Estinto by eris_of_imladris

Chapter 1

They thought they didn’t need it. What use did they have for a song whose composer knew the screams of death more than the lilting of life, whose hands drew bow-strings in their minds before harp strings, whose mere name evoked the tune of a sword, in and out, the bright blood bubbling? What need did they have to remember that day, the tragedy tearing more than one people apart, leaving the survivors on a silent trail to a place that was no longer home? But when they found driftwood on the shore, white paint dripping between their fingers, lost to the sea, they hummed the song, and it brought them solace.

They thought they didn’t need him. He looked like his father, the destroying fire, the dissonant voice in their chorus, the Melkor to their Valar, the enemy who had once been the greatest among them. Who needed to look at his face and remember what he had done in the name of his father, even after he had met his fiery death? Who needed to recall that blaze of wonder they felt when they first saw the Silmarils bound on his brow, dimming the very Trees in their glory, only to curse their names for inciting a deadly war? But when they needed his strength, it was in the song, as if the fire had indeed flowed from father to son, only to shift from wildfire to a comforting hearth-fire of home.

He thought he didn’t need it. When he cast the last gem into the waves, all he could feel was the throb of the pain, in and out, a rhythm he knew all too well but was, at the same time, always new. Losing one brother was always different from another, and in casting aside this pain, he cast aside his father, the murderer, the spark that ignited the terror. But when he cried out as he watched the silmaril disappear into the raging sea, he wished for his father beside him, brushing his hair back from his brow, binding his wounds with a smile and a kiss and a soft, gentle melody.

He thought he didn’t need him. His last brother, disappearing into the fiery chasm, broken beyond the repair his songs could give. His older brother, a mess of contradictions, fiery hair and a soft heart, whose sword slayed parents and whose ragged body kept their children safe, who fought enemies with his left hand and himself with his right. Why should he need to listen to his grief? He was grown, and he made the decision to discard the gem on his own. Much like his brother had done, back bowed, lone hand clutching onto the gem even as it burned him alive. Why should he need someone who was gone, when his brother spent years telling him the only way to move was forward? But when his brilliant mind, all too similar to his father’s, tried to add his brother’s name and his own to the list of the lost at the end of his song, his lips were silent.

And when he needed it, and when he needed him, his broken voice wove the waves into melodies, as if his tattered hands were in any shape to play.