Release the Bonds of Winter by Dawn Felagund

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Sudden Flame

The sons of Finarfin bore most heavily the brunt of the assault, and Angrod and Aegnor were slain; beside them fell Bregolas lord of the house of Bëor, and a great part of the warriors of that people.
"Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin"

After his rescue from Dagor Bragollach, Finrod receives a vision of his brothers' fate.


I awaken with a jerk. A healer is working on my arm. "Be still, my lord," he says without much patience. Many are the wounded, and I delay him. I should make apology, but--

the dream

--was what came to me a vision? I close my eyes. I feel not the sting of the needle in and out, in and out of the wound in my arm. The smell of pine assails me. The trees are thrashing against a bone-white sky; the earth is flinty and the hoofbeats of our horses very loud against it, our laughter seeming to reach as far as the heavens ...

Or two little boys. Two restless little boys alike with their golden hair, trying to be respectful to their older brother reading to them, but the smaller bursting out, in spite of himself, "Can we go, Findaráto, to play?" A wooden sword hidden beneath the table, across his knees.

Deeper, I slide into dreams. Deeper.

The smell of fire.

The clash of swords in the courtyard, only these are not made of wood. The pines thrash harder and fall. They remember the laughter. They remember the laughter, even as it turns to screams.


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