Lord by Lferion

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Lord

For all he was a prince, a lord, a king, Fingon did not truly understand the effect he had on people. He looked at Maedhros, at Maglor, at his father and aunts and uncles, his grandfather and grandmother, at Finrod and Turgon and Galadriel, and felt … very ordinary. Not inadequate, not incapable, not unworthy, or anything actually negative, but not quite of their stature. If that was the right word. (He was quite literally not of their stature in inches, being the shortest in the family. Someone had to be shortest, just as someone had to be tallest, and never let it be said that who *that* was was not a bone of contention, despite it being a measurable rather than a subjective thing. That he was shortest was never contentious, merely personally disappointing.) He would always be the eldest of his parent’s children, time spent in Mandos not withstanding.

It had been often enough true that people paid him attention, or sought him out, or otherwise cultivated his acquaintance to get closer to his father, to his grandfather, to his mother or grandmother, to be potentially in a position to gain influence or favor or some such political or social advantage. Use, not friendship, and having very little to do with who he was as a person. And it wasn't as though he had not learned how to use that attitude, those who took that approach in turn, to serve the needs of the many even as they attempted to serve themselves.

And of course there were people who followed him without it being a pathway to his father. He was a leader, a lord, a prince, and he took the job, the responsibility, the duty seriously. Plenty of people were of a like mind to work toward the common good, who believed in the structure of things as they were, and later in the rightness and responsibility of the fight against the Enemy. But he was under no illusion that most of those who looked to him as their lord were seeing *him*. They followed the idea of him, the valiant son of a legendary king, the war-leader, the rescuer of princes (whether or not they approved of the actual rescued prince), the vanquisher of Glaurung (only he hadn't been vanquished, had he? Only chastened for a little while.)

He knew he looked the part he played, and he used that, too, both for the people, the appearance: to better do the job, to set expectations, making it easier to encourage people to do what needed doing, pleasant or painful; and for himself, to feel the part, to have the reminder of the gold, the gems, the embroidery, the weight and color and texture, to act, to think, to be the lord, the prince, the king he wanted to be, outwardly, whatever he felt inwardly.

He knew he was good at many aspects of it, but he also thought that it was a job, a craft, not a calling. He honestly did not know what he would do if he were completely free to choose — because he was not free, not in Valinor of the Trees, not in Beleriand, and very much not after the Fourth Battle.

And then, of course, it all fell apart, and he died in the catastrophe that was Fifth Battle, though it hadn't started out as a disaster. A death seemingly less effective than his father's, dealing no great hurt to the Enemy, redounding on his people more than the foe. (He knew that was neither fair nor true, but knowing did not much help the feeling that had lodged itself in his chest on his shoulders, along with the memory of burning whips.

It was not truly a matter of doubting his self worth — he knew he was loved, and not unworthy. It was a doubt more of purpose, of use. He had never been comfortable resting on what he had done — tale-worthy, valiant, entertainment or object lesson — too aware of what word-fame was, and the relationship — or lack of relationship — it had to actual life. There was always more to be done, after the Darkening, and never enough time to do it in. Yet it seemed that now, Returned to Aman, whole in hroa and nominally mended in fea, there was little needing done, and far too much time to fill.

(It would help, of course, if more of those he cared to spend time with were Returned as well. But that did not bear thinking on at all.)

He wondered if it were easier for the ones who had never left, or only briefly to fight in the War of Wrath. Or for those who came (returned) to Aman by ship on sea, rather than by way of the Halls of Mandos. It was not a question he felt inclined to ask of those who might answer, it being neither kind nor courteous. He was not even sure he knew how to frame the question.

So questions were out, exploring on his own had no appeal, nor did being any more involved in the running of things in Tirion than he perforce and unavoidably already was.

He supposed he could build something, a tower, a place where horses might be happy to be ridden, where there were mists and cooler breezes, days and nights that changed length with the turning of the year. Some place that was not only (or so it seemed) a reminder of how little purpose he had, how awkwardly he fit. North. As northerly as Formenos-that-was, though perhaps not too near. Only as near as Hithlum to Himring, and who but he knew that distance so well?

Though it would not do to say anything of that to anyone. He'd heard more than sufficient to know how poorly that sentiment would be received. No point in inviting ire. Bad enough to weather the inevitable, earned anger. Best to stay silent on that head.

He was silent on so many things. Things he could not bring himself to think about, much less say, things that would not be kind, or politic, or helpful, much less willing to be heard. Things he could not even shape in words, notes, form of any kind (and making music was not an option either, not at present, though he hoped one day he would have it in him to sing and play again. Listening he could do.) Essentially speechless was not a state he had ever expected to find himself in. And yet, oddly, he was not uncomfortable with it, for himself.

But a place. One that was his, that welcomed Sindar and Noldor and those who were a mixture, or claimed no particular clan or kin. (And particularly welcome would be those who missed Men, or Dwarves, or stranger peoples. Who found themselves at odds with themselves in this land, who were not ready to forget the arts of sword and bow and spear, the making of armor and arms, the honing of strategy, of tactics. Those who remembered and did not wish to forget certain people, certain skills, certain other things.)

A place where some things could be understood without needing to be said. Where silence would be accepted as silence, could be only silence, and not a challenge to be overcome by those who were not themselves comfortable with the unspoken.

And if the making and the doing were only ever war games, jousts and tournaments and hide-and-seek in challenging terrain, well, there were definitely things one did not want or need to remember, much less repeat. Certainly not without need.

Better than — as both Turgon and Argon had said and his mother most certainly thought — moping in Tirion.

And so Fingon began drawing up plans, making lists, inquiring after people skilled in stonework, scaffolding, foundation laying and forge-building and all the myriad other crafts that went into building a proper fortress-hall. Not that it needed to withstand orc-armies or dragon-fire, but why not, while he was at it? Strength did not have mean gracelessness or crudeness. There was no particular hurry — no one would be without shelter come the winter did it take some time to build. And the craft and skill of it had been dearly earned. That should not be forgotten.

Fingon rode out himself to find where he would put his fortress-hall, his watchtower. Northerly enough for mist, for snow, for skating-ponds, but not so far as ice-locked autumn or too-short spring. Far enough from cities to make traveling to him a choice and not a whim, but not so far as to make the journey onerous. Good sight lines, but also pasture, forest, fields for growing foodstuffs, flax, material for sufficiency, did people choose to stay once the place was built. He hope some of them would, but made no obligation of it. It was meant to be a project, a place to live, to make, to do and be. It was not meant to be a realm, and he certainly did not mean to rule, not even as Turgon ruled (because Turgon's people saw him as their Lord, not by any contrivance on his brother's part).

It did not take him long to find what he sought. A shelving slope, a rise that became a generous, flattened hill, with a lake on one side and the beginnings of a small range of northerly marching mountains on the other. Plenty of streams flowed into the lake, and several springs graced the hill. He stayed for a while, exploring the hill and the surrounding area. No one seemed to live there, though there were signs that people had camped, hunted, spoken with the springs and the streams and the trees. The stones welcomed him, in a way he had forgotten stone could be welcoming, and most mornings and no few evenings, mist rose from the lake and gathered in the folds of the hillside, damp and soft and soothing to the raw and tender places in his spirit.

Far enough, but not too far. Near enough and not too near. Like enough to that which he remembered, but not so like as to waken that which it was better not to rouse. Perhaps one day it would tell him its name. Until then, he would call it Hísimíaurëa, Mist-in-sunlight.

When he returned, he set to planning and inviting people who might have an affinity for the project. (Not recruiting, though sometimes it felt like that, especially when speaking with the children of those who had never left, who had very little idea of what he was actually working toward, and why he would want it, but they were afire to build their own towers in the air. He didn't want to discourage them, precisely, but he also discovered he had less patience with them than he felt he perhaps ought.)

It was after a day of unreasonably tiresome interruptions and nuisance tasks, when Fingon had retreated to his workroom-study, having shed all trappings of authority or decorative show, but with no particular thing in mind to make or do (feeling much too unfocused and out of sorts for music or company), but wanting to busy his hands with something, that (the Elf who had attached themself as steward/arranger of things/dealer with things that Fingon really shouldn't have to) came to the door with a flagon of mulled apple-mead and an apologetic expression.

"Someone I think you might ought to see, sir, though I'm hard pressed to say why. The look of him, mayhap. Gives his name as Ilverin Littleheart, no line or house." There was no immediate place to put the flagon on Fingon's worktable: that was not occupied with paper. The low table by the hearth would do. "He's in the front garden-room. Lintëlaure the younger is seeing to his comfort."

"Voronwe's other son," Fingon murmured, as much to himself as to inform his self-appointed steward. He found a couple of unused cups on the sideboard. "The elder twin. He works in bronze. Or did, at one time." We could use a bell-maker, if he were interested. Fingon thought but did not say as he poured the hot spiced mead into both. He had accepted that people would attach themselves to him, though the reasons continued to escape him, and certainly the work he had chosen generally needed a household's worth of hands and wills to accomplish, but he would not have bowing and scraping in his personal interactions, or indeed at all if he could help it. He put one of the cups in his steward's hand. He could recall the name of an Elf he had heard of but never knowingly met, but not give the same courtesy to one who had firmly attached themself to Fingon's train, though that was because they had not yet decided what or how they wanted to be called, Returned and renewed. They wanted little to do with the person they had been before, and was still trying things out to see what did fit now. Fingon did understand that impulse, and tried to both have patience with and make a space for the process. Some days felt more successful than others on that head.

(Fingon had witnessed more than one person struggle with similar issues, without the benefit of the Halls to aid in adjusting to being a different person than one had been Before — and there was more than one kind of Before, but nearly all were traumatic, and too many of them the work of the Enemy. But only one of them was always in mind, and of him he could not speak.)

The mead was good. Fingon took second, more appreciative, sip. He had to admit, the regular availability of reliably drinkable-to-excellent wine and mead and spirits was a thing he appreciated about Aman. Beleriand had occasionally achieved astonishing heights of excellence, but there had also been the not so occasional depths of the execrable, and a tiresome amount of the only just palatable. But that was a digression, as good a piece of news as it might be to vintners and brewers and the makers of mead.

It did not answer his steward's question-suggestion regarding Ilverin Littleheart. (And what a name — on the face of it it seemed an insult, naming one as of little feeling, but surely no parent would think that, especially of an infant. Mayhap it was meant as 'little, with heart' which seemed a more likely thought. Certainly kinder.)

Of course Fingon would see him. That was what one did. Even when one did not truly understand why they came to one unprompted.

Fingon swirled the mead in the cup, light glinting in the warm red depths. "I will see him. After we have enjoyed this well made, well served draught. For which I thank you." His steward acknowledged that with nod, something approaching a smile, and by finally taking a drink from the cup in their hand. "Is there aught else I should know? Of our guest, of the household, of the state of the roof?"

"As it happens," his steward began, and Fingon settled himself to listen.

"This do we hear, nor fail to remember …"

Chapter End Notes

My three prompts were:
Caprice & Chance prompt #1:
Ingénue: A character begins the story unaware of something important.

Caprice & Chance prompt #2:
Cannot Spit It Out: Your character is left speechless. You decide why.

Caprice & Chance prompt #3:
Happily Ever After: Someone in your story gets good news. It can be your
protagonist, another character in the story, or news of a character who
doesn't even appear in the story.

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