HIS SONS by bluehair

Chapter 1

It hurts. Yes, that's such an understatement, and it's even worse how nobody around understands, really. What a joke, when it's so rare now that she attends such gatherings, but who would have known what happens so far away, when a new battle takes place? Yes, they will know more about the battle, if a battle it is, when the Valar will deign to tell them, but that's irrelevant now.

Because Nerdanel finally understands, too, why they were so amazed that she could go on, the last time. After all, she had lost three of her sons then, they all knew that, and all would have thought she should have been devastated.

It was not even that she didn't feel pain when the too thinned links broke; of course she did, she bore each of them inside her for a year, and nursed them and then took care of them for so long. Maybe not as much as the other women did, maybe less than if she'd have had daughters, who is to know?

Yes, she wanted a daughter, she wanted one so much… This now makes her laugh just a little, because all this pain she feels right now, it all comes from her wanting a daughter, isn't it? She tried so hard then, and only after she understood… Yes, what nobody around seems to understand now.

Eru, please, it's so painful now! No, everybody mills around her and tries to tell her to hope, or that only one of her sons might be dead – and on a better day, she would sort of laugh at how they try to cover their feelings, the hatred they still have for them, after all this time, but… Oh no, this is too much now! She does not need both Indis and Eärwen saying platitudes now, not when she can still feel…

“Stop it! I know too well that Ambarussa is dead, nobody else! I know!”

“They are all your sons, dear, and it can be difficult...” Eärwen still tries, so unctuous, so… “We love all of them so much, put so much of our fëa in them that it's hard...”

“It's not hard! Or maybe it is for you, but not for me! I only put so much in Ambarussa, not any of the others, he wouldn't let me!”

It's quiet – except for two other women who are sobbing, clearly they lost somebody, too. So surely this was a battle. But they still don't understand, they look at her as if she's crazy.

“None of you get it, is it? You were so hung up on being envious of him, none of you paid any attention!”

She's not being fair, because she wasn't so fair with her husband either, but this needs to stop. She needs to make somebody else understand.

“After what happened to Miriel, do you really think he'd take a chance? And with so many sons? He poured himself into them, and I disobeyed him last time, the first and only time! I hoped so bad for a daughter, but he understood what I did, and didn't allow it to happen again! That's why we fought, that's why there were no more children!”

Yes, there's more silence, and Indis is finally the one to ask.

“What exactly did Fëanor do?”

“What he did every time when he created something. When each of our babies needed something, he'd give and give and give, all that they needed, he'd feed them from his own fëa. I barely put some drops in, a little more the first time, for Maitimo, because neither of us were clear on how much was needed. But he got so much better at it then, until with Curufinwë he gave all. Until at last I thought maybe if I pour more I'll have that daughter I wanted, so I pushed as much as I could, too.”

“This is why you had twins, then?”

“I don't know, but then, nobody else had twins, did they?”

No, this side of the sea, she is the only one to have twins, but not the only one to have lost her children, and it still stings that Fëanor didn't want to leave her her child. No, he took them all, his sons, and now she is defending him. To Indis, of all people.

So Nerdanel laughs, and sobs, and what does she care anymore? It all hurts.