New Challenge: Allusive
Literature and art constantly refer back to each other using allusions, and this month's prompts are inspired by allusions to literature, myth, art, and history.

Ñolofinwë makes a pained noise and pulls back enough to look him in the face, before his eyes seem to get caught on Fëanáro’s collar, on his chest, his shoulders. “You are in my colors,” Ñolofinwë says softly, traces his finger along Fëanáro’s collarbone and down the front of his tunic. His eyes, when they meet Fëanáro’s once more, are blown out with a disgusting, greedy desire, and understanding strikes Fëanáro.
“Oh,” he breathes, thinking that he should likely have guessed at the reason on his own. He had anticipated that the outfit would garner a reaction from Ñolofinwë, this is true. He cannot say that this was ever one of the reactions he had anticipated. “How shameful of you,” he says quietly, watching the way Ñolofinwë’s eyes drop down to his mouth as he speaks. “Does it not shame you that you should want me in such a way?”

He knows that he’s supposed to say, if he’d known what would happen, he wouldn’t have done it. That he wouldn’t have paced through the halls, watching the tapestries appear, and seen his brother poised in front of Morgoth, preparing to fight, preparing to die, and gone a bit mad with grief.
He knows he should say he would not again go find a tapestry of where it all went irrevocably wrong and begin shredding it apart.
But he is suddenly standing in the middle of the library, treelight dancing through the windows, and staring at him with open mouthed shock is Ñolofinwë. So no, he finds he does not regret it at all.

A Noldo follower of Fëanor laments the First Kinslaying and the Flight of the Noldor

Now a great crowd of spirits, both Elves and lingering Men, were gathered before the newest tapestry as it fell open down the wall, luminous, gold and silver threads glittering in the pale light of Mandos.

Fëanáro thinks of many things during his exile for he has nothing but time and a chest full of fury.
He thinks of his hatred for Melkor. He thinks of his children and the toil the exile is taking on them even if they will not voice it. He thinks of his father and the disappointment he’d just barely been able to see hidden beneath the concern. He thinks of Nerdanel and cannot help but wonder if she saw this coming. More often than not though, he finds his thoughts dwelling on Ñolofinwë.
On how wide and endlessly blue his eyes had gone when Fëanáro had set the point of the sword to his throat.

"You should tell me to stop," Fëanáro says softly, taking the last step and pressing himself flush against Ñolofinwë.
Ñolofinwë swallows with some difficulty, tilts his head back against the door to meet Fëanáro's eyes. "You are my brother," he says, voice wavering. "We should not."
Fëanáro smiles wryly. "That is not telling me to stop."

Little moments of connection with Maedhros. A collection of drabbles and other short writings to accompany One in the Fires of the Heart of the World.

“You said,” Fëanáro says quietly, taking a step forward, “that I shall lead, and you shall follow.”
Ñolofinwë bites down the urge to take a step back as Fëanáro takes another step forward. “I said those words and I meant them. You are my brother and now my king, why should I not follow where you go?”
Fëanáro is regarding him far more seriously than he had that night as they stood in front of Manwë and Ñolofinwë wishes to know what brought this on. “And if I were not your king?” Fëanáro asks. “If I were your half-brother only?”
Or: Fëanáro does not steal away with the ships in the middle of the night, leaving Fingolfin to brave the bitter cold. Whether what he does instead is any better depends on who you ask.

Fëanor spends more nights than he cares to admit to at Fingolfin’s these days. More time than he cares to admit to thinking about Fingolfin these days. Feels some days though as if Fingolfin is the only bit of this new age that is easy at this point.

The footsteps come to a stop in front of him and he does not have a moment to wonder at his brother’s intentions before fingers are sliding into his hair and tugging his head back. He glares up at Fëanáro, tears on his cheeks, heart racing like a plea. Fëanáro stares back, expression strangely blank as he studies Ñolofinwë’s face. And despite his thoughts, despite his belief, he still finds himself smiling mirthlessly and asking, “Well, have you come to kill me in truth? Make your exile worth it?”
Something flickers through Fëanáro’s eyes too fast for him to catch and the fingers in his hair tighten painfully. “I would have thought that upon successfully usurping the crown you would be far more pleased,” Fëanáro says darkly, lip curling in disgust.

Maedhros finds that regret and pain do not end with death. But it does at last bring release from the oath and he can at last embark upon the long, hard road toward redemption.

Fëanáro was sitting on the floor, his back against the grave marker his father had had made for his mother when her spirit fully settled into Mandos’ Halls.
He was alone on Estë’s island, deep within Lórien’s gardens. Of course he was. When was he not?
Even his father didn’t bother coming anymore.

Grief awaits you outside these halls, Fëanáro, Nienna told him, her voice like the gentlest fall of rain upon spring leaves.
Grief haunts me inside them, Fëanor replied.

Fingolfin does not look up from his book when he hears footsteps approaching and pays no attention to Fëanor walking into the room. What he emphatically does pay attention to is Fëanor going to his knees in front of the chair he is sprawled sideways across and burying his face against Fingolfin’s stomach, both of his hands clenching tight around Fingolfin’s shirt. He blinks down at Fëanor’s head in confusion and runs a hand over his head, dragging his fingers through Fëanor’s hair. “Náro?” he asks quietly. “Has something happened?”

A poem for the first born sons in the House of Finwe, each one attributed a season - Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring.

story for art 68 TRSB 2024 - In every wood in every spring there's a different green by FakeCirilla9
The 'wilds' of Valinor seen through the eyes of Tyelkormo and his family: from Tyelkormo's birth during a long journey, to the introduction of little Telperinquar to the natural wildlife of Valinor.

This is a story for art 87 - Aromantic and asexual pride by daughterofshadows for Scribbles and Drabbles 2024
Upon his return from his most recent hunt with Oromë’s people, Tyelkormo saw a servant of the house come to him in a hurry.
“Prince Tyelkormo, your father wishes to speak to you at the earliest possibility.”
Tyelkormo snorted at that, faintly amused. His father certainly didn’t word it this way.

Fëanor does not even get a chance to finish being annoying before Fingolfin’s eyes flash with something far too dark to be only fury and his hand snaps out to grab a handful of Fëanor’s hair. He wrenches Fëanor’s head back in a move that is so surprisingly painful it throws him off balance. In the same moment he kicks Fëanor’s feet out from under him and slams him to his knees. He forgets sometimes he thinks, feeling a bit dazed, that Fingolfin had not only fought Morgoth, but lasted an impressive amount of time against him.
Fingolfin pulls his head back until they lock eyes, says, “Why must you be so—” his voice cracks, anger seeping out of every fracture line cracking through his body. He studies the ice in Fingolfin’s eyes and thinks, we never talked about the boats. Not in truth.

In which Fëanor & Fingolfin are re-embodied in 4th age Aman, are nowhere near as healed as everyone believes them to be, and decide to pretend that sleeping together will fix their relationship instead of causing more problems.

Fingolfin would like to say that it was an accident. And perhaps if it had started and ended with a kiss he could have lied to himself and said that. As it is, it’s rather hard to say it was an accident when it has gone well past a kiss.

The whispers that circulate through Tirion afterwards, throughout all of Aman, will be cruel. She had gotten overconfident, they say, she should have known that Finwë’s line was cursed. She should have been content with three children! The whispers never stop circulating but everyone learns very quickly that no matter how Prince Fëanáro had felt about Queen Indis to say such a thing within earshot of him was to earn his everlasting ire.
It goes like this —

They passed out of Lhûn and the wider coastline of Middle-earth opened up before his eyes. He had wandered those shores for centuries, and even now he felt the pull of that same wanderlust, and knew he would miss them for the rest of his life. Their wildness, the untamed waves, the rocky shores and the cliffs and the sandy beaches. The gulls, and the dunes, and the tide pools with their ever-changing denizens. Someone began to sing a song of farewell, and other voices took it up. He did not join them.
Maglor keeps a promise, and comes to Valinor, only to find the ghosts he thought he'd left behind are alive and waiting for him.

But Fëanor was not held guiltless, for he it was that had broken the peace of Valinor and drawn his sword upon his kinsman; and Mandos said to him: “Thou speakest of thraldom. If thraldom it be, thou canst not escape it; for Manwë is King of Arda, and not of Aman only. And this deed was unlawful, whether in Aman or not in Aman. Therefore this doom is now made: for twelve years thou shalt leave Tirion where this threat was uttered. In that time take counsel with thyself, and remember who and what thou art. But after that time this matter shall be set in peace and held redressed, if others will release thee.”
“Well that’s rather stupid,” Fingolfin says.

Fingolfin feels like part of him is still stuck in Beleriand, blood on his teeth and an all-consuming anger splintering out of control. Like he'll blink and once again see Morgoth's foot coming down. He wants. What does he want? He does not wish to be dead. He is, he supposes, grateful for this chance to fix things as much as they can be fixed. But he wants.
He wants for Fëanor to know him. Wants to work through all the ugly words and acts of violence that had divided them and come out the other side better for it. He cannot throw all the scathing anger in his chest at a brother who does not understand. Cannot scream at this Fëanor for burning the boats, for leaving them to the ice, for Elenwë, for Arakáno, for the countless others who had followed him and paid for it. And so what is he meant to do with the anger? He cannot swallow it all down forever and also salvage his relationship with Fëanor in this new song.
He wants, he thinks, watching a potter unmake a bowl that was marred, to un-sing himself as well.