"Fulgurite" and Other Drabbles by Dawn Felagund

Rhetoric

On the eve of the Fëanorians' exile to Formenos, Fingon tries to convince Maedhros to stay.

prompt: black, brother, home, evidence

For a moment, I thought he would hit me.

In the liminal space between the territories of our fathers, his home and mine, I laid out all the evidence as he had taught me, stitching pieces together with rhetorical threads until there stretched before us the black truth: His father was no longer right. Sane, if you will. And he should not follow to Formenos.

I softened my case (as he’d taught me) with fraternally connotated words: brother and bond and love. Love.

But he lunged at me, grazed my tunic, before his arms fell limp.

And, wordless, turned away.