— an arrow comes flying through the air and pierces Morgoth’s knee. Morgoth spins around, stumbling as he does so, and there is Fëanor, furious and blazing, Fingolfin’s dropped bow in his hand. Drawn by the noise, Fingolfin thinks, distantly noting that Fëanor is not the only person suddenly nearby. But Morgoth’s back is right there and his hatred of Fëanor already so dark that he’s temporarily forgotten Fingolfin, and it is the easiest thing in the world to dart forward and bury his knife in Morgoth’s back, twisting and jerking it sideways as he goes to move away.

Morgoth screams, his entire form flickering, and for a moment Fingolfin sees dragon fire and ash at the center of him. Then he is too busy trying to not pass out as Morgoth backhands him so hard it sends him crashing into a wall. Distantly he thinks he hears the call of a horn but the sound of his own breathing is so loud that it’s hard to tell. Each breath hurts but he makes himself open his eyes as he pushes himself to his feet again, legs shaking and vision blurring for a moment when he moves his wrist wrong.

It blurs and then when it clears he sees that Morgoth has fled. The horn rings through the air again, still distant but drawing ever closer, and it is nice to know that Fëanor had been right. When pushed into a corner, Morgoth would flee before the other Valar arrived. He leans against the wall, trembling and so fucking relieved he could cry.

“You fucking idiot!” Fëanor yells, appearing in front of him suddenly, incandescent with rage. “What were you thinking!”

Fingolfin stares. Thinks of himself asking, and if it is still not enough, and Fëanor’s calm, then we will try again. Thinks of the implicit promise in that. A promise that Fëanor had not seemed to doubt would carry across songs. “Fëanor,” he says. Catches the name sliding out wrong and corrects himself. “Fëanáro.”

Fëanor’s eyes narrow even as his hands hover near him, ready to catch him if he falls. “You are lucky you are not dead,” he snaps.

“I am not dead,” he agrees. And then, the absurdity of such a statement hits him and he starts laughing, which sends pain branching out through his chest. “Fëanáro. I am not dead.”

There’s a flicker of uneasy fear in Fëanor’s eyes at his laughter. He pulls in a gasping breath, nausea swirling in his stomach, and opens his mind, reaching out desperately. Fëanor flinches even as he reaches back. I am not dead, he thinks, pushes off the wall and steps forward to drop his forehead against Fëanor’s chest, this time. He flings his memories of death at Fëanor and feels his brother stiffen.

Fëanor’s hand settles on the back of his neck and squeezes, feeling nearly as much a threat as a comfort. “If you were not already grievously injured,” Fëanor says lowly, voice dark and furious, “I would punch you.”

“It is a good thing I am grievously injured then.” He leans more of his weight on Fëanor. His head aches and every time he opens his eyes his vision swims.

You are an idiot, Fëanor thinks, the thought very heavy. And before Fingolfin can think to respond, his brother is quietly singing a cradle of sleep about him. He could fight it if he cared to. But it’s so much easier to sink into the warmth of it and hope that he will not find the song has unsung itself when he next awakes.

Please, he thinks, prays, hopes, pleads as he falls asleep. Please let this song last.

Rest, Fëanor thinks, his mind wrapping around Fingolfin’s protectively. I will be here when you awake. If Fingolfin had still been awake, he’d have told his brother to not make promises he couldn’t keep.

☀︎

Chapter End Notes

Fëanor on his way to the castle and suddenly hearing Morgoth bellow in pain: what the fuck is going on

Fëanor arriving at the scene of the fight and at first only being able to see that Morgoth is bleeding: what fucking idiot decided to fight a Valar in the streets????

Fëanor finally catching sight of Fingolfin looking half-feral and cradling his wrist to his stomach: wait. that's my fucking idiot

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My mother said, 
"You two are like those Russian nesting dolls. 
There's one inside another inside another inside another inside another."

brothers | Elizabeth Robinson

 ☀︎

the fourth loop (continued)

Fingolfin wakes up in his bed.

He wakes up in his bed and if it were not for the way his entire body aches he may have screamed in frustration. But it would seem that his fight with Morgoth that morning had in fact happened and he is not dead. Only five hits but considering Morgoth had fled, even if only because the other Valar had been approaching, he will count it as a win.

His body, despite aching, does not in fact feel as if it’s been too deeply harmed. He finds that his ribs have been wrapped and breathing is, he supposes, mildly uncomfortable but the injury doesn’t seem to be dire. His wrist too is wrapped tight and set in a splint. He thinks he may have been dosed with some manner of pain reliever for he feels a bit disconnected from his body even as he takes stock of it.

He is also not alone he realizes, as he slowly sits up and looks around the room. His mother is curled up in a chair, looking exhausted even as she sleeps. Finarfin is sprawled on the settee, brow furrowed, also asleep. And sitting at his desk on the other side of the room is Fëanor, head pillowed on his folded arms, clearly having fallen asleep working on something.

He very carefully eases himself out of the bed and holds tight to it for a moment while he considers his balance. Nods in satisfaction when he doesn’t waver at all. He’s fine. Or, as fine as he can be all things considered. He goes to the bathroom and spends a long moment staring in the mirror, taking in the mottled bruising running down the side of his face and under his collar. The dark, brutal bruise in the shape of a hand wrapped around his throat. He prods at a spot on his cheek experimentally and winces at the dull pain.

He goes back to the bedroom, wanders over to where Fëanor is still sleeping, wondering what he was working on. There are papers spread out all over the surface of the desk but it takes only a few seconds for him to make sense of what he’s looking at.

“Swords,” he mutters, laughing quietly. Picks up one of the designs and can’t even be bothered to be surprised by how solid the designs are despite the newness of them. “You fucking asshole. You better make me one.”

“Obviously I’m going to make you one,” Fëanor grumbles, sitting up and startling Fingolfin. He snatches the design out of Fingolfin’s hand before doing a double take, eyes going wide. “Why are you out of bed?!”

“I’m fine,” he says, snorting at the look of disbelief Fëanor shoots him.

“You are not fine,” Fëanor snaps, rising and trying to herd him back to the bed without touching him. Fingolfin raises an eyebrow and doesn’t move.

“I’m fine. Are you truly making me a sword?”

Fëanor scowls at him, grabs his shoulders, bodily turns him around, and begins pushing him toward the bed. 'I do not trust that Morgoth will not return after what you started," Fëanor say grimly. He watches with narrowed eyes as Fingolfin appeasingly slides back into bed. "You are a fool for attacking him in such a way without any backup."

"It did not matter to me," he says truthfully. "Either I drove him away or I died again. Either was acceptable."

Anger flares swift and bright in Fëanor's eyes. "Your life is not an acceptable risk! Just because you have continued to wake up so far does not mean you have any guarantee you will continue to do so in the future!"

"I know," he tells Fëanor, because he does. He just hadn't cared. "But even if this is the last song, the last chance, my death would have still run him off. Would have hopefully given you all more time."

Fëanor leans forward until he is right in Fingolfin’s face, a terrible anger on his face, and Fingolfin would be scared if he were not grappling with the idea that the anger is fear for him, not anger because of him. "Your life is not an acceptable risk," Fëanor hisses. "If you were not grievously injured—"

"You'd punch me?" he finishes, laughing softly. "I will not apologize if that's what you want."

"What I want is for you to not grow careless with your own life because you think you'll just wake back up!" Fëanor snaps, straightening and running an agitated hand through his hair.

Fingolfin stares at him, thinks back and tries to remember how much of the previous songs he had thrown at Fëanor before passing out. Did not think it was much, only the death he cannot seem to escape. But he must have handed over more than he thought. "I will try to be more careful," he tells Fëanor after the silence starts to linger too long.

Fëanor scoffs. "Do you mean that? Or are you only trying to placate me?"

"I suppose we'll find out," he says with a shrug.

"Just, go back to sleep." Fëanor sighs and reaches out to push at his shoulder. "You need to rest."

"I have rested," he mutters, letting Fëanor push him down. “What day is it?”

“The second day has only just begun to reach its end,” he says, eyes knowing. “The mingling begins soon. Go to sleep. We will all still be here when you awake.”

He considers arguing further and maybe Fëanor can see the thought in his eyes for he sighs and pulls a chair close to the bed. “Go to sleep, Nolvo,” he says, smoothing Fingolfin’s hair down. He starts humming, a suggestion of sleep floating through the air and settling as a crown upon his head. Fingolfin yawns despite himself.

“You cannot do this every time you want me to shut up,” he mutters, eyes already slipping closed. He must be tired for such a soft suggestion to send him under.

Fëanor does not answer until Fingolfin is nearly lost to dreams. And then there is the slightest pressure of lips against his forehead and a whispered, “Sleep well, little brother.”

Fingolfin falls asleep feeling very warm.

☀︎

He dreams of firelight on the water and the shadow of a dragon. The Helcaraxë melting before they have a chance to cross, stranding them in truth. Dreams he is the balrog holding his brother by the throat, he is his brother finally burning himself up, he is walking on the ice as it melts beneath his feet, he is standing on a boat with salt on his tongue, he is cursing Morgoth at the gates of Angband.

And then, Fëanor standing in front of the gates of Angband, a shade of flame and smoke, who looks at him and says, do you truly believe that any of this mattered? That your doomed fight was anything other than doomed? You left your people to carry on alone.

You did the same, he answers. Looks down at his hands and finds them covered in frost.

No, Fëanor says, the flaming coal of his eyes flaring even brighter, I did not mean to die. I did not mean to leave. You hearkened to Morgoth with death already written on your heart. Is it any wonder it was not granted to you when you wanted it so badly?

Fingolfin wakes up sweating, heart a war drum in his ears. He stares at the ceiling for a long minute, his harsh breathing the only thing he can hear, before realizing that part of the reason he feels so warm is because Fëanor has fallen asleep at the side of his bed, one of his arms thrown across Fingolfin's stomach. It does not look to be a particularly comfortable position to be sleeping in.

He does, after some very careful maneuvering, manage to sit up without waking Fëanor, and nearly jumps out of his skin to find Findis perched on the back of the settee staring at them. “It’s creepy to watch people while they sleep,” he hisses at her, pressing his hand to where his heart is still jumping in his chest.

“And it is the height of stupidity to attack a Vala in the middle of the streets,” she counters, lightly jumping to the floor and clasping her hands behind her back. “Yet here we are, my little brother having done such a thing.”

He meets her gaze evenly. Thinks of the last time he’d seen her before the exile, her fury clasped tight in her fists, her hissed words that Fëanor was going to get him killed. “It is only stupid if I failed. And as it would turn out, I did not.”

She scoffs. “And what exactly is it that you did not fail at?”

He is struck, in a way he has not been in a very long time, by how very similar Fëanor and Findis are in their disparaging anger. “I wanted Morgoth to leave Aman. And he has.”

She cocks her head to the side, the light from the mingling catching on her dark hair as she steps closer to the bed. “Fëanor called him Morgoth as well. Strange when we have all known him only as Melkor.” She raises an eyebrow expectantly and he stares back, completely unwilling to have this conversation right now. She must see it on his face because she sighs, some of the tenseness melting out of her posture. “You scared him,” she says instead, tilting her head at Fëanor. “I did not think he was capable of worrying about you, yet he’s barely left your side since we got you back here.”

“He is so strange,” he says, though he doesn’t manage to stop the affection from leaking into his voice.

“He almost watched you die,” she corrects. She blinks furiously for a moment, mouth twisting, and because she is truly too much like Fëanor though she’d never admit it, instead of doing anything reasonable, she walks over and punches him in the shoulder. Hard.

He doesn’t manage to contain his startled yelp and Fëanor jerks upright, looking around with wild eyes. “He wouldn’t even punch me,” he exclaims, pointing at Fëanor. “I am grievously injured!”

“Grievously injured,” she repeats and falls sideways onto the bed as she starts laughing, draping herself over his legs and effectively trapping him in the bed. “You are certainly injured but you are not leaving us for Mandos anytime soon Nolvo. There is no need to be dramatic.”

Fëanor actually snorts in amusement. “He is perhaps too injured for the type of punch I wish to deliver,” he says, stretching and rubbing at his face.

Fingolfin’s heart twists itself into a tight knot at the sight of both his older siblings co-existing and laughing, even if it is at his expense. He could not begin to say when the last time such a thing happened, if indeed it had ever happened at all. He does not want to lose this. He does not. He knows he has run Morgoth away but he does not know if it was enough or if this song will simply trail off into silence as well. Still does not, he supposes, even know if any of this is real. For it does still seem far too good to be true the way Fëanor keeps looking at him instead of through him.

Fëanor looks over at him and frowns at whatever it is he sees on Fingolfin’s face. And as if he is trying to prove to Fingolfin that this is indeed only a dream, a maelstrom of fire appears next to his mind, asking for permission to enter. Fingolfin opens his mind automatically, basking in the warmth, even as he is completely and utterly befuddled by Fëanor being the one to reach out first.

Fëanor, who he can feel sifting through his topmost thoughts, makes a derisive noise. “You are not dreaming,” he says, rolling his eyes so hard it looks as if it should hurt. Findis sits up, looking between them with sharp eyes.

“Perhaps I am,” she says incredulously, “for I cannot imagine you ever allowing either of us into your mind.”

"I do not need nosy little sisters in my mind,” Fëanor mutters, pre-occupied with sifting through the previous songs, studying each fight with Morgoth, and then pausing for a long time on the memory of himself looking at Fingolfin over a fire and saying, you took joy in being king.

Findis stares at Fëanor, a flurry of emotions that Fingolfin recognizes far too well flashing over her face. Little sister, she mouths to herself, looking astonished. The astonishment turns swiftly to fury and Fingolfin should perhaps not be surprised when she abruptly moves to the other side of the bed and punches Fëanor on the arm significantly harder than she'd punched Fingolfin if the way he rears back is any indication.

"What the fuck, Findis," he snaps at her.

"No, fuck you," she snaps. "Nolvo won't say it but I will. Fuck you. You don't get to just, just—" she waves a hand through the air wildly and jabs her finger at him. "—sweep in and decide you suddenly care about us!"

Fëanor stares at her with wide eyes and his mind is still pressed up against Fingolfin's in a way that lets him feel the shock and swiftly smothered guilt that goes rushing through Fëanor before his mind snaps closed. He cannot help but tense when Fëanor's gaze turns back to him. "Well?" Fëanor says, the challenge in his voice clear. "Do you wish to express a similar sentiment?"

Fingolfin thinks of smoke and salt on his tongue, ice in his hair and Turgon's muffled sobs. Thinks of blood on his hands. "I cannot let myself be truly angry at you," he says, pushing the thoughts away with some difficulty. "Not as you are."

Fëanor inclines his head slowly, surely having some idea as to where Fingolfin’s mind had gone. Turns his attention back to Findis and after a moment of serious consideration says, "I do not know how to care about you."

"You seem to be doing a fine job with Nolvo," she says bitterly. It is easy, sometimes, for him to forget that he was not the only one trailing after Fëanor as a child, eager for attention, always cutting themselves open as they tried to steal some of his love. He is just the only one who kept trying long after any sane person would have given up.

"He is not giving me much of a choice," Fëanor says dryly. Fingolfin cannot tell if Fëanor is upset about that or not. There's another sticky minute where Findis glares as Fëanor stares at her consideringly before, without any warning, he grabs her arm and pulls her half-off the bed and into a hug that nearly sends them both crashing to the floor.

"Why can't you just apologize like a normal person," he mutters, narrowing his eyes when Fëanor glares at him over Findis' shoulder.

Findis, when Fëanor lets her go, hits him again and then yelps when he promptly pulls her all the way off the bed and lets her drop to the floor. "Stop hitting me," he snaps, nowhere near as irritated as Fingolfin would expect. She kicks the leg of his chair so hard that the distinct sound of cracking wood goes echoing through the room.

Fëanor rolls his eyes and abandons the chair, moving instead to sit on the bed next to Fingolfin. He blinks in surprise but leans against Fëanor easily. Findis mutters something to herself and kicks the chair again before clambering to her feet and back onto the bed. She settles down on his other side, resting her head on his shoulder, while Fëanor flares back to life in his mind and goes back to picking through Fingolfin's memories. Fingolfin, for his part, simply lets himself feel quietly happy. Leans all his weight against Fëanor and squeezes Findis' hand.

They sit in silence that way for a while, existing quietly together in a way he doesn't think they ever have. It was not even common for him to sit with Findis this way before. She was busy being angry far away from Tirion as she made a name for herself outside of her family. He was too busy trying to insert himself so far into his father's heart that even Fëanor would not be able to tear him out. He does not think either of them got what they wanted in the end.

"Are you going to go back to hating us after this?" Findis asks quietly later.

There is a heavy pause, both him and Fëanor thinking, after, and wondering if there will be an after for him to have an opportunity to change his mind. "I do not hate you," Fëanor says after a moment.

She snorts. "I don't believe you."

"I do not hate you," Fëanor repeats sounding frustrated. "I do not think of you at all most days." The silence that falls at that is tight and miserable and Fingolfin gets the sense of a great, echoing crackling noise coming from Fëanor’s mind before it snaps closed once more.

"Well," she says blankly, her grip on his hand bruising. "I suppose I wanted the truth."

Fëanor makes a supremely agitated noise. Reaches over, grabs her wrist, and tugs at it. "Come here."

"No."

"Come here, Findis."

She scowls but does clamber over Fingolfin and after some aggravated pushing they end up with Fëanor seated between them. Fëanor hugs her tightly from the side and this time she leans into it, burying her face against his neck. Fingolfin cannot hear what it is Fëanor is whispering to her and does not try, only sits there and furiously prays for this song to last. It is not fair that they are putting in this work and may not even get to keep it.

Eventually Fëanor straightens, though he keeps Findis pressed up against his side. Fingolfin hums in contentment as he leans against Fëanor once more, warm and tired. He's half-asleep when the door to his room creaks open and two blonde heads poke inside. Finarfin's mouth drops open at the sight of the three of them and Lalwen lights up in delight.

It takes no time at all for her to fling herself onto the bed and shove her way between him and Fëanor. He gets an elbow to the ribs at one point and hisses out a pained breath. He had nearly forgotten that he was in fact still injured.

"You're going to injure him further, Írimë," Fëanor says in amusement, but he does not stop her from curling up against him.

"Sorry, háno," she says, not sounding particularly sorry at all. And then to Fëanor, "Does this mean you're going to stop being such an asshole all the time?"

He blinks down at her in bemusement and Fingolfin bites the inside of his cheek to hold in his laugh. Finarfin slowly approaches the bed, watching Fëanor warily as he waits for the answer. "I am beginning to wonder if I am going to be given a choice," he says, as if they aren't all blatantly aware that if Fëanor truly wished to go back to hating them there is not a single thing any of them could do about it.

Finarfin looks at Fingolfin, the question in his eyes painfully clear. Fëanor had already been gone from the palace by time Finarfin was born and he has never truly known Fëanor as anything other than biting words and their father's favorite son. It was not necessarily that Fëanor had been mean to Finarfin when he was young, only that he had been steadily growing meaner to the rest of them and Finarfin was not so stupid as to think that he was going to be an exception when he got older. He smiles as comfortingly as he can and nods. Mouths, it's okay.

Finarfin does not look as if truly believes him but he still moves around the bed to sit on the other side of Findis, squeezing her between him and Fëanor, who reaches over and ruffles Finarfin's hair. Finarfin could not look more shocked if he tried.

Fingolfin looks at all his siblings and feels an icy stone of fear settle in his stomach at the idea of losing this. Wants to keep this so badly he feels sick with it. It is not all fixed and he knows if this song continues they will all continue to piss each other off but it is a start. Which is so much more than they’d ever gotten in the original song. He does not want to be the only one who remembers this. He does not.

Lalwen needles Fëanor for a while longer and then turns and wraps her arms around him. "I am happy you are alright," she says softly.

He cannot help but laugh even as he presses his hand to his chest, a sharp pain shooting through it. "I am going to be less alright if you do not stop squeezing me."

Fëanor sighs and wrangles Lalwen onto the other side of the bed since, in his words, she clearly cannot be trusted with people who are injured. There is a good deal more aggravated shoving that ends with Findis and Lalwen on the left side of Fëanor and Fingolfin squeezed in between Fëanor and Finarfin.

He had done this with his siblings occasionally, when they are all very young and still trying to figure out how to deal with a city that loved them and resented them all in the same breath. All of them piling into the same bed and trying to find some comfort in not being alone. But Fëanor had never once been included in that and would not have wanted to be.

Having Fëanor here with them now leaves him feeling very warm and content with life for the time being. He does not quite manage to fall asleep again, not after having already slept so much, but he still curls up with the rest of his siblings and dozes. Listens to their quiet breathing as they sleep and prays. He does not know if Eru hears him or if he cares if he does. Does not know if he is still dispossessed for all that he is in a time before he was proclaimed as such. But he still prays.

Please, he thinks, we all spent so long fracturing apart. Morgoth has been run off and we are trying to mend the fractures. Please, is that not enough?

I do not know why the songs are being re-sung around me. I do not need to know. But let us keep this one.

Please.

I am tired of rupturing my memories to spark something other than dislike in Fëanor's eyes. I am tired of not being known when I have given so much of myself.

Please.

Fingolfin is still quietly dozing sometime later, mind finally having gone blissfully silent, when he hears the door to his room creak open and the sound of soft footsteps walking toward the bed. Peeks out from under his eyelids and finds his mother standing at the end of the bed, two fingers pressed to her mouth in shock as she stares at them. Or, in all likelihood, as she stares at Fëanor. She stares at them all for a long while before lightly squeezing his ankle and leaving the room.

He does not let himself think about the interrogations that are likely to come over the next couple days. Closes his eyes and focuses instead on how very warm and safe he is.

☀︎

Breakfast the next morning, is as expected, an awful tense affair. One that starts off with Lalwen cheerfully updating Fëanor about her life, a strange affair in and of itself, and ends with Fingolfin trying to escape only to be cornered with questions he refuses to answer.

"But why did you attack him, Ñolofinwë," his father asks in exasperation, looking seconds away from simply throwing his hands in the air.

Fingolfin purses his lips and does not answer, as he has not the last three times his father has asked. After a moment of tense silence says, "I have told you already, I will speak on it tomorrow. I cannot speak of it before then." Will not speak of it until he is sure that this song will continue. Refuses to have another useless, forgotten conversation.

"Leave him be, atar," Fëanor says after the silence stretches for too long once more. "His reasons were sound even if he acted impulsively."

Fingolfin elbows Fëanor in the side irritably. He would like his brother to do any better than this in his situation. Feels that Fëanor would somehow handle things even more impulsively. Their father looks between them with a bewildered stare that Fingolfin cannot truly blame him for. Findis sitting across the table from him raises her eyebrows in disbelief, meeting his eyes and widening her own to the point of exaggeration. His mother has not stopped staring at him since they sat down at the table.

"And you know of Ñolofinwë's reasons?" his father asks Fëanor slowly, looking as if he can't believe the words even as he says them.

"I do," Fëanor says. Lalwen looks like she's absolutely itching to interrogate them and he does not believe he will get away from her even if he does get away from his parents.

"Arakáno," his mother says quietly in a tone that he knows all too well means she is very close to losing her patience. "The Valar wish for an answer immediately as to why you would attack Melkor when he had done nothing to provoke it."

He scoffs before he can think better of it, patience painfully frayed. "Fuck the Valar," he snaps, perhaps too harshly if the way all his family, save Fëanor, reel back as if he's slapped them. But he has no kind words for any of the Valar that left Beleriand to be slowly choked to death by Morgoth's hatred. His brother's people, his own son even, may have committed a heinous crime worthy of punishment, but what had the rest of them done? What had Thingol’s people done? The men who had not even yet awoken when the sun first rose? Fingolfin has seen too many of his people die because of that hatred to give the Valar any grace at all.

"Ñolofinwë," his father starts, a thunder in his voice that Fingolfin has rarely heard from him, "the Valar have given us safety, have given us a home. You will not—"

He does not get a chance to continue before Fëanor cuts him off. "Leave him be," he says forcefully, true agitation threaded through the words this time. Fingolfin watches his father falter at Fëanor's tone and swallow the words back down. Is as grateful as he is bitter at the way his father bends so easily to Fëanor's requests.

His father sighs, says after a moment, "I only wish to help support you in whatever has happened, Ñolofinwë. It is not like you. You have always shown great respect for the Valar."

"Because Fëanor asked you to." The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them and his mother's eyes go wide. Fëanor's eyes are suddenly hot on the side of his face.

His father's mouth works soundlessly for a moment. "What?" he asks. And he looks so taken aback that Fingolfin wants to break something. Thinks not only of steel against his throat and twelve years of silence before he was forced to bury the anger beneath the grief, but also of a lifetime of knowing that when it came down to it, his father would always choose Fëanor first. Formenos had only been the proof of what he'd already known.

"You wish to support me so freely," he says, each word sharper than the last, "because Fëanor has asked it of you. If he had not you would be taking the Valar’s side.” There is a terrible of moment of silence, no one daring to speak. And Fingolfin knows that he should stop. Knows that, in the event this song does last, this is not something he truly wishes to deal with now, if ever. Still hears himself say, as if from very far away, “You will always take his side. I suppose I am meant to be grateful that he’s chosen to defend me this time.”

There is something especially damning in the way no one else speaks up in his father's defense. "Ñolofinwë," his father says helplessly. "That is not true."

The anger, having been reminded of its existence, goes ripping through his chest at the lie, frost crawling quick and deadly up his throat. "I'm done eating," he says, standing abruptly to leave. He cannot stay here.

He hears several more chairs scrape backwards as he turns away. Does not look to see who. Makes a beeline for the door and is nearly free when his father catches his arm. "That is not true, Ñolofinwë," he says again, sounding far surer of himself this time.

And perhaps if Fingolfin did not have unequivocal proof that his father will always choose Fëanor, perhaps he could swallow the lie. As it is, he has years of anger rooted in his heart, in his lungs, and does not even think before wrenching his arm out of his father's grasp and hissing, "He could threaten to kill me and you would still take his side. Do not. Do not."

He turns and leaves before he gets more than a glimpse of the shock and hurt swiftly spreading across his father's face. Nearly wishes Melkor were still in the city simply so he could have something to go kill. Somewhere to throw all this fury.

Since that is not an option, he instead goes to the gardens. Winds through them until he reaches the one they call Míriel's garden. The one most don’t dare go to because they do not want to face her son in the event they end up there at the same time. There is a spot on the back of one the trees in the corner where the wood curves inward, a perfect hollow spot to sit and press yourself back into if you wish for no one to find you. And this, of all the many hiding spots he has, is the one that no one has ever managed to find him in. For who would ever think to look here for him?

The first thing that he notices when he stops moving, is of course that his ribs are burning from too much exertion too soon. He had not quite run but he had walked very fast to avoid any of his family catching up and his ribs are not pleased. He presses himself back against the tree and buries his face against his knees. Breathes in and out very slowly until his ribs stop hurting quite so much. Wishes deeply that he did not have to deal with any of these awful, ugly emotions that his father brings to life within him. He wants to defeat Melkor and have the song continue unending and then he wishes to leave for Beleriand and not look back. An unreasonable expectation of events.

He wants to be able to look at his father without seeing his back as he'd left Tirion. Without seeing blood. Does not know how to achieve that when he knows that his father's love for Fëanor is an insurmountable obstacle. Fingolfin wants this to work, and then wants to un-sing himself so that he can look at his family and not see ghosts.

Gods, he just wants this to work.

"You cannot always hide here when things go wrong," Fëanor says suddenly, stepping around the tree and sitting down next to him.

Fingolfin stares. "How did you…?"

Fëanor rolls his eyes. "You have been hiding in this same spot since you were twenty." He raises a deeply judgmental eyebrow when Fingolfin continues to stare. "It is my mother's garden. Did you think I would never notice you here?"

Fingolfin does not say, yes, because if you had you would have thrown me out. Fëanor must see the thought on his face regardless because he sighs and settles back against the tree, knocking their shoulders together.

"You were twenty and crying," he says, sounding deeply uncomfortable. "I was not going to tell you to leave."

"And the next time?"

Fëanor shrugs. "You were not harming anything. And it is a good hiding spot if you are hiding from anyone but me."

Fingolfin is not quite sure what to do with that. A complete revision of his childhood where he’d always thought that no one at all knew where he was. He had of course heard Fëanor come into the garden sometimes when he was hiding, but he’d never shown himself and Fëanor had never given any indication that he’d seen Fingolfin, so he’d always assumed he had not been found out.

“I do not understand you,” he says, feeling very tired. “You hate me yet you continue to do this every time I open my mind to you. I do not understand it. You hate me.” The last words come out far more plaintive than he’d meant for them to but he does not understand.

Fëanor is silent for some time and Fingolfin leans his head back against the tree and tries to simply breathe. Knows that he needs to come up with a plan for when he inevitably must face his family again. But is at a loss as to what exactly to do and is exhausted just thinking about facing them.

“You asked me in the last song,” Fëanor says slowly, “if I truly hated you. I do not know my thoughts from that song—” and oh, there is true fury hiding in those words, at the idea of memories stolen. “—but what I do know, is that you are my brother, even if only half, and that no matter my hatred for you, whether it be in the past or not, I have never wished you dead.”

Fingolfin thinks of steel against his throat and does not want to call Fëanor a liar over a future that has not yet come to past but cannot help but wonder regardless. Thinks again of the question he had not been willing to ask in the second song. “But, what is the difference between wishing I was not born and wishing me dead?”

“That is a simplification of the issue,” Fëanor says dismissively. “I do not wish you dead. Whether or not I wished for you to be born is irrelevant.”

He says it so easily. As if this should be something Fingolfin already knew. And Fingolfin hates him for it a little, for the ease with which he reconciles the hatred and the care all in one breath. The ease with which he takes everything in for none of it in truth affects him. What does it matter to Fëanor that in a song un-sung he’d held a sword to Fingolfin’s throat? What does it matter that their father had finally shown his hand? What does it matter that he had accepted Fingolfin’s oath and then left him behind anyway? This Fëanor has no need to truly care about any of those things for he has not done them and is likely firmly convinced he will now never do them. And gods, Fingolfin wants to hate him for it. He thinks that if he let himself, it would be easy to let this fester into an untreatable wound. Is not entirely sure it is not going to become one regardless.

How do you rise from a grave that was never dug? How do you forgive an act never committed?

“Come,” Fëanor says when it becomes clear Fingolfin has nothing more to say. He stands and holds his hand out. “We are going to my house.”

Fingolfin stares at him, chest aching, and a great ball of fury desperately trying to find a way out of his throat. He loves his brother. To his detriment, he loves Fëanor. But he does not think he likes his brother very much sometimes.

Some emotion he can’t identify flickers across Fëanor’s face at whatever it is he sees on Fingolfin’s, but he only says once more, “Come. Unless you wish to speak with atar again today.”

Fingolfin very much does not wish for such a thing and so he forces himself to swallow the fury down. Sticks it beneath a great sheet of ice and takes Fëanor’s hand. It is not until they are sitting in Fëanor’s study — Fëanor with an array of designs spread out on the table, Fingolfin curled up on the settee with a book — that he looks at Fingolfin and says, “You know you must let it all out eventually? You will not fix anything if you do not.”

“And you believe things are fixable,” he returns quietly. “You believe things are fixable between us?”

Fëanor hesitates, eyes conflicted, torn between his hatred and whatever new emotion it is Fingolfin has managed to wake in him. And then, very quietly, like he’s unwilling to truly let the words be woven into the music of the world, “I believe that I am willing to try.”

Fingolfin stares. It is the largest concession Fëanor has ever granted him. For all that he has helped Fingolfin over and over the past few songs, he has never so explicitly stated his willingness to try to mend things between them. It leaves heat skittering uncomfortably through his chest. Makes him want to swallow the anger forever. Makes him angrier. Why is this what it must take to make Fëanor willing to fix things? “Letting it out will do me no good when you hold no answers for me,” he says instead of any of that.

“And yet you must anyway.” Fëanor tilts his head and considers Fingolfin for a minute, eyes terribly sharp as they take him in. “I do not have the exact answers you wish for but I am still myself.”

“Yes,” he says, wishing for this conversation to be over. “That is rather the problem.”

Fëanor’s mouth tightens into a thin, unhappy line but he says nothing else. Turns back to the designs he’s working on, as if there isn’t a chance they will not even matter anymore once this day has passed. Fingolfin tries to read but cannot focus, finds himself instead aimlessly staring out the window, trying to decide what he will say to his father next he sees him. Comes no closer to an answer. Can think only of how there is nothing his father can say to him that will change his mind when he has the truth held in his hands. Knows that he must find a way to fix it anyway but cannot fathom how. Still does not understand why this must be his responsibility to fix. Is his father not the elder of them all? Is Fëanor not the oldest sibling? Why must any of this be on Fingolfin’s shoulders?

Why, when he is not the one who swore a damned oath, when he is not the one who slayed their kin, is not the one who did so many unforgivable things — why is he the one who must do this all over and over again to fix things? And for a moment the Fëanor from his dream flashes before his eyes, all flame and smoke and brutal words — is it any wonder it was not granted to you when you wanted it so badly? He shakes the thought away, refuses to dwell on the words his own mind has created.

And so it goes. The soft scratching of Fëanor sketching out designs and muttering to himself under his breath the only noise for a long time. But slowly Telperion begins to creep forth, the mingling on the horizon, and a knot of nausea settles in his stomach. For all that this day has been a misery he does not wish it to end. Is scared of what he will do if the song ends. Is scared of what he must face if it does not.

“Move over,” Fëanor says, startling him. He had not even noticed Fëanor standing up. Fëanor sits down next to him and tucks Fingolfin against his side as if Fingolfin is simply another one of his children. With the way the agitation is still prickling beneath his skin he does not think he cares for it. “Rest, Nolvo. There will be time to figure things out later.”

He does not, Fingolfin notes, say tomorrow, only later. And Fingolfin wants to fight him on it. Wants to stubbornly stay awake until the song either continues unhindered or is un-sung before his eyes. Does not want to close his eyes with no idea where he will be when he opens them. But Fëanor is warm and he is so tired. “I do not want this one to end,” he says quietly, closing his eyes and letting himself lean on his brother.

Fëanor smooths down his hair and sighs. Says quietly, “I know, Nolvo,” and there’s a quiet fury hidden beneath the words. And then even quieter, “Rest little brother, we will figure it out when you wake.”

Fingolfin falls asleep warm, his brother a long line of heat against his side, an offer of reconciliation held between them. Falls asleep knowing he is not alone.

 ☀︎

the fifth loop

Fingolfin wakes up in his bed.

Chapter End Notes

Look, if you're like, hey, where were are all of Fingolfin's children? He's hurt surely they're worried? Good lord the cast was already large enough this chapter - I wasn't going to add his four chaotic children that would have derailed things so badly. I promise they’ll have their moments later. Let's just say that they've all been absorbed into the Feanorian sibling mass. They saw Fëanor fretting over Fingolfin and took that as their cue to to forcefully merge Fingolfin's kids in with them. Maedhros obviously is fretting over Fingon & Celegorm over Aredhel - but the others have all begrudgingly taken Turgon and Argon under their wing as well - even if in Turgon's case it is very much under duress. He did not ask for this, does not want this, and quite frankly is going to escape the minute he gets a chance. 

-- 

Lalwen at some point very seriously: If all you needed to stop being an asshole was a hug I would have given you one years ago 

Fëanor: -.- You are dearly making me want to be an asshole again 

Lalwen: :)

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H of H: I cannot rise. Too heavy with filth and sin.

Th: Give me your hand.

H of H: I'll stain you.

Th: I'll take it.

H of H Playbook | Anne Carson

 ☀︎

the fifth loop (continued)

Fingolfin wakes up in his bed.

There is one bitten off half-minute where he can almost convince himself that he can still feel Fëanor's warmth against his shoulder and then it fades away and there's nothing left but a deep grief that goes carving its way through him. He stares at the ceiling, feeling too weary to even cry; curls up on his side and pulls the covers over his head.

He has no plans. Even his anger has gone quiet, burnt out and dormant for the time being. He has only grief and a desire to deal with none of this ever again. Does not know how he is meant to watch Fëanor's eyes grow softer in increments over the three days he is granted and then be expected to deal with them going cold and hard again when everything is un-sung. Does not know how he is meant to watch his family begin to stitch itself back together only for all the progress to be un-sung. Does not know how he is meant to be the only one to carry all these memories of different days and have nothing to show for it.

He loses time. Keeps his eyes closed and his mind carefully blank and pretends that the darkness beneath the sheets will never go away. He dozes in snatches. Keeps jerking awake with fear and anxiety thrumming through his veins. Does not want to sleep. Does not want to be awake. Does not particularly want to be anything. He wants to dissolve into smoke and ash the way he'd heard Fëanor had when he'd died. Thinks everything inside of him is too frigid and frozen to do such a thing.

He wonders if perhaps it would have been easier to soldier on through song after song if he had done it all completely on his own. If he'd kept all his emotions out of it until it was over. If Fëanor had never involved himself and forced Fingolfin to deal with him whether he wanted to or not. Fingolfin wants to take all his feelings regarding his brother and stuff them back inside of a box and not look at them for another century. Wants to never have learned that Fëanor is capable of caring about him for it makes everything so much worse.

Makes him wonder if maybe there was something he could have done, before everything went wrong, to make Fëanor see him and care. What an awful idea. To think that if he had only tried harder he could have fixed things. What an awful thing to now have the knowledge that not only is Fëanor capable of caring about him but about the rest of his siblings as well. Was there something more they could have done?

And why, he wonders once again, the thought only making the exhaustion grow, must it all be on their shoulders to fix? Is Fëanor not the oldest? Should it not be his job to bridge the gap?

He does not know how long he lays there lost in his thoughts before he hears the faint sound of a knock from the other room. Knows who it is even before he hears Fëanor's voice float through the air. He burrows further under the covers, wills him to go away. Knows of course that it is as useless a thought as it ever is even before he hears the door to the sitting room open, Fëanor once again having absolutely no respect for locked doors.

He hears Fëanor call his name, less anger in it that he would have expected, and wonders if he should have gone and hidden in his closet until Fëanor went away. An embarrassing thought to even entertain but a promising one if he had only moved faster. Instead he stays quiet and does not move when he hears Fëanor call his name again or when the bedroom door opens.

"Ñolofinwë?" Fëanor sounds more puzzled than angry. Not that Fingolfin can particularly blame him. Not that Fingolfin is allowed to blame him for anything, and if he thinks on that for too long he fears the anger may return regardless of his exhaustion. There's the sound of footsteps moving through the room and then Fëanor tugging at the covers.

"Go away," he says, wincing at how hoarse his voice is.

Fëanor pauses and then begins pulling at the covers in earnest. "What is wrong with you?" Fëanor demands. "You have been missing all day. Atar is worried."

Fingolfin is far too tired to contain the derisive snort that claws its way out of his throat. Fëanor finally succeeds in ripping the covers away from him and Fingolfin squints at the light. Laurelin is terribly bright after hiding in the dark for so long. "Go away," he says again.

Fëanor is staring down at him with a frown. "Have you been in bed all day?"

Fingolfin does not answer. Closes his eyes and hides his face against the pillow. Hopes that this one time Fëanor will go away. He is so tired and Fëanor always finds a way to push him to keep going and he does not want to. He does not want to.

"Nolvo?" Fëanor sits on the side of the bed and Fingolfin quietly resigns himself to Fëanor's presence. If he has learned only one thing from the past few songs, it is that the moment Fëanor begins calling him Nolvo, it is too late to run him off. Not, that any of Fingolfin's attempts at running him off on purpose have worked. "What has happened? You have never passed up an opportunity before to try and usurp atar's attention."

"Please go away," he snaps, chest going unbearably tight. It still has not gotten any easier to hear Fëanor's casual dislike of him so soon after he’s had his brother look at him and see him. He tries to pull the covers back over his head but Fëanor grabs them before he can.

"Tell me what is wrong and I will," Fëanor counters, still frowning at him. "You are acting strange."

Fingolfin, horrifically, feels that great all-encompassing grief carve another gash through his body, his breath hitching. "I—," his voice cracks, "I am so tired," he says, which explains nothing. And he is weak and tired and had fallen asleep in the previous song with Fëanor a long line of comforting heat against his side and without any conscious decision made to do so, he finds himself shifting so that he can hide his face against Fëanor's hip.

There is a long silence in which Fëanor does not push him away and Fingolfin finds himself starting to drift again, the warmth radiating off Fëanor sinking into his skin and melting its way through his body. "What do you mean you are tired?" Fëanor asks eventually, hesitantly resting his hand on the back of Fingolfin's head.

"I am tired," he says again quietly. "I do not want to do this. Any of this. I want,” he falters, not sure what he wants. Settles on, “I want to rest. I am so tired, Fëanáro.”

"Whatever has happened cannot be that dire," Fëanor says and his voice is calm but Fingolfin can feel that he's gone tense.

Fingolfin does not answer. Has used up all his words. Stays pressed up against Fëanor and lets his mind drift without thinking about anything at all. It is easier to think of nothing with Fëanor next to him. Easier to rest, safe in the knowledge that should something dire occur Fëanor is nearby. At some point Fëanor begins running his fingers through Fingolfin's hair and it does not take long after that for him to fall asleep in truth.

 ☀︎

He dreams of the ice near the end of their journey. The way they'd all become so accustomed to it that walking onto the grass had felt sacrosanct. The sun rising for the first time and leaving the ice glittering had only made it more so. For a brief moment there had been a tangible hope in the air that the worst had passed. That they had finally made it.

Then there had been only shouting and blood and Fingolfin's heart in his throat as he watched his youngest cut his way through to the captain of the orcs. He does not regret going to Beleriand but oh, some days the bitter grief that it had brought him rivaled the joy so fiercely, as if it was trying to make him regret not regretting it.

He runs, trying to get closer, and he does get closer to Argon than he had during the actual battle. So close that when the orcs sword pierces his belly, Fingolfin is only seconds behind cutting off its head. But seconds are all that is needed and he is once again on bloodstained ground, holding his child and wondering if it was worth it.

In the dream the bodies pile around him. His people mixed with the orcs and he cannot breathe for the stench and the blood staining his hands and—

He sits up in bed with a choking gasp, heart racing. Still cannot breathe around the phantom stench of death. A warm hand settles on his back and he does not even think before instinctively reaching out, his mind scrambling for the fire that it clearly remembers burning his nightmare away before. He does not know if Fëanor recoils this time, knows only that a great fire does indeed go blazing through his mind, and he finally drags in a breath, tries to let that be enough.

"Well," Fëanor says quietly, "I am proven it wrong it seems. It can be that dire."

He pulls in another shaking breath. And then another. Lays his memories out for Fëanor to wade through as he wishes and lies back down, curling up and hiding his face against Fëanor's side once again. Fëanor has re-arranged them at some point while he slept. His brother leaning back against the bed frame, legs stretched out on the bed, presumably to be more comfortable while Fingolfin slept. He feels Fëanor treading water in his memories, cradling them in his hands as they float by. He catches the memory of the boats, fire painting the sky red, and the great billowing clouds of smoke that had blotted out the stars for days as it lingered. Catches the memory of himself, what seems only hours ago, saying very quietly, I believe I am willing to try.

Fëanor holds the memory for a long time before moving to once again run his fingers through Fingolfin's hair, and then says, "I told you did I not? He is not well."

"I never said I did not believe you," his mother says quietly from his other side and he does not quite manage to stop the flinch that goes through him.

Be calm, Fëanor thinks, his mind folding protectively around Fingolfin's. I believed she deserved to know. There is a singularly strange emotion attached to that thought, one Fingolfin has not yet felt from Fëanor. Some strange mix of stale grief and anxious fear all bundled together that sinks into the fire of Fëanor's mind like greenwood and begins to smoke.

Deserved to know what, Fingolfin thinks in bewilderment.

Fëanor does not answer but Fingolfin gets a glimpse of green gardens and silver light, a weeping willow trailing in the river, before it is all locked away from view. Fingolfin has never seen Lórien with his own eyes but seems to instinctively know it despite that. "I am not fading," he says and with how tired how he sounds, even to his own ears, he's not sure he even believes himself. "I do not think I can fade." This he believes.

"Perhaps you cannot fade in this song," Fëanor says gravely, "but eventually the song will continue on unending and what will you do if you have burnt yourself out before you even reach it."

"Arakáno," his mother says softly, "will you not tell me what it is that has happened?" Her hand is shaking when she places it on his shoulder.

Fingolfin does not wish for his mother to know of the tragedy that had settled over their lives. Does not want to explain the hatred and the venom and the slow rupturing of their family. Does not want to hand her the memory of atar's body when there is still so much furious resentment braided in with the grief. Does not want her to see their last conversation or the blood-soaked beach, his footsteps staying in his brother's shadow even then. He does not want her to see all the endless death. No matter that she still remembers Cuiviénen, it is not quite the same as the blatant war that has haunted his footsteps for centuries.

Fëanor sighs heavily. "Just tell her, Nolvo." This is what mother's do is it not? Lend their strength to their children when they need it? There is a heavy dose of bitterness attached to the thought but Fingolfin can feel the way Fëanor is trying to muffle it.

I do not know how, he sends back, miserably trying to convey how very ill equipped he is for such a conversation.

You are unnecessarily dramatic, Fëanor tells him before unfolding himself from around Fingolfin's mind. You told me. You are not such a coward that you cannot do the same for your mother.

He knows of course that Fëanor is correct. Reluctantly leaves the warm safety of Fëanor's mind and reaches for his mother. She is already waiting, mind open wide to receive him, a spring storm that gently washes its way through his mind. Oh, she thinks, the word caught on a breeze. She washes through the memories in no specific order, taking in whichever ones come to her first. Sinks into the last memory he has of her before the exile, the angry words they'd exchanged. Your father followed him to Formenos and got himself killed, she had snapped, and you are going to follow him to a savage land and do the same. He is not worth that kind of loyalty. Not from you.

He is my king, he had said, unable to fathom the idea of staying behind and taking up the kingship when he had only just swore to follow Fëanor.

He will get you killed. He cares not for you, she'd said, part terror, part pleading, all fury. You will regret this.

He is my brother, he had responded, unable to put into words why that was so vitally important, even then, even though he knew Fëanor still would not admit to such a thing.

Was it worth it? She asks.

Yes, he thinks immediately, pulls up what good memories he can muster in the moment. Feels another deep pain of longing to return when he hands over Barad Eithel in the spring, dripping with flowers, the sun setting the white stone on fire as it rises. I want to go back. If I ever fix whatever it is I'm meant to be fixing, I want to go back.

The bed dips behind him as she settles on it, leaning against his legs. And what a strange feeling to be bracketed in by Fëanor and his mother, two people that so rarely co-exist peacefully. Fëanor is still gently combing his fingers through Fingolfin's hair. His mother’s hand settles on his hip, a reminder that he is not alone. She tugs at the parent-child between them that has been so seldom touched since he came of age and quietly begins sending energy through it.

"Thank you," she says to Fëanor, voice carefully even.

"Which hurts more? Losing the one who gave you life or losing the one who you gave life to?" Fëanor asks lowly, some undercurrent of emotion to the words that Fingolfin is too tired to grasp.

His mother does not answer. Fingolfin is already drifting again, being lulled back asleep by the safety and warmth on either side of him. He wonders if perhaps Fëanor is right to be worried for he does not think he should still be so bone-tired after sleeping for so long.

Right as he's slipping into darkness he hears his mother say, "Does it matter which hurts more? Pain is not a competition, Fëanor. Even if I did lose my son to exhaustion I would not set my pain on a scale against yours."

Sleep take him then and if his brother answers he does not hear it.

 ☀︎

He does not dream. Exists without having to acknowledge that he exists. If he could have stayed in that liminal space forever he would have. Fingolfin is tired of existing. Is tired of planning, tired of tearing himself open so that his family can use the blood as a path to fixing themselves.

He is just tired.

As it is, when he wakes once more, he finds himself simply thankful for the lack of dreams. Keeps his eyes closed and takes in the warmth he can feel still surrounding him. Fëanor is still next to him, his fingers tangled in Fingolfin’s hair but slack as if he’s fallen asleep. There is another body in the bed next to him as well, their back pressed against his and it takes a few moments to figure out who, but Lalwen has never been good at being silent, always moving or laughing or yelling or singing. She’s chosen a quieter path this time and is softly humming — a cheery tune that goes spinning through the air to get caught on the doorways and the curtains, ready to settle on your shoulder when you least expect it and give you a burst of cheer.

He can still feel his mother feeding energy through their bond, a thin stream of slow but steady energy, as if he is once again an elfling who cannot survive on his own. He thinks it is perhaps helping, for he is still so tired it aches, but it no longer seems to be sunk into his bones.

"Nésa," he says softly, carefully turning to face her while trying to not wake Fëanor.  

Her humming cuts off and she turns over to face him. Her face is creased with a worry that is completely at odds with the tune she'd been humming. "Háno," she returns, knees knocking against his. She wraps her fingers around his wrist, presses them to his pulse, and he wonders what they've told her. "They said you are tired," she says quietly, eyes narrowed. "Fëanáro is worried and they said you are tired."

"I am tired," he agrees softly and she must hear some of it in his voice for fear strikes across her face.

"But why," she demands. "How does one suddenly, does one—" her voice breaks. "You cannot do this háno, you cannot."

"Ask ammë." He cannot tell it all again. "Or Fëanáro I suppose."

This was perhaps the wrong thing to say, for given an immediate and clear target she sits up and with no hesitation pokes Fëanor in the arm. And then harder when it does nothing. "Fëanáro. Fëanáro. Náro!"

After the fifth time she says his name Fëanor jerks awake. "Írimë, what are you doing?" He sounds deeply irritated even as his hand seems to automatically settle on Fingolfin's head.

"Nolvo said to ask you what is wrong." The demand in her voice is sharp.

There is a long silence before Fëanor sighs explosively. "The song of the world is being sung and un-sung about him every three days. He is thousands of years older than us and has died many times and has not yet found a way to make the song stick, which is the most immediate issue, though far from the only one."

Her grip on his wrist goes bruisingly tight for a moment. "If you were anyone else I would accuse you of trying to make a fool of me," she says lightly. "So, what are we doing about it?"

"We are letting him rest," Fëanor says, that strange undercurrent to his voice that Fingolfin cannot parse still present, "in hopes that it will help him continue on during the next song."

"Absolutely not," she says immediately. "He is not going to lay in bed for three days. How will that help anything?"

"And what would you have him do instead?" Fëanor snaps.

"Do I get any say in this?" he asks, a weak spark of amusement flaring to life in his chest despite everything.

"No," Lalwen tells him, already moving to pull him off the bed. "Let's go. You're not going to lay in here for three days. One was enough."

"The mingling has not even begun yet," Fëanor says in exasperation. "Where exactly are you going?"

Fingolfin lets himself be pulled out of bed and shoved toward the closet. "You have no imagination," Lalwen tells Fëanor, ignoring his sputtering as she tells Fingolfin to get dressed.

He briefly considers fighting it. Is sure that if he wished to go back to bed Fëanor would let him and in a battle of wills he is sure Fëanor would eventually win. Though, he cannot in truth say how long a battle of wills between Fëanor and Lalwen would last. Long enough that fighting it seems as if it would take more energy than he cares to put forth. She grabs his wrist and starts tugging him out of the room as soon as he's done, Fëanor following behind them looking exasperated and thoroughly through with the whole adventure.

The palace is silent as they follow Lalwen through the halls, everyone else reasonably asleep. It has been a long time since Fingolfin has snuck around the palace at night. It feels a little like a dream he's had before. Stalking the palace halls, looking for solutions to problems he cannot solve, and then waking in his bed in Beleriand with an ache in his chest.

She leads them outside and into Tirion, weaving through the quiet streets and never letting go of Fingolfin's wrist, as if she expects him to flee if she lets him go. It is his lot in life he supposes, to be forcefully guided through the city by his siblings. She walks on and on, leading them out of the city heading north and looks over her shoulder with a sharp grin when Fëanor quietly goes, oh, I see.

She leads them up a hill, up onto the rocky cliffs, the sea spread out before them, and then farther up still. He is beginning to find himself curious, sure she has a destination in mind but unable to imagine what is up here other than more rocks.

They reach a point where thickets of thorns begin lining the cliffs, a warning to be careful, and Lalwen slows, lets go of his wrist. Slides sideways suddenly into a gap between the thorns and disappears down the cliffside. Fëanor grabs his arm when he lurches forward after her, stopping him from flinging himself directly into the thorns.

"She is fine," Fëanor says exasperatedly. "Only dramatic and reckless."

Lalwen's head pops up over the side of the cliff. She's grinning wildly and Fingolfin is firmly convinced that everyone in his family is insane. "Come on," she says, waving impatiently. "Don't slip."

Fingolfin briefly considers refusing but sighs after a moment and carefully slides between the thorns to find that there's a narrow incline hidden behind them that drops down sharply, which she had slid down, and at the bottom he finds there is a cave that goes back a good way.

Fëanor slides down behind him, pushing him into the cave and away from the edge. "You are going to fall one day going down so quickly," he tells Lalwen.

She snorts and waves her hand dismissively at him. "You are no fun. I have not fallen yet."

“Yet,” Fëanor mutters.

Fingolfin looks around the cave with a steadily growing baffled amusement. “Nésa, how did you get all of this stuff down here?” There’s a pile of blankets, a small end table, cushions, lamps, a precariously balanced stack of books that must be damaged by the weather and he can only hope are not too valuable.

She shrugs. “Set it on the ground and let it slide down. Some stuff made it and some did not. What you see is what survived.”

He cannot help but laugh and wonder how many things are lying at the bottom of the sea that had not made it even as she guides him back toward the opening of the cave. She drops a cushion on the ground and pushes him down onto it. Walks off and comes back with a blanket that she drops on his head. Fëanor and Lalwen settle on either side of him and he does not want to admit it, but the fresh air, the view of the sea — it is helping the slightest bit.

They sit in silence for a long while. He pulls his blanket tight around shoulders to ward off the chill from the ocean air and leans his head on Fëanor’s shoulder, happily soaking up the heat from where they are pressed against each other. Lalwen presses against his other side, her fingers tangled with his as she hums the same cheerful tune she’d been humming when he woke. The mingling begins to fade away slowly, Laurelin asserting herself through the air, and he watches the golden light play across the ocean and wishes for nothing so much as he wishes for the simple beauty of a sunrise.

He opens his mind, reaches out to both of his siblings at once. Look, he thinks, handing them both a memory of standing in the middle of Ard-galen, miles and miles of uninterrupted green grass and wildflowers stretching out in front of him as the sun slowly rose and painted the sky golden-red.

It’s beautiful, Lalwen thinks, dancing through his memories of Beleriand. She does not linger on the death or war or pain — dances through the sunrises and sunsets, the summer thunderstorms and swirling snowstorms, finds the simple joys such as galloping around Hithlum as he trained Rochallor. She finds the laughter, slides between the memories and plucks out every moment of joy she can find. It was all beautiful, she thinks.

Not all.

Enough.

Fëanor is silent, still blazing in the memory of the sunrise, and then, we should kill the trees after we have taken care of Morgoth.

There’s a beat of dumbfounded silence as they both look at him. “Excuse me?” he demands. “We cannot kill the trees.”

“You wish for the sun. For the moon. Why can we not?” Fëanor says in such a reasonable tone one might be tempted to believe him in any lesser matter.

“I do not in truth know how either came into being,” he points out. “We cannot kill them.”

“I’m sure he can, he is quite capable of it,” Lalwen says, still cheerfully poking through his memories, “but he perhaps should not.”

He elbows her in the side hard. Does not like the stark look of true consideration that has settled on Fëanor’s face. “In your memories, when we quarreled I spoke of thralldom,” he says, sending a chill through Fingolfin’s heart. Fëanor tugs at the memory and Fingolfin snaps his mind closed. Fëanor levels him with an unimpressed stare. “I spoke of thralldom and of bondage and freedom. I see now that I was right but that I should also have spoken of abandonment and duty to our kin still in the East.”

Fingolfin is not sure if he should despair or take hope in the way Fëanor has shifted his perspective slightly to the left. Is not sure how he feels about the fact that after so long in Beleriand, he is not even sure if he disagrees with any of his brother’s words, only the manner in which he spoke them. Yet still. “You cannot kill the trees,” he says again helplessly. There is something viscerally wrong about the idea of committing the same act which Morgoth did even if for better reasons.

“Is it not our duty to force the Valar’s hand when we know that they are capable of providing all of Arda with light and warmth if they would only try?” Fëanor is deadly serious, righteous fire cutting through every word.

“We could also simply ask,” Lalwen says, reaching over and sharply tugging at Fëanor’s hair. He hisses in annoyance and jerks away. “Not everything must be a war.” Her laughter is muted as she studies Fëanor. “Is that not how all of this began in the un-sung song? War between brothers? War between the Noldor and the Valar? Blood threatened and blood spilt?”

“And you think that they will do as we ask?” Fëanor asks derisively. “You believe that they care about the land they have left shrouded in darkness?”

Lalwen rolls her eyes and in the same breath, reaches behind herself, grabs another pillow, and swings it directly into Fëanor’s face. Fingolfin falls backwards to avoid also being hit and then watches in dismay as Fëanor tears the pillow from her hands and smacks her in the face with it in retaliation. Something she does not seem to mind in the slightest as she steals Fingolfin’s pillow and promptly begins to try her best to beat Fëanor over the head with it. And then they are off, scrambling around the cave as they try to beat each other up, all while sniping at each other about the merits and drawbacks of killing the trees.

Fingolfin sits and watches, eyebrows raised incredulously. He is not quite sure he’s ever seen anyone attempt to de-escalate a brewing argument with Fëanor in such a way and is only half-sure it’s working. Is only half-sure this is not going to end with one of them tripping and hurting themselves.

"I should throw you in the sea," Fëanor mutters later after they've finally tired themselves out and collapsed near Fingolfin. They did not come to an agreement but they also did not erupt into a true argument as he had expected.

Lalwen snorts and half-heartedly aims a punch at his shoulder. "I would drag you with me."

"You are both ridiculous," he tells them, feeling disgustingly fond regardless.

"And you are smiling," Lalwen says, relief bright and terrible in her eyes.

He is smiling, is not quite sure when he started, but there is something incredibly light and uplifting about watching the two of them fight with no intention of true hurt. It feels too much like hope and he is tired of hoping only for it to come to nothing but it is so difficult not to when he is reminded that there is so much laughter still to be had.

"We will solve this," Fëanor says into the silence, fire blazing in his voice and the stirrings of an oath beneath the words. "You must not give up."

"I am not giving up," he agrees, "I cannot give up. But I am still tired." It is still there, waiting only for him to lay back down. It is easier in the light with his siblings near him, but he knows he will lay back down and will not want to rise again. Does not know how to fix that.

Fëanor's face goes tight with worry but he says only, "Then we will lend you energy until you can continue on your own."

"Do you really think it is that easy?" He does not mean it is an accusation or dare. Genuinely does not believe it can be that easy when Míriel had not been loved any less than he and had still slipped away.

Fëanor narrows his eyes, the desperation badly hidden beneath the stubborn furiosity when he says, “It will. I will not—,” he scowls as his voice cracks, “—I will not lose anyone else.”

Fingolfin does not have the heart to tell him that it will not be his choice. Fingolfin will not give up, only because he cannot. The songs will continue to un-sing themselves until he fixes whatever it is that must be fixed and he will carry on until he manages it. But he does not know if when he fixes things— he does not know. He is so tired and there is still so long to go with no promise of rest in sight. “I will try,” he settles on, unable to offer anything else.

Lalwen and Fëanor have never looked so similar as they do in that moment, staring at him with wounded, terror-stricken eyes.

“As long as you try,” Lalwen says after the silence has begun to suffocate them all. She wraps her arms around him, flinging her legs across his lap as if she can keep him safe merely by covering his body with her own. He rests his head on top of hers and closes his eyes. Hums in contentment when Fëanor settles on his other side, his arms wrapping around them both.

“We will solve this,” Fëanor says once more. Fingolfin isn’t sure any of them believe the words but it will have to be enough for now.

 ☀︎

They all troop back to the palace when mid-day begins to approach and his stomach makes a truly awful sound as it reminds him of just how long it has been since he last ate. They will not allow him to go back to his rooms. They do not say that it is because they do not wish him to go back to bed, but he can see it in the look they exchange. Instead he follows Lalwen to her rooms as Fëanor disappears to find food.

Lalwen’s rooms are a riot of color. Bright yellow tapestries, violent pink flowers, scarves of all colors braided together and hung across various surfaces. There is not a single neutral color and it all clashes in such a way that it nearly hurts his eyes to look at. “Your room is a tragedy,” he mutters, curling up in an armchair that is a deep purple which does not match the rest of the furniture at all.

“My room is interesting,” she says, grinning as she always does when someone says this. “It is not my fault I am the only one in this family with a personality.”

“Your personality is tragic as well then,” he tells her only to receive a pillow to the face for his troubles. “I cannot believe that you got away with hitting Fëanor in the face,” he says after he has thrown it back.

She brightens, true excitement playing across her face as she flops onto the settee. “Yes, I knew he secretly liked me!”

Fingolfin’s chest aches at that. Is not sure that is true at all. Still remembers that it had not been until Lalwen was fifteen, just old enough to understand Fëanor’s dislike of them, that she had taken up the habit of calling him háno instead of his name, a habit that had stuck even as she’d gotten older. It has never been a mystery as to what inspired such a habit, though he is sure Fëanor has never paid it any attention at all, and he wants to shake Fëanor every time he is reminded that it is not only him that was hurt by Fëanor’s inability to act as an elder brother should. But he will not say any of that to her. Says only, “I’m sure he’ll never admit it.”

Fëanor, when he finally returns, brings not only food but Findis and Finarfin trailing behind him as well. Findis stands in front of his chair and stares down at him for a minute, hands on her hips and brow furrowed, and then turns to Fëanor. “I am still not sure you’re not simply trying to make fools of us but I suppose he does look tired.”

Finarfin, standing behind the settee with his arms crossed, frowns at Findis. “Fëanor would not lie about such a thing.”

“Listen to Áro,” Fëanor says, glaring at Findis even as he passes Fingolfin a plate of food. Finarfin shoots a startled look at Fëanor’s back.

“Yeah, don’t be stupid, Fin Fin,” Lalwen says, smiling sharply when Findis turns her glare from Finarfin to her.

“Call me that again and I will strangle you with one of these stupid scarves,” Findis snaps. “It is a valid concern considering who it is that told us such a thing.”

“And what does that mean?” Fëanor snaps back, feet planted as he squares off with her.

“It means,” Findis says viciously, “that you have never shown any of us an ounce of care before and that I have no reason to believe you would do such a thing now unless to mock us for your own amusement.”

Fëanor does not flinch. Does not try to argue otherwise. Only stares at her as the tension pulls tighter. “I have not cared for you,” he agrees finally, “but that does not mean I wish any of you dead or that I would mock such a thing.”

“What does it matter to you if we die?” Findis asks, nothing but cruel practicality in her voice. “It would be only one less child of Indis for you to hate. What do you care?”

“Findis,” Lalwen hisses.

Fëanor’s nostrils flare in anger, jaw clenching tight. Fingolfin is not quite sure how this spiraled out of control so quickly but he thinks back to the last song and thinks maybe he should not be surprised. “Findis,” he says softly, grabbing her hand. “He is trying to help.”

She looks down sharply, frowning as she takes him in again. “You are always too quick to forgive him,” she says, though some of the bite has left her voice. She studies him for another moment, sounding bewildered when she says, “You do sound tired. What has happened so suddenly to exhaust you so?”

“I—” he does not know what he means to say and his voice breaks before he can figure it out. Saying any of it out-loud feels too big, too all-consuming. He shakes his head, gesturing toward Fëanor and Lalwen instead. Settles back in his chair and sets to work eating instead.

There is a moment of silence, Fëanor and Lalwen looking at each other expectantly. Findis puts her hands on her hips, foot tapping out an impatient rhythm. “Well?” she demands.

Fëanor and Lalwen stare each other down for another minute before Fëanor makes an aggravated noise and says nearly the same thing he had told Lalwen earlier. "The song of the world is being sung and unsung about him every three days. He has died many times and seen far more years than us and has not yet found a way to make the song stick, which is the most immediate issue. He is exhausted and we—” he says fiercely, pointing at Findis, “— have already had this fight once before.”

The silence hangs stifling in the air for a moment before Finarfin makes a dismayed nose and says, “What is wrong with this family?”

They all cannot help but laugh at that, for is that not the question everyone in Tirion has asked since Míriel faded. Findis drops to the floor in front of his chair, leaning her head against his legs, Fëanor sits beside Lalwen on the settee, and Finarfin folds himself into the other armchair, sitting cross-legged as they all silently eat and consider each other. 

“How far into the future did you live?” Finarfin asks curiously when he’s done eating. He’s studying Fingolfin in a way that draws to mind nothing so much as Fëanor in the first few songs curiously studying him as if he wishes to break the problem apart and examine it. It is still not a feeling Fingolfin cares for no matter that it is from a different source.

“Too far,” he says, a wave of exhaustion sweeping over him just at the thought of all that had occurred. “Or perhaps not far enough. Perhaps the song would not have un-sung itself if I had carried on.” The Fëanor from his dream flashes in front of his eyes again, you hearkened to Morgoth with death already written on your heart. Is it any wonder it was not granted to you when you wanted it so badly? He does not want to say that the words hold merit. Cannot deny that the first part is true.

“Will it be worth it?” Findis asks, tipping her head back to look up at him, mouth set in a thin, serious line. “When it’s over and the song continues unbroken. Will it have been worth it?” Her eyes flick to the settee where Lalwen is resting her head on Fëanor’s shoulder and he knows what she is really asking.

You wanted Fëanor to acknowledge you. To acknowledge us. Is the price too high now that what you wanted has been granted? He does not know. If he had been given a choice, which would he have chosen? Would he have chosen to keep a song full of blood and death where he got to rest in the halls? Or would he have been told the cost of the constant un-singings and grabbed onto the chance with both hands? He fears he knows the answer and it makes none of this any better. But. “Yes,” he says, breathing in around the lack of hatred in the room. “Yes, it will have been worth it.”

It will have been worth it. But that does not mean he will manage to stick around for it once the option to rest is given to him once more. He doesn’t say that, won’t put such thoughts into the air to be woven into the song, but he meets Fëanor’s eyes and knows that the words have been heard regardless.

 ☀︎

Chapter End Notes

There would be something singularly ironic about Fëanor being the only person in Aman to have lost a mother to fading & Indis being the only mother in Aman to have lost a child to the fading. Very inverted mirrors of them. 

-- 

Lalwen every single time she wants to be annoying: Fin Fin :) Fin Fin :) 

Findis: I will drop you off at Mandos myself if you do not stop calling me that. 

Lalwen: :) 

Findis: ... 

Lalwen: Fin Fin :) 

[cue something breaking]

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