Beating the Bounds by Kenaz

---

South

---

The changes were subtle at first.

Where a man’s word once sufficed to identify the periphery of his land, Erestor now found himself in high demand, drawing and redrawing maps to clarify disputes between men who had been fast friends a season before. Melkor’s lies worked swiftly and worked well: neighbors held each other in suspicion; cousin mistrusted cousin; brother turned on brother.

When Fingon wished to hunt or ride or in anywise escape the constraints of court life in Tirion, he turned to his siblings or the children of Finarfin. But mainly, he turned to Erestor. He no longer spoke of Maedhros, and Erestor knew better than to ask.

Finwë summoned Erestor and his father to his council, and they had been laying out maps for the King and his lords to render verdicts on the latest round of trivial squabbles when Fingolfin begged their pardon and drew his father away for a private discussion. They took seats at the far end of the hall while waiting for the King to resume his audience. His father looked tactfully away, but Erestor could not resist watching Fingolfin’s abrupt gesticulations, so unlike his usual fluid movements. Finwë seemed to motion for calm, but Fingolfin shook his head vehemently, pounding fist into palm. After another inaudible word from his father, he threw his hands into the air, his low tones rising to a desperate shout.

“King and father, will you not restrain the pride of Fëanor?” He thrust out his arms in remonstrance. “By what right does he speak for our people as if he were King?”

Finwë’s lips moved, but though Erestor strained forward only Fingolfin and the lords nearest the dais could have heard what response he offered. Whatever it was, it gave Fingolfin no satisfaction.

“ You , Father, bid the Quendi accept the summons of the Valar, and you led the Noldor on the perilous journey from Middle-earth to Eldamar.” He splayed his empty fingers wide. “ You , Father, not Fëanor.” Receiving no answer from Finwë, he scrubbed a hand over his jaw and tossed up his hands once more in disgust. “At least two of your sons have honored your words.”

All heads turned toward the sudden flash of daylight as the chamber doors flew wide, and all flinched at the loud crack as the doors hit the walls behind them.

“So it is even as I guessed!”

Girded for battle, Fëanor strode toward the dais, a sword swinging at his side and his seven sons sweeping in behind him like a flood.

Beside him, Erestor heard his father murmur an invocation to the All-father. Erestor thought, with no little cynicism, that if Eru planned to intervene, he ought do it soonest, and in some truly spectacular fashion. He, meanwhile, intended to watch the outrageous drama play out.

“My half-brother would come before me with my father.” Fëanor turned to address the stunned crowd in a voice strident with rage. “He would come before me in this as in all things.”

Fingolfin had by now been surrounded by Fëanor’s sons. Erestor’s eyes moved from brother to brother, trying to make sense this display. With their stiff backs toward him, he could only speculate Amras and Amrod were the least confident in their actions; Amrod appeared as if he could hardly quell the quivering of his legs. Maglor’s once-placid features were schooled to steel, but manifested no viciousness. Celegorm looked like a man spoiling for blows, but that was no different from his usual mein. Caranthir, dark as his name implied, had a glint in his eye as unpredictably dangerous as one of Celegorm’s hounds. Curufin wore his sanctimony as he did his fine-cut cloak, tossed back from his shoulder to reveal a sword akin to his father’s.

They were all of them armed! Erestor didn’t know how he could have failed to notice this from the outset. Any sardonic fascination he might have drawn from the spectacle dissolved, leaving him with the naked palpitations of fear in his stomach.

Maedhros, alone of his brothers, did not affix his eyes on his uncle. His disdainful gaze anchored on some point further down the hall. Erestor followed it as he might have reckoned some distant object through the sights of his compass: he was staring at Fingon. Erestor hadn’t even noticed Fingon enter, hadn’t seen him standing behind a thick stone pillar and silently bearing witness to his Uncle’s fury, to his cousins’ betrayal.

“Peace, brother,” Fingolfin responded in a low and even tone. “Let us discuss this matter together.”

But Fëanor turned on Fingolfin and with a sweep of his arm drew his sword. The steel sang an exquisitely lethal song as it pulled free of its scabbard. “Get thee gone,” he cried, “and take thy due place!”

“Father!” Fingon rushed forward.

Fingolfin did not take his attention from his brother, but raised one hand to Fingon signalling for him to hold. His only other movement was to glance at his father, but the High King had no eyes to spare for his second son, not when Fëanor’s fire overtook the room with its preternatural fervency. If his father’s abandonment pained him, Fingolfin hid it well. He took a cautious stride back, putting himself out of striking distance, then lifted his chin, pulled himself to his full height, turned to Finwë and the council, and bowed with more dignity than Erestor could have imagined possible. The rising hum in the hall suggested he was not alone in finding Fingolfin’s exit the height of grace under duress. Without another word or glance toward either Finwë or Fëanor, he made to depart.

Perhaps further outraged by Fingolfin’s ability to garner the favor of the masses with a single bow, Fëanor pursued him and stayed him at the threshold. Laurelin’s light glanced off the biting edge of his sword as he held it to Fingolfin’s breast. Erestor was close enough now to see the fabric of Fingolfin’s surcoat yield to the tip. “See, half -brother!” he bit out the designation like a curse. “This is sharper than thy tongue.” The surly growl made the hairs on Erestor’s neck rise. “Try once more to usurp my place and the love of my father —” he twisted the blade slowly, rucking the fabric beneath it — “and maybe it will rid the Noldor of one who seeks to be the master of thralls.”

The assembly held its collective breath, but Fingolfin’s composure was as unwavering as Fëanor’s wrath. He stepped aside from his brother’s blade, blinked once, then turned and walked into the brightness of the day beyond.

Like a dam overrun, the crowd spilled out of the halls, councilors abandoning all dignity to jostle past each other in their rush to depart. Some following Fëanor and his sons from a safe distance as though tracking a pack of rabid dogs, others following Fingolfin (who proceeded not in the direction of his own home, but toward Finarfin’s) to see how the man would answer such a grave insult.

Fingon and Finwë remained unmoved by the sweeping tide of bodies. Finwë sat on his great chair, the fingers of one hand curled around its scrolling arm, the other cradling his forehead. Fingon, however, appeared unsteady on his feet, staring vacantly out the doors where his father — and his cousins — had gone. Erestor grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him from the fray.

“I’ll get you home. We’ll go in from behind.”

He maneuvered Fingon down side streets and alleys until they reached the back gate, and it fell to Erestor to summarize the incident and raise the alarum. Once inside, Fingon recovered himself long enough to make for his room with Erestor chasing behind.

“My own uncle threatened my father with death,” he recounted in disbelief, as if Erestor had not witnessed it, as if half the population of Tirion had not witnessed it, as if the rest of the city was not at that very moment hearing of it. “Grandfather did nothing to stop it. Nothing.”

“And Maitimo…” his voice trailed off. He had become as insubstantial as a ghost, weightless and untethered. He looked up at Erestor wide-eyed and pale, and his mouth hung open but no words came out.

Erestor was loath to defend Maedhros, yet he remembered Amrod’s trembling legs and Maglor’s weary resignation. How might anyone, let alone a son, stand up to Fëanor? “I doubt he had a choice. ”

“He looked straight through me, as if he didn’t even see me!” Fingon cried. “As if I were a stranger! As though we had never —” He cut off abruptly.

“Káno—” The word slipped from his mouth. He hadn’t intended to say it aloud. “ Findekáno . I’m sorry.”

Fingon reached up and took his hand, but did not look at him. “Don’t apologize. I enjoy the way it sounds coming from your mouth.”

Erestor coughed. “I’ll fetch you a plate from the kitchen. I’ll bring you up some brandy, as well. To help you relax.”

“I have servants for that. Sit with me.”

But Erestor needed to clear his head, to direct himself away from the imminent shoals. “It won’t take long,” he insisted, leaving before Fingon could object again.

The furor of the day’s events had set the household on its head. Fingolfin had not yet returned, but even so, every last body in the house vacillated between frantic movement and arrested handwringing. While he waited for a cook to scrape together some suitable fare and for the butler to bring up the brandy, he deliberated over his course of action. Stay, or go.

Go, he decided. He was not family; all this was not his affair. Surely, Fingolfin would want to close ranks, and his presence would be an intrusion.

Yet Fingon had asked him to stay.

The sight greeting him when he returned made his breath catch. Fingon wore nothing but his linen shirt and trousers. His feet were bare, and he had taken down the braids from his hair. Fingon’s vanity had always been something of a good-natured joke amongst those close to him, and Erestor had never seen him looking anything less than a prince. Now he just appeared as a young man alone, uncertain and undone. Erestor hid the tremor of his hands when he set the tray down on the table, but it became more evident when he poured three fingers of brandy; four for good measure.

“Only one glass?”

“I cannot stay.”

“Why not?

Erestor stilled himself with a long inhalation. “It’s been a taxing day. You have much on your mind. Your father will have need of you when he comes. There are a thousand reasons, Findekáno.”

“Káno.”

“ Káno . There are a thousand reasons, Káno.”

Fingon took an audible breath through flared nostrils, nodded, and blew out through his lips. “Yes. I suppose there are.”

“If you have need of me tomorrow…” No need to finish; Fingon would understand. He turned for the door, all but deafened by the blood rushing through his ears, but not so deafened that he failed to hear the single word, the summons that came as his fingers brushed the latch.

“Stay.”

He paused, shut his eyes, swallowed. Fingon didn’t want him ; he simply didn’t want to be alone. Erestor understood, given the circumstances. And yet. He kept his hand on the door when he turned back.

Fingon’s look was not quite an entreaty; Fingon possessed too much pride to beg — he wouldn’t have known how. But the vulnerability of his bare feet, of his untucked shirt, of his unbound hair...those things asked , even as his words insisted.

“Restor,” he whispered, and even that was more a command than a name. “Stay.”

Fingon’s touch was warm against his cheek, warm as it drew Erestor’s hand to press it against his chest. That was warm, too. His heartbeat filled the room with its sturdy, steady appeal. Stay . Fingon did not ask with words, but with his hands, and then with his mouth, and at last with the considerable weight of his exquisite form.

Erestor stayed. That night, and every night after.

He stayed, and they danced together on Taniquetil through the brightest night in Aman with the bounty of the Valar all around them. For once, Erestor did not feel Maedhros’ presence in the form of his absence, and Fëanor’s attendance marked the healing of old wounds, rather than the rending of new ones. But all this concerned Erestor little, for he and Fingon were together with those whom they loved, singing and drinking and reveling, tumbling late into their bed, taking their pleasure in bursts of mingled lust and laughter until Lórien finally demanded his due, and they slept the sleep of honest, well-loved men.

They awoke to darkness, but met it side by side. Then came the black news from Formenos, and the endless night became deeper still. But two held fast where one might have faltered in his grief.

When Fëanor, encircled in torchlight on the summit of Tuná, denounced the Valar in righteous anguish, Erestor stood still and speechless at Fingon’s side, his hand crushed in Fingon’s iron grip. He watched, slack-mouthed and staring, as rebellion unfolded all around him, fomented by one man’s implacable fury and masterful words. Fëanor swore his ill-conceived and irrevocable oath and Erestor could do naught but shake his head in horror as one son after another succumbed to their father’s unappeasable will.

“Fools!” Fingolfin cried, and Turgon raised his voice to rail against his uncle’s folly. The affray roiled on, one set of voices rising to be shouted down by another, returning with increasing vehemence and volume. Only Finarfin’s measured intercession prevented a second drawing of swords.

Even as Fingon’s fingers twined with his, Erestor saw Fingon’s gaze had crossed the flaming brands and gone to Maedhros, and Maedhros’ hard steel stare had met his. He could envision the indissoluble thread, taut with longing, stretching between them. Fingon’s silence now spoke louder than any words he might have uttered.

Later, back in Fingon’s rooms, the clamor of the gathered throng rendered sleep, or even rest, impossible. Erestor sat. Fingon paced.

“I’ll send for some wine.” Erestor rubbed at the back of his neck, his twitching hands seeking occupation.

“Later.” Fingon raised a distracted hand. “We must think.”

“Think?’ Erestor blinked. Hiis stomach clenched.

Fingon turned to him, his eyes alight with feral splendor. “Little love do I have for my uncle, but not all he said was untrue. Or unreasonable.”

Erestor’s mouth fell open. He shook his head, raked a jerking hand through his hair. “Fëanor is mad, Káno! All of this is madness!”

Fingon looked with unfocused eyes at some spot in the middle distance, his jaw working in tight circles. “Is it?” he asked in a deceptively mild tone. “What if I wish to go?”

“Go?” Erestor’s parched throat expelled this single word.

Fingon bent over him and grasped his shoulders, giving him a jolt. “Yes, go!” His pupils had expanded, turning his eyes into wide black wells, yet their gleam had grown even brighter than the flames in the hearth. “You of all people must come!” His clutch tightened, grew painful. He knelt between Erestor’s knees, leaving little more than the space of breath between them. “Imagine, Restor, the lands unmapped,” he whispered. “Imagine the wilderness unguarded and unexplored!”

Erestor could imagine it well enough, and it was not unappealing. But he could also imagine how it would end. And yet he did not impede Fingon’s exhortation because he was so beautiful in his passion, and because some part of Erestor desired to be compelled, to be swept away by this force of nature. No matter how Fingon disavowed his uncle, he could not deny the blood coursing his veins, blood possessing a measure of that canny wildness given unto all of Finwë’s kindred, the incandescence that could consume souls as easily as kindle them.

“What would you do here, when you and your father have recorded every inch of Aman? What then? An eternity of defending one petty man against another because one’s orchards overran another’s grazing pasture? Is your destiny writ so small?” He released Erestor, and Erestor dizzily remembered to breathe. Fingon bounded to the writing desk, rifled through the drawers. He withdrew Erestor’s compass with a triumphant sound and displayed it in an outstretched hand, an enticement, a provocation. “What will you see through your sights when Findaráto and Ambaráto and Artanis are gone? When I am gone?”

Nothing , he wanted to say, but his mouth would not obey.

“I must go, Erestor. I go to avenge my grandfather. I go to lay waste to the darkness that would have us cower here like toothless babes. I go because I want to see the land whence our people came, the land of our people’s birth.”

You go for him , Erestor thought, but still he could not speak. His blood sped through his veins, his heart became a war-drum in his chest.

“And you, Erestor? Do you stay, and cower, and draw the same lines your father has drawn a thousand, thousand times?”

“No.” Erestor croaked, finding his voice at the last. “I will go.” I go for you.

 

* * *

 

Erestor followed Fingon out of Valinor. His father refused to part with the maps of Cuiviénen, the sole remainder of his own father’s memory. Erestor stared at them for as long as he could, committing them to mind’s eye. He took nothing with him but his warmest clothes, a sword he was loath to use, and his compass.

The clothes were not warm enough. The sword he cast into the harbor at Alqualondë after seeing what steel wrought there. He lost the compass on the Helcaraxë. It mattered little; there was nothing but ice and death in every direction, and there was no light to get a reckoning in any case.