All the Broken Happy Ever Afters by StarSpray  

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Two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 After this past Midwinter he had been withdrawn for a time, but lately that mood too seemed to have been lifting a little.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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Not with Nerdanel. With Daeron.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Should we ask Lalwen?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know I was a fool—”

“I did not say so, Fëanáro.”

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

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

“They cost me everything.”

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

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

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

“Curufinwë does not doubt it,” said Fingolfin. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I did not wish for company.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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