From That Rubble by StarSpray  

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Thirty Five

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Home is behind, the world ahead,
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadows to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight.
The world behind and home ahead,
We’ll wander back to home and bed.
- “A Walking Song” by JRR Tolkien 

 

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There was much general chaos and cheerful confusion after Finwë’s re-crowning. Fëanor stayed close to both his father and to Maglor until Daeron pushed his way through the crowds to drag him away to bed. Maglor smiled and waved over his shoulder as he went, but Fëanor could see the relief on his face. 

“Is he well?” Finwë murmured to Fëanor as he too watched them go.

“Performing wearies him now as it didn’t before,” Fëanor said. “He’ll be all right.”

Finwë hid it better, but he was also growing weary. It was Ingwë and Thingol who swept him away, however, followed by Olwë. There was much for all of them to speak of, away from the noise and the crowds and other ears. 

Fëanor looked for his other sons, and found that they and many of their cousins had also retreated to pass around bottles of wine and laugh at increasingly ridiculous things. He left them to it, and went to find his own brothers. He found them speaking quietly together but with an intensity that suggested an interruption would be unwelcome, so he retreated. 

Rúmil found him after only a few more minutes. “Fëanáro! Did you know he had returned?”

“Not until yesterday,” said Fëanor. 

“Yesterday—that was your family party, wasn’t it? But Findekáno and Findaráto surely didn’t…?”

“No, they began the planning long before Cáno ever went before the Valar. I don’t know if my mother or Indis planned to arrive in time for it.” They had been in Lórien since the autumn, and Fëanor remembered how difficult it was to keep track of time there. He’d hated it, and it had been one reason he had not stayed very long himself. “It was an enormous shock to all of us.”

Rúmil laughed, eyes crinkling. “And you have been keeping this secret all day! I’m glad for your sakes it was only one day.”

“We’re all glad of it,” Fëanor said, returning his smile. “It was lucky that Cáno’s song was to be performed tonight, though I suspect that even if it hadn’t, Findaráto would have gotten Elemmírë to allow it anyway.”

“That last verse must have been written very hastily, but it did not seem at all out of place, even as different as it was.”

“The three of them wrote it together, I think. It is a much better ending to the song.”

“It is,” Rúmil agreed. He embraced Fëanor. “I’m so happy for you, Fëanáro—for all of us, but especially for you.”

“Thank you. And—my father is not the only one who returned to us unlooked for.”

“What do you mean?”

“You spoke to me once of his brothers. Were you friends with them, too?”

Rúmil blinked, taken aback. “I—yes, but…”

Fëanor looked around and spotted Lindo and Urwë nearby. At his wave they came over; Rúmil turned at their approach, and gasped. “Urwë—and Lindo—is that you?”

Fëanor left them, and slipped away from the crowds. There was no reason he needed to linger, and he wanted a bit of room to breathe himself. It was quiet around the other end of the lake, and he found that Fingolfin had had the same idea. “Did you know your eldest son is doing his best impersonation of a bullfrog?” Fëanor asked him. 

Fingolfin snorted a laugh as he skipped a stone over the lake’s surface. The ripples glimmered in the starlight. “He has many talents. I confess, I was not aware of that one in particular.”

“I think he’s also rather drunk.”

“How’s your son?” Fingolfin asked. 

“Exhausted, and gone off to bed. How are you?”

Fingolfin bent to pick up another stone. “Relieved,” he said as he straightened. “I’ve never hated wearing the crown, but—well. It feels as though something has righted itself.”

“Both you and Arafinwë were far better at it than I would have been,” Fëanor said. 

“You would’ve been fine,” said Fingolfin, “you just would have hated it.” He sighed. “Like Arafinwë.”

“Unlike Arafinwë, I would not have had the patience to learn to do it well.”

“If I had been able to return from Mandos sooner—”

“Don’t do that,” Fëanor said. “I don’t think you should feel guilty for taking time with your wife and your children before returning to Tirion, either.”

“I don’t. I feel guilty for abandoning my brother.” Fingolfin turned the stone over in his hands. “But I also do not regret it—following you to Middle-earth. It’s hard to hold both of those feelings at once. Arafinwë thinks it was all folly, but—I don’t.”

“There are more who agree with you, I think, than with Arafinwë. I know Cáno does—many mistakes were made, but he believes going east was not one of them.”

“Maybe. And maybe now that Atya’s really back…maybe things will be different.” Fingolfin flung the stone out over the water, where it skipped half a dozen times before sinking beneath the surface. He did not sound particularly hopeful. “But there won’t be time for anything really important until we’re all back home this fall.”

“This summer is important.”

“You know what I mean.”

“It might be a good thing—that we have to postpone all of that. That we get time to be happy, first.”

Fingolfin’s mouth quirked in a small, mirthless smile. “Maybe. If the happiness holds. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I miss Arafinwë but that’s nothing new. Once I’ve had my sulk tonight I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t have to be,” said Fëanor. 

“I want to be—and I will be. If even Atya can return to us from Mandos, if even we can learn how to get along, then I can fix what’s still broken between Arafinwë and me. I think I’ve let things lie for too long. I will choose to believe that the happiness of this summer will hold, and that the future can only hold more of it. I just need a few hours to be unhappy first.

The happiness did hold, or at least it seemed so to Fëanor. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt so consistently happy. The rest of the summer passed in a whirlwind of games and merrymaking and feasting and songs. Maglor lost the final horse race to Galadriel and seemed very happy about it. Near the end of the gathering, thunderstorms rolled over the plains in the distance. Fëanor was vaguely aware of a party leaving the encampment around that time, but didn’t realize that Celebrimbor and Maeglin had been a part of it until they returned, damp but triumphant.

“Look!” Celebrimbor thrust a palm-sized jewel, mostly clear and roughly cut, into Fëanor’s hands. Inside was light—flickering light, tiny bolts of lightning trapped and flashing. They were dim, but they were there. “It worked!” 

Fëanor held it up and did not try to hide his astonishment. “Is this what you’ve been working on all summer?”

“Everyone wanted to help figure it out,” Maeglin said, his eyes as bright as Celebrimbor’s.

Fëanor laughed, and turned the gem over in his hands, watching the lightning play against the inner walls. “And now that you have done this impossible thing, what will you attempt next?”

“Well, first we want to improve on this,” said Celebrimbor. “Now that we know how—we can make proper jewels, and hopefully capture more and brighter lightning bolts. Then we’ll find something else impossible to try.”

“Have you shown Curvo yet?”

“Not yet—where is he?”

“Over here, I think, with your sisters and Finwë.” Fëanor led the way to a slightly quieter space, where Finwë and Curufin and Maglor were with Calissë and Náriel and the triplets. Rundamírë was off with Lisgalen and Daeron; Fëanor didn’t know where Caranthir had gone.

“You did it!” Curufin exclaimed when Celebrimbor showed him the jewel. “I wondered where you’d run off to.”

“Sorry,” Celebrimbor said, not sounding sorry at all. “There wasn’t time to stop and explain when the storms rolled up.”

“What is it you’ve done?” Finwë asked, and then laughed in delight when he was handed the jewel. “Is this really lightning?”

“It is!”

“I told you Tyelpë can do anything!” Náriel cried as she ran to climb into his lap. “Can I see? Can I touch it?”

“Yes, you can touch it,” said Celebrimbor as Finwë returned the jewel, and Náriel held it up so Calissë could get a better look at it too. “That’s the whole idea—to hold a little bit of a thunderstorm in your hands.”

“I like that,” Maglor said as he accepted the jewel to examine in his turn. “Holding a thunderstorm in your hands—that’s almost poetry, Tyelpë.”

The summer did not end with the same grandeur with which it had begun. It was more gradual, the crowds thinning slowly as people grew tired or homesick and departed little by little. Soon parts of the tent city were taken down, no longer needed. Fëanor started to notice a change in the trees and the flowers, and saw flocks of birds in the distance preparing for their autumn migrations. 

Of their family, Finarfin departed first. If he bid anyone farewell, Fëanor didn’t see, and he was not aware that Finarfin and Eärwen had left until he heard Lindo asking Finwë where Finarfin was. “Is he not still here?” Fingolfin asked, hearing the same question. 

“He left yesterday,” Finwë said, looking at Fingolfin in surprise. “He said he was weary of the constant noise, and wants to be at home. Did you not know?”

Fingolfin recovered himself quickly enough, but his smile seemed forced. “Oh, of course—Eärwen spoke to Anairë, but I must have misunderstood the exact time.” 

Lindo looked between Finwë and Fingolfin and Fëanor, a faintly troubled expression on his face. But he said nothing more of Finarfin, and before Finwë could ask Fingolfin another question he changed the subject to Tirion, asking what they might expect when they arrived there. Fëanor answered, mostly to give Fingolfin time, and then turned the questions around on Lindo, asking about the Avarin cities and how they might differ from Tirion or Valmar. 

At this Lindo laughed. “Oh, I’m no builder. Urwë and I have watched little villages grow into thriving cities, but neither of us cared to have much of a hand in it. I am a singer and he is a hunter, and we have both been teachers, but little more.”

It took a very long time for villages to grow into cities, Fëanor thought. “Why did you never come before to Tirion?”

“Many reasons,” Lindo said after a moment. “None of them suitable for sharing at a gathering such as this. But we should have come east long ago, and I am sorry that we didn’t.”

“You are here now,” said Fingolfin, “and we are all very glad of it.”

“None gladder than I,” Finwë added quietly, and Lindo wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pressing a kiss to his temple. 

When Fëanor went to seek his sons, he found them making their own preparations to leave. “Náriel is more than ready to be at home again,” Curufin said, “and I’m starting to agree with her.”

“I will be very pleased to sleep in my own bed once more,” Rundamírë added, “and to be back in our house—with proper walls and rooms!”

“Is everyone going back to Tirion?” Fëanor asked. 

“I think Cáno’s going to Imloth Ningloron,” said Curufin. “I don’t know if Nelyo plans to go with him. The rest of us are for Tirion, though, and we’ll all travel together until the roads diverge.”

Maglor confirmed this when Fëanor ran into him a little while later. “I feel as though I’ve hardly spent any time at home since I left Lórien,” he said. “I won’t be traveling anywhere again for at least a century.”

“Most of which,” Daeron added, “will be spent sleeping. This summer has been lovely, but exhausting.” 

“Are you all right?” Fëanor asked, looking between the two of them. 

“Oh, we’re fine!” Maglor smiled at him. He really did look fine, and by all accounts he was not as good anymore at pretending to be when he wasn’t. “Just tired—and the kind of tired that a nice lazy autumn and winter will more than fix. The hedgehogs have the right idea, I think. They hibernate all through the cold months.”

“You’ll be missed in Tirion, you know.”

“Imloth Inglorion isn’t that far, Atya. Anyone who wants to see me can come visit whenever they like—including you! You don’t even need to write beforehand. No one else does.”

“Oh, but wait until spring, please!” Daeron protested. “I meant it when I said I wanted to sleep!”

Someone called Daeron away, and when they were alone Maglor added, “I know why you’re still worried, Atya, but I really am fine.”

“I believe you.” Fëanor wrapped his arm around Maglor’s shoulders. It still felt a little unbelievable sometimes that he could just do that whenever he wanted.

“I’m glad it was you who went to the Máhanaxar with me,” Maglor said quietly after a moment. “It’s—some things were said, long ago in the dark, that—that were very hard to let go. They sounded like things I believed you might have said, and it was very hard not to hear them in your voice afterward. But I don’t hear them that way anymore.”

“You said yourself it was all lies, Cáno,” Fëanor said softly. 

“He could use the truth, too, when it suited him,” Maglor said, “and he did. But I can leave it behind now, better than I could before. I think going to the Máhanaxar would have been worth it just for that, even if they hadn’t decided to release Grandfather.”

“What was it you couldn’t let go?” Fëanor asked. 

Maglor didn’t answer immediately. Then he drew back and stepped into the tent he shared with Daeron, pulling Fëanor after him. It was very tidy inside, with only a few clothes tossed across the bed that hadn’t yet been packed away. The strings of crystal lights flared when they stepped inside. “Could you make some of these for me, sometime?” Maglor asked, pointing to them. “They’re marvelous.”

“Yes, of course.” Fëanor had no idea what would be done with all the gems made for this feast, but he would make new ones for Maglor—in the shapes of flowers and stars, to be strung across the walls of his room in Imloth Ningloron. “But…”

“The Necromancer—he—he called me once the last and least of your sons,” Maglor said, the words halting and quiet. “He—he meant them as a taunt, or—as a sort of backwards compliment, for he said also he hadn’t expected to find such defiance in me. That was when he—”

“Cáno—”

“He wanted me to serve him. He offered all kinds of things. Instruments and power and jewels.”

“You said he used the truth when it suited him,” Fëanor said. “But you have never been the least of my sons, Cáno. I would never rank any of you in that way, but in many respects you are the strongest—not only of our house but of the House of Finwë.”

“I know you wouldn’t—I know it now.” Maglor pressed his fingers to his mouth, over some of the scars there. “The version of you that I kept dreaming of there in the dark wouldn’t have done or said any of the things you’ve been doing and saying.”

“I’m sorry,” Fëanor said. He’d done enough to make those nightmares believable—enough to make them cling like cobwebs even decades afterward.

“I know. It’s—I don’t really think about it much anymore, because you’ve been doing things like going with me to the Máhanaxar, and climbing up onto roofs to talk to Tyelko.”

“You’re all very concerned about me going up onto the roof one time,” Fëanor said. 

This got a smile, as he’d hoped. “It’s just—you hate heights.”

“I do, but I love all of you More—and it does make me nervous every time you climb some ridiculous tree after your cat, because you did fall off Mahtan’s roof that one time and broke your arm, if you remember”

“I do remember—and I was fine.”

They all left a few days later. It was hard to say goodbye to Finwë, even for just a little while. Finwë seemed to have the same trouble, holding onto Fëanor much longer than such a parting warranted. “I’ll see you in a few weeks at most,” he said. “And then we’ll have all the time we could wish for to sit and talk together.”

“I love you, Atya.”

“I love you too, Fëanáro, so much. Safe travels.”

Fëanor took the journey home with all of his sons, Nerdanel, and with Daeron’s family. His aunt and uncle were already good friends of Nerdanel’s; his parents were a little more distant, but his sisters’ children had made quick friends with Náriel and Calissë. The days passed in pleasant conversation, in song, and in the occasional horse race. Maedhros was quieter than usual, but he had been quiet ever since Finwë’s return. Fëanor saw him and Maglor speaking together often, so he left it alone—but he still worried a little. 

Ambarussa noticed—both Maedhros’ demeanor and Fëanor’s concern. “He’ll be all right,” Amrod told Fëanor. They were nearing the road that ran from Tirion down south past Imloth Ningloron, toward Lórien and Aulë’s country beyond. “We make lots of jokes about him brooding, but I think he needs a little time for it, away from anyone who will bother him. If you visit Imloth Ningloron next spring I bet he’ll be back to his usual self.”

“But what is it that has him so upset?” Fëanor asked.

Amrod and Amras exchanged a look. Ahead of them Maedhros moved to put himself between Celegorm and Caranthir, who had started bickering again. “It’s…well, everything, probably,” said Amrod finally. “We all feel it, it’s just that Maedhros feels it most strongly. Tyelko avoided Grandfather for a little while in the beginning too, did you notice?”

“We’ve all been paying attention to Maglor, because he’s so fresh out of Lórien and he was going around doing all that work on his song—but Maedhros has only been back from there a few years too,” added Amras. “And he needed it more, because Mandos didn’t give him the same rest or healing that the rest of us got, and at least Maglor got to spend all those years in Rivendell before he sailed. He hasn’t been running around the way Maglor has, but…”

“Do you think he needs to go back?” Fëanor asked. 

“No,” said Ambarussa together. “He’d refuse anyway,” said Amras. “He did for years until Maglor asked him—and he only agreed because they were going together. But Imloth Ningloron is the next best thing. And—well. He had time to get used to all of us being back, when we came from Mandos, without all kinds of other things happening, and without an audience. He used to go lock himself in his room for days, and when we came back at least he wouldn’t look us in the face for ages. He got better about it, even before going to Lórien.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Fëanor asked.

“Sorry, Atya. I think you and Grandfather Finwë just need to give him time.”

They came to the road some miles south of Tirion, having followed a slightly different route home than the one they’d taken west. Daeron’s family turned toward Imloth Ningloron with him and with Maglor and Maedhros. “Farewell for now, Atya,” Maglor said, leaning over from his saddle into Fëanor’s arms. Pídhres meowed her own goodbye. 

“See you next spring, perhaps,” Maedhros added as he leaned in a minute later. 

“Safe travels, Nelyo,” Fëanor said. “I love you.”

Maedhros smiled at him. The shadows behind his eyes were almost invisible. “I love you too, Atya.”

Late that evening the rest of them came to Nerdanel’s house, with the plum orchard mostly harvested beside it, and her parents’ home on its other side still closed up and empty. Fëanor, remembering Nerdanel’s words, was prepared to continue on to Tirion—it was a clear and warm night and he would not have minded the ride—but she looked at him expectantly as they made the turning toward Mahtan and Ennalótë’s stables, and so he followed after everyone else. 

He had never set foot inside Nerdanel’s house before. He had stayed with Mahtan and Ennalótë for that short while after he’d returned from Mandos and before he had made his way to Imloth Ningloron. Nerdanel had refused to allow him in even when all their sons had ridden off, and he hadn’t argued, though they had spoken once in her workshop. The house had been expanded since then, a new wing of bedrooms built up so all seven of them—and their growing families—could stay more comfortably than they had before. Downstairs there were workrooms and a large and comfortable parlor; there was a cozy kitchen and a dining room only just big enough for everyone to sit down at the table. 

“I thought you still did not want me under your roof,” he said to Nerdanel when they were alone in the kitchen. 

“Not to stay,” she said, opening a cupboard to rummage through the tins inside. “But it’s silly to make you ride the rest of the way home alone. Oh, are we out of—ah, here it is.” She pulled out the tin she had been searching for and set it down to go find the kettle. Fëanor picked it up and opened it to find fragrant dried leaves inside. He recognized chamomile, but it was blended with some other things he couldn’t immediately identify. “Carnistir enjoys experimenting with tea blends,” Nerdanel said behind him.

“I thought he was experimenting with fabric dyes.”

“He experiments with a lot of things. Are you really going to plant a garden where the old house was?”

“I’m thinking about it. Would you rather I did something else there?”

Nerdanel set the kettle on. Upstairs something thumped, and one of the triplets started to cry before being hushed. “No,” Nerdanel said. “I like the idea. Do you know what you’ll plant there?”

“Not really. I haven’t thought much beyond deciding to do it. There’s still all the debris to cart away and dispose of, anyway. That will be a job for next year, I think, and then maybe by the year after that I’ll have something like a plan in place. I asked Moryo if he would be willing to help.”

“Yes, he told me.” Nerdanel got out several mugs, and a large teapot. “What are you planning to do this winter?”

“I imagine I’ll spend most of my time with my father.” Fëanor watched Nerdanel spoon the tea leaves into the pot. “Do you…know how Arafinwë is? I mean—”

“I exchange regular letters with Eärwen, but Arafinwë is very private these days.”

“I don’t want to know all of his secrets. I just want to know that he’s all right.”

“For Nolofinwë’s sake?”

“In part, but also for his own. Arafinwë is my brother, too. I only ask you, because you are friends with Eärwen, and you have also always been better than me at understanding others.”

“I do not think he is as well as he would like everyone to believe, at least at the moment,” Nerdanel said after a little bit of thought. “But I do not think he is in danger of fading, either, if that’s what you’re worried about—Eärwen has never indicated to me that she is worried, at least not since he recovered after the War of Wrath. If he has been particularly unhappy leading up to this summer, I think that is not the norm.”

“But has he recovered?”

“His knee, you mean? I think the pain of it ebbs and flows. Wounds of the spirit will also sometimes hinder the healing of the body.”

“Did something happen to him in Beleriand—”

“No, I don’t mean that—but he returned to Tirion alone, and he struggled for a long time. Everyone did, but Arafinwë was who the Noldor looked to, to keep everyone fed and warm and safe, and he had no one to look to in his turn. It got very cold after the Trees went out—I don’t know if you remember.”

“I don’t.”

“No one starved—Yavanna made sure of that, though even she could not bring forth any real bounty from crops meant to grow in Treelight, when suddenly there was only starlight. It got better after the Sun rose, of course, but the Valar did not share their plans with anyone as far as I know—except for those like my father who were summoned to Aulë’s halls to help craft the vessels for Anar and Isil.”

“Not you?”

Nerdanel didn’t look at him. “I was in Valmar, then.”

Oh. Right. “Sorry.”

“It’s just—I’m sure everything got much easier once Anar rose and the fear started to fade. But he still had to learn how to do it all in the dark and alone—everyone had left, Fëanáro, not just you and Nolofinwë. Even Findis did not remain in Tirion. She went to Valmar as soon as Arafinwë returned, fearing to leave her mother alone for long.”

Finarfin had said that too—that Findis had left and he had not spoken to her again until just before the War of Wrath. “So if his spirit is wounded it is just…”

“Wounded might not be the best word. Worn down, worn out under the weight of the crown.”

“Was his reign not mostly peaceful…?”

“Yes, but surely you know the kind of work that goes into maintaining it. Just because you’re good at something does not mean you enjoy it. Even the gentlest of streams will wear down hard stone, given enough time. But if you are asking if there is anything you can do, I think the answer is no. Or at least, not anything more than you have been doing.”

“Nolofinwë hoped this summer would change things,” Fëanor said. The kettle sang, and Nerdanel fetched it to pour the water. “I thought at first that it would, but…”

“That lies between Arafinwë and Nolofinwë. I know what it is to want to help—I wanted desperately to help Maitimo and Macalaurë, when they came back here years ago hardly able to remain in the same room together. But they did not need interference—they needed to find their way on their own terms, in their own time. I do not think there is anything you can do.”

“Is there anything, you think, I can do for Arafinwë himself?”

Nerdanel thought for a moment, tapping her fingernails on the edge of a mug. It had been broken and repaired at some point, though rather than gold the cracks had been painted over with copper. “I don’t think so,” she said finally, as footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Celegorm’s voice reached them, talking to his mockingbird. “For now, at least, I think he just needs to be at home and away from everyone.”