Bone-White by Dawn Felagund

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Fanwork Notes

Fanwork Information

Summary:

After wandering accidentally near to Mandos, Caranthir encounters a procession delivering his newly reembodied brother back to the world: Maedhros. Caranthir breaks into his tent, and the two discuss healing, mutability, and the things that will never change. For Silver Trails.

Major Characters: Caranthir, Maedhros

Major Relationships:

Genre: General, Horror

Challenges: Around the Fire

Rating: Teens

Warnings: Mature Themes

This fanwork belongs to the series

Republic of Tirion
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 3, 401
Posted on 7 September 2016 Updated on 7 September 2016

This fanwork is complete.

Table of Contents

Bone-White

This story was written for the Around the Fire challenge, for the prompt offered by Silver Trails: "I would like a conversation between Caranthir and Maedhros, in Valinor, once they both leave the Halls of Mandos. Please don't write them at odds with each other."

Like all of my stories, this story assumes that Caranthir is exceptionally gifted in mindspeak and often perceives the temperaments and moods of others as colors.

The story also uses Quenya names, which translate as follows:

Nelyo/Maitimo = Maedhros
Carnistir = Caranthir
Findaráto = Finrod
Findekáno = Fingon

This story includes allusions to canonical suicide. I think they are too brief to warrant a warning, but if you're bothered by this element of The Silmarillion, tread with care.

Comments

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Well, this was amazing! I loved it (in a creepy weird way, I suppose). Loved the imagery of the landscape around Mandos, like an expressionist painting. Loved the textures and the unnatural light. Loved the description of the alien, even unpleasant sensations of re-embodiment. Loved the conversation between the brothers, how much they are still themselves. Great to have you back! :)

It's great to BE back! I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the idea that I will probably be able to write regularly again, more or less when I want, and that life isn't just an unending vacillation of work-school-work-school.

"Amazing"! Wow! Thank you for such a nice compliment. :) I love writing horror, so writing Mandos (and now the surrounds) is a not-so-guilty pleasure of mine. I'm glad it worked. I've always been fascinated by the concept of reembodiment and what it must feel like. I don't imagine it's so simple as waking up and walking back into one's life.

Creepy weird is love. :) Thank you again for reading and commenting, Lyra!

How difficult for Carnistir to be the first (except for Findarato, that is, who would probably not be much help in this case)! Even if Nerdanel is there and willing to take him in. The two will do better together, looking out for each other. You can see it already in their conversation--despite all the problems and reservations. And maybe the blue and the bone-white might yet grow back together more organically, given time?

The creepiness is very effective and seems to capture the intrinsic strangeness of the process very well--it does seem as if it should be painful, doesn't it? Not quite a mockery, but dangerously close.

I'm not 100% sure myself what Namo's thinking was in releasing these two first, of almost all the Noldor. But it does seem kind of punishing that Carnistir should share the experience first with Finrod, of whom I presume he was not fond! Part of me wants to continue this story and look for those answers, but I also worry I'll be horsewhipped if I make time for another long story before writing the prequel to AMC that I've been blathering about for years now.

I think of the sensation as something like walking into a bright room after being in the dark for a long time. Mandos strikes me as being somewhat ... muffling. It allows some of the sensations of living but not with the intensity that comes from actually being alive.

Thanks so much for reading and commenting, Himring!

How ownderful to see a new piece from you, Dawn. 

 

I love the opening- it struck me how gothic, reminded me of The Fall of the House of Usher- the opening has a simialrly dismal setting and the cadence of the langauge beautifully done.

Then there is this wonderfully bizarre pageant, like the Danse macabre- a perfect accopanoment for the release of a soul- but sinister and inappropriate as well, for the release of a soul should surely be a triumph? But this is so much more interesting, and worrying - hinting at NAmo's otherness and strangemness- the wrongness of it against our assumptions somehow. I absolutely loved that bit- such a juxtaposition against our assumptions about the pristine and wafty-gossamer view of Valinor that we get from Tolkien.

As always I love your Caranthir best. His understnading of Nelyo (how I love that he calls him Nelyo) is just perfect; In our youths, I had perceived him as pale blue. In Beleriand, he returned to us from Thangorodrim made dark crimson by hate and pain. Year by year, that color leached away until he felt to me bone-white with streaks of red, like a freshly extracted bone.' and this image:

'old tunics splashed with paint by hasty children'

'I imagined digging a fingernail underneath the blue of Nelyo and lifting it away: bone-white beneath.'

 

So much to understnad and consider from this- that they are the first (I Love that!) and the moment Carnistir (not Caranthir or Moryo? It is how he sees and names himself- I wonder what Nelyo/Maedhros will call himself? BUt to Caranthir he is always Nelyo). That mor emature undersntading of the colour is so interesting- deeply thought-provoking. 

 

Saddest bit of all:

 His right hand lay unused in his lap, balled up as though to protect itself from a bludgeoning. We'd found Findekáno that way. I tucked that memory deep where he could not touch it.

 

Just that one line.

YOu have lost none of your brilliance and ability to pull my emotions.

Ohmygoodness, thank you! This is such a kind review.

Of course, I always worry that I will lose my skill in creative writing, like writing too much nonfiction will eat away at it or something. :D It's always a relief to find it is still there.

"but sinister and inappropriate as well, for the release of a soul should surely be a triumph?"

I was trying to show that they were attempting to treat it as such--emphasis on the "attempting"! :) They are only able to parody celebration, not really feeling that joie de vivre themselves.

"the pristine and wafty-gossamer view of Valinor"

I love this description! I've always seen (and written) Valinor as very carefully managed, like a work of art itself. However, Aman I see as something much vaster and beyond that tight control of the Valar. And I don't think I'm entirely off in this: Ungoliant thrived in Aman, after all! So I see that mostly blank map as the potential to holding all kinds of strangeness, up to and including a vast spider that weaves Unlight in the clefts of the mountains. Namo's creepy servants and macabre forest seem to pale in comparison!

"not Caranthir or Moryo?"

Yep, he goes by Carnistir as his preferred name in my verse. His assumption of that name he was called in Aman speaks to his healing, perhaps? His willingness to start again?

I must confess that that one line was carefully constructed to pull at heartstrings. ;)

Thank you so much for reading and commenting, Ziggy!

It was lovely to see a story by you again! I've thought about which sons of Fëanor would be re-embodied and in what order-- my thought was always that it would be Ambarussa, for Nerdanel and so they could be reunited again but I love the idea that it is Carnistir. It makes so much more sense and I find it a realistic scenario. He was so different than the others, so unique among them but isolated and often unremarked upon when in their company. I like that this is something all his own and that he is first. Because I think he is so in tune and sensitive to them all--to their fëa and who they are inside--that he would be an ideal initial contact for them. Your use of color in this story (and with this character in general) is brilliant. The story has a layering effect of color and description that gives it such a richness. I love that Maedhros is still Nelyo to Carnistir (and always will be) because at his deepest and most essential level that is who Maedhros is--strip away the Maitimo and Russandol and Maedhros names that describe more his hroa, step back from the formal Nelyafinwë and at his core you have Nelyo--always the big brother, the dutiful son, the loyal friend, the boy he was. Just beautiful.

It's funny because I've never committed myself one way or another to which would return first. (I've also never committed myself to that perennial question of who swears the Oath first!) I wrote this story because I liked Caranthir, then Maedhros, for this particular challenge, but I could just as easily change it for another story. (The only thing I'm committed to is that Finrod comes back first of the Finwions. I just finished *another* reembodiment story from Finrod's PoV, and Caranthir was again the second reembodied, so maybe I am beginning to commit myself after all? ;^D)

"because at his deepest and most essential level that is who Maedhros is--strip away the Maitimo and Russandol and Maedhros names that describe more his hroa, step back from the formal Nelyafinwë and at his core you have Nelyo--always the big brother, the dutiful son, the loyal friend, the boy he was."

YES. This is exactly what I was thinking when I chose that name!

Thank you for reading and commenting! :)

Indeed, why Carnistir and Maitimo, before the Ambarussa and Findekano? Namo's inscrutability, definitely, but he's up to something. *Do* elaborate on it. Please?

Reembodiment is so fascinating/scary/otherwordly turning into this- worldly. The washed out colors, the tasteless food, the muffled sounds are there to make the shock of reentry into the world after so many centuries less painful? The last line is very moving: home, mother, life.

It's great to read your stories again!

Thank you, Angelica!

I just replied to Lotrfan that I'm actually not committed to any particular sequence for reembodiment except that Finrod is always first in my verse. I could just as easily write a story where Nelyo is first ... or Celegorm ... I agree with you and Lotrfan that Ambarussa make sense, but I just haven't gotten that interested in their characters yet, so that's purely the writer's bias there. :D

I just finished another story tonight about reembodiment but from Finrod's PoV. Unfortunately, it still sheds no light on those questions ... but who knows where my mind will go. It seems stuck in this reembodiment rut lately, and I could see taking this story and the one I just finished and kind of melding them to maybe write some answers. (I suppose I will have to figure out those answers for myself first!)

Thank you again for reading and commenting! :)

Absolutely lovely! I really like this depiction of the reembodied fea coming out of Mandos as a sort of difficult re-entry in the world of sensation. Kind of like someone who has long been ill in the hospital hurting from bedsores coming out to blink in the sunshine. Loved the description of the music as Namo frees a spirit. The emotion of the two of them reuniting is delicate and wonderful as they tentatively reach towards each other and Carnistir re-experiences his hero worship.  The love between them is there, but so caked with memory of pain and regret for the lost past that it's seems like it's having to reawaken. At the end it seems hopeful. As always you have a wonderful sensitivity towards your characters.  I like the description of Maedhros' many colors that depict his pain and that he is back to his original blue, but painted on, that his right hand is balled up at first and then slowly unfurls.  What an experience that must be to be whole again.  But bittersweet, because they still have the memories.  Your description of his eyes as dimmed "the way a stone breathtaking and bright, found at the cusp of the sea, will dry to dullness if taken from the shore," is stunning. And the description of Turko finding Maedhros "barefoot and uncloaked in the snow, staring north, the flesh of his feet going black" is such a poetic way to depict his pain. You paint emotion with images so beautifully.  It is indeed good to have you back.  :-D 

Aww, thank you! ^_^

I don't think reembodiment would have been a simple matter of waking up and walking out the door of Mandos. Even after being healed, physically and psychologically, I see it as a process that is inherently painful. Even returning to an unfamiliar world (an idea I work with in the story I finished tonight, also about reembodiment because I'm clearly feeling very cheerful in my return to writing) must be jarring and unpleasant.

I'm glad you liked the line about the stone from the sea. I've taken my share of beautiful stones from the seashore, only to find them dull once I've returned to my landlocked home. Now I leave them be. That was an image I loved but wasn't sure I made work, so I'm glad it did for you! :)

Thank you for reading and commenting! It's good to be back! :)

Here I am nearest, I suppose, to the shore where no waves lap, where the stars descend into the face of the sea and Ilúvatar holds to him the spirits he has not yet--not ever--chosen to be born--

 

I always think that you write Caranthir the most sympathetically of all the really great fanfic writers. This felt right when I read it the first time- still feels right.

 

And whilst I, like Caranthir, long for the blue of Nelyo as he was in ANC, it would lack integrity and you always write with absolute integrity. But I wonder too, why he and Caranthir are released first as well?

Ohmygoodness, this is such a kind comment--thank you!

Caranthir's character happened totally by accident, because when I was writing AMC but didn't plan on sharing it, I needed an excuse to experiment with writing "mindspeak" and the perceptions that went along with it. I thought I'd be trounced for my characterization of him and never imagined it becoming a beloved part of my story and verse. ^_^

I don't know why they were released first either ... it's not part of a larger story arc or anything that I have planned for now. Namo's will in this is truly a mystery. ;) If ever I bother to explain it, you'll know the explanation was retrofitted to the stories always in existence and not the other way around.

I mentioned in a previous comment that I've rarely had a chance/interest to read Fëanorian fic, buuuut: conversations between the brothers are some of my favorites, and I think you brought out so many great aspects of both Maedhros and Caranthir's character here. 

Again, I applaud your potrayal of Caranthir, and especially here your exploration of his affinity for mindspeak. I think it's difficult to describe for human readers what essentially amounts to a sixth sense, but I think you've conveyed that well.