Aftermath by Lyra

II.

This one covers N2 (unclean things) and G2 (weddings and funerals). Funerals, to be precise.

Violence warning for gory details about decomposition and the animal life related thereto. Tread with care!

That was how it had begun.

There was the matter of dealing with the body of the King. Nobody knew what had happened with it – or rather, everybody who knew had fled from Tirion, so a search had to be conducted. Nobody wanted to do it. The idea that the King was dead in itself was outrageous; the idea of finding the body was more so. It was Indis who insisted on it: Her face as grey as her robes of mourning, she had spoken before those Noldor who had stayed behind.
„We need closure in order to move on,“ she declared in a voice devoid of all music, „and for that, we need to face the inevitable truth. We need to say goodbye.“ It was generally accepted that she spoke wise and true, but she did not have the power to stir the petrified people into action as her step-son had done. In the end, the search party consisted of only Indis, Nerdanel, Findis and a servant.

A foul smell was filling the garden at the Formenos residence, carrying notes of rancid fat, rotting beans and a sickeningly sweet overtone. Even before they fully understood what it meant, it made them sick with foreboding. Altatulco, the servant, almost fell off his horse in his haste to regurgitate his breakfast. Nothing could move him to venture onwards, and it was up to the other three to find the source of the stench, which was emanating from a cairn that had been raised in the middle of a great water-basin. There was no sign on it, and the braziers that had at some point been set to burn around the erstwhile swimming pool were now filled only with dead embers and cold ashes.

The heap had been assembled with some care but little craftsmanship. Fëanáro would have cut a magnificent tomb from marble, Nerdanel thought. These heaped stones, collected from the surrounding forests and supplemented by chunks of debris from the workshop and the marl dug out of the stony soil, instead suggested Maitimo's work to her. In spite of the miserable stench, she almost smiled when she envisioned him, reading up ancient accounts about Cuiviénen in order to figure out what to do with the corpse while their father had been too locked in grief to think or act. Before her mind's eye, she saw him as he searched for a place where dogs or lynx or mountain lions could not easily reach the corpse, and heard his voice, edged with grief but firm with purpose, as he commanded his brothers to bring more stones. Now, the women slowly dissembled them, faces wrenched in misery from the stench and the fearful knowledge of what they would find.

The body that had once been Finwë's was lovingly decked out in robes of festival and surrounded by some of Finwë's possessions from life: A cup and plate and knife, an empty inkwell and a collection of quills, fine parchment, towels, bowls, even a hairbrush and chew stick and other menial objects had been laid out around the dead body, which rested on a pillow and soft blanket as if asleep. The careful arrangement was somewhat thwarted by the decay that had since set in. Underneath the beautiful brocades, the body was bloated, and stinking juices were bubbling from the mouth and ears and nostrils. Where skin was visible, it had taken on an unnatural marbled coloration as if ink had been injected into the veins. Some effort had clearly been made to close the gash in Finwë's head, but the seams had burst open to show the smashed skull underneath. Maggots writhed away from the light of their torches, revealing the frothy remains of a ruined brain.

„We cannot move him,“ Nerdanel said after they had all thoroughly emptied their stomachs in the rose-bushes.
„Even if we could,“ said Indis, „we cannot expose our people to such horrors.“
Findis spoke up, „Nor would it be just to the King's memory if he were remembered in such a state.“
The stood in silence for a while, each trying to erase the sight of the squirming maggots and scuttling beetles from her memory, wondering whether the inescapable stench would ever lift from her. They felt sullied, defiled, as if they had glimpsed a sordid secret that no-one should know, touched something untouchable.
„We should not have come,“ Findis said. „This death, this ruin – it is not for us to endure.“
„Somebody had to do it,“ Indis said tonelessly.
Again, they lapsed into silence. Mechanically, they began to put the stones back into place.
„I will make a sculpture of him,“ Nerdanel finally announced.

And she did. It was not one of Nerdanel's usual sculptures, so perfectly crafted that one thought it would begin to step from its pedestal at any given moment: She took great care to carve the back too unnaturally straight, the hands crossed upon the chest in a posture no living sleeper would assume. The face was a perfect mask of dignity; everybody who looked upon it would know that these eyes would never again open, these lips never again part to dispense wisdom or laugh at a joke. It was this sculpture that was put on public view before the Mindon Eldaliéva. People filed past the marble effigy to pay their respects, laying down flowers already dead from the lack of light and offering their condolences to Indis and Findis and Faniel. More often than not, the Queen instead had to console the heartbroken people who expressed their horror at the unnatural sight of the King so still, who broke into tears as they kissed Indis' hands which, for all the scrubbing she could do, still seemed to tingle with the memory of thousands of tiny writhing worms.

Nerdanel did not take part in the ceremony. For her, there was other work to do.

Chapter End Notes

Seriously, what do they do about Finwë's body?