Add Another Stone by StarSpray  

---

Two

---

Valinor
Third Age

 

Finrod had, over the long years since his return to life, managed not to think very much about Nargothrond or his death or his cousins at all—not if he could help it. They came up in conversation occasionally, but he did not dwell upon them. 

At least, that’s what he told himself. When his mother asked him once why he never spoke of his city, he said, truthfully, there was no point. Nargothrond was gone—defiled by Glaurung and then broken and drowned with the rest of Beleriand. He’d known it wouldn’t last, and it hadn’t—and even if it had, there could be no returning, not for him. At least when he had last seen it, it had still been beautiful and safe and strong.

And if—when he was alone—if he sometimes drank a little too much wine and cried himself to sleep for all that he had lost (everything—he had lost everything, and even knowing it was coming did not make the loss hurt any less), well, that was his own business and no one needed to know. Those nights were few and far between, and the rest of the time he found great joy in exploring again the lands of his youth, so different now under the Sun, and in reuniting with old friends and meeting new ones. He reestablished himself in Tirion, his father’s son and heir, and hosted parties and attended banquets, settled disputes, and smiled his way through meetings and ceremonies. His cousins started to come back, one by one. His brothers, too—save one. Nothing was easy, exactly, but he was happy.

That all came crashing down on a sunny afternoon in late summer, just on the edge of autumn. Finrod had eschewed jewels and fine robes and even shoes, and had retreated into his gardens with a book to lose himself in poetry, to pretend nothing else existed—no cousins, no invitations, no duties, not even parents or newly-returned brothers. He sprawled out in a hammock and set it swaying with a light kick off the ground. Birds sang in the branches above his head, and the late-season flowers were blooming, sweet-smelling and colorful. There was not a cloud to be seen in the sky. The only thing missing was music, but that would have required another person’s presence, and so Finrod was more than content with birdsong and the wind in the leaves. 

No sooner had he opened his book, however, than the soft crunch of gravel on the path heralded his housekeeper. “Your cousin is here to see you, my lord,” she said.

“Which cousin?” Finrod sighed, dropping his book onto his stomach. 

“Curufin.”

Finrod’s chest went tight and for a moment he wasn’t in sunny Tirion but in lamplit Nargothrond, as Curufin’s quiet and razor-edged voice spoke words of fear and dread that gripped every heart in the room but ten—ten who had remained loyal in spite of everything, and whose loyalty Finrod had repaid with nothing but the fulfillment of all the fears and pain that Curufin had spoken of. None of them had yet returned from the Halls, not even Edrahil. 

He closed his eyes. “I did not know he had returned to us,” he said, keeping his voice light and careless.

“It has been some months, I think—he has only just come to Tirion. Shall I tell him you are busy?” Merilas sounded rather hopeful. She would like nothing less than to send him away, Finrod knew, for she too remembered Nargothrond—all of his household did, all heartbreakingly eager to make up in some small way for how the city had failed to stand behind him at the end no matter how many times he told them that it was needless; he had hardly had to look when he’d begun establishing himself again separate from his parents. If he did not wish to see Curufin, there were more than a dozen elves ready to keep him out, and they would not be kind about it. 

It wouldn’t solve anything, though. “No,” he sighed again. “He would only come back some other time. Bring him out to the fountain; we can speak there.”

“Straight away?” Merilas asked, gaze sweeping up and down as Finrod got to his feet. 

“I don’t need to impress him,” Finrod said. He did not want to impress Curufin. Let him know that he was not worth the effort it would take to put on a pair of shoes, let alone don any jewels. Finrod watched Merilas walk away, and then went to the fountain, which was closer to the house than the hammock. It had been a gift from Nerdanel not long after Finrod had removed to his own household in the city, some years after his return. Finrod had always liked his aunt, and she had always been very kind to him—it was she who had first put a chisel into his hand when he had been a child, though he had not learned as much from her as he would have liked to before the seeds of discord had been sown in Tirion. He hadn’t thought about the fact that it was her work when he’d told Merilas to bring Curufin there, but it wouldn’t hurt, he thought now as he watched the water arc in gentle streams up from the open petals of the marble flowers to fall like soft rain into the basin below. 

Curufin came walking down the path with his hands in his pockets and his head bowed. His hair was loose but for a pair of simple and thin braids twined back to hold it out of his face. He wore simple ornaments: a plain silver chain around his neck, and an armband of silver set with small bits of jet that glinted in the sunlight. Finrod resisted the urge to fold his arms over his chest. The breeze picked up and swept a few strands of hair across his face, but he didn’t move to brush them away either. 

The thing about forgiveness, he thought as he watched Curufin approach, was that it was so much easier when the object of it was far away—or dead. It was so much easier to let it all go when those responsible weren’t there, unable to do any more harm. 

When Curufin lifted his head Finrod couldn’t stop himself from smirking a little. There was a scratch across one of his cheekbones, pink and fresh, as though someone’s ring had caught the skin when they slapped him. “Your wife was pleased to see you, then?” he said. 

To his surprise, Curufin did not scowl or snap back at him. He only looked tired. His gaze strayed for a moment to the fountain; Finrod saw him recognize his mother’s hand, and saw that he was not surprised. Finally, he met Finrod’s gaze. “I didn’t expect you to let me in,” he said finally. 

“I did not expect Mandos to let you out.” This was only a slight exaggeration, really. Caranthir and the twins had been released already—Finrod had had awkward first meetings with all three of them, with apologies on their side and stilted words of forgiveness and peace on his. Doriath and Sirion—those were not really his to forgive, though he had had close kin in both it was still not a wrong done to him, personally, for he had been long dead. And though he had never been particularly close in friendship with either Caranthir or Ambarussa, Nargothrond had been a trading partner with Thargelion for many years, to the pleasure and enrichment of both. He could meet any of those three in a ballroom or on the street without blinking, though it was unlikely he would do either, for they had removed themselves from Tirion very quickly after those initial meetings. Still, they all had to learn to live together again—he was willing to put in the work.

Or he had been willing, before today. 

Finrod had welcomed both Curufin and Celegorm and all their people into his city. He had been glad of their numbers, glad of their skills, glad of two new voices in his council. He had liked them both—had considered them his friends. He had trusted them. And in the end, when it had mattered most, Curufin had looked him in the eye as he had taken that trust and shattered it like glass. At least Celegorm had tried to speak to him privately first, had warned him, had not tried to pretend that their oaths now clashed and there could be no further alliance.

Now Curufin was here—for what? If Finrod had thought himself a forgiving person before, he realized now that he’d been wrong. There were some things he could not forgive. He realized now that he no longer cared how bound they had been by their Oath. He did not care that they had all been under the Doom of the Noldor that took everything they did and twisted it until they stabbed themselves in the back with their own good intentions. Curufin had not acted with good intentions when he had stood before all of Nargothrond and spoken until not a single person in the entire city, not even Finrod’s own brother, could look him in the eye. Everything Finrod had been telling himself about the way things were meant to be and how his own pain didn’t matter—he found rather suddenly that he didn’t really believe it, not in his heart of hearts. It could have happened differently, and it was not because of him that it had not. There was no longer anything depending upon his grace or his wisdom; no lives hung on his ability to extend those things to Curufin—and so he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

All he had been telling himself about leaving the past behind him and looking forward—it had all rested on the assumption that he wouldn’t have to see Curufin again. That even if Curufin ever returned from Mandos, they would never have to meet. “Why are you here?”

Curufin met his gaze. “I wanted to apologize,” he said. 

Finrod couldn’t stop the incredulous laughter from bubbling up. “To apologize? To what end?”

“That isn’t—I am not here to ask anything of you, Findaráto. I am sorry. That’s all I came to say.”

“You are not forgiven. I almost can’t believe you had the nerve to come say anything to me at all.”

Finally, a spark flashed through Curufin’s eyes. He had taken his hands from his pockets, and now they balled into fists. “You aren’t the only one who lost everything—”

“Yet I am the only one who seems to be expected to stand before he who stole it all from me and smile prettily and assure him that of course all is well, just because we have both passed through death and come out the other side? No. I will not.” It would shock everyone, he was sure, from his parents to his cousins. It shocked him, that this anger had been sleeping inside him all this time, just waiting for something to wake it up. “I don’t want your empty apologies.”

“What do you want then?” Curufin demanded. “What do you want me to do, to prove it’s not empty? If there’s anything—”

“You know there isn’t. There is nothing you can say and no gifts you can give me that can ever come close to making up for any of it. I trusted you. That was my mistake, I know—and it is not one I will make again. Can you truly stand there and tell me that you would not do it all over again exactly the same way?”

Curufin hesitated, which was answer enough. “I don’t know,” he said. “I want to say I would not. But I don’t know. I never wanted you to die, Findaráto. Especially not like that. I’m sorry. I didn’t come here to fight with you. Forgive me or believe me or not, that’s your choice—I just—you deserved to have me look you in the eye when I said it. That’s all.”

Maybe someday Finrod would appreciate that. He couldn’t, in that moment, and couldn’t make his tongue form the words thank you, not when his mouth was full of the memory of blood and his ears still heard Curufin’s voice speaking very different words in a very different place. So he said nothing. 

After waiting for a moment, Curufin just nodded, as though he’d expected this. “I won’t trouble you again,” he said, and bowed—a deep bow, as to a king rather than the prince that Finrod was now—and departed. He waited until Curufin had long disappeared down the garden path, and then turned to flee in the other direction. He passed the hammock where he’d left his book, and came to a tall and proud oak tree at the very rear of the garden. A running leap brought him high enough to grasp the first branches, and from there it was a simple matter of climbing. The bark was rough under his bare feet and against his palms, and he relished each scrape and scratch. A handful of finches took flight as he passed by, and a squirrel darted away and down the trunk. 

By the time he was high enough to be hidden from sight and hearing in the thick foliage, he was out of breath and shaking—not from the climb, but from the feeling of something lodged in his chest, under his ribs, crowding out his lungs and his heart so that neither could function. He curled up in a fork where several branches parted and hid his face in his arms.

He just stayed there, for hours, leaning against the branches and listening to the birds, and to the thoughts of the tree. Trees cared nothing at all for the woes of elves, especially those that had come to pass so far away and long ago, long before this one had been even an acorn. Usually Finrod found such things comforting. He liked to wade out into the Sea or to lay back in the grass and stare up at the stars and know himself small—to know that the whole of Arda, the whole of Eä, was vast beyond comprehension and that whatever happened to him, the song of it would continue on, beautiful and unknowable and eternal. To know that there were stories playing out all around him that would never touch him and that he could never touch. Just then, though, his own story felt so heavy, as it had not since he had awoken before the doors of Mandos in a body made new, and it seemed there was nothing that could adequately distract or reassure him. He had always known that he was but a tiny part, a handful of notes, in the greater Song—had always known that the whole was something beautiful, even if he couldn’t hear all of it. That no longer felt like reassurance. It felt horribly unfair.

As evening fell, he felt slight shaking in the tree that heralded someone else climbing up. He neither moved nor looked until Fingon pulled himself up onto one of the boughs that grew out of the fork. “Did you forget you were to dine with your parents tonight?” he asked. 

Oh. He had forgotten. Finrod couldn’t make himself move, though. “I’ll see them tomorrow,” he said, hearing how dull his voice sounded and unable to care. “I’ll give my excuses then.”

“What are your excuses?” Fingon asked. 

Finrod sighed. “I don’t know yet. Did they send you?” It seemed unlikely; a messenger with a note would have sufficed for his parents; they would not know there was reason for anything more. 

“No. I heard you met with Curufin today.”

“Did you?” Annoyance sparked, but he was too tired now to hold onto it. 

“Don’t worry, he isn’t going about telling everyone about it—but he was seen coming and then going.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Yes. But it is not me to whom he owes the greatest apology.”

“No, that is to Lúthien—or whoever of her family resides now in these lands. Elwing, perhaps.”

“Elwing would slam the door in his face, as she did his brothers,” said Fingon. “I advised him to send a letter instead. But you know what I mean. Did he? Apologize?”

“Yes.”

After a few beats, Fingon said, gently, “And?”

“You would have me welcome him back with open arms, I know,” Finrod sighed. “To say the past can remain in the past, drowned under the waves like my fair city, and here in the Undying Lands we can start anew. I just—”

“I would not have you do anything you feel you cannot—or that you do not want to,” said Fingon. “I haven’t forgiven him either, you know, for what he and Celegorm did to you.”

“I know it cost you Nargothrond’s numbers in the Union—”

“That isn’t why, Finrod. Or—of course that was part of it then, that and our last chance at a real alliance with Doriath. But I don’t care about that anymore—it’s long over and done, and we were never going to win anyway, however foolishly hopeful we felt at times. There wasn’t room for more personal hurts in the midst of a war, but now we have nothing but room for them. You must know how we mourned for you. All of us. Maedhros was furious—he would have stripped them both of all command and locked them up in Himring if we could have afforded to.”

Finrod understood that, and he’d never really begrudged the lack of repercussions, not on his behalf. The Noldor had never recovered from the devastation of the Dagor Bragollach, and whatever their faults both Curufin and Celegorm had been skilled fighters and field commanders, and they had been needed, especially for the Union. It would have been worth it, had it not turned into the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. His anger now was all for himself, and had nothing really to do with what anyone had done after he had died.

“I want to, though,” he said, finally lifting his head so he could look at the leaves gently swaying above them. “I don’t…I do not want to be this person. Someone who cannot let go of ancient anger. I thought I had.”

“Even if it’s well deserved?”

“That’s just—I don’t know if it is. It feels selfish, and—”

Fingon reached over to tangle his fingers in Finrod’s. “You died the most selfless death of any of us,” he said quietly. “If anyone is entitled to a little selfish anger now, it is you. Just—do it on the ground? You’ll regret spending the night up here.”

Finrod managed a smile, and squeezed Fingon’s hand before sitting up. They made their way to the ground, and once there Fingon wrapped his arms around Finrod, holding on very tightly—almost fiercely. He was warm where Finrod was chilled, but he declined when Finrod half-heartedly invited him to stay for dinner, or at least a drink. As he turned to go Finrod asked, “What will you do when Maedhros comes back?”

Fingon paused, something complicated passing across his face. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I miss him, but I don’t know if he’ll ever want to come back, and…some days that feels like the heaviest of griefs, and other days it’s a relief. As long as he does not return, I can pretend that there is nothing that would stop me from welcoming him back with open arms and a glad heart. What will you do when Celegorm returns?”

All of Finrod’s muscles went stiff and tight at the thought, fear and rage and grief and longing filling him up in equal measure until he thought he would drown. Seeing Celegorm again would be so much worse than Curufin, and he couldn’t even explain to Fingon why. “I don’t know.”