A Ghost Of Memory by Tyelca

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Chapter 1

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She turned around. The table was made of a dark wood, the nerves showing even darker colors. She absentmindedly followed them with her fingers.

“Nerdanel?” the voice of her husband sounded through the empty dining room. Strange, so empty. Usually the children would be running around the house, always screaming and always laughing. Strange, the silence.

She turned around, but Fëanáro’s familiar profile wasn’t there. She knew it wouldn’t be. But still she looked.

It had been wise to distance herself from her intense husband, she knew. She’d always hailed the peace his absence provided as a Valar-sent gift. But she’d known he’d come back to her. He’d always kept his promises. In her mind she knew she’d made the right choice. If there was only a grain of truth in the rumors going around, there hadn’t even been a choice. So she’d done the right thing. But now he was gone. She missed him.

His easy smile, so casual and yet so bright, almost blinding, his eyes more radiant than the Trees had been, his deep voice enriched with the warmest notes… It hurt.

She wasn’t sure what hurt, exactly. It wasn’t her head, it wasn’t her heart, it wasn’t her stomach, it weren’t her arms or her legs. They all felt perfectly fine. Yet at the same time she felt a stinging dull pain coming from all of them and more.

She left the dining room. The many memories of her husband and of her sons clashed with the empty table, void of enthusiastic boys telling about their day, talking louder and louder to be heard over the cacophony of sound.

In the hallways, she was certain she saw a flash of black hair disappearing around the corner and heard giggles coming from behind the heavy curtains. She clamped her eyes shut, tears forming.

She knew they were gone. She knew they were not the little children anymore, not her boys that seemed to attract trouble wherever they went anymore. She knew she was here alone in their palace, on the outskirts of Tirion. Fëanáro had wanted the freedom of the lands when they built their house, needing an escape from the strict royal upbringing he’d received. She was happy with whatever he’d wanted, and frankly, she’d never particularly liked the crowded city center herself.

Despite herself, she pulled the curtains aside, somehow expecting identical faces with identical expressions of mischief. There was nothing there.

The palace-house was unhealthy, making her see things that weren’t there. She wondered if this was how Fëanáro had felt, in their later years together. If he’d been driven mad from grief, if he’d wandered around and jumped at shadows. She would never know now.

She should leave this place, their old home that now haunted her with ghosts from the past. She should take up residence with her father again, or perhaps in the royal Palace in the heart of Tirion, or somewhere, anywhere, else than here. But at the same time she couldn’t. This was her only link to her husband, to her children, she had left. It was the only place where she would still see their silhouettes against the setting sun, hear their quick feet running through the hallways.

She wanted to go, but she needed to stay. It was as simple and as impossible as that.

Holding back a sob, she violently turned around and almost screamed when she saw the young face of Tyelcormo grinning up at her, his clothes covered in dirt and a small bird clutched protectively in his arms. Huan traipsed after him. “Look, ammë!” he proclaimed while holding out the bird. It had a broken wing.
Nerdanel closed her eyes and covered her head with her hands, fingers knotting themselves in her hair. He was not real. But she couldn’t stop the tears now.

“Don’t cry, melda,” she heard whispered in that painfully familiar voice. She almost felt his warm breath in her neck, smelled his smoky scent in her nostrils, felt his arms ghosting around her, the way he’d done so many times in the past. She cried.

She didn’t dare turn around or take his arms and make him hold her, fearing he would disappear as soon as she acknowledged his presence.

Still, she cherished the featherlight touches, the sense of him being here, even though she knew it was not real. He was not here, but she allowed herself to believe that he was. Just for now, she promised silently. Just for now she would indulge in what she so desperately craved.

His hands held her, pressed her against his broad chest. “Fëanáro,” she breathed. A finger came up to her face and wiped her tears away. “Come with me, Nerdanel,” Fëanáro said softly. “Come with me…”
She felt him move, felt his hands drop to hers and, his touches almost there, felt him softly pulling her along. She followed.

He led her outside, through the large gardens that gradually changed into the wildlands of Valinor. Into the forest he went, whispering encouragements in her ear. She followed his impalpable touches, but always kept her face averted, afraid for this to end. Afraid for reality.

What she was doing was insane. She knew that. But it felt so good. His mere presence, real or imagined, soothed her, in a way nothing had been able to since he and their children had left Tirion in anger. So she followed him. And so he led her deeper and deeper into the woods, far away from the known paths and through the wild underbrush.

Thorns opened her skirts and low branches cut her hands and cheeks, but she barely felt it. Finally her husband held still in a clearing she vaguely recognized. A small stream bubbled around the tree line and disappeared over the rocky edge at her feet. Suddenly she recognized the place. It was here that Carnistir had once fallen down, and it had been luck that he’d landed on a little outcropping not far below. They had been able to retrieve him, but it had been weeks before her middest son dared enter the forest again, and even longer before he lost his fear of heights.

She instinctively took a step backwards, but bumped against the incorporeal form of her husband.
“Nerdanel…” he said, and his voice was full of pain. He took her waist and started pushing her forwards, to the edge.

A cry rose from the deep, a cry identical to the one she’d heard so long ago. Almost against her will she leaned forward, saw little Carnistir lying on a slab or rock, blood splattered around the cuts and scratches on his skin.

It is not real, she told herself and looked up, away from the horrible sight.

Her husband hovered in the air. She could see right through him, his outlines blurring against the background and overall transparent. His face was smooth, free of the lines of worry and stress that had later taken up permanent residence on his brow. He held out his hand, just out of reach.

“Come with me, Nerdanel,” he said again. His lips moved together with the words, but she heard the sound coming from behind.

She took half a step forward, intending to take his hand, until her foot touched an outcropping of stone, and nothing after that. She froze, needing a few seconds to understand what was happening, what she was doing.

“Nerdanel?”

Her eyes traveled down her incorporeal husband. His feet, as transparent and immaterial as the rest of him, floated in the air. Through them, she could see the abyss beneath, with little Carnistir still lying there, unmoving. The pool of blood was larger than it had ever been in the past.

But most of all, she saw her own foot hanging in the air, with only her other leg still standing on firm ground.

“Nerdanel?”

With a cry she pulled back, but Fëanáro somehow took hold of her wrist and started pulling. His grip was strong, much more so than she’d expected a figment of her imagination to have. Scared, she raised her eyes to meet those of her husband, trusting he would disappear. But he didn’t.

His face twisted and distorted until the kindred soul she’d fallen in love with was replaced with a dark reflection of him. A dark reflection she’d seen before, she realized. She had seen him like this only once, more than an eternity and less than a second ago. It had also been the last time she’d seen him.

Was this still her imagination? It seemed too real, too extensive, to have come up with.

She screamed as her feet started slipping, gliding towards the edge inch by inch. Fëanáro’s face lit up in a terrible grin, showing all his teeth. “Won’t you come with me, Nerdanel?” he mocked.

Somehow, his words gave her strength, like they always had in a cruel form of irony. She yanked her arm free and scrambled backwards until she was on a safe distance from the rocky edge. The image of her husband still floated there and for a moment their eyes met.

Then he plummeted down.

For a few moments Nerdanel stayed there, too shocked to move. Then she crawled towards the cliff, on hands and knees to keep her balance should Fëanáro appear again. When she reached the edge there was still no sign of him, not his voice on the wind, not his breath in her neck, not his touches almost on her skin. She took a deep breath and extended her head, looking over the edge.

Down, on the same slab of stone little Carnistir had been lying on, was now the still form of her husband. Her son had disappeared. Blood oozed from his body, a dark red on dark stone. He did not move.

Nerdanel retreated to the trees. She was breathing heavily. Was it real? Was he real? Was any of it real? Was this place even real, or was she still in the palace-house, and was this all just a nightmare, would everything just fade away as soon as she realized that?

Fade away…

Was she fading? How did one know that she was fading? As far as she knew, Míriel was the only Elf who’d ever succumbed to that fate. Nobody talked about her, nobody spoke about her last days. Nerdanel herself had not even been born then.

No. She was not fading. She refused to. She refused to add another murder to her husband’s long list of crimes. She would do anything for love, but she wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t stand by his side when he slowly slipped away, and she wouldn’t do so now. This was an absolute line she drew. She wouldn’t fade for love.

Then another question occurred to her.

Had her husband been fading? Was that thing that she’d seen all that was left of strong and proud and kind and bright and intense and smart Fëanáro?

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Chapter End Notes

So what did you think? Did Nerdanel refuse to fade for love, or out of love? And was Fëanor really there, or was everything in her head? I would love to hear your thoughts on this!