Insomnia by Michiru

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

If I were Maitimo or Tyelcormo, I might have just climbed out the window, nestling my feet and hands amongst the ivy on the trellis and so finding my way down. As I am, I dare not; the ivy is a rare and delicate albino breed, and both Father and Mother have expressly forbidden us from treating it like a ladder. Tyelcormo has been caught at it often enough for me to know that I never want to be. Maitimo, of course, and even Findecáno when he is here, manage the infraction well enough to get away with it. (I do not mind being bested by Nelyo, but it rankles in ways I cannot put into words to be beaten by our half-cousin.)

Having ruled the window out, I am still left with my original problem: getting downstairs where I can escape with my harp to the field and pick out the melody keeping me from sleep. All that stands between me and relief is the nursery, whose half-closed door tells me that Mother is in there with the new baby. While I am old enough to come and go as I please, she will want to know where I think I am off to this late into Telperion’s glory, and I would rather not—cannot, truthfully—explain. Any reticence on my part would make her worry, and likely add to what I know is her growing suspicion that we, her sons, trust Father more than her. And Father says—has been saying, for months now, as though we are all blind and cannot see for ourselves that this birth has been particularly hard for her—that Mother has enough to worry about.

So I stand, poised between the hall leading back to my room and the stairs, unable to go back for restlessness and unable to move forward for fear. The paralysis reminds me unpleasantly of Findecáno, who, for all that he is only ever a guest in our house, teases me about my tendency to think my actions through as though I were the visitor and he were Nelyo’s brother, not just a child so clearly star-struck that Maitimo cannot but tolerate him. The days when I had taught him to play the harp seem very far away now.

(Nelyo insists that Findecáno does not mean to imply that I do not belong in my father’s house when he remarks on the oddity of being reminded that not all of Fëanáro’s sons are as reckless as each other. But Nelyo has been acting as peacekeeper for so long that I sometimes find myself wondering what is true and what he only wants to be true.)

I can be reckless too, I think to the shadow of Findecáno in my mind, and stride resolutely past the half-open door—

“Macalaurë, where are you going?’

—and freeze. The flat tone is exhausted, but the voice is not Mother’s. I turn, slowly, to face my father.

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After experiencing the birth of two siblings, and knowing that before them there was Nelyo’s birth and mine, I sometimes forget that this baby is different. Father and Mother used to take turns sitting up with us at night, as much as they were able (sometimes a baby just needs its mother). But Father will not let Mother sit up with this baby, insisting that she needs her rest and that he is more than capable of caring for his newest son when he wakes in the night. (Moryo says this is far from the only reason, but I try not to listen to Moryo and his theories.) I doubt Mother would have stood for this sort of coddling, save that Father seems to have the uncanny ability to know when the baby will grow tetchy before he starts to fuss and carries him off to the nursery before he has a chance to wake Mother up.

And so I am standing in front of my father, clutching my harp and feeling guilty, though I know my nighttime wanderings are not the cause of the spreading bruises beneath his eyes. I offer up the first defense I can think of.

“I didn’t climb out the window.”

Father raises an eyebrow at this redundant non sequitur, and glances to the window in question as he pushes the nursery door fully open.

“So you didn’t,” he agrees, running a hand down the baby’s back. “It is nice to know at least one of my sons respects the rules of this house. It’s bad manners to treat windows like doors.”

I wince and know where he intends to lead the conversation—it is equally bad manners to tramp around the house at night with a newborn in residence, and to dance my way around answering a direct question. But he does not immediately follow up, so I take the brief opportunity to attempt to explain.

“I was going for a walk. There’s a melody,” I add; Father is no stranger to inconveniently timed inspiration.

“There’s always a melody, filit,” Father sighs, not half as understanding as I had hoped, or perhaps too tired to sympathize, and I scowl down at my bare feet.

I jump when his hand gently lifts my chin; however tired he is, Father always moves with grace to shame the proudest cat. He smoothes my hair behind my ears, trailing one knuckle down my cheek.

“I don’t know why you insist on hiding such a beautiful face, yonya,” he murmurs. Even knowing it is far from the truth—my mouth and forehead are too wide and my brows too thick to be more than comely—I stand straighter at the compliment. As one of his sons, I enjoy the rare honor of being one of the few people Father judges to be beautiful; otherwise, it is a term he uses for things and ideas.

Father smiles at my smile, and shifts the baby to his other arm, gesturing for me to continue downstairs. He follows me, whispering to my littlest little brother all the while. He has never been one for nonsensical baby talk, but, as far as I remember, this is the first of us with whom he has tried to converse so early.

I stop once I clear the lower landing, not sure I have his blessing to go off in to the night. He turns toward the kitchen, so—with one last longing glance at the door—I trail after him.

He lights one of his lanterns, for the room is dim even with Telperion’s glow, and begins putting together the mixture he prepares for the baby when Mother is sleeping. I hover at the table, resting my harp on the worn wood gently, and watch him tend to the infant Mother named Atarinkë and whose essë Father has not yet declared.

Atarinkë does not much live up to his amilessë as far as I can tell. There is very little about the tiny, helpless person to remind me of Father. Perhaps he will grow into it, but I find myself hoping, selfishly, that he will not. I want to believe it is my imagination, but Father already seems to care more for this son than those who came before. If Atarinkë does become more like Father as he ages, what hope is there for the rest of us? How could we compete for a father’s love against another Fëanáro?

Father looks up as he sets the bottle’s nipple to the baby’s lips, and then immediately back down as Atarinkë turns his scrunched up face away, whimpering mutinously.

“I know, yonya; it’s not as good as Mother’s. Let her sleep now and she’ll feed you properly in the morning.” Atarinkë turns back to the bottle and I wonder uneasily whether he actually does understand everything that is said to him. Father slides into the chair across from me, crossing an ankle over a knee and rocking gently.

“So? Play your melody.” He winces almost as soon as the words leave his mouth, and he amends, “If you would,” but I am too caught between joy at his interest and deeply ingrained habit.

“Play now? In the house? At night?” Father rolls his eyes, and I wish I had let those words become one cohesive question before blurting them out.

“If anyone is disturbed, they can lodge their complaints with me,” he says wryly. I grin. Very few people in Arda would fault anyone for following Father’s lead. And Nolofinwë does not live with us.

Still I hesitate, not sure if I can—or want to—do as he asked. I have never composed to an audience before, and I half worry that allowing someone else to hear it in its unfinished state will prevent it from reaching its final form, or ruin the magic I am told is in my music. I avoid Father’s eyes, watching Atarinkë worry the bottle—more mouthing than suckling, I see. Whatever my misgivings about this littlest of my brothers, his show of infantile disobedience brings another grin to my lips.

The first note falls into place, then the next, and I begin to pick out the melody that has kept me awake for hours. It is slower than I imagine it will be when done, for I am considering the way each note fits together with its fellows as I go, and softer, as I do not want the sound to carry beyond the kitchen, but I recognize in it the beginning of something wonderful.

Atarinkë cranes his little head in my direction, eyes wide and wholly captivated, and I realize, with something a bit like joy—if joy were full of unending terror and sharp pain—that this is the first music he has heard since leaving Mother’s womb. The melody trembles, grows sweeter, and Atarinkë smiles at me. He reaches out one pudgy arm, flexing his hand as though to catch the music as it falls off my harp strings. Father chuckles, setting the bottle aside, and I glance up at him, but he is staring down at the baby in his arms.

“Have you decided his essë yet?” I ask cautiously. Nelyo goes tense whenever he catches Moryo and Turko bickering over what it will be, so I have grown wary of the topic, but I am no less curious than anyone else. Father half-hums a tune that fits nicely into the crescendo I am building, and I weave it into the song.

“Perhaps,” he murmurs. “Though your mother takes exception to it.” I smile weakly, and do not voice my sympathy with Mother’s exasperation with his –finwë theme. “But she has already named him, so I do not see why I—“ he stops, and I can tell by the way he rubs a hand over his eyes that he did not intend to say that out loud. My fingers find the melody’s beginning and I start over, incorporating Father’s accompaniment from there this time.

Atarinkë’s eyes, the only part of his that remind me of Father, blink slowly, more frequently as I grow more certain of the song’s composition, more sure of my mastery over it. His small hand goes still and Father tucks it back into his blanket. Then he shifts his hold on the baby, laying Atarinkë up against his chest, one arm crooked to support him there. Atarinkë curls a fist around a lock of Father’s hair, and then moves no more. The melody turns melancholy as I wonder whether Father ever sat with me in that chair, if his face had ever been that serene when he looked upon me. Still, there is a strength to my song that gives me the courage to voice what has troubled me since I heard it.

“Moryo says he will be your favorite.”

I look up after a moment, when no answer comes.

Father has fallen asleep, Atarinkë in his arms.

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Epilogue

Silence reigns in the ruined halls of Menegroth as I make my way to the throne room. The Oath still calls, a thrum I can feel aching in my bones, but already it is growing fainter, becoming once more something bearable, and I can again spare a thought for other concerns.

The Silmaril is gone, leaving only death and destruction in its wake. Someone will have to help restrain Carnistir and Tyelcormo from their more violent impulses when they realize we have failed. Someone will have to steady Russandol in the wake of this second Kinslaying. (A second Kinslaying, when there should have never been a first. A second Kinslaying, and this one far more calculated, far more deliberate. My stomach turns, my thoughts wanting to skitter away from that horrific truth, but I have had more than enough time to accept it. We planned this one, after all.)

There is no one standing guard in the cavernous throne room when I arrive, an oddity—Tyelcormo and Atarinkë had been holding it with their men when I had last come this way. I expected there to at least be some men left behind, guarding it, even if my brothers themselves have moved on—and it seems unlikely to me that they would have moved on. Seizing King Dior’s throne is just the sort of metaphorical victory Atarinkë savors, and Tyelcormo has been his creature now for centuries. They will not have gone far. I round the shattered doors into the cavernous expanse, expecting at the least to see my brothers.

I do.

Tyelcormo lies on his side, the center of a ring of corpses, his fair hair fanned across the floor and slowly turning red. His armor is rent and punctured, the broken haft of a spear jutting from his armpit, and his throat is a gaping ruin. He is furious and snarling even in death, his lips drawn back from his teeth.

Atarinkë is positively peaceful by contrast, propped up against the throne, eyes closed, one hand clasped around the knife in his gut.

I stumble as an odd, animal noise echoes through the empty hall—me, I realize, my voice, a wretched, ugly croak of disbelief and pain. The sight of them crumpled, the smell of blood and decay—I can feel my knees trembling. Two of my brothers are lying dead, and all I feel is a horrible, dreadful relief that it is not Russandol or Pitya lying there—

Atarinkë—Atarinkë the schemer, Atarinkë the monster—stirs at the sound of my voice. His head lolls to the side, his eyelids shivering faintly, and I am at his side faster than blinking.

His eyes will not open all the way, but even half-closed I can see relief in them as I kneel, my hands hovering uselessly over him. He sucks in a weak, wet breath, not enough for speech, and I know—if I had even doubted—that I cannot save him. I ease him gingerly into my lap and pull the dagger out of him. His hand is slick with his wasted blood, but I imagine I can feel him squeeze mine as I lace our fingers together. As I sit there, cradling him, a new sound echoes in the too-still air—a soft tune, and sweet: an infant’s lullaby, composed long ago in Aman. My throat is raw from the battle, from grief, but I hum the tune all the same.

His lips curl, his fingers twitch. Atarinkë sighs softly against my throat and dies in my arms.

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Chapter End Notes

I am currently debating the merit of making the epilogue a separate chapter.