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It was not curiosity that drew him to the nursery that day, nor was it love. If it was so, then he would have come at the behest of his father, yet it is not that which pulled him back to his childhood home. Some other force—irresistible, unspoken—had taken root in him, urging his steps where he swore they would not go. This is true, for Curufinwë Fëanáro was made greatest of the Eldar, wise and sharp and proud, and he was beyond normal flaw. 
(It cannot be otherwise.)
 She lay there, wreathed in the light of the Trees, catching glory in the fine strands of her sky-faded hair. To behold her thus was an astonishment—a figure so stripped of earthly pigment that entirely a palette was forgone, her form more akin to a shimmer caught on water than flesh and blood. It does not feel as if he is staring down at a child—no, more some sort of phantom, like smoke come alive; frost-framed glass in the place of skin and bone. He remained motionless before her. By some will that did not feel like his own, he could not move. The cradle sat beneath the window, bathed in the mingled glow of Laurelin and Tyelperion. Loitering in the shadow of that radiance, he could only think of fire consuming all it touched. Inching closer and closer, devouring every slice it demands. He let himself droop, half-aware on halting feet as he hesitated. The babe gurgles up at him, squealing. “Ah, ah,” she babbled, flailing her short limbs as if to make herself known. Not that it would have been an issue to do so, her arrival unto Arda as unnatural as anything came. She wriggled or somehow pushed herself onto her side then, and he watched the queer movement of this gracefully carved beast.  This is unbecoming of a prince, he thought to himself: he should not decry a child so. Not one who—by all rights—was undeserving of such scorn. And yet, here he was, doing it anyway. But the sourness in his heart did not feel like scorn, not truly. And this girl, though he liked her mother none, did not deserve her fate. This much, he could admit to himself. For it was so that Curufinwë Fëanáro stood alone amongst a sea of people: made greatest in body and mind and spirit, none again to ever be birthed as he had been—the paragon of what his people represented in their pride, in their craft, in their wisdom. But though he held himself aloft on his titles, it was a lonely joy. A solitude that not even his father—His father!—could understand. And though it is the very thing he wished for another to behold—that mayhap Finwë or even Ñolofinwë might survey his misery and see it for what it is—he is not so cruel as to wish the same on this babe. She is just that. A babe. A little thing crowned in pale fire, but a babe nonetheless. Squirming in her nest as one new to the world could only be. Cooing and gurgling at each face she sees. Reaching out to the brilliance of Treelight in every sad gaze that met her gummy, ignorant smile. The thing that remained curled on its sheets in an erratic shift was hardly one of harm. Still, she is not quite like the rest of kin, for all that he tried to envision her so. For how does one even behold a holy birth?  Sacred, for the nature of the matter was such. Alright, then. So it was, in part, a curiosity which drove him here. A disbelief. An incredulity. A stab of offence. When from the Mansions of Aulë the trickle of word came in, on that fateful day seven months past, and by his side Master Mahtan had stiffened and grasped his shoulder in comfort, Fëanáro did not quite incline himself to the tickles poured into his ears. The tale was too great, too absurd. Yet here was the proof of it, waving and laughing at him like all was right in the world. She blew at him, a sputter of saliva dribbling down her chin. “Gah! Gah!” He remained still, his hand resting on the edge of the crib, not daring to make contact. Not yet. The child twisted beneath his contemplation. For a moment, he felt the breath of silence around him—no voices of the household, no movement beyond the nursery walls. It was as though the world itself had paused for this instant.  Aseldë, Findis named her. Child saviour. 
Saviour of what?
 It was a silly thought. In part, he does not think she might even be a saviour of herself, for loud have the whispers already been at court, and people were wont to believe what they wanted to see in most things. Even in gossip and speculation, there lingered some kernels of truth—and the truth is this: Finwë’s seed has been cursed twice over. This child before him was as aberrant and as anomalous as Fëanáro was. The product of a tragedy that should not have been. An impossibility lived. 
(This is true, for Curufinwë Fëanáro was made greatest of the Eldar, a lone perfection at its peak, and with his living came a steep price that no one else knew how to pay.)
 “Ah-hah,” the babe cooed, giggling gently, laughter like bells in the wind, “mmm.” He placed a hand on her head, his fingers running through the snowy hair like white threads amidst the gold of the earth. She looked up at him with wide eyes, unblinking and innocent. He swallowed thickly. In him there is awe, perhaps, at the sight of such a unique being; mayhap concern, for a child whose mother had passed away bringing it into the world. He pulled his hand back and pondered, his mind racing with endless questions. 
What would this child grow up to be?
 Deep in his chest, an old ache stirred. In his mind, the memory of a woman. 
(A little boy, weeping by the side of his mother asleep, abed amidst flowers and mist.)
 What cruel jest was there to be had, that in tandem Míriel and Findis now reside within the Halls of Mandos, dead by two doomed births, refusing to come out for those they had borne? Oh, how his sire was wroth as then after the birth a Great Power descended, as from His high throne in Oiolossë Manwë did stride with purpose anew—and all of Aman gaped in wonder when towards Tirion upon Túna he set his sights, to marvel at an infant who did naught but baulk at his presence. How must this farce appear to little Aseldë? The King of the Ñoldor, the King of the Vanyar, and the King of the Valar in a single playroom, trading hopes and grievances as though there was not a family in mourning several chambers over. And here he was, making faces at the source of their fractures. She reached out again, her tiny fingers curling toward the air like she was playing with wisps of water in empty space. The gesture unsettled him. What did she see? How different is her perception of the world? Her innocence—her complete unawareness of all that had passed, all that she carried—was a damnation in its own right. Can she behold his soul as it is? Finally, he spoke. “You will not know what I have known. Yet again, in you, history repeats.” He whispered, his voice barely audible. “The pain. The betrayal. The burden. It’s maddening to witness. A fascinating insanity.” The babe chuffed as though in answer to his lament. The action drew from him a bitter laugh—low and sharp, like blades against their stones. What hogwash, to believe that any child born into this world would be spared its trials. Even her mother, white lamb that she was, must have known the weight of such a life. And yet, for all his scorn, he stayed. He leaned closer, tracing every inch of his vision in the half-light. “They will fail you,” he murmured. “Your elders, your kin. The ones who should guide you. They will fail you, as they have failed me.” His hand tightened on the cradle’s edge. “But you are strong, aren’t you?” He studied her, as though daring her to answer. “That is what the Elder King has decreed. That is precisely what the Doomsman has conveyed to him as well. And that is what this glorious disaster of a royal family wants to believe. Child Saviour, my half-sister named you thus, yet none there are who might take it upon themselves to save you from this…sorrow.” 
And I shall name your mother Findis the Fool, as in myself I had once thought to call mine own Míriel the Mordant; for with your name my sister has made folly pass through her mouth, just as in my name my mother mumbled along the halting humour of a sapped spirit.
 
(This is true, for Curufinwë Fëanáro was made greatest of the Eldar, and also worst of its best traits.)
 “None there are who shall understand you,” he continued, “none but me.” Upon his return to Tirion, he did not once suppose that he would be met by wild narratives and wilder people. He expected the routines of the past, the usual coming-and-goings of daily life, the familiarity of what already was established. This is why he rushed to the heart of the city as soon as he heard the news in full. It is not as though he could not revisit the castle proper of Mindon, but he did not suffer it gladly. For as dynamic as it was, brimming with the keenest minds aught had to offer and teeming with lively souls, long had the time passed for him that its people appeared like people. His yearning for this place had gone, and he did not miss its stifling cage. Still, his pace was swift, cutting through the Mingling, and he arrived some hours earlier than Manwë himself. The Great Square where once the voices of the commonfolk rose in discourse and disunity was blanketed in an uneasy silence. The founts that sang with crystalline joy were subdued. The heart of the Hill upon Túna had not changed—not in its high towers, not in its marble gleams, and not in its soft sands. But its soul felt adrift. Shaking underneath the pressure of another foreign event. The younger generations, most especially, held to themselves an unsettlement that was only slightly tamped by their elders’ hushed pity. The citizens who crossed his path did so with averted eyes. 
My sympathies, my prince.
 
May the Father be with you, my prince.
 
Mercy be upon you, my prince.
 “Do you know what the people are saying about us, little girl?” He asked quietly, stroking her cheek. She leaned into his prod with a mewl. “There yet exists another Fëanáro! Pity be to the line of the King. ‘Cursed’, they bestow upon us; for you and I have stolen much from our mothers. Tch. In one moment, all rejoice at a birth. Then in another, they turn away in their condolences. I know what they refuse to utter! Kinslayer, I am tempted to brand upon my beating heart, and I am itched to keep you to my chest. For so has Míriel given me her life, as Findis did you with hers. In this, we are kin.” The oddity blinks at him, somehow comprehending his words, even if something of him in sound reason knew that it was not so. She was likely just fascinated by him; that is all. That might be it. But the part of him that yet remained a child—the last traces of that little boy who laid beside his weary mother—fought bravely against the notion; clawing at the chance that she does as the voice inside his head suggests, unwilling to subject himself to loneliness any longer. No, she is special. Just as he is. This is true, for Curufinwë Fëanáro was made greatest of the Eldar. And this is true, for Finwion Aseldë was prophesied by the Valar themselves. 
(In his excursions around the continent, his dearest friend liked to join him. Oft she relayed to him news from the cities. They varied greatly—there is no story she would repeat, and though he found most of them fantastical, he indulged her for her witty commentary upon each one.
“Word’s gone around,” she said wryly, on one summer day, “your family has been up in chaos once more.”“People always talk, and my family is always aflutter, Nelya,” he snorted, “I should think ‘tis a thing of legend.”“And a legend there shall be, my friend, for I have heard the tallest tale today. Would you care to hear it, Náro?”)  He sighed harshly. 
I wonder what you shall make of all this.
 “They are arguing in your grandfather’s study, you know,” he relayed to the babe, like she might care about the matter of kingly squabbles, “your mother was never supposed to have gone.” No amount of good deeds will ever make him fond of Indis’ line. No matter that they were fair, no matter that they were beloved; always to him they were an intrusion, a beneficial yet unwanted succession of misfortune. Ñolofinwë, he detested the most. Írimë, he could hardly speak about. Findis, however, he held no particular opinions of—save for the fact that the girl was pious, near a vexing degree, even in her childhood, with a tendency to trail after her mother like a duckling in most matters of court. He paused, his thoughts circling her. It was strange. Her presence had always been a quiet one. Unobtrusive, unwavering. Unlike Ñolofinwë, whose rivalry burned like an open wound, or Írimë, who jabbed at his pride as if it were a sport, Findis neither opposed nor challenged him. She simply was: still and steady. A little light in the fields that too often felt enveloped. Not submissive, no, rather unremarkable. And that, perhaps, was why he had no particular quarrel with her—or rather, no quarrel he could easily name. Thus, he paid no heed when the words were first spoken to him—of the dreaded event, the Mystery, as so many had come to name it. A conception veiled in divinity, of a child born by wholly incomprehensible means. Half-elf, and half…something. Godly, the Eldar said of Findis; godly, the Ainur proclaimed of her child. Of a nature ineffable and beyond reach. Logically: half-elf, half…God? 
Bah!
 What sort of gain is there to be had in such a preposterous claim? What purpose does it serve, this fantastical exaltation of the flesh? 
First I saw a needless worship, for all I see now is a happy babe.
 But Manwë Súlimo would not lie, would he? Not for this. Not for a child of the Father. “What are you, Aseldë?” He asked. “Gah, gah,” she replied, smiling, “gah.” Against his will, he finds himself drawn to her despite his disdain for her existence. There is a brightness to her, a Light beyond light; and he sees a certain sharpness in those eyes that reminds him of his own youth. Then again, she was a miracle, no? He scoffed. “Cursed we be, yet it seems that I am the one with more claim to that title. Elemmiel, your Vanya great-grandfather already calls you. Eruanna, some faithful others say. And a gift and a miracle you shall be, but something in me darkens at that thought—for once upon a time my father said similar words to me,” his lips curled into a tart smile, “and I am full of spirit and fire, yet here I remain, alone in my madness. What good is a name when we cannot even live up to them? Fëanáro! Spirit of Fire! Indeed do I burn hot, but above all I am the one to feel the ruination most keenly!” “Ah-ah,” she grunted, pawing at his palm. Somehow managing to bring it to her own cheek, before nuzzling against his skin. She is soft in the way all children are, soft insomuch as her existence would allow her to be—and then and there, he stifles a sob. “Damn you, child,” he hisses, pulling himself away in true. The girl whines. He turned from her and paced the room, rubbing his temples to calm the onslaught of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. His throat burned. He clenched his fists, the calloused knuckles whitening, and glared at the floor. The corners of his eyes stung. The sensation is unwelcome. Not here. By the grace of what dignity he held, not here. Not now. He pressed his lips together, hard, until they paled and the strain of composure etched into his jaw.  This is nothing, he told himself, swallowing the lump in his throat, it must be nothing.  
It cannot be anything. It cannot be.
 
(This is true, for Curufinwë Fëanáro was made greatest of the Eldar—and it would be a guilty shame should there be another to share his title.)
 “Ah,” Aseldë said again. Deep inside, a voice—low, mocking—whispered the truth he refused to acknowledge: he was afraid. Afraid of how much this fragile life moved him. Afraid of how he regarded her and saw the silver of his mother’s hair and crown. Afraid of how freely she gives him her affections. Afraid of how already she moved her people through the nature of her birth alone. Afraid of what she might mean for their family. Afraid of how, as he looked to her, at her, he saw himself. When he dared to glance back, the child yawned, the small mouth forming a perfect ‘o’. Then, she wriggled again, this time letting out a high-pitched cry—not a wail, but the demand of an infant who had discovered her own volume. By the Valar, she is so small. Had he ever been that way? So helpless, so damn needy?  How is it that such a meagre creature can take away so much of her birth-giver’s life? And then came the sound of footsteps—soft, deliberate, growing closer. He turned, his expression hardening. Locking away the surge of tightness in his chest with the force of a bolted trap; forcing down the quakes of his shoulders and the shedding of mild tears. The door opened. “…Fëanáro.” There stood Ñolofinwë, haggard and horrified. “Fëanáro.” He glared. “Fëanáro!” “Are you lame?” He bared his teeth in a sneer. “Do you intend to wear my name out? I have had enough of that from birds in the wilderness.” His half-brother stepped into the room. “What are you doing here?” Ñolofinwë stalked closer, as if ready to attack an untamed creature. Then again, with everything that has happened as of late, he possessed the right to seem that way; for was it not that he, too, became feral at the passing of his mother? A child untethered and unhinged? But before him is a man grown, and let it not be said that Curufinwë Fëanáro cowers in the face of grief. Whether his own or another’s; even if it took the form of a pain reminiscent to his own. His footfalls echoed sharply in the silence of the chamber, his gaze flicking over the stark bleariness of the space. No comforts, no firelight, not even a sign of peace. Aseldë peeked through the bars of her crib. Silver-white eyes view the scene from behind gold-lined rods. She gaped at the two of them, acute yet doubtlessly boggled; an infant amused. “Why are you here?” Ñolofinwë demanded again, his voice trembling—not with fear, but with something rawer, angrier. “In this place, this house—you have no right to—” “No right to what? As I recall, I am the Crown Prince, no? And this castle was my home before it was yours.” “I am not speaking of this castle, and you know it.” The other man hissed. “Do not touch my niece!” 
Why is it that something in him flared at that?
 “She is my niece as well, I will have you know." He retorted with a scowl, refusing to relinquish his position by the babe. “I have gone here as I pleased, as she was crying afore my presence, you fool. Why is it that none has gone to look after her?" Ñolofinwë reared back—perhaps in distrust, perhaps in disbelief. Maybe both. He does not care to know which. The second prince opened his mouth to speak again, though his voice wavered slightly as he approached. “That changes naught of what I mean to say. Of all people, you should not be here. You should not be here. Not in this nursery.” “And yet, here I stand,” Fëanáro replied, his words cutting, his expression unreadable. “And yet, here you stand. Yes, here you are.” 
(This is true, for Curufinwë Fëanáro was made greatest of the Eldar—and he is beautiful and terrible all, and he should not be caught in such a fragile state.)
 Still swaddled in her blanket of unassuming cloth, Aseldë curled her tiny fists like flower buds not yet in bloom. She made a noise of protest. It was not a cry, more like a speechless complaint. Tugging at air when she could not touch him through her basket. He sighed, walking back to her. Ñolofinwë observed this without objection, but his hostility did not abate. His posture remained firm and prepared, half a hunch with a hand half-outstretched, and he primed himself at a distance where he could grab the child without issue. Fëanáro bent down to take her into his arms. Aseldë cooed again, nuzzling into his neck. “Mmm…” His grip was steady and firm, and so was hers. The babe shifted, her tiny mouth quivering into a contented sigh. He is surprised. Their earlier contact had been brief, and never once has he held a child in this manner—not even the youth of Tirion that used to shower him in flowers and letters. Disregarding his father, none have dared to initiate intimacy since his mother’s death. But now he allows another to do so. He feels her feather-light fingertips on his cheek, and it is comforting in a way alien to him. He does not recoil from her taction, but allows it, and indeed, savours it. Fëanáro did not speak. He did not need to. The babe stared up at him, her tiny face alight with a peculiar focus. He did not think a thing so small could be so intent. As though she understood him, her fingers flexed, her fragile hand brushing against his chin as he held her uncertainly, unsure of his own worth in this exchange. And then— —wonder of all wonders— —he gasps. Ñolofinwë inhales sharply. He feels it. They both do. And it is unmistakable. Her own fëa— —bonding with his own. Slow, hesitant; connecting their souls in the manner of two streams colliding into a river. Separate gravities entwined. Swirling around, interweaving what she could offer up to him with all of her might—like a gift to a god, yet unsure that he would accept her. Ha! Imagine that: a scion of the Creator Himself, curling her spirit around a mere man of earthly make. In and out of his every pulse the shock persisted. He could not even refuse her. Yet even as he recovers, he does not shy from her brush against him.  Father, he hears silently, in a voice sweet and high, Atya?   Yes, he trembles, releasing a breath, yes!  Despite his deep-seated reservations, he found himself now inextricably attached to the girl. “What have you done?” His half-brother sputters, pale with fury. “What is this, Fëanáro?!” He felt proud of himself. Satisfied, even. His head shot up, and with a petty grin, met the eye of the storm. “I did what you were too troubled to do: I am holding her. I am holding her! I am holding her, while you and your get huddle in your prayer circle! Godsgift, you all labelled this babe, but still you stand afraid of even lingering near! You behold, but I alone hold. I am holding her, as one should have done—and so she is held, as she should have been from the start, as a child must be.” Fëanáro cradled the child as though the merest lunge from Ñolofinwë might rend them asunder. 
(This is true, for Curufinwë Fëanáro was made greatest of the Eldar—and none could hope to level with him, save perhaps this girl.)
  (Nerdanel stared up at the clouds as they laid on the grass. “The others speak of your sister, Princess Findis. She is with child.”“Findis?” He snorted. “Findis. Righteous little thing with naught a sin to her person?”She leaned in, as if in conspiracy. “So your smith friends seem to believe. Do you know what they say?”“Well? Out with it.”
Nerdanel’s tittering is infectious enough that he, too, chokes in disbelief at her reply.)
 None who passed would have believed it. Here was no fatherly figure, no doting guardian. Arda would end ere he admitted to such tender-heartedness! If ever he spoke of children, it was with a dismissive curl of his lip or the dark humour of familial sentiment; his chats and affections for Nerdanel notwithstanding, for as close as they are, they were yet to be lovers, and even then the prospect of a full brood with her daunted him still. Against the will of the world, there he sited himself—erect by the window, bathed in fire and light, clutched to his breast an infant with white eyes too knowing and a smile too innocent to be true. “What plot is this, Fëanáro?" His eyes narrow in anger at the accusation. “I hold no love for you, that is true, but this is not a plot against you." He confessed harshly. “I simply took a child into my arms. Can you not see that? In these lonely hours, your kind has abandoned one of your own—" “Bold words!” Ñolofinwë crowed. Hands aflutter, pacing; his volume spiked momentarily, only to drop into a tightly controlled, clipped tone when Aseldë puled. “Be candid with me. Why have you come here? Now? When behind closed doors in years past you have never once cared to show your face in unity with ours? You. Bah! You? Who spurns my mother? Who holds no love for your father’s children? Who goes aflight in crafts over bonds? You, who caused Findis grief on each of her begetting celebrations? You, who dripped poison into the ears of courtiers when Írimë sought joy in their companionship? You, who on my majority, barely even acknowledged I exist? You, who sneaked into this tower like a thief!" “Stay your foul tongue! You overstep. Cruel I might be, but I would not hurt a child!” “Oh? Were we not children to you, then?” The other man laughed bitterly. “Findis, Írimë, and I? Were we not just as deserving of an elder sibling’s love? And what of the seed that yet grows in my mother’s belly? Has the child earned your contempt yet, hm? You insult me. You insult us all. As always, you blaze on, with no heed for the consequences. Alleging yourself to this child, this gift! You, who cannot love without destruction. You, who cannot touch without burning. What makes you think that you have earned the right to cradle the daughter of Findis so?” “Do not presume—!” “I shall! Why is it that you suddenly care?!” “Because I find myself caring!” Fëanáro stood still, the words hanging in the air like the toll of some distant, unspeakable bell. Like the death knells of Míriel’s funeral. The admission sounded alien to him. A ragged, hurried thing. His very body rebelled against the enormity of what he had admitted. It is just possible that he even dreamt the instance up, polar feeler that he was, ludicrous in one minute and fatal the next. On the whole it hovered above him, the notion of his nervosity is preposterous. 
Because I find myself caring.
 The phrase reverberated in every corner of his mind. 
Because I find myself caring.
 It should not be so. But it is. 
Because I find myself caring.
 What folly! 
(This is true, for Curufinwë Fëanáro was made greatest of the Eldar—and he has met his undoing.)
  (“Findis is with child—a child of God, Fëanáro. Begotten, not made. Incarnate of a virgin.”)  Ñolofinwë stepped back, lips kissing his teeth in a scoff. Offence and hurt colour his lovely visage. Marring the very face Fëanáro himself wore. The image of Finwë, their sire; tainted in this mockery of revelations. An ugly, vicious satisfaction swirled inside him at that—though he did not ponder upon it too much. Besides, after all that was left for him to withstand, he saw it as merely fair. Aseldë squirmed in his arms, her hands pressing against his chest. Her fëa thrums alongside his; settling, contented. “Because I find myself caring,” he repeated, quieter this time, engrossed by the crib once more. It is a grudging response. He wonders if Ñolofinwë could see the unkindness in him now. Past that, however, the shape of shame took form. Pain of pains. The misfortune of my existence. “Against my better judgment, I feel a strange fondness for this babe. I doubt it not that word has reached you, Aracáno; of the fearful and the superstitious, of the curious and the intrusive. Another death in Aman, they said! And a mother at that. Leaving a lone infant girl behind. Why would I not care, Ñolofinwë? Why would I not care, when to me this child’s plight has become an old friend?” Is it not so that like seeks out like? Why must I be rebuked for it, when only I can comprehend her birth? Something unreadable crosses his half-brother’s face. He watches Fëanáro closely, recognising the vulnerability for what it was. “You miss your mother, you always have," he says, softer now, “I know you do. This little one reminds you of Queen Míriel, doesn’t she?" 
Not just her.
 “And yourself,” the man adds.  Do you see, now? Do you see? “But though there is pity in my heart for you and the girl both,” Ñolofinwë continued, “that does not give you sufficient cause, taking her as you do.” Fëanáro’s skin crawls. He wanted to tear his hair out, to scream, the indignation pounding in beats beyond words. How dare he? How dare he? There was no bond more inviolable than that of a parent and their child. Blood or not. This, even the most removed Elda knew—and this, surely the clod before him is not so dry-minded to forget. There was silence for a moment. Heavy and laden with something unspoken. Acting almost on the urge to lash out—to do without the pretence of amity, to leave all be to chance and just thrash and rage—he forced out an exhalation. The child in his embrace flutters her eyelashes at him, caught in beauty beyond starlight. Atya, Atya, again she seems to tell him, in a manner akin to song-speech inside his head; Atya, Atya. Father, Father; would that his own sire were to march into the babe’s chambers and settled this matter once and for all! Would that the Allfather cast His judgment on them! Maybe then his rival might seek to turn then, to tilt his face in another direction and begone as would be his duty to a prince’s order! But no—of course, not a single of those options happen, and so he returned to doing what he did best: to talk, to charm, to move with words and declarations in ways minstrels did with songs. His calamity, a storm of reds and golds; a claim, a reckoning—the final say. And so out he rolled himself, tall and staid.  Damn you, child, he sends through their bond, for ensnaring me so, like some great beast of the forest to be tamed. He gets an echoing giggle in response. Atya, Atya, Atya. The answer was entirely without mirth. “It is not I who claimed her. It is she who claimed me. She—” His voice broke, and for the first time in a long while, Curufinwë Fëanáro faltered. “She chose me.” 
(And this is true, for Curufinwë Fëanáro was made greatest of the Eldar—and lonely the title had been, but lonely it shall be no more.)
 “What would you know of her suffering, Ñolofinwë? You, who live beneath the shadow of my deeds, content in your mediocrity?” His eyes shifted to the babe. “She is blameless in her birth. That is why she will suffer. And you will not be the one to realise the cut of your own efforts. Do you think to raise her as yours? It will not be enough. It. Will. Not. Be. Enough. Father has tried with me, yet even he cannot console me at my worst. You perceive. I understand. And what I know is this: this child is mine.” And with a spin of his heel— —he leaves. Pushing past his half-brother, who grunted as they lightly collided. He dared not look back. He could not. His mind raced. Conjuring horrors from the depths of its own brilliance. Aseldë drools on his shoulder, and he has to remove her fist from her mouth before she made any more of a mess. He is entranced. What had she done to him? What was she? A child, yes. Joy of all joys. Love above all. A star glimpsed through dream fog. Half-elf, half-God, the whispers had said. But such a thing should not be. Could not be. And yet here she is. Here. She. 
Is.
 “Damn you. Again and again, I shall say it: damn you.” Atya, Atya, Atya, she gurgled, mine, mine, mine. 
What have you done to me? What would you do?
 “Ah, ah, á-ro,” little Aseldë coos, once more delighting as he pursed his lips and stared down at her, “Na-rá-ro!” “I have been given the impossible task of caring for a child.” 
Or, rather, I have been audacious, and decided to keep one for myself.
 Fëanáro grumbled in exasperation, though it is not with true heat as he gazed at her. “I have never had such a small creature in my arms. You are odd and sweet and light—and, most of all, beautiful.” He remarks, bouncing her up and down. Arms and legs kick and wave energetically. She crinkles her tiny nose, bobbing her head; and it is a funny sway that overtakes him as in greater amount she mimicked his half-happiness. Their voices rose and fell in the hallway. And when she comes down to him again, close enough that their faces touched, Aseldë bumped her forehead into his shoulder. Atya. Atya. Atya. Mine. Atya. And soon, they are setting out on a long, happy journey. He finds himself beginning to ease. The surging inferno inside his chest has clammed up and calmed into a soothing warmth. Tapered into a manageable burn. Gentle, now. Looking at her filled him with a strange sense of pride. Of yearning. Of duty. Of fulfilment. It is almost as if this instance was designed for him, as he has decided he wished to believe; a singularity in the universe meant to meet its match. It could not be otherwise. It cannot be otherwise. She is precious, with the most enchanting laugh, and he never thought he himself would enjoy seeing a babe of his own be so happy—but here he was, and here she is, and here they were. 
Here we are.
 
(Yes, yes, yes: this must be true, for Eru Ilúvatar would not have made it so, had there been no method to His madness. This is true: Curufinwë Fëanáro was made greatest of the Eldar, and Finwion Aseldë was the child begotten and consubstantial for his fate.)
 “Ná-ro, Ná-ro,” she lipped, clapping in glee, “á-ro, Na-rá-ro!” “Ela, Ela,” he sang back, grinning, “Ela, Ela, seldë.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

When his brother made merry do with their niece, behold, a vassal of Manwë appeared at Aracáno’s side and said, “Be at ease, and let not bitterness mar thy noble heart. The child will be well.”
 
Again Ñolofinwë is just barely capable of repressing his sneer when Lord Eönwë, herald to the Elder King and chief of the Maiar, stepped forward into the nursery. The Ainu had gone to visit the babe with his master. The argument in his father’s solar seems to have come to a conclusion, or so he hoped; for if the other was here, then it must be so that those of greater import finished their quarrel. It is not that he sought a row with one of the Holy. But he was not in the mood for sympathies. As this occurred to him, his grandfather entered as well, grim and elated both, though with an air of impatience about him. Right then, the throbbing in his temples flared, and he knew that the day was yet to worsen.
 
“What progress we have made! Though I like his tone not, impertinent as it is, your father ceded to the compromise of our custodies. Only the question of her comfort yet remains. But where is she, indyo?” Haru Ingwë asked, ado about the playroom. His stride is harried, rather excited if anything. ‘Tis as though the glow of the Trees amplified his anticipation at being with his great-granddaughter; fresh and fine gold swimming in and out of his vision as the elder wandered about. “Where is sweet little Elemmiel?”
 
“Fëanáro has gone aflutter with my sister’s child.” He answers then, deciding to ignore Lord Eönwë in favour of redirecting his frustrations. His mouth is heavy with the utterance. Laden with lead, tongue cracked in its heat. “He was overjoyed to see her.”
 
His grandsire’s spirit lit up in surprise and wariness all at once. “Oh?”
 
“Yes.” Aracáno swallowed, the sourness piercing through his chest. There was a brief pause. In those flat seconds he mustered what he could have of his pride to reaffirm the admittance. The old matters of which had made him head to the child’s area to begin with are forgotten. A red haze flashes before him—a spear of lightning-rapid hate—afore his senses return. “Yes, he was.”
  Heaven forbid that he could despise another so steadily, so jealously, so equally. 
(So ardently.)
 He might be the second son, but in his heart of hearts, he bore the fury of the first. The birthright, the stature, the admiration of their father—all this stayed within Fëanáro’s domain. His half-brother was, and to some of his own unrelenting hope still is, simply the brightest star to grace the stretch of the continent. The fact is not in question. On that, the truth has never been uncertain. Not even he contested it. This, anyone could deem correct, for it was merely a manner of life. 
But let it not be suggested he stood as anything less than the eldest!
  (High chief he was called, so high-riser he shall be.)  Even if in his youthhood he chased at the heels of a better man, tailed the trails of a brighter boy, and followed the face of an idol; he was his own person, surely. He might wear their faces, patterned after people both here and long gone—but his hands yet remained skilled, and his wit and wisdom were things to boast.  Borrowing a shadow, his brother called it; but is it not so that his inner light is his own? A passion of his own make? What cause does Fëanáro get to denounce him so, when aught he did stemmed from the loyalty of kin? When he ached in plod of emulation and admiration of a distant hero? When he buckled so he could carry the well-being of his sisters? When his arms stung with swordplay, when the whites of his eyes reddened with dryness, when his spine hunched with depression, when his ears rang with the drone of study? Eating? A mechanical necessity. Sleep? A begrudged pause. Even breathing felt like an obligation—as if he owed the air its due for sustaining him. And was it not so? Is that not the price of his being? How ironic it is that Ñolofinwë might say that he lived his life as it were his, but it is obvious that his body was no longer his own: and still Fëanáro yet sees it as some twisted cloning of him and their father, when in truth this is all he could do to draw back from falling apart!  You speak of my ignorance when it pertains to your birth and your rights—but what about you, brother? What would it take for you to see me as I am?  All this would have mattered little, to be frank, had the Bonding—as he referred to it, that galling display—not happened. He set himself to peace long ago. There is a passage, a quote, from a tome in Grandfather’s library he once read:

When even spirits cannot heal Arda Marred, and our people remain sundered, and we indulge in fears of black clouds and blacker mountains; only then do we know hope, to live and let live, and lay to rest our hearts in the hands of Eru, the One, whom we name Ilúvatar, for with Him are our fates, beginnings and ends inconceivable; and only in faith shall aught be aright.

Fine, then! He had let the matter be. For who was he to question what life might have in store for him? And who was he to suppose his own fate? Not that it stopped him from dreaming otherwise, of another day that might bear something from his young fantasies. Of a while when Fëanáro would repent, and Finwë would no more find his second son lacking; and Ammë would be happier, and Findis livelier, and Írimë freer, and Ñolofinwë himself could rest. None of it escaped his mind, even if he resigned himself to be in his temperate tempering. But he held out hope. Even then, as his brother decried them so. He had held out a deprecating hope—upon darkening knees, with swelling knuckles and a rasping voice— —wholly, verily, ardently— —that the matter of his niece’s birth might bring them together. 
Yes, I admit it! With all cares removed and the prospect of a reunion, who was I to refuse you then?!
 He put on his best black velvet, as most in mourning did. He vested on raiment, which what some gloomier Eldar—the ones who remember Cuiviénen still, the ones who recall the Dark Rider and His hunting and hounding and haunting—could even take to slandering him with insults of ‘void-child’, for the manner of his dress. He did the rites. Lit the candles. Lingered in the hollow. Let the songs and incense flow. Held tight to himself a sobbing sibling who knew no better; stood vigil by the bed of an unmoving girl; and gripped the clammy hand of a mother with a head bowed. Thereafter, as a sort of compromise for himself, he roamed the White Tower, stiffly robed, to clear his head afore he went to the whereabouts of his niece. To the nursery, where once he, too, with Findis and Írimë both, had circled and wreaked fun; where soon another pair would join, the blest child herself, as well as the one that grew inside his mother’s womb still. Then, he had pushed down the swirling knob of the door— —then, he had softly swung the wood open— —and then, he was met with a sight that never again he wanted to see.  (High chief he was called, and so high-riser he shall be; and high does the acid within his throat reach then.)  Yes, Ñolofinwë had hoped that his brother might arrive in Tirion. If not for the birth of their niece, then at least for the passing of Findis, by whatever pity and mercy he might yet find in his smouldering heart. Yes, Ñolofinwë had hoped that his brother might return to Mindon. If not for him, then for their father—the very same man who grieves another lost to life. Yes, Ñolofinwë had hoped beyond fucking hope—because even in his anger, even in his silently snarled grievances, even in his yelled desperations; he loved him!  He loved him! What was it Fëanáro himself said? Because I find myself caring. Yes, that. Because he found himself caring. Past reason, he clung to the hem of his brother’s sleeve still: a boy with wide eyes of an argent hue, rosebud lips in a pout; kind and noble and valiant and proud; and tender and careless, with a sad, stupid mouth. 
(Náro, play with me?)
 
(Náro, come join me and our sisters!)
 
(Náro, why do you look at me that way?)
 He reached the nursery sometime before the discussion in Atar’s office finished. A few words more about succession laws and deathly customs, and he would have thrown a fit; Findis’ wake be damned. The strolling nuisance of his father and grandfather left him when he soothed himself enough, and finally he was ready to take into his arms his sister’s last gift to their family; and he might have enjoyed the quick tranquillity pursuant to his stress as he skirted the walls of his home. Then in surety he bared himself to his niece— —and Aseldë came to the waiting arms of her other uncle, the insufferable ring that which Fëanáro provided, and away from which he learnt to be. 
By Eru, not this.
 Now, it is not Ñolofinwë who grasps the last piece of Findis. 
(And heaven forbid that he could despise another so steadily, so jealously, so equally—for he might just commit something most unthinkable and unforgivable.)
 “I hate him,” Írimë hiccuped quietly by his side, “I hate him, I hate him, I hate him—!” In an instant he cradles his sister again. He bent down, brushing a hand gently across her brow, his touch lingering as though to shield her from the scene unfolding before them. “Shh, shh,” he whispered, “all shall be alright.” 
(But deep inside, he knows it will not be so. Not in this lifetime.)
 “—some ignorant girl who keeps her head in the clouds? You forget much: I have bled by the side of everyone else! Were those nights at Cuiviénen for nothing? Did our wounds ever close themselves? Did the waterfalls wash away the poisons in our blood? Did the shadows kiss us to a peaceful sleep? Hysterical, you say I am, but you’ve yet to see what insanity is, Finwë! You’ve not felt the dying go limp in your arms, or heard the silence they left behind. I have borne it, time and time and time again—and I swore never to bear it for my children!” Ammë is beautiful in her wrath, Ñolofinwë thinks. He wipes his eyes and his cheeks in quick succession. Whether it was to clear his sights or hide his heartache is unimportant. “A hunter you were, but a healer I was; and I have already buried too many of our kin, more than you have seen with your jaunts in the northern forests! And now you seek to give away the very thing that we cherish above all? A child, a child, a child! I have contented myself with the thought that you shan’t ever love my children more than Míriel’s son. I have accepted it, I have endured it, for you. But I will not, cannot, endure you taking them from me. And now, you dare deprive me of what I have fought so hard to keep.” Indignation sharpens her features. Tightens the regal lines of her face. She is radiant—resplendent—in her fury; ice and snow and skylight in fervent and silky strike. Indis was not one to rage often, if at all, though when irate could become nastily severe. Blunt where her father was level, cold where her husband was quiet, cunning where her children were brash. But today is different. Of course, it is. Today is not like yesterday, today is not like the day before; and today will be worse than tomorrow, if tomorrow ever came. Today, Ammë has lost control. He wished to call out, to break the spell. To put forth a hand and slip it into her dainty palm, to snag her from her righteous vehemence and come round where once she was so kind and serene. “And above all, do not,” Ammë hissed, “do not defend him to me.” “Indis—” “Do not! He had the nerve to come here, to cradle my granddaughter, as if he has any right—after all he has said, all he has done. After all these years he has gone, after all the grief he has caused my family! For the love of the Valar, open your eyes, Finwë!” “Would you deny one such a sacred bond?!” “I would, if only to have what was left of my daughter!” Írimë trembled in his grip. The constellation of grey-black beads on her dress crinkled as they rubbed against one another. Her form curled in, much akin to a flower wilting, and with a pale glove she clutched at his bicep. Their mother’s wails echoed through the halls. To keep, to keep, to keep, what was left, what was left, what was left; there the mimic went, bouncing off each marble wall. It continues in a diabolical repeat. To keep, to keep, to keep. What was left, what was left. My daughter. Then comes the crash of porcelain against stone. Crack. A half-shriek. A guttural scream. “I did not think you could ever stoop so low—” “I am not defending his actions. I am defending his bond with the child—” “—and what of the bond of a mother with her babe?! Did you not beg Míriel to come back? Weep at her side in the garden of Dreams? Kneel at the gate of Death’s domain? Just for Curufinwë to experience his mother’s love a bit longer?” “That is not the same! Do not compare this to—” “I will! I will, Finwë! I have tended to mothers and children sundered! I have held them as they wailed, as they ripped through bondage and medicine, as they killed themselves in their agonies. Never did I think the time is come that I, too, shall know this pain. But I was willing to heal, even if Findis refused to leave Mandos, for I thought to have her babe! Her babe! My daughter’s daughter! Mine! Then here comes your son, snatching her from the crib as though the Dark Rider—” “Do not utter to me that wicked name!” His father thundered back, nostrils flaring. Eyes as murky as an alpine tempest; the instinct of winter and wolves, jagged and yet perfect, a biting chill. And in place of the king the nimrod awakened, pulled from his frigid slumber. “He has said it to me—even he did not expect it, Indis! The boy has naught but good intentions. Say what you will about Míriel’s son, but you know Fëanáro is not devoid of love, so do not act as though he is gone to me!” “He is gone to me! Whatever you see in him is a lie to me! Capable of love he might be, for you and for many other things—but ‘tis not so not for me, or Findis, or Aracáno, or Lalwendë! Less yet of this one in my belly—do not look upon me that way, Finwë! Do not!” “What would you have me do, Indis?! They are bonded. Bonded! Only the Valar could have separated me from my first wife, yet now the Mystery eludes even Manwë himself! And ‘twas Aseldë herself who made the connection!” “You would blame the babe? Are you hearing yourself? An infant girl!” Indis laughed, and there is something frightening in her look then. A wrongness he has never guessed could even be, etched upon her fairness in a manner belonging to the horror stories he often hid in terror from as a toddler. “Yet you call me mad—” “I call you nothing of the sort,” Atar bared his teeth, “do not put dirt in my mouth—!” “Are my bonds less worthy in your eyes because they are mine?” 
And that is the crux of the matter, isn’t it?
 
(Oh, heaven forbid that he could despise another so steadily, so jealously, so equally—for now even his parents were not spared from the chaos and the mania.)
 It has always been there. It never left. It just is. A condemnation in the shape of what everyone liked to call ‘fate’. Lurking as a shadow, behind each and every one of the affections the High King offered. Ñolofinwë knew they were loved, insomuch as a man can only love, by his father. But it was not the same love as the first he loved, nor the best. Hah! Like mother, like son indeed. And like Indis, he had resigned himself to this truth. He saw it in her as clearly as she saw it in him, but it was easy to ignore that ache when aught else performed the spectacle of distractions. If not for his father’s attentions—which always seemed to drift to empty spaces where there should be another—then he persisted for his mother’s sake. What an idiot! Even now, even in this, they could not escape. Would that Aseldë levelled at him that same innocent joy! Her laughter yet rings in his ears. Why is it that she took to his half-brother so quickly? Had like acknowledged like, after all? Just as Fëanáro declared? Is it the nature of a divine child, already too aware of the world? Did she come out of his sister’s womb in the manner that the Ainur tumbled out of Ilúvatar’s thoughts? Already great, only to grow; inevitable and inexorable? An exquisite clarity clasps its maddening claws around him then. Venom dripping from every piercing tip. 
(Indis was a balm, not a cure. Ñolofinwë was the silver thread sewn into a fabric already beyond repair. People say Míriel Þerindë was—is—a weaver. Handmaiden to a handmaiden of history. Always watching, always looping, always looming. Now, he wonders: is this what he and his mother get for taking their places within the palace? Is the string on their spool stained with the same blood-red that Fëanáro unravelled during his birth?)
  (High chief he was called, and so high-riser he shall be; high he was in his own self-imposed expectations, higher still does he reach for a star.) “Let him have something for himself, Indis!” Finwë shouted. Írimë shrunk further into her brother’s suffocating curve; knees tucked up, the silver points of her closed sandals barely peeking under her skirts. He gritted his teeth. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair, Atar. Why let him have what he wants, as here we sit like beggars? “If even the Valar decree it so, why can I not give my son what he is due?” 
Due?
 “Due?” Indis repeats, incredulous. “Due?” His sister asked him. “What does that mean?”  I don’t know, he nearly replies, but his lungs are aflame.  I was never meant to have her, he thinks bitterly, was I?  
None of us were, save for him. It’s always him. It will always be him.
 “What do I lack?” Indis begs the question immediately after. Except it was not truly a question—it never had been; not with this. The words burn. Scalds. Tearing into flesh as easily as the sleets of the northern shores, hardening into crystals ere melting as throbbing blood. Ñolofinwë poses the same query to himself: Why was I never enough? Not for Atar, not for the crown, and now not even for my own niece? I was the first to ever hold you, Aseldë, do you not remember?  “Tell me, Finwë,” Ammë says again, and this time, her tone is tired. “What is your wife to your child? I carried Findis in my belly for all those months. Nursed her at my bosom. Held her life as if it were my own. This is not about Míriel anymore, I don’t think. So, then. What is it that Curufinwë gives you that I cannot? That Findis did not? That Aracáno and Lalwendë could not?” (Heaven, heaven, heaven forbid that he could despise another so steadily, so jealously, so equally—so wholly—) Father was silent. Something inside of him twists, twists, twists. 
The King’s seed is cursed indeed, for even the King himself knows not what to say. It is beautiful, disgustingly beautiful, how even now he could possess that denial about him; a man undone, yet unwilling to admit his defeat. I had hoped, God above, I had hoped, that you might have some penance about you.
 All this is not her fault, Ñolofinwë swore. It is not her fault. She is just a child. A damned infant girl who clung to the first new thing she appreciated in her fattening youth. It is not Aseldë’s doing that she chose Fëanáro, even if her soul showed otherwise—just as it was not his doing that he was born second, always second, always trailing in the wake of greater loves and brighter flames. But that knowledge does not soften the ache, nor does it quell the envy that slithers through him. It does not hush the doubt that whispers treacherously in his mind: If I cannot hold your heart, sweet girl, then what can I hold at all? 
Perhaps we are both fools, Ammë, you and I. You, for thinking he could ever love you as he did her. And I, for thinking I could ever rise above what was already dictated to me even before my birth.
 For a moment, just a moment, in a modest excavation of unfiltered time; he thinks of Findis. Saintly and sincere, trim and thankful. He clenches the hug around Írimë, imagining within that transient course that it is not his little sister beside him. That it is the elder, still warm and firm and alive. That her body was not embalmed—too young to be in a bed of starflowers, and too wrong to even be gazed upon in the light of the Trees; that her songs yet flow in the halls of Mindon Eldaliéva—going ‘round and ‘round in every gold-white crack of marble. Was it not Ñolofinwë who deserved to care for his late sister’s child? The one closer in blood, the one who has actually stuck to her mother’s side? Why is it that Fëanáro once again gets that which he wants? Was it not he who suffered the most beneath his half-brother’s distance? Was it not he who would drift to the bedside of their sister in their early days, when still the eldest would ignore her and in her insecurity she forced her sobs to quiet? Was it not he who held her as she wept in her rooms as she was chosen by God? As she clawed at her own hair and bit through her pillowcase? As she prayed beneath the sharp lights of stained-glass windows? As she groaned and panted in her babe’s conception? As she withered from the strain of a gravid uterus? As she buckled from the chains of an unanswering faith? Was it not he who clutched her hand when she toppled in her child’s arrival? When she bled endlessly on the birthing bed? When she gifted to her girl her very name? 
This is it: this is the madness of a child of God. To love and be loved, to care and be cared for, to want and be wanted in turn, to dream and be dreamt of; it was ineluctable. I do not remember much before I came into the world. But I do know what I felt then. The first thing I recall of my life is the sound of your laughter—we played a game, and at every turn I would see you trying to catch a butterfly. And now, the last I shall have of you are your screams—loud, piercing, ringing in my ears.
 (Heaven, heaven, heaven forbid—) 
(Forbid what? Heaven forbids nothing. Heaven begets everything. Heaven is what made this cruelty in the first place.)
 In many ways, he supposes he is also jealous of Aseldë. Aseldë! His own niece! His sister’s sacrifice! Findis’ babe, her only one—taking with her the esteems and interests of the masses like it was nothing! Just like Fëanáro. Just like Fëanáro. Just as the man himself said so arrogantly. They do not even need to try. They need not care, they need not reach, they need not earn. What they demanded, the world gave freely. And what they touched, loved them back in return. It is maddening, maddening, maddening—to remember that she had clung onto his finger, once, that the first touch she truly knew in the chill outside Findis’ womb was his, and her first breaths had been counted by him. He does not even notice Írimë pulling her hand up to his cheek. Glassy-eyed and staring in the way one does when met with a calamity. She wipes at the hot streaks of tears that line the planes of his face, then after turns her palm towards her person, as if marvelling at the droplets there. It is not until she has removed herself from him and dragged him out of the common room that the world returns to him. They sit together, slumped, at the foot of a wall. Their parents continue their tirades, voices carrying down the corridors—Finwë and Indis do not even attempt to mask or muffle their shrillnesses. A laugh escapes her then. Broken and confused. He joins her, for a lack of anything else.  (High chief he was called, and so high-riser he shall be…and from those heights, he shall fall.)  “God is evil,” Írimë says, when their mirthless giggling dies down, “God is evil.” “Don’t say that,” he chides. The light of Laurelin glares down on them from an open balcony. His sister glances at the sky, uncaring of what she just let loose from her mouth. She even huffs out a breath, not unlike a hound, not unlike how their sire had just done so moments before. “Why not? Would it be any less true if I held my tongue?” He shook his head. “Say not so. ‘Tis wrong to call anything holy, evil. You wouldn’t say the same of Atar, would you?” “Atto isn’t holy—he’s a man.” She side-eyed him. “And I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about…about Him.” God, it all comes back to God. 
We all come back to God.
 It repeats in his head, that passage:

…lay to rest our hearts in the hands of Eru, the One, whom we name Ilúvatar, for with Him are our fates, beginnings and ends inconceivable; and only in faith shall aught be aright.

Only in faith, only in faith, only in faith— —bah! Damn it all! Mere faith was not enough to save Findis, was it? Faith was not enough to withhold Aseldë from Fëanáro, was it? Faith was not enough to reassure that bastard that his half-siblings did not seek to usurp him, was it? Faith was not enough for Míriel Þerindë, was it? What does it even take to appease God? 
Everything, or none He shall give at all, it seems.
 
(But what can Creation even offer, save for that which it can only make, that is already not His?)
 “What does—what does it take, Nolvo?” Írimë echoes his dark musing. Her tone is restrained; a woeful call moderated for the sake of a willow-boned family. “He’s a man. He’s not holy. Neither am I. Neither are you. Neither is Amya. Neither is that clod—” Ñolofinwë snorted. “Do you think any of us holy? Even Findis?” The resonance of their elder sister’s name was coarse. “What kind of—what kind of god does that? What kind of holiness does that? She was bright, Nolvo, so bright, and the babe just—it—it just snuffed her out!” “Shh, Enya, shh. Don’t. Don’t, Enya.” The curve of his hand makes its way to the ball of her shoulder. He squeezes, ignoring how the silver spangles embroidered into the fabric dug into his skin. “We don’t question the will of—” “Shut up!” She screeched, shoving him away, though he does not relinquish his grip; and the movement only makes the two of them grunt and bounce back against one another. “Don’t you dare say what Atto just told Amya. That’s what everyone keeps on saying—and for what? For what, Nolvo? The Music? Is that it? We don’t even know if it happened at all!” He frowned. “The Ainur—” “To Melkor’s hell with the Ainur!” Írimë bit back, making his eyes widen. The whack against her mouth is instinctive. 
My God—
 She gasps, cradling her chin—head snapping to the side as the impact settles. When again she rotates to him, the slate of her eyes flicker and flare. First, with shock. As if she could not believe he just slapped her. Then came an umbrage. A flash of aggravation. There is no time to think of the sting on his knuckles, then, for soon after that they are wrestling upon the castle floors—yowling and howling like strays on the streets. 
(Heaven forbid he harmed one of his own.)
 (Then again, it is not as if they have not done this dance before. It is a fun one—some kind of violence, indiscriminate and wild. Were their parents ever like this at Cuiviénen? Did those who left their sacred caves ever miss the old comfort of their primitive freedom? Oh, it was easier, so much easier, to forget about the world like this.) He caught her wrists in his hands, halting her next motion; firm but not cruel. His sister fails at clawing at his face, so, she kicks at him instead. Her heel jabs at his gut. He heaves. In response, he pulls at her hair—which in turn makes her attempt to rip the gold rings off his earlobe. Their stupid fight causes them to skid across the glossy ground—and Ñolofinwë has to hook down the hysterical bubbling in his chest ere he did something even more foolish. “Lalwendë—” “Findis did nothing but serve, Nolvo! She believed, she trusted—and where in the name of the Void did it lead her?!” “Don’t say that, Enya, please, for the love of the Valar—” “—my arse! It’s their fault that she’s stuck in there—” “—keep your mouth shut, you little brat, Lord Manwë is still inside the castle grounds—” “—would that Amya threw the vase at him, too! At least Ser Eönwë might agree with me!” “Please! He’d sooner throw you across the ponds for your heresy! Mayhap his lord might even thank him for it!” Írimë’s feigned patience snaps. She cried in outrage at her turn—and simultaneously rears back, before once more swinging fro and landing her knuckles onto his cheekbone. And again. And again. And again and again and again. It is not even the thump of that steel-ringed fist which elicits the tears to spring forth anew. No, it is the sudden blotting vision of himself in such a fight with their elder brother—the sound of his own deranged laughter, twisting with the noise of Fëanáro’s surly baying, as together they tumbled over the right to hold sweet little Aseldë. His niece. His niece. And again and again and again, Indis’ murmuring crawls into the crevice: You are loved. You are loved, my darling boy. But not first. Never first. That is not the love which is ours to claim. Never mine, and never yours.  (Heaven forbid that he could despise another so steadily, so jealously, so equally, so ardently—and yet still crave the approval, the peace, the acknowledgement.)  
Look at you, Ñolofinwë Aracáno. Always trying to hold your world together, as if it would not collapse the moment you take your eyes off of it. Do you really think clinging to this—this lie—makes you stronger?
 The ache twists again. His thoughts turn to his mother: her quiet resolve, her endless patience. The shaming she persevered through. This utter farce. He had always admired her, mayhap in quieter ways than he did that of his father, but a respect nonetheless; the filial piety of stretched purity, almost poetic. Perhaps Írimë had the right of it. That God is evil, that this design was of His make, that their faultiness is of His doing—and now he wonders: was it strength that kept him going, or was it surrender? Was this resignation even his to begin with? How vividly he recalled Findis, again and again, and again!  (“I’m afraid, Nolvo.” Her cough worsens into a hacking bark. Acid distorts her words, spat out into the porcelain pot, the morning sickness copper-coloured and hot. “I’m so very afraid.”
He has little reassurances to offer her other than aught which he has sung and hummed to her in countless days past. Findis was thinner and taller, now, yet more often she slumped, plainly dressed in the twinkles of glims and glows; honeys and berries and sparrows all, stuck in a grove that would not let her leave.
“It’s okay, Ninya,” Ñolofinwë always whispers, “it’ll be okay.”) “The two of you have always been so high up in the clouds,” Írimë rounds on him, “and look where that got you!” “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t feel it every single day?” “Well, you should’ve realised it earlier! And now what? She’s gone. She’s gone! What are we to do now?” The child returns. The stumbling, bumbling, mumbling foal falters. She ceases in her bid to pummel him, and instead lays limp against his chest; calming, but not calmed. Not yet. From him a tender caress against her hair forces a quivering keen past her lips. “She’s gone. She believed so much, and she’s just gone. Do you think Queen Míriel was just like her? Did she know Fëanáro was going to kill her, too? Did she know God was going to let it happen? Did Findis ever know that the life she held would end up eating her alive?” “…stop, Enya. Just stop.” “Say it, Ñolofinwë! Say that it’s His fault! Say that He’s to blame for everything!” “I won’t. Speak not of such things,” he croaked, lips chapped, “for they are untrue.” “They are true!” She cries, and her tears fall in line with his. “And you know it. You know it!” Ñolofinwë did not grace that with a reply. He could not.  (Heaven forbid that he could despise another so steadily, so jealously, so equally, so ardently—and God forbid that it might just be Him.)

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

There is a story told among the Ñoldor:

‘Ere long: your hands will bleed, the skin will thicken, then it will burn in the cold; and finally you will learn to carve through your own hunger. This is what first made us Tatyar: our hands. Imin thought to sing to the stars to numb the pain of living; Enel thought to wander where his feet would yet find peace. But what use is an existence with no hurt? What use is a life of constant escape? Tata asked this of himself, and he was unhappy. So he cut off a branch from a tree, smoothed its ends, and threw a great dart into the air; and so came our spears, and our knives, and our fire; and so our hands conquered nature, and made it our own!’
 
Often he longed to fête those feats, wide-gazed by firelight and nightglows; Finwë, son of Finruþ, son of Fintaul, son of Finca, daughter of Pitya, heirs of Tata; hunter, husband, father, king.
  How he so wished to live up to their names—but all his hands have brought about is ruin.    (Sometimes, he wonders if he was cursed to live life as it goes for him—or if, in truth, he was the curse upon it.)  The day the Powers arrive is as normal as any other could get. The scene opens with his family: the royal Ñoldorin procession, out in lavish carriages of all colours for a dreamy performance, speckled in the drops of gold and silver and starlight. Any lingering sadness amongst the sea of people is swallowed up. Finwë sits at the head cart, beside Indis, whom to her bosom she cradles their youngest, born barely three months ago. Behind them follows the rest of their brood: first comes Fëanáro, the Crown Prince in all his glory, and in his own strong arms is Aseldë, the newest fascination of their lot; then there was Ñolofinwë, and with him Írimë, the pair waving to the crowd as they are showered in flowers. Neither Finwë nor Indis express their joy as freely as the others do, although they smile and dip their heads at the well-wishes that greet them. He hears none of Tirion’s praises. He is deaf to it now—he knew it too well, from his foremost years in deep waters and dimmer enclaves and damned diggings. Often Finwë the Hunter enjoyed such pleasures then—Finwë, son of Finruþ, son of Fintaul, son of Finca, daughter of Pitya; that young, bold, and nimble nimrod; that reckless runner who whittled down and whistled with his spears; that grabbing boy, that wild thing, that pawing whelp; that swift lover who delighted in chases across the groves. But Finwë the Hunter has not been such in a long, long time. Not since Aldaron rode to their clearing, not since their journey northwards and west, not since he stepped foot on holy soil and cried out in the wake of Light beyond light. And since then Finwë the King had learnt to temper himself, and so aught he could offer now are moderated thanks. Finwë the Husband arrived after, and then Finwë the Father; and when did he have the time for flattery then? He does not hold his wife’s hand as they ride. He does not dare. What he does, however, is lay a palm against the flat of her back; a show of unity, if for nothing else. Miraculously, she allows the gesture. Then, Arafinwë sneezes, and Indis kisses their son’s brow. This tradition of their little line began with the birth of Findis—with the reassurance that both his wife and child would live. It was a promise he could keep, the worthy life, one borne with gleaming days and happier whiles. Oh, how their daughter was so alive then! How things were simpler, how troubles looked further away, and how ignorant he had been!  (Though he could not imagine a world where he is not with Indis, or where they have not conceived children together, or where they never even met at all, he questions himself: would their daughter still be fine now, had he not been her father? In another life, might Findis find some measure of peace?)  His attention drifts to the steady rhythm of the carriage wheels. The cheers swell with every turn. It is different this time, so terribly different; so stark a deviation from the first instance of their celebration that it takes much within him not to stumble out of the steps when they greet their newest guests. A hush falls over the assembled as he strides down with his wife. When there he stood before the gates of Tirion, and his family mimicked him, and he waited for their visitors to enter, he took a breath to himself. They arranged themselves before the widened path, quiet as a thrum approached. Indis is reverent, ringed in manners and heavenly fear. Arafinwë chuffed out a coo. It is the only sound that rings in the clearing beside Aseldë’s wordless humming behind them. Fëanáro clutches her to his chest as his stepmother did to his brother, keeping the girl secure. Beside Finwë his last children take their places; Ñolofinwë and Írimë pair together, hand in hand, tight-faced and pale-fingered. 
(There is a space to the left where there must be another: a gaping white maw in place of nothingness. Lined with rays of light and the traces of laughter, with five-petalled flowers littered upon the green ground.)
  (Findis, his mind whispers, nimble bride.Findis, he tells himself; quick to smile, quick to go, quick to bind, and quick to leave. Daughter, again the ache sizzles and sears, my first one.)  Then there stood the Valar. And all knelt. At the forefront, the Doomsman dipped his head, unhooded and serene. He is of a smaller stature when faced with his kin. Slight, slender, and statuesque. Silent, stern. Foreboding. The Ainu came wanly, and noises ceased. The babes hold still. Inside Finwë poises himself—baring his neck before a greater hound, confronting what once he both chased and fled: Death. And so Finwë the King disappears but for a moment, for if it was him who gazed upon the spirit now, then Finwë the Father and Finwë the Husband would come thereafter, and so great might his rage be that he would succumb to it. The gesture of his knee upon the earth is no more symbolic than it is convenient. No more is it the monarch who shows his veneration, no—it is again the feral boy from the forests of the East, returned to make peace with a familiar beast. “Rise, Finwë of the Ñoldor, for we come not as lords nor masters to thee.” Death intones. Not empty, but not too roused either. A perfect flat, just as he remembered it to be. “We come as witnesses to the holy fruit.” “Holy fruit,” Finwë the Hunter repeats softly. But he rises, and so do his family, and so do his people.  Holy fruit, he echoes again to himself. 
To be plucked and skinned. To be halved and shared. To be squeezed and devoured. To be churned and erased. To be wasted and forgotten.
 
(Findis, Findis, Findis—)
  (Holy fruit, so Námo now calls a child, erecting beyond the Halls of Mandos whence he dwelt; as behind him heavier and heavier powers tailed. They form a border, the Valar, the gods of a God far removed to the Eldar; and it is as if his white city is no more a capital than it is a cage. Shut in by the very visitors whom he welcomes, trapped between land and water. Holy fruit his daughter had been, hand-picked by God Himself; holy fruit her daughter shall now be, awash in Treelight and arcane hands.)  “The children,” said Námo, “bring them forth.” Indis stiffened beside him, but did not refuse the call. Neither does Fëanáro. They walk together—forward, forward, forward; slowly, quietly, gently, the first time ever Finwë has seen his wife and son willingly together. Both rigid, jaws clenched, but there is no fear in their eyes. None in the cool mist, none in the blazing grey. Only suspicion, only defiance. They go forth, as was commanded, and stop a pace shy from the formation the Valar have made. Aseldë peered up at the newcomers with undisguised curiosity, even leaning towards them to gain a better look; the utter ignorance of a child brought ahead. Arafinwë traces his niece’s motion with his gaze as he sucked on a fist. And one by one, each Great Power strides, taken by the presences before them. “Hail, keepers of this Blessed Land! Gaze upon my family—to the newest gifts of our lot; to my granddaughter Aseldë, who was given to us by the Lord, and my son Arafinwë, who was born in the perfect hours of the Trees’ Mingling!” Finwë declared. To his own surprise, the words are unhindered on his lips. Do they see what he does? The beauty his brood boasts? The strength of his blood? Or are they only confirming his Doom? Holding true to the divergent nature of that worthy life he now deems wretched? And— —Finwë gasps. Indis and Fëanáro startle. Arafinwë waved his pudgy hand, giggling. And Aseldë— —Aseldë is smiling. As one, the Valar kneel. “Hail, children of the Father!” Námo raises his hands in praise, and the others bow their heads in deference. In worship, just as to the stars of the Queen the First Elves cried and beheld—to the lamps in the velvet sky which Imin, Tata, and Enel directed all their being; so, too, do the Powers now genuflect to two children, fingers outstretched as though to catch even a sliver of glory. A hum of song permeates the space; something low, but indisputable. “Hail, ye chosen of Ilúvatar!” Chosen. 
Chosen.
  No, Finwë thinks, heart in his throat, not again!  But all else dies away, and there is no rhyme nor reason to it, and he cannot stop reality from happening before him. The gods prostrated themselves and did homage. Aseldë is unafraid, as she must be. As was natural, she called to them; in the manner of kin unto kin, or of ruler unto the ruled, or of a babe unto its elders—he could not say. But there she saw to these monsters, laughing all the way, uncaring in the face of creatures who could kill them with nary even the lift of a finger. Arafinwë joins her because he can; because he knows naught else save for the light which has graced his eyes; because he, too, heeds none of what silly people and their sillier idols proclaim. There they go: innocence let loose into the void. The ringing of lamb-like sweetness over greener hills. Finwë the Hunter is appalled. Inside him the hound whines—back arched, hackles raised, tail tucked between its legs, gums visible as its lips pull back.  (Sometimes, he wonders if he was cursed to live life as it goes for him—or if, in truth, he was the curse upon it; for no wolf would raise its own to be weak, nor willing, nor so very weary—as before them a grander pack takes its due. He must be the common denominator here, then, the genealogical mistake.)  (Once, he was the lost fool: necessary, they said of Míriel’s stay in Mandos. Twice, he was the reckless sap: willed, they decreed Findis’ turn. Thrice, he might now be the idiot with a crown: blest, they dare bestow upon two babes’ brows.)  The wolf shifts. Restless, rearing. Riled.  The day the Powers arrive is as normal as any other could get. Until it was not. Findis is dead, and his family is still mourning; and Arafinwë is cooing, while Aseldë is smiling, smiling, smiling.  (And again, the Hunter remembers to flee.)   Mayhap the strangest part is not the presence of the Valar. It is not as if they are unaware of or unused to such advents. The Ainur come and go as they pleased, at least depending on the whim and season; and there is no land within all of Aman that has not been touched by its makers and left alone. No, rather, it is their grovelling—insomuch as Finwë might call it such—that makes the entire charade unusual, and not least of all bizarre. Songs and festivals? Rehearsed. Prayers and recitals? Anticipated. Dances and parades? Perfected. There might yet be much that their shepherds need to teach still, wisdoms and auguries waiting to be produced, but there is at least some measure of routine they learnt! That is where the spirits of God excel most: preserving culture, living as though inside some hue-smeared bubble, giving glimpses of what life might have been like in a better world. Why then, are they now so eager to throw themselves at the feet of a babe? Finwë was startled out of his musing when a tug came at his pant leg. And there she was: stumbling by his feet, grinning; all giddy gums and peeking teeth and slurring tongue. It is impossible not to return her dopey expression. It must have been chance that she sneaked into the private hall, for Eönwë would not let slip from his attention such an important person—much less the Godsgift whom all were trampling over one another to meet. While he bemoaned this, she pulled at his robes, emitting a noise more akin to that of an animal than an elf. Then, “Aru! Aru! Up! Up!” With an indulgent slant of his lips, he bent over, settling the squealing girl on his lap. 
(The Hunter keeps its young close, the Husband tightens his grip on a memory, and the Father shakes in fear.)
 “You are supposed to be with Arafinwë, little one—Nolvo and Enya would be most cross with your absence. Have you run from your aunt and uncle again?” He asked, amused. The child shook her head, and he chuckled. “No? Then how have you come here, hm?” “Cur-tains! Hide!” “And whyever so?” “Eat, eat! Mm!” Finwë buried his face into her white hair, smothering the urge to lose his composure and wheeze at her childish dearness. Into several seconds of the girl’s squirming did he notice Ingwë shooting him a look of mild jealousy, mayhap at the sight of the elfling favouring a relative in such blatant regard, though he paid it no heed. When she contented herself to his warmth, Indis inclined herself from his left, cooing. “Ai! So the star of the hour has arrived!” “Star, star,” Aseldë repeated, “me?” “Yes, you!” His wife nodded. She takes a dessert from her plate, a cranberry tart, red and rich and sour-sweet. Their granddaughter receives the treat with pleading eyes, clapping, to which Indis blithely responds. “Who else shines so brightly to draw the eyes of even the Valar?” Inwardly, he flinched. It is an audacious statement—sheer cheek and gall, he would even name it—especially in the face of the Great Powers themselves, all the Fourteen, whom before them sit in careful pairs down the table; cosmic essence given form, squeezed within bodies made to appease. At the far end are Ingwë and Ilwen, to their left their son Ingwion and to their right their daughter Iranel, elder to Indis; each one paling in minute as silence followed her statement. Aseldë nibbled on her food after a hum of wordless thanks, taking pains so as not to spill any crumbs, much more successful at cleanliness than he has seen any of his children eat at this age. 
(The Hunter snorts, the Husband melts, the Father revels—and the King wilts, bemoaning what becomes of his life.)
 It is then the Elder King himself who answers Indis’ comment. To Finwë’s right, with languid grace, Manwë gestured about in acknowledgement, adding to the time another surprise as a smile graced his lips. Blue eyes, purest of water and sky, alight as they drifted to the form of Aseldë, who now reclines against him in uncaring ease. “Bright indeed! For what light else might crown so fair a brow as thine, save that of Eru’s grace? Joy thou bringest, and to thee we are bound in gratitude. Quoth the Father: When noon is nigh shall thy gift arrive! And a gift thou art, Aseldë; fairest, cherished, and most beloved! For thou wert not chosen but born, wiser to His thoughts than even I; perfect art thou, where none else may be, the salvation we of this marred world have toiled long to seek. Lo, Child of God, rejoice!” “Gift!” The said girl echoes the word her elder said in infant fascination. “Gift!” “Yea, gift,” Manwë breathes, flushed and tearful, uncharacteristic of one incarnate, “a gift, Aseldë.” A long lick of interest falls over the Eldar present. Ingwë, brazen as he was to reside with these eldritch beings, these wonders made flesh, must be most familiar with these displays. Even Indis should have some knowledge of it. But to Finwë’s amazement, his wife merely purses her lips—a secondary tightening of those rosebud lines, barely there—as though disapproving of this image. Through their bond he can sense it, the restlessness he has grown all too accustomed to in the wake of their daughter’s death.  It should be Findis here to hold her babe, just as once Míriel swore to hold Fëanáro with me, he thinks morosely, looking down at his grandchild as back-and-forth she engaged in silly, stilted, conversation. I have no rights to this child, no more than death had the right to claim my wife and daughter so. It should be you, my girl—descendant of kings, most reverent to the Holy, chosen for your love and purity.   I tire of your modesty, his wife nudged him through their connection, irate, cease the blabbering, before my hand slips and I steal her to my rooms.  But what else can he do? When already all is set in stone? 
You live, you old fool.
 She helps their girl sip on some water.  You live and you learn, as always we have done.  “Gift, gift, gift,” Aseldë shifted in his lap. Hereat Finwë grunted and, setting aside his own food, gave the girl another flower-shaped tart, after which she again demanded with a fist, “Gift! Gift! Gift!” “Yes, love, you are a gift,” he placated, “one from God.” It is odd on his tongue, to say of her thus—as the holy fruit which all the Valar have come on a march to behold. And oh, do they behold her! Not for the first time Finwë likens them to his own unsullied person, when once upon a time he was only a boy and not even anything, just a boy, not a hunter or a king or a husband or a father—only a son, as free as one in the wild could be; a cub hopping and hobbling about its parent as around them the world grew bigger and bigger. The Holy Ones make a show of it, of behaviours comparable to children, each one avid and anxious to be near a new intrigue. Ere the private dinner and after the parade they lingered by the nursery—angering Enya, who stomped off when Lord Eönwë attempted to herd her to her brothers in the parlour. Ilwen was most scandalised by her granddaughter’s conduct, and sought to correct the poor girl with soft rebukes in their wake. Then so came Manwë, greeting his kin, from whom Varda emerged with open arms, and laid upon his tanned brow a chaste kiss. And in such a motion she then was of the first to address Aseldë, with poised precision as she lowered herself to the tawny lionskin rug, gentle and genial. 
(Aseldë shied from her then, toddling to and calling the attention of Arafinwë who remained in his crib. The Lady of the Stars let out a laugh as the girl hid behind her uncle’s cot, wherein the boy had rolled onto his side and gurgled at the sight of the resplendent being; evening-clad in face and dress, reflecting in those dark eyes a shine of the Allfather’s goodness and grace.
“O sweet babe, with hands as warm as spring,” she murmured then, as behind her the rest came to be.)  “Risible fools!” Varda now interjects, chiding. Around her the atmosphere crepitated with nimble darts of sound. Twinkling and crackling both, star fire and lightning mingled in a small space. Then her hand went up to her husband’s arm, lacquered nails of silver trailing upon blue robes, and the limb to which she clung stiffened in shame. “Reserve thy applauds after supper, or better yet have them not at all, for there shall come days for such weighty words. Let the girl be, and have her play. Speak naught of gifts or blessings. Burden her not with treasures unasked, nor with titles she cannot yet comprehend. Let her be, beloved, let her be.” For that momentary rage, for that sensible regard, Indis looked to be grateful—though truly, so, too, was Finwë. 
(And again the wolf is appeased.)
 “As thou willest, my queen,” Manwë replies, sighing with the breath of a mountain. The chastisement affects him—as it does Lord Ulmo, broad-shouldered and sad-eyed, whom across the Lord of the Skies gazes at Aseldë with fondness. Finwë is unsurprised. If what he knew is to be true, then they are dearest to Ilúvatar above, who follow His commands to the fullest degree. 
(It may have been only his imagination acting up, but that was all. The sort of giddiness in which the rest of the Valar acted in could not be faked. They were all so thirsty, he thought, for some word from the Father to reach them. Some answer to show that they were not abandoned. After Varda strode in Ulmo, though he set himself apart from the rest, instead preferring to observe in silence as he sat by the window. He is unobtrusive, just as steady as a boulder in the sea. Unnoticed, but unmistakably there.)
 Lady Nessa, in protest, rejected her fellow Valië’s reproach. From the far end her voice carried, the movements of earth and air catching in her throat, less refined in chord than that of the Queen’s but closer to what he remembered of old throat-singers from hours at Cuiviénen. “But what is this refrain? Is not the babe as she is made? Why deny her the right? The titles and glories which are hers? If such be the gifts our Father hath bestowed, and she unto us, then wherefore must we withhold?” “For this cause: she is but a babe.” Lord Oromë nudges his sister, closest to the Eldar in their exploits and explorations. “Wouldst thou demand so much from a calf scarce weaned from its mother’s teat?” His wife, Lady Vána, waved about a delicate hand. The Ever-young seemed caught mid-burst in golden Treelight, radiant with the blush of a bloom. Her argument is as melodic as it is sound. “But I must agree with Nessa. Babe the girl may be, yet she should not be blind to her own doom. Already the masses sing of her mother’s sacrifice! And of her likeness to Prince Fëanáro! If thou wilt not heed our Father’s omen, then take to heart the words and wishes of the throng. They will not so lightly forget—rather would they seek what we dare not give them: answers. Oft we reached to the sky for a sign, and here we have it! Let her be that, I say!” “Again I contend: she is a babe. Half-God she may be, but half-Elf she remains. In the middle she lingers. Shall we so soon forget her dual nature?” “Bah,” it is then Lord Tulcas, ruddy and already ten cups too gone, who rumbles, “never have I seen thee so tender, Huntsman!” For his part, the prowler of the forests looked affronted. “Dost thou thinkest ‘twas indiscretion that led me to walk among the Eldar?” “I should suppose so, for never art thou so sweet and polite!” Distracted, Vána threw her head back in a musical cackle. “A wench thou art, husband! Would that thou might show my Maiar and I that same doddering! Naughty, say I! Naughty!” “Why, I—” “Peace, my friends,” said Manwë, nipping the squabble at its stem—though he could see the Elder King’s lips twitching in humour. “Perchance we err in choosing for the child. We shall begin somewhere, but that decision is not ours to make.” And then he glowed in his gladness, as though roused from a pretty dream, rolling with the menace of one all too happy to be in a place; not unlike Aseldë had done at the prostration at the city gates, not unlike how she had done when downwards he and his herald came to her cot, not unlike how she had done so ceaselessly in these trying months. Manwë Súlimo smiles, kind and cold both: the riddle between spring and winter rains. Almost sweet, almost boyish, almost innocent. “What sayest thou, little sister?” 
Little sister.
 
(The Hunter recoils, the Husband raises a brow, the Father scoffs.)
  (And the King thinks: yes, yes, yes, he is cursed. Now he must halve his greed and share his treasure with one who already possesses far too much to his name. Now he must strain his arm, catching cloth in thorns along a sacred tree. Now he must stare ever up and onwards, far to where he knows he cannot reach, at where that sweet, holy fruit awaits.)  Aseldë, who was not at all paying attention to the surrounding hubbub, merely gave the Vala an unimpressed pout, and continued eating as is her due. And again Finwë stifles his chortling. She has no want nor need for the designs of any, it would appear. And why would she? What use does a mere toddler have for the agitations of bigger and grander fools?  (But again it rings in his ears: little sister. Kin to the endless, to the ineffable, to the unknown.)  
(After Ulmo there were those rash four—Nessa with her restless feet, Vána with her swaying hips, Oromë with his steady hands, and Tulcas with his loud tongue. They crowded around the cradle, two on each side, not unlike a bevy; ringing in their flapping fancies as with a squawk his little girl had run around the nursery, avoiding them with a skill even the Powers did not expect.)
 “Gift, me, gift, mmm-mm,” his granddaughter said again, in lieu of anything, before waving her cranberry tart. Crumbs tumbled down his lap. One spot splatters against Manwë’s cheek. Finwë sighed. Beside him, Indis covered her mouth to hide her amusement. Then she motioned for a servant to bring another plate—and they did, to his own consternation, for the girl in his arms would not be sleeping anytime soon after this—and presently wiped at the child’s chin with a napkin. Then she considered and said to all, “Mayhap we might save this talk for later, my lords and ladies? Lady Varda has the right of it. This is an hour of feasting—so let us feast while food and drink are aplenty. Let worry be merry for now.” The Queen of the Stars hummed, winking at his wife. “Wise words.” But the Elder King, however much he conceded to his spouse, did not seem satisfied. 
(The mountains echo, the wind whistles, and so with them the wolf howls.)
 
(And the Hunter prepares his spear.)
  When it grew late and soon the servants withdrew, and his family debated on whether to stay or leave to their rooms, he commanded them to go and sleep. There would be more events yet to come, and he will not have any of his children act in their vexations should they lack rest on the morrow. So once more Finwë accompanied his grandbabe. Since Indis decided to reunite with her family, and them with her young, he let himself go alone. Unguarded, though none would begrudge him if he called on a watcher. Lady Nienna awaited them by the entrance of a great balcony. By the arch frame she stood, near one in the slight light of the night; the grey hood unbound, jet spilled across her shoulders. As Finwë arrived to that ledge by the east of the White Tower, Aseldë thought to wriggle in his hold, demanding to be let down. He does. And there she went, in a flurry of white and red, satin skirts bouncing as her socks pitter-pattered on the stone floor. “Ni! Ni!” Aseldë had curious names for them, the Valar. Some butchered or sliced in half, and some of a make he knew not at all. Ni for Nienna, as is obvious; Noz for Námo who followed the whims of her fingers; Los for Irmo who shone in the allure of her grail; Boz for Ulmo who susurrated even in her presence; Aya for Vairë who merely watched; Ida for Estë who sang most harmoniously with her; Gani for Vána who littered her paths with petals; Nena for Nessa who tittered and twirled her around; Aro for Oromë who threw her in the air; Tulu for Tulcas who let her swing on his arm; Banaz for Yavanna who fed her until she gagged; Hal for Aulë who beaded her hair; Belel for Varda who lit her way; and Ennu for Manwë who named her Anna. There was one more, Finwë noticed, which she had uttered strangely, in an alliteration that only Manwë understood. 
(But speak the name she did, and as it passed through her innocent mouth, suddenly, he shivered. The Hunter is familiar with it, the warning old and clear as it ever was; and so is the wolf, too familiar with blood and bile in the air. Those syllables, muttered in the dark. Great, mighty, and gone. The shadow on the distant horizon. Mountains in a newer land. Rumblings beneath snow and black earth. A fallen beauty, a discordant song.)
 And whatever it was, the Elder King took to it with dignity, with a mild simmer of grief fenced into control. “Ni!” Once more Aseldë called, limbs outstretched. She tottered towards the Valië, tripping on the hem of the robe. “Ni!” “It seems my granddaughter knows no rest tonight,” Finwë mused, betraying the weariness of one who received too little rest himself. “In the way all children do. A natural thing it is—no fault of thine, nor hers. ‘Tis of no matter. Even so did we of the Ainur, in our infant hours, ere the days of today were yet shaped, know the lust for quests and creations beyond our Father’s Halls. Unrest is but a consequence of development; she is bound to tire herself. This I know full well, for we, too, were wearied by our own wants and labours.” The Lady of Pity and Mourning knelt on the ground, opening her own embrace to her kin. Aseldë fell into the pearled sleeve ring with a happy hum. “Tell me, Finwë King: thy wife—how doth she fare?” The question catches him off-guard. “Well enough, my lady. Is there reason for this inquiry?” “‘Tis but a womanly musing. Wouldst thou not keep her company on this eve?” “She is with her family, my lady.” He replied stiffly. “Ingwë and Ilwen have seen neither hide nor hair of their daughter in a year. I would be most sorry to intrude upon a moment only theirs to keep.” “And again here thou art,” behind him the forms of Vána and Vairë and Estë emerged, though ‘twas the first who spoke. “Should not the king of the Ñoldor be in his halls, tending to kin?” “I am where I choose to be, my lady,” said Finwë, “and is not Aseldë of my blood?” The Valar are not so callous to deny him this, are they? 
(The wolf growls, readying its claws.)
 Aseldë has taken to playing with the sapphire beads in Nienna’s hair. She pays them no mind. He watches this in the brooding wax of Tyelperion, at the bend of the balcony, as meanwhile the Weaver is at peace: draped with colours innominate, riveted by the image of a babe ensconced in her games. Beside her the Ever-young lounges on a divan, plucking at grapes served from a bowl. One is content to observe, and the other is of a position to make a grab. He forces a soft breath through his mouth. Something calm, something neutral. They do not mean any harm, he reminds himself; though by what weight the prompting holds is lost to him. “A curious choice, I should deem, that thou dost hoard the child in the manner of beasts with their food.” Vána lilts, though her statement is of no matter worth singing. After a swallow of a grape berry, she says, “Selfish, I name thee.” “In the way of packs guarding their young,” Nienna adds affably. “A good father thou art, Finwë son of Finruþ. Heed not my sister’s words. None among us have so quickly forgot the Princess Findis—may she find healing in my brothers’ halls—yet thou must see the spirit with which the Ainur gather, come to behold thy granddaughter.” “Only begotten child of the Father,” Vairë murmurs absently, as though reciting a quote from a tome. She who is witness to Time drifts to where Aseldë has gone to tumble and roll on spread rugs and pillows. She extends a slender hand, forever stained with unnumbered dyes and strained from the handling of tight strings, and allows the toddler to swing from her arm. He does not miss the muttered prayers—increasing in their vividness the more she idled with his daughter’s daughter. “Taking away the sins of the world. Alone with the Most High. With the Fire and the glory of the Lord.” “She was a good child, thy babe—Findis.” Vána directs this to Finwë, ignoring the Weaver’s bilge. “Of those who roamed my husband’s glades, she was most…delicate. ‘Twas a shame, her fading.” Delicate. 
Delicate.
 He disagrees. She might be half-Vanya, but delicate? Bah! Too good for aught, he would tell of Findis. Devoted like no other. Pure and perfect where rivals fail. And most of all: kind, so kind, in want of service, and in giving the fire which her own child demanded from her. His daughter was not delicate, she was not a fool, nor was she ever weak—for she alone bore such great life in her womb, and she gave everything to bring that Greatness into the world! With a flick of fair fingers, a cascade of golden petals—imagined, or conjured, he cares not—drifted to the floor. Vána’s tone is as light as ever. “She hath my pity, though pity is but a pale gift.” Finally Estë speaks. “Pity warmeth not the hearts of those left behind.” “Nay,” the other agreed with a laugh, as though the matter were a jest, “but with Míriel in Mandos she shall find that warmth.” “Peace, sister. Thy words give the man no comfort.” “And comfort I offer not, ‘tis truth! He hath no need of thy hollow platitudes!” The Healer sat veiled beside him. Moving with the ease of still water, she blanketed him in sweeter drops of twilight—and though he found himself succumbing to the spell, his presence of mind does not leave him. By the edge of his vision he spies her pale, milkglass face soften in what he construes as worry. Her grey gown ripples as she reclined in the chair. “Thou mayest find it strange, thy Valar aflutter in some unspoken bustle,” said she, sharing secrets in the manner of one fey, “yet I shall spare for thee the mercy of a whisper to the Eldar untold: even we, the Powers of the World, feel loneliness. Nay, noble king, cast not such a fearful gaze upon me. What terror is this? If thy kindred fallen endure the pain of a separate spirit, and thine own peoples the sundering in life and death, then know this: so, too, do we know the pain of a Creator removed to us. Thou didst mourn for young Fëanáro. We, in turn, mourned for our infant selves.” “But are not the Ainur born of Thought? Whole, as is the nature of divinity? Perfect? As is dedicated by your conception?” Finwë dares to counter. Yet his courage falters—doubtlessly she perceived his hesitant hands, his rigid wrists, his sleety skin; the make of a man afraid. “Is it not so that you should want for nothing? When already you had everything?” “And yet we wanted more! Many things we had, and ‘twas not enough.” Estë giggled, not unkind. Nienna joins her, flitting by their feet in a lustrous flicker onto the marble floor. “Quoth my sister: we were young, we were wild, we were free. And even now, we are little changed: to an Elda we seem as gods, yet to the One we remain mere children. Tell me: doth fair Cuiviénen wrangle thy prideful heart still?” Does it? Does he miss it? 
(Does a hound yearn for danger, as is demanded by its survival, or does it seek serenity, as is the haunt of its existence? What a terrible, awful choice.)
  (“Surely you recall how, even on the path to Aman, we suffered still,” Indis rages, tears glinting upon her gaunt cheek, “and now you consort with those who have ignored and let loose the very one we sought to escape!”)  “No,” Finwë replied, “I do not miss it.” “Verily?” “I do not miss it,” he repeats, looking at Aseldë, “for those long nights were more painful than not, and though I yearn to have in my arms those sundered from me—” 
My mother, my father, my brothers and sisters; my wife, my daughter—
 “—I know for certain that within this Blessed Land we shall again meet. Somehow, in some way, to some degree, though in no set terms; I know, in my heart of hearts, I shall find my peace.” 
(The Hunter hums at a starlit valley; the Husband reminisces beneath the radiance of a mallorn tree; and the Father lies on his back, watching the sky.)
 His nails dug into his palms. “Once, mayhap, I had been content to protect it. To keep what we had safe inside a fragile sanctuary. But ‘twas a fact of life: all good things come to an end. The night wears on. The animals die. Life begins anew. So, we survived. What did we know of Mandos and its waiting lines? Of bodies reshaped and spirits remade? Nay: long we lived, yet we lived as though we were then to disappear forever—for the earth shall remember us, but in time, it will also forget. But no more do I despair for those dim groves and cruel mountains, not when I was shown truth. I do not miss Cuiviénen, not in the way of mine ancestors, for I would not have been so eager to leave.” “Then upon this thought we part ways.” Estë inclines her head, conceding. “For long we laboured to delight our Father, and longer still hath He been silent. So there is our sorrow: even the holy may yearn, and even the mighty may weep. Cuiviénen thou dost disfavour, yet were I to behold Arda with thine eyes, my grief shall be most plain to see. For to us: Ilúvatar is no mere person—He is home. And though our home be endless, beyond even the Circles of the World, He is yet gone to us. An eternity we basked in to create this earthly nest, and yet and an eternity more shall we await, ere true home is restored unto us. Aseldë is proof that our Father doth love us still. Aseldë is the very word He speaketh; the make of a bond reaffirmed. Our little bridge.” Vána extends an arm, stretched on the billet, almost lazy as she sent forth a burst of pollen and bract. Aseldë hopped from place to place, delighting in the act. It is not difficult to imagine another scene then: of the parade earlier this morning, where in Fëanáro’s arms the girl had collected fistfuls of a palette, flushed in shyness and praise as any child of a king is wont to do. Inwardly Finwë detested it. It only reinforced what he was so ashamed to admit; that, soon enough, his daughter’s daughter shall be made a lamb, just like her mother, offered to the waiting palms of children listening to a silent father. And again that thrice-damned holy fruit whom he was never to have for himself. The whole point is that the link between heaven and earth has been severed with the roaming of one dark. Arda Marred, as all Ainur refer to this transient land, is nowadays more shadow than shrine, therefore destroying any hope of amelioration for those who yet lay beyond the Pelóri. But Aseldë—this lovely little girl, abound in endless laughter and gentle light—was to be its saviour. Its saviour. A sacrifice for some faraway future. Child saviour, so Findis named her, as was enunciated to his dancing daughter—but listen to how absurd it is! “Pity again, for I miss our old roost of Almaren most greatly.” Vána cuts his thoughts short, sniffing with imperious disdain. Dare he think it: petulant. “The Glade. Lampdrop. Greengrove. The Pool of Daring.” “And yet Almaren is no more,” says Nienna, “we have made our peace with that.” “I have not.” The other Valiër sigh as one. “…hallowed be thy name…will be done…give us this day…” Vairë continues her mumblage, ignorant of the surrounding conversations; too caught within a crazed captivation for him to comprehend, reciting what sounded like random prayers under a strain that he worried about her shortness of breath. No one else seemed to pay attention to her, though. “Forgive us…deliver us…” “Ni, Aya, Ida, Gani,” Aseldë called, throwing the glittering petals into the air, “ta-dah!” “Good girl,” Vána said with approval, watching Aseldë play with her little show, her heartache momentarily forgotten. “Now, what say thee to a game, sweetling?” Finwë was distressed.  
(When the initial shock receded, her doom was quick to take. Mere days after the fact, already she displayed the signs of the early weeks—and thus her joys and fears spent themselves: one, for that she was ecstatic at the chance to prove herself, and two, for that she knew not what she invoked.
“Ammë, Atto—I don’t feel so well. Was…was it ever like this? When you had me?”“Soreness, and some stretching,” Indis leaned down to inspect their daughter, “the sickness comes and goes as well.”“I feel more than sick,” Findis groaned, “I could belch out an entire feast that Haru Ingwë’s cooks prepare!”)   Sickness—that was the word. A plague. The madness of one shared with many. That is what began this farce. He does not think there is a point in calling it as anything else than what it is. To put it briefly: it is the staggering pleasures which the Valar and their retainers possess that unnerves him. The spiritual need to be satisfied. Let it not be said that the Ñoldor are irreligious—but let it also not be thought that they would so quickly submit to these foreign people. And the Ainur are just that: foreign. Queer idols whom they chose to follow if only for the promise of safety. But among the Eldar it remained still, the infirmity of faith, the insanity of devoted fools! Once, he might have believed in their cause—but only just. For so above all else: to his own Finwë the Hunter shall ever be alert, Finwë the Husband shall never forget, Finwë the Father shall be steady in deed, and Finwë the King shall always be true.  (Sometimes, he wonders if he was cursed to live life as it goes for him—or if, in truth, he was the curse upon it.)  
(But even so, that does not stop him from fighting for what he might still have to himself. And until then, until aught he has is taken away, until the vivid force of his own spirit ceases; he shall not stop—and not even these Holy Ones, as holy as they can only declare themselves to be, shall halt his pursuits.)
 “Thou art angry.” It is Lord Irmo who seeks him last. And it is the Master of Dreams with whom Finwë lingers alone. There, in the quiet of his study, from behind a large glass window, they gaze down at a familiar scene. Fëanáro, Ñolofinwë, and Írimë are the ones to oversee their niece today; though his eldest has made himself a shadow by a bench with Lord Aulë as the others play with Aseldë. By far, the Earth King is one of the most constant in his shapeshifting. Today he has chosen a form smaller than that of Lord Tulcas, with a face weathered but filled with warmth. From above he is a mere speck of cooled bronze, in the corner, blaze tapered. 
(Aulë held himself back, though he did nothing to stop Yavanna in her vibrancy. The Lady of Life was excited and excessive, even squeezing to her bosom the child when she would scutter away. Like Nessa, she refused to lose sight of the girl, ceasing only when Varda and Oromë warned them of suffocating the poor thing. Then in the nursery Tulcas made himself known, laughing as loud as a thunderclap—thereby causing Arafinwë distress, and soon after Aseldë again.
“Stop!” His granddaughter had shrieked in her irritation. “Stop!”
And in the manner of olvar, so, too, did Yavanna wilt.)
 Very carefully, Finwë does not make any reaction when Irmo seats himself on the sill. Like spun mist he shimmered, unfixed in reality. The Vala slumps against the glass. Of all his kin, his spirit felt the most open: transparent in any approach. Easy to touch. Unbarred even to the bitterest core. Clement, unjudgemental. Forbearing—terrestrial—where even the Elder King is overwhelming. Understanding. Empathetic. Irmo was of the first he greeted upon coming to Aman, by his side his wife and their Maiar, attending to the three ambassadors in their immediate arrival and later on to the droves of Eldar who came overtired. 
(Though the Husband and the Father distrust him, the Hunter accepts his presence—the only one who can calm him.)
 “For what ‘tis worth, child of the hunt, I lay no blame on thy weary shoulders.” Silence meets the statement. For a while he does not bother to respond. But he knew, deep down, the other was aware of his mind. Of his heart. Of his hurts and his frustrations. Of his buried snarls and half-hidden pitch. Indis snapped some time ago, as is her right, days before the Powers arrived; and he let her take it out on him. But he himself did not express his own anguish so freely—for he had not the freedom, not while duty required his reservation. 
(It is always the same in his dreams. First he saw Míriel, illuminated in sky blue; and beneath her fingertips was stretched a red blanket, a personal gift for their child-to-be, already so strong and firm inside its mother’s belly. Then there is Findis, dancing below high gold; spreading her arms as together she spun with her mother, the scent of summer flowers in her hair.)
 His throat burns with the admission. “When I saw her smile, everything fell into place. And when she took her first breath, I thought we finally had a chance at happiness. I had hoped that Fëanáro might learn to love Indis, even if she could never replace Míriel. That he might come to behold joyful little Findis and see her for what she was. A treasure. A new beginning.” Finwë tears himself away from the scene in the courtyard. “And then she—” He forces the words out; pulls each grating thought past his teeth and lets them snag on his gums. “—she died. Just like that. Gone. All those years, all for nothing.” One might be puzzled at his honesty. It was clear to any, in the wake of all that has passed, that he did not quite reserve the same reverence he once held for the Great Powers. Not since his silver love was caged into those grey, vacuous halls, and her light was more ash than argent; not since his golden girl was lulled into her guilt, and slowly her gilt washed into murky waters. But still he confided—here, in a room too tight for him to breathe, to a lenient deity so-minded to listen; even if in conclusion his worries diminished into crisp echoes, even if in the end he gets only the mirror image of another time he was so pleading and pathetic, even if in essence the trouble was worth more than it was experiencing. But trouble is an old friend; and Finwë, son of Finruþ, hunter and husband and father and king, is so very tired. (And now it chases him, that sick trick: hope, or what might come of it; the juice of that holy fruit come again to damn him. He talks to this hazy lord, to this ghostly god, to this coy creature because it is the only one who knows him better than himself. If there shall be a fear he would face in life after death, let it be Irmo of Lórien: he who is of one mind with many, wise to love and lust and good and evil all.) “Is it me, o Vala?” He asks. “Am I cursed never to know repose?”  (Fragile as a snowdrop, his wife whispers to him, “You must not despair. I have given him myself, Finwë. He will burn bright. So bright.” Weak with a whimper, his daughter murmurs, “Ammë will forgive me, I think. I’ve ever been a fool…but mayhap she might forgive me.”)   Many things we had, said Estë, and ‘twas not enough.  No?  I have had everything I hoped for, and we could’ve been happy—  Everything, everything, everything— —all for nothing— 
(Nothing, nothing, nothing at all.)
 
(It is just as it used to be in sweet Cuiviénen dark, it is just as it was beneath those distant stars.)
 Finwë falls to his knees. And he cries. “I am sick,” he confessed, sobbing, “I am sick and so very cursed.” Irmo does not move from his perch. Yet there he remained, unmoving. But suddenly he descends— —and he holds Finwë, safe and sure, in the manner of a parent to its child. Thus it happened: Vala and Eruhín, then neither at all, only man and man, friend to friend; and he is allowed to be vulnerable. “All of it—worthless.” Finwë clings onto the other’s neck. His wailing dragged on. Irmo provides no will of his own save for that of a witness, of a heeder. “Oh, but times were simpler when we of the Eldar were certain of our graves! Of that ineffable void! Then enlightened I was: to Aman I came with the hope of hopes—to Aman I led my kin, a wise man and yet a green boy still, happy to merely be! But then grief comes again. And nothing changes. Nothing. Once, I thought to ignore my broken heart. Twice, I considered trading my crown for freedom. Curses! Plagues! Death! I am evil!” The energy is sapped out of him. It must say something about him, that now he sags against the Vala, head on a lean chest, uncaring of pretences. 
I am tired. So tired.
 “It ends the same. And I am hollow.” 
(The wolf whines, curling in on itself in lonely snow.)
 “For all thy years and wisdom, thou art still but flesh.” Irmo begins. His voice is a faint thing, gauzy even despite their proximity. “And flesh doth bear its wounds, as the spirit doth its burdens. Thou art not accursed, son of Finruþ, nor art thou sick. Of all I know, Elda and Ainu both, thou hast shown me but this: the greatest grief.” “Nay! This is not grief. Such a name only befits a king! And I am a king unmade! So how much more shall I have to persist? This is beyond mere grieving—I know not what it is, but I shall say this: it is poison!” Finwë looks up at him, sobbing; eyes rimmed red and raw, lips pulled taut into a quivering line. His chest heaves. He struggles to find more within him—some further retort, some better argument. But all that escapes him is another cracked respire. “I know not how to let this go!” “Thou art not meant to let it go,” said Irmo gently, still holding him, “thou art meant to carry it.” 
Why? Why must it be so?
 “Thou hast not been cursed, child—nay, thou hast been chosen.” It is not a consolation. It is not supposed to be that, he thinks, but he cannot help himself from trying to find it. “Thou art a creator. And as is a maker’s nature: thou hast been granted an incredible chance to endure.” “Well, then! Endure it, I can do so no longer!” And away Finwë pulled himself, bending on the floor. Immediately shame curls about him. It had, that motion of his, all of a lover’s hatred and a father’s wrath. Endure. Endure. Endure. But how much more? How much more? Has he not given so much of himself already? It is as Indis laughed at him in her motherly malice: What do I lack? 
What is it that I must give to live my best life?
 “My God," he keens in a plea. My God. But Irmo is not He in Heaven; he is not the one whom Finwë must beg repentance from. Yet still he repeats it—my God, my God, my God—like the Dreamer might give him what he needs, or some sense of it, if it shall be the closest thing he can get to redemption. “Cry, king,” murmured the Vala, allowing him to wet his lilac robes with tears, “cry and feel.” “Too much,” Finwë rasps, “I have already given too much.” 
And it is not enough. It shall never be enough.
 
(Aseldë appears to him in a vision then. Sweet little Elemmiel, miracle of miracles; crowned like Míriel and kind-eyed like Findis. Blest, beloved, and so very beautiful.)
 “I am a king unmade. A father and a husband in name only.” Once more the words slip down in good faith, yet they taste like ashes on his tongue. “What becomes of me now? What use are my titles when I cannot even live up to them? When my wives keep their distance and my children stare at me with betrayal? When my bed is cold, and alone I lay in the chill? When every night I cry myself to sleep? When only my youngest son and granddaughter look at me with such utter trust? I have tried to fix everything—and nothing ever works! My God, I have held on for so long—!” “And thou art strong, Finwë,” Irmo whispered, “so very strong.” “I do not feel strong now! I feel like a failure! How much longer shall it take, before Aseldë and Arafinwë see me for the wretch that I am?!” Oh, Power! In this moment he bothers little with his holiness. There he cradles Finwë, quietly, while the thin white light poured from the window. From below, Aseldë’s high-pitched giggles are joined by other expressions of relish. He himself cannot bear to hear it now, for he thinks himself too unworthy of such a joy—and he is afraid that if he gave it acknowledgement it might disappear. That again she would go the way of his self-titled curse, his sickness, and be beset by a life he would not want for her to live. “You are not a failure, Finwë Ñoldóran.” The change in address is enough to still his weeping. 
What?
 “Of all the people who have passed through my glade, you alone lived with the most responsibility. Many there were who arrived from the halls of Mandos, whereto their spirits then fled from the halls of Utumno, where my fallen kin and yours have convened in torture and misery. Sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, friends and foe alike; it matters little in the end—for so is lust in the dark: always the nature of phantoms, reaching for more.” He stays unmoving, nigh unbreathing, even as fingers card through his tangled hair and soothe him. 
Why do you talk to me this way? Like I am something worth saving?
  (“A hunter you shall be, my boy,” says a voice in his head, almost forgotten to him, “as it goes in our line, forward and clear.”How long ago has he been just that? A boy? How long has it been since he has known the touch of an elder? Of a parent?) “But they were not like you, Finwë: boy turned hunter, hunter turned husband, husband turned father, father made king. First of your name, first of your title, first of your honour! No, you have persevered just as well as anyone else, but you exist in a singularity where none ever have ventured before. Gone to the line that none has dared to cross. No, Finwë, the burden is never to be let go! For so comes fire above all else, and that is where you draw your breath. That is where you find your strength. And it does not emerge from enduring alone, does it? It is from the love you bear for those gone. Your wife’s love still lives, and your son is a part of it. Your daughter’s love still lives, and Aseldë is a part of it. And so it is: you are a part of it.” “And what if my love fails them? What then? What happens when I shall commit the mistake once more?” Irmo tilts his face up. Those dark eyes, old and soft and as weary as his own, penetrate him. “Then a mistake this love shall remain—for you must shoulder it again, as that is its price. Denounce it as you will. But that is the beauty of it, and that is what gives it its meaning.” And— —oh. —he sees himself. His own sorrow, reflected at him. The answer he sought, yawning from above.  Yes, then: it is a sickness. Insomuch as it could be named such. The faint and strange fragrance of madness at its barest form; the violence of tranquil musings; the reason anything is at all. Cosmic bliss. Upwards he gazed into those depths, into the form of this holy spirit, into these kind kinships; and for all seven seconds he simply perceives it. And as he had done, time and time again— —Finwë lets himself fall. 
Catch me, son of God.
 “You are angry,” Irmo strokes his cheek, “and it is your right.” “Then what am I to do with this—this pain?” “Let it burn,” said the lord, “for only then shall clarity come to you.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

There are many people who claim that a child should be the most cherished thing in the world. And for their part, that is true. But to her ears, it is a statement too easy to make—when all so soon one forgets that they are no longer young, and so too do they forget the pains of innocence. And while those words ring honestly and sincerely, the fact is this: no grown person knows the blade of a tongue much like a babe. Because there was simply no other creature able to pride itself, love itself, and hate itself more thoroughly than a child— —and it starts with a musing, of course. 
(As always it does.)
 For the most part, Írimë is overlooked during the festivities. Everyone is too focused on Aseldë and Arafinwë: Atto and Amya at odds, flitting to and fro between individual visiting Ainur with pinched faces and ragged breaths; Nolvo and Náro still caught in their petty dances and hateful words; Haru Ingwë and Haruni Ilwen too ado and about in pleasing their overlords to bother glancing away towards her. Her Vanyar cousins, too, do not appear to care for much outside of their own circles. From her distant mountain kin, only two remained children of an age with her: haughty Iltyel and irate Innaril, borne by Uncle Ingwion’s seed, bearing the likeness of one another with their gold hair and green eyes. They are…not unpleasant, no. Not entirely unflattering to her Ñoldo sensibility. Of style and manners and social graces they are at least learnt. Song and dance they master, and in poetry they are skilled; but beyond the works of letters and figures she finds that they leave much to be desired. In part, she herself is grateful for this as much as she detested it—for in the presence of her cousins she faltered, reminded of another girl in their wake: friendly Findis, sanguine sister, lamented lady! Nolvo would speak of such things then. Among all four siblings—(five, now, they should be five)—he was the most inclined to matters of honeyed words and perfumed laces, of fan language and beadwork significance, of all the things that their elder sibling so loved and left behind. He should be the one interacting with these strangers, not her; not loud and loutlike Lalwendë who laughed too much, not edgy and eager Enya who egged others on too far! 
(It is an angry habit she adopted from the young woman; how she would stubbornly set herself heavily upon a chair and force her weight onto the cushion, the quietest of rebellions they had to themselves during that cursed period. Their heads would dip by the slightest bit, and with the wisp of a breath no others shall see their eyes.
“I have been running through the most terrible dreams as of late,” Findis says one day, fingers lined in a livid row upon her brow, “and I know I should take heed of each one, yet they are doing naught but vex me.”“How can you distinguish each one?” She asked. “What is foresight, and what is a mere scene?”“Such things are easy to spot, Enya. They are as unnatural as they come.”)  
(There was no other creature able to pride itself, love itself, and hate itself more thoroughly than a child—and she thinks, despite the girl’s persistent piety, Findis, too, was trapped by her own fear.)
 By God, Findis should be here. Should be, should be, should be—fuck! Her hands itch to curl themselves around her bow. To tug on a set of leather reins and shy her face from the rest of the world. Without Findis, all the palace rooms felt hollow despite their grandeur; plain, grey, and abandoned; and it is only the patient waiting of her niece that settles her agile feet. It becomes obvious then how much life the girl’s mother had brought with her—and it is ironic, to say such, when it is Írimë who was named for joy. Well, then! She does not feel so joyful now! “I’m tired, Ela. I just want things to go back to the way they were. Is that so bad? I don’t know. But no one listens to me more than you do these days, and our kin keep dragging me into their chants and prayers—About you, no less!—and I would rather stick my head in a beehive than sit through another one of their endless hymns.” This, she tells Aseldë one day, slumping against the backrest of a stone bench as together they loitered in the gardens. The toddler was content to fiddle with a wildflower she had plucked earlier, tearing its delicate petals one by one. “If I have to suffer another bout of their sorries and their praises, I will push one of them out of a window,” she continued, grousing, glancing down at the child nestled within her lap. “Don’t let it go to your head, you hear me? Tch. You’d think that they’d never seen a baby before. You would think anyone with a modicum of sense would see how you don’t even care for such tripe. I am sick of watching Haru and Haruni get funny with you. Pah! Stars above, Aseldë! They weren’t like this when your mother’s pregnancy was announced. Well, at least Náro will be the one to deal with this. With everything going on, he deserves it, that arse.” “Náro?” The child repeated, pausing in her fumbling. Her tongue is still heavy with an infantile slur, though the word—name—is still clearly enunciated. “Naráro?” Írimë swallowed thickly. 
(Findis should have been here. She should have. But she was not, and she did not know how to fill the space her elder had left behind.)
 “Yes, him, Ela. Your…father. For lack of a better word.” “Atya?” “…yes,” she sighed, “like Atto is to me.” “Atya, bad?” “Not…no, not really. Not in the way you might think. But…” She trailed off. It is as she tangles herself within that catch of speech that she notices a familiar gleam in her niece’s eyes. A delicate flutter of the lashes, preceded by a half-lidded stalling that hid much more than what most would realise. It is most akin to Findis’ rabbitlike tendencies, she thought: the illusion of innocence offered with bloodied fingers. The slightest touch of something wrong. Pains hidden in plain sight. Aseldë looks at her the way Findis used to. As if she knew something more than she let on, and everyone else was unaware that they were included within some unuttered joke. Sad. Afraid. 
(Unnatural as it comes.)
  (“I cannot breathe in those dreams. I never do. That is what terrifies me the most.”)  How pathetic is it that even now she could not bear to gaze at her sister’s daughter as anything but a beast of a babe? 
(There was no other creature able to pride itself, love itself, and hate itself more thoroughly than a child—though she knew not if this is merely her musing, or a milder madness talking.)
 “You shouldn’t be able to ask such questions so clearly,” Írimë muttered, mostly to herself. Her niece blinked, lashes catching Treelight like slivers of silver thread. “Atya, Atya, Atya,” the girl called again, softer this time, as though tasting the word, weighing its meaning. Her fingers curled into the silk of her black tunic, pulling. “Enough of that,” she said brusquely, though her hand came up to smooth the babe’s hair in reflex. “Your Atya will find his way back when he’s done flapping his jaws with my Amya. He’s not bad, Ela. Just…loud. Too loud, and too full of himself—but truly, who isn’t?” Aseldë tilted her head, unconvinced. Her expression did not shift—not outwardly—but she could feel the doubt radiating off her in waves. The child was too quiet, too still, and in that moment she saw not a babe but something older. Something odd and ill-fitting. Something that should not be there. It starts as a thought and a feeling; a flash of a face overlapping the one she held now. A secondary mistake in perception. Immediately she disregards it. Yet the more the idea lurked, the more it embedded itself into her mind—and the more she began to ponder it, the more her unease grew. But that was silly, no? This is the same adorable elfling who would trail after her and demand a sweet as they escaped their nannies, the same unassuming princess who everyone doted on and feared.  But you aren’t at all like my little brother, are you, she thinks, still staring into those pure, starlit eyes, because he is as ordinary as any other babe, while you’ve already gone up and about and made messes of us all.  It is unfair to compare Aseldë and Arafinwë in such a fashion; she knows. They were babies. Icky, clingy little things that slurred in their own language and spat into their fists; innocent imps who tugged on her braids and tired the stretch of her sleeves; fussy creatures that never failed to both amuse and annoy her. Beloved and free of blame. The only difference that set them apart was the matter of their parentages, nothing more. Findis’ daughter, perhaps, was the smarter perpetrator of the two. Aseldë liked to sprint now that she found full use of her legs, and delighted in absconding from her minders when they would try to wrangle her into her dayclothes. Often her niece would find her, clutching at her calf, whining when away Írimë would try to hide from her own tutors and she did not take the girl with her. Her brother, on the other hand, while less vexing, was just as unhelpful, most especially because he does not do anything. But Arafinwë merely wanted to watch her suffer, she is still sure of it. Do not be fooled! He is a right monster when he wanted to be! “What I would give to have Findis here! She was always better at these sorts of gatherings than me. I’d rather be out on the field.” She clicked her tongue, the words coming out sharper and harsher than she intended. “And—no, stop that. Do not look at me like that. Do not, Aseldë. What is it about you that sets me off? Is it because I know you are divine that sometimes I wish to keep away from you? But that’s ridiculous. It’s so ridiculous. I wouldn’t have protested Náro taking you otherwise. And it’s childish of me. I know this. I know this—yet I feel it anyway.”  I am just a few years off from being of age, while you’re a baby. Just a baby, Ela. You’re not supposed to understand any of this. I don’t know why I even bother telling you this. Maybe I’m just trying to find a piece of your mother in you, to try and convince myself that things are not as bad as they seem.  Aseldë’s eyes widened, startled by the outburst, and for a moment, she feared the poor thing might cry. That she might go the way of her playmate and wail when she does not get what she wants, or worse yet, throw a tantrum. It is not that the girl has even done anything of the sort, though, not once in all of her short life; so she supposed she might be safe. But still, she prepared for it. For the babe to squirm out of her grip, perhaps seeing what a petty wretch her aunt may be, and later on go scurrying to the man she claimed as her father. But instead, the child leaned forward and pressed her forehead against her aunt’s chest, humming. “So-rry,” Aseldë mumbled, “so-rry, so-rry, so-rry.” Her heart ached. “No, don’t—don’t say that. By God, not to me.” Írimë held her tighter. The small weight of her niece steadied her, but the word stuck. Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. She could not shrug it off: the manner in which Aseldë said it, that fragile cadence, as cutting as a blade too fine to notice until it bled a person dry. She shifted, tilting the girl’s head back to look at her. Searching it again and again and again, curious and waiting. Then she forced a smile, though it did not sit well on her face. It must be obvious, for the child stared at it for a long moment before resting her head again. She could not force down the lump in her throat. They sat like that for a time, the voices of the others faint in the distance. But even so, the gardens remained clear of people. She tried not to think of them—of how they might view her now, their second princess, so cruel to her elder sister’s daughter. What a gripping tale it would be: that the lively Lalwendë has gone on her lonesome with dearly-loved Elemmiel, only to return with mad ramblings that only her paranoia could conceive. The most damning thing, perhaps, is that she had poised herself in months past to face it, to face this. There is shame in her admittance, but so too is there honesty in it—and she will say it plainly; she had been ready to glare down at the girl in her arms and place the fault on her tiny shoulders: that she was the cause of her mother’s death, that she killed her, she killed Findis—in the very same bed where they used to tussle and chatter as giggling girls, and in the very manner in which her spirit-bonded guardian had slain his own birth-giver. 
I was right, Nolvo. I’m not holy. I’m not holy at all. What kind of person could ever do this to a babe?
 
(There was no other creature able to pride itself, love itself, and hate itself more thoroughly than a child—carrying upon its broken back the arrogance to defy the world, the innocence to marvel at it, and then the cruelty to destroy it, all while clutching the tenderness to mend what they broke.)
 “Don’t say that, Ela,” Írimë said again, “you’ve done nothing wrong.” Aseldë did not reply. She stayed unmoving, listening, almost as if she understood. As if she forgave.  And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. For the way my thoughts are cruel, for the way things have gone, for the way life has been to you.  As always, it starts with a musing— —but even now, the words do not come. Most often, in the drawling, idle mode of communication she used, her tone would not falter nor fall abhorrently weak as it does now. While graces did not come to her as easily as they do her mother, she is usually more bold and bright. Brash. Unflinching. “I didn’t mean to—look. It isn’t you, alright? It’s not. I’m just being stupid, as always. It’s me. I don’t know what to do with you, I haven’t dealt with this nonsense well, and I know that is not an excuse, but I just—I can’t even so much as look at you, sometimes. That I hold you right now is a miracle in itself.” Later, when Iltyel and Innaril find them, Aseldë has already fallen asleep in her arms. It is her only saving grace then. Írimë wanders as she is wont to do when none have gone afoot to take notice. Her cousins are odd, just as any mountain folk ought to be, in her opinion. She does not trust them. They are too bright, too blithe, and too overbearing—too much like Findis in some moments that she could not suffer them in turn. Despite her protests, however, this does not deter the pair from following her as she heads to her niece’s chambers. She listens to the wind and little else. The voices of her kin fade behind her, their talk heavy with what needs doing. They are always making plans, always thinking of what comes next. Always in mimic of the spirits they so loved to tail. Always in obedience of unanswering gods. Always in the learnt contentment that their elders demanded. She does not envy them. “What do you do all day?” Innaril takes to asking once they have crossed the threshold of the palace. “When you go aflight after lessons, that is. I can’t think of doing anything else that isn’t related to music.” “Doesn’t that bother you? I, too, am just as much a creature of sound as you are—but surely you spend your time with other revelries? You can’t possibly be happy to simply lounge about like overgrown cats on a rock.” Írimë replied, lips half-pursed. “What is it even like in the mountains?” The girl with the green eyes emits a noise of contemplation, though it is shaded with something akin to arrogance. “The higher manses are quieter. Lord Manwë’s winds speak more than people do. It is hard to breathe so far up. But he does come down, most often with Lady Varda, and when they do, we are allowed to wander. Some Ainur take to guiding us to the heart of Taniquetil, if they are inclined to play. We wonder. We think. We listen to the world as it is, as it’s taught to us.” 
Is this the life Findis was so proud of? Is this the life you shall be condemned to, Ela?
 Írimë scoffs, shifting the girl in her arms. The child stirs but does not wake. “Ah. A life of silence, then? No wonder you think music is all there is. It must be dull. You’ve never learnt what it means to fill that silence with purpose.” “Isn’t it purpose enough to listen to everyone?” Iltyel cuts in, frowning. The expression mars her pretty face; the dip of the lip too severe, too disapproving. “What use is life otherwise? When you’re alone and no one comes to you?” 
(There are many people who claim that a child should be the most cherished thing in the world—and yet, for their part, they are the very ones who corrupt the same purities that children offer them.)
 “You are absurd,” Írimë sneers, in lieu of nothing else, “have you perhaps stopped to consider how awful you sound?” Iltyel shoots her a look. “How is wishing to give back to a community awful? We learn at the feet of the Ainur and return to them the care that they’ve given us throughout the ages! Why would it be a terrible thing?” “It isn’t about the community!” This is true. It is a bother to explain, but it is true. Írimë has not once doubted their unerring faith, but that does not mean she cannot criticise it. Are they hearing themselves? Giving back? To what? To whom? Her cousins speak as though they owed the Ainur something, as though the lives of the Eldar are meant to be spent grovelling at the heels of others who think themselves their betters. There had been a time in her youth where she might have believed the sweet lie—to have swallowed it as it was—and mayhap it would have remained so in a world where Findis did not die. She is almost glad, then, that this is not that world! Almost, if only because her sister is gone, and she cannot so easily reach her; but the thought stood. So let Lalwendë laugh! Let her sneer at the chittering of those who assumed subservience to this cause! For all his mad ramblings, Fëanáro was not wrong in his dislike of the Holy—for it was not without good reason. 
(The sound of Aseldë’s apologies rings in her ears, and inside her the hatred begins to burn thrice as hot.)
 “Have you once stopped to consider,” Írimë starts, scathing, each syllable hot on her tongue, “that perhaps this prattle about Music is nothing but just that? Music. Noise, waving in and out of your ears. I would’ve thought that you might be wisest to all ideas, knowing Haru Ingwë does so love to welcome even funny philosophies. I didn’t think that you’d allow yourselves to be washed under the easy lies of the Ainur.” The sisters gasp. It is blasphemy, plain and sharp. The utterances of a faithless dog, haunches raised and foaming at the mouth. Rabid and rebellious in its hunger. She has said it before, and she will say it again: she is tired by this pretence, that everything is yet alright—that there is still something to this farce worth calling a sacrifice on an altar; she has had enough of it from her father, from her brother, and her distant kin—and she refuses to let their drivel tug at her ears any more than was already done. There was no other creature able to pride itself, love itself, and hate itself more thoroughly than a child—and she has learnt this lesson well. For what was Írimë but a child, once? What was she, but the fool who clung to such empty promises? The girl who believed in her sister’s joy, when the annunciation was spoken? The same god-fearing follower, terribly blind when the doom had been set in stone? Had she not hid in her guilt as Findis screamed herself raw? As beside her their mother wailed and their brother wept? “Lies? Lies? They have made the world as we live in it now! ‘Tis only right that we give to them twicefold sacrifices worthy of being called theirs! Findis knew it most of all. Are you not proud, Lalwendë? Are you not happy that your sister had devoted herself so?” Even the mere utterance of such words was enough to have her reel back. 
Are you not proud?
 
Are you not proud?
  Are you not proud?   (What does it take, what does it take, what does it take? How much more does their family have to suffer just to appease some god who does not even speak? Is this the better life that her kin have crossed the sea for? Is it really any better than their comforts in those twilight forests?)  “Proud, eh? What should I be proud about? That my sister was put out like a pig put on the spitroast? I do recall the celebrations, you know. I remember how happy everyone was—I remember how you and Haruni Ilwen wrote those letters. But you didn’t see Findis during those days, did you? Of course you didn’t. We had to hide her from the rest of the world.” She tightens her grip around the babe in her arms. “What good is it that you’ve buried yourselves beneath the rubble?” She asked. “Do you know what people have begun saying about the Vanyar? Strange folk, they call you. Prideful, galling, and offensive to what the Eldar are! Now so far removed from your own kin beyond Oiolossë, acting as though you were of the Ainur yourselves!” 
Understanding. That’s all I ask for. Why can’t any of you see it? Findis was so happy. And then she was just gone. Aseldë is so happy. Will she go the way of her mother as well?
 “So you love music as all of us do. But don’t go about with the day as though you’re now any better than the rest of the rabble! How dare you pretend like Findis wasn’t just snuffed out by the very same people you worship!” Innaril, the more headstrong of the pair, draws herself to her full height. Her gold curls tumble from their braids. A hairpin falls to the floor, tinkling gently against the white marble. Up above, her cousin turns her nose up at her—a mannerism inherited from their grandfather, encouraged by his wife. It should be an imposing sight, but after a lifetime of butting heads and baring her teeth to her half-brother, she thinks it to be a pitiful display. “How dare you!” Her cousin hisses. As if turned in her mood, she even points a finger. “We were just trying to be nice. I had only meant to inquire after your own wellbeing—” “Wellbeing, my arse! You’ve been dogging around just to take your chances with Aseldë!” Iltyel comes to her sister’s defence. “So what if we were?! That is what this entire congregation was brought down for! But no! You lot hoard Elemmiel like some creature in the sewer!”  And that is exactly the problem, she thinks irefully; at least I know what it means to make a choice while you hide behind orders, behind others. You follow because it’s easy. You never had the guts to decide for yourself. And for that, I pity you. I pity all of you.  “She wouldn’t do with the likes of you—” “We are the noblest of the Eldar! Haru Ingwë should have fought harder to keep her, if this filth is what the Godsgift would have to endure!” The sudden lunge is all the reason she needed to escape. Just as Nolvo swung the flat of his palm against her mouth, so too does she arc her fist against Iltyel’s jaw. Bejewelled silver rings crack bone beneath flesh. The quick prick of pain of her knuckles is not lost on her. Somewhere in the back of her mind there is a scream, then it is with a jolt that she realises it is because Aseldë has awoken. The toddler squirms relentlessly in her grip, sniffling and hiccuping, demanding to be freed. Then the ringing in her ears resounds again—and this time, it is Innaril, shrieking, crying at the sudden claw mark on her cheek. She barely hears the first scrape of the door before it opens, and her heart thrums, quick and panicked. Her legs tumble back just as the sisters’ furious shouts ring through the curve of the long hallway. Too late. The entrance to the antechamber is unlocked—before she bolts it again, just in time to smack the wood against her cousin’s waxen face. Her niece grunts as she hurriedly crossed the distance to the bedroom proper. Then once more she bars the door, and only after securing the double blocking does she sag against the white wall. 
What am I doing—
 “I’m sorry,” Írimë said without preamble, her voice breaking. She pressed her lips to the crown of the child’s head, her hand cradling the back of her neck. The words come rushing out now, when all has been done and the damage has been dealt. “I’m sorry, God, I didn’t—I didn’t mean to—I just—I couldn’t think, and it was the only thing I could do—” 
(There are many people who claim that a child should be the most cherished thing in the world—this she knows, this she concedes to, and this she tries her damnest to uphold.)
 The room fell silent now, save for the muffled pounding on the other side of the door. Iltyel and Innaril’s yells bled through, distorted and distant, but still filled with rage. She closed her eyes, trembling. There it is. That familiar sting of salt on her cheeks. Her temper spilt over—again. Too much, she thought. Always too much. Just like your elder brothers. A sharp bang against the door made her flinch, and Aseldë whimpered in her arms. 
(Her hands are pallid. Twisting between sturdy and delicate; in one moment as harsh as the first frost that kissed the grass of the northern borders of Tirion, and in the next, trembling with the persistent chill she knew not how to stop. They are so much—too unbearably fucking much—like Findis’ once were. Full of life in a flash. Bloodied in a blink. Veined and translucent, then back to violent again.)
 “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she tries once more, squeezing the girl so tight that she feared she might suffocate her. But her niece did not answer, of course. She just held on, her breath warm against her collarbone. Back to where they began. “I’m sorry,” Írimë sobbed, “you deserve better than this.” Aseldë sighed. 
(There was no other creature able to pride itself, love itself, and hate itself more thoroughly than a child—and who better to know this than herself?)