The Line of Kings by Michiru

Fruition

Findecáno’s prayer peels back the Doom of the Noldor for one instant. Angaráto receives a brief vision of those he left behind, before the window between Aman and Endor is shut again. This is what exile truly means.

First Age Year 5

Two weeks after Findecáno was discovered missing, Angaráto woke Aikanáro from a deep sleep in the dead of night, screaming as though he were being put to torment.

He didn’t remember screaming, except in the internal agony of his fëa, which writhed within his hroä, for the first time in his life a cage rather than a sanctuary. When he woke, he was cradled in Aikanáro’s arms, listening to the warbling melody of Ingoldo’s harp and sobbing unashamedly, unable to answer his brothers’ queries through the graceless, guttural noises heaving in his chest, resonating in the very core of his being.

—Eldalôtë in her father’s house, moving slowly, encumbered by the girth of her belly and the Dark that pressed against the feeble light of candles and stars—

—her fair complexion ruddied with effort, her teeth grit against a cry and his name a curse and a plea in her mind as his father flit about anxiously in another room, driving Grand-uncle and his father-in-law to distraction—

—a small face, round with youth, gazing in fear and wonder up at the new lights in the sky, and Eldalôtë’s smile both tender and sorrowful—

—his wife starting from sleep, a small form curled at her side, her eyes meeting his, calling hesitantly into the night—

“Angaráto! Angaráto, my brother, please. What do you see?” Aikanáro begged, rocking him gently from side to side, as Grandmother Indis would do when they were young. The motion accentuated the saliva coating Aikanáro’s under tunic, stretching like spider silk to Angaráto’s lips and teeth, drawn back and bared in open-mouthed anguish, though no further sound escaped him. The sensation was unpleasant in a distant, barely registered way, but he couldn’t bear to draw his face away from Aikanáro’s shoulder, needed the physical comfort from his brothers, for surely, if they still loved him, he could not have left his wife to bear and raise one of their children alone for all eternity.