Twice Burnt by Lferion

Twice Burnt

Read Twice Burnt

Ñolofinwë Arakano Finweion, called Fingolfin, sometime High King of the Noldor in Middle Earth took a deep breath of fresh, cool air and looked down at his hands, smooth, soft, unscared, unscathed. Remade like the rest of him from some inscrutable template that included muscle memory and learned skill, but not the marks of that effort. No cuts. No burns. No chilblains. Not even the ghost of pain, of heat or cold, sunburn or windburn. Only memory, nothing under the skin but smooth working bone and muscle, nerves and tendons and blood in proper order and place.

There or not, He remembered them.

“Even with these burns I still don't learn — “ A line from some song came to mind.

You'd think a Noldo would understand more about fire, forge-trained, hearth-trained, taught the arts of torch and lamp and candle, of furnace and smelter and crucible.

But that physical fire, following rules that do not change as long as the other physical conditions do not change. Repeatable, consistent results. Properties that can be discerned, understood, taught, used as tools. Heat the crucible so, pour the molten metal into the mold, let it cool at the appropriate temperature and speed for the material, and so forth and so on, over and over again.

Leather aprons, gloves, tinted eye-shields, other sensible things protect skin and fingers, eyes and faces from sparks and brightness. And should one be burnt by flame or metal or scalding water, there are straightforward means of soothing the injury— ice, aloe, unguents and cooling compresses.

Metaphysical fire, on the other hand, is something else entirely. Nothing so contained as a forge, a crucible, a kiln. No manner of clothing may protect or ward, no maintenance of tools and equipment serve to make predictable and safe the incandescence of that fiery spirit.

So many times in life had Fëanáro's spirit burnt him. Fire both physical and metaphysical — a thousand careless sparks and not so careless barbs, culminating with the ships burning across the neck of ocean in northern Araman — why would he invite that again? Any part of that? And yet.

And yet.

They were brothers. Noldor. Rebels and makers, explorers and princes both. Their children had put bitterness away between them. The world itself was different under moon and sun. Morgoth and Sauron and all that brood were no more. How many of those barbs and sparks had been fueled by Morgoth, though struck by Fëanor? How many of his own in return?

The Halls of Mandos gave one time for reflection, but that was not all one needed for healing, and was certainly not all one needed for reconciliation, however important a part. More than heat and metal and pressure were needed to make a weld: flux aided the process even when it was not essential to it. and was not flux a kind of change? (Now that was use of language that would make Fëanor growl and laugh at the same time. Nolo would have to make a point of telling him, once the opportunity presented itself.) The Halls did not allow for making, remaking, creating anew — nothing physical, nothing material — only revisiting, reflecting, revising in mind. Fëanáro had always thought — processed — with his hands as much as his mind, and much more than with his too-fiery heart. How could he make new thoughts with bound and idle hands?

And even aside all of that: the reasonable arguments, the need for making and healing in truth, all the high and generous and merciful reasons, Nolo missed him. Missed the exhilaration of engaging with that fire, missed the warmth, the brightness, the color he brought to everything he touched. He wanted him back. And if that meant blistered fingers and scorched eyebrows, so be it. Faniel had a whole garden full of aloe, and some clever artisan had figured out how to make cold-furnaces, as well as several different kinds of ice.

The lesson of a burn didn't have to be avoidance. Avoidance hadn't helped before. Wasn't helping now. Try something new: new tools, new approach. Engagement. Flux. Flex. Hope. Aloe. Love. It didn't matter if there were more burns in the offing, not if they could forge a new relationship, one all of them could live with.

Let Fëanáro Curufinwë Finweion Return, let him come home. Let the forge-fire kindle anew. Let us all go forward together into this new day.