The House That Fëanor Built by WendWriter

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The House That Feanor Built

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Formenos was cold and empty now. Why she had come to this place, which was haunted with memories of suspicion, fear and death, Nerdanel could not say, but something had drawn her hither; an unnamed feeling that there was something she had forgotten, and must needs retrieve. The knowledge that she would get no peace until she had submitted to the nagging call that continually tugged at her heart and mind.

Her father Mahtan would not permit her to go there alone; his servant Beriadîr, her friend since childhood, had been appointed to come with her. She had tried to argue, but when Beriadîr reminded her that not even the Valar had foreseen the advent of Ungoliant, she had nothing to say. He insisted on checking each room for signs of evil, but found only dust there.

"My lady?"

Nerdanel looked around to see her companion cast a quizzical look at her. "The memories of this place have long haunted my thoughts," she explained. "Now their grip on me is tighter than ever. They will not release me until I have found what I came for."

"Which is?"

Her eyes closed, and she wrung her hands. A blush warmed her pale angular cheeks as she admitted, "I do not know."

The embarrassment of having to admit this stung her like a viper's bite. It was not like Nerdanel to be so weak, but the grip of the insistent feeling that had drawn her to this place had sapped her will to such a degree that she knew she must either obey it or go mad. Like a lonely ghost, she drifted through the gloomy corridors. Sparkling motes danced in the shafts of sunlight that pushed through the narrow windows in the thick stone walls. People had danced here, long ago. The Great Hall had been filled with revellers who celebrated various occasions. The skirts of the ladies' fine gowns had flared and swished in time to the lilting music. Their exile had mattered not to them. Indeed, it had been seen as a blessing - freedom from the laws and proscriptions of the Valar.

If Fëanor had ignored the promptings of Melkor and remained on good terms with the sons of Indis, he would still be here. The Silmarils would still be here. Would he have given them up, in the end? Probably not.

A corner of her mouth twitched in annoyance at the thought of the real reason he had held on to them. When the Trees were destroyed, he still had some of their essence. Having something that even the Valar could not produce had swelled his pride to such a degree it could no longer be contained. In a fit of arrogance, he declared that the Jewels were his alone, and that if the Valar took them by force, they were no better than Melkor. Whether that was true or not, Fëanor's desire to elevate himself above the Valar had kept him from giving them the Silmarils.

"...Never again shall I make their like; and if I must break them, I shall break my heart," he had said, but the truth was that, without the Silmarils, he would have lost a great sign of how special he was among the Wise. His pride, not his essence, would have suffered.

He whom the Exiles had followed to their doom was but a projection of their ideal of excellence in Elvendom. Keeping this notion fixed in their minds required an elaborate system of denial that made them to think only the best of him, and dismiss or ignore the unacceptable things he occasionally did. When Fëanor refused to give up the Silmarils, she had pleaded with him to change his mind, since she could not continue her sculpture without light. Candles, torches and lanterns were not sufficient. Fëanor had spoken of the cause of his art, and when she mentioned hers, he turned his back and walked away.

That was when she realised that, whatever he felt for her, it was not love. Her move to Formenos in the hope that she could turn his heart back to a desire for fellowship with his brothers - and the Valar - was the limit of what she was willing to do. When he went to Middle-earth, she refused to go with him. The thought of playing second fiddle to his vanity did not appeal to her; she was his wife, not his thrall.

"My lady?" asked Beriadîr.

"Yes?" she responded testily.

"You appear to have ceased looking for the thing you came here to get," he said, in a firm tone.

Nerdanel dropped her gaze in contrition. "I am sorry, I was caught up in reverie."

"You did say you would not linger, and I dislike this place," said Beriadîr.

She did not call him a guard, though that was his purpose. She forced a smile. "It was a good place, once, despite my husband's rebellion. I shall find that which I seek soon enough," she promised.

"Lady, why did we come here?" he asked. He moved closer to where she stood near the door, a frown on his fair face.

"I told you," she replied, "there is something I forgot to bring with me when I left."

"But you have forgotten what it is," he added.

"Yes."

Beriadîr sighed.

"I know I sound evasive," she said, an edge of desperation in her voice, "but I cannot remember what it is that called me hither. A strong feeling grew inside my mind that I must come here, and that I would know what the cause of it was when I arrived."

"It is not in here."

"No."

"Shall we try another room, then?"

"Yes."

Emotion flared up in her pain-wracked heart. 'Oh, Fëanor! I loved you once, but your love for me burned out like a candle after hours of use. I thought you were the finest man who ever lived - or ever would. Every breath I took was for you alone. I did everything you asked of me - but it was not enough. In the end, I had nothing to give that you wanted to receive.'

Suddenly, like a shaft of light illuminating a forgotten item in a room, an unwanted memory butted in. There was another side to this story, a truth Nerdanel had not wanted to face. This was what had drawn her here: the knowledge of a certain fact had been knocking on the door of her heart for years. It demanded to be recognised, and would not cease its importuning until she owned it.

The sensation of a great weight descending upon her grew greater as she made her way through the building. She knew exactly where to go now. Reluctance slowed her steps all the way to the southern wing, where she had set up her workshop, though the feeling that had brought here here grew stronger with each step. There was no escape from the rightness she felt, though every fibre of her being fought against it.

"This is the place," said Beriadîr.

"How do you know?"

"Because you are reluctant to enter."

"You are right."

A heavy sigh escaped her thinned lips. Nerdanel felt her heartbeat speed up; a heavy thumping in her pain-tightened chest. She did not want to be here, but she knew she had to push that door open and enter that room, where she would finally confront and lay to rest the feelings that had haunted her for so long. Perhaps in acknowledgement and acceptance she would find freedom from the hurtful memories that would not go away.

She opened the door, and together, Nerdanel and Beriadîr entered the room.

Blocks of marble and limestone stood against the inner wall. In the middle of the room was a statue covered with a cloth coated with dust. Just by the large windows were tables and racks of instruments, chisels and hammers of various shapes and sizes. Nerdanel's eyes were drawn to the covered statue. She knew what was under there, but she had to look.

The lady seized a corner of the sheet and pulled it away. A cloud of dust rose as it fell to the floor, and made her cough.

Neither the gasp nor the snort of amusement turned her head. She gazed at the statue she had spent years in the making, and sighed.

After Fëanor was exiled to Formenos, he had commissioned his wife to sculpt a statue of himself, which he intended to place in the Great Hall, near where he sat at mealtimes. Twice his height and carved from the finest white marble, he intended it to make a statement about who he was to all who entered his domain. His impatience as a sitter had moved him to tell her to work from memory, which she had. At his request, she had poured her intimate knowledge of every facet of his character into this creation, and here it stood.

As a sculptor, Nerdanel's talent was to capture the essence of the personality of her subjects. This was the quality that made them so lifelike. Here before them, in the tilt of the nose, the arch of the eyebrow, the set of the jaw and the curl of the lower lip, Fëanor's overbearing arrogance and stubbornness was displayed. Even the swell of the muscles in his shoulders and arms bespoke one who thought too highly of himself. Though the tapered fingers were those of a fine craftsman, the sensitivity ended there; the rest of him was hard and unyielding.

The destruction of the Trees occurred after Fëanor had seen this.

The sight of her husband's image so rendered made her laugh. She had set in stone her vision of a husband by whom she felt spurned. Unwilling to admit this at the time, she had excused this creation as a paragon of her art. "'Twas small wonder that he turned his back and walked away when I pleaded the cause of my art for his giving up the Silmarils," she said.

"Aye," replied Beriadîr, "but it is the most accurate depiction of him I have ever seen."

With a sigh, Nerdanel looked around at Beriadîr. "Do you think he would have chosen differently if I had made the statue more to his liking?"

"That would have served but to feed his vanity," he replied. "We both know that."

"Aye, but still, I cannot help feeling somewhat responsible for his decision to leave Valinor when I behold this," she admitted. "To be honest, I felt it at the time, but would not acknowledge it. I was so angry with him for refusing to listen to me, caught up as he was in his grief."

Beriadîr bent down, picked something up and pressed it into Nerdanel's hand. It was a piece of parchment, folded in four. She opened it out and read the contents. Then she laughed uproariously till she cried.

Beriadîr stared at her in confusion until the fit of hilarity eased. "May I read it, or is it private?" he asked.

Shaking with amusement, Nerdanel passed him the note without a word.

Not your best work.

Fëanor

"I see he did not appreciate your genius," said Beriadîr.

"When we were courting, I made one that showed him as he liked people to think of him," she replied, "because I thought so myself. When he asked me to make one of him in exile, I did as he asked, but did not realise I had fulfilled his commission too well. I honestly thought I had but captured his nobility and intelligence."

Beriadîr laughed. "When I first beheld it, I thought to myself, 'That is a face I want to slap!'"

With a giggle, Nerdanel replied, "Now that I see it with fresh eyes, I agree. My denial worked both ways, it seems. I was able to ignore the things about him that I did not like, but I was also convinced that this showed my husband at his best and most noble."

"The accuracy is uncanny," remarked Beriadîr.

"Indeed it is," she replied, "to those who think thus of him. Before Melkor came to cause trouble among us, he was gentle, kind and loving. Later on, I became as angry and upset with him as everyone else did."

"The note - it is... terse." He looked at her askance, and handed it to her.

A grimace stretched her lips. With a sigh, she told him, "In the days before he left, that is how Fëanor was. He would barely look at me, and his words to me were few, if he spoke at all. On the night he left, I found the note tucked into a fold of the statue, but did not want to open it, so I took a cloth and covered it thus."

"What do you wish to do now?"

"We can go now," said Nerdanel. She tucked the piece of parchment into her pocket.

"Is that what drew you hither? To read the note at last?" he asked.

"I think so," she replied. "I have faced the truth now; accepted it as it is, instead of veiling it with excuses or trying to bury it under other things. For years, I was consumed with hurt at the thought that Fëanor loved me not. To be honest, it seems he felt the same way about my love for him. I did not want to acknowledge that. It was easier to blame him."

Sadness touched her brow as she fingered the note. "This I shall keep to remind me that although I am accounted wise, I am not always right."

"As you wish, my lady."

As they left the stronghold, the weight of the memories diminished, and Nerdanel was free at last. She went away feeling lighter and more happy than she had in years.

The End.