The House of Fëanor : Little Pity by bunn  

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The Oath

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Eärendil and Elwing were easy enough to find.  Among all that great encampment with its banners, hounds and horses, there was only one great sky-ship that shone with reflected starlight.  They were sitting together on the grass under it, and with them was Elwing’s father, Dior.  

Elrond had hoped to come to them quietly, but all eyes were on Fëanor. By the time they had reached Vingilot, they had collected Finrod, Amárië, Fingolfin, and Fingon again and as they came up to the shining ship, they met with Finarfin, Eärwen and many of the people of the House of Finarfin too.  

“If you would give us a moment,” Elrond said, to various High Kings of the Noldor, and drew Fëanor on to where Eärendil had come to his feet.

“This is Fëanor,” Elrond said, since some introduction seemed to be needed, though there was only one person in all that great crowd whose spirit burned like that. It drew the mind’s eye.  “I count him as a grandfather, as you know.  And this, Fëanor,  is my father, Eärendil, and my mother, Elwing, and my grandfather Dior, son of Beren and Lúthien, who took the Silmaril from the Enemy.”    

“I heard a little about that,” Fëanor said.  “Though considerably later than anyone else, it seems.  I have been somewhat short of news.”  He glanced at Nerdanel beside him. Her freckled face,  to Elrond’s amazement,  looked slightly embarrassed. Nerdanel had, Elrond knew, been wary of providing information to her husband in the Halls of Mandos. 

Fëanor turned to Dior, who looked at him coldly. “My father Finwë and your grandfather Elwë were dear friends long ago,” Fëanor said. “I am sworn to slay anyone who takes in hand a Silmaril, and yet, my hatred for the Enemy is very bitter.  It delights me to hear of him humbled and dispossessed. It grieves me that my oath should have come between us.”

“And that, presumably, is where we come in,” Eärendil said, easily.  “For I have in hand the Silmaril, though it is an heirloom of Elwing’s house.” His clear blue eyes flicked over Fëanor, noting, presumably, the lack of a sword.  Eärendil himself was armed and although not wearing armour, he had on a heavy dark blue leather coat with strong reinforced panels, designed to break the force of a blow.  Still, he looked unworried.  He was smiling. 

Elwing was standing tall and still next to him.  She too carried a long sword upon her belt. Her long pale face looked troubled, and her eyes went to Elrohir, who had come up with Celebrían, and then to Elrond.  He gave her a quick smile, and she smiled back.  He was aware that a few steps behind, Maedhros had recoiled in discomfort, seeing her.  But Fingon was with him. And Elwing had chosen to come here.

“My son Elrond has told me a good deal about this oath,” Elwing said to Fëanor.  “I may say, after what your sons did, I was not at first inclined to want to hear about it.”

“It was their duty,” Fëanor said, with a glance at Dior. “Their sworn word, and mine, to reclaim it.”

Elwing frowned at him. “The gem came to me as an heirloom of my House,” she said.  “It was one of the very few things my parents left me.  I was two years old, when your children slew my father,  and my mother Nimloth.”

Fëanor took a sharp breath.  “I did not know that,” he said, and his face was filled with distress. 

“I did not remember their faces,” Elwing said, meditatively.  “My mother, my father, my brothers. I believe you lost a mother, when you were a child... When my mother returned at last from death, someone had to tell me who she was.  My brothers are still lost.  They were six years old.  My children were the same age, when your sons drove me into the sea, slew my people and took my sons away.  I thought for many years that my children were both dead too.” 

Fëanor had no answer for that.  He was weeping silently.  

Elwing said “And so, I had very little desire to hear of you or your sons, or your oath. But then I thought.  We are both of us half-elven, Eärendil and I, and so, long ago, we had the choice.  Eärendil would have taken the path of Men, and gone beyond the world, but I... I chose to stay, and be with the Elves, and so, for love, did he.”

“One of us had to choose,” Eärendil said. “Not such a terrible thing, to end up among the Elves.” 

“No.  But if I’d given you your choice, it would have been Elrond’s Silmaril long since,” Elwing said to him. “And much as I might have wished it otherwise, Elrond loves Maglor and Maedhros.  He dearly wishes to see their oath ended and have them live free of it.  The only thing he’s asked of me, since he was six years old...  So I have decided that I shall give it to you.”

Elrond let out a breath, and heard an answering gasp of breath from Maedhros.  Maglor did not move or make any sound  at all but Elrond could see the muscles in his neck rigid with tension. 

“I thought you had decided you could not,” he said, wondering, to his mother. “That you would only agree to bring it here to try some charm against their oath...” 

Elwing gave him an awkward smile. “I kept thinking about it.  What you said, what I said.   And it was clear as starlight: this is what you’d do with it. My father is here, my mother, too.  We don’t need it any more.  Varda has plenty of stars.”

“Lots of choices, for running lamps for Vingilot,” Eärendil said. “I can’t see any argument to insist on using the only one that might provoke a war.” He pulled a leather pouch from his pocket, and without ceremony, held it out to Fëanor.   

“Careful,” Maedhros said as his father reached out.  “They burned us.” 

“I did bring some gloves...” Nerdanel began, but Fëanor laughed joyously and took the pouch.

“My thanks,” he said to Eärendil, “and to you, Elwing, my thanks, but far more than that, my grief.  The oath was poorly worded. I had not thought it might set my sons against a child!  It was intended to strengthen wills against the Enemy, not chain them to his service. That is the last time I speak words of power without writing them down to check them first.  It results in appalling workmanship.”

“If I thought that you might do the same again,” Eärendil said levelly, “then I would kill you now, and save myself future trouble, for all that my sons had one of yours as a second father.”

“Would you!” Fëanor said, looking oddly pleased. “You don’t mince your words. Good.”

Eärendil nodded. “You seem a useful ally.  Nothing worse than running short of those.  And I’m told you are a quick learner.”

“I used to be,” Fëanor said, “This at least I have learned: darkness twists your words if you call on it, no matter who else you call besides.” 

He pulled the string open and tipped the contents out into his hand. Maglor winced, but his father did not.  The stone spilled out into his palm, shining bright, and brighter yet, like evening on a summer’s day, warming to the brilliance of the sun at mid-day, a light with memory to it, gleaming out of a past so distant and remote that Elrond could not remember it.  A jangle of finely wrought chains and small gems followed it. 

“It didn’t burn you,” Maglor said blankly, rubbing at the palm of his right hand with his left thumb. 

“Of course not, Makalaurë.” Nerdanel leant forward and prodded him sternly with one finger.  He looked down at her and smiled.  “Maglor,” he corrected himself, more gently.  “For one thing, I made this, and it recognises me still.  But more than that, it was given to me freely and with goodwill, by one who I can count a kinsman.” 

He looked at Maglor’s face and then at Maedhros’s, outlined sharply in the light of the gem. Frozen, yearning. 

“That’s not the important thing,” he said. “The important thing is to set my children free of... whatever my oath has become.  And that now should be a simple thing, for it has been fulfilled. Maedhros took one, and it is safe below the earth, Maglor the second, and he chose to place it in the Sea, and here now is the third.”

He stepped back a couple of steps and held the Silmaril high, and the light answered as he held it up, shining brilliant as if someone had opened a window into the past and all the light of lost Laurelin and Telperion was flooding through it.

It was a light that Elrond himself had only ever seen at a great distance, caught in a far-off star, and yet he recognised it as more than star, more than the light his lost father bore, or the light that shone in his foster-father’s eyes.  The light of the Silmaril ran like a bright thread through song and story, the light of Elvenhome of long ago, lost now in the deeps of Time but never forgotten.

 “I hold my Oath fulfilled!” Fëanor called out, and the sound of his voice went through all the host,  out across the plains and echoed from the walls of Mandos.  “Eru Allfather hear me! Bear witness, all ye lords and princes of the Noldor!  Bear witness all this great people!  Fëanor holds his Oath fulfilled!” 

And all that company around him called out in answer: “Heard and witnessed!”

. . . . . . 

Elrond looked at Maglor, and then across at Maedhros. “How do you feel?” he asked. 

Maedhros shrugged. “Not much different, if I’m honest,” he admitted. 

Maglor blinked.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “Well enough.”  He was lying, that was plain. Frustrated, Elrond let him see that he knew it.  He had hoped that note of weary, accustomed evasion would be gone for good. He took his foster-father by the shoulder and looked into his eyes, looking for the cause within his mind. 

Instinctively, Maglor’s protections rose against him, and then fell again, as Maglor unhappily but dutifully took them down. He looked very tired, Elrond thought, as he searched for unwelcome intrusions.  

After a moment, he saw there something dark and familiar. It was not moving much, but neither was it gone. He looked over at Fëanor.   It did not seem to be troubling him, so far as Elrond could tell from this distance.  But Maglor had lived with his oath for thousands of year more than his father had, and both Maglor and Maedhros had shed blood for it, far more than their father had.  

Perhaps they would have to set all three gems into Fëanor’s hand. Somehow.  At least there must be no way now that Fëanor and his sons could be driven against their own people. 

The flask of miruvor was on his belt. He poured out a cup and gave it to Maglor. “Please drink it,” he said unhappily, quietly. “Perhaps not everything can be mended, after all, but that doesn’t have to mean everlasting darkness.”  

Maglor wearily drained the cup, and Elrond poured another for Maedhros, keeping his hands low.  Fingon stood in the way, so that no-one else would see.  

. . . . . 

Fëanor looked down at the Silmaril. “I’m not sure about this setting, Nerdanel,” he said with some distaste, in an ordinary, day-to-day voice, the craftsman, not the orator.  “What do you think? They were not designed to compete with other gems.  This is very well-made, but it doesn’t...” 

He looked more closely at it and Nerdanel leaned over frowning to look as well.  

“There’s something wrong with this,” Fëanor said.  He put his hand over the gem itself, to look more closely at the setting.  

“I need some tools,” he said, looking around as if vices, drills, lenses, pliers and gauges could be expected to grow from the grass. 

Nerdanel said, “Celebrimbor.” 

. . . . . . 

“If I had known it would be needed, I would have brought a workshop,” Celebrimbor said to his grandfather, apologetically. 

“This is excellent, given that you could not have known,” Fëanor told him approvingly.  “I’ve worked with far fewer and less well-made tools!“  Celebrimbor and many of his jewelsmiths had turned out bags and pockets, and had produced a fair number of tools that Elrond could recognise, and a far greater number that he could not.  They were now spread out upon a plain white cloth, and Fëanor was sitting crosslegged in the middle.  The Silmaril was bright enough that although the sky was dark no other source of light was needed. 

“What do you make of it, Celebrimbor?” Nerdanel asked. 

Celebrimbor looked at his grandfather, and receiving a nod of permission, picked up the gem and necklace and examined it closely with the device his grandfather had been using. 

Curufin said, without coming too close or touching either necklace or Silmaril, “What is the mystery?  It’s the Nauglamir.  Finrod’s bit of glitter that the Dwarves made for him.  A nice piece, to be fair to them. Someone looted it from Nargothrond after its fall, and it ended up in Doriath. Thingol had some workmen from Nogrod set the Silmaril in it and didn’t pay them, or so we heard.  That’s why they killed him...”

He began to say something more, but, Elrond noticed, Amras trod heavily upon his foot, and Curufin closed his mouth abruptly.   

“Yes,” Celebrimbor said, still peering intently at the necklace. “It’s certainly the Nauglamir.  But it’s not only the Nauglamir and the Silmaril.  There’s something else.  Very faint, I can barely see it.”

“I agree. I would say it had been removed, but not very expertly,” Fëanor said. “Traces remain. Words of power strung about it. Is that Dwarvish?  It looks foul.  I didn’t think the Dwarves traded in that sort of unpleasantness.”

“Definitely not!” Celebrimbor told him.  He set the necklace down in front of him and stared at it.  “The Dwarves would find this as loathsome as we do. At least, the ones that I knew would.  This is not Dwarven. It’s something quite different. And, I think familiar... where is the double-strength loupe?  Oh, there.”  He looked through the lens and nodded abruptly. 

“I’ve seen something of this style before,” Celebrimbor said. He pushed the necklace at his father.  “And so have you, if it’s what I think it is.”

Curufin leant forward cautiously, without touching the Silmaril, and took the lens.  He looked through it, and then ventured to run his finger across a curled wire. Then he grimaced and pulled away with a look of distaste.  “Yes,” he said.  “I have seen something like this before. Twice. At Dagor Bragollach and then again at Nirnaeth Arnoediad. But only at a great distance.”

Celebrimbor said softly,  his eyes fixed on the necklace, “And I have seen it on the field of Tumhalad, raging in flame, when Orodreth died, and the army of Nargothrond with him.  When we who were left were beaten back and could neither recover his body, or win back to Nargothrond...  This is Glaurung’s work.  Dragon-gold.”

“The dragon sickness?” Elrond said. He had heard of it, of course. “Thranduil’s wood-elves used to speak of the dragon sickness lying on the hoard of Erebor.  But Erebor was well enough the last I heard of it, for all that Smaug lived there a good long while. I suppose Smaug was young, as dragons go.”

“Glaurung was old and foul and strong: one of the Enemy’s great generals.  Not just a dragon,” Curufin said, narrowing his eyes against the brilliance of the gem. “He led armies and cast spells of doom and torment. I can make it out, or part of it, anyway.” He thought for a moment, looking at the necklace, and then began to speak. 

“Their doom falls, their song wanes,
by iron slain, by steel chained.
Greed that sings not, that knows no joy
Shall their last hope destroy,
By treachery through carven gold:
over Beleriand the shadow rolls... the rest is lost, save for a word or two.  Betrayal, here, and kinship then later, in pain and shadow.”

“Well translated,” Fëanor said to him. “I could not pick out so much myself.”

Curufin shrugged. “Easier to read the words when you have seen the writer.  Shoddy work, to leave it like this, with the spell only half-broken... ”

“Perhaps,” Fëanor said, thoughtfully.  “But then it is wrapped around a Silmaril, and the Silmarils were the heart and soul of the Oath. Breaking it with the Oath inside it might have been difficult. I wonder if this was aimed at our House deliberately, or if it was only a coincidence that Elwë —  Thingol — chose to bring the two together.”  He shrugged. “Fortunately, we have here all the expertise and the tools to complete the task.  I hope we can do it without damaging the necklace.  It would be an excellent piece of work, if it had not been married with a gem so emphatically not designed for it.” 

“No.” Finrod said.  He had been standing to one side, listening unusually quietly for him, but he had shuddered when Curufin had read out the verse. “I don’t think that is a good idea.”

“No?” Fëanor frowned at him dauntingly. 

“The Silmaril is yours,” Finrod said.  “I have never claimed otherwise, no matter what you may have heard.  I made an oath too, you know...  But the necklace, if it is anyone’s at all, is mine, and I would very much prefer to make an end of it.  My friends who made it are long dead, and they would be filled with horror if they could hear those words. I’m very glad they can’t.  They’d hate to think of their gift being used by a dragon to bring sorrow!  I will remember it, as it was when it was given to me, in joy, and I’ll remember them too.  But the necklace should be unmade and with it, whatever is left of those words.”  

Fëanor shrugged. “Very well,” he said.  “It is yours to do with as you wish. Curvo, would you...?” 

Curufin gave Finrod a thoughtful look.  “Very willingly,” he said, and from the assembled tools he chose with precise care, wire cutters, a small pointed file, a vice,  a heavy hammer, and a small stump anvil. 

 . . . . . 

 Fëanor spent most of that night talking: to his brothers and sister Lalwen, at first, and then for a long time with the queen,  Eärwen of Alqualondë.  His sons had a good deal to talk of with their cousins and their people, too. 

Elrond left them all to it and went back to the place where he had left Celebrían, Gandalf and the hobbits, who were already settling down to sleep beside the fire that Fingaeril and Lindir had built. 

Maglor turned up there well after midnight, escorted by Bregolien and a number of her friends.  

Elrond restrained himself, with some difficulty, from asking Maglor how he felt, or looking into his mind. He offered him a cup of wine, instead.  

“No miruvor?” Maglor said drily,  took the cup and sat down on the ground next to him, a little away from the fire and those who were sitting around it singing softly, and the sleepers wrapped in blankets a little further away.

“I have some if you want it,” Elrond said. “But you lived without it and sang the oath into sleep yourself in Middle-earth. I didn’t intend to push.  Healing the Edain has given me a bad habit of taking up cares and woes unasked, and nobody else here is at all unwell. I fear you took the brunt of it.” 

Maglor took a swig and lay back, looking at the stars.  “I’m not complaining,” he said. “You know your business.  Though it might just be a matter of time for the last remnant of it to disappear, with luck. It does feel lighter.” 

“Really?”

“Really,” Maglor said, and held his mind open. 

Elrond looked away. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“It stopped biting quite so hard when Father declared it fulfilled, but it was lighter again once Curvo chopped up the necklace.  My father has a theory that the dragon-curse had got tangled in it, and helped give it shape... But there is no-one left to call enemy.  There’s no urgency now.”

“No.  Though you always say that, whether there’s need of haste or not!”

“I do not,” Maglor said, with enormous dignity.  “Very occasionally, there is need of haste, and when there is, I do something about it.  You’ve been talking to my mother.”

“It was Caranthir, in fact,” Elrond told him. 

“Oh, was it?  The brutal honesty of brothers!  I knew you’d get along with him. Or that he’d get along with you, which is more or less the same thing... Anyway, I am so deeply in your debt, I have no hope of repaying it, except with thanks.   There’s nothing in my mind that you aren’t welcome to look at if you want to.  Though I fear it’s very dull.  Two thirds music,  one sixth guilt, and what remains is mostly concerned with wine and food.”

“Surely not,” Elrond said, smiling.  “I would have said that at least one-sixth was devoted to war and horses.” 

“That’s the guilt,” Maglor said, and laughed. “I came to tell you that my father has loaned the Silmaril to Eärendil. He says he has nowhere to keep it just at the moment, and that if his Enemy tests the borders of the sky, he would be delighted if his kinsman Eärendil strikes him with it.”

“Truly?”  Elrond said, overcome with delighted laughter  “He didn’t keep it by him for a day!  My mother must be pleased.  Or at least, surprised.”

“She definitely looked surprised,” Maglor told him, sitting up with a gleam of mischief in his eye. “Everyone did, apart from my mother.  I suspect it was her suggestion.  I was sorry you missed it, all the wide-eyed faces! Finrod’s expression was very funny.  Oh, and my father said that it seemed unlikely that even the Valar would be able to take the Silmaril from Eärendil, so it would be entirely safe with him.  That was after Finarfin told him all about Ancalagon.  But more than that, I think my father likes him.”

“A good thing, too,” Elrond said, relieved and delighted all at once. 

“Finarfin has planned a great feast, to welcome them all back to Tirion.  And me, I suppose, though I’ve been there quite recently.” 

“Are you going to sing?”

“I haven’t been asked to yet.  Perhaps. I don’t have time to write something new for it.  I have been using the two-thirds of my mind usually reserved for music for unaccustomed worrying instead, these last few weeks. I had not thought I might find myself short of a song.” 

“Sing one of Bilbo’s,” Elrond suggested. 

Maglor made a noise of alarmed protest that made Elrond laugh.  “My father would wonder what on earth had happened to me.” 

“Perhaps he would.  Though Bilbo’s poetry isn’t as bad as all that!”

“No, it’s not, you are right.  It’s only strange and different. I like I sit beside the fire and think. Perhaps I will sing one of his, at that.  It would be worth it to see the expression on his face.”

“Bilbo, or your father?”

“Bilbo!  It would make him smile.  Though now you mention it, my father’s face might be amusing to watch if I don’t mention it’s not mine till afterwards.  He probably hasn’t heard a single one of my songs since the rising of the Sun. Though I suppose he might like hobbit poetry.  It would be something new and different, for him...  People say we were too proud.  There’s nothing proud about hobbit songs.”

“You don’t need to go around being harmless any more,” Elrond pointed out.  “You said you’d try to keep it up until the Valar had released them, or we knew they never would. Now they are free, and you are a prince.”

“I suppose so.  What an odd thought.  When we arrived on Tol Eressëa a few years ago, I was Elrond’s untrustworthy dog, and it seemed that everyone looked sideways, thinking I might bite them...  I suppose it wasn’t everyone, even then, but it felt like it!  I was much tempted to bark, and make them jump.”  

Elrond laughed. “I’m surprised you didn’t.  It seems the sort of thing you’d do. But princes are supposed to be proud.  It’s practically in the word.” 

Maglor looked sideways at Elrond in the starlight. “Is that why you refused to be a prince? Heir to all our kingly houses, and yet you call yourself only Master Elrond, if you use a title at all.”

“I have a circlet,” Elrond said, defensively. “Celebrían made it for me.”

“But never a crown.  Very sensible. I wouldn’t want one either.  Nor did Fingon, though he put up with having to wear one, in his customary heroic manner.”

Elrond looked down at the shape of Vilya, glinting faintly on his finger, and turned it around.  “What do you think happens to Men when they die?” he asked.  

Maglor blinked, surprised. “If you don’t know, how should I?” he asked. He looked at Elrond, and frowned.  “Oh, I see. You were thinking of Aragorn.”

“He would be two hundred and ten years old. If he’s still alive,” Elrond said.  “I think he is.  That’s old, for Men.  Not as old as Elros, but Elros had the choice himself... Most of them die younger.”

“I know,” Maglor said. “But they go on, don’t they?  The Guests, we used to call them sometimes.  They come here for a little while, and then they go on?”

“Elladan is gone already,” Elrond admitted.  It hurt to speak of it.  Galadriel, Celebrían and Elrohir had known without having to be told, of course. “I have seen it.”

“Oh.” Maglor said.  “Elrond, I am sorry to hear it.”

Elrond shrugged “There seemed to be so many other things to think of, at the time. There was nothing to be done.  It was easy for him, to slip away.  I saw that, too. Arwen will find it harder, at the ending. Aragorn will go first.  And he’ll come here,” he looked towards the walls of Mandos, hidden by the darkness under stars, “and then he will go on, and she will have to follow. But she lived for so long at the pace of Elves...  I wish I knew for sure that he’d be waiting for her.  That the ending would be bright.”

“If he doesn’t wait, then when he gets there, wherever it is, Elros will give him a fine telling off,” Maglor said. 

“Yes. I said that to Celebrían,” Elrond told him, and laughed, then cut himself off when it sounded bitter.  “I said it to Aragorn too.  Not that Aragorn would go without her, if he had the choice...  I almost believe it.  I’ve seen so many of them come and go. You never get used to it.  Easier when they are not afraid.”

Maglor got up, found the wineskin and topped up both their cups.  “I think it might be better than here,” he said. “I don’t know, of course.  But I think Elros would have come back to tell you, if it wasn’t.  I know that’s not entirely usual, but your family has something of a tradition when it comes to ignoring the usual rules about death.”

“Our family,” Elrond said.  “Wasn’t it your grandmother who chose to die and then decided she was tired of being dead, and made the Valar revise all the rules?”

“It was,” Maglor admitted. “All right then, our family.  It was Arwen who found a bear-cub and brought it home, wasn’t it?  I could see Elros doing that, if there had been bears left in Beleriand then.”

“But there were none. I don’t think either of us felt tempted to bring back the spiders, orcs or trolls... Arwen might have tried for a werewolf, though.  I can see her with a werewolf pup, feeding it scraps and teaching it to fetch a ball in sharp white fangs...    Elladan wouldn’t. He always made a very clear line between the hounds and the wolves, the hunters and the hunted.  I remember once...” 

The fire burned slowly to ashes, and above, the stars of Varda wheeled through the dark blue sky.   

. . . . . 

Rain was falling on the white city of Tirion upon Túna as the host rode up to it : a thin bright rain falling under grey clouds that shone in the morning light that shone in beneath the clouds and between the mountain-walls from the eastern sea.  

Maglor wondered if the rain was intended to convey a message: from Manwë, perhaps, or from Ulmo, and if so, whether the message was grief, or joy or renewal.  

Or perhaps it was only rain.  It shone and glistened on the white walls of Tirion, and the diamond-strewn pavements, the shining towers, and stairs of crystal.  The rain-mist hid the mountain-tops and the view down the pass of Calacyria to the Sea in a grey veil.

Finrod, Angrod and Eldalotë sent riders ahead up into the city, to make hurried arrangements for awnings and ensure that all the plans for the day were going smoothly.  

Then, after a brief pause, the House of Finwë rode back into Tirion, almost all of them at least, for the first time in seven thousand years, and all about them there were voices singing, and harps and trumpets playing. 

In Valimar the singing might have been more cunningly-wrought, in Alqualondë, it might have been more clear and bright.  But neither Alqualondë nor even the choirs of Valimar in the blissful Years of the Trees could have matched the singers of Tirion on that day for their passion. 

They rode up into the city, to the House of Finwë beneath the Mindon Eldaliéva, which had stood empty for all those long years, and they went in. 

. . . . . . 

There was a good deal of song and merriment.  Not entirely practiced, the merriment, the laughter sometimes had a sharper edge.  The singing was a little careful from time to time, as people remembered verses that it might be wisest not to sing, and arranged themselves to dance so as to avoid embarrassment and awkwardness, but on the whole, there was a lack of argument that Maglor could not remember seeing in Tirion since he was very young indeed.  Not that he had spent much time in Tirion recently. Perhaps it was always like this now. 

Finrod and Maedhros appeared next to him after a particularly energetic dance, with cups of well-watered wine. None of the royal family were taking any chances with getting drunk just yet.  

“It won’t last,” Finrod said, looking around at dancing Elves then smiling, perhaps a little more brightly than was entirely natural, at his cousins. “I think there’s almost bound to be a fight or two.  But the longer we can put it off, the more likely it is that any fight will be more a show of sparks than anything serious...” 

“Such pessimism, Finrod!” Maedhros said. He gave three people who were among his more enthusiastic supporters, who had been muttering together, a quelling look, and pointed with his single hand. They bowed and went off in three separate directions.   “Nobody has fought yet, and if Nimloth of Doriath and my brother Celegorm can lead a dance together, there is no excuse for anyone else.” 

“A thoroughly heartwarming sight!” Finrod said, and his laugh was very nearly his real one this time.  “And much more generally convincing than my mother dancing with your father.  Everyone knows my mother can be diplomatic —  and that your father can be entirely charming when he wants to be, of course,” he added, rather hastily.  “But nobody has ever called either Celegorm or Nimloth anything but abrupt at best.”

“Abrupt is a very kindly way of putting it, Finrod,” Maglor said. “Or at least, it’s a kindly way to describe Celegorm.  I don’t know what the right word is for Nimloth.  We might need a new one.”

“Forgiving will do for me,” Maedhros said. 

“Hmmm,” Maglor said.  “You haven’t met her informally yet, have you?  That still awaits you. She’s certainly remarkable, but... well, trust me on this, a new word is definitely needed.” 

The clear note of a bell rang out around the court of Tirion.  The great feast was about to begin. 

. . . . . . 

The eating and drinking in the great feast-hall, with its white pillars in the form of great beech-trees, and its walls decorated with unimaginably ancient tapestries, still bright with beech-leaf green and golden browns, went on for a long while. 

When the food was eaten at last and the singing started up again, the High King Finarfin stood up. 

He said nothing, but stood quietly between his two brothers, and somehow the longer he stood there, the harder it became to look away from him.  His tall slender gold-crowned figure caught the eye and his silence took the attention as no words could have done. 
 
After a few moments, everyone there had stopped talking and singing,  and they were all looking at him in silence. 

“I have a few things to say,” Finarfin said. His voice was not loud, and yet all in that great hall could hear him.  

“First, I must tell you I am taking a new name, or rather, taking back an old one.  When I returned from the war in Middle-earth, I took the name Finwëarafinwë, rendered into the common tongue of Beleriand: Finarfin.  

“That was, as I declared both to my people and the Valar, in memory of my father, Finwë, cruelly slain by our Enemy.  He is still much missed.  And as I also declared to the Valar, I took that name in the language of Middle-earth,  to remember my daughter, Galadriel, exiled by decree of the Valar, my  sons, cruelly slain by our Enemy, and also my sister Lalwen, and my brothers Fëanor and Fingolfin, and their families, fallen in battle against the Enemy, and forbidden to return to life.”

He held out his hand to Galadriel who sat near him, in a simple circlet of gold that was outshone by the glory of her hair. “My daughter is, to my great joy, returned to me at last.  Two of my sons, my sister and my brothers too, and Aegnor has chosen to wait in the halls of Mandos and seek healing there.  Though grief can neither be wholly healed nor forgotten, I shall take back again my name, Arafinwë.”

He paused, and turned to each of his brothers in turn.  “So,” he said, in a more conversational tone.  “It has been a very long time, and there is a great deal still to say.  I shall try to be brief. You,” and he nodded to Fëanor “wanted your place as our father’s heir and leader of our people unquestioned. And you,” to Fingolfin,”wanted our mother’s children properly acknowledged, and your great abilities recognised.”

This was in Maglor’s opinion a rather kindly interpretation of Fingolfin’s words in Tirion and on the march north to Araman.  He remembered how Fingolfin had made it clear through a thousand tiny jabs that he thought Fëanor a fool. If he had not actually hoped to be named king by popular acclamation, he had come very near it.  But Fingolfin had paid far more for that than he had owed, and even Celegorm had the sense not to make an issue of it now. 

Nobody spoke, and Arafinwë went on. 

“All of you, my children included, wanted a wide canvas to paint on and broad lands to explore. And both my brothers wanted justice, and revenge, of course, upon our great Enemy.”
 
Fingolfin and Fëanor were both looking at him curiously, but neither replied.  Arafinwë smiled faintly. 
 
“So much for the two of you, your great families, and my adventurous children, loyal to their friends.  You let me turn back.  Neither of my brothers even tried to stop me.  So I returned to the unpleasant and messy task of picking up all the pieces in Tirion, of apologising humbly to the Valar and begging their pardon. One small reason among many why we are all sitting here in our father’s hall now: because I turned back and made peace.”

Fëanor made a face.  Fingolfin only nodded calmly. 

Arafinwë went on. “Thanks to Eärwen, who is a peaceweaver of no small skill, we found our way back to friendship with the Teleri.  We tried to stitch together the factions, as the dead came limping home one by one.  We built and supplied the army of Valinor.  You left me to lead our people into the war, to work with the Valar and the Vanyar, to fight in the final battle to overthrow our Enemy.  To collect up the many thralls who came crawling out of Angband, and brought them aid and comfort.   To bring our people home again. To try to heal the deep wounds left by bitter words and war and resentment. To resolve the many, many arguments.  You left that behind for me, all these long, long years.   Not the kind of thing that gets commemorated very often in song, I discover, but someone had to do it.  Does that seem a fair summation?” 
 
“And a very good job you have made of it,” Fingolfin said gravely. 
 
“Yes,” Arafinwë said, as one stating an obvious fact.  “I made an excellent job of it. I and Eärwen of Alqualondë, together.  With some most valuable help from Anairë and dear Eldalótë, and from Finrod, after he came back, let us not forget that.”
 
Fëanor stood up and bowed low.  “You have done great honour to our father and yourself,” he said.  “I have said it to our brother and I say it now to you. Our father’s youngest son was in some respects the wisest of the three.” 
 
“Thank you,” Arafinwë said.  “It has been very hard work.  It is pleasant to have it appreciated.  And now, I’m delighted to say, I have finished.”
 
He took the crown from his head and weighed it in his hands for a moment.  “I’m not sorry to say goodbye to this,” he said. 
 
Then he walked over to Fëanor, and put it down firmly on the table in front of him. 
 
“There you go,” he said.  Fingolfin’s eyebrows went up. 
 
Fëanor stared at him. “You can’t do that!” he said. 
 
“You are our father’s eldest son. It’s yours.”
 
“Well, yes, but surely the Valar...” Fëanor said.  
 
Arafinwë looked at him, golden eyebrows raised. “I was not expecting my brother Fëanor, of all people, to tell me that the Valar should decide who is High King of the Noldor!” he said.  
 
Fëanor laughed, a sudden surprised laugh that reminded Maglor of days long past, when his father had only not had much in common with his brothers, instead of being embroiled in feuds with them. “Perhaps not, at that,” he said. “But still, being king did not turn out to be one of my strengths.”   
 
“I hope you aren’t telling me you don’t think you can do it,” Arafinwë said.  “That’s not something I expected to hear from my eldest brother either.

Fëanor was looking at Fingolfin. “Did you know about this?” he demanded.  Maglor exchanged a swift, worried look with Maedhros. 
 
“No!” Fingolfin said. “He’s the king. Or he was. He didn’t ask me about it.  I think he’s right, though.  You didn’t have a good start, the first time. My fault in part, as much as yours, and the darkness, the grief, and the Enemy.  But our people are united now, and the law well established. Inheritance goes to the eldest first. Take the crown, and I and my people will follow you.” 

Maglor looked across at Fingon, sitting some distance away with Angrod, and found that Maedhros was already doing the same.  Fingon shrugged at them helplessly.  Presumably nobody had mentioned this to him, either.  Finrod was looking at Fëanor, with a politely interested expression, and would not look at anyone else, even when Maglor reached out with his mind and tapped. Clearly Finrod had known, and had kept it quiet. 

Fëanor reached out and touched the crown thoughtfully with one finger with a faint air of distaste.  “I’m not sure I want it,” he said.
 
“Good,” said Arafinwë, “That’s probably the best guarantee I could ask that you’ll be good at it.”

Fëanor made a face at him.  

“Appoint a regent, if you want.  Delegate. Or if you must, resign in favour of Maedhros, or Fingolfin — if either of them will do it —  or Gil-galad.  Or Lalwen: I’d happily serve her as our Queen.  I won’t suggest Findis, who has not set foot in Tirion since you were exiled.  You don’t know Gil-galad, but you’ll find he’s very talented.  But whoever you give it to, it won’t be me, or any of my House.   Eärwen wants to go back to the Sea.  I want to go with her. Finrod has had enough of doing half my work for me and deserves a chance to use his many other talents. Galadriel has defended her people from the Shadow for far too long, and needs peace and rest.  Finduilas, Angrod and Orodreth have never wanted it.  All of us have done our duty all these long years by the Noldor, and by the authority entrusted to me.  And now I give the crown to my brother, to whom it belongs by right, and I leave the choice to him. ” 

 And he bowed deeply.  

Very slowly, Fëanor picked up the crown and looked at it. It was a lightweight confection of golden strands, nothing like the crown that Maglor could remember his grandfather wearing, though it looked rather more comfortable. The entire room was silent, every face watching.  

“The Noldor should be ruled by one they all know and trust,” Fëanor said. “And yet, it’s true that your House has carried the burden nobly, and should not be asked to keep on carrying it unwillingly.   I spoke with my father Finwë in the Halls of Mandos.  He praised my brothers to me, and before I left, he urged me to help them in any way I could.  I did not think there would be any aid that I could offer, but none the less, I gave my word.”

He frowned at Arafinwë. It was not the angry frown, but the puzzled one, the frown that came with solving complicated problems.  “You said that you would not suggest our sister Findis, because she has been long absent from Tirion, yet I have been absent just as long.  So have my sons.  There must be many people now in Tirion who have never spoken with us, and know nothing but our names.”

He turned the crown in his hands and looked at Fingolfin.  Maglor touched Maedhros’s mind, in blank astonishment, and found a sense of Fingon already there. 

He isn’t going to 

Is he?

He did let go of the Silmaril

Yes but not to my father!

Better to him than to me

Or me

Or me! If you turn it down so will I you are not pushing it on me...

You’d give Celegorm the crown?

I’ll give it straight to Fingon and watch you both squirm

That is not a good joke

Don’t

Lalwen won’t come back to Tirion

The Fëanorian Quarter barely listened to Finrod most of them left Gil-galad for Eregion

There’s always Celebrimbor

Don’t you think he’s suffered enough?

Or Elrond

NO.

I think he’s going to

Fingolfin broke the moment of silence. “I and my house also returned only recently from the Halls of Mandos,” he said. “And this is only your first day here in Tirion. If you will hear my counsel, I would say, take some time to get to know our people again.”  

Fëanor put the crown down again on the table before him, with an audible click. 

“I will hear your counsel,” he said to Fingolfin.  “I will not wear this,” he said.  “But I cannot turn away, or pass the task on to others without thought.  Let us take twelve years to get to know the Noldor again, I and my children and you and yours.  All of the Noldor.  Then I will be ready for such a choice.” 

Arafinwë bowed again, and Fingolfin smiled. 

Maglor could tell that some people thought the silence awkward, though Fëanor clearly did not.  Many of Fëanor’s supporters were in the hall, and left to themselves they would have cheered, but Celebrimbor had spoken sternly to them.  They did not speak, but waited with their eyes on Fëanor’s face, as he thought. 

Maedhros prodded Maglor unobtrusively, with one fingertip.   

Of course, his father had help to deal with such minor difficulties as awkward silences.  Maglor stood up.  He did not have a harp with him, but he had made do without a harp before, on occasion, even in the hall of his grandfather Finwë. 

 This was not the moment for one of Bilbo’s songs. That would come later. 

“Father!” he said, “I will sing. Hear me! This is the song Return Beyond Hope, that I made when first I returned from beyond the Sea. It tells of the deeds of the House of Arafinwë.”

And Fëanor nodded in pleased approval. “I haven’t heard it!” he said with honest enthusiasm.