The Name of the Fire by Kios  

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Chapter 3

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He aches for something to do. His ghostly fingers itch to give shape to something, to hold an object, to touch his own face…To strangle someone. Yet his fire sleeps, and he is unable to create even a mere spark. Waiting is the only thing left to do, though he loathes it even more than the dark. He waits, and hopes that his fire will replenish itself. 

Deep down, Fëanor knows it is a fool’s hope, as there is no fuel in Void for failing lights. What fire he has wasted upon it is gone for good; but he will not accept that fact. 

So he waits, while his pride swiftly sours into disgust at his own state. 

Reduced to praying and loitering about like a vagrant! He scorns. How pathetic. The mighty Lord of Lights, thrown into Void where he cannot even produce a single spark! Even Arafinwë would be ashamed. 

Mocking laughter echoes from within. 

Shut up! He snaps. 

More echoes ensue. Fëanor shudders, feeling inexplicably cold. He hates the stillness. The confusion. His fury has forsaken him, leaving him companionless in this desert of darkness—he hates that most of all. Even the Silmarils no longer bring any measure of comfort. In the passing of every sluggish thought they fade from him more and more. He clings to a pale reflection of their memory, but the effort required to hold them is as steep as the slopes of Taniquetil. 

The Oath throbs and gnaws. It is a pain that no longer propels him forward—and yet it is a burden that he cannot part with, a burden that presses inside along with everything else until he trembles under the pressure like too much air blown into molten glass. 

Distantly, he is aware that he might burst.

He turns bitter. What love and care he once possessed for his mind is gone. He directs the incessant itch in his fingers to his own thoughts, strangling them and then the hand that strangled—and then the hand behind the hand. 

It is stimulating, at least, though it brings him no joy.

He wonders when was the last time he has felt joy. Pure joy. 

The Silmarils appear, achingly heavy. 

He flinches from them. 

Then he flinches from himself. 

Such a reaction is unprecedented, Fëanor snaps. Since when dost thou fear them? Since when dost thou fear a part of thyself?

The question unsettles him. Despite knowing what awaits him there, he examines his memories, dissecting what he can make of the undefined period he has been in Void with an urgency that refreshes him. 

At least he has something to do.

But the once well-tessellated paths of the past are completely indistinguishable. He slips and turns astray, circling around in a dull mesh of faces and actions, unsure of what his purpose initially was. 

How forgetful thou hast become, he snides. Now thou sittest here idly like a despicable thing.

I am waiting! Fëanor retorts. Seest thou not? You are the forgetful one.

Ah? Waiting? Waiting for what? Since when has the Arannólë’s pride sunk so low as to tolerate inaction? And since when hast thou begun to distance thyself from me with ‘you’?

Fëanor sputters. He juggles between a thousand insults to throw back. They crowd together in the forefront of his mind, fighting for leeway. 

The pressure spikes.

Enough! He shouts. 

The chaos dissipates. There is blankness. 

He forgets what the argument with himself was about. In its place is an empty space that soon blends into the blur of all the rest. 

Fëanor pauses. 

Blur. 

That was never a good thing. 

Following a long-ingrained habit, he retraces the blur that is memory with obsessive hands. He tries to make it clearer. To polish it. To engineer it into a better condition. 

The blur thickens. Coarse. Crude. 

Worse. 

Bitterness coils. He tries again. Harshly. The blur retreats from the force of his assault—

His hammer falls—

Blood beneath his fingers—

Sil…proud on his brow, now bare. Barren.

Silmarils! Fëanor snaps with effort. They are mine—

My Minyon—

Fire fire fire all about him. Blood-splattered white shores—

His father smiles and—

And—

The blur returns. 

He is no longer sure if he wants it gone; either way, he does not attempt to clear it. 

Just this once, Fëanor ensures himself, I will rest for a bit. My strength shall return to me again…

Something gnaws at him, twisting and writhing like a living thing, and it is not the Oath. A quiet little voice wearing the shape of malice whispers: 

Hast thou stopped fighting? Is this defeat?

Almost involuntarily, Fëanor lashes out. He grasps the traitorous questions and squeezes hard. Before he can process what is happening, he has already lost himself in a broken analogue of violence.  

Darkness enshrouds him completely. An instant and an eternity lapses. His own thoughts flee from him.

Suddenly, he feels so very alone.

Let me go! He demands, with a voice that had once swayed so many hearts. Give me back my fire! Give me back what you all stole from me!

No one responds. 

He is so cold.