The Book of Short Tales by Lyra

B2MeM '13 - March 17 - Bested

Started for the B2MeM '12 prompt N31 (Fëanatics!: Fëanor hugged his kids and TvTropes: Royals who actually do something) and finished for B2MeM '13, Wildcard Day: "Finish something!" (My WiP folder will be forever grateful for this task.)

Fingolfin reflects on his difficulties with the uninhibited behaviour of children.

Bested

I envied Fëanáro for his easy way around children - particularly his own, of course, but even strangers' children were enchanted by him, and he returned that affection easily. Being his younger brother (half-brother, as he would not tire of stressing) who had rarely received friendship, let alone love from him, I sometimes found it hard to bear and harder to understand.

I never quite knew what to do with children, even my own, especially when they were too young to be reasonable. Oh, I do not mean that I did not love my children – far from it! But I loved them more distantly, as it were. I did not play with them; I did not tell them stories. I did not lift them up and throw them into the air and catch them, rubbing my nose against theirs and laughing with them in the undignified manner Fëanáro had around children. I did not carry them around when they were too tired to keep themselves entertained, crooning silly lullabies until they fell asleep against my shoulder, the way Fëanáro would. Anairë sometimes reproached me that I was more like a teacher than like a father. Maybe she was right. Maybe this was something I could have learned from my brother – my half-brother – but he had never deigned to teach me.

I remember one time when I had been permitted into his sanctuary, the forge, because Father had asked Fëanáro to craft a coronet for me. Neither of us were comfortable with it, but we both loved our father and obeyed him even if we had nothing else in common. So I was permitted into the forge where Fëanáro showed me his design sketches, expecting me to choose between the designs, all different, all beautiful, all equally desirable. Even while we were talking, Carnistir came running in, sobbing for whatever reason – small children weep so easily. He attached himself to Fëanáro's leg and would not let go. I busied myself with the sketches, looking down so Fëanáro would not feel embarrassed – he could be cruel when he felt embarrassed – and could deal with the problem swiftly and discretely. Findekáno had once similarly embarrassed me by running from his nurses and to me while I was sitting in council, and though the other councillors had smiled at him sympathetically and told me he was no trouble at all, I had felt deeply ashamed that my son would be so uncontrollable. I had torn my robes from his fingers, and handed him – screaming and flailing his arms and crying so hard that some of his tears splashed on my shoulder and left salt stains on the silk – to one of the servants. The lords and masters of the council said that it was no trouble, but I could see and read their disapproving stares, and I was ashamed.

Fëanáro did not lash out. He did not appear to be embarrassed, either. He gently pried Carnistir's fingers off his breeches and lifted the boy up in his arms. "Hey, little warrior," he said, "what is wrong?"
Not a sensible word could be heard from Carnistir; he buried his head in Fëanáro's shoulder and clung to him and sobbed on while Fëanáro rocked him, saying "There, there" and "Good little Moryo" and "All is well" and other things like that, things you would normally hear women say.
Soon Carnistir raised his head, wiped his eyes, gave his father a noisy, wet kiss on the cheek, and then writhed, impatient to be let down. Fëanáro smiled and returned the kiss (less wetly, perhaps, but just as noisily) and set Carnistir back on the ground, where the boy ran off outside after giving me a disconcerting, dark-eyed stare. Carnistir was an ugly child, but Fëanáro – so beautiful in contrast – still gave him a bright smile.
I braced for Fëanáro's wrath then, but it still did not come: Instead, even I got a smile, slightly apologetic this time. "Where were we?" he said. And we had returned to the matter of my coronet. The whole interlude had not lasted much longer than it had taken to get rid of Findekáno on that council day, than it had taken until the sound of his crying could no longer be heard down the corridor.
After that incident, I wondered whether the other councillors had truly disapproved of Findekáno's behaviour - or maybe of mine.

No wonder that his children loved Fëanáro. No wonder that Findekáno loved him. Oh, of course he loved me also – I was his father, after all – but it seemed to me that it was a dutiful love, a pious love, not the deep and vibrant sort of love that you felt between Fëanáro and his sons.
Anairë agreed. "Findo loves you in the way you love Manwë," she said. It rang true, and it displeased me, for it felt wrong; but I did not know how to help it. Maybe it was true in return also: Maybe my love for Findekáno was likewise more dutiful than passionate.
As Findekáno grew older and more intelligent, I better knew how to spend time with him. But he grew also more willful, maybe as a result of spending so much time with his willful cousins. I must admit we argued often. In one such argument, after I had tried to assert my authority when Findekáno insisted on questioning whatever I said, we both grew heated. Finally, Findekáno yelled, his hands balled into tight fists: "I wish Uncle Fëanáro were my father, not you!"

I knew at once that I was feeling the right sort of love just then. It hurt. It felt as though my heart had been torn from my chest, as though the air I was breathing had been replaced with water. I gasped and sputtered and looked into his face, young and soft and much like my own, now contorted with anger; and I was overwhelmed with terror at the idea that this my son was ready to disown me as his father. I stood speechless; and then I did the first thing that came to my mind: I stepped closer, and embraced him.
I briefly felt Findekáno's shoulders stiffen, and I feared he would push me away; but then my son's tense body relaxed. I felt his hands around my midsection, and his head leaning against my chest, and I could breathe again.
"You did not mean it, Findo, did you?" I whispered, not trusting my voice not to betray my distress.
Findekáno shook his head, still burrowed into my tunic. I did not care that he would wrinkle the fabric or leave stains on them. "No, Atto," he whispered back. "I love you."

I was relieved - yet I also felt embarrassed. I loved my son, and I was overwhelmed with relief and bliss at his words; but did I deserve his love?
I felt helpless as well. I could control myself, but I could not control my son's feelings. And though it seemed that Findekáno was not truly planning to replace me with Fëanáro, I knew that my half-brother had bested me – yet again.

Chapter End Notes

No, the books (TM) do not state that Fingolfin was a distant or otherwise less-than-perfect father. However, and that's the important part, they don't say that Fëanor was unkind or distant towards his kids, either...
Credit for my interpretation of paternal behaviour in the House of Finwë goes largely to Ivanneth and Dawn Felagund, whose fanfic has informed my own views immensely.