The Name of the Fire by Kios  

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Chapter 2

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Like erosion carving away at stone, things start to warp in slow degrees. 

Pressure, once coming in from the outside, now accumulates within. It builds in the space between Fëanor’s every thought, pushing against their momentum, delaying their arrival, chipping at their clarity. His mind, which he once held in such high esteem because of its orderliness and the effortless control he had over it, now commits small acts of rebellion. 

Static pauses begin to form in odd corners of his mind, hiding behind discarded memories or under the dust of buried hurts, festering there until he discovers them and drives them out. There are times when Fëanor finds himself repeating things and starting thoughts over from the beginning because he had lost track of them in the middle. 

Efficiency, surety, congruency—qualities that were once maintained automatically—now require his conscious supervision. It is a necessary effort he resents, because it means his self-possession is loosening.

But he tells himself that this is nothing. This is nothing. It is simply the darkness playing with him. Small cracks and chinks in his armor are hastily covered up with fire, and he bars himself within memory. What fraying sense of time remains he uses to retrace scene after scene, dialogue after dialogue, belief after belief. Before him there appears the cold edge of his sword against Fingolfin’s pale throat, the Oath ringing in his ears as night shrouds eight proud figures, the roar of red flames swallowing the silhouettes of white ships. 

He does not remember them for pleasure—they are decidedly unpleasant—but to prove himself right again. It brings him strength and stokes his anger. 

Yet despite his best efforts, he experiences only temporary reprieve. Unwanted things intrude still, foreign and dismaying, like ice cold water slinking through impossible walls…

Nerdanel reaches—

reaches—

—hands touch but never detect. Wind in the speechless trees echo…Atar! Atar! Ata…Empty chambers cold and treasure-less.  

Again and again Fëanor shoves the anomalies behind towers of flame, bitterly cursing; yet again and again they return through the gaps, silent as the endless night all around him, gathering in the lapses of his mind and in between his thoughts until he feels like a clogged drainage system. Too late he realizes that using memory as a defence was a mistake; for it has been twisted right under his nose, the logic of it erased and the conviction taken out of treasured moments, until only confusion remains. 

The more Fëanor remembers, the less he remembers things right. 

Attempts to preserve his memories only result in further disorder. The reality of sensation fades; soon it exists in his mind only in the form of a passive idea. He tries to recall the action of walking, but in the darkness verbs never land. 

Nerdanel’s face looses its painful definition—he tells himself it is for the better, and that things which are no longer useful should be discarded. He forgets the sound of her voice, the fierce passion they had once shared, and retains only the pain in her eyes on the dusk of their last meeting. 

Rose lips are ash…Words fall from them like dead things. A mirror of tears unshed. Colour withers. Whisper grates—Fëanarò—

grates—Fëanarò—

grates and shatters like glass—please!—

 

Fëanor snaps back sharply, recoiling like a whip after a false strike. He summons fire and the absurdity disperses as suddenly as it came, leaving him swaying in the middle. An aftershock of silence stretches out in his mind, but before it can close its jaws upon him he chases it away with contempt.

Stupid things, he sneers. 

He spins around though he knows it is useless. He just wants to imagine the sparks cracking in the wake of his spirit like they always used to. 

A part of him desires another Hall to appear out of the black. There, at least, he will return to something he is familiar with. 

But he is also reluctant for it to come. What use is there to enter substance, if he will only incinerate it and return to darkness?

His thoughts are rendered inconsequential. No corridor appears, no matter how much he commands it to come. No arch, no shadow, no square. Nothing.

It seems as if reality no longer bends under his will…As if there is no reality at all, and this is all simply Void…

Fëanor stops in his restless thought, realizing it is just that. Void. 

Suddenly his anger erupts into wrath, and all that has been occluded in his mind is flared away. In their wake is a narrow-eyed clarity he has not felt for a long time. 

He glares at Nothingness with eyes ablaze in hatred. 

Oh I see, He snarls. So this is thy justice? Have I proven too hot for thy hallowed Halls, that thou hast cast me here to rot, as if I were Morgoth himself? As if I were mere vermin? As if I were not King? Curse thee! Curse thee who sits upon thy throne and thinks thyself just! 

An inferno roars. Fire spills from him, from mouth and fist and heart, lashing out blindly at void. Like there was anything there to burn. 

Let the Valar see, he thinks. Let Him know. I will show them all how grave a mistake they have made. I have burned Halls before. I will burn Void as well. 

Forests of flame hiss and pounce. Out of it he shapes swords and spears, axes and arrows; snarling beasts with glinting teeth; terrible winds and looming boulders; rumbling forges and molten metal; and he hurls them all at Void, daring the darkness to withstand the might and brilliance of Fëanarò Curufinwë.

But the darkness does not flinch from him. Neither does it battle against him. It is there. Impartial to his display. What fire he has unleashed upon it fizzles out, losing heat and radiance until it curls in and devours itself, because there is nothing else to conquer. Not even death.

And Fëanor’s rage, once such a powerful thing that could last forever, becomes a small and ephemeral thing in the face of infinity.

It horrifies him beyond measure. 

He finds himself trembling upon ash, watching uselessly as a nameless fear encroaches like a shadow in his mind. 

A sudden and desperate need overtakes him, and he tries to flee—but from what, he does not know. He casts out reckless fingers like a drowning creature flailing for purchase. But he cannot escape. 

For the semblance of time has forsaken him altogether. A moment is an entire age. He tries to rouse fire again, but it answers agonizingly slowly, like it has been depleted.

Silence can no longer be held at bay. Through the fissures in his walls, it comes, a bitter herald of ice and ruin. 

He plummets into stupor. 

The gap between thoughts stretches on without end. 

His mind is rank with things in disarray. 

For the first time, Fëanor doubts himself.