Finrod: 30-Day Character Study - Writings by cuarthol

The Oath

For day 3. Strong Points ...Write a scene in which your character really shines at something.

Read The Oath

It was a hard choice that lay before Ingoldo, and in his heart he did not know how he would choose one or the other.  Half of his heart was returning to Tirion, and the other half was drawn after his people, and there was no knitting these halves back together.  One way or another, he would have to choose.

His father took his hands and held them tight, resting their foreheads together.

“I will not ask you to return with me,” he said.  “For I know you will if I do, and this is not where your heart lies.”

“My heart knows not where it lies.  Or it lies with both.”  Ingoldo felt his chest twist in agony, almost wishing his father would ask it of him so he did not feel as if he had to make the choice himself.

“I know,” Arafin whispered.

“Aikanáro and Angaráto will not remain,” Ingoldo said, looking to where they stood by.  “And Artanis even less so.  But it is Turukáno I am most loath to part from.”  The confession brought a wave of guilt, as if he should be more concerned with his siblings than his cousin, but their friendship was so deep he felt more like a twin.

“I know,” Arafin said gently.  “Do you think I do not know the heart of my son?  Go, therefore, where your heart urges you.”

Ingoldo felt the tears sting his eyes when his father removed the ring - fashioned after the symbol of his house - and pressed it into his hand.

“Take this, my son,” he said.  “Remember me with it, and may it guide you.”

Ingoldo gripped it tightly and kissed his father.  “Let this ring be a symbol of my fealty, that in the path which lays before me may I ever bring you honor.  Thus is my oath to you: I will forget neither my father, nor my place as eldest, to guide my family and to remain faithful to Ilúvatar All-father.”

Thus was the ring an oath of faithfulness from the beginning, and bestowed again as an oath even unto his death.

Is This The Journey's End?

For day 8. The Mirror Cliché. Authors are often discouraged from describing their characters by having them look at their reflection in a mirror (or a pool, or a puddle, or whatever). For this one exercise, we want you to embrace the mirror cliché! Write a scene where your character sees their reflection. What do they see? What do they feel as they see it?

Read Is This The Journey's End?

Finrod poured the last bucket of heated water into the tub, little more than a barrel lined with linen cloth.  Bundles of herbs steeped in the water, scenting the steam that roiled about the small room.

It felt strange to be in a building, of all things.  It felt strange to now dwell in the settlement his cousins had built.  It felt strange, most of all, to strip off his clothes and prepare to wash.  He had not done so since they had first stepped foot upon Helcaraxë. 

They had seen death, battle, the very gates of Angband.  After all that, the very idea of having a bath felt jarringly incongruent.  He wondered that his clothes even existed beneath the grime and blood.  Unable to undo the ties of his breeches, he simply cut them.  Piece by piece, the coverings of his body fell to the stone floor until there was nothing left to remove but the dirt.

He turned to the tub.  The water had stilled and the white linen created a near mirror effect in the depths.  Except it did not feel like looking in a mirror, because it did not feel at all like he was looking at himself.  It took actually a great deal of time for it to even register he was looking at himself 

No part of the image in the water felt familiar.  Where once his eyes had been bright and clear, they now stared dark and dull back at him from what felt like leagues distant.  Where his face had once been fair it now looked gaunt and gray.  Where gold hair had once crowned his head and draped down his back, he saw a head covered with stubble like scrub-grass, the color of dead wheat.

He looked so diametric to the memory he held of himself it took him a while to even conjure up any thoughts or feelings about the image before him, except to think that it looked, in a way, like all the many faces of those who had walked with him across the ice.  His brothers' faces.  His sister's face. 

Not until he had ruled out the face belonging to anyone else did it really settle upon him that it was his own.  Several emotions hit him all at once, then.  He wanted to laugh, and weep, and scream.  He sent his hand into the water, fracturing the reflection into a storm of ripples and waves.

Finrod looked back at the heap of filth that he’d stripped off his body, looked down at his body - his bones and joints bulbous, as if overly large for what remained of him.

His breath hitched slightly as he stepped carefully over the edge of the tub into the warm water.  He sank as deep as he could, curling his legs against his chest, before leaning into his knees and sobbing.
 

Regrets: One

For Day 9. Weak Points. ...Write a scene in which their failings play a pivotal role.

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This ficlet explores the possibility that Finrod was, perhaps, kind of a shit boyfriend.

Read Regrets: One

The silence was agony, but he knew it was not undeserved.  He had left her nothing but silence for almost five hundred years.  If she wanted him to sit in it for a few hours it was not too much to endure.

He had almost given up, almost risen and said he’d come again, if she would allow it, when she at last spoke.

“Did you ever regret it?  Even once?”  She did not look at him.

Finrod did hold some regrets, but he knew they were not the ones Amarië cared about.  

Did he regret leaving Valinor?  Choosing Exile?  Crossing Helcaraxë?  Did he regret knowing only his death would ever reunite them?  He considered giving her a kind lie - that he regretted every step that had carried him away from her - but there was some spark of pride still within that would not let him.

He would not say he regretted his choices, he would not call his path a mistake or wish that he had done other than he had.  To regret his choice to go into Exile would have been to say he thought everything he did there had been worthless; to say the lives he had become entwined with were somehow lesser bonds.

Worst of all, it would mean he had wished his death to have not happened, or to have been otherwise, or that all that had followed had not been as he had to believe it to be - by the design of Eru.

The only thing he could truly say he regretted was that he had not urged Aegnor to follow his heart.  That choice would haunt him until the end of Arda, forever separated from his brother who would not return.

“I wish you had been there with me,” he said at last.  It was the most he could offer.  It was all he could give her.  He did not wish he had stayed, though he could say he wished they had not been parted.

“I see.”

He valued too deeply all that he had encountered in that distant land.  He could never bring himself to truly regret his choice.  Even if it meant losing the one he loved so deeply.  But perhaps he ought to consider how deep his love could truly have been if even now he would choose all those other things over it.

Silence returned again.  

Though he had always considered himself an honest person, he wondered if it was himself he had lied to.  Perhaps he didn’t love her enough after all.

The Oath Come Due

For Day 15. Big Ideas, Part Two. Using one of the big ideas from Prompt 14, revise an existing fanwork so that this idea is more strongly emphasized or create a new fanwork that brings this idea to the center of the piece.

Read The Oath Come Due

He looked upon Beren with both wonder and pity, he who had come bearing the spirit of Bëor, the courage of Emeldir, and the honor of Barahir.  This Man, who had come bearing his ring - his father’s ring - and such an incredible story that Finrod might well have dismissed it as a fanciful tale had he not felt in his gut the truth of it.

It was foolhardy, impossible.  It was, in fact, infuriating that Thingol had asked for such a thing.  There was no future for this mortal, even if he succeeded - his death was fixed by Eru himself.  Even without these considerations, the cruelty of the quest was evident.  

Were Finrod to be especially generous, he could claim to understand Thingol’s reluctance to let his daughter marry a mortal, but the strife this would awaken between himself and his kin, not to mention they and Beren, was no small matter.

He had seen for himself the pain such a parting could bring, wishing his own brother could have found a better end.  A momentary thorn of spite arose - why should Beren find joy while Aegnor was denied?  There was no justice in it; his one regret having not urged them to take what little life had given them.

But the feeling did not last, for he did not feel spite for Beren.  He understood only too well his heart.

He recalled the doom he had spoken to his sister once, when Nargothrond was yet newly delved and this end felt, even then, far away.  Now he knew his fate had come.

Wisdom said this was folly.  Wisdom said he should counsel Beren against this course.  Wisdom said not to risk stoking the fires of his cousins’ oath.  Wisdom said that all the strength of the Noldor could not overcome Morgoth, what hope had this Man?

But all of Finrod’s wisdom fled in the end.  He embraced Beren and kissed his brow tenderly, and repeated the words of his oath to Barahir.  He would hold to his word, not because it was wise, not even because he was faithful.  He would do all he could because his heart would let him do no other.
 

Words Will Not Avail

For Day 19. Strong Points, Part Two. Revisit the list of strengths you’ve thought about for Prompt 3. This time, write a scene in which your character’s strong points cause them trouble.

Read Words Will Not Avail

Finrod sat beside Aegnor, their shoulders touching, both drawing comfort from the presence of the other.  All his studies, all his many thoughts, all his learned knowledge was useless in the face of his brother’s heart, bleeding out through angry tears.

All the deep words from his many books might as well be collected dust for all the use they were now.  All he could do was sit with his brother in silence, for his words were but broken glass.

He put his arm around Aegnor’s shoulder and coaxed him closer, holding him tight as the agony of an endless life without love left him bereft of all else but the need to offer empty gestures of comfort and hope that somewhere deep within, his brother understood.

 

Undreams

For Day 21. In Dreams. Your character is asleep and dreaming. What are their dreams typically like? Write or sketch a dream sequence that explores your character’s subconscious.

Warning: today's entry took a dark turn.  Reference to character death.

Read Undreams

His nightmares are of unending ice.  He has walked unceasingly, nothing to mark the passing of time but the loss of another life.  His life is now measured in lives, and each feels like a debt too burdensome to ever hope to repay.

Even Irmo’s paths have shut them out and they wander aimless and lost, never finding the rest they so desperately seek.

Some dreams slip through, marred; untamed by Irmo’s guidance they assault the Exiles with whispered terrors and visions that are difficult to separate from waking, and yet waking is its own terror.

Cold had driven out even the memory of warmth; darkness, the memory of light; and loss, the memory of peace.

Ingoldo tries to recall the sweet dreams of Valinor that had once enfolded him as he slept, safe in his bed.  He tries to recall the smell of lilac and the chirp of crickets and the dance of white moths in the light of Telperion.

He had danced upon a time, his feet light and body lithe.  He had once fallen into Amarië’s arms and they had laughed and kissed and found themselves in dreams together; dreams of a distant sea beneath the stars where they knew love.

He had in dreams ridden the ships of the Teleri, rolling upon the waves as he sang to Ossë and felt the salty spray of water on his face.

Now the spray of water raises cries of alarm, looking for who had fallen in, desperately trying to reach them.

Írissë has hold of Itarillë but Turukáno is almost in the water himself, pushing uselessly at the ice that covers Elenwë. 

Time lurches forward in another agonizing increment of death.

Ingo cannot tell if he is awake or asleep.  He walks again, unceasingly.  His nightmares are of unending ice.  

To Bridge This Divide

Day 24. Weak Points, Part Two. Revisit the list of shortcomings you’ve come up with for Prompt 9. This time, write a scene in which your character turns a weakness into a strength.

Read To Bridge This Divide

He hated conflict.  It was not the greatest weakness he had, but it was one which was wholly unsuited to his position, wanting always to please everyone no matter how foolish or hopeless the attempt.

He hated being one who stood upon a schism and insisting he was on the only right side.  Few things in life were ever so simple and clearly defined, he felt.

That was not to say he had never taken a hard stance in his life.  He remembered well the fiery words he himself had said during the debate of his kin, when he and Turgon had stood shoulder to shoulder in defiance of Fëanor’s folly, denouncing his blasphemies and refusing his claims to kingship.

But in those days their spirits were roused and their hearts set ablaze by such circumstances as must necessarily be rarely found.  

Though he preferred the softer approach, trying to bridge and find compromise, it did make for very difficult political situations when he shied away from condemning the sons of Fëanor even so far as to have blame then put upon his own head.  He was rather grateful that Angrod had lost his composure at last, though at the time he had wished otherwise.

But while it was not an ideal trait for a king, he felt at times it was better to be too soft than too hard.  He did not relish the thought of further feeding the rift which had threatened to divide his family - both sides of his family.

Finrod read the letter four times, not knowing what he sought between the lines, what clue might hide in the choice of words.  In his hands the words of his once beloved cousin, written in such friendly, if somewhat reserved, terms that he could not bear to deny the request to come, even knowing it may well mean consequences.

Thingol had every right to bitterness for the deaths of his kin, and Finrold felt the burden of holding the dead close in his heart for even the appearance of having played a part.  He knew he should shun them, as their native tongue had been banned and their presence often only barely tolerated for the protection they lent.

But he could not bring himself to break with them.  They were still dear to him, or the memory of them was, perhaps.  Memories he could not bring himself to be fully shadowed by what had followed.

He did not travel through Doriath, a perhaps unnecessary deference to Thingol but one he felt strongly about.  It seemed wrong to use the safety and welcome of his great-uncle to visit those upon whom his displeasure had been so heavily cast.  He rode instead around to the south, adding considerably to his journey, but it was a pleasant one and he did not rue it.

When he arrived in Himring, there were all the expected pleasantries and politically safe greetings.  But once they were away from too many prying ears and suspicious eyes, Finrod found himself in Maglor’s embrace, and though the sting of betrayal would never fully heal, he could not find it in himself to refuse the love and company of his cousin.

Perhaps it was a weakness, but sometimes he felt it a greater strength.