Rekindling by Dawn Felagund

I read it. And when I'm done bawling my eyes out about the endin, I'll write a more coherent review than just "thank you".

Not quite done bawling (starting again, more like), but I'll give reviewing a try anyway.

You know - it was right at the beginning that the story had me hold my breath - like "he started the greatest movie of the past how many years with a worm?!" (a review I read about RotK somewhere) I was immediately drawn in - "it's the apocalypse, and Nerdanel is planting trees?!" - although, not really. I realized that the story worked so well because it was set against the backdrop of something so mundane, and something that fit her so well. After all Feanor and his sons did, however long ago that was, I can see her trying to heal things, everything. Planting trees may be a modern association to that, but it's still - life. The sapling's fist-leaf made that very clear, so it is not a surprise that she is gardening, and always was. She's a mother.

 You probably know that my Nerdanel is always singing or humming when she works, and Feanáro is (was) the only one able to startle her out of it - I was overjoyed to find a similar concept here, even across that distance. To see her knowing him to be alive (to be honest, I would have been disappointed by anything else). 

- The ride, the celestial phenomena, the eclipse, the collision - the end - scary, and I am glad you included it, because against all the outside drama, it had quite the reverse effect than starting the story with a mundane thing. It's the end of the world, and all that matters to Ner is Feanor. (Who, by the way, was impeccably written). Who is going to die. Again and for good. He waited for the familiar, sour knot of anxiety to unwrap itself in his stomach. - I certainly felt that, reading Varda's words, seeing him struggle against the Valar, still. Free will, and not quite as changed as he may have believed. 

Up to this point, up to Varda's words, I had hoped that "a tale of loss and redemption" referred to the loss of the Silmarils only, not to losing him. But seeing him like that, impossible. Of course he would be slain, for good.

And in this, their love and obsession finally makes sense. In a universe where everything happens for a certain purpose, we finally get to the why. And though I hate to see their love instrumentalized like that, it explains things, and they are not the first to be played like that. 

The meeting... so beautifully written, with that distance so easily crossed - I really hated Námo for pointing out that it was only for a short, all too short amount of time. No halfway to finite mathematical moments here... of course time is continuing to run. This is Arda Marred, it can't be any different than lead to sorrow yet again. 

(And I'm crying again.)

Eärendil had unbound the Silmaril, and the Three lay waiting. Fëanáro kissed her one final time on the mouth--

And that's it. The great and the simple mingling. Of course it has to be the end. And somehow it makes sense that this is redemption. 

I just wish that in the end, I could be with Nerdanel on that emotional level, without bitterness. It's still loss, even though he is still there. But then that is Arda Mended, and this is not. 

 Thank you.

Oh, Dawn, what can I say? This story is really good. Love the way you set it up in the beginning with Nerdanel--her growing sense that Fëanor, indeed, lives. The end of the world stuff is also awesomely done. Great action, visual sequences. I'm truly impressed. And, Fëanor is just so awesome in this story. He is so Fëanor. I absolutely adore him. He truly is the greatest of the Firstborn, with no close candidate for second place. On a good day, when he is in a benevolent mood, he might even be willing to admit that some of the Valar are nearly his peers. I love that about him. The scene with him and Nerdanel is probably one of the most moving love scenes I have ever read. (I said this before, and I will say it again, to be loved by Fëanor, would pricey, but definitely be worth the cost.)

The quotation that you use (the Second Prophecy of Mandos), however, has been sitting on my harddrive for about a year. I intend at some point to use it to write a similar, but oh, so, totally different story. I naturally read the prophecy as proof positive that Feanor was going to get his happy ending. That the Professor guaranteed his redemption. He would become part of the solution. He would realize that, in fact, the breaking of his Simarils under those conditions, would not after all break him and destroy him, but enhance him, give him the peace that was always beyond his reach. Ha! You killed me here. But, of course, you might easily have predicted that I would try to give everybody everything. Just wait until you read the last chapter of my very last novella in my Maitimo and Findekáno series! (I guess I am at the point in my life, where real life has given me enough hard knocks that I don't want to do it in my fiction. It definitely doesn't mean I can't enjoy it in yours.)

Having said all that, it is a wonderful story, and completely coherent and believable in the way you have told it.

Gorgeous story!  Dawn's words create vivid mental images of both place and characters.  For example, she renders a similar image, that of a fist, in slightly different ways to characterize Nerdanel, the lover of growing things who notes that the leaf in her garden is "curled small and tight like a little green fist."  It almost sounds like a baby's fist.  This in contrast to the scene where we first see Feanor, master smith.  "Slowly, Fëanáro uncurled each finger on his hand. Knotted them again into a fist. Flexed each in turn."  A beautiful contrast between male and female.

The scene in which Feanor and Nerdanel are reunited is full of emotion, but not overly-wrought.  I really have a sense of their love, both from Nerdanel's remembrance of Feanor's quick kisses between the arrival of the messengers and Feanor's realization that his only fear about dying is her loss.   I was horrified at the thought that Feanor would immolate himself until I realized it was to rekindle the Two Trees.  That brought a certain symmetry to his story and make the sacrifice all the more meaningful.  

I also liked the characterization of the hard "green-eyed" Namo and Vairë the Weaver. "She spoke rarely, Fëanáro had learned, but rather collected the best thoughts of the others and wrought them into logic that trickled cold and clear as water into his mind." 

This is a jewel of a story that renders the end of the world in the 'human' terms of the love of husband and wife and then pulls back to a mythic view of sacrifice and redemption.     

I wish I could express myself better, because this story deserves a better review. You made me cry. This was absolutey beautiful and heartbreaking. Of course it would kill him. Breaking what he poured his spirit into creating...This was perfect and painful and amazingly well written and I wish I could say something more meaningful about it. Luckily Elleth's second review does it very well already; many of the same things struck me. So thank you for writing this story and thank you Elleth for pointing out why exactly reading it was so heartbreaking. 

It's been years since I read this fic, but I can safely confirm that it lost none of its punch, and yes, I'm crying again. Which I hope gets understood as the compliment that it's intended to be. :)