The Small and Secret Things by Dawn Felagund

The Defiant Heart

Aulë considers Fëanáro, in 300 words.

Locked in my forge, away from Yavanna's attempts at comfort, I smite my hand with my fist. I could dissolve now into a nebulous entity, a drifting spiral of the Father's thought coalesced to energy, but it feels good to have a body, to strive against other objects.

Because what I want is no longer obtainable, no matter how hard I strive.

I circle the room, flinging open the covers to lamps. Light! I need Light! The darkness closes upon me, and my hands ache from being squeezed into fists. With all of the lamps blazing--all of his lamps blazing--I let forth a bellow, not a flicker of thought to pervade the minds of my brethren, but one that leaves my voice hoarse and raw and the air ringing with the force of it.

"Fëanáro!"

His name, so often uttered in love, now as a curse. "The nerve of him," I whisper. The frantic patter of my voice is comforting. "To defy us so brazenly! To betray me, his friend; to hold me in league with Melkor."

There are tears on my hands, physical signs of agony that need not torment a body.

But I want to feel it.

For I know that the reason he defied us is also the reason I loved him. My prized student with his jaw set, defiant fire in his eyes, arguing before me, one of the Powers, about the nature of the world. Uncowed, though his voice still cracked with youth. My tears turn to laughter. That passion, that comradeship--and the wisdom that he brought me--has been dearly bought, I see.

Yet I realize, blinking as tears cast each of his lamps with a pale halo of Light, I would not trade those times.

I would not change him.

Chapter End Notes

Today's Word:

effrontery ih-FRUN-tuh-ree, noun:

Insulting presumptuousness; shameless boldness; insolence.

Effrontery is from French effronterie, ultimately from Late Latin effrons, effront-, "shameless," literally "without forehead" (to blush with), from Latin ex-, "out of" + frons, front- , "forehead."