mouths of fire by nycterisg

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mouths of fire

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It is Curufin who crafts the three gems. Starting with the one of fire.

Maedhros is among them still, bearing both grief and crown with ease as though he was born for it. But of course he wasn’t — none of them were. Death has caught them unprepared once more, shamefully so, and now their father's extinguished, they languish in the dark. Maedhros does not know how to be both lord and brother yet. One day, when he’ll learn to meld politics and family into one seamless whole, before he turns into nothing, he will be both. For now, he is raw metal that despair has yet to temper.

Heavy and relentless lies the crown, eager for its rightful jewels, and Maedhros can do little but comply. Yet Maedhros is not his father, nor has he ever wished to be. He surrounds himself with fresh counselors and banishes his brothers from the halls of power, already he crafts an alternative story of his own making—whose end won’t burst into a glorious but ruinous pyre. He’s almost there, or so he claims.

With little else to do, Maglor retreats to compose a different kind of story: a salty elegy meant to elude a final full stop for a long time. In lack of different sources of common sense, Caranthir takes on the role of keeper of the most restless branches of their brood, fabricating tales of food shortages to keep the twins and Celegorm occupied and out of trouble.

Curufin turns to where his somber discipline always leads him—the forge. His father would have never forgiven hesitation, not even the momentary faltering that now stays his step on the threshold of an empty, dark room. To Fëanor, time was a vile and deceitful thing, cunningly clinging to every quibble of its promise of an inexhaustible course. Thus pressed, his father’s heart had always beat with a frantic, ravenous rhythm, rushing toward his next, final throb.

Curufin sweeps the floor and lights the forge as he was taught. The flames spring to life, sudden and bold, wrapping him in tongues of fire that stretch across the walls. Slender and swift in the likes of fingers, they smooth the folds of his apron and brush against the grief carved into his brow.

The fire crackles commanding, challenging: Show me, my son, my image. Astound me.

Curufin slips soundlessly to the floor in a lake of tears. His shame hunted and besieged, the flames prod at his pride to fight back.
“I cannot, I cannot,” he pleads pathetically to the emptiness. “Didn’t you notice? Didn’t you know? How could you not? What is a hammer without its wielder?”

The flames endure; they will until the sound boundary between groundless hope and hard reality will melt. How briefly Fëanor held the scepter; how long he reigned over the realm of the impossible.

“Fine! I’ll show you. You’ll see.”

The flames leap, exulting in triumph. Their flickering shadows dance around him as he grips the piston, compressing memory into himself until he is small again: a child, following his father’s every steps, clumsily mimicking his lessons.

Atarincë sneaks toward the forge on legs shorter than his dreams. Like Fëanor, never he has been content with the distant, incorporeal company of mere fantasies.

“I am not you. I can’t be you. I’ll never be you!” he cries at the flames.

The fire retreats humbled and apologetic to the corners of the room—but it does not leave him.

Strong, solid arms seize him then and lift him into the air easily, arms accustomed to handle hot tools and unruly sons alike. Atarincë laughs, delighted.

“Where are you running to? Where are you going?”, the voice chides half-amusedly.
Atarincë laughs, proud and defiant, and speaks the truth, unashamedly, for he has been taught to feel none for his ambition.

Fëanor holds him close to his chest and Atarince meets his eyes, blazing not of the destructive heat of fire, but of untarnished light, white as only pure light can be.

But that was then—before his father captured his light in the abominable cage of three stones, twisting it into uncontrollable flames.

Curufin halts abruptly, hands glued to the workbench. "No, no! Should I follow in your footsteps? Steal my own light? My light—from myself? And then what? Discover I do not shine as brightly as you did? What shall remain of me? I have a son."

The brazier seethes and bursts spewing ash and embers at his feet. The flames rise menacingly, fueled by their own rage, yet ingratitude smothers them more than the sacrifice that was demanded of them. Can’t Curufin see?, they plead. They gave themselves freely, so that they, his sons, and no one else, could draw from their rare, unrepeatable beauty. And never mind if only embers remain of them.

Curufin knows it for the half-truth that it is; knows how the untravelled sang to his father enticingly, spurring him where no one is supposed to go— where Curufin wouldn’t follow. He breaths and grips the hammer once more. “You’re right, if only on this. The Unknown... I’ve never fancied.”

Two bundles of coppery locks are soundly asleep. Now tall enough to peer over the brand-new cradle, Curufin mockingly sticks his tongue out at the babies.

“Curufin!”, comes the reproach. Scorned, he shuffles to his father and, unbecoming of his age, climbs on his knees. His father’s body remains unaffected beneath his weight, a silent promise to bear and welcome it for a little longer, yet his eyes remain glued to his new, precious creations.

Curufin pulls at his hair.

“Ow!”, he yelps. “What’s wrong with you lately? Have I taught you so poorly?”, he scolds, finding a familiar hunger in his son watery eyes.

They share the same fear: that despite the endless years they have, the heart remains a far more limited vessel, constrained by the bounds of flesh—a small surface upon which too many names can’t reasonably be carved.

"Your greed and mine are alike, and it’s that will never let me neglect you.”, he admits. “Each of my sons is my treasure, and I intend to part with none of them.”

Curufin falters. "But they’re so small! And they need so much care," he sighs, as though loss is the ineluctable conclusion of love. "Nothing will ever be the same.”

"And that frightens you.”

Curufin nods.

"That’s only natural," comes the reply, as if he really believes it; as if the ghosts hunting his bedroom at night terrify his strong and brilliant father as well. "Do you remember when I took you and your brothers to dive off that high cliff? The one so tall you couldn’t see the bottom? It was terrifying, wasn’t it?”

"But I jumped anyway!" Curufin blurts, eager to defend that first, timid proof of growing valor.

"Exactly. You couldn’t see the bottom, yet you knew that once you hit it, you’d have fun. Not everything new is bad. You’ve got new brothers to play with, don’t you?"
He muses. ”I could craft new toys for them.”, Curufin concedes, a spark of mischief lighting his eyes. "That way, they won’t touch mine."
"That’s my boy.”

He thinks of that day, now — when they dove off that high cliff. It was a day too sweltering, an anomaly overlooked by the omnipresent intervention of the Valar, and Caranthir was drenched in sweat to the point of disgust, they were all sweating so much it was revolting, impatient for the relief promised by the icy water. He remembers Maglor and Maedhros performing some sort of acrobatics, Celegorm throwing himself in without a second thought. Curufin is not like that. He’s not a coward: a coward would never have thrown himself in just to avoid becoming the laughingstock of his older brothers. No, it wasn’t the leap that scared him, but the darkness. The abyss had seemed tempting only after seeing his father fall into it.

Curufin has taken very few risks in his life so far, braved few passages his father hadn’t previously torched, content to fall behind.

“What you ask of me, it’s impossible. I cannot do it.”

A rumble, deep from the stomach of the hearth, lights the way: the forge burns hot, but not hot enough, and the flames are ravenous. Curufin feeds them emptying a sack of wood into the furnace, which they relish grinding down– but theirs is the hunger of beasts long starved and, ravenous and insatiable, they turn upon his flesh. They start with the skin – a crust of cold and bitter skepticism, which they lick and dissolve. Next comes the filling, a rancid mixture of fear and failure, and they swallow it without even tasting it. Finally, they reach the throbbing heart —  simple yet exquisite, sweeter than the outer layers had led to believe.

Curufin flushes with a different kind of warmth.

It's a tiny thing, but beautiful: a glass replica of a goldfinch. Every single feather, ruffled by the illusion of a breeze, stands straight and taut in eternal flight; its tiny, jet-black eyes wide open in astonished excitement. The hands that have toiled for hours with tireless, hypnotic precision pause briefly to dab sweat from a furrowed brow.

In the forges, only the three remain: Curufin, who can't seem to get anything right today; Fëanor, who treats his mistakes with an oddly peculiar leniency; and her.

She is slender as a blade and just as sharp. Ancalamba. Blazing tongue—but all she offers him is her silence and a stiff bow. He has seen her before, glimpsed in moments when Telperion bathes white Tirion in its soft glow. Then, she lets down her raven-black hair streaked with silver, and he finds her in one of the old squares. There, the music of ancient days lingers, and she dances barefoot, her movements so utterly graceless that they seem deliberate—spontaneous, joyful, free.Once, Celegorm had followed him, leaving the warmth of the inn to find him hidden beneath the porticos, watching her, mesmerized and enchanted. "Her? You like her?" he had asked, incredulously, staring at her bare feet. "Yes, her." To take off his shoes, forget the steps he’s been taught, and surrender to her awkward weariness: an alluring fantasy that burns his cheeks. Ancalamba is his desire, free from suggestions and expectations.

He walks down unexplored paths: it’s exhilarating, even though he doesn’t know what to do, so he ends up making one disaster after another, humbling himself before her and his father.

"She’s talented.”
“Very much.”

Her nose is cute. Strange how small details ensnare the heart.

"She’s pretty."
“Atar!"

Their exchange draws her attention. She regards father and son with a cool gaze, as though they were overgrown children. Curufin, he’s certain, could die of embarrassment.

“Don’t you fancy her?”
"She can hear you.” He doesn’t dare confess how unworthy he feels. He’s not him. He resembles him in the way a sketch might recall the final portrait: an approximation of an inimitable masterpiece. Black hair, but not the blackest; metallic eyes, but not magnetic. Some things lie forever beyond his grasp, he cannot simply reach out and take her.

But Fëanor is untroubled by such thoughts.

"Then let her hear me! Girls! I want granddaughters!”

The flames laugh, mocking and satisfied. At the time, Fëanor still had a stable of sons who—quite deliberately—remained bachelors. He could hardly have dared to hope that Curufin, of all of them, might soon find a bride. Yet, soon enough, Curufin would have gladly deserted the heat of the forges to learn to dance and sing off-key with her to the tunes of ancient songs in the old square. And then, there would have come their home, distant from the royal palace, in the artisans' quarter, with many windows, glass crafted by his wife’s skilled hands, and the blessed light of the Trees shining in their house as it did in no other in all of Tirion. Their love had been an idyll, one in which to simmer slowly and, in the end, to burn.

"Not everything is lost," he says suddenly. He needs no reminder of the creature risen from the ashes of that long-expired fire.

"It’s a boy, Atar.”

The child looks barely like him—eyes as sweet as hazelnut, a face round and soft—and Curufin catches traces of himself only in few details. A freehand drawing, the first he dares to offer for his father’s strict judgment. "Curufinwë. The Third, of course.”

Fëanor cradles the boy in his arms—the very arms that once lifted Atarincë high into the air, now trembling under the weight of a newborn. The boy is their future, his and Curufin’s both, and he’s as small as a fist: how fragile a tense can be.

Curufin watches his father expectantly. He has already started his greatest work: Curufin has grown accustomed to seeing wildfires blaze in those eyes, quick to rise and impossible to extinguish. But now, for once, it is not fire he sees, but watery pools, vast like the oceans, where each wave fades as the next rises.

"Curufinwë?" Fëanor’s voice, oddly hesitant, catches him off guard. "No, no. That can’t be.”

"Wouldn’t you give your name to my son? The very name you gave to me?”

Bitterness is a dish he rarely serves to his father, and Fëanor struggles to swallow it. "I deny him nothing. Everything I am and have already belongs to him," he replies curtly. "But to give a name is to make a promise, Curufinwë. And you owe him your own.”

All at once, his father's eyes flash, revelation strikes like lightning. The answer to an arcane riddle－ perhaps the three crystals defying him in the forge, or the greater mystery that is his son.

“Why, do you think, did I give you my name?”, he asks expectantly.

A thousand reasons flash before Curufin’s mind—those he embodies, and those he does not.

Titles etched only on paper: prince; his father’s mirror and favorite. The narrow space he occupies in a line of seven. Nelyo is the Heir, Kano the Bard, Turko is Strong, Moryo (ambiguously) Dark, Pityo the Small, and Telvo is the Last. Curufin is, at best, an Ambition. How unfair—how unfair—to have to earn a name and a definite article.

He can name none, as his son grasps his grandfather’s ring, tiny fingers curling with surprising strength, and slips it off. He promptly brings it to his mouth, gurgling with delight.

"No, no! It’s dangerous!” Feanor exclaims wrestling with his grandson’s small but resolute fists. “Well, he promises to be strong.”

With all his strength, the child resists his grandfather’s protests, a mischievous glint dancing in his eyes.

“Telpinquar!” he exclaims. “He’s got real promise! Just look how strong he is!”

“How long did you know me unworthy of your name? Did you realize it while holding your grandson? Admit it!,” he screams through a river of tears. He sticks out his tongue: they taste of sulfur and shame. He has no idea, he can’t know, for perpetual darkness is not a measure of time—but in reality, he has been crying for days. Every tear pours down the funnel: crystalline joy, and the terrifying certainty of losing it; the slimy resentment he dares not admit, even to himself; and pain, pain, pain.

“Well, I never wanted to be you—never! I don’t want to be you. I just wanted to be with you. I want you, Atar. AtarAtarAtar!,” he calls out.

And the flames respond. Transmutation is a long and delicate process, never before attempted with these elements—but Curufin is not alone. Already, the flames break free from the furnace’s confines, rushing to breathe through the mouth of the funnel.

A thick, white liquid falls onto the rotating base. “The color... It’s not right! It shouldn’t—,” he rants at the array of tools, imploring them for a solution. He touches and grabs them all, but none is the right one.

Curufinwë. Curufinwë. Curufinwë.

“You need to leave me alone, now! Don’t you see what I’ve done?” he rages ferociously against the flames while watching the pearlescent mixture thicken slowly and inexorably and marking his failure.

Curufinwë. Curufinwë. Curufinwë.

“Enough! Enough.,” he pleads as, gently resting on his forehead, the flames brush the back of his head. There, the oath has struck like an open wound on each of them. It’s a forced coexistence, the kind that reminds him of their long exile at Formenos: rooms too small for too large temperaments. Huan whines in the garden. A harp string plays the same note over and over. A cacophony joined by hammers pounding, legs running, arguments breaking out—and in the background, the silent cry of a boy wondering why his mother abandoned him.

They sailed for this unknown land with a promise of vengeance, yes, but also of kingdoms to govern on their own, wisely distanced to avoid any clashes. Instead, they have never been as united, and the tight coils of the oath bind the brothers’ fates in an uncomfortable grip.

“Have I not already promised enough? Have I not already offered my sword and my innocence?”

The flames nod, oddly melancholy, uncharacteristically defeated.

“But the legacy you leave me is a debt I cannot fulfill. Do not ask the impossible of me: I cannot be you. I cannot be Curufinwë.”

The flames roar their tongueless protest, encircling him in a cylinder of fire. Within its radiance, memories of a lifetime blaze before his eyes: his first steps, his first leap. His wife’s kiss, his son’s embrace—and in each of them, his father’s ever-watchful gaze glimmers with a distant, pale light. Curufin on his knees: "Your greed and mine are alike," his father whispers. "Never shall I part from my sons.” And Curufin, in a foreign land’s forge, weeping over his design and his grief, while all around the flames chant their relentless promise: Curufinwë. Curufinwë. Curufinwë.

"Was it yours, the promise? Curufinwë?” The oath recoils at the name—a vow forged when his father’s light first met the encroaching darkness in his nightmares. By then, his fifth son had been born—a perfect echo of himself as a child: from his quick-fingers to the fear in his eyes of being left behind, of fading into the brilliance of his older brothers. "Curufinwë," his father had proclaimed before the court of Tirion. Yet before laying him in his cradle that day, his father had whispered: "If darkness should fall upon us and you lose your way, seek me where you know I’ll be, for I will always be there. Curufinwë.”

Now, his final tears shed, Curufin dries his eyes and watches his creation spin in red radiant spirals. As the flames retreat, silence falls upon the forge, vast and starry.

The stone is so small it could vanish within a hand’s palm, yet its substance is heavier than his father’s gems. Memory and grief blend within it, bound by a promise stronger than any oath: whatever its fate, the oath demands to be severed, and every bond with their father dissolved and consigned to the memory of a world as bright and distant as the gems themselves.

"But I will always be Curufinwë. And you, you, Atar. You will always be with me.”

"Atar? Atar? Who are you speaking to?"
Curufin looks up to find his son standing there. He is taller now, his eyes filled with a depth that grows richer with new, unexpected shades each day. Celebrimbor is a blank page, inscribing his own story in his elegant script that spills beyond the margins drawn by his father and grandfather. How will your story end?, Curufin wonders, brushing his son’s cheek with a hand trembling from ancient fears. "Telpinquar," he murmurs, as light as only a name freed from the weight of a path can be.

"Atar, you’ve been in here so long. We’re all worried. Nelyo sent me to fetch you; he says— Did you make this?" Celebrimbor exclaims, his eyes alighting on the stone.

Father and son have not truly spoken in so long. Since their landing, Celebrimbor has studied and unraveled the mysteries of this new land, striving to make sense of its strangeness. So little is familiar to him—from the stones to the leaves, from the rushing streams to his father’s grief-worn face. Now, Celebrimbor cradles the stone with the same reverence as one might for a beloved object thought long lost.
"It’s beautiful, Atar."
"I’ll make more," Curufin declares immediately. "But not now.”

He wraps an arm around his son’s shoulders and leads him toward the door. The stone remains on the workbench, beside the brazier that still smolders faintly.
"You said I’ve spent too much time here?"
"Yes, Atar. Carnistir sent the Ambarussa to check on you, but they said the forge was suffocating. And Nelyo has received ambassadors from Angamando! They claim they’re ready to negotiate for a Silmaril. That’s why I came to find you."
"Truly? At last, some good news," Curufin says, closing the forge door behind him, deaf to the flames’ lingering hiss.

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Chapter End Notes

The process Curufin uses to create the stone is based on the Verneuil process—adapted through poetic license and my general incompetence in the field. I would also like to apologize for any errors: English is not my native language, and I haven’t written such a long text in quite some time. Please feel free to point out any mistakes, though!