Strangers in a Strange Land by starshadeemily  

---

True Brothers in Heart

The discussion the guys have while they are frotting draws heavily from Shibboleth of Feanor, and a knowledge of that text will be useful for the reader.

---

The mirthful birds hailed the dawn, which passed in glory through the gates of day, and Fëanaro, passing through the gates of Tirion hailed his kinsman who rode astride a white steed. Fëanaro’s own piebald fell into step with its pale cousin, and with nary a word they went down the stone-paved road, clip-clopping as the distant mountaintops were stained red and then gold, and the aurulent rays flooded the vales and hollows, turning every leaf and blade into a paper lantern of green light. 

Riding afforded Fëanaro time to think, and his musings turned to his previous meeting with Nerdanel at her father’s house. It had gone exactly as well as he had hoped, but that meant not that it was a happy conversation. Mahtan and Nerdanel were perfectly cordial and he exchanged with them perfectly polite pleasantries, and after a time Nerdanel beckoned him into another room for the private conversation that they all knew was truly Fëanaro’s main errand in this visit.

“I have lived as a widow for one hundred centuries, and I have been content. We had happy days once, but the Fëanaro who raped the ships was not the man I married, and neither is the man who went into exile the man who standest before me. We cannot return to the life we once had. We cannot play at childhood. But I wot well the Valar’s preferences for spouses parted by death. What saist thou, Fëanaro?”

“I say that I too shall not be returned to childhood, and I came hither not to coerce thee into an arrangement we neither one desire. Thou shalt keep the life thou hast, and I shall have a life of mine own.”

And in sooth Fëanaro did not wish for her to be returned to him, she whom he had once named unfaithful; and so she had been in his eyes, for a faithful wife follows her husband wheresoever he may go. She does not defy him, nor endeavor to keep his children from him, as Nerdanel had done. It was good then, that finally, after so much strife, their purposes aligned.

Despite his sentiments, Fëanaro felt he ought to grieve the ending of their marriage, as he had grieved it once before, for yea, his anger at Nerdanel aforetime had been in some part a manifestation of his grief at her betrayal. But Fëanaro did not grieve, and he found this strange.

Bees buzzed in the cow pastures they passed, and the sides of the road were banked with clover, white flowers nodding in the breeze that whispered over meads dotted with the glossy eyes of buttercups. The grasses waved, juvenile but quickly growing, already sprouting seed heads, and curly dock grew in the fields, green seeds all a-clustered. The trees near the road waved gayly their new leaves, thin tissues whose backs glistened white with the ambrosial dews of morning light. Rising higher the Sun became almost-hot, and their shadows shortened as the road veered west and the cattle fields gave way to uncultivated land. 

They were still in the Calacirya when it came time to make camp. They had brought a heavy mule with them to carry much of their supplies, and having found a grassy spot to rest, they unloaded the beast and set him off to graze with the horses. The weather was mild and the sky clear, so they did not pitch a tent nor light a fire, and mayhap camp is an overstatement to describe two blankets stretched out on the grass. But such was the situation, and in the same silence they had maintained all day, they sat down side by side to eat bread and watch the sunset, having had received lembas from the holy woman who had been appointed as the city’s bread-giver—Earwen had never desired to assume the position—and they unwrapped the golden mallorn leaves carefully, each man to eat half a saffron-colored cake. They had to restrain themselves not to eat more, such was the quality of the waybread.

More golden than the bread was the light of the setting sun, and it glowed upon the grasses and upon the walnut trees, pale yellow deepening into the color of flame as Arien fell into the vats of the West. Blue shadows stole across the land, the trees stood still and silent in the quiet air, but crickets sang in the meadows, and for a time the land was tenderly illuminated by the sun’s afterglow lingering in the blue sky above. It was alive, all of it alive, electric with life, green, green, green, and Fëanaro dug his fingers into the earth and felt the life of it well into his body; he breathed in and out in time with the grasses, in tune with the crickets, all one, all one, all one universal heartbeat. But no, it was not all one, for lo, in the west hung a star, a brilliant star of distant-splintered light, and he, he was that star, but that star was not him. The light of my spirit embodied, the subtlest and greatest work of my hands, what was once hidden seen by all, recovered what was stolen, but recovered not to me. How is it that I should return, and my own be not returned to my keeping? Ah but the Valar believe the Silmarilli to be mine no more! They believe that I forfeited my right to mine own creation in the swearing of mine Oath. Ha! I am loath to believe the jewels would have burnt me as they burnt my sons, for they are mine own spirit, and being mine own spirit are mine own flesh. But a man can in sooth injure himself by his own doings, and there may be truth to their supposition. Well, I can not know what did not come to pass. But lo, I am alive and I have served my sentence, and my Oath holdeth me no longer. Let me handle it once more! Thou shalt return to the life thou hadst aforetime, spake Manwë. Then fulfill your promise, O King of Kings! For my life aforetime was a life in possession of my jewels, closer to me in spirit than even my wife whom you wished for me to wed. But ever you favor those with golden heads, and ever wish for them to receive blessings and glory. The Valar sometimes change their judgments when it pleaseth them, but they will not change in this. But…did they return my Silmaril, would my keeping of mine own creation make it all the more heart-rending to break in the end?

“He is my great-grandson.” Nolofinwë said without looking at Fëanaro, and not without some amount of pride, shot through natheless with uncertainty at how Fëanaro felt about the star, and plainly curious to learn the truth of his rival-brother’s heart. 

“He did a great thing, and he is a beacon of hope,” Fëanaro said after a pause. “Thou hast cause for to be proud.”

“He hath thy Silmaril.”

“Entrusted to his keeping by the Valar, in line with their purposes. No grudge hold I against him, who is no thief and moreover would come down to earth an he could, methinks. But Mandos lied not when he said that Manwë is King over all.” 

“‘Tis as thou sayest and Eärendil’s blessing is his prison. And I too know well the imposition of Manwë’s will. I had rather Thorondor had taken my corse to Lalwen. But my body was made a symbol of his favor for Turgon.”

To Lalwen. Not to Findecano, nay, but to Lalwen, Fëanaro marked. 

“Pleased to wield their power over the Quendi are the Valar, they who let Morgoth loose amongst us.”

“Aye, so they are, and so they did, and thus by that error was Finwë our father slain. But not all their ways are ill, for it was by Manwë’s will and blessing that Maedhros was delivered from his torment, and elsewise he would have perished, and the Noldor given themselves to civil war. But we were guests here once, freely come and free to leave, whatever threats might be contrariwise made. And we are guests no longer.” Nolofinwë said. 

“Speakest thou sooth, I deny it not, and methinks it had been better if the Valar had adhered to the designs of Eru, and left us in the lands made for our habitation. For we were not made for the gardens of the gods, and methinks the Valar erred.”

“But had our father remained in Middle-Earth, all our people would be as wraiths in these latter days. Sorrowful is the fate of the Quendi, and know I now wherefore Death is said to be the Gift of Men.”

“It would not have come to that, nay for we would have found a solution for our survival. I would have found a remedy for our plight, and I would have been joined by all those valiant who will not lie down without hope and accept such a fate. For Eru meant for us to make the world beautiful, and to embellish the Song, and think I not that He meant for us to accept Fading, but that it was to be our Test. Tyelperinquar believed this, and endeavored he to achieve that dream, but exploited was he by evil. Were there no agents of Evil loosed among us, we would succeed.” 

Nolofinwë nodded but spoke no more, and left Fëanaro to his thoughts.

“Guests free to leave,” he said, then and now. Not so had he spoken in the torchlight of the square—ah, but how could he have suffered himself to say aught that agreed with me? He who but a short time later claimed the kingship over all the Noldor. Guests free to leave, he said, and so did I.

Fëanaro looked at Nolofinwë more closely. He was not unlovely, nay but he was fair, his sharp features softened by the blue gloam. His face lacked the uncanny perfect symmetry of Fëanaro’s flawless own, and there was a mole on his neck and another on his hand, but such did not mar his beauty, who was his comely father’s son in face and form. Fëanaro watched as Nolofinwë ran his hands sleepily through his loose curls, dark as the shadows in the pond in the field below the hillside where they lay. His eyes, dull without Treelight, reflected the last vestigial glimmer of the sun. A crumb of lembas stuck to his lip, and Fëanaro thought to flick it away, but he stayed his hand, and said nothing, but lay back to look up at the stars resolutely, and did not look over at Nolofinwë again until morning.    

❖❖❖

‘Twas several days more ere they reached Formenos, that great mansion tucked in the blue foothills of the Pelori, standing tall betwixt the long arms of the mountains. The road thither branched off from the main highway, but after a dozen miles or so the cobblestones became covered with moss and leaves, and eventually disappeared altogether. The forest had grown over the road, and in places there were trees and bushes blocking their path; they only knew that they were still on the road because its former course made a depression in the land, and the ghosts of ditches bordered the high banks, but an untrained eye would not suspect that this had once been anything other than woods. On each side of the old road the pine woods were thick, too many grown too close too swiftly, and the shadows neath their crowded needles were cool, insulated from the lengthening days. But the forest, despite all appearances, was not unfriendly, and birds sang in the boughs, and squirrels chattered in their nests. But in time the land opened, and the tall pines gave way to cedars, which gave way to meadows where grazed wild cattle and sheep, whose forefathers had been Fëanaro’s stock. The men rode down a long straight lane between two rows of vast willow-oak trees and lo, the house came into view, and they saw that it had been claimed by the living earth, and vines covered its face, leaving not even the windows clear. A cenotaph, a place of death, become a foundation for life, though no doubt its hollow entrails yet remained barren.

The men dismounted, and led the horses across the lawn to approach the manor. A dread weight deepened in their stomachs as they approached the threshold, taking their time as they crossed the paved walkway and up the three long, shallow steps where grass had shot up betwixt the cracks, but the space before the door was clear. Clear, entirely clear, no moss nor grass, no dusty filth nor mildew stain, no blood remaining in the crevices of the stone. Fëanaro had scrubbed it well enough then; had his efforts truly lasted until now, that nothing here should grow nor gather? 

Once only had Nolofinwë travelled hither, and that for their father’s funeral procession, and it had been all he could do not to weep before the others gathered there. It always haunted him that he had not been able to tell his father goodbye, and even more so that he had been wroth with him up until he was murdered. But how can one be wroth with the dead? All that was left was to be wroth with himself. 

Nolofinwë had seen Finwë briefly in the Halls; “I am sorry, Father,” he had said, and though he specified not the trespasses concerned, Finwë knew: the coming before him in pride to execrate his brother, the animosity with which he regarded his father unkinged. And Finwë in answer begged him, “Forgive me, my son,” and though he specified not his trespasses, Nolofinwë knew, oh how well he knew all the manifold ways in which his father had failed him. But Nolofinwë could not judge him, for he was his father’s son, and he esteemed himself hardly any better, and now with the understanding of death he knew why his father had done all that he had done.

He looked at the bare stone and said naught.

Nor did Fëanaro, to whom the memory returned of rushing madly hither. He had ridden his horse hard from the Ring of Doom until her flanks foamed with sweat and she stumbled, worn-out, and thence had Fëanaro raced on foot, and with the vital strength of the Eldar in those days he reached Formenos without having stopped so much as to sleep or eat. He had wished for death, who was made now the first orphan in Aman, that he might join his father and mother, but his spirit did not leave his body, and he found that his sons had taken his sword from him.

But now, but now he felt not the unbearable weight of grief that had consumed him and turned his every drop of blood to a black mortuary flame, scorching and devouring his very sanity, and where it should have been raging he felt a kind of alien emptiness. Seeping up his body like groundwater through the soil, the memories returned to him, of how he had screamed as he held his father’s corpse, how he had wailed, how he had torn his hair, but though the waters filled him they did not drag him down, did not weigh heavy on him, but other than the anxious knot in his stomach he felt no different than he had before they came down the lane. It wasn’t right, but what about it wasn’t right he could not yet say.

But the men stepped around the place of death, and opened the great double doors that hung loosely on warped, rusty hinges, and these creaked, the long agonized groan of the dead forced to stir. 

The vast foyer was dark, what had once been the brightest room in the house. Raising a lantern aloft, Fëanaro saw above them a dangling chain covered in cobwebs. A large prism had hung there once, what had long ago been swallowed into the belly of Unlight, and light from the rosette window had streamed through in snowy beams to be captured and splintered by the prism, and given forth in a thousand rainbows thence reflected in the mirror mosaics on the walls. The light had bounced from mirror-tile to mirror-tile all around, and the whole room had swelled with a bright radiance of many hues. But the window was overgrown, and the crystal devoured, and the blue lantern-light revealed shards of broken tiles swept into the corners of the room. For Morgoth had smashed the walls and damaged them sorely, and in many places the plaster beneath was visible. With a father to bury and a host to muster, Fëanaro had not spared any of his limited time to repairing the house he intended to desert forever.

But forever is not eternal, and as soon as they were settled in, Fëanaro would fix things as best he could.

On the opposite side of the room, between two sweeping flights of stairs was a large arched doorway, and the men passed through it to the deeper parts of the house, to find that every surface was carpeted with a thick layer of dust, and verily their footprints left a trail behind them as if they walked in snow. Cobwebs clustered compounded and pale in every umbrous corner, and black widow spiders hung from every lightless candleholder, and rats scurried at the elves’ approach to slip into cracks in the walls. All the crystal chandeliers had been taken, and barren chains dangled from the ceilings. Through this desolate dilapidation Fëanaro walked slowly, studying the extent of the disrepair with an eagle’s eye, cataloging every damage for to repair it later.

They came at last to the lower parts of the house, where the ceilings were painted white and the walls were decorated in floral murals of psychedelic colors, and at the bottom of a long steep stairwell they came to a round doorway, which had once been sealed with magic runes, and would open only at the hand and voice of Fëanaro and his sons, but it had been forced open, and the splinters of the broken door were gathered on each side of the corridor, and the long hinges hung askew like the warped bones of forsaken skeletons displayed around a stockade

Within that portal sprawled expansive a great gallery where piles of gold and silver and jewels had once been heaped in store. Empty glass shelves lined the walls, where once hundreds of artificial jewels had been displayed in little glass cases or on velvet cushions, each one glowing with a spark of immortal light. Eaten, all of them, long ago. Cups had been piled here, wrought goblets crusted with jewels as thickly as the argentine morning dew, golden statues with gleaming eyes, earrings, necklaces, rings, scores and scores and scores of rings, silver girdles and armcuffs, anklets and bangles; countless works of peerless art had been gathered here once in a kaleidoscopic hoard of incomprehensible proportion. Eaten, all of it, long ago. 

Dread squirmed in Fëanaro’s stomach when he turned his gaze to the dark doorway that awaited him, an ornate thing whose round, gilded, fractured frame was carven with the shapes of leaves and flowers. Beyond the range of the lantern, the chamber yawned like a black pit, what had once overflowed with Light. It was a plain room, walls white-washed and plastered, with a stone table in the center, covered by a many-colored sheet like an altar cloth. They had been a bit sad there, the Silmarils, had not given forth as much of their light with no one to see them in their secret shrine where he had come everyday to gaze upon the peerless work of his hands.

Fëanaro approached slowly, scarcely breathing, and stood on the ruined threshold amidst the wreck of an iron door, riven all to pieces, and remembered how he had felt when he had first come here and they were gone.

“Leave me,” he said curtly, and Nolofinwë hesitated, but marking Fëanaro’s mood he quit the chamber, and went whither Fëanaro cared not, so long as he was gone.

They said that the jewels had burned the Enemy’s hands, and even enclosed in their casket they had aggrieved him. Good then, that he had allowed Varda to hallow them, that the Enemy might rightly suffer, though not nearly enough, for his crime.

Fëanaro put his hands on the altar, felt where the jewels had once lain, cupped his hands as if to hold them, breathed in deep as if to inhale the dews of Light that had once danced on the walls. And he felt nothing. Nay, Fëanaro felt naught as he visualized the ghost of the jewels before him, he felt naught as he dwelt upon their absence, he felt naught as he looked on this barren, desecrated chamber.

I have released them. They are no longer mine. But how is it that I have released myself?

Fëanaro had always been a vessel of grief. From the time of his infancy, carrying the grief of his mother. From his adolescence, carrying the grief of his father’s remarriage. From manhood, the grief of his father’s death. But now to be hollow, to be empty, to be barren—verily he could feel the shape where his grief had once lived and throve, but it was all gone. He massaged that place in his heart as if to return the flow of blood and bring it back to life, but no matter how he might work the muscles, no matter how he might push his breath into deflated lungs, nothing stirred, no pain, no hurt, no sorrow, no fruit of his loss justly, so justly arisen. And finally, at last, after replaying those old nightmares over and over and over in lurid detail, grief arose, but it was merely grief that he did not grieve, grief not for his father nor his mother, nor his jewels, but grief for Fëanaro. For what was Fëanaro if he did not grieve? Nay, Fëanaro was dead and gone, and this resurrected thing that stood in the sanctum was merely his shade, a remnant of the man augmented into a convincing imitation of the whole, but the man no longer. Twice had Fëanaro been born, and twice had he died, the death of the life of his hröa in the first, and the death of his innermost self in the second. 

Suddenly, Fëanaro quit the empty sepulcher, and went to see the rest of the house.

His sons’ rooms were largely intact, but here and there statues in the corridors had been smashed. At the end of a long corridor stood two large vases, thankfully unharmed but covered in so much dust that their white glaze appeared brown, and between these was an ornate door to a spiral staircase up a slender tower. Three towers had Formenos: one for a star observatory, one where he had kept a palantir, and one where he made his bed. To the second made Fëanaro now his way.

Great was the stone in the house of Fëanaro, and great its power, for it was tied to every other palantir that the craftsman had made, a master stone, verily greater in power than even the gargantuan stone on Eressëa, and this, like the latter, could see across the sea and into the furthermost places. If he so wished he could make a call on Eressëa now, he thought as he waved his hand over the dark, reflective surface of the stone, and therein saw a semblance of the flame of perception stir—yea, the stone greeted him gladly and invited her maker to use her as was his right. Against its glassy surface he splayed his hands, and it was cool but tingling with magic against his palms, but he did not quite open the channels of connection, though they lay expectant at the ready. Anon he would make a call to Eressëa and inquire about Lalwendë’s doings and wellbeing, and haply ask that she be summoned to speak with him—and to Nolofinwë of course. If she knew they were here she would soon be calling her most beloved brother—had Arafinwë sent a message? For Arafinwë had a palantir too, did he not? A seeing-stone sat in the Mindon, and it was not unlikely, though not certain, that the youngest son, jealous of his brothers, would wish to speak with them. To his confusion, they had not provided him with a wholly satisfactory explanation for their flight when they had departed Tirion in sudden haste; and Arafinwë bid them farewell with a strange and conflicted expression: relief perhaps, that they sought not to take his throne, but grief too, that they shunned his company once again in favor of each other, almost as soon as they had returned to him. I have ever had little to say to him; I perceive he is a kind man, but he shall learn no more of my secrets now than he ever did afore.

Fëanaro quit the chamber, and skipped down the spiral staircase and down a long hall to the other side of the house, where awaited him another door flanked by two similar large vases, intricately painted in blue. To his bedchamber he now ascended, and looked in fondness on his old things, almost exactly as he had left them, for Morgoth had not entered the towers, albeit the drapes around the tall windows were faded slightly by the sun, but only slightly, for the dyes used were of an immortal fastness found only in the Undying Lands. 

When the curtains were drawn back, the sun sparkled on the chandelier, whose every shining crystal was a prism, and at once a thousand rainbows danced over the walls and played on the thick, intricately-patterned rugs. Fëanaro found the figure-eight path where his pacing had once worn down the plush pile; he had seldom slept in the bed, though it was far more rich and sumptuous than any bed in Valinor except perhaps that of his father, and he preferred to sleep on his feet instead, much to Nerdanel’s chagrin; it made his dreams more productive, and besides, he could hardly abide lying still. 

Fëanaro looked around the brightly-illumined circular chamber, felt the floor beneath his feet and saw the rainbows playing on his body, and felt deeply that he had come home—yea, forsooth this was the only place he could now consider to be his home, for Tirion belonged now to others who had made it theirs in his absence, and at every turn he had been reminded that he was an alien. But here, everything was his, this whole house the product of his designs, and no one else had ever laid claim to it. And as he had rebuilt his soul’s house, so too would he rebuild his body’s house, and at last be home in both spirit and flesh.

But if a man is at home, it is meet that he dress like he is at home, and forthwith Fëanaro descended the stair to the floor beneath the bedchamber, which was dedicated to his dressing room and his privy. Here in Formenos he was in the past again, so it was sensible to array himself after the manner of the past, which no doubt Nolofinwë would be doing as soon as he was able to get out of his travelling clothes.

Fëanaro was relieved that he had left behind as many of his garments as he had when he left Aman, for he had followed his own advice to pack lightly, and from the well-stocked wardrobe he selected a long dagged tunic with voluminous sleeves. The fabric was white at first glance, but a shift of the light revealed that it was actually woven of many colors, although it was dotted all over with red and silver paisleys. He had left behind little of his jewelry, but he found a few slender diamond rings and a thick silver wristcuff adorned with turquoise. Among his things was a torq of twined gold and silver, and a circlet made of the same dual metals twisted together; these were given to him by his teacher Mahtan as a coming of age present, and though they had been dear to him, he had not carried them into exile on account of the ill-regard with which he and Mahtan had held each other in those last few bitter years. But all was forgiven now, and he crowned himself and wrangled the stiff torq around his neck, uncomfortable, yes, but once upon a time a signifier of status. He studied himself in the mirror and judged himself presentable enough, dressed well enough to go out by his old standards. Verily Aracano would have nothing to balk at this time. He had been so very offended when Fëanaro had appeared before Manwë in his plainest attire; oh his face had been an inscrutable and blank mask of course, but his eyes, oh how his eyes had broadcast his delicious displeasure. Wherefore wert thou wroth with me, son of Indis? Ever had I outdone thee, arraying myself in finer jewels and finer robes made by more skillful hands what thou couldst never access, and for once thou wert the one with the better aspect! In that sumptuous robe so crusted with diamonds that the cloth-of-gold beneath was well-nigh invisible. 

But it was all in the past now, was it not? Aye, but those contentious twain had retreated back through the pages of time and come to dwell in the house of history, and therefore ‘twas meet to dwell on those old disagreements, which had followed them in their memories through death. The aim, was, after all, to play at being foes. Well if they were to be foes, let Fëanaro play the old dance and go downstairs in his rich raiment to find Nolofinwë in his dirty travelling clothes. 

Nolofinwë had made himself busy and unloaded the horses and brought their goods and foodstuffs into the kitchen: a bag of flour, a bag of grits, cornmeal, several jars of preserves, dried and salted meats; enough to hold them over until they should be able to get food from the garden outside, which they had yet to see, but expected it to be in a sorry state, and indeed as they would later find it was no longer a garden so much as a wild field occupied largely by edible plants. 

Supper was lembas with cherry preserves, and the men ate largely in silence while leaning against the wooden countertops, and when they were finished they realized that, lacking servants, they themselves must wash the plates and knives with which they had eaten. Nolofinwë looked around, wondering where was the place to draw water, but Fëanaro drew his attention to a sink on the other side of the dim, dusty room. The spigot sputtered for a minute, but then water came forth, at first a trickle of brown sludge and then a brown stream, which Fëanaro let run until it cleared.

“Devices such as these are only newly-invented and newly-instituted in Tirion, and yet thou didst devise such a thing so long ago?” Nolofinwë said in wonder.

“Verily. I would have shared it with the rest of Valinor but…thou wittest how it was.”

Nolofinwë nodded in assent but continued to marvel. In truth this whole house was a marvel, of architecture, technology and art, vast, intricately decorated, limitless in its wonders, and this, this all was Fëanaro’s work. What a great mind, what genius his brother possessed! Nolofinwë could not but admire him, and as Fëanaro rolled up his sleeves and proceeded to wash the dishes, Nolofinwë gazed at him who was the fairest of all the Noldor, with his large hands, his corded forearms that loved to toil, as any Noldo should.

And we shall toil in this place, and may it make us glad.

❖❖❖

And toil they did, for Fëanaro began before dawn the next day in repairing the shattered mosaics and sweeping away the dust, but he denied Nolofinwë’s offers to assist him, and perceiving that there was work to be done without, he went outside and evaluated what it would take to clear the vines off the windows. He had a knife and shears from the garden shed, and he started on the ground floor and moved up. No few times did his feet slip as he clung to the walls of the higher stories, but he always caught himself. Thrilled by the danger, he cut and cut with increasing eagerness, climbing more recklessly along the overgrown, mildewed windowsills. And for once he smiled, for here was a challenge, a real challenge for his body, and since his return he had undertaken no meaningful labor, excepting his contests with Fëanaro, which had been rather contrived as has been expounded elsewhere, and he felt at last that he had some purpose. Each cleared window was proof of his efforts, and pride swelled in his chest whenever he looked back at his accomplishments; pride swelled when he felt the sweat soaking through his shirt. Afterwards the windows all needed washing, and this was more perilous even than the cutting, but he did not fall, and successfully washed every window clean of dirt and grime.

With the first of his labors completed (and it was no swift labor by any means), Nolofinwë went out to the aforementioned garden. He saw the long green blades of young corn, saw sprawling vines with yellow flowers that he took for squash, the dark leaves of mature collards, all of this surrounded by tall grass, thistles, lamb’s ear, and other wild plants. On the other side of the field there was a grape arbor, where vines grew there still, and beyond them were blueberry bushes, all tangled up with dog fennels and horseweed. Nearby stood an orchard of peach trees, and though the old trees remained, new ones clustered around their knees, and other plants grew there withal, bayberries, and other shrubs that crowded out once broad and open aisles. Beyond that the wild livestock grazed; the stone walls of the pasture were in disrepair, and Nolofinwë had no doubt that come harvest time the animals would find their way thither to feast on the bounty of vegetables. He would have much work to do; work which he knew about but had little experience in, being a prince and a warlord and no farmer who works the land. The work was even harder and more trying than he had anticipated, and when he stopped for lunch his brow was beaded with sweat, and he regretted that he had ever taken his farmers for granted. 

He weeded the former garden, pulling up the nonedible plants by the roots, lest they choke out his crops. He would have liked it if the crops were growing in rows, and would have liked still more if they were all yet within the bounds of the garden’s fences, but the plants had taken root, and there was nothing really to be done about moving them, lest the roots be damaged. 

In the corner of the vegetable patch he found strawberries, red and ripe, crisp and juicy, and he ate these with alacrity, and thanked Yavanna that she still provided for him. No flowers grew at his feet, but he hoped that he still had her blessing, and he prayed to her that she would bless his labors, but a shadow of doubt flickered behind his thought.

❖❖❖

On the day that Fëanaro completed his repairs, Nolofinwë brought strawberries and blueberries back to the house to share with him, and in the now-spotless drawing room the twain ate teacakes and drank expensive tea, savoring this moment of sweetness—although naturally they drank the tea oversteeped and black as Fëanaro liked it. But they felt properly civilized while enjoying their teatime: a deserved rest and a proper prelude to more work. Fëanaro had informed Nolofinwë that he had a store of pig iron in the forge, but it must be transformed into steel ere the swords could be forged, and the process would be laborious—and he wished for no assistance. It would be some time then, before they dueled. And having nothing to fight over at the moment, they chatted, and Nolofinwë expressed a desire to go to Eressëa after their duel had been won, there to visit with Lalwendë, and perhaps even dwell there for a while. 

“Always close were ye as children. Was it likewise in Beleriand?” Fëanaro ventured.

“Aye, Lalwen is dear to me, and ever was she a bright light in dark times, and she comforted me in our sorrow.”

“When didst thou take her as thy wife?”

“I beg pardon?”

“Thou hast ears.”

“I know naught of what thou saist.”

“Oh but thou dost.” Fëanaro waved his hand. “Thinkest thou that I am blind? Desired Lalwen to be thy wife since she was a little girl; any observant eye would have discerned it. And when speakest thou of her—something in thine eye betrayeth that thou sharedest her unnatural lusts. She comforted thee? I doubt not she did.” A devilish grin stretched his lips.

Nolofinwë studied him for a moment. Ah this was unfortunate and unlooked for, but Fëanaro was known for his skills of perception, and Nolofinwë should have expected him to uncover the truth sooner or later. Well then, if he could not hide it, he must claim it, for Nolofinwë dreaded to show anything but pride to Fëanaro. And why not be proud? Why not be proud that he had rejected the law that brother must not lie with sister? He accounted himself a rebel against the Valar, yea verily as much a rebel as Fëanaro, and like Fëanaro he had chosen to live as a man according to his own will, being lord and master over his own soul and flesh, and he was not one who in meekness obeys the mandates of those who had failed them.

“Verily I took her on the Ice, when lay we close for warmth, but my lover for many long years she remained. Lalwen, her craft is love, and skillful was she in my bed, but for all her talent and her store of wisdom professed she that I was the greatest lover she had ever known in the flesh.” Nolofinwë’s tone was haughty, and he lifted his chin proudly.

Fëanaro laughed with vicious glee. “Thou boastest of knowing thy sister! How low hast thou fallen, Indision, how wretched art thou become, given over wholly to sin. What would thy dear, righteous mother make of this?” His sneer positively dripped with derision, and his silver eyes glittered with delight, exulting in Nolofinwë’s fall.

“What doth thy mother Serindë make of thee, O slayer of kin?” Nolofinwë said in a voice low and cold, like a blade to slide between another’s ribs.

Fell flames of wrath danced in Fëanaro’s eyes and he almost rose, ready to curse Nolofinwë, but he mastered his ire and settled back into the couch and crossed his legs, as if making himself smaller would contain his outrage.

“Do not speak of her thusly, I warn thee.” There was still a hint of danger rumbling like distant thunder in his voice, ready to burst if another provocation should come.

“I do unto thee as thou dost to me.” Nolofinwë said perfectly calmly and innocently, as if there had been no offense given nor taken.

They glared daggers at each other for a moment, but nodded in a truce, each of them feeling intimately the same hurt that his mother had not wished to see him. Miriel would admit no visitors, and Indis had not deigned to come to Tirion to see her son, rebel that he was, traitor against the gods and mother alike. So, condemned are we both, and by those who bore us abandoned. Good ‘tis that he knoweth this sorrow also—good is it that he who had always been so abundantly loved now shareth this pain, Fëanaro thought.

Nolofinwë was fain to redirect the conversation to its previous course, and he had not exhausted his store of sexual exploits to brag about. “But Lalwen was not my only lover in Middle-Earth. Another I knew also, a mortal Man by the name of Hador.” Nolofinwë spread his legs and ran his fingers through his unbound hair. 

Fëanaro laughed again. “Thou? With a man? I marvel at thee, son of Indis, that one as righteous as thyself shouldst wallow with one of his own sex.”

“Speak for thyself, brother. Wot I well what passed among the apprentices of Mahtan in the forge.”

“It is no dishonor betwixt men of like worth and valor.”

“Speakest thou soothly, and no dishonor was it when I took Hador, nor when he, warrior that he was, took me in turn.”

“He took thee?” Fëanaro leaned forward, suddenly animated by the old flame of intrepid scientific curiosity. “Tell me of it, Nolofinwë. Is it pleasing?” For Fëanaro had but frotted with the worshippers of Aulë as a youth, and never had he entered another man, much less been entered in turn.

“Aye, it is pleasing, as much as it is with a woman. Mayhap, even more, an unparalleled bliss. To lie with a great man, to tumble with him in the violent throes of love, to grapple with him, strong arms locked together, to bring him to the ecstasy of spilling, few greater delights exist upon this earth.” A subtle, arrogant smile flicked up the corner of Nolofinwë’s mouth.

Fëanaro’s eyes narrowed; it did not escape him how . . . lasciviously Nolofinwë had described his lovemaking with Hador, nor how pointed had been his indulgent details, and he quickly caught what he believed to be Nolofinwë’s drift. “Thou fanciest thyself the greater lover.” 

“Is that what thou hearest?” Nolofinwë drawled, and his hand paused in carding his hair.

“If so arrogant art thou, then prove thy prowess. Empty are words without deeds to show for them.”

“Dost thou import—”

“Yea, another challenge shall it be, another game of ours, another spin of the dance. Grapple with a man, saist thou? Lock arms with him? Such thou and I are fain to do already. Come! Whoso shall first spill shall be the loser.”

“Then thou shalt surely lose, for thou art hasty.”

“Boast not too soon, son of Indis! I was wont to plough my woman until she could bear it no longer, and begged me, pleaded with me for release, and nightly I bedded her thusly. But I will let thee decide: wilt thou be the ploughman or the field? I defer humbly to thy great and extensive expertise.” 

“The field, for I have known it, and thou hast not, and ‘twould be more just, methinks.”

“So mote it be.”

The men doffed their old fashioned robes and looked each other up and down; Nolofinwë was comelier now than he had been at the boxing ring only weeks ago—his thinness had turned all to muscle, and his thighs and arms grown greater in circumference. A slight tan colored his cheeks and forearms, which before had been so pallid—whiteness was favored among the aristocracy, but Fëanaro could not but love the proof of a man’s labor on his body. Fëanaro looked down at the thick thatch of hair crowning a cock as perfect as his own. Not too large by any means, no sign of immodesty or the brutishness that a lengthy member imports, but verily the ideal moderate length. Nolofinwë was overall rather hairy withal, what with coarse curls on his chest, and Fëanaro could not but desire his masculinity.

And Fëanaro, oh what can one say of Fëanaro save that he was the fairest of all the Noldor? Nolofinwë looked at him hungrily, at his perfect face cast red in the light of the stained-glass window, his large hands, nimble, dextrous fingers nicked by his work, his long, long legs, the black waves of his thick locks tumbling down voluminously to his navel—were Fëanaro a meal Nolofinwë would have verily devoured him. And his eyes—oh his eyes were terrible, gleaming silver with the thrill of the challenge, pregnant with all the ferocity of a crouching tiger, knife-sharp in their unnatural brilliance. How sweet, to be run through by such a gaze. 

They approached each other slowly, like two wolves assessing each other’s strength before they touch, but Nolofinwë was the first to act, and he touched his fingers to Fëanaro’s cheek. He suppressed a shiver at the alien touch of another, but the intimacy of that simple touch caused his blood to heat, and he put a hand on Nolofinwë’s hip. Nolofinwë ran his hand along Fëanaro’s jaw, glided down his neck and came to cup the muscle of his bosom, and Fëanaro, likewise, ran his hand over the sharp angles of Nolofinwë’s narrow hips, and reached down to cradle his ample buttocks. Nolofinwë exhaled loudly and reached up to touch his brother’s hair, to twine his hands in those raven locks, to bury his hungry fingers in those waves and seek out the scalp to grip him by the roots. Fëanaro nudged his hips towards Nolofinwë and their cocks brushed against each other, red tips nosing out of their foreskins, veins filling up dark with the blood of iniquity, their father’s blood, the sanctioned sinner, begetter of their conflict, in vengeance for whom they both had gone to war, who now warred together for they knew how to do nothing else.

The ground was not a wholly uncomfortable place to take a cock, and the decorative pillows under his head and bottom served Nolofinwë well. Fëanaro studied him for a moment, lying in patient, stoic expectation, and he recalled what he had read about this act. He had found a book at his house—a banned book, to be sure—a book belonging to one Curufinwë Atarince, who had wedded only to have a son—that described in exhaustive detail how the homosexual act could be performed, complete with diagrams on the subject—truly the novel printing press was a wonderful invention—and Fëanaro had voraciously devoured the esoteric knowledge therein, and he accounted his present venture as a perfect opportunity to put his research into practice. As such, he licked his finger and put it to Nolofinwë’s sphincter and pressed it inside. Nolofinwë’s muscles clenched, and then loosened; Fëanaro could feel his pelvic floor relaxing under his gentle twisting. Good, if he is too tight I shall spill the quicker. He did not take much time more in preparing his half-brother, for he was impatient to complete this challenge and he gave himself over to haste, and he spat upon his hand and slicked his cock. Like a sword his tip was pressed against Nolofinwë’s hole, like a sword he pressed against him in challenge, and with a sudden, swift motion he plunged inside and stabbed his kinsman. Nolofinwë cried out; it hurt, how it hurt, but oh how it pleased him to be pierced as Fëanaro’s cock found that sensitive place inside him, but he grit his teeth lest he cry out again and give Fëanaro cause to believe he was winning.

This would have been so much better if they still hated one another, Fëanaro thought. How delightful it would have been to see the hallowed hatred in Nolofinwë’s eyes, defiant and desperate as he clung to the hope of a victory he craved more than aught else. How much stronger would have been the grip of his puissant hands on Fëanaro’s hips, how the fingernails would have dug into the skin and drawn blood. How sweet to see a good man give himself to violence in pursuance of an obsession stronger than any matrimonial bond. How sweet it would have been, to fight to the death as they fucked, loathing one another, loathing what they did, and in their loathing find their inexhaustible lust for life. Ai! What a wicked thing had Mandos done, what an injustice was his rule that his prisoners must cast aside their hatred if they would have their freedom! The price Nolofinwë had paid for his liberty was the chemical castration of his own heart, and this same fee had Fëanaro paid as well, for the better he had thought at first, but now he deemed that a small amount of hatred is good for a body. The Nolofinwë beneath him was not unvirile, but to pin him down, to jerk his cock mercilessly, to pound the hole yet unused in this new body, why it simply wasn’t as fun if he wasn’t fighting back with all the fury and determination of a temerous, intrepid usurper taking down a king. It irked Fëanaro. It irked him something awful, but he could not go down to the Halls and give Namo a piece of his mind, so instead he fucked Nolofinwë harder, angling his hips so as to find his prostate better.

But though he had been made to excise his hatred and cast it into the sea of redemption, Nolofinwë retained something of his pride, and something more of his cleverness, and he ran his hands through Fëanaro’s tresses and pulled his head closer. He caressed Fëanaro’s face as if he were a lover, and kissed him deeply, oh how deeply he kissed him, tenderly and lovingly. It was a clever move, Fëanaro admitted: the lips are an erogenous zone, and kissing inflames the heart, and thus enhances one’s arousal. And more than that, it worked. The tension built in Fëanaro’s body and he slowed his pace, but oh Nolofinwë was cunning, and just as Fëanaro thought he might be able to maintain his advantage, Nolofinwë caressed his ears, those sensitive organs, and they burned with the vermillion heat of passion. With all the ardor of a true and earnest lover, Nolofinwë grasped his brother’s hair, grasped it even at the nape of his neck, and roughly brought his head down where he could lick his lobe. Like the unsteady waters of a fountain, a shudder passed through Fëanaro’s tense body, and he jerked away, for he knew that if he suffered Nolofinwë to continue he would surely spill. Oh but look at him, look at the proud son of Indis, his eyes as heavy as the humidity of summer, his lips wet with the dew of kisses, his face flushed red, red, so very red with sickening lust. Fëanaro’s hand, dry now, for the spit on it was long gone, enacted his vengeance and tugged the turgid cock harder. How lovely it should have been, to see his enemy’s eyes roll back as he spilled, how glorious to defeat him in the battlefield of sex, to lay him low like this, his stomach covered in the fluid of his life, spilled in payment for his hubris, oh let thou be humiliated son of Indis! Let thy superciliousness turn to shame, oh braggart, oh treacherous misleader of men! But his victory was hollow as a tree, verily as empty as a broken vessel, nay as a vessel that was never filled though its mouth was wide and its volume great, and lo, he withdrew in haste lest he waste his seed—for in coming first Nolofinwë had lost something of the life of his fëa to be reaped by Fëanaro, reaped by him who had ploughed the defeated man, laid low upon the earth, and he, prideful as he was, would retain his prize if he may, nor would he admit in his spilling that Nolofinwë’s lovely flesh held any sway over him.

“I win,” Fëanaro said flatly, and quit the room on heavy feet, carrying about him a thick smoke of darkling wrath, but his cock was yet stiff before him.

❖❖❖

It was good that Fëanaro shut himself in the steelworks the next day. Humiliated, Nolofinwë would not remain in the house, but went outside to work, that by his labors he might forget how he had been shamed, and the raw bitterness of his defeat might be pushed from his mind. Forsooth Fëanaro had won this round, which Nolofinwë had so arrogantly believed to be an assured victory. How was it that he had not considered that Fëanaro would stroke his cock? Had he become a dotard and a fool in his death? And worse, Fëanaro had seen his pleasure, had seen how he delighted in being impaled on a cock, on Fëanaro’s cock, on the cock of his enemy. Truly was he laid low by his own folly. But he recommitted his resolution and dedicated himself to the hope of a future conquest. When my brother’s labors are done, I shall prove to him that I remain a worthy opponent. 

With long labors he rebuilt the pasture walls and saw to the garden, where he erected a scarecrow, for although neither blight nor flood nor drought would harm his crops, they were subject nonetheless to the appetites of the other dwellers in Aman, and the crows and deer were fain to share his yield, whether he would it or no. The squash flowers grew into infant fruits, the berries ripened and bled fresh and sweet in his mouth, the grapes appeared small and green on the vines, and the corn shot up higher every day. Cicadas buzzed, announcing that the spring had turned into summer, and the sun, high overhead, made the shadows shorter and shorter each day. And despite his efforts to stop the sieve that had been implanted in place of his heart, Nolofinwë found that he could not be wroth at Fëanaro over what he had done, over his humiliation, over how he had walked out so cruelly, but like the sweat that ran in rivulets down his spine, his anger trickled greasy down the drain, never to be recovered no matter how he might grasp at it. A strange and blasphemous conceit came to him as he remembered the sensation of Fëanaro’s lips, the feeling of his heat pressed against his body, the touch of his hand on his cheek; a queer and alien conceit of unimaginable preposterousness but nonetheless logically and perfectly reasonable—but as soon as this conceit arose, he dismissed it with the force with which he threw the horses’ manure out of their stalls, and left it like so much refuse on the ground. 

The dried cow patties, the uprooted weeds, these would be fuel for the kitchen fire. The Eldalië had a custom to make fires out of the smallest amount of fuel and maintain it for many hours with the subtle power that the Second Kindred call magic, and according to this custom Nolofinwë would have plenty enough fuel to cook with. And for the forge, coal remained for them to use. But Nolofinwë wished for wood, and when he strode out to the forest he gazed upon the immortal trees, upon boles and boughs more ancient than his first life, and even the youngest were older than any tree of Endorë ever was, and he looked upon those perfect trees, upon the leaf mould where no dead branches lay, upon the forest floor where no fallen logs decayed, and he grieved the cruelty of Paradise, that he must take a life to gain what Endorë had offered up to him freely in her cycles of birth and death, for the Earth gives and the earth takes and renews all things through the blessing of rot. But the part of the mind of Iluvatar that first conceived of rot was given to Melkor who is fallen, and Manwë, knowing only the divine thoughts and the purity from which he was created, can not comprehend decay.

Nolofinwë approached a pine tree with an axe. The golden blood of its sap oozed from its scaly bark, seeping amber from fissures between layers and layers of dark tree-skin, gray with lichen at the edges. Peeling one of these layers away, he saw how the bark was paler beneath it, even as his skin was paler beneath his clothes, and he snapped the flake, snapped it and turned it over in his hand, and snapped it again before letting it fall. 

In Elder Days Yavanna had given unto the elves groves of trees to harvest for their uses, and as soon as these trees were felled they regrew, that no forests in Aman would ever be destroyed for the Children’s wants. But it had not been so in Middle-Earth, and they had cut down trees at need, and when they did so they thanked the tree for its life, but they took not the lives of trees lightly, and cut no more than they needed. They had built stockades of great logs, had learned to burn wood on the coldest winter nights, had learned to make tar from the pines, and they had learned too that wood is the best fuel for cooking, and Nolofinwë, who purposed to slaughter one of the hogs roaming in the fields, would cook it not with a flame from grass, but from the fragrant wood of a tree. 

He swung the axe. Blasphemy against the Lady he knew it to be, yea verily ‘twas blasphemy against the giver of fruits. Guilt stung his heart as the axe bit the tree. Guilt stung his heart as he heard the tree scream in his mind. Guilt stung his heart as he realized the true violence of what he did to a creature that could not run. Yavanna would surely know that he cut one of her trees without her leave, for which he could have asked but did not, but the tree had been cloven, its hard flesh had been riven, and with the wound already dealt, he swung the axe again, and again, until the trunk lay prone upon the earth. 

He had cut it well above the place at its root that is the tree’s heart, and putting his hand on the sticky stump, he sang a Song of healing, for these powers had returned to him and were not yet lost, and new little branches with neonate needles emerged from the ruined thing to seek the Sun. Content that the tree would return to life, he directed his attention to the corpse of its upper body, and thereafter spent the whole day and the day after sawing wood, and the mule aided him in dragging back the logs, which he chopped in the yard behind the house. How invigorating was it to swing the axe! How delightful to work his muscles! To feel them ache from use, an ache that meant his strength grew, and grew, and grew until it was as great as it had been in the height of his glory. For Fëanaro assuredly labored hard in the ironworks, and assuredly his brow glistened and his damp back rippled with muscle, and assuredly with mighty arms he would work the bellows and the pulleys, and Nolofinwë would not be outdone again. And so he shed his shirt and with a gleaming back he chopped, and chopped, and chopped, and the riven wood lay in pieces all around him. 

He was the first of them to draw blood. The hog was weakened by the long chase, and the great creature could not evade him, weary as it was, and a spear in its side struck it down. But the hog did not lose its life just yet, for the wound was not a killing shot, but its breath was soon taken from it by a knife to its throat, and its crimson blood watered the earth as the hallowed life left its lungs and bubbled sanguineous from cloven flesh. But Nolofinwë did not pray to Orome when he slew the beast, but drug it back in silence. 

Warm was the blood on his butcher’s hands, and warm the heat of the creature’s flayed muscle, and warm the hunter’s pride at his triumph. How could he not but carve the beast open, break apart its ribs, and seize the heart that his curved blade had caused to stop? He gripped it in his great hand, pulsed it as it had pulsed when it was alive, made that mighty muscle work, and dark blood ran in rivers down his forearm. He put the heart to his lips and drank, drank the blood of his prey as if he himself had become a beast, delighting and exulting in violence. This life, given to me. This life, taken by me. This life, nurturing mine own. This life, dead so that I live. As it was in Endorë, as it shall be in Aman. He kissed the heart worshipfully and replaced it, and prepared to cook the hog. 

❖❖❖

Hard labored Fëanaro in the scalding heat of the forge, hard pumped he the billows as he refined the pig iron into pure ingots. The heat bothered him not, but he welcomed an environment almost as hot as his spirit, and surrounded by fire he exulted, and straining his strength hard, he rejoiced, for he was a smith and he was great, who manned this forge alone, verily alone, a sole man performing this complicated and intensive task, and doing it better than could any other even with aid. Against the guidance of his elders, Fëanaro had always trusted in his own ability and eschewed the ability of others to help, but it was good to prove his skill to himself, and good to prove his endurance, and good to be a man who has made himself. He labored, oh how he labored, how he labored like the paragon son of the Noldor that he was, and he filled the emptiness in his griefless heart with fire, and the vacuousness in his spirit with the ringing sound of beaten iron, and the long shadow of his death he drowned in sweat, until he emerged, reddened and soot-stained, unbent and unweary, having achieved what he had attempted in the most perfect degree. The iron made into ingots, and the ingots made into steel. 

❖❖❖

As this was done, Nolofinwë achieved his own adventure in the most perfect degree, and he laid out a feast for his brother, and the table was laden with meat and vegetables and bread withal. Nolofinwë was largely assured that he was now a better cook than Fëanaro, and he esteemed the culinary arts to be a worthwhile competition sometime down the line, and on the evening of the completion of Fëanaro’s iron-smelting this certainty was fed by Fëanaro’s own stoic admission that the food was in fact rather good. He could not but praise well-developed skill of any kind, and he inquired with Nolofinwë regarding the method of cooking the hog, by what recipe he had made the sauce from the ancient (and now extremely potent) vinegar, and he offered some comment about the quality of the collard greens and the hushpuppies. Nolofinwë made sure not to smile; it would not do to gloat, nor to reveal that he valued Fëanaro’s praise as much as he did. 

What would do would be to initiate Fëanaro into an ancient practice that he was certain would benefit them both equally, while their truce lasted. 

“What knowest thou of semen retention?”

Fëanaro’s hand paused as he dipped his cornbread into the amber pot liquor from the collards. “It is a practice for weak men to conserve what little strength they have,” he replied flatly. 

“Weak? Am I weak, Curufinwë?” Nolofinwë’s eyes narrowed. 

“Didst thou such a thing with Anairë?”

“Long hours I lay with her and never spilt. How else could I fulfill that woman’s bottomless feminine appetites and yet retain my native strength? For to spill often maketh a man weaker in body and in spirit; the great may feel it less, but a loss is a loss.” Nolofinwë drawled. 

“Pray tell, of whatever importance is thine erstwhile practice to me, whose spirit was ever inexhaustible?”

“But inexhaustible art thou now, in this new body? The Spirit of Fire, truly, but though thy body is become great through thy labors, I perceive thy spirit has no more mastery of itself than mine. We are youths, thou and I, and I would that we become men. And by this practice we shall achieve complete and perfect government of our fëar and hröar alike. Is that not thy desire?” 

Fëanaro laughed heartily. “Audacity! If only others were here to witness such unspeakable heights of audacity! Yea, Indision, I will indulge thy whims and lay with thee who art so desperate to bed me an it will forsooth make me stronger.” But as he said this, his eyes glittered with lust, and he took his gaze not away from Nolofinwë as he brought the golden cornbread to his lips. 

❖❖❖

They lay in Fëanaro’s bed—his territory to be true, but it seemed right to do something so intimate in one of their own beds and not in the neutral but impersonal zone of a guest bed, and being the one who proposed this venture, Nolofinwë had gallantly let Fëanaro pick the stage for the next movement of the dance. 

Only the rustling of the sheets and the sound of oiled skin sliding against oiled skin occupied the cavernous silence betwixt them—even their breath was quiet, and quietude was forsooth the object, to lay in passion while restraining the fire of one’s blood. In accordance with Nolofinwë’s instruction, Fëanaro kept the energy in his body under tight control, and directed it away from his cock and into his limbs to prevent orgasm. Nolofinwë held their frotting cocks together in his great hand, but he tried no clever tricks, and surrounded by the ribbons of Fëanaro’s tresses, he looked at Fëanaro without expression, open-eyed, closed lips, smooth brow, showing no sign of the arousal evident in the turgid member he nudged against the partner whose presence was necessary to execute this beneficial act. 

Immense control had Nolofinwë, it seemed, for the memory of the past remained in his spirit. Masterfully he restrained all impulses to claw at Fëanaro, to kiss him with teeth, to surrender to passion, and masterfully he kept his body calm and his spirit controlled. For sex is an act of the fëa, and Nolofinwë’s fëa was as disciplined as the most well-trained soldier, reacting not suddenly to provocation, but enduring all stimulation with immaculate, uninterrupted stoicism. He was, Fëanaro admitted, a worthy man to lie with. And yet, Nolofinwë was Nolofinwë nonetheless.

“Tookest thou my name,” Fëanaro said unprompted. “I was Finwë Finwion until the cusp of manhood, and at thy birth my father took my title, he split it in three, and gave he unto thee the greatest part of it. Nolofinwë of the Noldor, the name of an heir. But how could I hate my father, who betrayed me in taking to wife thy mother, though he knew how sorely it would grieve me who loved him? And so I denied thee my love, just as I scorned thy mother. And then tookest thou my name again—and to give a name, Aracano, to name something is to create it—”

But Nolofinwë interrupted him sternly. “In Araman I purposed to create myself as the High King. I regret it not, for I knew I was a more worthy king than thee, who wert unfit to lead. But knew I well that thou wouldst not return for me once thou didst cross the sea, and thus betrayed we each the other.”

Fëanaro sneered, his rosy lips contorted and his white canines bared as if in malice. “Unfit to lead? Thou, who led’st our people into death and misery on the merciless, hateful Ice, thou call’dest and callest me unfit? Hypocrisy hath ever been thy wont O son of Indis, scion of the blessèd.”

Nolofinwë was silent for a few breaths, unblinking, his eyes locked with Fëanaro’s like two sets of opposing swords. “I confess the bitter truth, that said I things that were mayhap . . . unfair.”

The words echoed between them like a howling in the hills, cruel words Nolofinwë had spoken within Fëanaro’s hearing, for to prove to those gathered there that the rule over all the Noldor was rightly due to him: “Moreover I have an errand in Middle-Earth, the avenging of the blood of my father. Fëanaro seeketh first his stolen treasures.” Words whose memory would have aroused bitter enmity, had not their bitterness been sacrificed.

Fëanaro studied him steadily as more memories of the past welled up, now clarified with the understanding that had been revealed to him in Mandos, when the foggy miasma of mistruth had been flushed from his fey mind, and the machinations that had ensnared him were made as bare as his fëa. “I myself confess that in spite of my great hatred for Morgoth, deceived was I by lies I knew not to be lies,” he said slowly as if it pained him, like walking on nails, “for came each lie from trusted lips, who saw in those stories a grain of truth, and I confess I believed about thee that which I wished to believe.”

“Thou didst threaten my life.” Nolofinwë’s voice was as hard-edged as the longest greatsword, but its sharpness had been dulled. 

“Believed I thee a threat to mine—didst not also call for blades to be made? Didst not also build a hoard of arms?”

Nolofinwë sighed heavily, but he did not avert his gaze, and stared into Fëanaro’s quicksilver eyes. “The Enemy knew of our jealousy, and he exploited it, taking a bruise and growing it into a cancer.” He put his hand on Fëanaro’s shoulder as his hips rolled and he rubbed against his brother, oil slicking the spaces betwixt his long fingers. Oil slicking the long gulf that lay betwixt Araman and Losgar, two sides of the same sea, opposite shores of a betrayal joined now in iniquity. 

“If he had not come amongst us, thinkest thou that we could have become true brothers, as sworest thou to be?” Fëanaro asked matter-of-factly, as it were purely a hypothetical no different from a scientific theory.

But Nolofinwë roughly grabbed Fëanaro by the hips, rolled him onto his back, and took his place atop him, squeezing their cocks so tight that his nails bit into Fëanaro’s skin. “True brothers a’ready are we, Fëanaro, each hungry for the right to rule. Did I not also seek vengeance against the Enemy? Did we not both hie to shed our lifeblood on the Enemy’s threshold? Was not I, as thee, fey and possessed by the allure of death, forsaking all love for my own life at the end? We are of the same mettle, thou and I, so how could I but follow thee as swore I to do?”

Fëanaro took a deep breath as the pressure on his frenulum built into inebriating pleasure, and he willed his body to back away from the cusp of bliss. 

“In time I might have admitted that we are alike, in pride and valor and in worth, were there no foe to mislead us, but, knowest thou it would have been no easy thing.” Fëanaro said stiffly, but Nolofinwë knew he spoke soothly. 

Nolofinwë leaned down to kiss him, a slow solemn kiss like the sealing of a vow everlasting, but when the kiss ended, as if the sea closed, as if grinding ice and fire melted into sweet waters beneath the innumerable stars, he kept his lips on Fëanaro’s, breathing in his breath, sharing in his life, feeling his thrumming heart beat in his flushed chest beneath him, joined, joined together in the flesh with his brother-foe in rapturous union until the dawn arrived as rosy as the blush on their cheeks; albeit even in such bliss they kept their spirits tightly reined, forbidding themselves to be tangled up like bridegrooms whose treacherous spirits braid themselves into a marriage bond and lay bare their minds to be woven together. That queer conceit returned to Nolofinwë and he suffered himself to name that which was heinous blasphemy unto themselves ere he cast it aside again: If I can no longer hate him, at least let me love him. 

❖❖❖

Hot flames danced in the furnace, hot flames that stoked joy in the heart of one who could no longer grieve, and calm in the heart of one who could no longer rage. 

Hot flames danced in the furnace, hot flames burning on coal, hot flames Nolofinwë fed with the bellows. 

Hot sparks flew as the hammer struck the metal that would become the blades, and as Fëanaro beat the metal into shape, Nolofinwë Sang over it for to enchant his sword as its predecessor had been enchanted, and Fëanaro Sang over his own blade likewise, and poured within it his power and his subtle skill. 

An aliform crossguard Fëanaro crafted for Nolofinwë while the other watched attentively, and he set in those intricate hilts many iridescent jewels that he had lately undertaken to make—verily Fëanaro had put much of his magic into this task, and the making of this thing delighted him, for once again the jewelsmith took up his old crafts, but he forgot not for whom he made this sword, not for what cause.

“Thinkest thou that we may duel without hatred?” He looked up from his work, and met Nolofinwë’s unblinking gaze.

“We duel for we can do naught else,” Nolofinwë said solemnly. “We are dancers tethered together, and when spin my legs so must thine, when leapest thou so must I, when blade is drawn another is drawn to answer it. When neglected we the dance upon our return, I was dead though I lived. How can the dancer keep his life, an he danceth not? Even when the music is gone, he stayeth not, but goeth on and on. Thou wouldst be a living man again, as would I, and therefore duel we must.”

❖❖❖

They met at noon in the great hall and pushed the table and chairs to the side of the room. It was a comely blade Nolofinwë drew from the scabbard, a fine weapon that glowed blue and glittered like ice, whose flat sides were like mirrors, reflecting his narrowed eyes as he held it before him, terrible and azure in the white noontide light pouring in through the vast windows to flood the room in brightness. Fëanaro’s naked flesh glowed in the light, but his hair, tied in a high tail, was as black as obsidian, and his hands were reddened and roughened by his toil. His cock was not entirely limp.

“Tell me, oh Nolofinwë Aracano, tell me the laws of this queer battle. For art thou the challenger, and thou mayest set our course; thou hast decreed a’ready that we must do battle unclothed, that our raiment may be undamaged—though I suspect that other are thy true designs— but pray tell: what other terms have been devised in thy wicked viper’s mind?”

“We fight until one of us, or both of us, may continue no longer, be he disarmed, or fallen from weariness, or sorely wounded. And he who yet standeth in the end shall be the victor. But the loser must lie beneath him, and be entered by him in the flesh.”

“Dost thou purpose to lose then, that I might take thee once more?” Fëanaro taunted.

“Nay, for I would take thee, Curufinwë Fëanaro. Hadst thou thy turn atop me, but the dance moveth, and my time approacheth. I will lay thee low, I will plough thee into the tiles of this hall.”

Fëanaro smirked, but he bowed, and assumed the proper form to begin.

What greater pleasure is there other than the duel? It a union of many arts, of dance, of smithcraft, of manly strength, of wisdom and strategy, requiring agility, speed, an a drive to kill. And no shortage of these virtues had the duelists in Formenos, whose blades crossed with a ringing report, and sparks flew as the blue blade smote the white. But Fëanaro laughed as he parried and drove Nolofinwë backwards. Forward and backwards the tide of war shifted, each man gaining ground and losing it and recovering it again with deft and measured usages of the blade.

“Hold not thyself in check,” Fëanaro taunted as he beat back Nolofinwë’s comely, exquisite sword, truly among the finest weapons that Fëanaro had produced, equal to the one in his own hand, now his pride and joy, his first great work since his homecoming. The jeweled hilt glittered with clear gems of starlight, and the blade glowed a subtle white, but when the light of the sun caught her at an angle, she gleamed with an oil-spill iridescence, aye with all the rainbow colors of the heraldic device painted on the wall behind him. Imbued with the fire of his spirit, the sword was like an extension of his arm, fell and terrible, and she cut through the air with a fluid motion. Cut through the skin of Nolofinwë’s shoulder as he essayed to dodge, but not swiftly enough.

Shallow was the cut, but the blood welled up red, the lifeblood of the house of Finwë spilled by his scions. Red, Nolofinwë’s blood shed by his brother. Red, the blood shed from this fabricated body, red and real as had been the blood he had spilt in the smoking pits of Grond. O to be wounded! O for the flesh to be marred in battle! Verily had this been his purpose in demanding a skyclad duel, verily had he designed to be hurt, and he raced madly to return the favor, teeth grit together in answer to Fëanaro’s persistent sneer.

Fëanaro cursed as the tip of the blade scored his cheek from lip to ear, and staggering backwards he touched a trembling hand to his face—Ai! Blood stained his fingertips and the wound stung, oh how it stung with the knowledge that it would leave a scar— but lo, how thrilling was it to display on his visage the evidence of his violent bellicosity!

“Fairest of the Noldor art thou no longer, Curufinwë,” Nolofinwë’s voice boomed haughty as he stepped closer, swinging the cerulean sword in a languid motion that belied the power tensed therein. He darted forward suddenly, leaving Fëanaro no more time to reck the marring of his visage, but the elder son leapt out of the way, and they circled one another, piercing each other through with the dread light of their eyes, the dread light of spirits flared finally to virile life, re-masculated, roaring ferocious like furnace flames, desperate to be released and devour the other. And how could they not be ignited thusly? How, when each beheld the other returned to his full puissance, naked and glowing in the noontide, fair and terrible and glorious? How could they not but lust for each other, men of equal valor? But though their spirits raged within, their discipline was perfect, and each step, each swing of the blade and step of the foot was timed exactly and the distance and speed judged perfectly—and was this precision not proof of the efficacy of that strange rite of Nolofinwë’s? Forsooth all their sins had come to this, their exaltation in a final transgression, a declaration of heresy in the hills, the baptism of blood to turn youths into men, puppets into kings. 

Shed my blood, Fëanaro! Lo, I open myself up to thee, I slow my feet, I am careless in the dance, good, good, cut me my brother, cut me and wound me, that this body may be mine own, that my body may be real, that a record of this day may be graven into my flesh! 

A red gash was slashed and torn across Nolofinwë’s chest, and the dark curls thereon became matted with blood that trickled down his front, down to his navel, down the trail to his cock, to slide down his testes, and drip onto the white tiles. It burned, oh how it burned and throbbed, but oh how his mirthful spirit burned with joy when his blade likewise carved a long, ugly wound in Fëanaro’s left arm, which he had left open, vulnerable to such a vicious caress. 

Fëanaro snarled and ran at Nolofinwë with heedless abandon, but it cost him, and on nimble feet Nolofinwë dealt him a deep wound to his thigh and he stumbled for a moment, but a moment was all Nolofinwë needed to leap upon him and tackle him to the ground.

He pinned him down, a hand grasping the wrist of his sword arm and slamming it onto the tiles with enough force to bruise, and the pain shot through Fëanaro’s hand sharp and cruel, but Fëanaro’s fist remained closed around the sword. But wield it he could not, for Nolofinwë’s hand fixed him to the floor like an iron manacle, nor could Fëanaro essay to rise, for Nolofinwë held the tip of his blade to his brother’s throat, in grave repayment for his ancient gesture. So easily could Nolofinwë pierce his throat, so easily could he cleave his windpipe and send him to Mandos, and this power rushed to his head like a potent wine, and the drumbeat of his triumph beat out a jubilant victory march in his skull. But lo, Fëanaro did not appear dismayed by his defeat, but amid the searing pain that radiated from his leg, he smiled sardonically.

“Hail, Fingolfin, hero returned to the land of the living! Glad am I to taste thy fury at last! The fury so fabled, so famed, but denied to me for so long that I wondered if the tales of thy valor were even true. Come now, son of Indis, come now O usurper mine and take thy precious prize. Thou art the only man—the only opponent worthy to take me thusly. I have tasted thy prowess with the blade; shew me then how well thou canst fuck.” And saying this he spread his legs, and the blood from his thigh pooled beneath him and seeped out into the spaces betwixt the candid tiles. He let the sword fall from his restrained hand.

No sooner had he done this but Nolofinwë, irked by the sharpness of his tongue, clamped the punishing hand over his mouth, crushing his face with all his weight as he spat upon his sword-hand and slicked his cock, already stiff and sanguine-red with his own glistening blood, and heartlessly he stabbed his brother. Fëanaro was tight, tensed by the agony in his leg, and anal penetration pained him, even like a raw and burning wound, but he did not cry out, nay he did not moan against the vise-grip of Nolofinwë’s great large-veined hand that clenched his cheeks and ached on his teeth. The knowledge that he hurt him deterred Nolofinwë not, but he judged the severity of this act to be just deserts for Fëanaro, who had humiliated him in the debating hall, who had outpaced him from the moment of their return, and he thrust into him hard and fast to mete him his due punishment. A crimson thrill shot through him, from his cock to his crown, the flame of the victor’s bonfire alight in his every vein, each jerk of his hips beating his foe down into the dust. 

But hardly had Nolofinwë established a good rhythm ere Fëanaro took advantage of his hands’ freedom, and seized Nolofinwë’s throat, pressing the thumbs into his windpipe, pressing on his arteries hard enough to bruise. An effective strategy, for robbed of breath, and dangerously so, Nolofinwë faltered, and Fëanaro took advantage of this opening, and rolled Nolofinwë onto his back, and began to ride him, easing his chokehold only enough that he would not perish. Throbbing, throbbing, throbbing his stricken thigh protested his movement atop his brother, and his advantage was short-lived, for Nolofinwë once again turned the tide of the war, wresting away the lead in the dance, and grasped Fëanaro by his hair, which had come loose from its ties in the course of their queer battle, and yanking his head down to his own, bit hard on his ear—ai! What a wicked thing to injure another elf’s ears, which are a sensitive organ! What a wicked thing, Fëanaro praised Nolofinwë silently as he permitted himself to be rolled again onto his back to take what Nolofinwë would expertly mete him.

Lying still for a moment, Fëanaro analyzed the sensation in his ass; in the course of their quarrel something in him had loosened, or at least grown accustomed to being fucked, and he knew now the bliss whereof Nolofinwë had spoken, for Nolofinwë’s cock found his prostate, and he marvelled that such perfect pleasure had been hidden away in such an unclean orifice, and he praised Eru his Creator for giving his body organs of ecstasy, organs to share with other men.

“Grapple with a strong man, thou saist—”

“Silence.” Nolofinwë growled and kissed him with all the ardor of an impassioned lover, pressing his tongue between his teeth, licking the inside of his mouth like a parched man seeking water in a nigh-empty jar, drawing back only to suck on his lower lip. The heat in his loins intensified and his heart pounded in his cock, and he wrapped his hand in Fëanaro’s hair to clutch him and forbid him from breaking the kiss. His other hand found Fëanaro’s ears and caressed them, a gentle touch, yea as gentle as a morning rain compared to the storm he had been wreaking upon his kinsman. In a sudden change in the motion of the dance, Nolofinwë skillfully stroked his ear, making Fëanaro to tremble, and for the next minutes he slowed his kisses to something more languid, something more luxurious and tender in its passion, and he rocked his hips with a smooth motion, the affective gestures of a practiced lover. This too was victory, this too a parade of prowess, this too a proof of manhood. 

But if they were lovers, if they were to fuck, it were best to do it properly, Fëanaro thought, for coitus is, fundamentally, an act primarily of the fëa, and elves who are wedded fuck not in body only, but also in the mind and in the spirit, and Fëanaro deemed that the chasm betwixt them need not yawn so widely in this hour of congress, but he saw fit to let a tether be sent across as it ought to be. When Fëanaro nudged against his mind, Nolofinwë opened, and he saw what Fëanaro saw, and felt what Fëanaro felt, and Fëanaro likewise knew his brother’s heart and mind. The bloodied cock sliding, the virginal ass pulsing around it, the heat of each other’s skin, this they shared in common. Fëanaro showed Nolofinwë how he appeared to him, his dark hair tangled and wild falling all around him, his face grim and terrible with pain but oh so fair in its viciousness, but the lips were parted, a drop of spittle, as silver as a morning dew drop, hung, and fell, the salivation of a hungry beast. And Nolofinwë showed Fëanaro himself, so comely covered in his own blood, his face contorted in dreadful pain, long-lashed eyelids heavy with lust, but his gray eyes were undiminished, more trenchant than a razor, more brilliant than a firework, unquenchable as Gil-Estel itself. This forsooth was the man who made the Silmarilli, the man who moved a nation, who, wounded with many wounds, was undismayed.

The pleasure built in their cores, Nolofinwë’s stomach pressed on Fëanaro’s cock, and they knew that they would spill soon. Vainly essayed Fëanaro to hold his climax in check, and likewise did Nolofinwë, who slowed his thrusts too late, but the wave of their rapture rose, higher and higher it rose and rose, unstayed, unhamperable, and it crested right at the crescendo, and crashed through their bodies with inimitable force, shuddering, shattering, shivering overwhelm blanking out the world as Nolofinwë’s seed filled his brother, and Fëanaro’s seed spilt pale and viscous onto their stomachs. 

As their bodies stilled, Nolofinwë burying his face to drown in the inky night of Fëanaro’s hair, their minds receded from one another, even as waters seeping back into the sea, and as their pleasure dissipated the agony of their injuries seared in its full magnitude through their bodies, but they were glad, for their wounds pressed together and their blood was become one, this admixture making these new bodies, which were born not from woman, into blood-brothers. The stinging of the air on their wounds was real, real the alteration to their bodies, real the scars that would form, real, so happily real, all of it. 

At the sound of Fëanaro clearing his throat, Nolofinwë raised himself on trembling arms to hark to his brother.

“The tally,” Fëanaro said, eloquent despite how sorely he had been ploughed. “The debate won I, and wonest thou the duel. But when first we lay together mine was the victory, but our intercourse today is a tie. Methinks thou, ambitious viper that thou art, may wish to arrange another match. Do I read this aright, Nolvo?”

The shadow of a smile lightened Nolofinwë’s sweat-greased countenance, no less for hearing the intimate name. “Yea, Naro, yea let us lie together again, to even the score.”

With a grunt he withdrew his softened cock and rose, extended an arm, and raised Fëanaro to his unsteady feet. They clasped hands in the pale noonlight, bloody bodies gleaming in the brightness, and they shook with adamantine firmness, well-nigh breaking the bones in each other’s hands for the strength of their grip, identical eyes clasping unciform likewise, acknowledging that they were remade as true-brothers in blood, true-brothers in heart.

If we can not hate one another, then let us live together. If we can not abide peace, then let us wage war. Let the dance spin, let it spin on and on and on. 

---

Chapter End Notes

Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think about this work <3