From That Rubble by StarSpray  

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Two

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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 

 

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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.