Halls of Mercy by Deborah Judge  

<i>Finarfin forsook the march, and turned back, being filled with grief...</i> (Silmarillion 9: Of the Flight of the Noldor)

When Fëanor was just old enough to walk his father Finwë brought him to stand before the Valar. He strode quickly on his small legs to stand before Aulë and place his hand on Aulë's hammer. From Aulë's other hand came a small hammer, made for a child, and in that moment Fëanor became Aulë's apprentice.

Years later, Finwë and Indis brought Fingolfin to stand before the Valar like his brother once had. Fingolfin walked calmly to Yavanna, then bowed down before her with his head to the ground. Flowers bloomed between his fingers.

By the time Finwë and Indis brought their youngest son Finarfin many years had passed. Finarfin wandered the circle of the Valar, feeling young and small. His brothers were already grown, tall and proud. Finarfin knew he was not strong, not brave, not wise or clever. He could not shine for Lady Varda, would not carry a bow for Lord Orome or a sword alongside Tulkas. It was not until he reached the end of the circle that he looked up and saw the tears in Nienna's eyes. 

As he looked at her he thought of his parents, standing apart, and the distance between them. He thought of his oldest brother, in the cradle with no mother to rock him to sleep, and his second brother, never enough for his father's love. He thought of his grandfather left in Middle-earth whose name and fate he still did not know and the generations before, lost to the Hunter. He thought of himself, so small in a marred world. He felt tears in his eyes to match Nienna's own. He stood before her, tears growing, until the Lady lifted him up so that she could hold him while he wept.

A thousand years later, the women of Tirion gathered in the great square to grieve lost sons, husbands, brothers, gone to Beleriand and exile. Finarfin sat with them, wearing no crown. They sat together and cried for their children. 

*

When Finarfin became king he had just betrayed, in order:

1. The Valar.

2. His wife (and of course her father).

3. His brothers.

4. His children and their dreams of the future.

5. His memory of his father, for whom he owed vengeance

6. Any sense that he knew what his purpose was, or what he was doing. Although that had probably come first.

There was a simple reason he turned back: He had always been a coward. Unlike his brothers, he was afraid to die. Looking around, he saw he was not the only one. Mandos had judged them all deserving of death. Nienna weeps for the deserving and underserving alike. Finarfin quickly gathered anyone who wanted to return and walked back with them to Tirion, hoping to reach it before the Valar closed it against them. He told Manwe's herald Eonwë that none of those with him had slain their kin and that they all held nothing but bitterness towards Fëanor and nothing but regret for their rebellion against the Valar.

He had no idea if this was true. There was almost no one in the group he led whose names he knew, let alone their motivations and histories. He had walked through the Fëanorian and Fingolfinian camps as well as Galadriel's and Finrod's and did not turn back to see who followed. He wept as he spoke, as pitifully as Ninenna had ever taught him to weep. He was here to ask for mercy.  Eonwë did not ask him any questions. He opened the gates to Tirion for Finarfin and his followers and called Finarfin the new king of the Noldor.

*

When Finarfin was a child his father sent him to the Halls of Nienna. He was one of many children in her halls. It was not unusual for parents to bring their children when they would not stop crying. The Halls of Nienna are infinite, for so is grief. Within it lie the waters of the Ekkaia, the sea that surrounds the world, fed by Nienna's tears and the tears of her children. 

Nienna teaches the reading of absences, gaps, words not said, places where something once was and now is not. The light of the Trees In Valinor made shadows hard to remember. "Here there is only light," his father had once said, but that was not true.  Finarfin had waded in the dark waters of the Ekkaia, he had built sandcastles on its shore. Now his father was dead and the light was gone. In the absence of light names were easy to remember.

<i>Finwë,</i> he thought to himself. <i>I am Arafinwë.</i> He would not forget. Finwë. Finwë. 

"What is my grandfather's name?" he had once asked his father. Finwë had tried to speak but the light stopped his mouth.

*

Back at the palace there were two notes waiting for him. One was from his ex-wife Eärwen, reiterating that their marriage was over. It was not a surprise, Finarfin had felt their bond sever when he set out with the rest of the Noldor from Alqualondë. The second note was an equally short message from King Olwë: <i>I would like to see you.</i>. Finarfin put his hand on the parchment, thinking about Olwë writing it, almost feeling his hand through the page. Then he folded it up and put it in his shirt next to his chest.

The first order of business was setting up some sort of government that could do something with this catastrophe of a city and the villages that supported it. Finarfin knew nothing at all about how to govern. He had spent most of his childhood in Valmar as the youngest son of Ingwe's youngest daughter. Then in Alqualondë he was the husband of the Swan Princess Eärwen. King Olwë had no children and so had appointed a princess and two princes from the leaders of Teleri society. Before he appointed her, Princess Eärwen was known as the Swan Maiden becase she was the youngest ever captain of the White Swan. When Finarfin married her he had married into her family in which she was the acknowledged leader. By the time the House of Finarfin was needed in Tirion as a political force his son Finrod and his daughter Galariel, who both took after their mother, were willing and able to speak for it. Finarfin was king only in the sense that he was a son of Finwë and Finwë was gone. The Valar could make him king but he needed people who could help him do the work of governing. 

First he reached out to the guild leaders. Nerdanel, the new head of the sculptor's guild, wrote back very quickly that she did not recognize the legitimacy of his rule or for that matter his birth but that if he wished to abdicate in her favor then as the only remaining member of the First House in Valinor she would consider it. Three others agreed to meet. 

The new head of the builder's guild, Luinië, was a woman that Finarfin had known from her visits to the  Halls of Nienna as a young girl. Finarfin had grown up surrounded by girls in Nienna's halls. Boys would sometimes come to the halls (even Fëanor had) but they would rarely stay, and those who stayed did not stay long. Finarfin liked it there, the sadness that was only one heartbeat from infinite joy. Luinië had led the returnees in song as they walked back to Tirion in the dark and Finarfin was beyond grateful that she had returned with him.

"Have you heard from Elemmírë?" Luinië asked. Elemmírë of the Vanyar had been Finarfin's closest friend all through his childhood. When her parents brought her to her first contemplation of the glory of the Valar she had started screaming that one was missing. Together in the Halls of Nienna they had wept for Melkor's exile.

Finarfin had not thought about Elemmírë when he followed his brothers from Tirion. He had not thought about many things. "Not yet," he said.

Luinië, who had returned without any of her family, had already sent a letter to King Olwë to ask if she could come to Alqualondë to help repair homes that were damaged in the fighting. He had replied that he would prefer if she offered her services first to the Noldor king and to her own city. It was like Olwë to look out for Finarfin. 

Before Finarfin left they made a plan that Luinië would take her builders through the city and around the villages to find out who was left of the Noldor and how they were faring. She had also spent time with Nienna, she knew how to listen to pain.

*

Finarfin's marriage had been arranged at Eärwen's request. She could never desire a man, she was clear, but the woman she loved was married and she wanted children. As the designated princess of Alqualondë it was useful for her to marry into a royal family. It had not taken very long for Finarfin to realize who Eärwen loved and why she had wanted to marry the brother of Fingolfin in particular. It didn't matter. He had never desired anyone and did not think he ever would. Most of his close friends were women and he thought Eärwen could be his friend. 

On Finarfin's betrothal day a feast was held in Alqualondë in a hall of pearl pink and translucent hollowed out as if by the sea. Olwë, wearing only the simplest silver circlet, danced one by one with his people, making no distinction of rank or status. When he came to Finarfin, as if intuiting that Finarfin did not like to dance, he sat down next to him instead and began to make pleasant conversation. It was easy to talk with him. "You know in Alqualondë we have benefitted from Noldor skill in gemwork and building," Olwë said. "Do you have a craft?"

"I weep for other people's grief," Finarfin said. 

Olwë gave him a half-smile, then looked at him curiously, as if uncertain if he was serious. Finarfin was completely serious. That was the only thing he knew how to do. "Come with me, then," Olwë said. "There is something I would like to show you."

Eärwen was dancing joyfully with Anairë while Fingolfin was getting drunk and glaring at Fëanor. Finarfin did not feel any particular need to stay. Olwë led him out by a side door to the harbor, past sands specked with rubies and diamonds, to a small rowboat. "Can you row?" he asked.

"I never have," Finarfin said, so Olwë put his hands on Finarfin's to show him a simple stroke. Finarfin Olwë's hands on him while Olwë's blue eyes reflected the distant light of Telperion. Olwë's white hair was soft against his angular features. Finarfin had always thought he could never desire anyone. That was one reason he was eager for a match with a woman who was clear that she loved another. But he had spent most of his youth around women, with his mother in Valmar or in the Halls of Nienna, and it suddently occured to him that it was possible that it was only that he could never desire a woman.  But what was there to do about it? The Valar had been known to recognize a marriage between two men, but a prince? On the day of his betrothal? The feelings were overwhelming but the water was calm and they rowed out together to a small island, barely larger than a rock, just out of sight of the glimpse of the light of the Trees that was visible through the Calacirya. The only light was the light of the stars.

"My uncle's name was Lenwë," Olwë said. "He liked to talk to birds. My brother's name was Elwë. He had stars in his eyes and fell in love with a forest."

"You remember them," FInarfin said.

"I never came here for the light," Olwë said. "I only brought my people here to escape the Hunter. We dwelled at first on Tol Eressëa." He pointed and Finarfin could see the dark outline of an island in the distance. "But it was too much to bear. The grief of everything we left behind was crushing us. I remember Lenwë shouting about the old ways and calling to people to follow him south to stay in Middle-earth with the trees and beasts they loved. My parents followed Lenwë. My brother Elmo cursed me for abandoning Elwë and begged me just to wait just a little, soon Elwë would come back from the forest. Meanwhile the Hunter was taking and taking and the woods were filled with the sound of mothers and fathers weeping for their children that they saw return to them mutilated and unable to remember them. I took those who were ready to leave and let Lord Ulmo bring us across the ocean. Valinor is a place of bliss, of joy so overwhelming that it pushes out the darkness. We needed some of that joy. In Alqualondë there is enough light for those who need. But yes, I still remember."

Olwë touched the tear on Finarfin's cheek. "Thank you for crying for me," he said. And it would have been an easy thing, then, for Finarfn to take Olwë's hand and hold it against his face. And then he could have spoken. He could have said...well.

Finarfin's brothers had called him a coward. They weren't wrong.

*

These were the terms of the Doom, as far as Finarfin could figure out. First, they would cry. It was just like Nienna's brother to think of this as a curse. Second, they would die. There were at least ten thousand people who had returned with him to Tirion and all seemed at least for the moment to be alive and if Finarfin had anything to do with it they would stay that way. Third, those who died would not return from the Halls of Mandos for a long time. All that could be done about that was weep before Mandos. Fourth, the Noldor would betray each other. FInarfin had already betrayed everyone so comprehensively that he could only hope the Valar could consider that curse already fulfilled.  Finally: that the Valar would not hear their lament.. That was the one piece of the Doom that Finarfin could do something about. He could make sure their lament was heard.

Mirilyanis, the head of the jeweler's guild, was a remainer and not a returnee. Like most of the remainers she was intensely loyal to Aulë and somewhat skeptical of those who had left and then returned. During the time when the remainers thought they were all that was left of the Noldor in Valinor she had directed the orderly reclamation and redistribution (Finarfin would not call it looting) of the possessions of those who had gone. Prominently displayed on her mantelpiece was a clock that had once been in Fingolfin's bedroom. 

"Are those your make?" Finarfin asked, deliberately ignoring anything that looked redistributed in favor of a pile of jewels that looked similar, all piled on a table. 

"No one is buying," Mirilyanis said, glad for a safer topic. The Noldor had no interest in adornment and the Teleri and Vanyar had no interest in anything Noldor.

Finarfin thought of Olwë's note in his pocket.  <i>I would like to see you.</i>  He thought of Olwë's blue eyes looking out over the water. "The Crown will buy all your jewelry," Finarfin told Mirilyanis. The palace had money enough to support many princesses and princes and none were left. "Noldor jewels once covered the beaches of Alqualondë and I hope that they will again." His children would toss them into the ocean, then the tides would bring them back to the shore when Olwë walked along it. 

"You can't buy forgiveness with bribes," Mirilyanis said. 

"i only think they will look pretty there," Finarfin said. He picked up a jewel and looked at it. Mirilyanis was clearly skilled at her craft. "Thank you for helping the Noldor figure out how to distribute what was left here. There could have been fighting here in the dark as people tried to take things. Because of you it was peaceful."

"I stayed because I love Tirion," she said. "I won't let it be damaged." It was only a short time later that Mirilyanis agreed to direct the city watch. She offered to arrange for the return of items of personal value that belonged to returnees. Finarfin said he was happy for her to keep the clock.

*

"The Teleri once had three rulers," Olwë said. "My brother Elwë loved the trees and forests. My uncle Lenwë spoke the language of beasts." They were walking by the shore, rubies and pearls beneath their feet, and in dim light of the Trees mixes with starlight their hands almost touched. 

"Elwë," Finarfin whispered to Finrod later, rocking him to sleep in his arms. "Your great-uncle's name is Elwë."

The last time Finarfin saw Galadriel she was leading a song for her followers. She was singing of golden leaves surrounding a great palace in a verdant kingdom. They sang with her in many melodies, full of hope and determination. She was going to Lenwë  and Elwë and she was bringing her people with her.

*

Pianandë, the guild leader of the grocer's guild, was like many of his returnees a mother with young children. She had also brought back with her five other children whose families had sent them back with her out of some sense that the place they were going was somewhere they did not want their children to go. All eight children were in the living room, two having an elaborate pillow fight, two reading and four sulking after a different fight she had just broken up. Finarfin gratefully accepted from her a cup of tea and took two of the sulking children on his lap. They were both just slightly younger than Orodreth had been when he pled in his chid's voice for calm and peace while Fëanor raged. The last Finarfin saw of Orodreth his father and mother were taking him away.

Pianandë explained to Finarfin that there was no food in the stores, that the farmers had come home to crops rotting in the field and empty storehouses, and the city was living on whatever surplus the few Noldor who had stayed were willing to spare those who returned. "We need to send people to the villages to help with farming," she said. "Maybe rent our extra farms to Vanyar or Teleri in exchange for a loan of food."

When Finarfin returned home Indis was waiting for him with four young children hanging on to her. 

"Mom," Finarfin said, "I'm so glad you are here." It was something that somehow neither he nor Fingolfin had considered, that by taking their entire family to Middle-earth to avenge their father they had left their mother without any of her children or grandchildren. One of many things they had not considered. 

"These are your second cousins," Indis said, before listing their names. Finarfin had rarely seen his mother without children around her ever since she returned to Taniquetil. She had made herself available to any Vanya parent who wanted time and freedom to contemplate the Valar or write philosophy or engage in any other of the Vanyar pursuits.  

"Elemmírë sends her love," Indis said. "She wanted to come offer to help but they needed her in Valmar so she sent me." Elemmírë had been on Taniquetil when the light was lost. A great cry rose over the city. Without the light their grief was unbearable. Elemmírë was gathering the grief of the Valar into a poem called the  Aldudénië, a lament for the Two Trees. 

Finarfin was grateful to Indis for coming back to Tirion. It meant that he would not have to do this alone. Tirion was full of grieving children who had lost at least one of their parents. Indis knew more than anyone else in Valinor about how to love an orphaned child.

*

When Valinor was first made Nienna wept on a green mound outside the gates of Valmar until the two Trees began to grow. When Melkor was exiled Nienna wept for him until he was returned. When Melkor destroyed the Trees and their mound was dark Nienna wept over them until each brought forth one last fruit, one of silver and one of gold, one to light the night and one to light the day.

As a child, Finarfin had wept for the exile of Melkor, along with Nienna and his friend Elemmírë. He still weeps for Melkor, sometimes, when no one will hear. 

*

Finarfin knocked on Nerdanel's door. When she opened it he took off his crown and held it in his hands. "You wanted this," he said.

Her eyes narrowed. "I said I would consider it. Why did you come back to usurp my husband? What is your plan?"

"What do you think?" he said. She would take bluntness as a sign of respect. "What kind of plan is possible? I am not able to defeat Morgoth. None of us can. Only the Valar can, and right now they will not. All I can do is try to keep a few people alive, very much not including my children who are under the same Doom as yours. What is left to do at all, except ask for a tiny bit of mercy?"

"The Valar are not the highest power in Arda," Nerdanel said. 

"And I am not my brothers, I do not have a secret fire from the One and I do not believe I can defeat a Vala. he Valar want me in charge because I am a son of Finwë and they feel sorry for me.  If you think you can get Manwe to work with you take this crown, I'll support you."

Nerdanel looked from his hands to his eyes and Finarfin could see her very slightly relax. "I said I would not recognize your rule," she said.

"You can say worse," Finarfin said. "I abandoned my children and yours." As had she, but there was no need to say that, Finarfin was beyond certain that she said it to herself every waking moment of her life. They had both done the worst thing a parent could do. They had that in common. 

Finarfin looked down and was taken aback by what looked like a baby at her foot. He bent down, curious what babies were left in Nerdanel's home. It took him a few moments to realize that it was the kind of sculpture for which Nerdanel was known, the kind barely distinguishable from reality.

Once he realized that, the soft red hair was unmistakeable. Nerdanel's oldest son was older than Finarfin but of course he had seen pictures of his nephew as a baby. "Maedhros?" he asked.

"They are all over the house," Nerdanel said. "I don't know why I do it. It doesn't make anything better."

"They'll never be babies again," Finarfin said. "When did you make this?"

"Not long before the tragedy," Nerdanel said. "I like to make them. The challenge is to make the likeness exact, working only from memory. I find that I can sculpt images that I am not able to even hold in my mind, that the body remembers what the mind sometimes can not."

"Of course," he said, but he appreciated the reminder. Grief was in his body now, and in the bodies of everyone in Valinor. 

*

In the distance the mountains of the Pelori were starting to rise. The Doom was that the cries of the Noldor would not be heard, and so the mountains would keep them out.  In the middle of the Calacirya there was a small grove of trees and Finarfin lay down in the middle. It was the place he always came when he missed Nienna.  He felt the roots underneath him. Every tree in Arda was watered by Nienna's tears. 

The Fëanturi were three: Justice, desire and mercy. By justice, the Noldor who crossed the sea deserved nothing. They desired all. Irmo is younger and less powerful than Mandos but Nienna is not less than either of her brothers. Nienna's tears are the waters of the Ekkaia and the Great Sea, the water below the earth and the water above it. Fire evaporates water but water extinguishes fire and water wears through walls of stone.

It was said that Finarfin loved the Valar. He said it too, to Eonwë, when he returned to Tirion with those he had managed to bring with him. He was not certain that love was the right thing to call this feeling of helplessness. He was nothing, less than a wave on a dark ocean of tears. 

Around him the mountains grew, leaving only the gap through the Calacirya where Finarfin lay.

He took out Olwë's note and read it again. <i>I would like to see you.</i>  

*

Olwë walked by the shore, starlight in his white hair. The beach was only sand, the bloodstained Nodor gems washed into the sea, but the stars in the water shone like diamonds. Olwë was as beautiful as Finarfin remembered, and even more when he started to smile.

They walked along the shore together barefoot, feeling the water and the sand. "I will send jewels," FInarfin said. "Everything we have in Tirion. Craftspeople who can help you build."

Olwë shook his head. "I didn't want to see you for that. I just wanted to see you." They stopped walking. Olwë looked at him. "I'm glad you're back."

"I don't know if I am," Finarfin said.

"You might not see it for some time," Olwë said. "It might be years. But one day you will see a young person who lived to grow up and you will know that it was because of what you did, when you turned your back on everyone you love to give a little bit of mercy to a few people who needed it when no one else would."

Middle-earth was across the Great Sea. Lenwë was there, who spoke to birds, and Elwë who fell in love with a forest. Finarfin's children were going to find them. 

Finarfin had always been a coward, but he had done one brave thing in his life when he had turned back. Maybe he had enough courage to do another. "You are beautiful," he said.

"I'm glad you think so," Olwë said. He took Finarfin's hand, lightly. Finarfin wanted to kiss him, to hold him, to weep against his neck. He would not do these things yet, but Olwë's gentle touch made him hope that they were possible, that the Halls of Mercy could encompass enough mercy even for this.

*

The Ekkaia is infinite and surrounds the world, but it is contained within Nienna's halls because there is no end to grief. On its shores Finarfin weeps with Nienna for his children who are gone. No mountain can block out their tears or the echo of their lamentation, for there is no place that is untouched by the water of tears. Only have mercy, they ask. Only a little bit of mercy.

*

...[the Valar] did not utterly forsake the Noldor in exile...

Therefore at that time they fortified their land anew, and they raised up the mountain-walls of the Pelóri to sheer and dreadful heights, east, north, and south...no pass led through them, save only at the Calacirya: but that pass the Valar did not close, because of the Eldar that were faithful, and in the city of Tirion upon the green hill Finarfin yet ruled the remnant of the Noldor ... (Silmarillion 11: On the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor)

Chapter End Notes

There's a funny comment in the Shibboleth that Finrod was like his father in many ways "though he had the high courage of the Noldor." The implication seems to be that Finarfin did not have courage, or at least not that kind of courage. He must have had some kind of courage to turn back when everyone was going forward, especially since it was not at all clear that he and his returnees would be accepted by the Valar. But I suppose unlike his brothers (and Finrod) he did not have the kind of courage required to go into a fight that will definitely kill you. 

There was an earlier version of the fic that did much more with gender. In it there was a professional mourner's guild and, as was typical in the ancient Near East, the guild was only women and the term for them was grammatically feminine. They let Finarfin join when he asked nicely but when they tried to come up with a grammatically masculine term for what he was doing he asked them to please not, because he wanted to be called by the same word as everyone else in the guild. I took it out because it didn't work thematically but if you like you can imagine this in the background.

Names of OCs are from Chestnut_pod's name list:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15eu60V2L9W514jL17btANyCxqY8CMBjtNLHIhwZqv3k/

The prompts:

body of water, any kind or size - Himring

a character acts in haste - Starspray

this tree https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-tall-tree-during-day-time-nXgivuqiZHs Independence 1776

"I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil." Artano

"the plan hit a snag' - Grundy

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