To Forgive by Dawn Felagund

Unforgiving

Young Fëanáro is confronted by his father about his biggest flaw: his inability to find forgiveness for his new half-brother. A quibble (500 words).

I. Unforgiving--Fëanáro
My restless fingers rove across everything.

"My son." Atar is speaking. I am turning his paperweight in my hand; it is of magnificent construction, once a gift of Aulë. A gust of wind through the open window and parchments feather across the room, but he says nothing.

"My son, for all of your gifts"--

My eyes are measuring the precision of the facets. I could replicate this. In fact, I could make it even better! My leg begins to jitter. This chair, this room, this world is too small to confine the sudden inspiration that explodes in my brain.

"--this is your flaw."

My gaze jerks to his face at that word. Flaw. Flawed. Me?

"Atar." My voices cracks and my hands are tight on the paperweight clasped within them. In my mind, I see light dancing on facets; I see perfection; I see no room for flaws in a carefully measured and ordered world. "Atar, I--"

But I stop. For what else is there for me to say?

Atar, I don't think that this world should be a place that requires forgiveness.

His eyes are trained upon me. They are vivid blue, like the base of the hottest flame, and like fire, they burn away the veneer of all they look upon and reveal the hidden core. I squirm in my chair, but it is not restlessness this time. It is like watching one's skin being peeled back, to be looked upon like that by my father, but it doesn't hurt. It just feels like it should.

"I also don't think that we should live in a world where forgiveness is necessary, Fëanáro," he says gently. "But this is Arda Marred, and this is what we have been given." He sighs. "Your brother … he is--"

"Half-brother," I interject, and even I am surprised by the venom in my voice.

Those eyes are upon me again. He sees my discomfort at my own vitriol; he nods; he is pleased. He believes that he is persuading me. "He is only a child," he continues, and there is a vague note of triumph in his voice. My father--he who convinced an entire people to cross a world in pursuit of Light they'd never seen and could barely imagine--has ever grieved his lack of influence on his firstborn son. I know this. I force myself to sit very still. Beneath his desk, my thumbs caress the contours of the paperweight, and I am planning, computing, dreaming. "He is only a child," he says again. "Hold not my failures against him."

I push my tongue against the back of my teeth so that it will not speak.

"You may go now, Fëanáro," he says, and I scramble from the room, on my way to the forges, paperweight clutched in hand. My last sight before the door crashes shut behind me is my father remedying the mess I have caused, stooping to recover pages, resolutely, and without a word.