The Glitter of Snow, The Sparkle of Mist by Lferion

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The Glitter of Snow, the Sparkle of Mist

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The glitter of snow, the sparkle of mist, the grey rain curtain drawing back
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Maedhros certainly thought the poet was right, however fiercely he missed Fingon, however terrible his death had been. However much Fingon himself would likely disagree. So much better he not witness what they had become. That he heal in Namo's halls — for surely, it was only they: himself, his brothers and their father, condemned to the Void, to Namo's turned face, not all the Exiles. Little pity was not no pity, surely. — Be Returned to live again as the bright, valiant, venturesome and joyful person Fingon had been before all the horrors, before Oaths and bloody waters and betrayal. Surely.

 

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Fingon (and yes, he was Fingon, not Findekáno, no matter what persons set over him as guardians insisted on calling him) closed the book gently on the poet’s words.

Luckier. By whose definition, luckier? Men were said to go onward, outward, to someplace new and unknowable by Elves. Was that luck? Or Someone's plan? Not a thought Fingon cared to examine too closely, at present. Besides, it was the first line that spoke to him, and not as metaphor.

He missed the relative simplicity of Hithlum, of Himring, the wide, misted plains of Lothlann, the grey-forested slopes of Ered Wethrin. He missed the star-sparked silence, the sense of purpose (however unfounded, impossible, utterly unreasonable and ultimately hopeless that purpose had proven). He missed the cold breeze tugging at his braids (he missed his braids, though he could expect to get them back eventually, when this hroa was no longer considered a child). He missed damp air and the burning blue of flax flowers carpeting the hillsides (he missed mist-damp red hair coiled to ringlets, and warmth at his back, star-bright grey eyes under snow-spangled lashes). He missed snow, here in temperate, mild-climed, seasonless Tirion. (How could he miss ice, after the Ice? But he did. He did, and no one else he was allowed to see could or would understand.

His father might understand. Finrod. He was not allowed their company, but at least he knew they were in the world again, Returned in their proper persons. Or at any rate, in their proper adult persons now. He'd been unable (so far) to learn if they had Returned in the hroar of their child-selves, and both had Returned long before he had. He truly wondered what purpose Returning him served; just what he was supposed to learn by it.

 

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Little pity was not no pity, Nerdanel thought, but sometimes she wondered if it might be worse, that tiny, unquenchable coal of hope, burning even as it grew dimmer, like iron out of the forge, cooled from bright to black, and still too hot to touch. What pity had the Valar for the bereft, the dissevered, the penitent and the left behind? what choice had any of them been given? And what sort of life were those allowed to Return from death (horrible deaths, seen or surprising or long drawn out; miserable deaths, wretched and inescapable and futile) being given?

 

Constrained as children, yet with undiminished memory. And only some, not all. Finrod had been one of the first Returned, in his adult hroa, all his skills, grace and strength intact. His brothers likewise. Finduilas had Returned a youth, Fingolfin, adult, with both Turgon and Argon. Only Fingon remade as a child. One in twelve, about, with little apparent reason. From her perspective it was both arbitrary and cruel, especially since the Curia in Tirion had decreed that one’s original parents were not allowed contact, much less responsibility for one Returned underage. Arafinwe had strongly objected, but he'd been over-ruled.

 

She had every expectation that Feanaro and their own sons, if ever allowed Return at all, would be treated no better than Fingon. And how the persons assigned as Fingon’s guardians were going about that guardianship made her furious and heart-sick. They weren’t cruel, overtly. They certainly were not careless. But what they were careful about had little to do with who Fingon (and Nerdanel made a point of thinking of him by the name he had chosen, had become, not the name Certain People insisted on using) was, as opposed to who they thought he ought to be.

 

As if that kind of pressure had ever worked on any of Finwe's decendents. Much less any of the elder brothers. But it didn't mean resisting it was easy, or simple: quite the opposite. (Nerdanel wanted nothing more than to swoop down on Tirion, winkle Fingon out of that oh so pleasant-seeming house, wrap him in a blanket and bring him back to Formenos. It had been his second home, all those years ago, and she certainly had considered him essentially another son. If she didn't have better news of him in Anaire's next letter, she would start making plans.

 

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Formenos was cold, colder than Maedhros remembered, but then, he had never been there in true winter. (The Darkening did not count, and it had been midsummer by Tree-year measure anyway.) And the world had changed unimaginably since he had last been in it, in more ways than he knew how to reckon. The distant peaks of the Pelóri were higher, and much nearer, but not impenetrable, for Aule's folk had been busy in the long ages, and there were Dwarves in Valinor, an astonishment he wasn't going to be over any time soon. A pleasant astonishment, but still.

 

He had not expected to Return at all, that was the greatest surprise. He had thought, formless, inchoate, that if he — they, any of them, his brothers, his father — were to Return it would be to punishment, unending reparation, a bleak existence that part of him felt was deserved and a greater part railed against, refused to countenance, but could not entirely deny. This was none of that. He had opened his eyes to his mother's grin, Fingon's grave smile, his father's — his father who he had truly not thought to see ever again — tears, and his brothers as well.

 

He had Fingon to thank, and Nerdanel, who had never given up on any of them. Anaire and Aule and Elrond, even Earendil. It was too much to take in, at first. Just as having a hroa not anywhere in pain, stiffness, discomfort was too much to properly register. Not a dream, hallucination, but actual reality. The cold, wet air, the glittering snow, the mist and cloud that dimmed to so-bright sun made it easier to bear, to adjust, and presently to welcome living again. His father lived, his brothers. His mother loved him still, and Fingon had forgiven him.

 

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Fingon looked over at Maedhros, sprawled comfortably asleep in their bed, red hair shining amid the purfles and pillows. They had done it. The last to be brought safely home. Not laid under constraint, prisoned in Tirion (he would see Tirion and the court and all that when he was ready and wanted to, not by curial decree), not pressured to be anyone other than his own, best self. Their mothers (and fathers) were a wonder, and now he, finally whole, could learn again to live.

Fingon wrote out the final line of the poem, and closed the book, smiling.

 

The glitter of snow, the sparkle of mist, the grey rain curtain drawing back
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to live again is different from what any one supposed, perilous and fair.

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