Thirty Day Character Challenge: Feanor by eris_of_imladris

Prompt 19

Prompt: Strong Points, Part Two. Revisit the list of strengths you’ve thought about for Prompt 4. This time, write a scene in which your character’s strong points cause them trouble.

** A/N: In this fic, it is Fëanor’s capacity to love that is corrupted.

Fëanor knew the moment he walked into the room that his father was dead. He lay so still, unnaturally so, and Fëanor could barely feel his feet as he walked over to the fallen body. He knew his mother had died, but this was Valinor, this was the perfect realm, and he never expected to see his father added to the list of dead. It struck him that he was High King of the Noldor, but that mattered far less than the spread of his father’s ink-black hair across the floor and the gaping wound in his torso, a bloody reminder that Fëanor had failed another parent.

He fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around his father’s body, gently wiping his hair out of his eyes and closing them so they looked like his mother’s in Lorien’s garden. The expression on his face was shocked, not peaceful like Míriel’s, and Fëanor hugged the body close to him, hating the fact that even through all his years of developing a variety of talents, he did not have the skill to fix this.

The grief began to overwhelm him, and he shook as he held his father’s body. He was aware that they were not alone - just like in his father’s life, they had never just been together, save for those brief happy years when he was a child - but he paid it no mind. He was not Fëanor, master smith, creator of the Silmarils in that moment, but a son learning that losing a father was entirely different from losing a mother.

But he knew he could not stay on that floor forever. He had a responsibility, not just to his people, but to his father. His father had died for his own craft, protecting the Silmarils that he had poured his life energy into. His father had perished for him, he realized with a pang that felt like a sword through the gut. His father, who had joined him in Formenos out of love and loyalty, who had tried to show his devotion by keeping safe the crystals that Fëanor had poured his heart and soul into. And now his father was gone, and he could never bring him back. But there was something he could still retrieve.

Fëanor was not one who enjoyed inaction, who would be content to let the Valar fight his fights for him as he lounged about on his father’s throne. There would be a time and place for that, a way to honor his father’s legacy as a king by sitting on the throne, but he would not rest until the one who sat on the throne before him had been avenged.

Determination coursed through his veins, ice-cold at first, his feelings numbed by the sheer overwhelming nature of it all, his father dead at his feet, the leaderless Noldor behind him, the Silmarils gone, stolen by his father’s murderer. But his fires were not dampened for long, and he began to think of all he had learned at Mahtan’s forge, the way to work steel into not just objects of beauty but implements of revenge. He knew how to craft swords and spears that would shake even the foundation of Morgoth’s castle and would bring the Vala to his knees, lost and alone, just as he was. And it would leave Fëanor the victor, the undisputed king, and a part of his heart sang that this deed of valor would catapult him far beyond anything Fingolfin was capable of doing. Wisdom had no place here, in this world where only strength could keep loved ones safe.

The Silmarils burned bright in the back of his mind, taunting him. He had made them to show his father once and for all who was the greater son, and now they had taken his father’s life, and in their absence they whispered this in his heart, goading him on. He knew he would have no rest until they were in his hands again, until the bright glow could try to cleanse the pain he felt.

He could not kneel at his father’s body forever. He would see to it that the corpse was interred with all the respect due to a king, but for now, he would stand. He would wipe the tears from his face and let his people and the Valar and everyone else know that he would never suffer a loss like this again. This, he would swear.

He stood and walked through the throng of silent people, tear tracks on his face, defying anyone to question them. He reached for the sword by his side, the one they had all chastised him for when he pointed it at what they saw was the wrong target. But now, the steel gleamed in his hand, a poor and pale imitation of his lost Silmarils, the lost light of the Trees that would never bloom without him.

The first words came easily, as easily as he had ever spoken before. They flowed like the metal under his hammer at Mahtan’s forge, then at his own, where he had crafted his children of light. And his sons joined him, seven swords out of seven sheaths, and although a small part of him wanted to keep them safe, a greater part knew that they were his greatest works, and they alone could help him in the way he would need.

Their words were a chant, a vow, something to keep their purpose clear across the great journey. Never again would they know the peace of Valinor, the simple joys of hearth and home, until they had the Silmarils in their hands again. Only then would they avenge Finwë, King of the Noldor. Only then would Fëanor be able to face the body on the ground with honor, and show him that all was not lost.

He beheld the Noldor in front of him, some looking at him with the admiration and awe he had always sought, others seeking something else, someone else. Without the firm determination of favoritism in his father’s life, there would be this divide in the House of Finwë, and only he could set it right by taking his place as the eldest son, at the head of the avenging. Only then would he be able to face his parents, together in death at last, and be their favorite son.

A dread feeling washed over him when his last son finished speaking, and yet, there was nothing to do about it other than to prepare. He had weapons, he had the means to create more, and he was going to lead the charge on Middle-Earth and bring the Silmarils home. Then, and only then, his father’s death would not be in vain, and would perhaps not be his fault, and things would be right at last.

The bells of Túna rang as Fëanor and his sons ascended to their home, clanging a tone of war that had never before been heard. It was a dissonant tone, nothing like the nights he had spent listening to Maglor’s beautiful tunes flowing forth from his harp. Even he had a sword in hand, though he looked not altogether comfortable with it, yet he, like Fëanor, was a loyal son to the end.

In the forge lay eight sets of armor emblazoned with the star his Silmarils made when looked upon with the naked eye, his own set in his bright color of crimson, the others in the same shade, his own sons following in his path at last. The red was so different from Nerdanel’s hair as she stood and watched, sorrow in her eyes. Somehow the fire he had seen in her was gone, and he would not question it. The boys were his, they were sworn in name and deed, and they would all join him on his quest.

He nearly wavered when Nerdanel, who he had not even spoken to in over a decade, begged for even one son, the youngest, or perhaps both of the Ambarussa. She reminded him of her foresight at their birth, at the name of Umbarto, fated, that she had given to the twin now known as Amrod. But her words crashed as waves against the inferno of his heart, enough to quench his fury in the past, but now just as steam, dissolving into the air.

He had loved her, once, and he loved her still. But treason was not something he could forgive. The Ambarussa would join him.

How was he to know if it would be one of their arrows that would pierce Morgoth’s great hide? Any of them could cast the final blow, any of them could be the first to take the Silmarils from his charred hands, burnt beyond recognition. He was not a man to take chances, and he needed every one of his weapons with him, even if they had once been babes he had held to his chest, whispering words of endearment and protection. They were sons of Fëanor, and they would join the fire that consumed him from the inside.

Even on their own, the twins knew this, and neither they nor any of Fëanor’s other sons went back on their vow. He would release them - some part of him knew this, even though the last thing he wanted to appear was weak, and yet they were a weakness of his - and yet none of them asked, none of them heeded their mother’s words. They would return to her, they said, their hearts steeled for the road ahead. They would return, seven bright stars with their father at the head, the Silmarils in his crown instead of Morgoth’s. And then, they would dance, they would celebrate, they would settle down and begin their own lives. But for now, they had a father to obey, a grandfather to avenge.

When he looked his last upon Nerdanel, a flood of memories assaulted him, threatening to throw away everything he had done and making him want to fold himself into her arms, weep for the father he had lost. But he was no lovesick boy, no child in the springtime of his youth. He could not afford to waste time like this, even though a big part of him yearned for his other half. He was sundered from his parents, and now, from his wife. Part of him was glad she would stay behind, for fire consumed all that got in its path, and he wished to spare her. And fire must work alone, for she could not save him from himself.