Her Father's Daughter by Grundy

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Her Father's Daughter

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Findis has never been the one who got all the attention – that was Fëanaro. She was never the politician – that was Nolofinwë. She has never been the beauty – that was Irimë. She was never the peacemaker – that was Arafinwë.

No, Findis was the administrator – the one who doggedly, stubbornly went through the repetitive tasks and lists and routines that kept her father’s kingdom running in good order, no matter what minor wars her siblings were fighting between them. (The fighting was usually her brothers, but Irimë occasionally took a side, or even engaged in skirmishes of her own.)

Findis has been the responsible one – the one who put her own talents and ambitions second to her duty to her people and her parents. Her true talent lay in healing, and she would gladly have spent time as a student in Lorien, but there had never been a time when she could go without everything falling apart in her absence. 

Healing is not the same as peacemaking, and she hoped that someday Ara would see the difference, because getting Naro and Nolo to shake hands and stop fighting today is not the same as addressing the underlying causes of the fight in the first place, and until that happens it will ever break out afresh. It is the same fight nearly every time, and always has been.

When the Trees suddenly went out, Findis was at the festival with the others. She could have told the Valar even before they asked what her brother’s answer would be, and that asking was worse than futile, for he would take it as a confirmation of his fears. The Valar do not, after all, know everything, she realized. The Song was not the world; the Children must be as strange to the Powers as the Powers are to the Eldar.

She made her way home on her own, determinedly putting one foot before the other, unwilling to give in to fear or despair merely for lack of light. Her parents had lived on the other side of the Sea, when the only light was Varda’s stars – was their daughter less than they were for having been born here in the Blessed Land?

Findis had expected Fëanaro to return Atto’s body to Tirion for burial; it had not even occurred to her that anyone else would go, nor did any of the others ask to accompany him. (On some level, they all knew what his reaction would be, and no one else had the energy to deal with him in such a mood right now, not even his wife.) She was the one who had gone to the library by lamplight to look in the oldest books to discover what the Noldor had once done with their dead, before the Journey was completed, and she gave the orders to have everything that they would need prepared.

The pyre was ready by the time her brother reached Tirion with their father’s body. There was no need to drape the palace in dark fabric, not when the land itself was draped in darkness, but she had found clothing of grey, the color her people had thought would never again be used for mourning, for her family – her grieving mother, her distraught sister, her shocked younger brothers, her law-sisters, and all her nephews and nieces. And the grey armbands for any who would wear them, as so many wish to do once word reached them that this was an expression of sympathy and mourning.

There were many Noldor too young to know anything but Aman, and they took their cue from the royal family and from any elders who remembered what once had been. When grey was known to be the color of mourning, colors vanished from the streets in a matter of hours. Or perhaps it was that no one could see colors in the darkness anyway…

What Findis had not expected was her older brother’s desire for vengeance, or that when he committed Atto’s body to the flames, he would also commit their people to return to lands they had left long before his birth, and himself and his sons to the destruction of a Vala.

Fëanaro’s words inflamed many, but by the light of her father’s pyre, Findis looked him in the eye and shook her head. Just once, but it was enough. They may not have clashed as regularly as he and Nolo have, but they were both children of Finwë, and her will was as strong as his. She will not be swayed to folly by his words, for she has long ago learned to stand her ground against her older brother.

Later, behind closed doors, she tried to persuade Ara and Irimë at least to remain – she knew there was no hope whatsoever of convincing Nolo, not when Naro had challenged him and doubted his loyalty so publicly. (Ammë was in such a haze of grief and loss that she could scarce even comprehend what her children proposed to do, looking blankly at her eldest daughter and asking, ‘Are you certain, Findë? This is not another rumor run mad?’)

She could not tell if she was more disappointed or hurt when she failed.

Let Nolo, and Ara, and even Irimë follow if they will – there is a reason the Noldor left the Shadowed Lands, a reason Atto had wanted to bring his people to a land of safety, and it was not merely for the light of the Trees. If they have forgotten all they learned as children, they can relearn it firsthand in blood and sorrow, but Findis remembered only too well what Rumil taught them and has never desired to live such lessons for herself.

Meanwhile, even if all their princes and half their people wish to march to their own destruction, there was still work to be done, and it was more pressing than ever. With no light, someone had to think now about how life was to continue- how people were to eat, what regulations must be issued for safety, and how to prevent all wood in the forests nearest Tirion from being felled for light and heat, for without the Trees it is not only dark, but growing ever colder.

There was work to be done, and Findis does it.

She did not seek out her brothers to say goodbye, for she was too busy with an inventory of what foodstuffs were stockpiled in the city, what edibles should still be salvageable from the fields and gardens, and calculating how long they can be made to last. There has been no word from the Valar yet on when or even if light will be restored.

Only Irimë came to say farewell – and to ask her sister one more time to come with them.

“Please, Findis,” she begged. “Can you not see how important it is that we be a united family, now more than ever?”

“If you were uniting to some achievable purpose, to some good for our people, I would be at the head of the column,” Findis replied, tallying the square rangar planted with root vegetables, and realizing that it would probably be best to begin harvesting them at once. “But you are uniting in madness, and I can see no good for the Noldor in the lands we left behind. Besides, someone must look to the Noldor who remain.”

She noted down a few names

“They should come too – perhaps they will if you join us!” Irimë pleaded.

Findis stopped, and faced her sister.

“Your own husband refused to depart from Tirion. Your mother will not go, and even Fëanaro does not dare say she did not love our father. Why do you not go to them?”

Irimë looked miserable, and while part of Findis felt guilty for it, part of her hoped that perhaps she might yet make her baby sister see sense.

“They are not Atto’s children,” she said simply.

“Atto, could he return to us, would tell you that it is purest folly to make war on a Vala, even Melkor. He would remind you that he led our people here for their safety. You will not find safety, or victory on the far side of the Sea, little sister. Only darkness and death.”

“There may also be light, and life,” Irimë whispered.

“Those things there will certainly be here,” Findis replied, in a tone inherited from her father. “I cannot stay you, or even slow your steps. Go if you will. I shall remain and see that something of the once proud Noldor is preserved here, in case you should ever again return.”

Later, in the ‘evening’ –  which they know only because Eärwen, for lack of anything more meaningful to do after her children joined the march, made certain that every clock in the palace was wound and will be re-wound regularly, now that they have no other way to keep time – she discovered that her law-sisters have all gathered in her father’s library.

Anairë was the closest to distraught Findis has ever seen her, rocking in place on the couch as if she were a small child. Eärwen was pale, but her hand was steady as she poured wine. Nerdanel – Nerdanel had the thousand rangar stare of one who has lost everything, a look previously unknown in these lands.

“They have all gone,” Eärwen explained, her voice less steady than normal.

“All?” Findis asked, uncomprehending.

“All the children,” Eärwen clarified, after a long moment in which neither Anairë or Nerdanel spoke.

For that, she was angry with Fëanaro. It was one thing to persuade their sister and brothers. It was another thing to lead children who had looked up to him all their lives – not only his own sons, but his nephews and nieces – into darkness and danger. And as ever, he thought only of himself – not a single child had he left behind to console their mothers.

Findis was far more her father’s daughter than her mother’s, but for once her mother’s foresight came upon her, and she knew their wait would be a long one, and filled with sorrow. She may not be a mother, but she is just as bereft, for they at least have their parents and siblings.

She has only her mother – and in truth, it has occurred to her to wonder just how much of her mother she still has, and for how long. She knew her mother would be as wounded by the loss of her children and grandchildren as she was by the loss of her husband. Elves used to die of grief before the Great Journey.  Now that darkness and death have come to the Undying Lands, it did not seem outside the realm of possibility that Indis might follow her husband to Mandos.

Her law-sisters did not return to their own houses that ‘night’. Instead, the four of them huddled beneath a blanket by the fireplace, like elflings having a sleepover, rather than the grown women and princesses they are. There was not much to say, but they were there, and it was enough.

As the clock strikes five, a time that ought to have been ‘morning’, Nerdanel spoke for the first time.

“We should not sit idle any longer. What does the Queen command?”

Findis was bemused.

“The Noldor-”

“Have only ever had Kings, but that is because we only ever had Finwë,” Anairë interrupted, knowing all too well what Findis would say, for she had known her since childhood. “But Finwë is dead and his sons have abandoned those who would not risk all in their war. Even those who did not swear Fëanaro’s horrible oath heeded neither law nor love.”

She looked to Eärwen, who as a princess born was best qualified to say whether or not Nerdanel’s radical idea would find acceptance or not, both among the Noldor as well as among the other Eldar.

“I cannot speak for my father,” Eärwen said quietly. “But as one who has long lived among your people, I ask who else you would have them look to, Findis Finwiel? You are the only member of the House of Finwë who does not mean to quit these lands.”

Findis bowed her head.

She might have argued, but for one thing – with her father dead and her brothers gone, it was her duty.

“Very well, my sisters. Nerdanel has the right of it. Let us not sit idle when our people need us.”