Strangers in a Strange Land by starshadeemily  

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Proud and Jealous

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Arien could not dispel the shadow, which had now not so much as fallen upon Nolofinwë, but percolated the soil of his spirit like a black rain, and like the Unlight that had swallowed the bliss of Aman, this shadow ate the pleasure of food, and of drink, and of converse.

And how much converse arrested him!

The visitors arrived first as a trickle, kinsmen and then close friends fallen in the war though they spoke of it not. But the stream swelled to a flood of old neighbors, lords of the court, former retainers and knights and subjects, and soon dozens of youths who were fain to meet the man who had duelled Morgoth, and they gaped and gawked at him, and their eyes trembled with awe as if they conversed with a ghost, and they regarded him with all the fear due to a myth that has become suddenly and overnight manifest in the flesh, unlooked for by all.

Findecano seemed little bothered by this development, though he admitted it was irksome, for he, likewise an historical figure and re-embodied myth, had endured a similar onslaught of attention, which had in time abated when he had become naturalized to this new age of the world. As he said this a shadow flickered in his eyes: the spectre of a memory and the fleeting, fleeting trace of that feeling they knew better than to name.

“Wouldst thou deny them admittance, Father? I shall turn them away if it be thy will.”

But Nolofinwë shook his head, nay, nay, it was best that he become acquainted with the denizens of this new world.

But he found no fellowship among the Eldalië, and only alienation greeted him with glad handshakes and pearly smiles in that grand white wasteland of a parlor. 

They spoke of a man called Fingolfin. They spoke of a man they named the most proud and valiant of the elven kings of old, a man of whom none sang but all knew the full record of his deeds. They spoke of a man who was dead. 

For he truly was dead, was he not? The body that sat in the white armchair in a new-fangled striped haincelin had not a warrior’s bulk nor a warlord’s strength. No calluses of the sword padded his palms, neither did thick scars criss-cross these new unmuscled arms, nor had frostbite blunted his fingertips. No record of his storied feats could be found in this vessel that had never wielded blade nor hauberk donned, and Nolofinwë could not help but feel that when they named him hero they lied. For the body that housed Nolofinwë’s spirit was diminished. 

And so too it was with the spirit it housed. Valiant they named him, but such a title is no name given to a suckling babe, but rather an epithet earned by a man with his works, and were he valiant in sooth he would be afforded chance to prove it—but what deeds of valor were there to do in Valinor? What means such a title when it is a name only? It did little good, he thought, to praise the valor of a dead man to his ghost. This present Nolofinwë was not valiant. In Elder days Fingolfin King had been valiant, but Vinya Nolofinwë sat in the parlor like a woman, sipping white tea with honey while his dancer’s legs missed their former fitness.

 

In the end, Nolofinwë sent the crowd away, but now and again he would see young boys pass by the house and stand in the street, shamelessly peering up at the tall windows in hope of glimpsing the dead man that lived.

 

In the end, too, Turgon returned to his new Gondolin. In the end, too, Fingon returned to his own house and his old habits. In the end, too, Aredhel returned to spending her days with her lover. In the end, too, Anairë returned to Alqualondë.

In the end, Nolofinwë remained in the house with Aracano, and Helenis, and bonny little Alassiel, named for Aracano’s childhood nursemaid. In the end, Nolofinwë sat and watched the little girl play with the nanny while Aracano dealt with his business and Helenis entertained ladies in the drawing room. In the end, an eternal sitting room of stasis was his lot.

Daughter of Joy was named the bright, mirthful little girl with cheeks as red as poppies and beautiful eyes like a brown calf’s, and she was forsooth a source of merriment and joy for Nolofinwë, who came to love her dearly and who taught her rhymes and riddles newly-recalled from his own childhood, but a Noldo man’s true contentment comes not from laughter and innocent play but from doing. And nothing was there to do. No, nothing to do at all. 

His craft aforetime had been politics, and he had in ancient days before the fall developed his craft to a greater skill than any other of his generation, and by skillful designs and subtle work and the cleverness of his tongue he had aforetime accomplished all his ends and held all of Tirion under his sway. But Arafinwë’s court was not Nolofinwë’s court, and this future time was not his time, and it was not for him to meddle in affairs he had had no part in contriving. Nay, the workings of the court were the domain of those whose lives were of the present, not of one who, having stepped out of the pages of history, knew only the courtly usages and manners of the ancient world, and to whom even the most common current etiquette was like a foreign tongue. Even his firm handshakes were of the old style—quaint, the modern man Aracano seemed to find it, for he was a well-mannered politician himself, having inherited if not his father’s personality then his talents. Talents that now atrophied in the sire.

Sitting there, staring listlessly out the window with a porcelain cup of cold tea hooked on a heedless finger, Nolofinwë envied for the first time the Gift of Men: the blessing from Iluvatar that is bitter to those who receive it and a mystery to those who do not, a divine provision for which those who have lived for centuries uncounted begin to yearn as the years weigh heavy and heavier on sorrowful souls. Hador, vassal, comrade in arms, dear friend, he had perished ere he was too old to fight on the plain of battle and while his thewful limbs were yet hale and his back unbowed with age, and thereat he had been mercifully taken beyond the circles of the world according to the nature of his kindred. He had not been made to suffer an indefinite impotent retirement, a nothing-life of hearing tales of his own heroism while sitting inside with the women and babes beside a coddling fire for ever and ever and aye. He had fallen gloriously, cut down in defense of the Barad, spilling his red lifeblood on the castle walls for the cause of king and country. And he had remained for all time glorious, forevermore a name preserved in song and tale, and the true Hador, wherever Eru kept him, was surely at peace. A legend there was among his people, Hador had said, that those who perish in war shall be taken into the heavens where is a golden hall, and a place shall be made for them, and they shall drink heavily and laugh raucously and make merry with the other great warriors of the world, until Arda should reach its ending. This belief the Edain had largely abandoned when they came to dwell alongside the elves, and although Nolofinwë doubted that such a legend could be true, he hoped for Hador’s sake that he had gone to his soldier’s Paradise.

But there could be no resting in peace for the glorious among the elves, and Fingolfin’s repose in Paradise brought him only sorrow, for it had reduced him to a dotard. Would that he who had died a man had remained a man! Would that he could share in the blessing of his friend and be immortal not in his life but in his death! But nay there is no comfort for the elves to be found in all of Arda, who must endure until the bitterest end, whether they will it or no. Nolofinwë’s nothing-death had been more wretched than this nothing-life, but the relief of being clothed once more had given way to melancholy. For eternity stretched before him, on and on and on endlessly to an unrevealed end; and for the rest of that time, be it soon or be it for a hundred thousand years, he must abide in this place, both his cradle and his tomb, for Aman had been sundered from Arda forever and there could be no returning. A narrow land had Fëanaro once called this place, a narrow land that hemmed their proud people between the mountains and the sea. Too narrow had it been for each of the princes to claim his own realm, too narrow for empire and conquest. But Nolofinwë had tasted conquest, he had looked upon the wide lands of Middle-earth, had stood beneath that endless sky and dug his toes into the earth that stretched for leagues upon thousands and thousands of leagues into the uttermost east, he had felt the life and liberty of that land, and though his sword was stained with black blood he knew what it was to be free. And he knew now indeed that this holy land was narrow, a thin continent bordered on all sides by the void, inescapable by the Incarnates cloistered there. There would be no returning, not merely to the drowned continents, the mountains and fair trees beneath the sea gone forever, not to Cuivienen now erased from the altered earth, nay but there would be no removal at all from Aman again for all the life of Arda. And how could there be, why would there be, when all of the kindred of the Elves who had remained in the Outer Lands were all faded away, become phantoms invisible to the eyes of Men? This fenced horse-paddock was, the Valar said, mercy.

And as he pondered this, that itch that had begun in the back of his head spread to the front, and it flared behind his eyes and it grew, and it grew and it grew until he could ignore it no longer. And at last he dared to name it. And he called it resentment.

❖❖❖

His resentment became soon a heavy burden, and he carried it in secret like so much contraband, concealing it with the stealthy cloak of a placid smile—an expression of the lips that extends not to the eyes but passes well enough for those who observe not too closely. He looked to the other veterans of the returned dead to see if they were likewise clandestinely burdened, but to his disappointment he saw no trace of this terrible new thing, this melancholy, in his old friends. Nay but their eyes, barren now of treelight, were calm, and their voices were soft and smooth as unruffled waters. They disturbed nothing and no one, and showed no signs of being disturbed themselves, and the gentle smiles on their faces were not disguises, but true expressions of their hearts.

Nolofinwë turned his attention to Findecano, and saw that vestigial shadow behind his sky-blue eyes, the sadness of a valiant king defeated, but Findecano was so consumed in doing, in going hither and thither and consorting with his old friends, even the sons of Fëanaro, that there was never any opportunity to speak with him at length. Moreover, Nolofinwë was quite loath to bare his heart to his son. Yea, ‘twas Findecano that had urged him into exile, and Findecano that had stood at his right hand during the full length of his reign in Beleriand, but nonetheless Findecano was his child, as he had always been, and Nolofinwë would not burden his son with the sorrows and fears of the father, nor by example would he lead Findecano back into impiety through the utterance of a sentiment that defied the instruction they had both received; for in sooth this resentment was not the mark of a reformed elf, but was rather a retrograde dissolution back into the old rebellion of the grave. Nolofinwë would not sow discord among his house newly-reconstituted.

Nay, Nolofinwë would liever confide in one of his own peers who suffered as did he. And in all of Tirion there was but one man who would fit the bill.

❖❖❖

Fëanaro was to be found haply in the Tirion university library. Nolofinwë had tried his estate first, had walked up the long white stairs between towering fir trees to a great mansion surrounded by lifelike statues and magnificent hanging gardens, but the gaunt two-handed Maitimo at the door had informed him politely that his father was not home. Neither was Fëanaro in one of the vast main chambers of the library with their high, high painted ceilings and shelves upon shelves upon shelves of scrolls and codices, nor was he in the plush lounges with gilded doorframes and velvet settees relaxing beneath the shadow of richly bound tomes, but after much searching, Nolofinwë finally found Fëanaro tucked away in a far back room small and low-ceilinged. He was bent over a large, plain table completely covered by stacks of open volumes, which were in turn blanketed by loose pages scrawled all over in black by a hand that could not keep up with the rapid speed of the thoughts that directed it.

“Nolofinwë,” Fëanaro said without looking at him, but continued to take furious notes from the open book in front of him.

“Brother.” 

Fëanaro glanced up, but curiously he did not correct Nolofinwë with a reminder that they were only half-brothers.

“To what labors dost thou devote thyself?” Nolofinwë said.

“To catching up. Ten thousand years was I arrested, and ten thousand years of scholarship missed. What is heaped before me is but the minutest fraction of the knowledge that has been acquired, developed and revolutionized in mine absence, and I would familiarize myself with it as speedily as I may. I like not to be behind the times. Dost thou mark this,” he said, scarcely containing a sudden burst of excitement as he held up a book before him, “they have fully reconstructed the Primitive Eldarin tongue. Such a thing I could never accomplish, though I at one time attempted it, being limited by my familiarity only with the tongues spoken in Aman; but with knowledge of Sindarin and the other tongues of Middle-Earth, the loremasters have since recreated the language spoken by our first forefathers. Seest thou the magnitude of the import of this development! It is extraordinary! An accomplishment of the hightest order!”

Fëanaro’s excitement was inspiring but not contagious, and Nolofinwë, despite an attempt at a smile, remained sullen. Such a thing went not unmarked by the elder Finwion.

“But I perceive that thou art come hither not for wisdom nor for lore, but other is thy errand. Speak, Nolofinwë, and declare thy purpose, and keep me not in waiting.”

Nolofinwë found that he could not, as he had designed to do, confess his heart to the man in front of him, and he chided himself for being such a desperate miserable fool as to consider thusly humiliating himself. This living Fëanaro was, after all, a stranger. “My half-brother Fëanaro” was a thought and a memory in Nolofinwë’s mind, and the flesh-and-blood creature before him, though appellate by the same name, was a man forsooth, and a man whose heart was wholly foreign. 

“Dost thou, Curufinwë Fëanaro, find thyself displeased at the…closeness of this land? Thou it was that called the Noldor to return to Cuivienen. Sweet ran the waters, saidest thou, sweeter than those of this land that was built for gods, and not for elves. What sayest thou, now that we are enclosed once more?”

“I like it not, nay, but naught can we do to remedy it. Verily I should like to return to the shore whereon I once stepped in conquest, driven by vengeance though I was, and verily should I like to explore the lands that I only glimpsed for a short time. But alas, it can not be. No ships sail thither, and no ships are there to return, and we must either grieve or be content. And here before me I lack not for things to explore.” He gestured to the books and papers.

“So thou art content, my brother? What then of the Valar? For once saidest thou that they keep us here as thralls. I ween that thou didst pay bitterly for those words in prison, but what sayest thou now that we are again under their watch?”

“It pleaseth me little, and I can not say I trust those that govern this land, who do not toil as do the Quendi and who have erred not seldom in their dealings with the Eruhini, but harbor I not such antipathy against them as I did aforetime. Did I still hold them in such hateful regard I would not be a living man, but yet a prisoner and a ghost, as all too well thou knowest. Nay, but it was not by Mandos nor by Manwë that I was judged fit for reincarnation, but by our father Iluvatar. Mandos and Manwë despaired, for though I was naked to them, my heart was complicated by my griefs, and it was beyond the scope of their ability to discern how best to judge me. And so called they upon Eru who made me. I was not privy to their converse, alas, for I should have liked to hear the voice of the Allfather, but spake He unto Manwë, saying that I had been given many gifts, and ‘twould be a sore tragedy that I should be locked away forever and use them never again for good. Manwë did not say it, but I greatly suspect by the look that was in his eye that Iluvatar had told him also that I had suffered enow for my sins. Thou wouldst know wherefore I fear no longer the yoke of our hosts? I fear not those who have relinquished their right to judge me, and I deem it unlikely that they shall impose upon me their will, nor meddle in my affairs, nor interfere with me as they interfered in all the doings of my first life.”

‘Twas strange, Fëanaro gloated not that he alone of all the dead-who-return had been offered parole by Eru Iluvatar himself—he was nowise humble, no, but he delivered this story only to relate the fact and not to prove his advantage over Nolofinwë. Queer was it likewise that no disdain tinted those latter sentences, as it would have ever done aforetime. For Nolofinwë himself was the product of interference by the Valar, and it was by decree of the Valar that his mother had been permitted to wed his father, and without the dread doom that Fëanaro so resented, Nolofinwë would not exist at all. And so too it had been the interference of the Valar that had exiled Fëanaro from his own city, and caused his greatest fear to be made true. Even in those turbulent days Nolofinwë had thought the Valar’s involvement in their house’s affairs had been an overstep, but he would have never challenged a ruling that rid him for a time of his opponent, and handed him power he had coveted in secret, although he would never have challenged his father as Fëanaro had once accused him of plotting to do with proud words before Finwë’s seat. Nolofinwë had regretted Finwë’s subsequent departure, and he had been jealous that his half-brother should be thusly favored by a father who had never known how to love his children fairly, and yet, now with the clarity of hindsight, would not he too have unkinged himself if he were ever denied the right to judge his own son?

But in speaking of those distant injustices, Fëanaro’s voice was even-tempered, laced with no animosity towards the man who had profited from the aforementioned meddling. It wasn’t right, Nolofinwë thought, it wasn’t natural that Fëanaro should be so courteous, so just in his evaluation of Nolofinwë, so forgiving if forgiveness this was, and Nolofinwë felt once more that he had been bereft of something he could not name.

“Art thou content?” Fëanaro’s voice broke his reverie. “Thou hast asked of my contentment, but I would know if beest thou truly as discontent as thine aspect showeth. Surprised art thou? Thy unhappiness is writ large on thy face, and even with a mask thou couldst not conceal it.”

“It is as thou saist, I be not content, Fëanaro.” Nolofinwë found that his voice rose unbidden, and ere he could tame it, a storm of long-pent emotion burst out of him in an explosion of bitterness, even as boiling water and steam blows the lid off a pot. “How could I be, when I have been returned to the land I willingly left behind, to learn that I must abide here forever? How can I be content when I am a stranger here, not a man but a relic, a remnant of history to be honored but never befriended? How can I be content when I am coddled by this soft and delicate land? I be here as a man, a warrior, a king, swaddled whole and placed in a cradle, having been made to suck at the teat of effeminate luxury. Thou knowest not, for hardly didst thou leave the Blessed Realm ere thou wert slain. Nay, Fëanaro, foughtest thou but one battle and not a whole war, and knowest thou nothing of the hardship I endured. Thy ship-stealing and ship-burning was but an adventure in a life of otherwise ease. The war changed me, Fëanaro, it changed me into something cold and painful and violent; how can I be now content in a land where such things can not even be named?”

“Speak not to me of suffering,” Fëanaro said sternly, his eyes narrowing and his lip curling in anger. Nolofinwë stepped back and closed his mouth, and recalled that Fëanaro in his own time had suffered griefs shared by no other elf of his generation. A stone of guilt sprouted in Nolofinwë’s stomach, and the tendrils of an apology crawled over his tongue, but he said naught. It did not, however, escape his notice that Fëanaro’s rebuttal was not spiteful; yea his voice was razor-sharp with the edge of offense, but his tone bore no portend of a grudge. Nolofinwë found in this his own cause for offense.

“This is not right,” he said quietly now, regaining the composure he had lost in his sudden outburst. “‘Tis not right that thou shouldst speak me justly, with no animosity, and ‘tis not right that I should regard thee without resentment. ‘Twas never like this aforetime and I like it little that we should be thusly altered from our wont.”

“Ever thou didst claim to wish for kindness, and now that it is given thee, thou refusest it; how curious. But be it right or no, it cannot be otherwise. Thou and I were made to excise our hatred an we would live again, for it was the condition of our release. I let go of my loathing not lightly, but let it go I did. But being this the current state of affairs, I think it unlikely that we shall resume our little rivalry, seeing as the conditions for its arising have been terminated. Abideth our father Finwë in Mandos; no longer do we begrudge each other his love and favor. No longer are we High Princes; Arafinwë is king and Findarato the Crown Prince. As must thou verily surmise, I little like Arafinwë’s regime, but in no position to challenge him am I, nor intend I to do so, and ween I that thou beest of the same reasonable persuasion in this matter. But being that so, we neither one have royal privileges for the other to covet. Nor have we any other status to envy, for verily have we started from the bottom, so to speak, and to the status of youths been reduced. Famous are we, yes, but hold we no positions of influence in our respective circles. I purpose to remedy this, naturally, and I shall soon regain my tenure at the University. They wish not for my return, so they say, but they can not deny my value forever, not when invented I the very foundations of all their philology, geography, and mathematics. Hypocrites all of them, for what Elda has not erred? Wherefore should I be excluded from the literati for crimes now-forgiven? But I digress. Our feud shall not return, excepting that we resurrect it by force. Dost thou wish, once more, to fight me?”

Fëanaro leaned forward, resting his chin on folded hands and looked up at Nolofinwë with a glimmer in his eye. He seemed so happy here, Nolofinwë thought with a frown, surrounded by his books and his writing, positively buried in the things he loved. Or if he was not happy, he was happier than Nolofinwë, choking on bitter melancholy as he was. But now he choked on something fresh, something old, something familiar: the knowing that Fëanaro had overtaken him again. How could this be? How could he sit here with a half-smile and a glimmer in his eye when he too had suffered what Nolofinwë had suffered? For the cutting away of his hatred had weakened Nolofinwë, had left him a shadow of his old self, which had been driven always by purpose, by ambition, by hunger. But the man without a stomach does not hunger, and the man without hunger does not seek food, and not seeking he atrophies. How had such a loss not weakened Fëanaro likewise? Was it that his spirit of fire was so great that the removal of the wind that had once fanned it had inflicted it with no injury? Or had Nolofinwë meant less to him than he had meant to Nolofinwë? Had Nolofinwë been allotted less space in Fëanaro’s heart and mind than he, Nolofinwë had given to his brother? A dark sensation like the growth of an algae bloom in stagnant waters spread in his stomach and climbed up his throat, which was suddenly very very dry, and a new-old emotion flooded him fermented-hot and sickly: a discontent he named jealousy.

There had ever been a chasm betwixt them, brothers separated by the sins of their father, brothers begetting ever new sins to keep themselves apart. All efforts to bridge this chasm aforetime had served only to widen it. And yet, Fëanaro offered Nolofinwë now a tether by which he might finally reach him. And yea, Nolofinwë was fain to take this tether, and if he might not pull himself up to Fëanaro’s level, he would perforce drag him down to his own.

“I do wish to fight thee once more.”

“So mote it be. Now, we must determine the nature of our contest. Aforetime ‘twas our wont to hold competitions of sport and of rhetoric, and I propose we do so again—”

“An we do so, I would liever do so privately. I wish not for a crowd.”

“I was not suggesting we invite a crowd. Merely that we conduct a contest of sport. What thinkest thou of boxing? ‘Tis a sport whereof thou wert once a champion.”

“I will meet thee once more in the ring. Name the day and time, and I shall not be tardy.”

“Now, Nolofinwë. We have no cause to delay, except to build our strength and skill. But I should like to adventure how strong our green bodies may prove to be while lacking all practice.”

“So mote it be.”

❖❖❖

The way to the gymnasium was lined with cherry trees blossoming white and pink in the early days of spring. Fëanaro walked a few steps before Nolofinwë, who could not help but notice that Fëanaro’s short tunic, cinched in tight at the waist, revealed beneath its pinstriped ruffles the shapely curve of his buttocks.

The red hose clung tightly to his thighs, embraced lovingly his well-formed cheeks, and alluringly dipped into the crevice betwixt those comely hams. It was lewd, it was indecent, but it was the fashion, and Nolofinwë regretted that he too was clothed likewise. Any elf behind him would see his similarly-revealed bottom, and any elf afore see the bulge of his manhood in its pouch. He missed the old style of hose, which were open in the crotch and left a man’s bits to hang free and easy in the airy space beneath a long tunic; only on horseback and on the field of battle had he ever worn smallclothes, and somewhat loose ones at that. Nay, but these newfangled leggings choked his manhood and no doubt disrupted his humors. 

But if Fëanaro shared these concerns, he showed no sign, but sauntered proudly down the crowded streets, apparently relishing that the perfection of his form was on clear display. Perfection that Nolofinwë did not fail to notice. 

 

Nolofinwë was not unaccustomed to seeing the bodies of other men, but as they undressed in the locker room of the grand edifice of the Tirion gymnasium, his gaze lingered on Fëanaro’s broad shoulders and narrow hips, on the veins that traced handsome meridians over his forearms and criss-crossed his large hands. It had long been said that he was the mightiest of all the Eldar in both mind and body, and ere his fall the Noldor had prided themselves that the pinnacle of elven perfection was born into their nation. His raven hair tumbled down his back in loose waves darker than the dark spaces between the stars, and as he bound it up into a high tail Nolofinwë’s fingers twitched, and he imagined himself touching those gleaming locks even as he tied back his own hair, a duller, browner black.

 

Naked save for the scanty gray cloths that covered their loins, the men circled one another in the ring. It was in an open court, with a floor of dirt and a roof of sky, and bounded by walls of frescoes depicting hunting scenes. An image of Tulkas stood to the side, watching the contest with a bronze smile. 

Fëanaro assumed a fighting stance and flexed his fist; the muscles were in no wise weak, but they had been stronger once. His legs obeyed him as he shifted on his feet, but not perfectly. He felt once again like a youth, unsure of his own strength and lacking the full mastery of his hröa, however Nolofinwë too had become again a youth, and Fëanaro remembered the first boxing match they had ever engaged. Nolofinwë had been young then, not yet come of age, and Fëanaro had been already a man in his prime, so there had been little chance of the boy winning, as one can imagine, but he had believed he had a chance, and was subsequently proven wrong. But this present duel was wholly different than that inaugural match: they were now both the same age, both equally inexperienced and unsteady, both equally lacking practice. Ah, but this would be an interesting challenge, would it not? 

Fëanaro threw the first punch, and Nolofinwë dodged, and nimbly danced around him. He always was irritatingly agile, Fëanaro remembered as he threw another punch that didn’t land. Many times he tried to smite him, and many times Nolofinwë evaded him, and with nary a sweat he stung him with a well-aimed strike in the stomach. Fëanaro staggered back, doubled over, but forced himself to straighten up, and gathering all his strength, smote Nolofinwë in the head so hard that he fell to the ground.

He lay there for a moment before trying to sit up, his eyes unfocused and his temple bleeding, and Fëanaro stood over him, taking no delight in his victory. For what pride is there in defeating a man who has let the fight go out of him? His face had been blank as he had danced around Fëanaro, he had not smiled when he punched him, and now struck to the ground he did not look up at Fëanaro with a violent urge for vengeance. Nay, he looked up at Fëanaro in a haze of pain, but there was no anger, no loathing, no spite. He had not truly tried. He had not fought his hardest. It was insulting that he should not give Fëanaro his best, and it was shameful that a son of Finwë should permit himself to lose so easily. Seeing Nolofinwë sitting there passively enraged Fëanaro, the first time he had been enraged since he had returned, and it enraged him still more that he had been promised an exciting contest that was now proving to be wholly and utterly uninteresting. And it was not as if Fëanaro had not lost his will to fight either, and it was not as if he had fought as fiercely as he would have done in Elder Days, for he too had been made to excise his antipathy, and he too had perforce surrendered his ambition, and recognizing this equal failure and diminishment in himself he directed all his frustration at his kinsman instead.

“Art thou forsooth the man who met in single combat Morgoth our Foe? Art thou he who made him lame? How low hast thou fallen then, if be thou him in sooth; but scarcely can I believe that one as weak-willed as thyself could have attempted such a duel. Look at thee, bent and bowed and bleeding, laid low in a duel thou couldst have easily won. Thou shamest us both, Indision,” Fëanaro spat, using the name he had ever used aforetime to signal that he did not consider Nolofinwë to be a son of their father, hoping to offend him thusly.

Nolofinwë glared at him, but what offended him as much as the insults was the knowledge that Fëanaro did not truly mean them. Nay, Fëanaro accused him of weakness and cowardice, but it meant naught: his anger was not directed towards Nolofinwë and his very existence, but towards the situation: the nonexistence of their former tension.

“Let us go another round,” Nolofinwë gasped as he staggered to his feet. 

“Nay,” said Fëanaro. “I will not be disappointed twice in one day.” He turned back to go to the locker room without another word, leaving Nolofinwë to stand in silence with one hand pressed to his swelling temple. An I am cruel to him, he shall fight me the harder. I cannot show him kindness and expect to be entertained, now can I? Fëanaro thought. Mandos hath broken him, hath taken a wild stallion and gelded him, and beating down his proud spirit made him into a sorry beast. That cruel god took a great man, a great work of Iluvatar, and marred him. Yea, ‘tis blasphemy and rebellion to say thus, but ‘tis sooth, and as Mandos remedied my marring, so shall I remedy Aracano’s. But not by pity may he be availed, nay, but pity shall be the death of him. He saith he is become hard, let me then be hard with him.

❖❖❖

When Fëanaro returned to his mansion, he went straightaway to his historic workshop, which was still in the horrible disarray in which he had left it when he had been exiled from Tirion the first time and in his boiling wrath had departed in utmost haste. He had taken with him the tools he needed for forging, and some of his jeweler’s tools, but heaped here were the manifold paraphernalia for every other craft he had ever attempted, and those were multitudinous.  

On one of the worktables, illuminated by a dusty ray of afternoon sunshine from the high, diamond-paned windows, stood a little copper figure with articulated joints, about six inches in height. A gleaming red stone was embedded in his naked chest, what was still burnished and bright, neither oxidized nor corroded after ten thousand years of neglect.

Fëanaro tapped the red stone and the little man began to walk haltingly to the edge of the table and back again to stand before Fëanaro at attention. He would move whithersoever Fëanaro willed him, but whene’er his thought was turned away, the doll would stand still, being animated only by its master’s will, for Fëanaro had forsooth put something of his will into that little carbuncle heart. For the automaton had no soul of its own to direct it, and no breath of life, unlike animals, which though unensouled, are alive and know the wants of their bodies, and may move as they will. No elf could ever create an animal, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much power and subtle skill he employed, even as the Valar themselves can not create an ensouled person, for Iluvatar alone possesses the Secret Fire that burns in the heart of every fëa. The Powers had made Fëanaro’s present body, as they had made the bodies of all the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, but the soul that wore this body was born of Eru.

But the fleshly bodies of the first elves had likewise been formed by the Allfather, carefully knitted together according to the patterns He had designed for the shaping of His Children, and from mother to child the divine origin of their being had been passed down through the long and many ages. But the body Fëanaro now inhabited was not made by his mother. It was not made by her who had perished, who had been kept from him unjustly, her whose being he had kept within himself, for he had accounted the body that had issued fatefully from her womb to be a manifestation of her art, her first and last gift to him, and the blood that had been in his veins was the same as the creative blood of her womb, living crimson yet within him. But this novel body was not born of Miriel Þerindë, and though he had returned, and Miriel herself had returned long before, she would not depart her cloister to see him, nor was he permitted an audience with her who had forsaken the world entirely.

He could not hate her. He could not hate her for twice choosing death, not he who had rushed into it madly himself, who had contemplated it from the day of Finwë’s murder until his own demise. He could not hate Miriel, for to hate Miriel was to hate himself, but he grieved, wishing to see her face and hear her voice once more, and wishing too that he could be returned to the body she had given him, a body that was scattered as ashes at the bottom of the sea.

It was customary for the returned dead to mourn their old bodies, the bodies that had been small when their souls were small, and had grown with them from babes into men, and Fëanaro, who felt every emotion large and close, found himself choked with the magnitude of his irreparable loss, and for a while he sat unmoving and unseeing in his workshop, stumbling through visions of fire and pain and ashes in the wind, and tumbling into faraway foggy memories of a cold cradle and dim parting words he had been too young to know but old enough to comprehend. But at last he recovered himself, and finding that there were tears in his eyes, he wiped them away, and he studied his hand, moistened with the brine of his griefs, and clenched it into a fist. Though this vessel had been made by those for whom he had small love, it was his own now, untethered to the will of its makers, and was henceforth his to transform as any artist does with material given to him. He would make this body his own.  

❖❖❖

The first step to making this body his own was to build its strength. And this endeavor truly served a two-fold purpose, for he must needs be prepared for his next match against Nolofinwë, who had agreed to another competition, and who had proposed a race around the city walls. Having ever been a long-distance runner and no sprinter, the son of Indis believed himself to have an advantage in this contest. Ah, but that could only be so if he ran! Fëanaro had graciously allotted them both two weeks to prepare; he knew not whether Nolofinwë was practicing, nor did Nolofinwë know of Fëanaro’s doings, for they seldom crossed paths. Nolofinwë ran in the mornings and Fëanaro in the afternoon, but even with only two weeks to prepare, by daily exercise their legs became stronger and their feet swifter, and Fëanaro, at least, was more content. A contentment marred by the lack of urgency. Aforetime Fëanaro had always run his best, but even when he felt assured of his victory there had always been a certain anxiety, an unease at the possibility that Nolofinwë would catch up to him and prove himself the equal he claimed to be, or worse, surpass Fëanaro and usurp him, for Fëanaro feared more than aught else that Nolofinwë should have advantage over him. But it was even as he had admitted to his half-brother in the library: the days of their rivalry were passed and gone. But…peradventure with enough provocation something resembling that old fire might return to them, and they might begin to hunger as they had hungered aforetime…and should Nolofinwë hunger as he had once hungered and oppose him as he had once opposed him, Fëanaro would find him much more tolerable. He could not abide a strong man who lets himself grow soft, and Nolofinwë’s new passivity irked him even more than the slights and scorn shown to him by the University faculty. Yea, Nolofinwë had been broken, but Fëanaro did not believe that he was beyond fixing. How kind, how benevolent, for Fëanaro to wish for the betterment of his usurper! 

❖❖❖

Nolofinwë hardly liked the surprise that awaited him at the city gates when he arrived for their second contest, and his lips hardened to a thin line at the sight of Fëanaro’s seven sons all gathered together to observe the race.

“Thou didst tell me not that thy sons would be present, Fëanaro. I should have liked to bring mine own.”

“Must I tell thee of all my doings, Indision? Must I make thee privy to all my counsels who art, for today, mine enemy? My sons are here to watch me win. Mayhap tis fortunate that thine own brood are not in attendance, for they should surely be sad to see their valiant father lose.” Fëanaro sneered.

Nolofinwë said naught in response but stood in front of the dogwood tree what they had designated as their starting line. Its white flowers were all in bloom, and they shone like palest snow in the morning Sun, who bathed all the Calacirya in her warmth, yea even illuminating the east-facing hollows where the light of the Trees had never touched, and causing the juvenile grass there to gleam. Yea, Spring came sooner in these mild climes than it had done in frore Hithlum, that land of damp fogs by day and silver frost at night, where heavy-fallen snow had lain thick over the land and cloaked the ground in white for the greater part of the winter. But it was not so in Valinor, and March was alive and buzzing with the jubilant birth of green leaves, waxy in their youth, and the gaiety of blossoming flowers, of violets and crocuses, azaleas and daffodils, all nodding merrily in the cool wind that cut like crisp shears through the warmth of the Sun. 

At a cry from Nelyafinwë, the runners started off across the green, feet flying over the upturned faces of bluets and henbit. The ground at the base of Tuna was uneven, undulating like waves of the sea emerald in the morning light. Here and there gray stones blocked their path, and treacherous holes and ferny pits in the earth opened suddenly beneath their feet where bubbling freshets hollowed out the dark soil. 

Like the silver dew that still crowded on the grass, sweat began to bead on the runners’ upper lips. Fëanaro was ever so slightly in the lead, the muscles of his thighs rippling as he bounded over the mossy stones and clustered clover, but the long-distance runner Nolofinwë was close behind. They had a long way to go yet, for Tirion was no hillside village but a great city and Túna a mighty hill, and despite his lead, Fëanaro’s victory was in nowise guaranteed.

Curious spectators peered from the walls and called to their friends to come forth that they might behold this unexpected race, for they all recognized the princes, and some cheered them both on while others looked down silently with cold expressions. They did not all wholly trust Fëanaro, but were loath to cheer against him, for he was yet a man of high estate though his name was besmirched by his own doings. Fëanaro smiled; they would come around to him in good time.

With burning legs and heaving chests the sons of Finwë kept close to the sparkling white walls as the Sun-vessel climbed higher in the heavens, where soft clouds drifted like glistening snow across silken seas of azure. Their breath was coming heavy and the flyaway strands of their hair clung to their brows; but they prided themselves that they pushed themselves beyond the scope of what most of the returned dead attempt so soon, and regardless of who won, they would emerge stronger for this endeavor.

With the golden gates emerging into sight as they rounded the final curve of the unblemished marble on their left, Nolofinwë saw the Fëanarioni awaiting them and waving jubilantly to their father, and he put forth all of his strength and vitality and passed Fëanaro with but a few yards remaining, and so crossed the finish line in the lead with a cry. 

Nolofinwë’s lungs heaved and he bent over, put his hands on his knees and gasped for breath like a caught fish that struggles to fill its empty lungs, drowning in fresh air. But there was no joy in his victory, for he forgot his momentary hope and only bethought how once upon a time he could have ran this distance, even many miles, without breaking a single sweat. And when he looked up at Fëanaro he saw that he was surrounded by his sons, who happily congratulated their father on a well-run race, shaking his hand and clapping him on his bare and sweat-slicked back. With a sideways smirk Fëanaro glanced over at Nolofinwë, standing alone and breathless in the pitiless Sun, as if to say “Thy faithless offspring shewed not their faces in support of their father. What sort of man must thou be, that this should be so?”

That old, precious feeling stirred vermiform in Nolofinwë’s gut, worming and sliming like a treacherous serpent of the swamp, that old feeling that he had lately recognized as jealousy when it blossomed like an ill-sown seed, and he saw that Fëanaro, who had spread the manure to nurture this wicked seed, accounted this match as a victory for himself, though forsooth he had been by all appearances defeated. The chasm betwixt them yawned wider.

“Name our next contest, Fëanaro,” Nolofinwë’s voice rolled as he strode towards his rival. The wall of sons parted to let their father treat with his faux-foe.

“Debate,” Fëanaro said haughtily without pause, for indeed he had pondered this very question for the last two weeks, and would fain subject Nolofinwë to his own field of expertise, for his own advantage. “At the Fraternity where once were we members, like old times when I would take the one position and thou the opposite. An I propose a special meeting for us twain to spar, the current Chairman and executive committee shall in no doubt agree to it, illustrious alumnus as am I. Fools would they be to deny me.”

Nolofinwë clenched his fists. “I await it eagerly.”

❖❖❖

There is little one can do to prepare for a debate when the resolution has not yet been announced, and so the men waited in quiet impatience until the appointed day of their next contest. It was, Nolofinwë recognized, the only thing that gave structure to his life, and the anticipation of their rhetorical duel was a welcome relief in the monotony of it all. More and more he found himself desiring to win, and while sitting idly after supper he imagined his success, entertaining visions of his family and friends congratulating him on a speech well-delivered when he stepped away from the rostrum. 

The Sun was moving slowly towards the West and the facade of the great debate hall glowed with the bright light of afternoon when Nolofinwë and Fëanaro ascended the great stairs and with their children in their train passed through the oaken doors, four fathoms tall. 

The hall was little changed. Rows of desks faced a noble rostrum, behind which was a three-tiered dais. On the lower level sat two desks, one on each side, and these were manned by the Fraternity Clerk, who took the meeting minutes, and the Sentinel, who called the roll. In the center on the highest level sat the Chairman, who presided over the body. The current Chairman was an old friend of Nolofinwë’s, Astaron, and he greeted his friend and former liege-lord with a smile and a warm handshake. 

Throughout the calling of the roll and the reading of the minutes the fraternity members eyed the princes curiously; seldom did they have so much excitement as this. During the years of the Trees, Fëanaro and Nolofinwë had had many debates here, always culminating in increased bitterness and resentment on both their parts, and the men of the Fraternity did not wish for a return to those days, for the division between the princes had created divisions throughout the whole society, and the members had felt pressured to support the one prince or the other, and thus they had all of them been ensnared in that dread rivalry. 

Astaron called the Critic, Ecthelion, to the stand to introduce the debate. He produced a hat in which were many folded slips of paper, what were inscribed with the most controversial resolutions the good Critic could contrive. He fished around in the hat and drawing forth the fated slip, read it aloud gravely: “The founding of Gondolin was for the best.”

Everyone in the room tensed, for the matter touched no few of them nearly, and many were there who had been denizens of Gondolin, and otherwise many Noldor of Hithlum.

Nolofinwë was grim of face as Ecthelion explained that they would determine the speaking positions by coin toss, but a preliminary coin toss would determine who would toss the coin. Nolofinwë called tails and Fëanaro called heads, but it was Fëanaro who won that round. It came to him to toss the coin: whosoever should roll heads would speak in the affirmative, and whosoever rolled tails would speak in the negative. Fëanaro, to his smug satisfaction, got tails.

A few minutes were allotted to them to speedily devise arguments, and Nolofinwë was shortly called to the rostrum, because the affirmative position always goes first.

It was a rotten lot, for though Nolofinwë was speaking in favor of his son’s deeds, he must also speak in favor of the one who had taken away a third of his host. He folded his hands on the rostrum and looked out at the crowd, wellnigh five score men who had gathered together to witness this historic debate. He met their eyes as he had always done when he spoke before a crowd; how well he had once garnered support! He had been wont to meet each man’s gaze, and with a glance make him feel that he understood intimately all his interests, investments, and his qualms, and thereby persuade him before he even opened his mouth. But that magic was gone now, and he felt something like a circus performer, and he knew this debate to be a spectacle. A spectacle he had brought upon himself. But it was by this spectacle that he might prove himself the better man than Fëanaro, if that even meant anything, oh if that even meant anything at all. He needed something to be proud of, and he could at least be proud of himself for effectively arguing for a position he rather disliked, as Findecano and Aracano would see, who had missed the prior contest.

“Friends, kinsmen, distinguished gentlemen, honored am I to come before you once again, and I thank you for this opportunity to speak afore you in this new Age.” Nolofinwë began. “As well know ye, this matter toucheth me near, for Turucano is mine own son, and say I before you that his founding of his city was for the best.

“Turucano received a dream from Ulmo, I am told” which he shared not with me “and this dream counselled him to build a hidden city, for to protect the Noldor against the onslaught to come. And thusly he did, and built the very image of ancient Tirion in Middle-Earth, and accomplished a return to the glory and bliss of old.” and that city I never saw, nor knew existed nor received word thence until my dear Aredhel’s death “Twain are the reasons that this city’s founding was for the best: for the prosperity and safety that was accomplished there, and for the birth of Eärendil, who brought salvation to the world.” Eärendil my descendent whom I see in the heavens, with whom I have not yet spoken, for he is kept from us.

“In Gondolin a great multitude of people were kept safe from the wars without, and they prospered and begat them children, and fair they made the land of Tumladen. And were the Quendi not placed upon Arda to increase its beauty? And there was beauty in Gondolin” beauty my grieving Turukano spake of to me in the Halls “and there was great happiness and bliss for a time” a bliss Aredhel did not share, and she told me of how she sickened “and say I unto you that better it is for bliss to exist for a time than not at all. For the lands without were cruel, and the living hard for the peoples what were ever in peril, but safe was Gondolin, and glad am I, and good it is that Turukano accomplished that safety for his people. And such was Ulmo’s purpose in revealing his designs: that some of the Noldor might thrive, and not perish or be enslaved.” As were the people of Hithlum, my people, slaughtered or shackled all of them. 

“The second reason for the goodness of Gondolin was the birth of Eärendil. For born was he in Gondolin, and from Gondolin came to Sirion, and there met Elwing. Were it not for Gondolin’s construction, and yea, were it not for Gondolin’s fall—and by the grace of Iluvatar there will ever be hope and goodness that arise out of evil—he would not have come into the world. And were Eärendil not born, the peoples of Beleriand would be left to their doom, and in time be defeated, and be made thralls to the Shadow. But by his courage and Elwing’s was salvation brought to Middle-Earth.” Salvation withheld from Elves and Men for five centuries. Salvation Turgon’s sailors had sought and for their seeking were slain, yea even those who were not of the Exiles. 

Everything he had said was “correct,” verily the arguments that accorded most with the designs of the Valar, and the narrative favored by those of upstanding moral persuasions. But those gathered there who had been his people once upon a time winced, and Nolofinwë could only hope that they knew he shared their sentiments in truth, though not in seeming.

Fëanaro was next, and he smirked, self-satisfied and pompous as he approached the rostrum and gripped one hand on each side with alacrity. 

“Gentlemen of the Fraternity, noble scholars of rhetoric, old friends and old adversaries, I greet you all, and I thank you for this chance to argue before you once more. An honor and a pleasure it is, which value I not lightly, and I feel that I have come home, in a sense.” A few men glared at him, offended it seemed, at his entitled presumption. 

“Ye have heard the claims of my colleague and kinsman, who saith that Gondolin was for the best. Bah! Myopic and narrow-minded were all his claims, a pity truly that such drivel should spill from one whose greatness even I myself cannot deny.

“But let us frame this debate first. What importeth best? It importeth that a thing produceth better consequences than any alternative courses. And that is all well and good, but for whom is a thing best? For what is best for one man may not touch another.

“Saith Nolofinwë that the founding of Gondolin was best for the Gondolindrim. I do not deny it. But what of the exiles without? What of the people of Hithlum? A third of their kinpeople vanished in the night, with no tale of whither they had gone. This went ill, I ween, with High King Fingolfin, who suffered a severe defeat in the Dagor Bragollach. How much relief might his son have brought to him if he had remained in Nevrast? Enow that their ruin might not be beyond redress, I deem. Would then proud Fingolfin have perished in that reckless duel if he had not been utterly routed as he was? Were it not for the removal of his son, he might have seen fit to prolong his life; and wise and beloved King that he was, his people would have said it was for the best.”

There were shocked murmurs among the crowd, and Fëanaro smirked, silently congratulating himself on being so very gracious in valuing the life and well-being of his usurper. He continued and raised his voice slightly over the din.

“Spake Nolofinwë of Eärendil. I see not why the removal to Gondolin was necessary for his birth. Did Itarillë dwell in Nevrast and Tuor son of Huor in Dor-Lomin, they may have yet met. The absence of Gondolin negateth not the inevitability of his birth. 

“In conclusion, negate I this resolution, for while the building of Gondolin may have been best for the people thereof, it was not ‘the best’ for others, nor was it necessary for the fate of the world, and therefore this vaguely-worded and shamelessly-biased resolution is unmistakably false.”

His sons snapped in support as Fëanaro returned to his seat, but the two sons of Nolofinwë glared at him, and Findecano gripped his fountain pen with white knuckles. Nolofinwë would not meet their eyes.

Rebuttal speeches followed, which shall not be given in full, but it shall suffice to say that Fëanaro argued well and Nolofinwë, well, he did his best. Fëanaro was clever and cruel and spoke with authority and conviction, and though Nolofinwë was well- and reasonably-spoken, Fëanaro had shredded the logic of each of his arguments. In his rebuttal speech Fëanaro said something that touched Nolofinwë near, and stoked his heart, which was already bruised by the remembrance of his son’s betrayal and Fëanaro’s unspoken implication that unlike Nolofinwë, his own sons were faithful, and for the following statement Nolofinwë’s heart was stoked to anger:

“But not all of those in Gondolin were happy, and some there sickened as birds in silver cages. How can it even be said that it was best for the Gondolindrim? How when the city itself was a prison from which there could be no reprieve? A city in which death was the reward for those who sickened of it.”

It was plain he spoke of Irissë. What audacity, what wicked, supercilious pride! What brashness to speak of something such as this. Nolofinwë had learned of Irissë’s plight when she perished, and she had come to him in the darkness of Mandos, and thrown herself into his arms and wept, and when she was done with her weeping she raged, how Irissë raged! She cursed Eöl, she cursed Turgon, she cursed the white city, she cursed her own folly. But Nolofinwë believed that he deserved to be cursed likewise, for had he not given her leave to follow Turgon? She, Aredhel, had ever been torn between an unwomanly desire for liberty and a need for security, and sacrificing the former she had turned to Turgon to receive the latter, and it was by her return to the pursuit of the former that she had met her doom. Fingolfin had always thought it meet to grant her her liberties, as Lalwen had been granted hers, and when he later learned of Turgon’s heartless laws and bans he was disconcerted; yea he understood the necessity of the law, but Fingolfin knew all too well that what was strategic was not always right. But Aredhel had wanted safety, and she would not get it at Barad Eithel, castle on the frontline of a war, nor even in the towns of Mithrim, so close to Angband. And yet, if Fingolfin had doted on her, if he had kept her close, would she have stayed with him? If he had shown her the love and affection she deserved but had never gotten, would she have abided with him? He could not say. And so Nolofinwë cursed his own failure, and ruminated on a mistake he could never undo. 

Irissë, desiring woman, desired life, and death suited her ill, and it was a mercy that Mandos kept her not overlong, and a mercy that she was not here to witness Fëanaro’s nondecorum!

Those who attended the debate were divided in heart, for though many of them had been Nolofinwë’s men and held still a fondness for him, not all liked what he had said, and they could not deny that Fëanaro, though he trespassed against the official narrative, had been the better orator with his razor tongue and bright bravado. Few of them spoke to Nolofinwë afterwards, for which he was grateful, and he sped from the hall to wander the streets in a dark storm of tempestuous thought.

Fëanaro and his sons went out drinking afterwards; they were all of them more wretched by far than Nolofinwë — empty, regretful shells distrusted and isolated by their fellow Noldor, but their father had lately brought them their first joys amid the melancholy of Paradise, and he now gave them new cause to make merry, and they imposed themselves upon a tavern for the evening.

❖❖❖

When they returned by the long winding way, lined with close-planted cedars, to Fëanaro’s stately house, and the clouded western sky bled sanguineous as if the dying flames of brilliant Arien were so much blood soaking though a heavenly bandage, and the white facade of the house was as red as it had once been in the torchlight, the company of erstwhile kinslayers saw Nolofinwë standing proud and grim at the top of the stairs with an ivory-handled knife girt at his hip. His white garments glowed like flame but his gray eyes were like freezing shards of ice, nay, like glass that splits the skin wide open from the faintest touch. Having abandoned his gaiety, Fëanaro, ascending deliberately slowly, met his terrible gaze with his own, unblinking, undaunted, unwavering, a gaze of such frightening fell intensity that it would make any other man shrivel and cower before him, and without looking at them he bade his drunken sons to enter the house without him, for Nolofinwë’s business was with him and him alone, and he would have no spectators for whatever was to befall.

“For what cause art thou come hither, temerous son of Indis?” Like acrid smoke over the land his voice rolled haughty with a tone so bitter it could choke.

“Thou knowest well, Fëanaro, I am come to avenge mine humiliation.” Nolofinwë’s demeanor was as stone, as proud and perilous as Oiolossë behind them, where the fleeing fingers of sinking Anar clomb higher and higher before the purple shadows arising velvetine from the valleys below.

“Humiliation? I wot not of what thou speakest. All that I said, I said for the sake of rhetoric.”

“Thou liest!” Nolofinwë spat and took a step forward and put his palm on the damascened pommel of the knife. “Thy serpent’s tongue cannot deceive me, for I know that this debate was devised against me. ‘Twould be no surprise did I learn that the coin itself was weighted in my disfavor.”

“Stay thy tongue, Indision. I am no cheat—”

“If not a cheat then a braggart and cruel, and before the assembly puttest thou me to shame in making me to speak against myself. Thy words concerning my children were verily as a blow below the belt, heartless and needless withal to stir up old sorrows, and yea, verily though didst not say her name, spakest thou of Irissë. And in the course of that debate was I dishonored as a father in the eyes of the people.”

“Put no words in my mouth, Aracano,” Fëanaro snarled. “Naught said I of thy worth as a father, but by thine own accord thinkest thou such conceits of thyself. But thinkest thou aright, for thy son Turucano was faithless.”

Ah, but Fëanaro spoke soothly did he not? How this enraged Nolofinwë! How it enraged him to hear from another the truth he had long nurtured in his secret heart. There had always been enmity between Turucano and Fëanaro, rival of his father, Fëanaro whose meritocratic, if self-serving, ideals for government were wholly at odds with Turucano’s autocracy, and some of that old unlove stained Fëanaro’s words like the trace of blood on a shirt from a reopened cut. Nolofinwë was silent for a moment as he calculated what best to do with this new tide of resentment, but it was a moment too long.

“If my words grieve thee so, I welcome thee to challenge me again to another contest,” Fëanaro said.

“And so I do!” Nolofinwë bellowed suddenly and viciously, and with a violent flourish drew the curved knife from its sheath, and leaping forward pressed the point to Fëanaro’s velvet-garbed breast. It shone like a glede in the last light of the sunset. “I challenge thee to a duel, Curufinwë. This blade is sharper than thy tongue, and its bite shall be a just reward for thee! Perchance it will teach thee to speak less freely. I will not suffer thy mistreatment, but I shall have the victory in the end.”

But Fëanaro did not balk nor did he show any sign of fear, but instead he laughed with arms wide open. “Hail! Well met Finwë Nolofinwë! Pleased am I that thou art returned to us from the dead after so long thine absence. But what wonder is this, that thou, goody godly Aracano of Manwë’s favorite stock, art the law-breaker, the rebel, who wert ever so pious? Was not that mine ancient part to play? How endearing to know that thou makest thyself a criminal for my sake.” His arrogant smile was sickening, and Nolofinwë dug the tip of the blade deeper into his plush, snow-white houppelande, piercing the sumptuous cloth but not quite the vermillion doublet beneath. Fëanaro did not flinch.

“A criminal am I already, who am discontented,” he snarled. “I have rebelled against the Valar in being ill-pleased with their rule, ill-suited to their land, and resentful of their gifts. What more is it, to duel thee for mine honor? What more, a transgression born of pride? I am, as thou saist, returned to myself. Now come, go fetch a knife! I loathe to wait for the fulfillment of justice.”

“But it is against our brother’s law to duel, and against the Valar’s likewise. I have no reverence for such nuisances, but natheless shall we be exiled should we continue. Fortunate art thou that no others are here, else thou wouldst be already ferried to the court for judgement. I have been exiled before, and I will not suffer that shame again, upon my life. We must remove elsewhere for this duel.”

“Beyond the city walls, then. Let us go.” Nolofinwë withdrew the knife an inch and moved towards the stairs.

“Nay, not now, not with knives. If we are to duel, I would it be a proper duel between valiant warriors of our station, for we were kings once, and though our bodies are new and young, I will not fight like a sapling squire who cannot handle a knight’s weapon. We must have swords, and good ones withal. But lost beneath the sundering seas, our brands are drowned and gone from us forever, and Narsil and Ringil must be forged anew as images of their former glory, but those I cannot forge here in the city of cowards, but I must travel to Formenos, and there make the blades we require. And there in my northern house where perished our father will I give thee the fight of thy desire. Wilt thou, then, follow me, as once sworest thou to do?”      

Nolofinwë looked to the North, to the tall blue peaks snowcapped against a purple sky, and his eyes followed the line of the mountains to the place where Formenos lay, far out of the sight even of elven eyes, far where none in the city of his infancy would know his doings, far where he could find mayhap some action-doll semblance of valor, better than playing house as he did. 

“Aye. Thou shalt lead, I said, and so thou shalt, and to Formenos I shall follow thee. When pray tell do we depart?”

“A week hence,” Fëanaro answered without pause, for his mind ever moved at a rapid pace, and in matters such as this he needed little time to process such determinations, but arrived at conclusions with haste. And the timeframe he offered was itself hasty indeed, but Nolofinwë did not object. He nodded at Fëanaro, the closest thing he would give him to a bow, and they shook hands. ‘Twas a firm handshake, tight enough almost to crack the bones, and with it they sealed their pact, a vow betwixt brothers, whom even the grief of death had not divided, for here they were returned to the same form, hand in hand, eyes looking into quicksilver eyes, a blade against the other’s breast only recently put away. 

“I will meet thee at the gates at dawn,” Nolofinwë said, and descended the stairs into the twilight beneath the cedars.    

❖❖❖

Nolofinwë slept little that night, but he tossed in the bed, which seemed to have become a stony pit where there could be no reprieve, and the quilts had become like black blood to smother him. Well before the dawn he awoke with his nightshirt transparent with sweat, and disquieted he quit his chamber to stand on the balcony, which looked East. It had been built suchly so that once upon a time he could see the stars, and so he did now, as many as there had been in Beleriand, scattered over the firmament in a million points of light, each one a distinct flame kindled by Varda Elentari. 

The stars dimmed, and one by one retreated into the brightening blue as Arien wended upwards towards the horizon. A crisp breeze come up from the sea stirred his sleep-scented hair and slipped into his damp shirt, and fain he welcomed the chill. But it was not merely his flesh that chilled, but alack, against his will his spirit chilled, and like the stars above, its flame faded, for his wrath, so potent, so intoxicating the evening before, was slipping away. Yea, it slipped through his grasping groping hands, that clutching in vain could not fasten something as quick as oil. Once he had been a veritable vessel of febrile wrath, a wrath so great and white-hot that it had spilt shining from his eyes like the flaming tears of a god. Long had his wrath built in his former life, centuries of accumulation, centuries of laying it in silent store, but it had overflowed, loosing itself with the fell force of a centurial storm, when at last it could be contained no longer, and forthwith it drove him to madness. But he who had been an oil-lamp had become like a sieve, and his ire dripped out of him and seeped into the gutters, and the flame of his spirit unfueled was dim in his gray, glassy eyes. The sun rose. The stars were gone. And Nolofinwë was empty.

It helped naught to work out. He went to the gymnasium and boxed with a man who had decided from the beginning to let the former king win, letting his own blows miss and leaving himself open to be struck, and Nolofinwë was reminded that only Fëanaro would do battle with him as a true opponent. But he could not be angry with the boxer this morning, but he felt alone, not a man but a legend, who must be worshipped but never understood, and indeed the young elf worshipped him, and by this round touched and was touched by his hero. He had been born in Aman in the last age. He did not know of suicide.

Afterwards, in the healing humidity of the public bath, Nolofinwë bethought him of Fëanaro, bringing to mind all that he had said the day before, and ere that his haughty challenges, and he found, to his despair, that he could not learn to truly hate Fëanaro again. No matter how his half-brother might mistreat him, Nolofinwë’s heart had been castrated, and no grudge could grow there again, but impotently he essayed to draw forth the dessicated semen of enmity. Nay, his heart had become clear like the water in which he soaked, and just as his wrath had arisen, so it had passed with ease the very next day, and its diminishing wave left an unnatural calm in its place. If only he could keep the water choppy, if only he could stir it to a whirlpool, if only, if only, if only. He regretted the drawing of the blade in this quiet aftermath; hasty had it been, a lapse in self-control, an error in judgement, and he thought worse of himself for it. The right thing would have been to keep the anger pent. The right thing would have been to treat with Fëanaro, not threaten him. And Fëanaro, well, he had meant none of it, had he? He had been cruel, yes, but he was an actor playing a villain, and no longer a villain himself. He too, was made a gelding, though he hid it well. What could they do? Would their forecasted duel mean anything in the absence of ambition and animosity? But what else could they do otherwise? He would continue to dance the dance they had always danced, and he had, in truth, once been a dancer, and a dancer must move his feet even when it delights him no longer; he must carry on the show, even when he has no audience, and all the more when he has an audience of one.  

Nolofinwë stayed out until well after the sun had set, having spent the day at the gym, and at the baths, later at the market bumping shoulders with shouting vendors and gaily-arrayed women, at the circus to watch his favored horse lose the race, and finally after his thought-fogged vagaries he found himself on the steps of his house in the dark, looking out at the city that slouched reluctantly towards slumber. In the gloamingtide the white spires were made into hoary cenotaphs, and the eyes of the windows one by one blinked out, and were left like so many hollow sockets, blind to the persistence of death, blind to all but their solipsistic dreams. Ghosts of his past walked among the towering arches and spindle steeples and glass domes of the immortal necropolis, and haunted the dead man with memories of a perished childhood, and the spectres swirled around him who was unrestful, having himself risen from his grave to stalk the cruelly-glittering streets in tearless mourning. It seemed to him now that this city was his tomb, and Finwë-Nolofinwë Aracano was the corpse-turned-wight, for he was as bones that have no place in the air and no home in the mould, decomposing as he breathed. He looked to the frore North, followed the line of the rampart-mountains, snow peaks lapis-blue in the starlight, and far-off in the decaying mansion at their feet he prayed he could be resurrected this time into something whole. 

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Chapter End Notes

 I am stealing the headcanon that Fëanor’s sword is named Narsil from LeetheVix