From That Rubble by StarSpray  

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Thirty

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And we’re singing all day
And you can’t tame it
High tide, low tide, you know
Night time, morning time, and
We’re going strong
Headed up, down the river
Oh, Lord, I feel the reveling
I feel a change on the rise
- “Change on the Rise” - Avi Kaplan 

 

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Fëanor had thought he was done looking into the palantír, but he took it out one more time to look for the River Incident, feeling curious on an evening after he’d seen Maedhros roll up his right sleeve, revealing the scars left there by the hill cat. They were not like Maglor’s scars, and would fade away sooner, especially since they had been quickly stitched and well-tended. 

It was strange to look back and see how different all of his sons were—to see how Maglor and Maedhros would hardly look at one another, how deeply unhappy Maedhros was, and how at that point in their journey Maglor was keeping his distance from his other brothers too. None of them seemed to be getting along well at the point when Maglor and Daeron decided to sing down the river. From what Fëanor had been told, they’d been lost in the hills for days, unable to cross because of persistent rain and resultant floodwaters, and everyone was frustrated and damp and growing impatient. 

He knew what was coming, but was still surprised by how fast it all happened—they crossed the river when the water lowered, Maglor going last, having exhausted himself in the singing, and then the wild cat leaped from the sheer hillside above them, sending small stones raining down onto their heads. Maedhros reacted in an instant, leaning over to shove Maglor hard enough that he fell from the saddle just before the cat landed on Maedhros instead, knocking them both to the ground where they rolled over one another into the water. Maglor scrambled after them, a look of mingled horror and terror on his face—and then Fëanor withdrew. He knew what happened next and didn’t need to watch. He looked for a few other parts of that journey—of them racing across the plains, laughing as they bathed in shallow rivers far from the hill country, or passing around a bottle of wine while their campfire crackled merrily under the stars. 

It wasn’t all tension and unhappiness, even if the whole journey was colored by uncertainty, and he knew that it had ended far better than it had begun.

The next day Maedhros joined Fëanor in his workshop. They spoke off and on of travel plans and the jewelry piece Fëanor was making for Lalwen. He had finally finished cutting the numerous small diamonds, and was putting them together in long strands. During a lull in the conversation his thoughts wandered, drifting between his sons and his brothers, and somehow landing on crowns, and Finarfin’s weary and faintly bitter description of his fight with Findis over it. Only once, Fëanor thought, did that crown pass from one head to another without either a death or a fight.

“Can I ask you something?”

Maedhros didn’t look up from his sketchbook. His current drawing was Fëanor himself as he sat at his workbench. His pencil scratched quietly and steadily across the paper, shading in strands of hair. “Yes?” 

“Only—do not take it as a sign of disapproval, because it isn’t.” It was curiosity more than anything, about a time that the histories had written very little of, and no one involved liked to speak about. But Fëanor knew the question itself, however he phrased it, might sound like judgment even though he didn’t mean it that way.

Maedhros’ pencil stilled and he raised his head. “All right.”

“Why did you abdicate? Was it only because I would not have?”

Maedhros tilted his head a little, looking puzzled. Better than upset, but puzzling in its own turn. “Did the histories not record what I said at the time? Every word was true.”

“They did.” Fëanor had read everything there was to read about those years. But the loremasters could only record what was spoken in public—not all that went on behind the scenes before or after the official transfer of the crown from Maedhros to Fingolfin. “But is there not more to it than that?”

“Not really.” Maedhros shrugged and looked back down at his sketch. He might have been talking about the weather—this really did seem to be a choice he did not regret at all. “We needed to make peace with each other. Maglor could barely keep our brothers in line in my absence—he couldn’t rule all the Noldor, not once Fingolfin’s host arrived off the ice, still furious.” He paused just for a second before he added, “Still expecting you, and not even finding me. Our friendship was not the only reason that Fingon came to try to find me—or even the most important one.”

“Did he ask it of you?” Fëanor asked.

“Fingon? No. We did not speak of it—but as I started to regain my strength I learned what had been happening, and it seemed obvious to me what I should do. I did not know then whether I would make as full a recovery as I did, and the Noldor needed someone hale, someone strong. Fingolfin was older, more experienced than I was, he had the loyalty of the vast majority of our people, he had plans—and he had no other oaths binding him.” He looked up, meeting Fëanor’s gaze with the same kind of calm assurance that Fëanor thought he must have shown at the time—the kind with steel hidden underneath, behind the shadows that Angband had left behind. “I could not rule the Noldor and fulfill the Oath. One would demand sacrifices the other could not afford to make.” Then his tone softened a little and he shrugged again. “It had nothing to do with you, really. I knew you would have hated every choice I made in the wake of my rescue, but you weren’t there, so…it didn’t matter anymore.”

If he had never sworn that Oath, Fëanor wondered, would the Noldor have stood a chance in Beleriand? Aloud he said, “It isn’t what I would have done, but it was the right choice, Maedhros. Nolofinwë has always been better suited to ruling than me—though you would have been a good king yourself, if I had not already bound you to other things.”

“I didn’t want to be,” Maedhros said. “I never wanted to be—all the jostling and jockeying for positions in Tirion hadn’t really felt real, because—because Grandfather was the king and there was no reason to think he ever wouldn’t be. I did the best I could with what I had, and I think I did a good job leading our people in the east at least up until the Dagor Bragollach, but—”

“You should not have had to,” Fëanor said, lowering his own gaze back to his work. He picked up a diamond and slid it into place. “I’m sorry.”

“Out of everything you might apologize for, I don’t think that needs to be one of them. You didn’t die on purpose.”

“No, but I don’t think I was trying very hard to live, either.” At the time he would have scoffed at such an idea, and maybe it was only his clearer thoughts now assigning motives where none had existed. Ultimately it didn’t really matter. The balrogs had been stronger than any of his intentions.

“Why did you not press your own claim, when you returned to life?” Maedhros asked, apparently deciding that it was his turn to ask potentially awkward questions.

“I was warned against it before I left Mandos,” Fëanor said. “But as I said, Nolofinwë has always been better suited to it—he has more patience for the day-to-day administration, and enjoys the kind of problem solving that comes with it more than I ever have.” He was much happier as he was than he would have been if he’d somehow ended up on the throne. He had responsibilities but they were almost entirely ceremonial and social—and his newfound friendship with Fingolfin meant that if he desired his voice to be heard on one matter or another, he knew it would be. He was not without power, but it was of a different kind than he had once thought he’d wanted, and he had found himself more than content. “I also knew I would not have any support even if I did want to try—and it wasn’t why I asked to be released, anyway.”

“You just wanted to see us.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that we—”

“You don’t have to be. I didn’t really expect any of you to be happy to see me,” Fëanor said. “I hoped, but that’s not the same thing. And of course I went about it all wrong, though it really was just chance that brought me to the riverbank when you were there—I never intended to take any of you by surprise.” He still didn’t know how he’d managed it more than once—although at least he could blame Huan for the one time it had gone particularly badly. “I just—if you didn’t want anything to do with me I wanted to hear it from you. Listening to the words of others was how it all went wrong in the first place.” He fixed the last diamond in place and carefully laid the string out across the bench before picking up the next and last one. “I can’t really regret how it went, though, knowing it brought all of you to the same place in the end.”

“That was mostly thanks to Mithrandir. He made a point of telling all of us how nice Ekkaia was at that time of year, and then Huan pushed Maglor on until he came there in time to meet us. Did you look for any of that?”

“Curvo let slip that something alarming had happened—so yes, I did.” 

Maedhros’ lips twitched. “Oh, you mean the River Incident.” 

“Is that what you call it?” He knew that already, from Ambarussa, but he was curious to hear how Maedhros would speak of it as one directly involved. “That makes it sound as trivial as me getting knocked into Elrond’s fishpond.”

“It could have been worse,” said Maedhros, as though he really were talking about getting pushed into the pond and not having fallen into a flooding river with a wild cat on top of him. “And if you’re going to scold me for it, you’re fifty years too late, and I doubt you have anything to say that Curvo and Moryo haven’t already said at length.”

Fëanor found himself fighting a smile in spite of himself. The incident was not funny at all, but it was very easy to imagine both Curufin and Caranthir lecturing Maedhros afterward. “I’m not sure there’s anything I can say that would make more of an impression than a wild cat’s teeth.”

“Moryo would say those teeth didn’t make enough of an impression.” Fëanor glanced up at this, and Maedhros shrugged. It sounded as though his brothers’ words hadn’t, either. “It was just—several unlucky things happened all at the same time. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, and I didn’t do anything the rest of them wouldn’t have done. I have some new scars, but I don’t mind them. Better me than Cáno.”

Fëanor looked back down. Of course Maglor did not need to acquire any new scars, but they were the least upsetting part of the whole thing. “I think,” he said carefully, “I think Cáno would not have been quite so upset and frightened if it had been one of the others. I saw in the palantír the look on his face as you went into the water, and it was a look I had seen before. When you—” A diamond slipped from his fingers to roll off of the table onto the floor. Grateful for an excuse not to finish that particular sentence, he ducked down to retrieve it. That had been the worst part of the scene, really—the look on Maglor’s face as he realized that history was attempting to repeat itself. That he had been so overcome afterward, the way he had in the hedge maze more recently, could be no surprise.

When he straightened, Maedhros was solemn, and said quietly, “We had it out with each other in Lórien—many times. About—about the river and about the fire, and all the rest of it.”

He both did and didn’t want an answer to his next question, but some things Maedhros had said at their first meeting after his return, under the willow tree by the river behind Nerdanel’s home, still haunted him. “Is that still something you do not regret? The fire?”

Maedhros hesitated, his expression flickering through several complicated emotions. Then he said simply, “Yes and no,” and offered nothing more, with a kind of finality in his tone that suggested that this would be the last time they spoke of it. 

That was fine. There were more things out of the past that they would need to speak of eventually, but they could take their time. Nothing else needed to be discussed before that summer, at least. They could leave the past where it belonged and just enjoy the present. 

The only thing that marred that enjoyment was Míriel’s continued absence. Fëanor said nothing of it, because if someone else heard from her they would surely tell him, but he couldn’t think of anything that would prevent her even from writing, at the very least to apologize to Curufin and his family for failing to come when expected. It bothered him that she had only written a very brief note to Maglor, too. Indis had at least offered to do more before she’d been called away—Indis had at least spoken to him in person beforehand. 

He finished the elaborate piece for Lalwen, who shrieked in delight when he presented it to her, and immediately put it on, clasping the opal-set silver necklace around her neck and the brackets onto her wrists, so the strands of diamonds draped over her shoulders and twined elegantly around her arms. “Oh, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen! Look how they shine—oh, thank you!” She threw her arms around him and kissed his cheeks, laughing. “I look like one of Varda’s handmaidens! Or I would if I weren’t wearing yellow—but all my dancing dresses are blue or purple, and that will look much better. Thank you! Findis!” She spun away from Fëanor as Findis entered the room. “Findis, look!”

“That’s beautiful!” Findis exclaimed. “Is that what you’ve been working on all winter, Fëanáro?”

“Yes.” Fëanor watched the sunshine coming through the window hit the opals and bring out the colors, and felt that rush of satisfaction at work well done and a gift well received. “Did you finish those pieces for Elemmírë?”

“Yes, I did. They took longer than I had hoped, and I ended up asking Findaráto to take them to her for me. Your advice was very useful—thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I can’t believe it’s almost time!” Lalwen exclaimed. “Our uncle has been talking of this for so many years, I didn’t think it would ever really happen. But Nolofinwë told me yesterday that the Avarin cities are all emptying, and everyone really is going to be there!”

“This summer will change many things in Valinor,” said Findis. 

“All for the better, I hope,” said Fëanor.

“Oh, yes. I have no doubt of that.” She paused, then added, “Though I’m less certain of Nolofinwë having left this morning for Alqualondë.”

“To visit Arafinwë?” Lalwen asked, stopping her twirling, smile fading. “Why—why now? We’ll all see him in just a few weeks.”

“Arafinwë wants to have it out before we go west this summer,” said Fëanor. “I met him by chance a few weeks ago, and he asked me to send Nolofinwë to him. We didn’t argue,” he added quickly upon receiving looks from both of his sisters. “But he seemed certain it would turn into one with Nolofinwë.”

“Yes, of course it will,” said Lalwen, “and it won’t fix anything and will just make both of them terribly unhappy, just like last time.”

“Last time was many years ago now,” said Findis. “I’m of a mind to agree with you, Lalwen, but maybe something has changed. If this lets them spend the summer together more easily, let them shout at each other for an afternoon. At least it won’t hurt.”

“What I want to know is why you aren’t on speaking terms with him,” said Lalwen. 

“I am on speaking terms with Arafinwë,” said Findis, though not very convincingly. “But I am also busy with my own life, and Arafinwë deserves to be able to decide when he wishes for company, don’t you think? He spent long enough with no choice at all, here in Tirion. I'm a little surprised you intruded on that quiet, Fëanáro.”

“I didn’t,” Fëanor said. “I went to sit by the shore for a morning, and he happened to be walking along the same part of it—and he approached me. We didn’t fight either, as I said, and I think we understand one another a little better now.” Or at least as much as Finarfin wished to be understood, which seemed like very little. If that was as good as it was going to get—well, it was better than he’d ever expected it to be. 

Fingolfin returned late in the afternoon, but did not appear for dinner. Fëanor did not see him the next day either, but the day after that he reappeared and seemed to be his normal self. “All is well?” Fëanor ventured to ask him when they met for their usual glass of wine in the evening.

He grimaced. “Not really. He is still deeply unhappy, and it’s my fault. I’m not sure it was really as productive as either of us would have liked. But at least we know where we stand, and this summer we can all put on the appearance of happy unity.” There was unmistakable bitterness there, but Fingolfin changed the subject, and Fëanor knew better than to try to ask anything more.

They were lucky that Finarfin had removed to his estate outside of Alqualondë, where they could have such fights without an audience as they would in Tirion. That was part of the cost of ruling, of being who they were. Fëanor’s efforts to reconnect with his sons had been happening in relative privacy, and he could recognize that for the luxury it was. Fingolfin had not had the same privilege with all of his own children—especially with Turgon, who had very publicly gone and founded his own city of Alastoron, some distance away from both Tirion and Valmar. 

The next day Elwing and Eärendil arrived in Tirion. Fëanor discovered this when he happened upon them walking through the gardens arm in arm. Elwing was unmistakable—as alike to Elrond as Elrond’s sons were to him, with shadow-dark hair and soft grey eyes. She was clad in white, with silver feathers embroidered on the sleeves of her gown. Eärendil was not as tall as Fëanor had expected from Turgon’s grandson; he was golden-haired and smiling, clad in blue, and neither of them seemed surprised to see him. “I left the Silmaril on Vingilot,” Eärendil said with a slightly crooked smile in lieu of a greeting. “In case you were wondering.”

“I hadn’t really given it any thought,” Fëanor said, and watched both of them raise their eyebrows. He bowed to them, and added, “For my part in what unfolded long ago—I am sorry.” 

“Thank you,” Elwing said. “I hope we can leave all of that behind us.”

“Elrond speaks well of you,” Eärendil added, “and we are kinsmen, you and I. We bear no grudges.”

“The Song unfolded as it was meant,” said Elwing, with an odd slightly-too-bright glint in her eyes. It was easy, sometimes, to forget that Elrond was descended from Melian the Maia. Fëanor did not think he would ever be able to forget that Elwing was.

Almost before he was ready, Alqualondë and Eressëa emptied and a great mass of Elves came walking and riding through the Calacirya, singing as they went. The Noldor poured out of Tirion, with Fingolfin and Anairë at their head, to join them. It was a warm day, overcast but not yet raining. Finarfin and Eärwen fell in with them alongside Olwë and Herenyë and their family. When their eyes met Finarfin gave Fëanor a nod, but did not otherwise speak to him. 

Maedhros fell in beside Fëanor after a little while, as they left Tirion behind them, following the same road that Fëanor had taken with Maglor the year before. “How are the triplets?” Fëanor asked him. They had received their father-names, and everyone was finally used to the ones Curufin and Rundamírë had picked for everyday use, after some months of going back and forth—Nityanandë, Alassië, and Meneltir. 

“Happy as long as someone is holding them,” Maedhros replied. “Especially Meneltir. Náriel is delighted with her pony.” He kept his gaze on the road ahead when he added, “Thank you for the circlet.” 

Fëanor had made the circlet, copper twined with mithril wire, ages ago, when Maedhros had still been in Lórien. It had ended up in his chest of gifts he’d made with no reason to expect an opportunity to give them to the intended recipients. He had gotten it out after their conversation about crowns. “It occurred to me that you might not have any,” he said, glancing over at Maedhros, who was dressed, as usual, as plainly as Maglor. His hair had been braided firmly back out of his face, but fell loosely over his shoulders; it was a similar style to those Finwë had favored, and Fëanor wasn’t sure whether that was intentional. The only jewelry he wore was a pair of small golden hoops in his ears. 

“I didn’t,” Maedhros said. “I don’t…enjoy being reminded.”

“Of your titles?”

“That I have titles.”

“Should I not have—”

“No, it’s—you were right. I’ll need it this summer. And it is beautiful—I do like it.”

“Neither you nor Cáno seem to favor jewelry, these days,” Fëanor said. 

“It’s just habit, for Cáno,” said Maedhros.

“Not for you?”

He shrugged. “I suppose that’s part of it. There wasn’t much call for finery after the Dagor Bragollach—let alone after the Nirnaeth. And then when I came back I didn’t…really want to be here, for a long time. It’s hard to care what you look like when you don’t want anyone to see you to begin with.” When he looked at Fëanor he offered a smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m better now, really.”

“I believe you.”

His smile grew a little. “Thank you. It’s nice when someone does.”

“If there is anything you are asked to do this summer that you don’t want to, you can say no,” Fëanor said. “Even if it is Ingwë who asks. I’ll back you.”

“Thank you, but I’ll be fine, really.”

It rained that afternoon, but the skies cleared swiftly and remained so for the rest of the trip, and a few days brought them to Valmar, where Ingwë was waiting with his queen Aravennë and their daughters. The Vanyar streamed out of the city, adorned with flowers and jewels and singing bright songs that were taken up by the Noldor and Teleri in harmony, as the three kings exchanged their formal greetings, and Aravennë met Anairë and Herenyë with kisses and laughter. 

Fëanor did not, however, see Indis anywhere. Or Míriel. He had expected to find both of them there, though he couldn’t really have explained why. “But where is my sister?” he heard Ingwë asking Fingolfin. “Do not tell me she decided not to come!”

“She left Tirion last summer, Uncle,” Fingolfin said. Fëanor rode up beside him, and found Finarfin on Fingolfin’s other side, also looking puzzled.

“What?” Ingwë tilted his head, brow furrowing. “She did not return here. And she did not go to Alqualondë?”

“No,” said Finarfin. “I have not seen my mother in several years. She does often write to me, but…not since last summer.” 

Not since just after Maglor had gone before the Valar, Fëanor found himself thinking, but he tucked that thought away immediately. There was no chance that they had acted so quickly. Both Indis and Míriel had things to do outside of their children or their husband—they would arrive at the feast sometime that summer, without a doubt, together or separately, and solve the mystery with a simple explanation that would make perfect sense in hindsight. 

It was still so odd, though.