The Fated by SWE

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Chapter 1

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It had been a month since Nerdanel, wife of Fëanor, had given birth to twin sons, a very rare event among the Elves and a source of much fascination outside the family. In accordance with custom, all the fascinated people would get to meet them, as today was their naming ceremony.

 

The transition from mother to what was probably the largest family in Tirion to now the largest in Aman had seemed to take little out of Nerdanel, and she was as charming and radiant as ever. In the month since the birth she had even found time to sculpt, and new, raw clay shapes depicting the pain and tenderness of motherhood were prominently displayed in the room. The ceremony was well-attended, to the shy Nerdanel’s dismay, but she went from guest to guest, greeting them with courtesy and gracefully accepting their good wishes. Everyone was full of praise for her and her talented children, her beautiful home, her artistic accomplishments, and they were quick to assure her that the baby twins could wish for no better mother and that a bright future lay ahead of them.

 

The boys had already been named Pityafinwë and Telufinwë by their father on the day of their birth, but maternal insight often took a little longer to emerge. Several days ago, it had, and this gathering had been called to share the names of Nerdanel’s imagining with all their friends.

 

Her voice was soft, and she stood in the centre of the floor, head bowed. As ever, her words were few and well-placed. It was said that she so disliked to be the centre of attention because her sons were her world, and any time her attention was on herself, they were deprived of it.

 

“Thank you all for coming. My youngest will be named Ambarussa. Please enjoy yourselves.”

 

And that was that. Two boys with one name. Well, why not, someone said, their voice rising above the tinkling of glasses and the snuffling of the infants. We’ve never had twins before, this must be how it works when two come along at once, and besides, mother always knows best. She hasn’t gone wrong with any of their brothers.

 

Ambarussa linked hands and giggled to the delight of the guests. The name seemed pleasing to them.

 

Later, Finarfin approached Nerdanel while the guests wandered around, admiring the clay forms and the babies. He was frowning slightly, and took a moment to decide how to phrase his question. “Sister, you said your youngest – will the older twin receive his name later?”

 

Nerdanel smiled and shook her head. She clarified what should have been obvious: “The name serves for both. Ambarussa will be the youngest and last of my children. They are alike in face and mood, so they will be named just once, as they were conceived.”

 

Unwilling to delve into the subject of the twins’ conception, Finarfin smiled, kissed his nephews, complimented their mother again on the miracle birth and the excellent name, and was troubled for some days by the question of Ambarussa.

 

-

 

I don’t know what to say.

 

This is not my story to tell but Nelyo says think back, Pityo, think back and tell me what do you remember? Anything you remember is good because we can’t have you staying like this, poor thing, it’s been months now you should be back to yourself now remember Pityo how you were before the ships burned remember the good times we used to have before it all burned up?

 

I think. Then I speak.

 

I tell him that remember my brother Ambarussa who was with me from the beginning and we were alike in face and mood which is what everyone kept telling us but not Father, he always could tell us apart, right from the beginning from when were babies, he said it’s as plain as day, just look at their hair, but there wasn’t really all that much difference in the colour, not enough to say if you didn’t already know us well and anyway, Father, russet and auburn are just two words for more or less the same thing and you made up all these words anyway to put in your poems.

 

Nelyo has left me alone and says I need to think harder and I need to remember who I am talking to and do my best not to get confused but you remembered things, other things, like look, Nerdanel, look at our sons, see how this one is the faster swimmer but this one swifter on land, look, those are our boys, have you ever seen anything like them? And mother laughing, mother used to laugh, and she didn’t care which one could swim faster, but it was me, Mother, I was the faster swimmer, Mother, but she just said it was Ambarussa. She pulled up our hands and showed him, look, husband, even the grooves of their fingers are the same, who else is like that, you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins-

 

-but I was the faster one in the water, Mother, me, but we would always be your Ambarussa. And father frowned then and he said, I think this one’s just a little taller, how about we measure them again, and Mother laughed, and said it doesn’t matter…

 

-

 

Fëanor and Nerdanel faced each other in the hall, as she was taking the clay ornaments down and he putting the furniture back to its normal places. The guests had gone and Ambarussa lay in their single cot, too fascinated by each other to pay any heed to the argument about their destiny going on outside.

 

Fëanor shut the door so as not to disturb the children with raised voices.

 

“I don’t ask you to obey me, where did that word come from? I just thought we had agreed in this matter.”

 

“Nothing was agreed, husband. You thought up lots of beautiful names – perhaps they will go to our grandchildren. Our twins are called Ambarussa.”

 

Fëanor was rarely still, and now he paced the length of the hall. “I don’t want to repeat everything I said last night.”

 

“There is no need. Don’t repeat it.” Nerdanel’s movements were steady and considered. She took each clay shape down from its plinth and wrapped it several times round in cloth, before putting the swaddled statues away in boxes to be displayed again in future.

 

“I will if you weren’t listening. Whoever heard of two brothers with the same name? We can tell them apart, but other people will stand no chance. Think, Nerdanel, of the kind of life they’ll have. They’ll never be able to exist apart from one another. What happens when they marry? Or have children of their o- do you need a hand with that?”

 

Nerdanel was easing a large, heavy abstract formation down from its stand, another work in the raw baked earth that she favoured, perfect in its symmetry. It represented two humanoid shapes, joined at the middle by a thick cord of clay, and was the size of the children, but denser, and too heavy for her to easily lift alone. She accepted Fëanor’s help, and together, they levered it down towards the ground.

 

Suddenly, Nerdanel lost her grip. The sculpture slipped from her hands, hit the tiled floor with an echoing thud. It snapped at its weakest point, the two halves rolling free on the floor.

 

Fëanor cursed, but did not immediately move to put it back together, as Nerdanel was still, as dazed as she had been after the birth, and swaying slightly. Fëanor held her shoulders and gazed into her eyes, but she did not see him.

 

Then, she said: “Then let one be called Umbarto, but which, time will decide.”

 

Silence reigned for a moment, interrupted only by the sound of the clay twins coming to a halt on the floor, while the real ones blew bubbles and sighed in sleep.

 

Fëanor shook her gently, and she blinked, then smiled. “How about that, husband? I’ve given them different names, just as you wanted. Umbarto and Ambarussa. We’d better write to the family and tell them. How ridiculous they will think we are!”

 

Fëanor led Nerdanel away and sat her down, making sure that the strange momentary trance had lifted. He tasted the name Umbarto and his lips tightened.

 

“Fated? I do not like it.”

 

Nerdanel resumed her meticulous work of putting her sculptures away. “Fate can be good or ill, but it may be all that distinguishes them. That is my answer. You asked for one of them to be given a different name: I give you Umbarto.”

 

“Didn’t you notice which twin the name applied to, at least?”

 

“I didn’t, and it doesn’t matter.”

 

“Then what are we meant to call them until time makes it clear which is which?”

 

“We will call them Ambarussa.”

 

“I don’t think you can tell them apart,” said Fëanor, after a time. Nerdanel only smiled.

 

-

 

It was the Mingling of the Lights and we were all together when Father took my brother in hand and told him, he said, you are to be named Ambarto as of today, the Exalted, isn’t that a nice mother-name for you? And Mother sighed and said Umbarto I spoke, I said it clearly enough and there’s nothing wrong with your ears and that isn’t his mother-name, Fëanáro, and Father turned from my brother and said, stop it with that damned martyr expression, and especially stop smiling, I’m giving him a name as you are unable to do it properly, how is it you managed with the other five but when it comes to two boys with the same face you’re so utterly at a loss? And Father said I knew it you can’t tell them apart after all and Mother said what more do you want from me I have given them different names like you wanted but Father had me in his arms then because I was crying, we were young then, and I told him, father, why Telufinwë, why does he get a new name and I don’t, why can’t we both have it, as we are both Ambarussa, and mother nodded her approval, stop making it hard for them, Fëanáro, but father cursed and put me aside roughly, and he shouted, see what you’ve done? But Mother said, don’t cry, you will always be my Ambarussa, but it wasn’t the same, how could it ever be the same again when Mother had seen a fate for one of us where the other could not follow and Father was letting it tear us apart, so I clung to my brother, Ambarussa, Ambarussa, and we swore we’d never leave each other whatever Mother and Father did, and that was the first oath we ever took even before the great oath, we swore that neither of us had to be fated, speaking mind-to-mind, lips to lips, alone in the dark. We were born on the same day and so we’d die on the same day, and anyway, we said to everyone the next day, calling one of us Ambarto and the other Ambarussa is stupid not to mention unfair because who wants to be known as the little redhead when your brother is the Exalted, and Caranthir said shut up, and pinched our cheeks to make them red like his, and told us it could be worse-

 

-we were young then but we never grew any older after the trees died.

 

-

 

Night fell and the hosts assembled by torchlight, eager for great deeds and rebellion. Night remained and the trees did not rise again to give the Exiles their morning light, but the torches were extinguished and they learned to manage in the dim starlight, by which russet and auburn are indistinguishable.

 

Nerdanel had made herself a city of sculptures and lived at the heart of it, but without light, they were meaningless clay forms, and the halls of Aulë gave her no joy. A forgotten likeness of someone she knew crunched under her boots as she ran, down from the hills and into Tirion and to where he was, at the centre of his host.

 

They retired to a private place to speak, but in the end it proved unnecessary, as their words were loud enough for everyone to hear and were long remembered.

 

“You’re not dressed for a journey,” Fëanor looked her up and down. Since she had left him, she was thinner and her hands leaner: she had become a devoted wife to her craft. “What is it that you want?”

 

Nerdanel set her lip but spoke firmly. “I will never ask another favour of you, Fëanáro, but grant me this. You know that you go to misery and death, but I will no longer stand in your way or seek to dissuade you. You are free to go, as you always have been. But please –” here the steady tone of her voice trembled and she fought to master it - “I ask that you do not take every last one of my children with you.”

 

Fëanor simply shook his head. “Even if they were willing, which ones would you sunder from their father and brothers and keep here, under the yoke of the Valar and longing for their kin?”

 

Nerdanel had already thought on this matter and was able to answer: “My twins, leave me Ambarussa.”

 

“Out of the question.” Ever restless, Fëanor was walking away. There were a thousand and one things to attend to and this he deemed of little importance, the last pleas of a pitiful creature who has lost everything through her own cowardice. “They are the fastest riders in the host. They will be needed when we land in Middle-Earth.”

 

“At least leave me one of them!” Nerdanel’s voice was high, veering out of control. Doom seemed to be pressing in from all sides, and it hung especially closely around Telufinwë, who might have been the most talented hunter in the world but was still one boy, barely come of age, and vulnerable to all the dangers of the world. She clutched his arm. “Just one. Please. Just one. Leave me one. It’s not much. You won’t leave me with nothing, you can’t!”

 

Fëanor halted and looked at her for a long moment. “If you could hear yourself!” he said. “Put the Sundering Sea between our twin sons? You made them this way, now you would part them?”

 

“I would! It is as you said. I made them, and I will not see you lead them to their doom!”

 

Fëanor was silent for a time, but his next words made Nerdanel blaze with fury.

 

-

 

I was very young then but Nelyo, there’s something else I remember, I remember that I always loved Mother best and Ambarussa always loved Father more and Nelyo said no, I don’t think it was like that but I think it was because I remember when we were preparing to be exiled Ambarussa said to me he said brother I can’t do it I can’t leave forever and I said we have to go with Father we swore Ambarussa remember we swore an oath and Ambarussa said-

 

-Nelyo says you’re confused but don’t worry about it, we’re learning to cope with you.

 

I did not hear everything Mother and Father said just words sometimes my name sometimes Umbarto sometimes cursing each other but then Mother said something and I had to stop what I was doing to hear more because Mother said let one of us stay, and I looked for Telufinwë but he was busy and he didn’t hear, and I wished I didn’t hear either because Father said Nerdanel were you a true wife as you had been till cozened by Aulë, and mother spoke but I couldn’t make out her words because father carried on talking over her, Nerdanel, were you a true wife, the woman I married, you would keep all of them, for you would come with us, and for a moment I thought mother really would come with us and our fate would be changed, she would take from me the name of Umbarto and make us both Ambarussa again-

 

-but mother spoke and she said no, Fëanáro, you will not keep all of them, one at least will never set foot on Middle-Earth-

 

-and Father went silent, and he had no more words and I’ve never known him be at a loss for words before, not father, and then I saw his face through a gap in the crowd and I couldn’t believe it was him because our Father is fearless look at him leading our people to new lands but just then he looked afraid and he was afraid of Mother when she spoke like that, and so was I, because words like those are worse than any name of Umbarto, words like that are doom, and Father didn’t say a word and then she smiled because she had mastered him.

 

I am always saying the wrong thing or not knowing where to begin, I’m like mother, I never have too much to say for myself so I stayed quiet and pretended I hadn’t heard but there was no use pretending everyone knew Mother had silenced Father today and half the host had heard it, and they were looking at Umbarto my brother and then they all started to talk quietly all at once so their voices rose up like a wave over us, Ambarto, poor boy, whose own mother had just cursed him to his death, just to keep father from having him, and one of our friends put a hand on his arm to reassure him, Pityo, sometimes people say things in the heat of the moment that they don’t mean, but I shook him off my arm and told him, what do you know about any of this, and suddenly everybody was very busy and calling for this or that, just to drown out the words, before she cursed us all.

 

-

 

“Take your evil omens to the Valar who will delight in them,” said Fëanor. “I defy them.” So they parted.

 

-

 

I remember my brother Ambarussa, although he died when we were very young, since he and I were alike in face and mood and we were so alike that we bore the same name, my poor brother, we lost him on the ships and mother’s words were true and she called him back to her with fire and he never did once set foot on Middle Earth. I remember him and the thought comes to me that he would have liked to be here today because he always used to like the sea, of the two of us he was always the faster in the water or at least I think it was him not that it matters so much any more because I’m the only one left of us twins and today we’re here for war not swimming and this time the war is mine and I command our army now and they call me Lord because they forget my name because I look so much like my brother Ambarussa who never set foot on these shores.

 

Nelyo’s face is grey like steel and Kano turned and walked away some time ago and it’s not that he’s a coward, Father, both of them are sick because of the rain and the stinking wetlands all around here Father you should see this land it’s not like Aman it’s no place for a Silmaril but Nelyo said it’s hopeless, we can’t risk losing you too, not after what happened in Doriath, Pityo, think-

 

-but I know that my name is Telufinwë, the last of Fëanor’s children, and it is my fate to set foot on these lands and stand longer than any of the others, to watch my brothers fall one by one until Ambarussa join the circle and make it complete, the first and last of the Sons of Fëanor to die-

 

-and my fate is coming up out of the deep ocean where Ambarussa lies and I still don’t know what to say.