#fëanorianweek

[i-did-not-mean-to]

Fëanorian Week - Curufin

Let's have some father-son angst, okay?

Words: 535

Characters: Curufin & Celebrimbor, Curufin & Fëanor

Prompts: Childhood, Celebrimbor, Forge Work

Warnings:Sadness, separation, disappointment, estrangement

Curufin lifted his chin defiantly. He would not wither under the baleful, deeply injured glare of his son’s eyes.

“How could you?” Celebrimbor, looking so much like his mother and speaking in his grandfather’s cold, disapproving voice, hissed.

“I did what I had to do,” Curufin replied softly, silently pleading with his only child to understand what he couldn’t yet know. “And, in time, you might comprehend me better. I pray that you never will, but my heart misgives me.”

“You could turn away from this path!”

Ah, so young, so optimistic, Curufin thought even as his heart shattered.

Old wounds, buried under the dead earth of urgency and necessity but never healed, broke open within his soul—losing his father had changed Curufin, but disappointing his son due to his own failures and weaknesses would break him.

“I cannot.”

There it was—the cold gleam of goodbye in the warm, bright eyes of the one he’d nurtured and protected with desperate fervour.

Celebrimbor turned sharply to collect and pack his smithing tools with trembling hands, and Curufin did not even dare intervene for fear that his voice would break like badly tempered steel.

As he moved along the workbench he’d hitherto shared with his father, the smithing prodigy suddenly hesitated, his hand hovering above a tiny, jewel-encrusted hammer.

“Take it,” Curufin rasped. “I could not bear to look at it. It would only remind me of all I’ve lost.”

Fëanor had made it for him what felt like an eternity ago, and Curufin had stubbornly held on to the miniature tool throughout his whole life.

His first attempts at his craft had left grooves and marks on the shiny metal, and he’d cried bitterly upon discovering that.

“A worn tool speaks of honest work,” Fëanor had assured him comfortingly, and Curufin had taken these words to heart when teaching his own son.

In his mind, images of pudgy, clumsy hands blurred into a heart-breaking picture of filial eagerness and paternal pride.

How many burned fingers and spreading bruises had this little hammer caused and witnessed?

It had been a hallowed experience to study at a father’s elbow. There had been tears of frustration and moments of triumph, and each of them had invariably strengthened the seemingly unbreakable bond between a prince and his blessed progeny.

Both—the craft and the inexplicably magical link between smiths of different generations—had been sacrosanct.

Now, the rust of betrayal and the acid of disappointment had eaten through everything, leaving their story a brittle thing, riddled with gaping holes.

“But…grandfather made it for you,” Celebrimbor protested weakly even as he reached for the shared treasure instinctively.

“I have no father,” Curufin muttered. “I have no son. It is of no use to me now. Take it—I shan’t miss it.”

Of all his acts of treason and mendacious declarations, no lie cut deeper or burned brighter than this whispered lie.

“Very well,” Celebrimbor sighed, tucking the hammer into a piece of soft leather carefully. “I shall take away with me the memory of a good, beloved father.”

He waved his hand dismissively at Curufin’s form, bent over and sagging like a dying doter’s.

“I bid you goodbye, stranger.”

-> Masterlist

@feanorianweek, here another one :)

[nutmegs-tired]

Summary:

One rainy morning Celegorm wakes his father up, drenched in water and distraught. Huan could not be found.

Day Three of @feanorianweek, Celegorm- Childhood

“I can’t find Huan.” the voice was filled with desperation. “ he’s not in the house, so I went to look outside, but it started raining.” Fëanáro couldn’t tell if he was crying, for the silver hair was still dripping water onto the child’s face.

[mothdalf]

Inktober day 7: Fëanor and his fancy jems

[grundyscribbling]

He’d been looking forward to this moment for a year now – well, longer really, but that had been in the abstract sense of a hope, not in the certainty that it would happen – and now that it has finally come, Curufinwë felt like his heart might burst from the incandescent joy of it.

His son.

He was holding his son.

The baby was absolutely perfect in every respect, down to the tiny nails at the end of each delicate finger and toe.

For the first time since they were wed, Tyelpesilmë’s regard felt pale and distant compared to the urgent immediacy of the incredible little being in his arms, blinking back at him with the not-quite-focused eyes of the newly born.

It is only after several minutes – though they might well be hours or possibly even days, he knew himself prone to lose track of time when absorbed in anything, and he’s never been so wholly absorbed in anything else in his entire life – that it occurred to him that he’s responsible not only for nurturing, protecting, and loving this child.

He has to name his son.

It’s not something he’s given much thought to before, but now that he did, his stomach is tying itself into knots.

He’d been intensely proud as a child to be the son Fëanaro bestowed his own father-name upon. It was only as he grew that he began to see that wasn’t always such a wonderful thing. With a name like Curufinwë, much was expected of him – by his father not the least.

Sometimes he’d basked in that, but more often, it had been a weight. If he lived up to expectations, well, they’d expected it of him, hadn’t they? If he failed to match his father, though, it was worse – the whispers, the sympathy (both real and feigned), and the disappointment. Not to mention, Finwë’s eldest son excelled at so much that it was difficult to find something he’d not tried his hand at, something Curufinwë could call his own.

As such, passing the name on to a child was absolutely out of the question. Two Curufinwës was already more than enough. Come to that, he didn’t much care to bestow a -finwë name either, even if it would probably generate immense satisfaction or amusement in various quarters if Fëanaro’s favorite son contradicted his naming of the twins.

“What, my silver-tongued husband for once without words?” Silmë asked.

Though her words were playful, there was a thread of mingled pride and love in her spirit as she cast her mind toward his.

I think we have made something even your father cannot find fault with, she added.

His father had better not find fault with their son!

“What are you going to call him?”

Curufinwë blinked. He had been hoping to have a bit more time before anyone asked, to think, to choose something exactly right, and above all, something all the child’s own.

He had the sudden conviction that his son will not be one of a row of anything, be it -finwës, -kanos, or -aratos. It’s one thing to have a theme, it’s another to recycle elements for every child, as if they don’t each deserve consideration of their own.

As one of the first in his generation to beget a child – he’s still not quite sure how Angarato had beaten his older brothers and cousins to the punch – he had the happy opportunity to set a new trend in the family – to give each child he begets a unique name, one that will be entirely theirs to shape.

But he could not take too much time over the decision. It was not unusual for a mother-name to be given years after the birth, unless the mother had a glimpse of foresight at the time the child came into the light.

He gazed down at his son, now reaching enthusiastically for Silmë’s hair. The child caught a handful of her long silver tresses, and then gazed in perplexity from one hand to the other, bemused by the difference. It was clear, however, which he preferred…

“Tyelperinquar.”

The silver-fist. As a hope that he will find joy in the craft as we do, and as a reminder that you are dear to us both.

He thinks the name fits, and their son smiles as they both call him by it.

[heartofoshun]

Fëanorian Week 2017 - Day 1- Maedhros - > Adjusting/Coping, Beauty

There Maedhros in time was healed; for the fire of life was hot within him, and his strength was of the ancient world, such as those possessed who were nurtured in Valinor. His body recovered from his torment and became hale, but the shadow of his pain was in his heart; and he lived to wield his sword with left hand more deadly than his right had been. –The Silmarillion, “Of the Return of the Noldor.”

[forerussake]

Super on brand for me but I once again forgot this week is Fëanorianweek... so I just sketched Maedhros real quick but my eyes hurt so Imma colour and post him tomorrow if I don’t forget :/

[maedhrosrussandol]

Pride and humility

[i-did-not-mean-to]

Fëanorian Week - Celegorm

And it's not getting better :D Let's hurt Tyelko a little, shall we?

Words: 520

Characters: Celegorm & Nerdanel, Celegorm & Curufin

Prompts: Childhood, Hunting, Strength & Beauty, Nargothrond

Warnings:Sadness, loss, death of a child, doom, bad decisions

Rough, calloused fingers slid fervently along the worn curves of the small figurine, which had melted like ice in the sun over countless years of struggle and strife to the point where it had long since become unrecognisable.

The tiny creature—he couldn’t even remember whether it had originally been a bear or a wolf—was Celegorm’s best-kept secret.

He’d loved animals for as long as he could recall, and it had undoubtedly been in an effort to keep him from sneaking out of the nursery and into the woods that Nerdanel, famous and justly extolled sculptress, had crafted this little companion to soothe his desire for adventure and freedom.

Maybe, he now thought as he rubbed his hidden talisman yet again to strengthen his resolve and quieten the voice of doubt and agony within his mind, it didn’t matter what fey savage beast his mother had had in mind.

A heavy, sturdy child, Celegorm had certainly often reminded her of a bear cub himself as she stood, harried by dark foreboding, beside his crib with a worried frown.

Even in so frivolous an endeavour, Nerdanel had not let herself grow negligent, and it was a shame that his nigh-on superstitious habit of touching the stone doll had irrevocably erased so many of the marvellous details she had carved in meticulous handiwork.

Curufin, stern and solemn, shook his head almost imperceptibly—he might have known or at least guessed with what his solitary brother toyed in the depths of his pocket. Still, he preferred not to bring up their parents if not absolutely necessary for fear that it would irrevocably break their spirits and keep them from pursuing their path with the necessary determination.

Fate was unravelling fast now, and Celegorm was reminded abruptly of the fact that he’d never been good at making sensible decisions. He’d have to blindly rely on his brother’s cold intelligence and the residual maternal magic with which his childhood charm was imbued.

For the first time in his life, Celegorm didn’t feel heartened and comforted by his mother’s craft, though, and he clenched his teeth stubbornly as this last despicable act of disloyalty and betrayal stripped him of every remaining blessing he’d been hitherto granted.

“Are you ready?”

He nodded. What else could he do? They’d soon leave Nargothrond in hopes of salvation and pursuit of inevitable desolation, and—no matter how much any of them wished things to be different—there was nought he could do to change the tide of destiny.

Following his brother, Celegorm considered shortly leaving his most precious treasure to be buried and forgotten along with Finrod’s jewels and the vestiges of their honour, but his fingers wouldn’t unclasp.

In the end, feeling the gentle caress of death falling over him like a ghostly shroud, Celegorm slipped the unidentifiable stone guardian into the pocket of a silver-haired boy who stood, crying noiselessly, over the broken body of his father.

“Mother,” Celegorm mouthed, hoping against all hope that his faithful fetich would manage one more miracle and keep another wild-eyed, fey boy safe in the dangerous darkness of the woods.

-> Masterlist

@feanorianweek, and we go on...

[i-did-not-mean-to]

Fëanorian Week - Nerdanel x Fëanor

So, that is the end of another week :D It's been an honour

Words: 520

Characters: Nerdanel x Fëanor

Prompts: Marriage, Reunion, Traveling, Creation, Healing

Warnings:Sadness, longing, regret, change

Nerdanel opened the little box carefully as if she expected its contents to leap out and physically grab her by the throat.

Pristine and unscarred as the day she’d received it, the ring lay on its bed of black velvet and twinkled at her like a lone, undeniably misguiding star.

Throughout the ages, she’d kept her simple, scratched-up wedding ring—wretched reminder and terrible testament to her woeful fate—suspended like a golden storm cloud on a leather band around her neck.

She liked the subtle, asphyxiating weight every time she bent down over her workbench, mirroring the burden of her family’s absence crushing her soul to dust little by little.

This, though, was different.

The beautiful, delicate piece of jewellery had been a courting gift from the one who’d break her heart in ways nobody could even have fathomed beforehand.

Fëanor had gone back to the place where they’d first met to mine the most exceptional of gemstones for her pleasure, and she bit back bitter tears at the painful memory of his pride and her felicity.

Closing her rough, calloused fingers around the cold metal, Nerdanel indeed perfectly remembered the exalted promises Fëanor had fed her, and she shivered upon recalling how eagerly she’d drunk his every mendacious word.

They’d been so very young, and she now understood that they could not have foreseen the cruel twists and turns their irrevocably intertwined destinies would take before long.

Trying to slip her finger into the fragile band, Nerdanel sighed. Her digits had grown too broad with relentless crafting and too stiff with compounded misery for the ring to fit nowadays.

“I’ve outgrown the dreams we once had,” she murmured, setting the precious trinket back down carefully. “It’s all ashes and smoke now.”

Even as she spoke those words, she knew that it was she who was lying now.

For a while, she had basked in all the glory Fëanor had conjured up for his improbable bride—beautiful, exceptional children, a lofty mansion, an enviable position in society, Nerdanel had indisputably been blessed beyond her wildest dreams.

And then, she’d been cruelly robbed of more than she’d even known she’d possessed. Her youth. What little beauty she’d had. The seemingly unshakable peace and resolution of her soul. All had crumbled to dirt in the wake of her husband’s departure and the subsequent suffering and demise of her precious sons.

Of course, people believed that—sooner or later—they’d all come back to her, renewed, healed, hale once more, but Nerdanel had grown tired of waiting for the obstinate tide to turn.

With a muted thud, the lid of the box was closed reverently by pale, trembling, ringless hands.

Remembering the fate of her beloved grandson, Nerdanel shook her head in wordless regret.

Mayhap, rings had never been good omens for their line, and she’d ask Fëanor to make her something entirely different which would befit their respective natures—irreversibly changed by the events of the last ages—better.

“If he returns,” she whispered into the painfully empty, bare room. “To this world, to this house, and to my undying love.”

-> Masterlist

@feanorianweek, Thank you for having me! It's been such a pleasure!

[i-did-not-mean-to]

Fëanorian Week 2024

Thanks to @cilil, I've decided to do the @feanorianweek as well this year!

Please stay tuned!

📖Maedhros

🎶Maglor

🗿Celegorm

🧸Caranthir

🔨Curufin

🎗️Ambarussa

💍Fëanor & Nerdanel

[i-did-not-mean-to]

Fëanorian Week - Ambarussa

It's twin time :) Less sad this time (I hope)

Words: 510

Characters: Amras & Amrod

Prompts: Childhood, Lordship, Regrets, Twin, Hunting

Warnings: Death of an animal, loss of identity, existential fear

Like two shadows cast by a slanted sunbeam hitting a gnarly tree, the twins slid noiselessly closer, arrows notched and eyes narrowed.

They had always delighted in hunting, but their puerile pleasure had since been marred lastingly by the understanding of the true cost of death.

Without having to exchange a single look, let alone a spoken word, they moved in perfect synchronicity as they prepared to bring down their family’s dinner.

It was vital to their pride and identity to contribute to the survival of their rapidly dwindling brotherhood as best they could—too long had they been coddled and excluded on the grounds of their respective youth and irrefutable position on the bottom rung of the familial hierarchy.

Giving a piercing cry of agony, the deer—once a proud guardian of the dark forest—fell to the mossy ground before laying still, its eyes as sightless and dull as discarded gems.

They had triumphed, but their victory tasted bitter, befouled by necessity and dire need as it was.

Already, they could feel the impatience of their elders thrumming in their own veins—they had to move on, ever driven by the siren call of their father’s accursed stones, and there was neither time nor room for leisure or rest.

As they bent over the cadaver to cut away what they wouldn’t need or couldn’t transport, their hands moved with ruthless efficiency while their hearts, beating as one, mourned the unceremonious demise of so proud a beast.

In a world of waxy greens and muddy browns, the narrow bands fastened around their wrists flashed like exotic blossoms, a single dash of muted colour amidst the monochrome of the woods.

Once, the woven bracelets had been positively gleaming, but they had bled out most of their dye over the years, thus becoming a horribly apt representation of the change the twins’ very souls had undergone.

Carnistir, in a slightly insulting jest, had bestowed this simple but invaluable gift upon them to keep them apart.

Back in the days of wild frolicking and courtly appearances, it had been important to keep track of Fëanor’s children, and the two youngest sons had played their part with as much dutiful gravitas as they could muster in between hunts and escapades.

How heedless and callous they’d been, disregarding their caring mother’s pleas and their father’s remonstrances cavalierly to follow their wayward brother into the forest instead of humouring their grandfather or listening to his wise council.

Now, they were no longer sure whether anyone cared which one of them had been born first as long as nobody had to learn which one was to die before the other.

Slinging their packs, dripping with blood and heavy with their gruesome prize, across their broad backs, they padded off as silently as they’d come.

To their brothers and the world, they were one, and they couldn’t even regret having lost their own separate identities if this conflation meant that they’d never truly be alone.

Pityo and Telvo were no more—only Ambarussa, burned and bitter, remained.

-> Masterlist

@feanorianweek, here is the second to last submission!

[i-did-not-mean-to]

Fëanorian Week - Caranthir

So...erm...yeah, I don't even know what to say about this one...

Words: 510

Characters: Caranthir & Celegorm, Caranthir x Haleth

Prompts: Childhood, Spouse, Betrayal, Dwarves & Humans, Marriage, Appearance

Warnings: Oh insecurity, sadness, longing, loss...

Anger—diffuse and dull now—billowed through Caranthir’s soul like a pinkish mist.

At times, it felt as if all the other emotions which he’d once been able to feel had been displaced by that singular fire which kept his heart beating by sheer, brute force.

His fingers tightened around worn, threadbare fabric, and he scowled ferociously.

He’d tried to throw away the ghastly ragdoll countless times—it barely resembled anything at all, let alone the cat it had meant to represent upon its creation, and he hated how attached he was to the accursed thing.

For as long as he could remember, Tyelko had disliked him.

Of course, little ill-tempered, red-faced Morifinwë had not been worthy of the incandescent wrath or the formidable hatred of so tempestuous a soul—no, he’d grown up in the bitingly cold shadow of his older brother’s disdain.

Thus, the nameless lump of fabric—made of scraps from one of their father’s old mantles—had been the only gift Caranthir had ever received from Celegorm.

All the stitches were crooked, and the knobbly filling of discarded thread and whisps of clothes his brothers had outgrown had long since fallen out on account of the shoddy handiwork.

Irascible and impatient by nature, Caranthir had decided to take it apart and make it anew at least as often as he’d considered throwing it into the flames, but, ultimately, he never had.

“It’s red, like you,” his sibling had crooned upon thundering into his room in a flurry of dead leaves and mud. “It can be your friend.”

Caranthir, who had gained respect but never love over the years, would have been mortified that he still yearned for friendship so desperately; alas, shame had been burned out of his being along with hope on the battlefield.

Innumerable were his allies; he was feared and esteemed in equal measures by his own kind as well as his trade partners, but none of these brave souls had ever held any real affection for him.

Except…

Despite the betrayals he’d perpetrated and endured, and which had hardened him into something as unrecognisable as the mangled toy he clasped against his aching chest, Haleth had smiled at him as if he wasn’t unlovely and bitter.

She’d been wrong, but that didn’t diminish the sense of wonder and awe that flooded Caranthir’s petrified heart whenever his thoughts but grazed the image of her boundless, reckless joy, etched indelibly onto the last remaining soft spot of his soul.

Wordlessly, he laid down his childhood comfort, a symbol of untarnished love that could never be unmade or marred by dark deeds and terrible times, on the wet earth under which rested the brittle bones of one he had cherished more than he’d ever confessed.

“I give to thee, Haleth of the Haladin, queen amongst mortals, the jealously guarded and honestly dismal craft of Turcafinwë Tyelkormo…along with the wretched soul of one you might have saved had your fate been a different one.”

Desolate and utterly alone, he turned and limped away, blind with tears.

-> Masterlist

@feanorianweek, here is my first submission!

[i-did-not-mean-to]

Fëanorian Week - Maglor

And we continue with a little more sadness...

I am very sorry :S

Words: 510

Characters: Maglor & Maedhros, Maglor & Elrond

Prompts: Childhood,  Music & Songs of Power, Elrond & Elros, Redemption

Warnings: Sadness, injury, abandonment

Nelyafinwë, glorious firstborn of their prideful father, had never amounted to more than a technically proficient but undeniably uninspired metalworker.

Few were the crafts made by his blessed, strong hands, and even fewer had survived the ravages of time and the justified outrage after their terrible crime.

As he sat by the water, Maglor who’d not been Kanafinwë in so long that he barely remembered the cheeky prince haunting his taut skin and spasming muscles, closed his burned hand around the miniature harp until the pain chased away the painful memories he’d believed to have been long lost.

Digging into his ruined skin was one of those fabled creations, as simple and sober as the man himself, and he added his own liquid sacrifice of fraternal gratitude and boundless solitude to the merciless ocean witnessing his ultimate fall from grace dispassionately.

He still recalled the day his tall, slender brother had presented him with the naïve imitation of an instrument Maglor would—in time—learn to tame and master to an unparalleled level.

It had been a gift of love, a solemn promise, and a heartening declaration of unconditional, unshakable faith in a younger sibling’s innate talent.

There had only been three strings then, and Maglor had lost one in the tumultuous events that had dominated their lives in this frightening, new world, but he’d never given up that tiny harp.

A puerile, paranoid fear assailed him at the mere thought of losing it as it had become the gleaming, fragile, irreparably battered symbol of a childhood he resented and regretted in equal measures.

His brother was gone, and he was alone, humming fitfully along to the dissonant strumming of the worn filaments that cut his body and soul to shreds.

What songs of power, what sweet music of happiness and horror he had unleashed on this precious treasure.

The dreams he wove now, though, were but fleeting whisps of fading nostalgia; they were as feeble and unsteady as the one coaxing them forth, one tremulous, wavering note at a time.

With a heavy sigh, he stood slowly before padding noiselessly to the boundaries of a realm he’d never willingly breach.

Laying down the last vestige of love and honour reverently on a bench Elrond visited at times, Maglor took his sullen, silent leave of all that had been and that would never return.

“May it sing for children and lovers once more,” he whispered hoarsely. “It is too beautiful a thing to be condemned to incessant dirges and lamentations.”

Accepting that even his tremendous might and desperate affection had their boundaries and that he’d drifted too far out onto the sea of oblivion to ever return, Maglor relinquished the part of him that yearned for redemption with the same cold resolution he’d displayed when casting the Silmaril into its watery prison.

Elrond, pitiful captive and beloved son, would find it in time, and he’d understand.

“Do not weep,” Maglor whispered. “Sing merry songs that dispel the gloom that has been blanket and coat to you for far too long.”

-> Masterlist

@feanorianweek, here is my second submission!

[mothdalf]

Fëanorian week day 2:

Maglor -> songs of power

I can’t stop thinking of that post about other high elves being able to do that terrifying wrathful form thing like Galadriel. Music is magic and power in Tolkien’s work and the idea of The Mighty Singer, hair lifted by an unnatural wind, eyes glowing white sucker punches me every so often.

[mothdalf]

Fëanorian week day 6:

Ambarussa -> hunting

The dark stuff is over for the week- phew! I could have kept up the angst for these two (obvs) but Idk I wanted to do something cute. So here are the young twins, pre darkening, learning to hunt (probably from Celegorm)

[mothdalf]

To begin Fëanorian week properly now, day 1:

Maedhros -> scars

I’m trying something new with this week’s art, I.e. black paper, white pencil, and metallics, and so far I am loving it!

@feanorianweek