The Night Is Dark But Full of Stars by Minviendha

Chapter 1

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It was so easy to consider words like "immortal" to be utterly immutable. He would never make that mistake again.

The hill they had found to lay their father was green and high enough to overlook much of this strange land. There was beauty around them, except to the far north, but Curufin laid his eyes on everything in this place and hated it on sight. A bird was shrieking somewhere, and he could almost imagine that it echoed his own question, why! why! why!

He sank to his knees and listened. His father still breathed, and if he had put his hand to his chest he would have felt a heartbeat. But Curufin did not want to. To breathe meant that one could die. To have a heart meant that one could bleed. He wanted no proof of his father's vulnerability.

Fëanaro Curufinwë, greatest of the Noldor, first of his line.

His father's eyes were closed. If one did not look closely, he might have been at peace. Blood had dried down half of his face, though, his sword arm broken, and blood and the smell of burnt flesh – there was no peace here, had never been. His father was a forceful man, always moving, never still, never calm.

He did not want to see him still and calm now. If I could, my father, I would take my own heart from my breast and give it to you that you would live again…your life has always been worth twelve of mine. Twelve of any of ours.

They were around him, his brothers, but he did not think of them, and did not look at them. It was his father he watched, kneeling still. None of the others understood, none of them loved their father like he did. Everything he was, Curufin knew, was what Fëanaro had shaped him to be, from his name to his craft, his being – everything. Beside him, brothers meant nothing, less than nothing if it could have been their lives for his.

Fëanor stirred, slightly, though he made no sound. He had made no sound of pain all this time, and Curufin knew he never would. His father knew how to not feel pain. All the things his father knew that he should have had the chance to teach.

He felt dumbstruck. Speechless. Stupid.

His father's eyes opened, and his eyes fell into Curufin's first, and so he knew to whom it was he spoke when he said, with surprising clarity, "My sons."

A sigh went out of them, without thought, he knew, but he heard it nonetheless and knew he did the same. Fëanor's eyes pinned them to the sky, holding them fixed in place with the fire that only seemed to burn hotter now. And yet a Balrog had burned hotter and proved victorious.

His father took a deep breath. Or fought to, the burns over his chest cracking and bleeding, and Curufin half shaped the word no – but he could not tell his father that, could never – none of them could ever, none of them should ever say no to Fëanaro. For more than duty; they were his, and even if only he understood this, it would have to be enough. Eventually, all of them would see. Without their father, they were nothing, just as without a master any dog would have no purpose and merely run wild until it was killed in mercy.

"My sons," Fëanor said, again, and then dropped his head back from where he had been fighting to lift it, and cursed Morgoth aloud, three times, and Curufin wished that curse to fly on ready wings and strike fear into the damned Vala's heart. Wished that he might be that curse to strike death into that same heart, someday.

"You must carry on," Fëanor said, and his eyes blazed. "You must not give in. No matter the threats or the consequences, what is ours must be recovered. Your grandfather, my father, must be avenged. Swear to it; swear that you will fight until every one of you is dead to do what you have sworn!"

There was a horrible silence, and Curufin was afraid, horribly afraid, that no one would answer. That they were forgetting already, thinking that with this their duties were done and they could straggle back, perhaps, to Valinor, hoping to be welcomed with open arms, prostrating themselves for forgiveness. He would never allow it, and made his voice loud. "I do so swear."

Maedhros followed, and then Celegorm, and Maglor and Caranthir were last. But they all spoke, if quieter, and Curufin breathed again. He breathed and Fëanor bled.

"My sons," he said again, and then his eyes closed and he seemed to be fighting just to breathe. "Avenge me, and well. I know…you will keep your oath." And with a last exhalation almost like a sigh, High King of the Noldor, Fëanaro Curufinwë, his father, died.

And then burned.

They all started back, from the sudden, intense blaze kindled in their father's flesh, from nowhere. It did not fade until nothing was left of his body but ash, already scattering in the wind, leaving them nothing to bury, and then they broke.

Maglor left quickly, though he did not go far. Maedhros went his own direction. Caranthir went another, with the one remaining twin, and Celegorm hesitated before wandering after Maglor. Curufin was left alone, and knelt again, beside the ashes of his father.

There was not enough to gather, not enough to warrant a burial. The Valar left them nothing. The bitter and angry place in his heart grew. No truck would he have with them. Not now. His father should have been immortal. His father was immortal.

And yet they had brought him down.

Curufin had never cried. He did not weep when they left Valinor, not even for leaving his once-wife behind. He did not weep when they discovered that one Twin had been on the boats as they burned. He did not weep when injured. Never once, in all his life.

Something stung his eyes now, and blinking spilled over.

Curufin cried for his father.

His nails bit into his palms too hard and he bent his head so that no one else would see, and shed his only tears for this, the last night of an elf greater than any that had come before or would come after.

So this was their Tears Unnumbered. This was how the spiteful Valar thought to punish them.

If he wept now, others would weep far more later. This land that had killed his father would shed tears and blood to pay for it before he was through. He swore that, just as he swore that before this was over, the Enemy himself would weep for mercy.

His brothers, he knew, would fragment and fall without guidance, and Maedhros would not stand immediately to give that guidance. Or not sufficiently. None of the others were fit. That left him one choice. Looking down at the ashes that were the only remains of the elf who had made him what he was, Curufin shed his first, last, and only tears, and swore that he would follow this through. Even unto all their deaths, and especially his own.

Fëanor had given them life. He deserved theirs all in return.