United, Divided: The War of Telerin Aggression by eris_of_imladris

The First Gun Is Fired

The first gun is fired!
Its echoes thrill the land,
And the bounding hearts of the patriot throng,
Now firmly take their stand.

In the beginning, Nelyo truly believes.

HIs father came back from Olwë in a seething rage, no longer trying to hide his thoughts behind courtesy. He has come for war, he says as he unsheathes his sword. And his sons, his people, are angry too. Why, he wonders, can the elves not band together for the common foe that somehow only Fëanáro’s kin can see? His father’s speech ignited fire in the minds of too few.

Every fighter must do his best, even though nobody has any experience. There has never been a war like this, elves against the Valar, and there has never been a battle like this, elves against other elves. Nelyo has no idea what was said in the meeting, between the two leaders who now stand at odds. All he knows is the tension in his father’s body that explodes in a roar, and somewhere, the first blow is thrown, the first scream echoes, the first battle begins.

He makes his way through the streets, pushing past the shouts and the smoke. He doesn’t know who is screaming anymore. His kin? Their attackers? The innocents who surely must be there and choose to not lift their arms in war, who would give the boats in exchange for their lives?

(Would Fëanáro have given the silmarils for his father’s life? He wonders.)

He must be Nelyo today, he knows as he runs into a silver-haired elf who is too close of a range to use his bow. Unbidden, he thinks of Tyelkormo learning the bow, his clumsy steps, and even though the face is wrong the hair is right, and for one terrible moment he fears he is striking his own brother down. And then he reminds himself to stop thinking. This is war. He lifts his sword.

We will bow no more to the tyrant few,
Who scorn our long forbearing,
But with Columbia's stars and stripes
We'll quench their trait'rous daring.

The dead elf with the silver hair returns to Nelyo when he holds the torch aloft on the shores of Endorë. He watches the wisps of smoke float away, somehow more lifeless than the form of his first kill upon the ground. He’d stopped to watch the blood run, a thousand emotions screeching through his head at once.

And then he’d fought on, found more Teleri, got caught in the frenzy and done his part for his people. Made his father proud, even if the thought of how he did it was sickening.

Now, he cannot finish the job. Things have gone too far. His thoughts catch up with him as he is now supposed to hurl this torch against his side’s ships, stopping his own side from being whole. Driving away his own family, albeit estranged for longer than he has been alive. His uncle Nolofinwë, whose timely arrival prevented the Noldor from ending as corpses in the bay. Corpses like the one he’d fought.

He remembers the boy’s eyes, the first one who he’d killed. He looked so scared, like he’d have given anything to stop. And then, like Nelyo, he hardened his resolve. He reached for a dagger, but Nelyo was quicker. His blood ran down the streets where he might have lived, played, dreamed.

No one else seems to be thinking of the Teleri, too many slain by their swords. They are an easy enemy to adopt. And now, no one questions Fëanáro’s word that Nolofinwë’s host is a threat, another enemy between them and the only one who should matter. They are all caught up in the frenzy of war, and Nelyo tries, oh, how he tries to join them. But he cannot.

He is the diplomat, the oldest whose job has been a peacemaker ever since his younger brothers were born. His own family stands together (except for his mother, who he wonders if he will ever see again, or perhaps he will be like the ones he killed in Alqualondë, gone to their families forever), but the Noldor are not just his family, and his people are at war with those who did not start the conflict in the first place. They have forgotten who is truly to blame here, who stole their lights and Lights and lives.

Nelyo stands alone in this belief, even among his own brothers. Now he is the one who has to take a stand, who has to do what matters, by speaking against his own kin. He must be the one to say what surely others are thinking. How can everyone be fine with the deed they do now, as if the strike against the Teleri was not enough? Is everyone still blinded by the smoke and the exhilaration of the fight, his father’s fire that burns so bright it eclipses all that is good?

Nelyo (for so he is named, so he must act in his people’s interest, he must try to be kingly even as his father and Nolofinwë scrabble for their own factions) is overwhelmed, unable to see his lifelong friend as anything but that, and feeling the same about his loving father. The enemy is to the east, why can they not fight together? Why must his family split apart in a breach he knows will never be fixed, in a drastic measure that makes the sword at Nolofinwë’s throat look like child’s play?

When he dares to open his mouth, Fëanáro speaks coldly, not like himself, especially to his firstborn son. There is none of the love of his upbringing, none of the cherished words he has always heard, the kindness he has always known even when he strayed from the path Fëanáro would have chosen for him.

Fëanáro replies like he is the enemy.

For the arm of freedom is mighty still,
But strength shall fail us never,
Its strength shall fail us never,
That strength we'll give to our righteous cause,
And our glorious land forever.