The Highest Power by wind rider

The Highest Power

Read The Highest Power

The Highest Power

 

Fëanáro sat down at the head of the table, and the present household took that as a sign to begin eating. It was just as per usual, and he did not pay any mind to it. There were still things to do at the forge, and he could not afford sparing his time for unimportant things like observing people. His sons were there, all accounted for and eating, and it was all that mattered.

 

Something disrupted his routine though, when the meal was finished and people were gradually leaving the table. His youngest sons were still at the table, gazing at each other meaningfully. He knew the sign, had learnt to spot it after the disaster of red paints all over in his forge’s kiln courtesy of the twins when they had been much younger. They had been punished severely and seemed to repent; but they still pulled little mischievous tricks once in a while anyway, despite everything. What had they been concocting now?

 

He stalked towards them, and they quickly snapped away from each other, staring right ahead. He frowned. The two little trouble-makers were usually much more subtle than this in whatever they were planning or discussing.

 

“What is the matter, Ambarussa?” He found himself slipping to the twins’ original mother-names whenever he got impatient with them. And judging from the stiffening of their backs, they knew it well.

 

One twin – the younger one, he reckoned – raised his head and briefly met him stare for stare. Then, returning his gaze to his polished empty plate, the child said in a small voice, “Our friends said the names of the Valar and thanked them for everything on their table during their mealtimes.”

 

Fëanáro’s inside went cold, and he had to restrain himself from lashing out to his sons. (His temper seemed to get shorter and shorter the longer he was contained in this place, which had been the second home he had cherished, especially after Nerdanel had stopped trying to placate him.) How dared his sons talk about the Valar here, while those purported wise, powerful beings had exiled them and locked them in their own home?

 

The other twin gave his brother a set of frantic nudges, and the both of them went pale. Fëanáro smiled grimly. It was too late for them to realise their mistake. But for once, he would not punish them for it. They had to understand.

 

“What did they do for you, for your sustenance and comfort?”

 

Again, the younger seemed to want to speak up, but his brother shushed him. Fëanáro’s smile grew stern.

 

“I and your mother provided with all that you needed,” he said harshly, meanwhile trying to bury the hurt that flashed in his soul on Nerdanel’s abandonment. (What wrong had he done to her?)

 

When the twins seemed to pay more attention to him again, he continued in a colder tone, “Who exiled you here, barring you from your friends?”

 

“The Valar,” they mumbled in unison, but just dutifully. Rage and the feeling of betrayal boiled in Fëanáro on the twins’ tone, but he had never struck any of his children before for any reason – he was not going to start now.

 

“Who made the song of creation, the Valar or Eru?” he asked them shrewdly.

 

“Eru,” they answered together. He nodded and grunted in satisfaction.

 

“Who is the original owner of the world and everything in it, then? The Valar or Eru?” he asked next.

 

“Eru,” the twins said yet again.

 

“So do we thank Eru or the Valar for everything on our table?” he rounded up.

 

“Eru,” the twins answered for the third time. But then – surprisingly – the elder of the two piped in, “Then why do we never do the Eruhantalë here, Atar? Nelyo and everyone said we used to do it before meals.”

 

Something terrifying must have flashed in his eyes, for Ambarto and Ambarussa shrunk away from him as much as their chairs at the table would allow. But they were now just two little specks in his soul, drowned in the turmoil that he had been battling all the time since his exile.

 

Then, in a hardened, cold tone empty of any emotions, he said, “He has abandoned us.”