The Words You Left Me by eris_of_imladris

Wise

The baby in his father’s arms has darker hair than his, and his father’s eyes and height and name. There is no Indis in this child. He is a copy of Finwë, and Fëanáro is afraid.

He goes by his mother-name to remind the Noldor that she still exists, as if his grief and talent were not proof enough. But she is dead, and he needs Finwë, he needs the love only a living parent can provide, and he watches it slip out of his fingers as the baby tightens his hold, gripping the king’s hand as he smiles.

He leaves without telling anyone, without even changing his clothes, and takes out his feelings on a lump of metal in Mahtan’s forge. He does not eat, drink, pause, because he knows if he does, he will hear his father’s voice again, calling the baby Nolofinwë.

How could an infant be wiser than him? He discovers new things in the forge every day, but now he resolves to find a way to excel in scholarly pursuits, to convince Finwë that he is worthy of being called wise, and every other praise belongs to him. He is his father’s son – but even that is true no longer, even that needs a qualification of “older” that can be dispensed with all too easily. Who would choose a king of skill over one of wisdom?

The thoughts hammer at him as he pounds the metal. The baby’s name sets them as equals, but he already has so much more – the looks, the mother – that Fëanáro knows he must compete like he never has before. There is no option of losing, of becoming less than he is. His mother gave him life, and he will not give it away for the sake of his father’s philandering.

He picks at dinner at Mahtan’s table, washes the day off him and finds a tear in his fine tunic. He wonders if his father will ever look for him, if he can ever go back, if an orphan boy can even afford the water he pours over his soot-stained hands.

That night, in Mahtan’s home, he takes the tunic he tore and a needle, and tries to find his mother. The needle is slow and clumsy in his hands and sharp when it enters his thumb, and when the blood wells up, he clenches his fist. This will be his last moment of weakness, he decides as tears stream down his cheeks. He will have to become more than his father, more than even his mother. It is the only choice for him to survive, and he will let no one get in the way.