From That Rubble by StarSpray  

'Cause from that rubble, what remains
Can only be what's true
If all was lost, there's more I gained
'Cause it led me back to you
- “From Now On” - The Greatest Showman

- - 

When Fëanor and Nerdanel had returned to Tirion after spending the first years of their marriage away from the city, they had immediately begun to plan and build a house of their own, one that could hold their growing family—though even they had not intended then to have quite as many children as they ended up with—and the students that Nerdanel was already beginning to take on, as well as their workshops and collections. It had been ambitious to start with, and as the years went on they had added rooms and wings and once an entire new floor. It was their voices in concert that had sung the songs for the laying of the foundation’s first stones, and Nerdanel’s sweet voice that sang the blessings over the last tile laid on the roof. 

Fëanor thought of that house often, but he did not get up the nerve to actually go to see what was left of it until years after his own return from Mandos, and to Tirion. He was busy with other things—feeling his way forward with Curufin, trying to regain something of what they’d lost. Trying to build something entirely from scratch with Fingolfin, and with Findis and Lalwen. Slowly getting to know his mother. Finding his own way back into the crafts that he’d once loved, teaching this new body that muscle memory that his old one had grown so used to, and acquiring some new scars along the way. Trying to figure out who he was now, when it so often felt as though everything that had made him him had been either burned away with his first body or left behind in Mandos.

Finally, though, he got up one morning and decided that continuing to avoid the house felt too much like cowardice, and whatever he had been and might still be, no one could ever have accused him of that. 

It was still standing, the old house. The walls were slowly crumbling, and many of the windows were broken; the gates into the property were entirely gone, and the gardens overrun with crab apples and thistles and anemones. Dandelions pushed up through cracks in the flagstones of the courtyard. Fëanor pushed the doors open with some difficulty, for both they and the tiles inside had warped. They were faded to browns now, no longer the brilliant and beautiful colors that Nerdanel had made them long ago. The walls were empty but for cobwebs and lichen and mildew, and the rooms devoid of furniture, the air stale and still. He made his way upstairs, though the stairs themselves were broken and unsteady, walking through the dusty rooms and seeing in his mind’s eye what they’d once been. Maglor’s had been messy and chaotic, with clothes strewn about while somehow he always still seemed to know where everything was that he wouldn’t let anyone touch even to do laundry—a striking contrast to how neat he kept his instruments and books in the music room downstairs. Maedhros’ room had been next door, neater at first glance but organized in such a way that only made sense to him, with bookshelves stuffed full and always a pile of letters waiting to be opened or replied to sitting on his desk. Celegorm’s had been neat enough, but there were always feathers or muddy paw prints to be found somewhere; and the twins’ room, when they had been old enough to venture out into the wilds with their brother, had been much the same—and they’d always kept prisms in the windows, so their walls were forever shining with rainbows. Caranthir and Curufin had fallen somewhere in between Maedhros and Maglor on the scale of tidiness, neither of them spending enough time in their rooms to make much mess to begin with. 

The room he had shared with Nerdanel had been cluttered and clean by turns, always bright, always warm—until it wasn’t. 

Fëanor closed the last bedroom door in that wing with a soft click. The house had never been this quiet. He heard scratching somewhere in the walls, and spotted evidence of other animals’ nests—squirrels or birds or other small creatures that made their homes in the city. Glancing around, he saw cracks in the walls, in the floor. The songs sung over the building had held for so many centuries, but even in Valinor buildings would crumble and fall if not continually maintained, and this house was no exception. 

Someone would have to tear it down before it fell down, Fëanor thought as he descended the stairs. Then he stepped out into the overgrown gardens to see the workshops in even worse shape than the house, to see the forge where he’d made the Silmarils with its roof already half fallen in, and realized that the only person he would trust with such a task was himself. He was the reason it had fallen into such disrepair, so he needed to take charge and…do something. There wasn’t any use in trying to repair it, as every part of the building would need to be rebuilt almost from scratch anyway. So the only thing was to sing the walls the rest of the way down and cart the rubble away somewhere, and then…

There would be no point in building a new house just to rattle around in by himself, but the thought of leaving this plot of land bare and empty was even worse. But he could figure that out later. 

Whatever he did, though, Fëanor couldn’t start without speaking to Nerdanel. On the one hand, he was always glad of an excuse to see her or even to write to her—but on the other hand, it never went as well as he always somehow hoped that it would. She held herself at arm’s length, always, with distrust in her eyes and the memory of all the things he had said and done in the dark hovering between them like smoke thick enough to choke on. 

She was also busy—currently in Avallónë teaching—and Fëanor wasn’t at all sure she would be pleased if he turned up there unannounced, or even announced; he also wasn’t sure that she would even open any letter that he sent. So he went to find Curufin, finding him in his workshop with his daughters, who squealed and threw themselves at Fëanor as soon as he stepped through the door. “Hello, Atya,” Curufin said, as Fëanor hoisted first Calissë and then Náriel into his arms. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

“I have a favor to ask, but it can wait,” Fëanor said. It wasn’t a conversation to be had in front of small ears, but he did not want to send the girls away either. His granddaughters were the two brightest spots of this new life of his, the only two people in the world who could be truly happy to see him without it being complicated, and he wanted to take advantage of every second he got to spend with them. “What are you making today?”

Later that afternoon, after Celebrimbor came to take his sisters away to see a performance in the city’s main square, Curufin asked Fëanor, “What was the favor you wanted to ask?”

“If I write a note to your mother, will you see that she gets it?”

Curufin’s eyebrows rose just a fraction. “Of course. Has something happened?”

“No. I just—something should be done about the old house before it falls in on itself. I can do it, but I don’t want to if Nerdanel has other ideas or plans.”

“I don’t think she does,” said Curufin. “I think the last time she went there was before any of us were out of Mandos except maybe Maedhros—to fetch the old palantíri.”

“I thought they all got sent to Númenor.” 

“Probably not all,” said Curufin. “There’s the biggest one in Avallónë, and some others I’m sure rolling around in a storeroom somewhere—but I meant the nine smallest ones, the ones you made first, remember? They would have been useless in Númenor.”

“Oh.” Fëanor had almost forgotten those. He almost asked why Nerdanel would have gone looking for them if all her sons were in Mandos—but of course Maglor had never come there. He had never been easy to find, even for Fëanor, wrapping subtle enchantments around himself almost without thinking. It had been something of a joke and an annoyance in his youth. Fëanor supposed that during his exile it had been survival; still, even the briefest glimpse would have been a comfort to Nerdanel. “Well, regardless, the house is falling apart already, and I need something to do. I might as well tear it down myself.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know yet. It will take some time to clear out the gardens first—I’ll figure something out.”

“I don’t think Ammë will object,” Curufin said, “but I’ll send your letter with my next one.”

“Thank you.”

“Atya,” Curufin said as Fëanor turned to go. “Are you all right?”

Fëanor stepped back to kiss Curufin’s forehead. “I’m fine. I just need a project.” Something to fill up his days and take his mind off of all the things he wanted to be doing but couldn’t. “How are your brothers?”

“Fine,” said Curufin. “No word yet from Lórien, but that’s usually a good thing.”

“Of course. I’ll bring the letter tomorrow.”

Nerdanel’s answer came promptly: he should make sure to clear out the storerooms and basements first, but beyond that he was free to do whatever he liked with the house. It is probably a good idea to just tear it down and build something new, whatever it ends up being, she wrote. She did not offer help or any other opinions, but that was all right. This felt like something Fëanor needed to do alone, at least to start with. When it came to actually carting away the rubble he would need other hands, but for the time being he was able to uproot crab apple trees and weeds, and sort through the detritus of his old life by himself. 

He started the next morning, with a shovel and a hatchet, mentally splitting the gardens up into smaller plots that he could tackle one at a time. It felt good to be doing something—something with tangible results he could see immediately, something that left him with aching muscles and dirt under his fingernails. And if it also made his heart ache to see what had become of the home he’d built and had once thought would be where his heart would dwell forever—well. That was only to be expected, and no more than he deserved. 

Fëanor did not work at the old house every day—he did not even want to. He had other things to do—he was still a Prince of the Noldor, though he’d laid down his claim to the crown itself, and Fingolfin wanted Fëanor’s involvement even beyond what it took to keep up appearances. He wanted to hear Fëanor’s opinions and ideas, and if they often disagreed it was no longer fraught in the same way it had been long ago. 

It was still strange. It was good, but strange.

He had other projects too, smaller ones—toys for his granddaughters, tools or component parts that Curufin or Celebrimbor needed for their own work, ideas that he sketched out and then made just for the sake of making. He saw his other sons sometimes, mostly at a distance—Amrod or Amras would speak to him if they happened to meet on the street or at a party, briefly and of nothing more significant than the weather, but Caranthir and Celegorm continued to avoid him, and Fëanor wasn’t sure which one he felt worse about. 

Then, nearly a year after he started his house project, all of his sons vanished. He went to see Curufin and found Rundamírë at home alone. “They’ve all gone off on a journey south and west,” was all she could tell him, or all she would tell him. “Tyelkormo was very insistent.”

Fëanor and Curufin had fought just a few days before—it had been about something very stupid on the surface that Fëanor couldn’t even remember anymore, but underneath it had been about all the things they avoided because neither of them wanted to think very much about the past, much less talk about it. And now Curufin was gone—and the last time Fëanor had had an unpleasant encounter with one of his sons that drove all of them to leave, they’d ended up spending an entire summer getting as far away as it was possible to go. He tried to think of what lay south and west of Tirion. Imloth Ningloron lay to the south but farther east, near to the Pelóri. Thingol’s realm was also in the south, but Fëanor couldn’t imagine all of his sons going there—no matter how friendly they were with Daeron.

Then he noticed how quiet the house was. “Where are the girls?”

“With their father. This will not be a long journey, and I’m sure they’ll be very eager to tell you all about their first adventure when they return.”

Well, that was something. If Rundamírë was talking about adventures, and about the girls being eager to see him when they came home—and that they had been taken along in the first place—then perhaps it was not their argument that had driven Curufin out of Tirion. 

The abruptness of it still made Fëanor uneasy. He hated not knowing, and that drove him ultimately to Imloth Ningloron, where Elrond just blinked at him in surprise and denied knowing anything about it.

“It’s true they visit here more often than you do, and I am very fond of them all, but that doesn’t mean they make a habit of consulting me when they make such plans. And if this was as sudden and unplanned as you describe, I’m really not sure why you think I would know anything about it anyway.”

That was fair, but still frustrating. 

Usually when Fëanor visited Elrond they ended up debating something—about history, or language, or sometimes something philosophical. Fëanor wasn’t blind—he knew Elrond did not always enjoy those arguments—but Elrond was one of a very small number of people even now who would argue with him, and if Fëanor didn’t spend a few hours sometimes fighting someone about some stupid issue of grammar in an obscure dialect of Sindarin he thought he would either go mad or get into a much bigger argument about something much worse with someone with whom he couldn’t afford to argue. 

He wasn’t in the mood to argue on this occasion, so he just browsed through the library for an afternoon to keep up the fiction under which he’d said he’d come, and then left Elrond and Celebrían in peace—only to run into all seven of his sons on the road. That solved the mystery, at least: everyone had gone to escort Maglor and Maedhros home, though how they knew it was time was beyond Fëanor’s ability to guess. Maglor came riding ahead, with Daeron at his side, but reined in abruptly when he spotted Fëanor, jerking his hand to his chest as though it pained him suddenly, expression transforming from a smile to a look of unhappy shock. The rest of his brothers came up behind him, Maedhros moving to his other side, as Calissë came racing ahead on her pony, entirely unaware of the sudden tension in the air. 

Calissë’s uncomplicated joy at the sight of him did not entirely erase the ache under Fëanor’s ribs at the sight of Maglor’s distress and at Maedhros’ stony silence, but it was enough to allow him to smile as he dropped out of his own saddle to lift her up and kiss her.

Curufin also smiled to see him, coming ahead with Náriel, but all of his brothers were frostily polite. For his part, Daeron was all smiles that warned of danger should Fëanor make any misstep, which was only to be expected, but the flash of irritation at it faded away when Fëanor saw just how tightly Maglor was holding onto Daeron’s hand. The warning was not Daeron being insufferable, it was Daeron being protective—and Fëanor suddenly liked him much better than he had a few minutes before. He looked away quickly, though, still distrusting what Daeron might have to say, and turned his gaze to Maedhros and Maglor’s faces instead. If they were not happy to see him they looked healthier than they had before, without any signs of sleeplessness or the kind of pain that lingered. That was something.

The conversation was painful and awkward, and Fëanor knew he shouldn’t, but he had to ask, “Did you find what you sought in Estë’s gardens?” Please say yes, please say yes, please be all right— 

“We did,” said Maedhros. He met Fëanor’s gaze evenly, but his face was a mask of almost emotionless calm; his horse shifted beneath him, betraying the tension he was otherwise hiding so very well. The Maedhros Fëanor had once known had never held himself thus, had never even tried to hide his thoughts or his feelings—he had never had to. This was Maedhros of Beleriand, Lord of Himring. Both Maedhros and Maglor were not nearly as fragile as they had both appeared when Fëanor had last seen them, but there remained shadows behind their eyes that would never fully retreat. Similar shadows hovered behind Curufin’s eyes too, and Celebrimbor’s—in all who had gone to Middle-earth and lived and fought there. They were shadows whose shapes Fëanor did not and could not know, and as he made his excuses to Calissë before preparing to depart, he had the sinking feeling that those shadows, and all of the things his children had experienced that he could never understand, were what made up the gulf that lay between them. He did not know how to cross it, or if such a crossing was even possible. Once, Fëanor had scoffed at the idea of anything being impossible. He knew better now—and now far too many things seemed so. 

None of his other sons spoke. Celegorm remained in the very back of the group, keeping his gaze lowered as though he couldn’t stand even the sight of Fëanor. Caranthir beside Maedhros did meet Fëanor’s gaze, but aside from the flush on his cheeks he too was so terribly hard to read. Ambarussa each offered a brief smile, which was something, but the whole scene was one Fëanor would have liked to avoid. He had wanted to know where they had all gone and whether they were all right, but he hadn’t wanted to intrude on it, or force his presence upon them. He had promised he wouldn’t, and it was a promise he intended to keep, however hard it got. 

Fëanor bid them farewell, summoning another smile for the sake of Curufin’s daughters. “Atya,” Curufin said quietly when Fëanor turned to him. “Before I left Tirion—”

“It’s no matter. I’ll see you when you return—enjoy your summer, Curvo. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

As Fëanor rode away he heard Maglor calling out behind him, voice sudden and bright—a burst of happiness that had Fëanor slowing and turning before he could think better of it. He was just in time to see Maglor canter away down the road, his dark hair flying out behind him as he leaned forward in the saddle, every line of his body speaking to his eagerness to be at home again. Good, Fëanor thought as he turned away again himself. They were all happy, and that was far more important than anything he might want for himself. 

Back in Tirion, Fëanor threw himself into his house project—for three days, before he managed to pull a muscle in his shoulder badly enough that the healers scolded him while putting it into a sling, and he was forbidden from so much as setting foot in his workshop, let alone going back to pulling up plants and digging out roots. He didn’t need the lectures and had to bite his tongue bloody to keep from snapping back, and then had to endure Lalwen laughing at him over it. “Oh, but isn’t it nice to know they aren’t still afraid of you?” she teased after sweeping into his rooms upon hearing about it. “Even twenty years ago no one would have dared to point out what you were doing wrong—well, except for me!”

“There were plenty willing to point out all I did and was doing wrong the moment I stepped out of Mandos,” Fëanor tried to growl, but he found it very difficult lately to stay annoyed with Lalwen. She twisted his hair into an elaborate set of braids for him, since there was a banquet that evening he needed to attend, sling and all—his mother was in Tirion, alongside Indis. It was rare enough that Indis returned to Tirion from Valmar that it usually heralded all of Fëanor’s siblings gathering in the city, even Finarfin. “Is Arafinwë going to come tonight?” he asked Lalwen as she hunted through his box of jeweled hair clips. 

“No,” she said, retrieving a few he had made while experimenting with moonstone. They weren’t his favorite—he didn’t quite like the cut of the gems—but she fastened them to his braids anyway. “I went to invite him, but his knee is giving him trouble and he did not want to make the journey.”

Fëanor had seen Finarfin twice since his return from Mandos. Both times Finarfin had been decidedly cool—almost cold—and had made it clear that whatever his brother and sisters’ feelings on the matter, he had no desire for Fëanor’s friendship. That had not been particularly surprising, but he had seemed distant even from Fingolfin, when in their youth the two had been as close as Maglor and Maedhros had been. And that rift, too, could be laid at Fëanor’s feet. His deeds and his words had fractured their entire family from top to bottom and the worst part now was that there wasn’t anything he could do to mend it. It was up to Finarfin and Fingolfin to find common ground again, and anything Fëanor might attempt to do now would just make it worse. 

“Does his knee often give him trouble?” he asked now. Finarfin had not been limping either time Fëanor had seen him, but he’d heard the tales—of how he had been wounded during the War of Wrath and yet still led the final charge against the gates of Angband. That was what had worsened the damage to the point that even now it still sometimes pained him. 

“No, not terribly often,” said Lalwen, her smiles and laughter fading away. “The mild climate and the sea air help, he says. Still, it makes for an unpleasant journey even as short as the ride is through the Calacirya, and he is not yet weary of seclusion and retirement.”

“He deserves it—the peace and quiet I mean,” Fëanor said after a moment, as Lalwen finally finished whatever she was doing to his hair. He rose, but not quickly enough to beat her to the wardrobe. “Lalwen, I can pick out my own clothes.”

“Not when you aren’t supposed to move your arm too much! Don’t worry, I won’t try to dress you—there are other people waiting to do that. Here, wear these robes. They go well with the moonstones.” She pulled out a set of dark blue robes with pearlescent embroidery down the front in intricate and twisting designs. His mother had made them, of course—all of his fine and formal clothes these days were made for him by Míriel. He still found himself sometimes reluctant even to touch them, because all his life before the things made by Míriel had been so precious, kept preserved and hardly ever taken out of their chests. Finwë had only worn robes she had made on high holidays or for solemn ceremonies. Now, Fëanor could wear clothes made by Míriel’s hands every single day if he wanted to, and not worry about damaging them because she would just come to sew them up again, or make him new ones. He still hadn’t gotten used to it. 

When he greeted Míriel that evening she smiled to see the robes he wore, and then frowned at the sling. “What in the world did you do to yourself, Fëanáro?”

“It’s just a pulled muscle trying to uproot a stubborn tree,” he said, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “It will be fine in a few days.”

“What are you doing uprooting trees? Or is this part of your project at your old house?”

Fëanor did not ask how she knew. His mother knew more about what went on among all the Elves of Aman than anyone ever expected from one who came so seldom among them. “Yes,” he said. And then, because he did not want to talk about that, he added, “My sons have returned from Lórien.”

Míriel smiled up at him. It always surprised him when he saw her how small she was, because she loomed so large in his small child’s memories. “Yes, I know,” she said. “Indis and I are going to Imloth Ningloron when we leave here. I have had so little opportunity to get to know any of my grandsons, and now they are gathered all in one place at last and I intend to take full advantage.”

“Good,” Fëanor said, though that place under his ribs ached a little, knowing he would not be there too. “But why is Indis going?”

“Elrond and Celebrían are her grandchildren too—and she is also very fond of your children, and she is my own dear friend. Is that not enough?”

Of course it was, but the fact that Fëanor had managed to let go of most of his resentment did not mean he knew how to talk to Indis or even what to think about her. There was a small part of him now that had caught and clung to the fact that, as she had once been the reason his mother could not return, she was now the reason his father could not—though he knew that was neither fair nor true. There were many reasons his father could not return, and the biggest one was that the Valar had decreed it. Indis and Míriel both had gone many times to plead before them, that they might reverse their ruling, but to no avail. That they both loved Finwë was clear. Fëanor knew his problems with Indis were in his own mind only, and even just for Míriel’s sake he wished he could let them go. He just couldn’t manage it yet.

The banquet was pleasant. Fëanor was teased a little for having managed to injure himself, and it was nice to be able to laugh at something. There was dancing after the meal, and he contented himself with a glass of wine and a seat near a window to watch. Míriel was a lively dancer, but she did not remain on the floor for long before coming to join Fëanor, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling from the exertion. Every time he saw her, Fëanor found more traces of his sons in her face or her movements or her voice. The silver hair she shared with Celegorm was the most obvious, but Maglor had inherited her grey-green eyes, and Curufin her stature; Ambarussa danced like she did and with the same boundless energy and bright joy. Both Maedhros and Caranthir had her smile. It was harder to say what he himself had most clearly inherited. His looks came from Finwë, and as for the rest, it was hard to hold up such a mirror and see clearly when he only felt like himself, and the only one who would ever volunteer such observations was Finwë, and—well, Finwë was not there. When Fëanor had been younger Finwë had told him he had Míriel’s cleverness and curiosity. Fëanor liked to think that was true, but he did not feel very clever or very curious, these days. 

Míriel and Indis stayed for several weeks before they departed for Imloth Ningloron. Before she left, Míriel brought two tapestries to show Fëanor. “Macalaurë wrote to me before he and Maitimo left for Lórien,” she said, “and asked me to weave a gift for Maitimo. I thought you might like to see it.” She unfurled the first. It was a fortress set upon a high hill, dark grey stone against a clear blue sky, and the hill itself overlooking a plain of green and gold grass. As the fabric settled it almost seemed that the grass was rippling in a summer breeze. “It is Himring,” Míriel said. 

“It’s beautiful,” said Fëanor, running his fingertips over the ramparts. “Maedhros asked for this?”

“He has no idea,” Míriel said. “Macalaurë wanted it to be a surprise. This is the scene he asked for, but I have made another as well.” The second tapestry was of an island, surrounded by blue-grey waves with gulls circling over the worn and wind-rounded walls, where dark and stubborn trees grew. In the distant background was the shoreline of the mainland. “Perhaps Maitimo will not like this one as much—but I have a feeling he will be glad to know that the walls still stand, even now.”

“I am glad to know it,” said Fëanor. He hoped Maedhros would like the tapestries—both of them—and was even gladder that it had been Maglor to ask for them. “And I’m—I did not get a chance to tell you before, but I’m glad that you went to Avallónë to welcome Macalaurë when he came home.”

“It did not feel like a homecoming for him, though he was very happy to be reunited with Elrond,” said Míriel as Fëanor helped her roll up the tapestries. “I think returning to Imloth Ningloron this spring is his real homecoming.” She lifted a hand to cup Fëanor’s cheek. “Take care of yourself, Fëanáro. I do not want to return to Tirion to find you injured again.”

“It was only a pulled muscle,” Fëanor said. He leaned down to kiss her. “I’ll be fine, Ammë.” 

Later, Fëanor joined Fingolfin in his study for a glass of wine. They met like this with increasing frequency of late, talking of everything from politics to the weather to Fëanor’s granddaughters. They were evenings that Fëanor looked forward to—a thing he would never have believed possible before his return from Mandos. 

That evening they sat by the window, looking out over the gardens with the cherry grove just in view, as the stars came out. “What have you been doing at your old house?” Fingolfin asked. “Clearing out the gardens, I know, but why?”

Fëanor shrugged, studying the contents of his wine glass. “Something must be done about that house. It will fall down eventually.”

“It does not follow that it must be you that tears it down single-handedly. Are you sure you do not want help?”

“It’s not as though I have much else to do.” He had gotten to the point where he was no longer focused on the weeds and the vines but on clearing out the boxes and chests from the storage rooms. More had been preserved than he’d expected, and that was it’s own kind of pain, opening up each box to see a little bit of his old life tucked inside, cushioned by cotton or by straw. There was a certain relief, though, that made itself known whenever he could look at it and see progress made. He felt like he could breathe a little easier. Maybe from the outside it looked like some kind of self-imposed punishment and maybe sometimes it felt like it, but that wasn’t what Fëanor was trying to do. “I need to build something new there,” he said after a few moments. “To do that, I must first clear away the old and broken things.”

Fingolfin did not try to argue. “Is there anything you need for it?”

“No. Not yet.”

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I was the match and you were the rock, maybe we started this fire
We sat apart and watched all we had burn on the pyre
…
Do you understand that we will never be the same again?
The future’s in our hands and we will never be the same again
- “Things We Lost in the Fire” - Bastille 

- - 

The summer passed quietly. Rumors started up with more persistence than before about some great gathering Ingwë wanted to hold. Fëanor had heard talk of it before but hadn’t paid much attention. Fingolfin seemed amused by it. “Better him than me,” he said to Fëanor over another evening glass of wine. “I held my Mereth Aderthad—I’d hate to attempt anything as big as what Ingwë wants.”

“Was it not a success, your feast?” Fëanor asked. He’d spent the afternoon going through boxes of toys that had been packed away long before the house had been abandoned. He’d taken a few to keep himself, attached to particularly bright memories, and sent some to Curufin’s house for when he and his family returned, should the girls want them. The rest were already broken or too worn to be of any use as toys, but he couldn’t make himself throw them away, either, these last remnants of his sons’ childhoods. Now, he was willing to talk about anything else—including politics, including Beleriand.

Fingolfin shrugged. “As far as it went—the Noldor were all able to come away from it unified, at least, and I could stop worrying about conflict breaking out between my children and my nephews, and turn my attention to the north where it belonged. It would have been better if a larger party came from Doriath, but I wasn’t going to push my luck—and it was Daeron and Mablung who came, which was no small thing itself. Daeron is, well, Daeron, and Mablung was a chieftain among Thingol’s marchwardens and among his trusted councilors. He still is the latter, though there’s of course not much call for marchwardens nowadays.” 

“They are close kin, are they not—Daeron and Mablung?”

“Yes. You remember Mablung’s parents, Lady Lacheryn and Lord Belthond. Daeron is their nephew.”

“What of his own parents?”

Fingolfin shook his head. “I have never heard them spoken of. Do you and Daeron still cordially dislike one another?” Fëanor shrugged. “You know that will cause trouble for you now that Maglor is back.”

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do about it.” Daeron came surprisingly often to Tirion, but hardly ever to the court, so it was rare that they met in person. When they did, Daeron was cheerful and polite, but with an edge to his smile that was subtle enough that Fëanor thought he was the only one that noticed. He was, certainly, the only one meant to notice. All of Fëanor’s sons liked him, treating him like an extra brother, and Curufin’s daughters adored him. Fëanor’s opinion had risen since that chance meeting on the road over the summer, and he thought he might like Daeron if circumstances were different—if he had managed to keep biting his tongue when they’d first met. 

Fingolfin set his wine aside and started unraveling his braids, sighing as the tension on his scalp was released. “You could try speaking to him,” he said as he dropped a few jeweled clasps onto the windowsill beside the orchids he kept there with their delicate purple blossoms. “That is usually how such conflicts are resolved.”

“Even if I knew where to start, I’m unlikely to have the opportunity any time soon,” Fëanor said. 

“I’m not saying you need attempt anything now. Only that when you do find an opportunity, it might be a good idea to take it.”

“Is it making trouble for you?”

“No. Daeron’s problem seems to be with you and you alone, and I would probably not know about it at all if we hadn’t spoken of it, though he’s also made himself a bit unpopular with some of the older scholars and loremasters here in Tirion. That’s far less personal, though, and if they’re going to grumble to anyone about it, it isn’t me.”

“I do know about that. I think it’s just a bit of jealousy. Rúmil likes his work, though.” Daeron’s writings revealed him to be, in addition to breathtakingly talented in music and remarkably self-assured, clever and thoughtful, and it was out of genuine interest that Fëanor picked up every paper or treatise that Daeron wrote that made its way to Tirion. In that way he had learned three new languages and several alphabets and even more history of the lands east of the Sea of Rhûn. It was with regret that he sometimes thought of the lands in Middle-earth that he had never gotten to see, of the mountains he had never so much as glimpsed, let alone climbed, the people he had never met and the stories he had never heard. The closest he would ever come now were the words of others; and of all those who cared to share their stories, Daeron was one of the best—a storyteller to his core in both verse and prose. 

The next day Fëanor gave himself a break from clearing out storerooms in favor of tackling the gardens again, to get as much done as he could before it got too cold for such work. It had rained overnight, and the soil was slick and muddy, making things both easier and more difficult. He left the saplings and brambles alone and dug up stubborn thistles around the sides of the house. Under one large window had once grown a patch of peonies, all soft pinks and deep purples. Caranthir had loved them as a small child, and had always chosen them as a hiding spot when such games were played—or even just for the sake of hiding. The peonies were long gone, now, but it was still easy to remember them, and to remember the sound of Caranthir’s badly-stifled giggles when Fëanor walked by, loudly pretending to have no idea where he could have gone. When he eventually poked his head out from the stems Fëanor would swoop in to pick him up, tossing him into the air and making him squeal, and then tickling him when he caught him again. 

Now Fëanor tried to remember the last time he’d heard Caranthir laughing, and couldn’t quite do it. He definitely couldn’t remember the last time he had made Caranthir laugh.

“You’ve done quite a lot in such a short time.” Nerdanel’s voice made him jump, and Fëanor turned to find her standing some feet away, arms crossed as she looked around. She was dressed for travel, in sensible clothes and with her hair caught back in a simple plait. “Have you gone inside yet?” she asked.

“Yes.” Fëanor wiped his hands on his knees as he rose to his feet, though he was muddy all over so it just smeared everything around. “I didn’t know you had come back to Tirion.”

“I’m not staying long—I’m going to Imloth Ningloron directly.” Nerdanel looked him up and down, and her lips twitched in what might almost have been a smile. “Are you really going to do this all by yourself?”

“How else would I do it?” Fëanor asked before realizing how that sounded. Her expression shuttered. “I just—”

“There might be some things in the storerooms the boys will want. We did our best to preserve everything—though I couldn’t tell you why. No one thought any of you would ever come back to want it again.”

But they had hoped, Fëanor thought, even if they hadn’t realized it at the time. “I’m sorting through it. I don’t intend to just throw everything away, and I can ask Curvo to pass things onto his brothers if they wish.”

“Well—good.”

“Are they well? The boys?” Fëanor asked as Nerdanel started to turn away.

She did smile then, when she glanced back at him. “Yes,” she said. “Very well—and Calissë and Náriel are delighted with their uncles. I’m sure you’ll hear all about it when they return home in a few weeks.”

“And you are well, too?”

“Yes, I am. Are you?”

“Yes, of course.”

Nerdanel left, and Fëanor found he didn’t particularly want to be at the house anymore either. He went home and ended up sketching out designs for peonies carved out of amethyst and quartz, though he didn’t know what he’d do with them when he made them, except offer them to Caranthir, who would probably not want them. He finished the drawings anyway, and put them away. Even if he never made them, someone else might want to, someday.

Several weeks later, Fëanor happened to be visiting Celebrimbor when Curufin, Rundamírë, and the girls arrived home. He’d come to ask his opinion on a new railing Anairë wanted for a balcony, made of wrought iron that he had thought to shape into dancing figures. Celebrimbor was himself in the middle of sorting through scrap pieces of glass, deciding what he wanted to keep and reuse and give away to other glass makers. “You could do a dance sequence, perhaps?” he said as he reached for a particularly jagged piece. “Each figure another step in it, like the—does Anairë do spear dancing or is that just Lalwen?”

“Just Lalwen, and this is for a guest room.”

“Used by Vanyar, by any chance?”

Fëanor snorted. “How in the world would I know that?”

Celebrimbor grinned at him. “Well, you might want to find out—oh damn—oh—” He cursed in Dwarvish as the piece of glass slipped in his grip. He tried to catch it but only succeeded in slicing open his hand before it hit the ground and shattered. Fëanor immediately reached for the nearest rag to press to the cut, and Celebrimbor did the same.

At that moment Curufin entered the workshop. “Tyelpë?” He abandoned the heavy-looking bag in his hand and hurried over. “What happened?”

“My fault,” said Celebrimbor, all smiles gone as he gritted his teeth. “Just—stupid—I wasn’t watching—and it was broken already anyway—”

Curufin calmly peeled back the cloths to look at the cut. As he did Celebrimbor looked away, grey-faced as Fëanor had never seen him before. Celebrimbor had never been squeamish. “Sit down, Tyelpë,” Curufin said briskly. “Atya, there are bandages in that cupboard.”

Fëanor glanced down at Celebrimbor’s palm, at the blood still welling up. “That will need more than bandages,” he said, but went to fetch them. He also grabbed the broom, lest someone else come in and either get cut or track some small piece of glass back into the house where Náriel or Calissë would be going barefoot. 

As Fëanor swept, Curufin focused on Celebrimbor. “Tyelpë. Are you going to faint?” When Celebrimbor shook his head he asked, “Do you want me to stitch it, or Tindehtë?”

“You, please.”

“Wait here then,” Curufin said as he wrapped a bandage around Celebrimbor’s hand. “Keep it elevated—”

“I know, Atya.”

Curufin hurried back to the house. Fëanor finished sweeping up the glass, and then went to catch Celebrimbor when he swayed—closer to fainting than he had apparently wanted to believe himself. “It’s all right, Tyelpë,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

When Curufin returned he kept his tone light, but Fëanor saw the worry in his eyes as he directed Celebrimbor to the floor. “You don’t need to crack your head open as well as your hand.”

“This is stupid,” Celebrimbor muttered, but he obeyed readily, and leaned back against the shelves, turning his head away as Curufin sat cross-legged beside him, already opening the healer’s kit. 

“Not stupid,” Curufin said. “Here, sip this.” He handed Celebrimbor a bottle, and Celebrimbor sipped it obediently. His color improved immediately. 

“Should we not seek a more skilled healer, if it’s so bad?” Fëanor asked. He knelt on Celebrimbor’s other side, so he might have a shoulder to lean on if he wished. 

“It’s not that bad,” said Curufin as he set to work, threading a needle and unwrapping the bandages. Already the bleeding had slowed considerably. “Nelyo was hurt far worse than this on our journey west, and I stitched him up fine.”

“He was what?” Fëanor looked at Curufin, who froze for a second, evidently realizing that he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. He’d told other stories, harmless ones, silly ones, of the journey to Ekkaia and back—but he had never mentioned injuries. 

“I just don’t like the sight of blood,” said Celebrimbor, staring resolutely at the far wall, apparently unaware of the sudden tension. 

Fëanor let the question of Maedhros’ injuries go, and looked back at Celebrimbor. “I don’t remember you having such trouble before,” he said, and knew it was a mistake the moment the words left his mouth. It was more than mere squeamishness—he could see something dark and haunted lurking behind his eyes.

“Yes, well. Things change.”

“Tyelpë—” He meant to apologize, but Curufin gave him a sharp look and he fell silent. There would be time later. Trying to apologize in another way, Fëanor guided Celebrimbor’s head to rest on his shoulder so he could just close his eyes and not worry about whether he would faint or not. Celebrimbor sighed, and took a few deep breaths as Curufin worked. He was very quick, but neat, and that was troubling in a different sort of way—a reminder that once upon a time Curufin had had to treat much worse wounds much more often, in far more dangerous places. A reminder that he and Celebrimbor had both experienced war in a way very different than Fëanor had—he had only had the briefest taste before it killed him, while they had been shaped by centuries of it in ways that meant they moved through the world now very differently than he did. Most days, they were simply his son and his grandson and things were easy—they spoke the same language still when it came to art and craft and to most everyday things, but when it came to the past, it felt like no language was enough to pierce the barrier that rose up between them. 

“Drink more of the miruvórë, Tyelpë,” Curufin said as he cleared away the bloody cloths. “Your sisters are going to want to climb all over you when you return to the house.” 

Fëanor helped Celebrimbor to his feet. He glanced down and grimaced at the blood on his clothes—rueful now, though, rather than distressed. “Can you distract them while I change my clothes?”

“Of course.” Fëanor was the least messy of either of them, so he left Curufin to speak a little more with Celebrimbor—offering reassurances that Fëanor couldn’t—and went to the house. 

“Grandfather!” Calissë hurled herself into his arms as soon as he stepped through the door. “We missed you! You should’ve stayed with us in Imloth Ningloron, it was wonderful!”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t,” Fëanor said as he kissed her and reached for Náriel. “Hello, my loves. I missed you very much. Did you have many adventures this summer?”

“Lots!” said Náriel. “Did you know Uncle Cáno’s got hedgehogs? They’re really cute and they follow him around everywhere, but Ammë said they don’t like the city so we can’t have one—”

“That’s very true,” Fëanor said. He gently ushered the girls away from the door so Celebrimbor could slip past without being noticed. He was very quick about it, and by the time Fëanor had gotten them to the parlor he was back downstairs in a clean tunic, kissing his mother and laughing off his injury. As the girls climbed onto Celebrimbor’s lap, as Curufin had predicted, Fëanor turned to greet Rundamírë properly, who smiled at him more warmly than usual. 

Curufin joined them, and it was a relief for Fëanor to wrap his arms around him. He’d missed him—him and the girls—and it was so nice to have them back, even if it did mean hearing about the absurd things Maglor was making up about his own adventures in Middle-earth, to explain away the scars and signs of unelven aging that even Lórien couldn’t erase. Fëanor didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh—for the story of the enchantress and the talking beavers was funny, and even Celebrimbor laughed at it—or to weep at the fact that such diversions were even necessary.

It wasn’t long before Curufin caught his eye, though, and led the way back to the workshop. Apparently Fëanor was not the only one who had been thinking of all the ways he did not know his sons anymore. They had been speaking of it among themselves, and Curufin had brought a palantír back to Tirion—one of the ones from Nerdanel’s house. One that would show him any of his sons—or himself, or Nerdanel—in an instant, but which would be almost impossible to bend toward anything else. Fëanor hadn’t meant to make those first stones that way, but he had made them primarily for that purpose, and they had soaked up his intention like sponges. It was something he had learned how to fix in later stones; those first ones had been tossed into a chest and mostly forgotten, except when he or Nerdanel wanted to know where their sons had wandered off to in those golden years before everything started to go wrong.

With the palantír came words Curufin had never spoken aloud before—of fear, of doubt, of what it had really been like to be Fëanor’s son during those years preceding the Darkening. It wasn’t anything Fëanor didn’t already know, but it was still terrible to hear it said aloud, every word another twist of a knife in his chest, to hear Curufin speak so softly and hesitatingly when he reminded Fëanor of the wrongs he’d done even when his children were small, the ways he had hurt them when he should have been protecting them. Curufin kept his gaze lowered to the scratched and worn surface of the worktable where he rested his hands, as though worried that his words would ignite Fëanor’s temper—as they probably would have, once upon a time. He still had a little bit of Celebrimbor’s blood underneath his fingernails. 

Fëanor felt, abruptly, exhausted. His son was afraid of him even still—they all were, but he realized he hadn’t known that Curufin had taken those first steps, years ago, in spite of his fears rather than in the easing of them. “I do not want to be someone you fear,” he whispered.

“I know,” said Curufin.

He thought he knew the answer but the question slipped out anyway. “How did we get here, Curvo?”

“You taught me to make swords, and then insisted I set aside every ting else in pursuit of that mastery.”

Fëanor remembered that. Remembered how he had counted on that eagerness of Curufin’s to master anything, to rise to any challenge put before him, whether it was a game or gemcraft or—in the end—sword smithing and warfare. In the years since, Fëanor had learned all about how good Curufin had been at making swords, outfitting armies, teaching others, going far above and beyond everything he and Fëanor had done in Valinor. If Fëanor had survived his first battle, he knew he would have been proud of Curufin for it—fiercely, arrogantly proud. Now the knowledge that his son had put aside all the things he loved most—beautiful things, bright things, gemstones and metal sculpture that rivaled his mother’s in finesse—in favor of weaponry, until he was himself nothing more than sharp edges and steel…now it just broke his heart. 

“The way that you spoke of it,” Curufin said, still not lifting his gaze, “of how we would need them—that frightened me for the first time. By the time we went to Formenos—no, even before then, even before you drew your sword at the palace, we were all afraid. Even Maedhros. We followed you because we loved you, but we also feared what you would do if we didn’t.”

They’d been right to fear. Fëanor hated that that was true, wished that he had been able to see more clearly what he was doing then, how he had been breaking the very things he wanted most to protect. 

“I know you won’t go down that same road again, I do, but—” Curufin finally lifted his eyes to Fëanor’s. There were times when he seemed so much older, a strange and fey commander out of ancient wars who had seen horrors and done worse, but just then he looked so young, as young as he had been when Fëanor had first put a sword into his hand and told him to copy it. “—but I would be lying if I said I did not sometimes fear it, all the same.”

If Fëanor should be angry with anyone it was himself. He was angry with himself, a low- but hot-burning coil of rage at the base of his spine, easily ignored most days but sometimes, very rarely, when he was left alone with his own thoughts too long, threatening to erupt into the same kind of inferno that had killed him. When that happened, usually sometime in the dead of night when he lay awake missing his father so much it felt like he couldn’t breathe under the weight of it, he took himself out to his forge, to beat metal until his muscles ached and he had something beautiful or at least useful in his hands, instead of something deadly. 

He did not feel that way, then. He just felt cold and tired, struggling to remain standing with the weight of all his failures hanging on his shoulders. 

He took the palantír, wished he could also take away the worry from Curufin’s eyes, and left the workshop. He glimpsed Caranthir making his way down the narrow alley, but pretended not to, and went to say goodnight to Celebrimbor and the girls instead. Calissë and Náriel begged him to stay for dinner, but he made excuses and promised to see them the next afternoon.

“Is everything all right?” Celebrimbor asked in a low voice when Fëanor embraced him.

“Yes, of course. Don’t you start worrying about me. Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m—maybe I’ll explain it all to you about it sometime. But I’m fine, really.”

“You can, you know—talk to me about those things.”

Celebrimbor smiled at him. He was a little pale but otherwise seemed entirely recovered. “I do know. I’ll see you tomorrow, Grandfather.”

Later, in the privacy of his bedroom, he sat cross-legged on the bed and contemplated the palantír, absently cataloging all the flaws and how to fix them next time. There was little call for such seeing stones these days, but Fëanor thought about trying his hand again at them anyway. All of his old notes had been lost, and it might be a good challenge—to see if he could recreate this old project almost from scratch. 

Then he set those thoughts aside and picked up the stone. Better, he thought, to start at the end—to see the very worst of what had happened to his sons. It wasn’t anything he had not seen before, because Vairë and her weavers spared no detail in their work, but those memories were hazy and dreamlike, as was almost everything from his time in Mandos. There were only a handful of moments that Fëanor still remembered clearly, which bothered him. He hated forgetting such things. He remembered what had happened to his sons, but not in detail, not really what it had looked like. Now he took a deep breath and leaned over the palantír, calling upon it silently to show him what he wished to see. 

Caranthir fell first, struck by a hail of arrows scant steps into the vast and beautiful entry hall of Menegroth—though its beauty was shrouded in darkness, lit only by the lamps and flickering torches of the Noldor. Fëanor watched Maglor catch Caranthir before he hit the ground, though it was too late—he was already gone, eyes open and unseeing under his helm. Next fell Curufin, struck down just as swiftly as his brother in a spray of bright blood when he slipped in a pool of water from a broken and overflowing fountain and his opponent’s sword found the space between his breastplate and his helm; that same opponent was cut down almost immediately by Maglor, who turned to roll Curufin’s body over, calling his name before he saw that he was already gone, blood mingling with the dirty water spreading around them. Then Celegorm, slain by Dior Eluchíl before the dais where once had sat Elu Thingol and Melian in their splendor. To his horror, Fëanor watched Celegorm hesitate, watched his movements hitch just for a second before Dior landed the blow that killed him. It had to be deliberate—Celegorm was too seasoned a fighter, too good to make a mistake like that, as evidenced by the way he dispatched Dior immediately afterward, before staggering down the step to fall onto the stone floor. His end was much slower in coming than his brothers’ had been, blood pooling underneath him as Maglor knelt at his side, lips moving as he frantically tried to staunch the wound. There was no sound in the palantír, but Fëanor could all too easily guess what it was Maglor was saying, could see his brother’s name on his lips, repeated over and over like a plea or a prayer until the last of the light went out of Celegorm’s eyes. Maedhros was also there at the last, kneeling on Celegorm’s other side, resting his hand on his forehead, but Fëanor didn’t think that Celegorm knew it.

Ambarussa died only seconds apart, years later as Sirion burned around them. Like Caranthir, they were felled by arrows and dead before their bodies hit the ground. Like all their brothers, they were reached by Maglor seconds too late.

Fëanor lifted his head and pressed a hand to his eyes. He knew what he would see next. That was one moment from the Halls that he remembered all too clearly—not the tapestry depicting it, but Maedhros’ arrival there, his spirit still burning as though he’d brought the fires of the earth with him, and in so much pain that it seemed to radiate from him, as though his spirit couldn’t contain it all and so it spilled out onto everyone else around him. Fëanor still didn’t know if he’d only imagined that or not—Maedhros had fled from him and Fëanor had never been able to find him in the Halls afterward. After a minute he took a breath and turned his attention back to the palantír. 

It was dark, storm clouds hiding the sun or the moon—Fëanor couldn’t tell whether it was night or day. The chest bearing the Silmarils opened, though he couldn’t tell whether it was Maglor or Maedhros who had lifted the lid. The jewels lit their faces, rendering them for a moment as youthful and lovely as they had once been in Valinor, before they had been so changed and hardened and worn down. Maglor’s eyes went wide; Maedhros closed his. They reached out at the same time, and Fëanor wanted to stop them, wanted to catch their hands before they could touch the Silmarils because he knew what was going to happen, and surely they did too—but it was as though they couldn’t help themselves. 

Maglor staggered away, mouth open in a soundless cry of agony. The ground shivered and shook beneath them as Beleriand continued its slow, inexorable crumble into the sea; a great rift opened, glowing red with fire and molten stone far below. Fëanor saw Maedhros turn toward it, and behind him saw the shining arc of the Silmaril as it went flying from Maglor’s hand, away into the sea. 

He shoved the palantír away before Maedhros took that final step; it rolled off the bed and hit the rug with a dull thud. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t bear that terrible empty expression in his face, as though he had gone even beyond the pain, as though nothing at all mattered. He’d done that—Fëanor had done that, and it didn’t matter how mad he might have been or what he had really intended. He’d thought himself and his sons invincible, unstoppable, and they hadn’t been, and they had all paid far too high a price for his folly—they and all the rest of the Noldor and of Beleriand, though if Fëanor started to dwell on that he thought he’d go mad again. 

And that was before all that Maglor had endured afterward—all that suffering and not even the relief of Mandos at the end of it. 

He fled the room and the palantír for the cherry grove, where everything was quiet and damp with dew—the closest he could get to his father, these days, where he could pretend for a few hours that at any moment Finwë, who had always known what to say or what to do, might come and find him. 

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One need not be a chamber—to be haunted—
One need not be a House—
The Brain—has Corridors surpassing
Material Place—

Far safer, of a Midnight—meeting
External Ghost—
Than an Interior—confronting—
That cooler—Host—
- “One need not be a chamber—to be haunted—” by Emily Dickinson

- - 

“Look for us during the Long Peace next. That time shaped us as much as all that came after, and in much better ways. We were happy, for such a long time.”

Because Curufin had told him to, Fëanor did, looking for the years directly after Maedhros’ abdication in which his sons had taken their people east and established their realms and strongholds. He saw how proud they had been, in those days when all the Noldor had still held themselves apart from and above the Elves of Middle-earth, believing themselves superior while having turned their backs on the very things that they thought made them so. He watched their war councils, watched them debate with one another, sometimes argue—the palantír showed many things but it did not reveal sounds, and for the most part Fëanor could only guess at what they said. 

Already Maedhros had hardened—they all had, but he most of all. The rest eventually caught up. He watched Celegorm and Maglor both charge into battle and skirmish, swords flashing, teeth bared. Maglor opened his mouth and shouted down the enemy, sending ranks of orcs fleeing northward with the sheer power of his voice echoing off of the rolling hills of Ard Galen. But just as often Maglor galloped across the plains for no reason but the joy of it. He stood in the mornings atop a hill and threw out his arms, mouth open wide as he sang out to the sky. Celegorm took Celebrimbor hunting and rode south to visit the twins; he was fierce and bold but also joyful, delighting in the wild plains and the trackless woods; he too often sang as he rode.

Maedhros rode out too, the most formidable of all Fëanor’s sons in battle, but just as often he remained in Himring, studying maps and laying plans, writing letters and reading the replies. As time went on he started to smile again, to indulge in hunting or in visits to his brothers or cousins just for the sake of visiting—but ever his eyes were watchful and always his gaze strayed to the north, and he never let his guard down except at times behind the high and impenetrable walls of Himring.

Curufin did not often go to battle—only at need. He remained behind, busying himself with building projects and with forging—though in those early days he still sometimes made beautiful things, the bulk of his time was spent making weaponry: creating better and stronger alloys, honing edges, crafting spells so the blades would keep their sharpness, would not nick or dull with time and use. He poured the same effort into armor and shields, into walls and fortifications. Celebrimbor was ever at his side, eyes bright as he rose to each new challenge put before them. 

Amrod and Amras took to the wild woods in the south, hunting the creatures that slipped past their brothers’ vigilance and learning the ways of the land, of the trees and the Green Elves who lived there. They thrived in the wild, though they were not nearly as carefree as they seemed to be now. Caranthir built his stronghold beside Lake Helevorn, and then he planted gardens, groves and orchards; they and the fields his people tilled thrived, lush and bountiful. He was good at many things—at planning, at logistics, at trade and gathering wealth and turning it all into something Maedhros could use in the north—but Fëanor could tell, watching him, that he was not happy. He shied away from nothing, but lordship sat heavily on his shoulders, and it was only in springtime when he walked alone through his orchards and stopped to press his face into the flowers that he really smiled. No peonies grew in Thargelion.

For a long time when they all came together again they seemed truly happy. Maedhros did not offer the same sort of easy embraces or casual touches that he had before, but Maglor always more than made up for it. As the years wore on, though, their meeting grew fewer. When they did come together it was to take council—to argue, with fists slamming onto the table or fingers jabbing at points on a map. Fëanor didn’t have to hear to know those fights were primarily about the Oath, which had slept for a time but then began to stir in their hearts again—about what they might do to get the Silmarils. It was mostly his younger sons who debated and argued. Maedhros just listened, and every time he ended the arguments with a single word or a shake of his head. However much they might disagree, they all deferred to him, every time, without question.

They never stopped embracing one another when they met, but they did stop offering anything more; they stopped acting like brothers and acted more like the soldiers they were all becoming. They grasped hands or arms, they still smiled and joked, but even Celegorm who had always been the most affectionate began to withdraw. They looked to Maedhros not as their beloved eldest brother anymore, but as their lord and commander—all but Maglor, who spent more time than the rest at Himring, and who could still coax smiles out of them all even when they arrived grim and angry, though when he was alone he often wept, looking northward, looking lost. 

Fëanor could see the beautiful things they made and he could see that they believed themselves to be content—even happy. He could see that initial pride softening—not quite going away, but changing as circumstances changed and taught them better. But the Oath hung over them, sleeping for long years at a time but never letting itself be entirely forgotten. He hung over them, though his name never passed their lips—he and his expectations and his last deeds. Maedhros often stared into the hearths of Himring as though he were seeing other, deadlier flames. Maglor composed the Noldolantë and sang it beneath the wide open skies of the Gap. Curufin pounded his grief into every blade he made, making sure he and his soldiers and his brothers were armed with the best weapons it was possible to craft. 

The Dagor Bragollach was the beginning of the end, but they were all changing before then, every step taking them farther from the boys they’d been in Tirion and the young men who had always brought such bright light and joy wherever they went. Blood stained their hands and pain dogged their heels, and though Curufin wanted to convince Fëanor that for a long time the joy they found in the wide and beautiful lands of Middle-earth under the Sun and Moon had outweighed the sorrow—it was hard to believe, watching it all unfold when he already knew how it was all going to end. He could see the Doom of the Noldor hanging over them like a storm cloud; could imagine he saw the Oath wrapping around their necks like a noose. He believed that they believed it—and that was more important—but it was still hard to watch, even though he was proud of them, of all they’d built, fair and tall and strong, even if almost none of it had survived the rending of the world. They’d done it all in spite of their own knowledge of all the ways they were doomed. The joy was as much an act of defiance against the dark as the walls they built and the battles they fought—more so, for the sheer strength of will that it took to look at the dark mountains in the north and laugh instead of scream. 

He lay awake at night, watching the moonlight slowly move over the ceiling of his bedroom, and played games of what-ifs and maybes. What if he had not died? What would they have done then? Would Maedhros still have gone to treat with the Enemy, or would it have been Fëanor hanging from the mountainside instead? Would anyone have bothered to even think of rescuing him, if it had? Would things have gone better or worse? Would it have just come to more bloodshed by the shores of Mithrim, when Fingolfin arrived with his host, frozen and furious?

Those kinds of thoughts were always pointless. They just circled like carrion birds over a battlefield. Fëanor knew this, and in his previous life he had never indulged in them—he had known the uselessness of it, had always wanted to be doing something. Now there was nothing for him to do except to think, and he couldn’t stop. 

What if his mother had never died?

What if he had listened to Nerdanel?

What if he had been slain in Formenos instead of his father?

What if?

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Heart,
I implore you,
it’s time to come back
from the dark

…

Let the world
have its way with you,
luminous as it is

with mystery
and pain—
graced as it is
with the ordinary.
- “Summer Morning” by Mary Oliver

- - 

“They gave you a palantír?” Findis perched on an empty workbench in Fëanor’s workshop, frowning at him as he collected the materials to make the blue diamonds she had asked for. The bright spring sunshine streamed through the window to make her hair shine like a memory of Laurelin. “Whatever for?”

“They need me to understand,” Fëanor said, “since, you know, I wasn’t there—at least not long enough.”

“So they want you to just wallow in all the misery of the First Age, though it’s now been six thousand years and more since it ended?”

“No,” Fëanor said. He couldn’t find the crucible he wanted; Curufin might have borrowed it. “There’s no point to wallowing.” He crouched down to look through the other crucibles in the cabinet, and found one that was close enough. “When do you want these diamonds, again?”

“By Midsummer would be nice, but there’s no rush. Have you spoken to any of them besides Curufinwë?”

“Not really—and I will have these done well before Midsummer. Diamonds are easy.” 

Caranthir had come back to Tirion with Curufin, but he’d continued to avoid Fëanor as he always had. Last he had hard, the twins and Maedhros would be returning home with Nerdanel soon; Míriel had spent the winter in Imloth Ningloron, and had written all about it to Fëanor. She had seemed very pleased to finally get to know her grandsons properly, and Fëanor was pleased also—and, tentatively, hopeful. He was trying not to be, circling the feeling like it was a wild animal that might bite if he made the mistake of looking directly at it, but it was hard to ignore. The palantír was not something he looked at every day, though he did pick it up most evenings, and most of the time it was horrible—battles and wounds and grief and pain—but Curufin had been right that there had been great joy and freedom and life in Beleriand, too. It was hard to see, sometimes, through the knowledge of how it all ended, but the more he looked the more he found. Fëanor was starting to feel as though he knew his sons again, that he might understand better how they thought and how Middle-earth had shaped them, for good and for ill. Even if by the end of this none of them wanted anything to do with him, still, at least he would know better why. That was worth all the tears and all the sleepless nights. And there was still the fact that they had asked it of him—that they had decided together that this might be the thing that let them start to close the distance. That alone spoke volumes—that they didn’t like the current state of affairs any more than he did.

Findis pursed her lips and looked like she wanted to press further about the palantír, but Fëanor started talking about something funny Fingolfin had told him earlier that day, and she got the hint. It was still odd, to know that he could confide in her if he wished—and to find that more often than not he did wish to, if he could only find the words—but if he was going to talk to any of his siblings about Middle-earth or what he saw in the palantír, it would be Fingolfin, or perhaps Lalwen. Findis had not gone east, and Fëanor had long since ceased to begrudge her that, but it did mean there was a very similar gulf of understanding between her and the rest of them—even Finarfin—to the one that lay between him and his sons. Even Fëanor had seen enough to know the general shape of what he had missed afterward even if the important details had eluded him until now. 

None of them were strangers to grief or rage or pain, but there were shades of all of those things, just as there were many shades of the color blue, and he did not want to make Findis, of all people, familiar with the ones he was learning.

And thinking of shades of blue— “Can you tell me more precisely just what color you want these gems to be?”

“Something very light. Like the dawn sky on a cloudless morning in early spring—bright and clean. And speaking of brightness…” Findis paused before going on with a more cautious tone, “You haven’t made anything with light since you returned.”

Fëanor placed the crucible on the workbench above his head and sat back on his heels. “Do you want light in these gems?” he asked. 

“Not if you do not wish to do it.”

“I can do it. Starlight or sunlight? Or moonlight?”

“I know you can do it,” Findis said, frowning at him. “But do you want to?”

He hadn’t done much with light after he’d made the Silmarils—there hadn’t seemed to be any point, since he’d reached the pinnacle of the art. And, well, his mind had turned then to other things instead. He’d wanted sharp edges, not beauty. “Yes,” he said now. He had to start again sometime, he supposed—and he’d never tried to capture sunlight or moonlight. It wouldn’t be difficult, but it would be new—and he hated the way that Findis was talking about it, as though it was something he needed sheltering from. And he had loved it, working with light, making things that sparkled and shone—if he hadn’t, he never would have gotten as far as making the Silmarils in the first place. He found suddenly that he wanted to start making such things again, especially if they would please his sister. That he would never surpass the Silmarils only meant now that he could make whatever he wanted without worrying about how impressive or not it might be. “What sort of light, Findis?”

“Starlight and moonlight, please,” Findis said. She hopped down from the bench and leaned over to kiss the top of his head where he was still kneeling in front of the cabinet. “Thank you, brother.”

He set to work as Findis departed, glad of a new project, something to fill his afternoons and distract him from the piles of boxes and chests still waiting in the storerooms of the old house. Many were too big or too heavy for him to lift up the stairs by himself, and he was either going to have to get creative with some rope, or ask someone to help. The only person he would ask was Curufin, but Curufin had already come once or twice, and seeing the state of the house had so clearly distressed him that Fëanor had not spoken of it again, lest he feel obliged to keep trying.

Several weeks later he found himself back at the house, attempting to lift a chest that he knew was too heavy. It slipped from his grasp and pinned one of his fingers. He cursed as he yanked his hand free, and decided to just give up—never mind that he’d only been there for fifteen minutes. Maybe he’d just go back home and read something. He had a dozen books he’d been meaning to get to and at least if he dropped one of them it wouldn’t hurt. Or maybe he’d go visit his granddaughters and distract himself with their games instead—it was very hard to feel unhappy or frustrated when Calissë and Náriel were climbing all over him or showing him all the things they were making or drawing or learning.

But when he reached the top of the stairs, he found Amrod and Amras standing in the dusty foyer, waiting for him. They wore their hair long and simply braided, and were dressed in the browns and greens he was accustomed now to seeing on them in the palantír. Surprise made him forget there was another step at the top of the staircase—but instead of falling on his face he found himself caught, one twin on each side. “Good morning, Atya,” said Amras, as though it was perfectly natural and not shocking at all for the two of them to be there. 

“Ambarussa?” Fëanor got his feet under him and straightened, looking from one to the other. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you,” said Amrod. “Curvo said you’re cleaning out all the storerooms. Would you like some help?”

“I…” Fëanor tried to think if Curufin had told him of any change that had come over his brothers. Then he recalled all the times Curufin had good-naturedly complained about Amrod and Amras coming and going at odd times and never with any warning. If they had decided they wanted to spend time with him as suddenly as they did anything else, the last thing Fëanor thought he should do was question it. “Yes,” he said when he found his voice again. “There are several chests I can’t bring up by myself.”

“A good thing we’re here, then!” said Amras brightly. 

As they returned to the storeroom the twins wanted to know what Fëanor was doing with everything, and why he did not want to keep any of it himself. He spoke the truth when he said he had nowhere to keep it—but did not add that he also didn’t want to find a space, or really to keep any of it, except for a few small things he’d found with particularly precious memories attached, tucked away in a box in the back of his wardrobe, rarely opened. There were more things that he thought his sons would want to at least look through, and those he’d been giving to Curufin, trusting that they would make their way to the others eventually.

He bent to pick up the chest that had fallen on his fingers before, and Amrod easily hoisted up the other end as Amras gathered smaller boxes. They filled the silence with chatter about hedgehogs and cats and various small happenings of the past year. Some of those things Fëanor had seen in the palantír—sometimes he needed to look for them all in the present, just to remind himself that they were all together and well and happy—but most he hadn’t. He could have listened to such stories for hours. 

In almost no time at all they had brought up all the boxes Fëanor had wanted to get out of that storeroom that day. “Thank you,” he said once the last box was set down in the foyer, and then realized he didn’t know what else to say. He still didn’t know what they wanted, his youngest sons, in coming to him in this way. He had scrawled out apologies in ink years ago, and tried to show his love in gifts, because even if he had been able to see and speak to them in person, he seemed to have come from Mandos tongue-tied and having lost all the eloquence he’d once put to such terrible use—at least for the most important things—and he hadn’t yet gotten it back. 

Amrod glanced at Amras, who nodded and left without a word, leaving Amrod to stretch out his muscles, looking around, appearing entirely at ease though Fëanor could see his sharp gaze taking in all the details of the crumbling house around them—the cracked tiles, the stains on the walls, the broken stairs. It was the same sort of gaze that had taken in a battlefield and then found the best way to carve through it, all in the space of a second; that had tracked orcs and game alike through the deep woods, never missing the smallest of signs. Then he looked at Fëanor and smiled, looking less like a hunter and more like Nerdanel. He had a smudge of grey dust over the bridge of his nose. “Thank you for the letters,” he said. “I know that’s overdue.”

If he were to be honest, Fëanor hadn’t actually expected any of his sons to read the letters—except perhaps Curufin. “It isn’t,” he began. 

“What I really mean is, thank you for writing two letters.”

Fëanor blinked. “I only wrote one.” Well, he had only sent one—one to each son. The dozens of others that he’d written over the years had been consigned to his bedroom hearth, but they had all just rehashed the first one anyway, trying to find a way to say I’m sorry and I love you and I miss you so much that didn’t seem to fall so flat, and failing. 

Amrod grinned at him. “No, I mean—a letter for me and a letter for Amras, instead of just one to Ambarussa.”

Oh. Fëanor looked away, at the boxes strewn about them instead of at Amrod’s face, as he tried to decide how upset he was at this and whether it was even necessary. “Do others write to you thus?” 

“Well, yes—but to be fair, it’s never letters like the one you wrote, usually just short notes to tell us a bit of news or to extend an invitation.” Amrod shrugged when Fëanor glanced back at him. “It would be silly to waste paper for those things. Just—we didn’t expect it. So…” His smile faded as he watched whatever Fëanor’s face was doing. “Thank you.”

“You shouldn’t—” Fëanor bit his tongue, hating this uncertainty and wishing he could speak without fearing that he would say the wrong thing. “You shouldn’t have to thank me just for that. I wasn’t—I know I was not—” Why was this so hard? “I know I have failed you in so many ways Pit—” No, not Pityo—he hadn’t heard anyone refer to either twin by their father-names since his return, not even Curufin, “—Amrod, but surely I was not so terrible a father that it surprises you that I can tell you apart.” He’d always been able to tell—it had bothered him for a time that Nerdanel had gifted them both only one mother-name, because however alike they were they were still two people, not one person in two bodies, though he’d let it go after the twins themselves had so fully embraced it. 

Amrod’s grin came back, though it was a little more tentative now. “There was quite a long stretch of time where we tried to make it hard for everyone to tell us apart, when we were younger,” he said. “We thought it was funny. Ammë was the only one who was never fooled.” Fëanor did not remember this—probably because they had not attempted the trick on him. He’d been preoccupied with the Silmarils and then with other things for too much of their childhood, and had missed all of those small jokes and joys. The reminder made that particular spot under his ribs ache. “And you can call me Pityo if you like,” Amrod added.

The memory of Maedhros flatly rejecting the name Nelyafinwë came to Fëanor’s mind. “But you do not prefer it.”

Amrod shrugged again. “Not usually, but…well, it’s what you’ve always called me.”

Fëanor felt like he had been given a puzzle with several missing pieces. It didn’t seem possible that his youngest sons would so suddenly just decide that they wanted to see him, to spend a day carrying boxes up and down stairs with him, getting dirty and dusty for a project they could have little interest in. It couldn’t be this easy—it hadn’t been anywhere near this easy with Curufin. The worst part was that the puzzle should have been simple to solve—he should have had all the pieces, but he had never known Amrod or Amras as well as he’d once known their brothers, and no matter how much of their lives he witnessed in the palantír, there was no making up for that absence. 

The quickest way to learn the answer was just to ask, however painful the answer, so… “Why are you here?”

Suddenly, Amrod looked very young. His smile disappeared, along with the cheer that Fëanor realized only belatedly was at least partly feigned. “I miss you, Atya.” It was the last thing Fëanor had really expected him to say, however carefully he was starting to hope for it, and he wasn’t sure at first that he had really heard correctly.

A second later Amrod closed the distance between them, throwing his arms around Fëanor, who found himself holding on far too tightly, except he couldn’t quite make himself loosen his grip. He was not going to start crying, and what came out of his mouth instead of anything important that he meant to say was, “When did you grow so tall?” Somehow in his mind both the twins were small, still—smaller than Curufin, always trailing after Celegorm or clambering onto Huan’s back to ride him like a pony the way that Calissë and Náriel did now. In reality, Amrod stood as tall as he did—almost exactly. 

“That’s how you can tell us apart,” Amrod said, laughter returning to his voice. “I’m taller than Amras.”

“You are not!” Amras exclaimed as he came back into the house just in time to hear. He had a basket in his hands that smelled of pastry and spices. “He’s a dirty liar, Atya. I’m the taller one.” He set the basket down and took Amrod’s place in Fëanor’s arms. He was, in fact, exactly the same height as both Fëanor and his brother. “Don’t cry!” he said, and Fëanor realized only then that he’d failed to hold back the tears. “We’re actually both shorter now than we were in Beleriand. Estë didn’t give us back bodies that had had any Ent draughts.”

Fëanor wiped a hand across his eyes. He knew what Ents were, but— “Any Ent—what?”

“Come sit down, and we’ll tell you all about it,” said Amras. “I found pies! They’re just like the ones they make at Imloth Ningloron, which I’m almost certain is a recipe one of the halflings brought—I hope you like potatoes!”

They ate the pies as a sort of picnic right there on the floor, surrounded by all the dusty boxes, while Amrod and Amras took turns telling Fëanor all about the Ents they had known in Beleriand, and about the surprise of all their brothers when they had arrived at Himring unexpectedly taller than they had been when anyone had last seen them. It was a far merrier story than many others Fëanor had yet heard from Middle-earth, or even seen in the palantír—a story from the Long Peace, when they had room to breathe and to laugh and to live, instead of only survive. It was much easier to really believe they had truly been so happy when he was listening to Amrod and Amras tell the story, still laughing over the jokes they’d made at Curufin’s expense even so many thousands of years later, than it was to watch it all play out in bits and pieces through the palantír. When they ran out of things to say about Ents and Ent draughts, Fëanor ventured to ask what they had been doing since their return to life in Valinor, and found them just as willing to speak of that, too—of their small house up in the mountains, just close enough to where some of their old friends among the Laiquendi, formerly of Ossiriand, had settled that they were not entirely isolated, but far enough away that they could go months at a time without encountering anyone else if they so wished. 

“We hung the prisms you made in the window,” Amras told him, his smile bright as the sunshine outside.

Before Fëanor could think of anything to say Amrod said, “You could come visit us, if you wanted.” But he added quickly, “But I don’t know if you’d be very happy there. It’s very quiet, and we don’t…do much.”

“I don’t do much either, these days,” Fëanor said before he could think better of it. He gestured around them. “Hence…” Hence the house project, something different and separate from his other usual routines. It wasn’t that he did nothing, it was just—

None of it seemed to mean very much, without the people with whom he most wished to share it. 

“It is very quiet there,” said Amras. “But we go among the Laiquendi fairly often, and they’re very merry. Maybe you should come visit us. From what Curvo has said, you could use some merriment.”

Fëanor didn’t wince, but it was a near thing. He’d thought that he was doing a better job of not worrying Curufin. But before he could think of something to say Amrod glanced at Amras and said, “But maybe not too soon. Cáno’s coming to Tirion later this year.”

Something in the way he said it made Fëanor pause. He would have thought Maglor’s coming to Tirion would be a good reason for his own leaving it. “What brings him here?” he asked. 

“Curvo said he would tell you, but we might as well,” said Amras with a shrug that tried to be careless and didn’t quite succeed. “Míriel and Indis have asked Cáno to write a song for Finwë. A proper one to honor his memory.”

Míriel had said nothing of that when she had been in Tirion. The lapse stung, though Fëanor knew it probably shouldn’t have—she surely had not known whether Maglor would agree, and there wouldn’t be any point in sharing a plan if it would just come to nothing. Still—she hadn’t written of it either, after he had agreed.

Amras went on, “No one has been able to do it, and it’s long overdue. So he’s going to be speaking to everyone he can find, because he says it can’t just be his words alone. That means he’s going to want to talk to you too.”

“Especially you,” Amrod added.

As much as he wanted to see Maglor—to see all of his sons, to speak to them without anyone coming away in tears or in anger—Fëanor’s first impulse was to refuse. He did not want to talk of Finwë, did not want to hear what some song made in his praise would sound like, even one written by Maglor. He couldn’t bear it—a reminder to be trotted out at every gathering or holiday to remind them all that he was gone and never coming back. 

And what was worse, it would not be the first time Finwë’s name was spoken between him and Maglor. Fëanor could not imagine that Maglor had anything kinder to say now than he had then. 

Finwë chose you, always, every time, even when he shouldn’t have. In your turn you set the works of your hands above everything, and set us on the road to our own destruction.

He looked down at the paper wrappings on his lap that the pie had come in. The lingering taste in his mouth had turned to ashes. His father’s absence loomed suddenly so large—blotting out the sun for a moment, leaving him in deep shadow. “What sort of song is it to be?” he asked when he could find his voice.

“A lament of some kind, but what form it will take, we don’t know,” said Amras. He sounded wary, and only then did Fëanor realize that he must not be hiding his thoughts very well. He had to be better than this, lest he ruin whatever this was before it even properly began. “He’s going to ask what you would like to hear in a song for him—it can be anything, really. He says everything new he learns helps him shape the song, even if he doesn’t end up including it all in so many words. He’s spoken to Míriel and Indis, of course, and also to all of us, though I don’t think Curvo or Moryo have given him an answer yet.”

“He also says he might not even be able to finish it,” Amrod added quietly. 

Fëanor took a deep breath and looked up. “Why would he not finish it? I’ve never…I never knew him to leave a song unfinished before.” Sometimes it would take him months or even years of cheerful complaining, but his songs always got done in the end. When he had been very young and new to songwriting, Maglor had sometimes come to him for help. Fëanor hadn’t thought about those golden afternoons in such a long time—he hadn’t recognized at the time just how precious those hours had been, full of laughter and jokes and clever wordplay, those glimpses of Maglor’s mind that few others saw because his songwriting was usually such a solitary exercise. He took it far more seriously than he had often let on in those days—even when the song was itself a joke, he had always wanted to get it just right, and would keep working at it until he was fully satisfied. In that, Fëanor thought, Maglor took after him, though he no longer knew if it was a strength or a flaw. 

“He said once that he was never able to find words for any of us no matter how hard he tried,” said Amras after a slight pause. Another glimpse into Maglor’s mind—into what grief had done to it. “But I think he will finish this one. He isn’t as weighed down by everything anymore, and it isn’t only his own words he’s got. In spite of what he says, he seems very determined to finish.” With that he rose to his knees to gather up the pie wrappings to dispose of. 

Amrod seemed to debate with himself for a moment before he said quietly, “Cáno isn’t angry anymore either, you know. I think he’s afraid.”

“I know that,” Fëanor said, also quiet. Maglor’s anger spent itself quickly—it had burned out that same afternoon they’d met in Imloth Ningloron, leaving him shivering and struggling against tears instead. He had even said, then, that what Fëanor had taken as strength was really fear. Fëanor didn’t agree—he thought Maglor’s strength was that he kept going in spite of the fear, not out of a lack of it—but it wasn’t an argument he either wanted or expected to ever have. “You’re all afraid, aren't you?” he asked. Maedhros had been afraid too—and so had Caranthir, though he’d hidden it a little better after his initial shock. So was Curufin, sometimes, even still.

“We have been,” said Amrod, speaking more frankly than Fëanor would have expected on the subject. “But Cáno is different. He was afraid of everything for a long time, and even after going to Lórien I think some of it lingers. He was afraid of us, before we met again, and even for a while afterward. He thought we would be angry with him.”

That thought made that space under Fëanor’s ribs hurt—a sharper pain than the usual ache of grief. “For what?”

“He wasn’t able to save us,” Amrod said, still speaking frankly—as though their deaths were just something to talk about like the fact that it had rained briefly the day before. “And he threw the Silmaril away.”

I cast it away; I threw it as hard and as far as I could into the Sea at the end of the world, and I would do it again in a heartbeat! 

“We weren’t angry, of course,” Amrod said. “We never were, not with him, about any of it. I think he’s afraid you will be though.”

“I’m not,” Fëanor said. “I told him I was glad he’d thrown it away.” He would have preferred all three Silmarils be cast into the fires of the earth or into the sea—so he did not have to look up in the gloaming to see one shining near the horizon. For a long time he had wished them never made at all. He didn’t think he really wanted that, now, but he was still glad they were all out of reach.

“Do you understand, though, why he might not believe that?”

“I do.” 

When Amras returned they got back to work, spending the afternoon opening up the different boxes to see what lay inside. Somehow Fëanor found himself telling Amrod and Amras all kinds of things about their brothers that they hadn’t known before—things from their childhoods, before the twins had been born. He could tell by the looks on their faces that he was giving them fodder for many jokes, which made him feel a little lighter too. Not everything from the past was dark and terrible. Once upon a time they had all been a happy family—truly happy. Sometimes these days that was easy to forget, even while he longed to have it back. 

In spite of the laughter of the afternoon and the fact that they had appeared at all, Fëanor was still surprised when Amrod said as they parted, “We didn’t come to Tirion just to spend one day with you and then disappear. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

And he did. And the next day, and the day after that—even when he did not do any work at the old house they came looking for him in his rooms or his workshop, to drag him out into the city to see some performance happening in one of the squares, or to try some new pastry that their cousin Súriellë’s wife Míraen had made, or to ask questions about the gems he was working on for Findis—and then to ask questions about Findis herself, and Fingolfin and Lalwen and all Fëanor’s other doings in Tirion. In return they shared things about themselves—little things like their favorite colors or the fact that Amrod preferred peaches while Amras liked oranges, or the songs they liked best to dance to.

Fëanor had felt, after a winter of looking into the palantír, that he understood his sons better. Now he was getting to know two of them, and it was confusing and elating by turns. He kept biting his tongue and then realizing he didn’t have to. 

“You seem happier lately,” Fingolfin said to him one afternoon. He had come to Fëanor’s workshop claiming to want to escape his duties for a few hours, so Fëanor had given him a box of gemstones to sort so they could both be doing something while they talked. Fingolfin dropped a sapphire into a pile of others, and fished around in the box for another. 

“Did I seem unhappy before?” Fëanor asked.

“Findis certainly thought so—at least all this past winter. She wanted me to take away that palantír you’ve got under your bed.”

“It’s not under my bed.”

“Well, wherever you’re keeping it. I wasn’t going to,” Fingolfin added when Fëanor shot him a half-hearted glare. “Curufinwë wouldn’t have asked you to look into one of those without a very good reason. But you were more withdrawn than usual up until Ambarussa came to Tirion.”

“I should’ve picked up one of those stones years ago,” said Fëanor. He returned his attention to the diamonds for Findis, half of which were cut and ready to be filled with starlight. The other half he would fill with moonlight. “I saw everything that unfolded in Mandos, but—well, you know. It’s hazy now.”

“And even Vairë’s threads can’t really capture the reality of it,” said Fingolfin. 

“Yes.” He had also listened to what anyone would tell him, and he had read the Red Book and many others besides—but there was such a stark difference between reading words on a page and seeing what had happened. “And—did you know our mothers asked Canafinwë to write a song for our father?”

“No. Is that why they both went to Imloth Ningloron last year?”

“It seems so. He’s coming to Tirion sometime later this year—Ambarussa told me he wants to speak to everyone before he writes it.”

“Hm.” Fingolfin set another sapphire onto the workbench. “Findis wrote a song for him once, but nothing like what our mothers will have asked Macalaurë to write. Did she ever show it to you?”

“No. I didn’t know she wrote songs.”

“She dabbles once in a while. One can’t spend so much time in Elemmírë’s company without picking something up, I suppose.” When Fëanor glanced up in confusion Fingolfin laughed. “Didn’t you know? Who do you think those diamonds are for?”

“For Findis…?”

“So she can put them into a set of jewelry for Elemmírë—who looks, I am told, exceedingly lovely in shades of pale blue and green.”

Fëanor tried to think if he’d ever actually seen Elemmírë and Findis together. He did not think he had, but he wouldn’t have cared, before, and these days Elemmírë very rarely left Valmar, and he did not often leave Tirion. Findis spent a great deal of her time in Valmar of course, but Fëanor had assumed it was to stay with Indis. “Oh,” was all he could think to say. Then, “Is Lalwen seeing someone I should know about?”

“Lalwen will spend a decade happily alone, and then go a year or two courting someone new every other week before deciding to give it all up again,” Fingolfin said, rolling his eyes fondly. “When something turns serious we’ll know—though we’ll have other things to worry about, what with the Dagor Dagorath starting.”

“I feel compelled to point out that my return from Mandos was once thought to herald the Dagor Dagorath.”

Fingolfin grinned. “True, but even your return never seemed so unlikely as Lalwen settling down with anyone. But we were speaking of songs. I have a copy of Findis’ somewhere, if you would like to read it.”

“I…I would, yes. Thank you.”

“Did Ambarussa say that Macalaurë would be seeking you out, when he comes to Tirion?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good news, isn’t it?”

Fëanor shrugged and didn’t look up from his work. He was under no illusion that Maglor would be coming to Tirion at all, let alone to seek him out, if he did not have this project before him. He was still afraid, and Fëanor didn’t know what he was supposed to do to allay those fears. He didn’t know if there was anything he could do. “I suppose I’ll find out,” he said.

“Findekáno has written to tell me that he and Maedhros are much happier. They are delighted to be uncles again, and seem to be determined not to be the responsible ones, unlike when Celebrimbor was small.”

Fëanor couldn’t help but smile at that. “Náriel and Calissë are equally delighted with them. Apparently Cáno was having all kinds of adventures in Middle-earth with talking beavers and unhelpful foxes.” Fingolfin laughed out loud. “And Curvo is just happy to have them both close enough again to visit.”

“So is Findekáno,” said Fingolfin. “Have you heard from them at all—aside from second-hand?”

“I saw them briefly. I was leaving Imloth Ningloron as they were arriving last year.”

“And…?”

“It went about as well as it could have.” Fëanor turned the uncut gem he held over in his hands, watching the way the light through the window caught on its surface. “They’re all afraid of me. They have been since—since well before the Darkening. I still don’t know how to fix it.”

“Doing what they ask of you is the best way, I think,” said Fingolfin. “Though I admit to sharing some of Findis’ concerns. You’ve seemed very tired these past few months as well as unhappy.”

“What is a few months of sleepless nights compared to what all of you endured?”

Fingolfin rolled his eyes. “Nothing you have or will endure can be compared to the rest of us. You will never cross the Helcaraxë or be besieged, or any of the rest of it—though I wish you wouldn’t pretend that your own death was not terrible in itself. There can be no perfect balancing of the scales; that is why we have all chosen to throw them out. Whatever your sons are asking of you, I cannot believe it to be punishment.”

“It’s not, but—”

“Then why require it of yourself?”

“I’m not,” Fëanor said, and glared at Fingolfin when he made a skeptical noise. “But I’m not going to shy away from something they need just because it’s uncomfortable.”

“Of course not—but is this not more than mere discomfort?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you?”

“One of us won’t be if you keep questioning everything I say.”

Fingolfin relented, but only until they both left the workshop to prepare for dinner. “Fëanáro, it’s only—when you are so deeply unhappy you tend to neglect yourself. You haven’t been lately, as far as I can tell, which is why I haven’t spoken of it until now, but—I just do not want to see you start.” He slipped away down another hallway before Fëanor could so much as open his mouth to reply, so he was left staring at his brother’s back before he disappeared around a corner.

He did not like being so easily read by anyone. In his previous life, only his wife or his father would have said such things to him. Now—

Well, now he had three siblings who said those things in different ways, but he also had neither Nerdanel nor Finwë. In his previous life, he might have listened to Nerdanel or to Finwë only once in a while—and not at all by the end. Now he knew better, but it felt like a lesson learned too late. It felt like he was too late for everything—for his children, for his father, for his marriage. 

He’d meant what he said, though. The grief and the horror and the sleepless nights—that was such a small price to pay if it meant he could have a real conversation with his children without any of them feeling as though they were talking past one another, if it meant that someday they might not fear him. If they might someday really believe it when he told them that he loved them.

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