The Work of Small Hands by Dawn Felagund

Departure

I was less angered or saddened than surprised when Arafinwë told me of his intention to follow his brothers. My hand flew to my breast; I could feel my lips parted, numb and unmoving. He looked so serious--or rather, like he expected to be taken seriously. His robes were tidy and so Noldorin: cinched to the throat and of a stiff, dark fabric. He’d looked uncomfortable. There was even a sword at his side, and it was too bright to be believable, catching the bluish lamplight and holding it prisoner there, as his side, in that swatch of metal.

Noldorin.

I wanted to laugh at him. How he reminded me of Findaráto and Artaher, in their youths, when they would play Great Journey in the garden, using sticks for swords and begging their father to play as Oromë. And the expressions on their faces--as though ironed! so grave!--intoning to Arafinwë, “We will follow you,” solemnly offering their stick-swords, which he took, laughing, grasping the “blades,” naïve to the fact that he was slicing off his fingers.

But the blade at his side--it seems he is naïve no longer.

We will follow you.

And now, it seemed, it was my turn to laugh.

But my numb lips would not move. He stepped forward and kissed me--his hands on my cheeks, cold--but I could not make myself kiss him in return.

Shocked, I wanted to laugh but my numb lips just trembled--no sound would escape.

I do not believe that you are leaving.

I heard his footsteps receding down the hall, louder than usual, in his heavy Noldorin boots. I do not believe that you are leaving! He would turn around and return to me; we would laugh and he would shed his ridiculous costume, and he would return to me.

The door slammed then, rending the silence of the house, and my heart--beneath the hand still pressing my breast--leaped, startled, as though to take solace in the palm of my hand.

He had left.

~oOo~

I stand for a long time in the parlor, my hand on my breast, shocked and not moving. I wait for the sound of the door opening; I wait for the sound of his voice; I wait to see a flash of color moving past the door, as he rushes to one or another engagement. Without the Light of the Trees, I know not how much time passes, how long I stand, measuring the hours by the beating of my heart beneath my hand. I wait, and he never comes.

Finally, I draw a cloak around my shoulders and step into the dark street.

Tirion, so beautiful a city--done in marble and gold, a scintilla atop Túna that was hard to look upon at Laurelin’s zenith--looks savage when painted by flame. Dirty shadows mar the pristine buildings. Torches line the street and people become dark, faceless shapes that call to mind the primitive urge to run from the unknown. Fear has been reawakened in us, and we are all skittish in the streets, shying from others as we pass, forgetting that the torchlight also deepens the shadows on our faces and makes our eyes rabid with flame. We fear fire now, too, for it was not so long ago that we watched a man stand on the palace steps, incinerated from within by an unbearable fire that is driving him to--I know; many of us who stay know--his death.

And he is taking my husband with him.

Without the Trees, the air is chill, and I shiver. I pull my cloak tighter around myself, but it does not help. The cold emanates from within, from all of us: from fear, from anger, from suspicion, for now, we watch each other with mistrust and do not even have the decency to pretend that we do not. When self-preservation becomes chief in our thoughts, decency, it seems, is the first bit of extra weight sacrificed to the churning, black fear on which we precariously drift.

I arrive at the House of Nolofinwë--actually, I suppose, it is my sister-in-law’s house now. It is shelter; it draws me into it, even more so than my own empty house. My feet clatter on the walkway as I trip over flagstones in the darkness, but that single burning square of light at the corner of the house draws me. I am starved for it, starved for light.

I let myself into the house and grope down dark corridors, calling as I walk, lest I be mistaken for an enemy. Such fears feel like playacting, like when, as children, we would tell tales of dark things, but the other day, I burst into Findaráto’s chambers and he drew a blade from beneath a pile of underclothes--clothes that I had washed so many times, that smelled warm and comfortable, like my son, like Findaráto--and in his eyes was a feral terror. “Do not--” he said weakly, sinking to the bed, the shortsword clutched still in his hand, his heart pounding so hard that it fluttered the tunic covering the left side of his chest. And so now, in the darkness, I assume my welcome nowhere.

Anairë’s voice answers, a thin voice--once beautiful and full--now diluted by grief, and I move towards it, towards the pulsing candlelight that spills into the hall.

They are all here. Now, we are all here. For--as ridiculous as it sounds to me--I am now one of them: widows to death and exile.

It began with Indis, with Fëanáro’s banishment and Finwë's subsequent abandonment of his family and people. She held her shoulders very straight in the street; her dress and her golden hair were impeccable. I am not grieving, she said to us, never in so many words. For none of us acknowledged it; we simply smiled more delicately around her and avoided talk of children and husbands. We discussed flowers and gowns and new drapes for Anairë’s parlor--silly trivialities--until Indis, not Indis and Finwë, became an accustomed state for us.

And then, Nerdanel came riding home from Formenos. I left him. But we all knew the depth of Nerdanel’s love for the impetuous Fëanáro and knew that she had been driven to leave him. We each took our turn, sheltering her, and--restless like her husband--she moved from house to house, never happy, until finally returning to her father, outside the city, and we had been secretly glad, I know--Anairë and I--because if her love could shatter, held aloft by seven children and a passion that I could not even contemplate, then what could become of ours?

Then came a long peace, and I entertained the selfish notion that it had all been for the best. That the sacrifices of Indis and Nerdanel had secured the peace for the rest of us. Indeed, the world seemed in greater balance than ever before. Nolofinwë ruled the Noldor and, while hesitant at first, he quickly proved himself competent and wise. My husband took to spending long hours at the House of Nolofinwë, as his chief counselor, but I knew that they did not discuss matters of court but matters of family, that Nolofinwë sought the constant reassurance that it had all been for the best. As, Arafinwë repeatedly assured him, it had.

That he had driven his mother and father apart. Separated his sister-in-law--always dear to him--from her husband. Broken the friendship of his eldest son and Fëanáro’s. Trod upon the frail ties that had always kept our families leashed to one another, for if two vessels are drifting in opposite directions, they will only tear each other apart if they remain tethered. Better to sever those ties. All for the best.

And then: Finwë’s murder. The theft of Fëanáro’s treasure. His impassioned speech upon the palace steps. The Oath.

Anairë and I stood at the edges of the circle, clutching hands like little girls. She crushed my fingers in her larger, stronger ones; upon awaking the next morning, I found them bruised and swollen, unable to bend, but then, I felt no pain. My face was soaked--was I crying? Fëanáro’s words were as a blade thrust over and over again into my heart; I was sick with those words, with the grief and agony they contained--and would inspire. I gasped, feeling my lungs, shriveled and airless, screaming for nurturance; Anairë and her strong hands kept me on my feet. She was crying too. Nolofinwë stood at the front of the crowd, leaning on a blade I’d never known he possessed (had she?) and staring up at his half-brother, whose affections had always eluded him. For, unknown to us, he’d also made an oath.

And so Nolofinwë left and, one by one, each of their children followed, casting regretful looks over their shoulders at their mother, who lingered still.

“I must…” she said to me, barely comprehensible through sobs that hunched her straight, proud body, her hands scratching at me. I held her up. “I must follow him!” But she did not. She stayed and wept in my embrace, until his host was gone, until her children were gone, and I carried her to my house, to my bed, and gave her a strong draft of wine spiked with poppies and slept restively at her side, listening to her weep even in her dreams, waiting for my husband to come home.

He came in the morning, and we talked in hushed voices so as not to wake Anairë in the next room, and I should have known then of his intentions to leave, for he would not suffer our eyes to meet, and he tugged his hand from mine to rake it through his hair, a nervous habit of his. I know these things. I know these things because we have been married for many centuries and I loved him in my heart before I had an image to place with my idea of him: gentle and kind, with a voice more apt to rise in song than in anger, of royal blood but delighted by the same simple joys as a commoner. My Arafinwë.

Anairë emerged eventually, stoic and tall once more--a Noldo--betrayed only by her swollen, red eyes. She thanked me for my hospitality with all of the prim grace of a lady of the Noldor, not like a sister to me; she kissed Arafinwë’s cheek and departed. I tried to coax Arafinwë to bed, but he tore away from me and went to his study, where he sat for long hours with his head in his hands while I watched from the doorway.

I should have known. He’d come home, but he would not stay for long.

I should have known.