A Very Fire by Deborah Judge  

The Silmarils

Silver and gold light become one.

The first time Fingolfin saw the Silmarils was when they were displayed in the Great Square in Tirion.

It had been many years since Fingolfin had begun his twice-yearly visits to Feanor, each a precious gift. They would walk together, holding hands, or sit close together on a cliff overlooking the waves, or in Feanor's workshop in the depths of his home. Sometimes Feanor would make sketches of him that he would never let him see. "I am looking for the light in your eyes," he would say, "so that I can find it in a jewel."

Feanor often led Fingolfin through the wonders he had created. One was like the dew on a new-budded Niphredil, fragile, and yet imperishable stone. Another, white in beauty like the snows of the peak of Taniquetil. On each of his visits Fingolfin saw these marvels, and new ones, and wondered at them. Now Feanor had crafted something beyond these, beyond the greatest wonders of the Noldor, or any of the peoples of the Elves.

They were like crystal of diamond and they shone with the light of the blended Trees together. Fingolfin stood in the square and watched them as the light of Telperion faded and the light of Laurenin grew, but always the light of the SIlmarils outshone them. And there was another light in them that was not of the Trees but of the stars, the stars that had shone upon then in Cuivienen where they were made before the Trees had even been formed.

All who dwelt in Aman came to behold the Silmarils and all wondered at them. Fingolfin sat and listened while people stopped to speak. "It is the light that the Valar made for us," said one, "made imperishable by Feanor." Their father had journeyed to this light, brought his people from east to west and across the sea. Now his eldest son had done something new with this light that had never been done before.

Others said something different. "This is a light that can do what the light of the Valar cannot. It can be brought to dark places, places where light is needed." In Middle-earth lived kin that Fingolfin had never met, who had not followed his father on the journey. There were so many dark places in the world.

"The light is greater than the light that Yavanna made," said another. "It takes the different forms of light and mingles them into one, inseperable." And truly it was. It was as if the first light which had been separated into lights of silver and gold in the Trees was merged again into one in the SIlmarils, back into the very light of creation.

Fingolfin saw something else: this light was his brother's soul. There was something in it that was like a feeling that he only had when they were together. I always knew you were beautiful, he thought.

On his next visit Feanor brought Fingolfin to see the Silmarils alone. Fingolfin followed his brother hand in hand down the shadowed staircase through the darkened workshop. He had not thought he was to be allowed to see them like this, in private, the way only Feanor's family could behold them. But now, touching his brother's hand, Fingolfin trembled to realize that he was being led to these very jewels.

They lay, unencumbered by any setting, on a table covered by a green cloth, so small, each scarcely larger than an Elven palm, yet so overwhelming in their presence that they seemed to fill the hall with their beauty alone. In the dark their light was different. In the light of the Trees they had received the light they absorbed and gave it back in hues more marvellous than before. Yet in the dark they shone of their own radiance like pure starlight, like a light that could conquer any dark.

Fingolfin stretched out his hand.

"Do not touch them," Feanor warned.

Why not? Fingolfin wondered, but did not ask, for he could not speak.

The Silmarils shone with a light of complete purity, as if hallowed and blessed by the Valar, and beyond. A light that could transform any darkness, it seemed, into a place of peace. Though all the crafts of Feanor were of surpassing loveliness, never had Fingolfin seen such beauty, or imagined that such could be. Surely this was the fire of which his father spoke, the very fire of the One. A fire that burned so bright, and so pure, could be none other.

"Are they not beautiful?" Feanor asked.

Fingolfin wheeled in shock. Feanor had never doubted the beauty of his crafts; why would he ask of this, his highest creation? And what was that in his brother's voice? Could it be weakness? Could it be need? In Feanor?

Had the Spirit of Fire forged a flame that could consume even himself?

"I think Mother would have liked them," Feanor continued.

Mother? Feanor surely could not mean Indis, the mother who had raised him, and he never spoke about his mother Miriel to Fingolfin. And what had she to do with these radiant gems? "But you never knew your mother."

The moment of seeming weakness was gone, as suddenly as it had appeared. Feanor raised one eyebrow, and the corner of one mouth, and his eyes were as hard as the jewels he had shaped, and burned with the very fire. "No," he said. "I did not."

A moment passed, and another, between the twin fires of Feanor and the Silmarils. Then, a sudden motion and Feanor crossed the narrow distance between them, seized his brother's face, and pressed it to his own. A heartbeat. Claiming lips. An overwhelming fear, and beneath it a yearning that nearly made him gasp. Fingolfin wrenched his face aside, placed his hands on his brother's chest, and pushed him backwards with all his strength.

"Are you mad?" he shouted, trying without success to ignore the rising heat in his body. "What madness has taken you?" For it could be nothing but madness, no reason other than madness to kiss a brother with so much desire.

A breath taken by two chests as one. A gaze. An absence of forgiveness. Fingolfin touched the green stone at his chest for reassurance, as he had become accustomed over these years, but it was cold, as cold as the eyes that faced him.

"I think I should go," he said.

"Yes," Feanor answered. "You should go."

Feanor made no move to lead his brother to the entrance-hall as he always did to end their visits, so Fingolfin turned and groped his way through jewel-filled caverns, not looking right or left, not to marvel or to stone. Even the radiance of Laurelin as he emerged could not warm him and seemed dark after the light from which he had turned away.

Chapter End Notes

If you would like to see a happier ending to this chapter, see chapter 1 of 'A Burning Flame', the collection of happy ending AUs for this story.