In These Altered States, Rejoice by sallysavestheday

After everything falls apart, most choose not to remember the long years Fingon spent among the sons of Fëanor, close as another brother, in and out of house and hold and forge, learning what they learned from his brilliant uncle’s hands.

Rather, they contrast him with his cousins in as many ways as possible: bright to dark, hopeful to desperate, airy to burdened and weighted down. He is cast as the rescuer, the reuniter, the resister to the very end. That he fell to the same fiery whips as Fëanor is carefully elided in the songs, and Alqualondë was such a very, very long time ago…

With only a little effort, Fingon can be remembered as nearly as far from a Fëanorian as his admirers can get. If Maedhros' shadow looms in the distance, they never sing of it. Not after Doriath and Sirion.

For his own part, it serves Returned Fingon just as well to be believed to be ignorant of his uncle's arts, particularly smithcraft. If he is not looked for, no one will notice him in the forge, shaping his fury into horseshoes and nails and cucumber frames. He may be healed, but he is not yet reconciled with history -- that work is not the province of Mandos, but his own. The clamorous heat of the smithy is a welcome change from the cool inactivity of the Halls, and he has always been inclined to turn raging into doing.

For centuries he battles his bitterness through the crafting of items of practical use, turning the steel he once wielded so bloodily back toward the small magics of household abundance, communal welfare, a worker’s ease. With his hair covered and his fine eyes shaded he might be any Noldo doing the plain work of making: turning out planters and park benches and tools that are clean-edged, smooth-lined, and balanced in the hand. If the pieces he shapes are slightly more beautiful than others', more woven through with Song, well: Formenos was a place of learning, first, and Fingon loved competition as much as or more than any of his peers. What he learned from Fëanor is no subject for public tales, but it lives in his hands, nonetheless.

With time, the urgency of his anger abates. He eases into peace, better able to contemplate with temperance the waste of their ambitions, the breaking and sinking of the land he loved, the sulfurous twist of his brilliant cousins into instruments of Doom. He finds himself migrating from the great forge to the smaller furnaces, shaping more deliberate art, drawing and hammering new gold ribbons for his hair. His shoulders soften; the set of his mouth becomes less grave.

Eventually, Returning Celebrimbor finds Fingon happily perched at a jewel-bench, louped and humming, lazily tapping fine wire into a brooch for Anairë, his mind divided between the delicate work he is finishing and the soft grass of the meadow behind the forge – anticipating the rest he will take there, a long night’s easy sleep under the stars. He has left the sharp wariness behind him at last, and melts smoothly into dreams of tenderness.

Fingon’s glee at having a companion who shares his own complicated history leads them to a joint workshop, much good-natured competition, and a friendship that almost fills the Fëanorian gaps in Fingon’s heart. Celebrimbor knows what it is to find beauty and worth in that which others despise. Fingon understands how grief and resentment can break bonds between fathers and sons. Learners by nature, they pool what they know, working with their hands, working with their hearts, feeling their way back, each to his own happiness.

It is in Fingon’s embrace that Celebrimbor weeps when Sauron finally falls. It is to Celebrimbor that Fingon shyly shows the design of the ring he is planning for Maedhros, asking his opinion of the fine etching and wire-work, of the copper hammered into the gold.

Fingon spends years finessing the curves of the filigree, weighing the ring's circle in the palm of his hand until it is perfectly balanced, spinning it on his thumb until his mind is lost in its twirl. He can almost imagine Maedhros laughing over his shoulder, as he so often did when they were young, leaning in to snatch whatever Fingon was spinning out of the sweet, charged air.

Those old, bright days will be ready for remaking, soon: theirs to reshape with the matchless craft of touch that has outlasted despair.

Chapter End Notes

This grew out of a conversation on the SWG discord about the extent to which Fingon would have been traditionally crafty as a Noldo. I like to think of his being "close in friendship" with Maedhros meaning that he had access to Feanor's teaching early on, since he is later praised for being "skilled in hand" (and because it further complicates the angst!).

Return breeds strange longings, Maedhros reflects.

Finrod, for instance, who clattered and shone, always crusted in gems and radiant in the stiffest, most embellished brocades, now walks the streets of Tirion in soft, simple gauze, unadorned but of the finest making. He favors white, like his Vanyarin kin, in long, loose drapes that hide or expose his many tattoos as he shifts and moves. The ink is new, first pricked at a reunion with the Ten, slowly spreading and sprawling in the manner of the Sindar and the Nandor and the Dwarves and the Edain to whom Finrod feels he has some claim. Each mark is a small masterpiece, more delicate than any jewel: an opening into lore. His body is its own tale, retold.

Then there is Maglor, once the life of every party, who now prizes silence: the stillness of mornings under the trees; the quiet of foggy mountain nights; the softness of breath before it tilts into song. He drifts into moments of absence, unbraids himself from the world to simply listen to what cannot quite be heard. Maglor often leaves his harp in Tirion, and in the woods behind Formenos strings elaborate chains of bells through the branches, letting the wind move them as the world makes its own music. He speaks infrequently, now, but when he does he is smiling. His eyes rarely close or dim, so eager is he to perceive, where for so long he simply endured.

And Fingon -- who had always vibrated, more lively than his own skin could hold -- now lounges, sprawls, takes his ease on Tirion’s grassy lawns, on the singing sands of the coast, in the wide, white bed he shares with Maedhros, swimming in cool silk sheets, stretching into the luxury of life without pain. He falls open at his shoulders, his hips, lets his spine lengthen and his chin lift as he sinks into relaxation, into rest.

For Maedhros’ own part, this new life has unleashed hunger.

For centuries he had prided himself on wanting almost nothing, fueled simply by bitterness and ire. But now, he craves. The old robes of black and scarlet wool (or undyed homespun linen, dull as the winter marshes around Sirion, grim as the smoky woods afterwards) give way to rainbow silks, in softest leafy green; palest yellow; an airy, gossamer pink that somehow complements his hair. He commissions coffers of Curufin’s sparkling gems, weaves them into his braids, wears them as chokers and pendants and bracelets and anklets (but never rings: his hands are bare, save for the fine band Fingon crafted during his long wait, his slow return from fury to fondness and faith in Maedhros’ capacity for love).

All of Maedhros’ senses are alive and wanting. The richest of foods cause him no discomfort, born anew – indeed, the old soldier’s rations cannot possibly satisfy. Where bread and fruit and a thin wine were once enough, now he luxuriates, feasts, indulges. He sings and plays where for so long he was silent; the joy of ease in movement propels him to dance, to swim, to climb. Two-handed again, he grasps at life with both: at books, at paintbrushes and needles, at thread to twist and hair to braid and the wild drums of the forest to capture his glee.

And always, always he reaches for Fingon: to stroke his heavy hair, his satiny skin; to shape the smooth, sweet turn of his muscles under Maedhros’ fingers; to relearn the softness and the firmness of him and feel the tangible evidence of fate undone, of devastation overcome, of love’s long reward, however little some may feel it is deserved.

Chapter End Notes

I like the fanon of Maedhros retaining only one hand after rebirth, but I needed him to have two for this one, to hold everything he wants, at last.