From That Rubble by StarSpray  

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Thirty Six

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I wanna know, can you show me
I wanna know about these strangers like me
Tell me more, please show me
Something's familiar about these strangers like me
- “Strangers Like Me” - Phil Collins

 

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The next morning Fëanor ventured downstairs and outside, avoiding the kitchen where Ambarussa and Celegorm seemed to be arguing about breakfast, into Caranthir’s gardens which were somewhat overgrown but still lovely with late summer blooms. Huan trotted around the lilacs near the back of them and sniffed at Fëanor before wandering off. 

Caranthir came outside as Fëanor stopped to examine one of the strange but lovely sculptures set among the flowers, with a slender ivy vine twining around part of it. This one was made of bronze, which was not Nerdanel’s usual medium, and he couldn’t tell whether it was meant to depict something particular or if it was just a shape she’d liked. “You have to look at it at sunset from one of the upper windows,” Caranthir said.

“What does it look like at sunset from an upper window?”

“It’s better if you don’t know beforehand. Ammë did a lot of sculptures like that a few centuries ago—that look abstract at first, except from a very particular angle, sometimes only when the light is just right.”

“She’s always been good at that sort of thing,” Fëanor said. He walked around the sculpture to where Caranthir stood, hands in his pockets. 

“D’you still want to turn the old house into a garden?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Want to help me start fixing mine, then, after breakfast?” Caranthir hesitated. “Or—if you were going to return to Tirion—”

“I was thinking about it, but I have no real plans. What do you want me to do?”

“Weeding, mostly.”

“Yes, I can do that.”

Breakfast was a sleepy affair. Everyone was starting to feel the effects of such an eventful summer spent away from home, and even Calissë was tired and a little grumpy. Fëanor followed Caranthir back outside afterward, and they spent the morning with their hands in the dirt, speaking little except when Caranthir paused to tell Fëanor which plants were weeds to be taken out and which plants he wanted left alone. He seemed to like to let things run a little wild, only pulling out the weeds that threatened to crowd out or choke the other plants. Fëanor’s other sons roamed around, or lounged beneath the hawthorn tree, or went out to walk along the river under the willows; Celegorm took Náriel and Calissë to pick the last of the plums, and they came back after lunch with several overflowing baskets. By then Caranthir was satisfied with that day’s work in the garden. He didn’t quite smile, but he seemed more at ease than Fëanor had seen him in a very long time.

That evening, as the sunset painted the western skies pink, Fëanor went to an upper window to look down at the sculpture. With the sun catching it at just the right angle, the bronze and its shadows formed a perfect rose, glowing so golden it was almost orange in the evening light. 

He stayed another night, and then departed the next morning for Tirion, wanting his own workshops and his own rooms. It was a little strange to make the short trip alone, but at the same time a relief. He had spent the entire summer in the company of others—and now he had a little room to catch his breath. 

Tirion was a little fuller than he’d expected, but most houses were still shuttered and closed up. Fëanor found his rooms aired out and tidied, and he found his workshop slightly dusty and entirely untouched. He cleaned it up and looked through some of the things he’d been leaving until after the feast, but did not pick any of them up. The rest of the palace was undergoing a flurry of activity in preparation for Finwë’s return. Things were being brought out of long storage, and some projects and improvements that had been being put off were hurriedly underway. Fëanor was the first of the family to return; some of his nieces and nephews had left the feast before him, but they had gone to Alastoron or Imloth Ningloron. By Midwinter he had no doubt most would be descending upon Tirion again, and didn’t think much more of it.

He kept having to stop and remind himself all over again that Finwë would be there. Leaving the festival behind had felt a little like waking up from a long and delightful dream—only it wasn’t a dream, it was real, and in just a few weeks more Finwë’s voice would echo through the corridors and across the Great Hall.

In all the excitement, no one had given any thought to the little empty wood shop out beyond the cherry orchard. Fëanor took charge of that himself, finding benches and shelves and cupboards. He climbed up onto the roof to look for and fix some leaks, and made a handful of tools, similar to what he had made for Maglor years before, and stocked wood of various kinds, trying to recreate from memory the workshop as it had been in Finwë’s previous life—or at least to get it part of the way there. 

Just as he finished with the workshop, Finrod arrived in Tirion. “I wondered if anyone would think of this place,” he remarked when he came upon Fëanor just stepping out of it. “I’m very glad it will no longer stand empty.”

“I am too,” Fëanor said. “I thought you had gone home with Turukáno.”

“Oh, I did, but he and Irissë quarreled before they parted this summer and he’s being insufferable about it. I’ve left him to Elenwë.”

“Oh,” said Fëanor, unsure what else he might say. 

“At least they waited until the end of the feast!” Finrod said cheerfully. “Is Russo back in Tirion?”

“No, he went to Imloth Ningloron with Cáno. Curvo’s the only one back in the city, as of yesterday. The rest are at home with Nerdanel. And—Findaráto, did you know what was going to happen this summer?”

Finrod laughed, bright and merry. “Certainly not! I was as confused as everyone else when Grandmother Indis was called away so suddenly. Even those of us who had more faith in Maglor’s song than he did never expected the Valar to answer so quickly. I was certain that she and Míriel would arrive in time for our family gathering, and so was my sister—but neither of us had any real reason for it, except that we long ago learned not to ignore such feelings. Even in my wildest dreams I never expected Grandfather to come back in the middle of it! But I think Russo and Fingon suspected something, after our grandmothers were not there to meet us at Valmar.”

Over the next few days, Fëanor came to realize that he had made a mistake in returning to Tirion ahead of anyone else. Even Fingon had gone to Alastoron first with his brother, rather than coming straight home. Their absence meant he was the senior member of the royal family in the city, and even if it wasn’t anything official, in practice he had to serve as regent. With the city still mostly empty it meant there was little enough for him to do—but not nothing, and it was all the worst parts, time consuming and dull, keeping him away from both his workshop and his grandchildren.

“Yes, Findaráto, I am aware of the irony,” he said when Finrod came to Fingolfin’s study to laugh at him while he tried to sort through some disputes that had been set aside while everyone left the city for the summer, but now needed arbitration since the parties had all returned. “If you aren't careful, I’ll use my authority to delegate and let you handle all of this.” He paused, and thought about it more seriously. “Actually—”

“Oh, no! I’ve had my fill of kingship, thank you very much, Uncle!”

“Oh, please—are you going to tell me you take no part in the governance of Eressëa?”

“I don’t, actually! There is a council and Annael is the head of it. I poke my nose in sometimes, but only when there’s something interesting happening.”

Fëanor eyed him. “Still, your experience makes you the perfect—”

“Would you look at the time!” Finrod leaped out of his seat and made for the door. “I almost forgot, I’m to meet with your son for lunch this afternoon and spoil all his little children rotten. Goodbye!”

Irony abounded, Fëanor thought as he leaned back in his seat—in Fingolfin’s seat, really—to pick up the papers again. Everyone had fulfilled their ambitions in Beleriand and now power was something to be quickly passed around to anyone else close enough to get saddled with it, instead of something to grasp at for themselves. Finwë would probably find it very funny when Fëanor told him about it. 

Then he wondered briefly whether Finwë really wanted the crown back at all, or if he had only accepted it because it was expected. But no—Finwë knew his own mind and he would have known what to expect upon his return. If he had wished to leave the crown in Fingolfin’s hands, he would have—he would have made a declaration of it before all the gathered Elves, rather than accepting the crown back as he had. 

There was also still a great difference between having taken the crown back in name, and in taking up ruling again in practice. At first glance Tirion would look much like it had when he had last seen it, but everything, including its governance, had greatly changed under Finarfin and then Fingolfin, with the changing populations and shifting norms and influences from Middle-earth and elsewhere in Valinor. Fëanor had no doubt that Finwë and Fingolfin would be spending their journey back to Tirion discussing just that—likely in conjunction with Ingwë, and perhaps Olwë. For their sake, he hoped they took their time. For his own sake, he hoped they hurried. 

At last, as the air took on a chill and the trees were all truly changing their colors to the bright reds and golds of autumn, Finwë returned to Tirion. He entered the city to great fanfare, with Indis and Míriel at his side, followed by Fingolfin and Anairë, and Lindo and Urwë, and various other members of the family, though not nearly all who had gathered at the feast in the west. Fëanor greeted them outside the palace with Curufin and Finrod in attendance. There were many formalities to get through, though less than if Tirion had been as crowded as it used to be. Finwë swept through the palace, smiling to see all the things that had changed and all that had stayed the same. Nothing seemed to be a surprise, and he and Fingolfin wasted no time in establishing a sort of joint rule, though Finwë retained the title of king, and Fingolfin was again a prince. 

“Did you enjoy your short regency?” Fingolfin asked Fëanor when they had a brief moment, and laughed when Fëanor made a face at him. Across the room Finwë glanced up; he always seemed surprised to hear them laughing together—surprised and very pleased.

Fëanor had seen that rooms were made ready for Urwë and Lindo near to Finwë’s. He thought that he liked them, these uncles of his, but they were reluctant to answer many questions about themselves, insisting that they had done very little of interest in the time between their return from Mandos and that summer. It was still strange, and would continue to be strange for a long time, Fëanor thought—to have kin besides his siblings in whom he could see so much of himself, yet who had unfamiliar habits and accents and traditions. He thought it was strange too for them and for Finwë, but their joy at the reunion overshadowed everything else. A little awkwardness sometimes was a very small price to pay.

He did, however, finally learn when they had returned from Mandos. It was Urwë who told him, when they were together in the gardens one afternoon. Finwë had gone to wander through the hedge maze with Indis and Lindo, and Míriel had gone to visit Curufin. “We’ve grown rather accustomed to keeping some things secret,” Urwë admitted to Fëanor with a rueful expression that made him look a little like Celebrimbor. “Only—you know that no one ages in Mandos?”

Fëanor blinked. “I hadn’t ever thought of it.”

“Most don’t, I think. Most who die and then return are already full grown, so one would expect them to return looking more or less the same. There have been some children returned among us—the Avari in the west, I mean. Not many. I don’t know if any have been returned to you here in the east. It’s always difficult, since they cannot return without having some understanding of what it all means, and there is only so much Mandos can do. But Lindo and I—we were not children, but I had only just come of age, and he was a few years younger. We spent many, many years dreaming in Mandos, but when we returned it did not feel as though all that time had passed. Not really. Nor did our new bodies show any passage of time.”

“I do know what that’s like,” said Fëanor. 

Urwë’s mouth quirked in a brief half-smile. “Our youth was one reason we chose not to come to Tirion—the biggest reason, perhaps, for of course it colored all of our choices in those days. The other—well. You remember what it’s like to emerge from Mandos?” At Fëanor’s nod he went on, “I awoke and—it was very strange, to wake to light when I had only known the twilight of Cuiviénen before. It would have been horrible if Lindo had not also woken beside me. We were greeted by a Maia of Nienna—Olórin, was his name. These days he prefers Mithrandir.”

“Mithrandir? So he knew all along—”

“Oh yes. And it was a good thing that he was there for us, because only a few minutes after we emerged, the light went out.”

Fëanor frowned. “What do you…oh.” His stomach dropped. He had thought that when Urwë said light, he meant sunlight, not… “You mean the Darkening.”

“Yes.” Urwë paused beneath a magnolia tree to watch a small sparrow hop through the branches. “It was some time before we learned what had happened. There were others in Lórien, but we could not speak to them—the language had changed so much. They had all been born here, yet were still older than Lindo and me. Olórin explained what was happening as best he could, and he taught us much—but it was Nienna who came to us at last to tell us that Finwë…”

“I’m sorry,” Fëanor said. “He should have been there to greet you himself, not…” Not alone in Formenos—not under self-imposed exile because of what Fëanor had done. 

“Olórin told us that they hoped to lessen the shock of that meeting by delaying it a little—until the unrest was resolved in Tirion, until Lindo and I had gotten used to not only being alive again, but being in such a strange place. Finwë was older than we were by then, you see—much older. I do not know the full count of years but he still might be older, though the gap has so greatly lessened now that it doesn’t much matter. In any case…no one left Lórien until the Sun rose, but we determined not to venture east even before then. What would all of you have done with two uncles younger than your own children, we thought, who could not even speak your language, even if you hadn’t left for the east?”

“Arafinwë would have welcomed you,” Fëanor said after a moment. “He turned back—he would have been happy to take you in.”

“It seems to me he had enough to be dealing with then.”

“He had much to shoulder, it’s true, but—you would not have been a burden, Uncle. You are family. I understand not wishing to involve yourself in our mess, but by the time the Sun rose that was all over—or at least we had taken it away across the Sea.”

“We know,” Urwë said. “But—as I said, we were also still very young, and I think if we could go back as ourselves now and do it all again, we might choose differently. We also just wanted to see what was out there—to follow rivers to their sources, to climb mountains, to walk where it seemed no one else had ever ventured. Why are you smiling?”

“You sound like my son—like Macalaurë. He spoke to me once of following the River Anduin from its mouth to its headwaters. All of my sons have liked to wander—we might have climbed some of those mountains long before you and Lindo did.”

Urwë grinned. “So Finwë has said. But it seems to me none of you do much wandering these days.”

“My sons traveled out to Ekkaia some years ago, but none of us have been back from Mandos—or from Middle-earth—all that long, and most of that time we’ve just been finding our footing here.”

“I imagine it has been difficult,” Urwë said after a moment, regarding Fëanor carefully. “You know, I expected to find in you someone very different—you are not at all like the tales I have heard.”

“I hope I am different from those tales,” said Fëanor. “And…it has been difficult in some ways, but easier than I thought it would be in others. The hardest part was knowing that I would never see my father again.”

Urwë nodded. “That was the hardest part for us, too—another reason we did not wish to come east. This is where the Valar dwell—or at least where it is harder to ignore them. It was when Nienna told us that Finwë would not return from Mandos that we decided it was time to leave for the western lands, and there is not much that has happened since that has changed my opinion of them—of the Valar.”

Fëanor folded his arms over his chest, finding himself in the very strange position of wanting to defend them—or at least to defend Nienna. “Not all of them agreed with the statute,” he said. “Nienna told me a few years ago that she had argued against it.”

“I know that Finwë bears no grudges, and perhaps he understands better than I do—perhaps he is wiser than I. But I will never forget what it was like to be young and alone in a strange land, to learn that my baby brother had not only lived but had grown up to do such great things—and then to learn that he had been slain by the very one that he had come here to escape, because the Valar had believed the Dark Rider’s lies, and had failed in all their promises. I cannot forget that, and I cannot forget either what happened to my father or my grandfather or my brother Morwë—or what happened to me, and to Lindo. We were not slain there in the woods, you know. We were taken—I do not know where. It was—”

“I know—or at least I know what happened to my own sons. They survived their ordeals, but…”

“It is a horrible thing to say,” Urwë said, “but Finwë was lucky.”

“It is horrible,” Fëanor agreed, “but many truths are.”