Last Year's Bitter Loving by StarSpray  

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Two

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Ingwë’s grand feast was very grand. An entire city of tents had been erected on the western plains beside a wide reed-lined lake. A stage had been erected, shining in the sunlight by day and gleaming with lanterns by night. Finarfin saw Fëanor’s hand in it. His brother remained brilliant and committed to making beautiful everything he was involved with, and it was easy to admire.

There was music at all hours, and feasts and more private gatherings, and people to meet and reunite with. Finarfin found himself still very glad to have been relegated again to the role of a lesser Prince, King Nolofinwë’s brother but not his heir. He put on a smile when required, did not dance, and found a little real happiness in watching the happiness of his children. 

Three days after they all arrived, Elrond appeared to sit beside him where he had been watching some dancers out of Valmar compare their traditions with their Avarin counterparts. Finarfin glanced at Elrond, and then looked again. “I know that look,” he said, attempting to sound amused but not quite sure he managed it. “Has my daughter put you up to something?”

Elrond smiled at him. “No one has put me up to anything in centuries, Uncle,” he said. “On most notable occasions it has been the other way around. But really, I just wanted to give you this.” He held out a hand, and a moment later Finarfin found himself holding a jar. When he opened it he found some kind of ointment, smelling of mint and something else fresh and clean. “Rub a little onto your knee in the evenings. I have given Aunt Eärwen some dried athelas leaves as well. They are not as potent as fresh, but should still help you.”

“And who says I need such help, nephew-mine?” Finarfin asked.

“You do, Uncle,” Elrond said quietly, smile fading away. “You hide it well, but then so have many others I have known. So have I.” 

“What?” Finarfin looked up at him, startled, and found nothing but understanding in Elrond’s soft grey eyes. “Elrond—”

“I got better.” Elrond offered another small smile as he rose. “You should come visit us sometime, Uncle. Perhaps next year, or the year after—after everything has settled down again. I do not think you have come to Imloth Ningloron since I came west. There is much I would like to speak with you of, away from the noise and the crowds, and Celebrían would like to show you her gardens.”

“Perhaps,” said Finarfin, and watched Elrond wander off. He was soon joined by Maglor and Elladan and Elrohir, and Finarfin felt something twist in his chest at the sound of the twins’ laughter. In appearance they and Elrond took so strongly after Elwing—after Lúthien—but they sounded just like Finwë, and they would never know it. 

Finarfin saw Eärendil nearby too, with Elwing on his arm, both of them speaking with Ingwion and his sisters. Beyond them he glimpsed Aegnor sitting with Maedhros, playing with his pet hedgehog Aechen. 

The sun was bright and warm, and all around him was laughter and merriment. He felt as though he were somehow set apart from it all, experiencing it as though through some sort of veil that he did not know how to pierce. 

“There you are, Ingoldo.” Eärwen came to sit beside him. “Are you glad yet that we came?” she asked. 

“Of course I’m glad we came,” he said, taking her hand and leaning over to kiss her cheek. When it was all over and behind them, he might even be able to say that and mean it. Even in that moment he was glad to see his son laughing instead of weeping. “I suspect Aikanáro will come home someday soon with a hedgehog of his own.”

“Sometime I really must ask someone where they came from,” Eärwen laughed. “Macalaurë and Maitimo are not the nephews I would expect to collect such small creatures. In the past that was always Tyelkormo.”

“Have you seen the mockingbird riding about on his shoulder?”

“I saw Macalaurë’s cat try to eat it this morning.”

Finarfin rather liked Maglor’s little cat, who was prone to climbing things she shouldn’t, but who had also liked to curl up on his lap while Maglor had visited them two summers before, demanding to be petted and then purring sweetly when he had obliged.

Eärwen leaned over to rest her head on Finarfin’s shoulder. “Have you spoken to your brothers?” she asked softly.

“You’ve seen me speak to my brothers.”

“I mean—when there haven’t been others watching.”

He sighed. “No. We spoke before we came, and—”

“I can tell you miss Nolofinwë. It has been decades, now. Surely it is time to try to make things right? Anairë tells me that he misses you desperately.”

“I rather doubt that,” he said before he could stop his traitorous tongue. 

“Would not Anairë know better than anyone?” Eärwen sat up. “I know you only agreed to come this summer for appearances’ sake, but try to take up the spirit of this gathering, won’t you?”

“I’ll speak to them both whenever that private family party of Findaráto’s comes,” Finarfin said. There would be no audience there but their own family, all of whom were familiar with the tension. He did not expect to enjoy it very much, but it was still possible that he would be surprised.

Eärwen sighed. “Well—all right. What’s that jar?”

“Elrond gave it to me. Did you talk to him about my bad knee?”

“No, but he’s very perceptive—he and Celebrían.”

That evening Finarfin said nothing when Eärwen cast a few athelas leaves into a bowl of steaming water. The tent filled with the fresh smell of wind off the sea, and he felt like he could breathe a little easier, even though he hadn’t thought that it was difficult before. The ointment chased away the stiffness in his knee, too—not only that night, but for several days afterward. He kept trying to find a time to thank Elrond, but suspected that Elrond knew it and was making it hard on purpose. 

Then, finally, the day of Finrod and Fingon’s long-planned family party came—a day where all the House of Finwë left the grander festivities to retreat to the little forest on the other side of the lake, where there was a flower-strewn clearing just big enough for all of them. A little pavilion was set up, primarily so Curufin’s baby triplets could nap in the shade, and blankets were strewn across the grass. Maglor had brought his harp, but Finrod soon absconded with it. 

Everyone was in a good mood, ready to talk and laugh and reminisce a little about other such gatherings on both sides of the Sea, or about old adventures. Finarfin did more listening than speaking, as was his wont, and eventually found himself sharing a blanket with Fëanor, who had been put in charge of his youngest grandchildren. His granddaughters Calissë and Náriel were full of energy, dancing with Elladan and Elrohir to the music Finrod and Turgon were making. The triplets, two baby girls and a baby boy, were only six or seven months old, and just starting to learn how to roll over. 

Fingolfin joined them as Fëanor picked up his baby grandson to blow raspberries into his belly until he squealed with laughter. Finarfin ended up with little silver-haired Nityanandë in his arms, steadying her as she braced her little hands on his shoulder to look around at all the other things happening in the clearing, and found himself thinking if his own granddaughters. Celebrían and Finduilas had been born in Middle-earth, and he had never gotten to see them as children, let alone hold them as infants. He knew and loved them both now as adults, but he had missed getting to be a grandfather to small children, and now found himself with yet another reason to be faintly envious of Fëanor, who was so clearly delighted with the triplets and with Calissë and Náriel, who in turn so obviously adored him. 

It was almost nice, though—a glimpse of what might have been, a glimpse of what it was like to have two brothers instead of only one, or none at all. Finarfin was careful not to look at Fingolfin, though, afraid of seeing the hope in his eyes when all three of them had to know that this peace would not last past that afternoon. 

Then, abruptly, the world turned upside down. 

Two years before, Maglor had come to Alqualondë to speak to Finarfin of Finwë. Míriel and Indis had asked him to write a song for him—and an attempt at a joke on Finarfin’s part had ended up revealing that it was not only a song to honor Finwë, but to take before the Valar in one last attempt to convince them to overturn the statute that kept him in Mandos. Maglor had not been confident that it would work—and neither had Finarfin, though his doubts had not come from the same place. Maglor had doubted his own skill. Finarfin had doubted the mercy of the Valar.

They had both, it seemed, been wrong. Maglor had taken his song to the Máhanaxar the summer before, and now here was Finwë, pushing through the honeysuckle to catch Fëanor in his arms a second before Fingolfin hauled Finarfin to his feet to chase after them. Finarfin stumbled, his knee not painful but stiff enough that it took a few steps to loosen—and then he wasn’t thinking about his knee at all, or about anything except his father. He was there, really there, alive and laughing through his tears. 

“Arafinwë!” Finwë’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him in close. “My Ingoldo, oh how I’ve missed you.”

The next few hours passed in a blur. Theirs was a very large family, and Finwë was careful to take several minutes with everyone—especially those he had never met in life. Celebrían recruited her sons and a few of her cousins to rearrange everything so they could all sit and speak to Finwë and one another more easily. As soon as he could Finarfin caught Finrod. “Did you know, Findaráto? Is that why you planned this?”

Finrod shook his head. “No! We started the planning long before Macalaurë’s song was ever finished—and I didn’t know until he went to the Máhanaxar that he intended to take it to the Valar.”

“You were given no hint?”

“No, nothing! I was sure that Grandmother and Míriel would make it—but that was at least as much hope as it was foresight.” Finrod grinned suddenly. “Though when they both disappeared so soon after Maglor returned to Tirion we all really ought to have figured out why, except it seemed impossible that the Valar would act so quickly, or without telling anyone.”

It was the quickest the Valar had ever acted, Finarfin thought as Finrod slipped away to speak to Fingon. Or almost the quickest—they had answered Eärendil immediately, and all the preparations for the War of Wrath had been undertaken extremely fast. It had been as though they had just been waiting for him. Maybe they had only been waiting for Maglor too—for something like his music that would move things in a way the mere words of others couldn’t. 

Even his own words. Finarfin had gone more than once to the Máhanaxar while he had still been king, though it had been very hard to slip away unnoticed on such a private errand—had fallen to his knees and begged for Finwë’s release, for the overturning of a statute that surely everyone could agree was deeply unfair, desperate not to rid himself of a crown he’d never wanted but just to have his father back. And now he did, and it was impossible to resent Maglor for succeeding where so many other had failed, and not only because Maglor himself seemed overwhelmed by it. Finarfin remembered too the bone-deep grief and lingering horror he’d seen in his eyes when Maglor had spoken, briefly, of having seen Finwë’s body after Morgoth had gone. Finarfin had gone once to Formenos, soon after the first sunrise, and he had seen the broken doors, the cracks in the floor—the bloodstains. That had been bad enough. It was no wonder both Maglor and Maedhros had fled the clearing after Finwë’s arrival, needing to take a few minutes to master themselves before facing him. 

Then the world tilted again, and Finarfin watched Finwë be put into the position of one granted a long-held wish whose fulfillment had seemed utterly impossible. He had had brothers, once—and now two of them had returned, brought there by Gandalf with that knowing glint in his eyes. Their names were Urwë and Lindo, and they looked as alike to one another and to Finwë as Fingolfin and Fëanor were to one another, though Finarfin was startled to look into Lindo’s face and find his own blue eyes looking back. 

It was startling, too, to realize that Urwë and Lindo had both been out of Mandos for a very long time. How long, exactly, was impossible to guess, and Finarfin both desperately wanted to ask and at the same time did not ever want to know. Some of the things they said suggested they had been back much longer than anyone else, even Finrod; all that was certain was that they had not come back before the Darkening, for they did not have Treelight in their eyes, and surely if they had returned while Finwë still ruled in Tirion they would have come straight there. In the end he shoved those thoughts and questions down and resolved never to think about them again. 

The rest of the day flew by, and eventually the party broke up, agreeing to keep Finwë’s presence quiet until Maglor could perform his song again the next evening, accompanied this time by Finrod and Fingon. That had been planned already, and Finarfin had approved of it—that it be a way for all branches of their House to honor Finwë, rather than only one—and those in the family with a performer’s instinct had all very quickly agreed that it would be the best time to reveal to all the gathered Elves that Finwë Noldóran had returned. 

Finarfin lingered in the woodland clearing with his siblings and their parents—and their uncles. At first Eärwen also stayed, but she soon kissed him and departed, arm in arm with Anairë and Nerdanel, claiming that that night should be for Finarfin and his siblings and their parents, with no interference even from their wives. He wished that she would stay, but said nothing as he watched her disappear past the ribbon-adorned trees that marked the path. 

The glass pane that he sometimes imagined separated him from the rest of the world had cracked, earlier, but as the stars shone in the cloudless sky overhead, and he watched his father embrace Findis, and watched Fëanor sit with his mother, both of them speaking very seriously, Finarfin felt like it had fixed itself, and he could no longer quite feel the enormity of the day’s events. In a way it was a relief. Mostly it just made him feel numb when he knew he should be happy—brilliantly, incandescently happy—because by any measure what had happened that afternoon was a miracle. The world had fractured when Finwë had been murdered, and now he was back and so it could finally right itself. 

His knee ached, dully, in spite of having rubbed Elrond’s ointment into it the night before. He still felt so tired. 

Now that the crowd of grandchildren had gone, Finwë seemed to be trying to take time to speak to all of them alone. Finarfin both ached for it and dreaded it. He wanted desperately to hear his father tell him that he had done everything right, but at the same time he could not expect it. He had done his best, but it had never felt like enough. 

After a while Finwë left Fëanor, who looked far more unhappy than Finarfin would have expected, and came to sit beside him. “Why do you sit apart, Arafinwë?”

“I’m just tired, and have little to say.” He let himself lean into his father’s embrace. There were many things he should say, he knew. I missed you, and I love you, and I’m so glad you’re here, but they all stuck in his throat and he thought that if he opened his mouth all that would come out was you never should have left in the first place. Or something worse. He didn’t want to mar this reunion, not when it was meant to be joyful. If he couldn’t take full part in that joy—that was his own failing, not Finwë’s. 

Finwë kissed the top of his head. “I think we have much to speak of, you and I,” he said softly, “and much of it will have to wait until we return home. But I am so sorry, Arafinwë. You carried such a heavy burden for so long, and you should not have had to.”

No, I shouldn’t, he thought. “There was no one else,” he said instead. “I did what I had to do.”

“And you did it well. I have seen all that Vairë has woven, and though I wish you had not had to do any of it, I am so, so proud of you.”

It was nice to hear—both the apology and the pride. It just felt like it had come too late, after he was beyond the desire for it. Finarfin said nothing, just leaned against Finwë to listen to the steady drumbeat of his heart, and feel the gentle rise and fall of his chest, and the warmth of his encircling arms, which had once felt like the safest place in all of Arda and even now somehow still did, all of it proof that this was real, that Finwë was there. And for a few hours he didn’t have to be anybody except his father’s son, and know himself loved. Until the sun rose, that was enough.