Our Share of Night to Bear by Elleth

Prologue II: Effigies

At her father's house, Nerdanel tries to cope with remaining behind.

Nerdanel weighed the hammer in her hand and slammed it home.

It was a heavy rock-pick; the wood of the handle had been worn smooth by constant use, but she had kept the head honed to split the marble blocks that were delivered to her workshop in order to break them down to size for her sculptures.

But now…

The marble splintered and flaked under the hammer’s edge. Fëanáro’s nose, or what remained of it, plummeted to the floor, and she ground the heel of her work-boot into it. Another strike, and one eye cracked. Again, and she tore a jagged gouge across his cheek. One of the intricate braids framing his face splintered. Again, and his right auricle chipped across the room, crashed into the window, and a starry web of cracks fractured from the impact.

At last, looking down, she found herself standing in the powdery debris of her husband’s ruined bust, her boots and the front of her frock covered in stone dust, some of it rising to tickle her nose. Finally, she also felt tears prick her eyes. Finally.

As though she had been waiting for the abating of noise from her daughter’s studio, her mother slid into the room. Nerdanel had only the vaguest recollection of being helped to her bed in the corner and being pressed into the pillows, or of her mother stoking the fire until it burned high and bright - for from the shelf across the room, her sons’ busts were staring at her. She thought of taking the hammer to them as well, and to her surprise found that it still was in her hand, her fingers clenched white around it. She could ruin Maitimo’s marble-smooth face, Makalaurë’s unkempt curls, Tyelkormo’s easy smile and Carnistir’s sardonic one, she could split Curufin’s face right from him as she had done with his father, shatter Ambarussa on the floor and cast Umbarto into the fireplace first of them all. Least of all, she could turn them away so their eyes were no longer staring at her, the glint of the firelight on glass an uncomfortable reminder of the way they had all held torches and gathered around their father; only Carnistir and Umbarto had exercised a little more restraint.

In the end they had still joined him, and Nerdanel had been forced to watch them sign their life away to a hopeless pursuit. The words of Aulë to Mahtan had still been tolling in her ears: It will in the end only lead Fëanáro and all your children to death.

The pillow under her cheek was wet, and new tears soaked it further. With a noise of disgust Nerdanel forced herself out of the bed, but before she had even crossed the room and reached for Umbarto’s bust, noise erupted in the house; someone hammering a rapid staccato on the front door with fists and feet, and then a storm of words made almost incomprehensible by weeping.

“ - took Tyelperinquar - gone from his crib while - my parents tried - hold me back -”

Nerdanel felt a new surge of bile rise. She had not seen Pelórë in the crowd before the gates, but her only daughter-in-law had the tendency to stand outside the center of attention, or blend into crowds despite her striking appearance, and neither had she seen Tyelperinquar or known what plans Curufin had put into motion to take him. What she knew was that he would have taken pains to conceal the child from anyone who might object.

Try as she might, she could not move herself to join her sister and mother to help comfort her daughter-in-law. She only needed to press down the door handle, but some impulse kept Nerdanel’s hand clenching, unable to move, and her feet rooted to the ground.

Outside her room, going by the babble of voices both Rainissë and her mother were still trying to calm Pelórë, whose words had failed entirely now, and her weeping had grown muffled in someone’s arms. Her mother, using the same gentling voice that she had always used on her children was talking intently over nothing of more consequence than trying to change Pelórë out of her wet clothes and wash the stains of the rain from her.

Nerdanel herself had barely reached her parents’ estate before it had begun to fall, and she hated to think of the long trail of people that must still be snaking through the city, for when she had turned from the gates after the messenger and begun the homeward ride toward the plains, hours ago, the folk of the city had still been preparing, and the city had been alight with torches like one of the beacon fires lighting the safest passes from Cuiviénen that Makalaurë had once wrought into her mind with his song.

But when the rain had begun beating down, it had done so incessantly.

The rain was not Fëanáro’s fault, this much even Nerdanel needed to admit, but if nothing else, driving them onward in it showed only the regard he claimed to have for the people he would be ruling. They merely were instruments to further whatever harm he could do. Whatever might befall Fëanáro, she felt not an ounce of grief for him - or so Nerdanel told herself - but the plight of the people, and of Pelórë, tore at her heart all the more.

She had long since turned back toward the ruined bust of Fëanáro. It was staring into the room with a faintly surprised expression rather than the customary arrogance of his features, but that recalled to mind only the times when he had looked on her behind closed doors and she had felt the most blessed in all the Blessed Realm. No more need for such reminders. She blinked away the prick of tears and hefted the hammer again to continue her work and reduce him fully to rubble, but her eyes strayed toward an untouched marble block on the workbench instead, intended for a commission she would now never have to finish.

Nonetheless she set to work: She was tired of weeping. The Weeper could do so in her stead.

Chapter End Notes

The implied confrontation of Nerdanel and Fëanor, as well as Aulë's counsel to Mahtan was taken directly from the Shibboleth of Fëanor, in particular the Legend of the Fate of Amrod in HoMe XII: The Peoples of Middle-earth. Not much is known about Curufin's wife; the notes to Of Dwarves and Men (likewise in HoMe XII) only state that his mother did not take part in the rebellion and remained with Finarfin's people in Valinor.