Aftermath by Lyra

VII.

Nerdanel's secret is Found Out (O5). Also dealing with N4 (stigma). Also revisiting a lot of the earlier prompts.

Warning for canonic character death.

She looked like her father.

She had the raven-dark locks, the steel-grey eyes, the symmetrical features. From the way in which she reacted to her surroundings, even at her tender age, it could be guessed that she also had the nimble wit – and the stubbornness. Anybody would have been able to guess. Anybody who had seen Atarincë as a child, or who was old enough to have met the young Fëanáro, would not even have needed to guess. There was simply no denying it. There was no point in leaving her to be raised in Nerdanel's parents' bustling household, or with a couple whose children had left in the Flight, or among the pages and maidservants at the palace as Indis had briefly suggested. People would immediately recognise the Kinslayer's daughter. At any rate, there were no more servants. Arafinwë had decided that at their reduced numbers, the Noldor could not afford to waste valuable hands on simple household tasks, and erstwhile servants had been apprenticed (not always wholly willingly) to whatever craftspeople there still were.

„I do not understand you, Sister,“ Arafinwë exclaimed after his first look at the child. „Why are you hiding here, letting people slander your name and reputation, when it is painfully obvious that your daughter is the fruit not of an illicit tryst, but of your lawful union?“
„You know – better than most – what my lawfully wedded husband is,“ Nerdanel said. „He refused to lend his aid in the healing of the Trees. He has vilified the Valar and blasphemed in the name of Eru Himself. He has torn one people apart and murdered another. An ugly inheritance for such a small child, don't you think? Better to be thought the illicit offspring of a more innocent man, perhaps?“
Arafinwë had not met her eyes. „I don't know.“
His voice was always soft these days, even when he addressed his subjects, it was said. Nerdanel wondered whether he was really so thoroughly defeated, or rather consciously projecting harmlessness.
She said, „But you know what our people are like; you will know better than I what they call her father, your brother.“
„My half-brother,“ Arafinwë corrected mechanically.
Nerdanel snorted. „Yes, cling to that,“ she said.

„But you cannot hide here forever, I hope,“ Indis pleaded on another occasion. „You will have to rejoin our people eventually. And when people set eyes on the child, they will know at once that she is Fëanáro's child. Then all this secrecy, all your self-imposed exile will have been in vain.“
Nerdanel sighed. „Maybe. But maybe I can protect her until she is old enough to understand.“ She looked up at the stars, as if they knew an answer. „Or until things have changed.“
„What things?“ Indis could not help asking.
„I do not know,“ Nerdanel admitted. But then, something like foresight came upon her, and she said, „One day, her parentage may be a cause for pity, rather than condemnation.“
Indis heaved a heavy sigh. „And meanwhile, your talents are going to waste...“
Nerdanel smiled. „I would not say that. I have my crops.“
She had taken to experimenting with the seeds she had found in Ambarto's collection, presumably taken from the hardy plants of Formenos. These had always received less light than the coddled crops of Tirion, and Nerdanel now tried to coax them into growing under the artificial light of lamp-stones. It was not, perhaps, a fitting occupation for the greatest sculptress of the Noldor, but it was certainly meaningful, for the Trees remained dead, and starlight alone was not sufficient, and something had to be done about food.

The change, when it came, happened in the middle of the night, or at any rate, while Nerdanel was sleeping. One moment she had dreamt of days long-gone, of a childhood project that she had never been wholly satisfied with although others had given it much praise. The next moment, she was wide awake and sick with pain. Her first thought was of giving birth again; it was the same intensity, the same wrenching, twisting agony that left no room for other thoughts. It flared up furiously, and for a moment she thought that it would consume her; then, just as suddenly, it was gone. Only now did Nerdanel realise that its center had been higher than that of the familiar pain of labour: It was not her womb, but her heart that had violently thrust something out, something that had not always been there but that had come to be a part of it, neglected but deep-rooted. In spite of the warming-pan and the thick blankets, she was shivering with cold. The infant, lying next to her, was bawling. Nerdanel didn't know whether she had woken her daughter by thrashing about, or whether the child had also sensed something in her heart.

What she did know, with absolute certainty, was that Fëanáro was dead.

Chapter End Notes

But wouldn't she have felt the death of Ambarto/Umbarto first, since we're following the Peoples of Middle-earth version? Well, since Nerdanel's prophecy that one of Fëanor's children would never set foot on Middle-earth has come to pass in a different way, I figure I could let the youngest twin live.