The seven sons of Fëanor were Maedhros the tall; Maglor the mighty
singer, whose voice was heard far over land and sea; Celegorm the fair,
and Caranthir the dark; Curufin the crafty, who inherited most his
father’s skill of hand; and the youngest Amrod and Amras, who were twin
brothers, alike in mood and face.
elfweek // day 07. anything you want: the seven sons of fëanor
When she was grown to full stature and beauty she was tall and strong, and loved much to ride and hunt in the forests. There she was often in the company of the sons of Fëanor, her kin; but to none was her heart’s love given.
All of them together! I didn’t set out at the start trying to make these a set, but they started turning out that way. I’m so grateful to @feanorianweek for this whole occasion – this is the most artistically productive I’ve been in a year, and it feels amazing.
Curufin:
Childhood, Feanor, Forge work, Celebrimbor, Manipulation, Ruling of Nargothrond
“You must see it, Tyelko. This is the only way I can
-”
Keep Tyelpe safe? Hardly. Keep him happy? Even less likely.
Keep him alive?
Atar willing, yes, and in the end that was all Curufinwë
could really ask anymore.
But Tyelkormo was already nodding, as if he could guess what
Curufinwë was trying to say. And maybe he could. “Of course, brother. Of
course.”
“Good.” He hadn’t doubted his brother, not really,
but it was a relief to hear him say it all the same. “Then go. Find
Findaráto’s dog, and put him on the wrong scent. I don’t care how you do it,
but drive the sense out of his head. Well? What are you still here for? Go, go!
I will not need long, but we have very little time all the same.”
Tyelkormo just nodded one last time, grim and mute, before
he prowled from Tyelpe’s rooms in search of the Noldo who had until just
recently been Nargothrond’s captain of the guard.
Still. Curufinwë trusted Tyelkormo, and usually he could
count on him to override any sense of tact or diplomacy, but – the stakes here were
too high for assumptions, or even for trust.
In the end, it all came down to Curufinwë himself, didn’t
it. To whether he still had the strength of mind, and heart, and will, to do
what he knew needed to be done.
For even as he set pen to paper, mouth pursing in
concentration, Curufinwë could not push the image of Tyelpe’s face from his
mind. For even as he began to commit to paper the words that would sever any
last ties between them – even as he struggled to use a soldier’s tongue instead
of his own – it was utterly impossible to divorce the project at hand from the
circumstances that had driven it.
By Atar’s soul, Curufinwë had never been prouder of his son
than he had when Tyelpe had stood up in Findaráto’s throne room earlier this
day. At the time he had felt his vision narrow and his heart near stop,
thinking that Tyelpe would follow him and Tyelkormo, proclaiming the Oath and
decrying Findaráto’s support of their mad Edain caller – only for his vision to
blur further and his heart roar in his ears when instead Tyelpe denounced them.
Oh, his precious child…
Even as Tyelpe had excoriated him, and decried him, and
disowned himself, Curufinwë had been so proud of him. And the feeling was not
unmixed with relief – trust the boy to find perhaps the one way he could have cut
himself free of the Oath that had so trapped the rest of them, even if Tyelpe
hadn’t known that was what he was doing.
So proud. Curufinwë was so proud. And it did not matter who
he had to wound or maim or slay to do it, but he would push Tyelpe the rest of
the way out of the Oath’s path by whatever means necessary.
Even if the one most hurt by his actions was Tyelpe himself.
It is not enough that
you foreswore your father, Celebrimbor. Oddly detached, he watched the
Sindarin words form beneath his pen, scrawling and alien in every sense of the
term as he attempted to mimic the soldier’s cant he had seen of Findarato’s
captain.
And yet, as much as
they were meant to be coming from another hand, another voice, every word that
dripped from the pen hurt as much as if it were being pulled from Curufinwë’s
own heart – as perhaps they were.
Do not think that I
will ever forgive you for your part in this day, or that you are welcome in
this land any longer, even if I am gone by nightfall.
His concentration was such that he did not realize he was no
longer alone until Tyelpe spoke.
“What are you doing in my rooms?”
So. He would not even be able to do this through the guise
of another man.
It was probably apt, Curufinwë mused distantly as he straightened
from Tyelpe’s own desk. Fitting, in the greater scheme of things, that of
course he would have to hurt his son himself.
“It is nothing you
need concern yourself with, for if you are here then I can tell you myself.” He
crumpled the fake note from Findaráto’s captain, pushing it up his own sleeve even
as he turned to face his son. He could already feel himself struggling to
muster his strength, to spit the words he had so hoped could come from another
voice. “I am surprised you have the stones to do it, when you are not preening
before such an audience as you had this morning, but then – perhaps you imagine
that Findaráto will favor and shelter you now, eh?”
Oh but his son was magnificent, blazing with all the glory
of his scorn and indignation!
“I do not need a king to tell me what is right and what is
wrong,” Tyelpe said harshly. “I can tell such things apart for myself quite well
enough. Now. Get out.”
Curufinwë forced himself to raise a brow, instead of
gathering his wonderful son into his arms. “So. You imagine that you have the
authority to command me now, or to presume that you need not even hear what I
have come to say?”
“It is no concern of mine what you do or do not imagine, for
you have no say in my loyalties any longer!” Tyelpe cried, and oh but he shone
like the sun!
This would be the greatest, the hardest, thing that
Curufinwë had ever proclaimed – that Oath, that damned Oath, included first
upon the list – but it would be said. For his son. “I do not care what you
think you are calling yourself, but I am your right lord even if you imagine
you can stop calling me your father.”
He breathed deep.
“I forbid you from leaving Nargothrond. I forbid you to
speak with anyone, or to leave these chambers for any reason.
Tyelpe, brows thunderous with gathering wrath, was already
drawing breath to debate this, but Curufinwë could not stay to hear it. He was
already close enough to breaking as it was.
“And I trust that you
will see reason soon enough.”
And he forced himself to smile, with every appearance of unpleasant
righteousness, until he could slam the door closed behind him, shutting out
Tyelpe’s growing rage.
If that had worked as he hoped it would, then Tyelpe would
leave Nargothrond just to defy him. And if Tyelko had succeeded as he should have, than Findaráto’s captain
would have been riled more than enough to reject Tyelpe’s suit to him out of
hand, and Tyelpe would be prevented from joining Findaráto’s doomed quest.
And if he had succeeded, then Curufinwë would never see his
son again on this side of the sea. Or perhaps ever, if the doom that Tyelpe had
avoided this day came to claim Curufinwë as he had once dared it to, so many
years ago.
And praised be, he seemed to have been the only one.
But then Curufin twitched, and whirled as if he had imagined
he heard something, and Celegorm knew, with a terrible sinking certainty – if
he did not move in first, then nothing good would come of it.
Only bad, and worse, and worse.
“There is no one here,” he told his brothers.
“Oddly enough, Tyelko, I had
noticed that, but unless you have a better idea then I imagine we should start here.” Curufin’s voice was little
more than a snarl, for all that his stride remained elegant, as neat and clean
as his sword was bloody.
Caranthir’s rage had never been left him quite as eloquent. “Where. Is. He.”
Curufin’s smile was crueler than any predator’s teeth could
have been. “When we find that whelp, brothers, I demand the honor of the first
blow. Atar’s honor in Atar’s image, yes?”
And there were those tiny noises again, ever so slightly
louder this time.
Any more, and even one who had not followed the hunt all his
days would be able to hear them.
“Take different rooms,” Celegorm told his brothers. “Look
for a way out.”
Curufin’s terrible smile only grew, and the sight of it tore
at Celegorm’s heart. “Well, Moryo. You heard our tracker! Let us run the whelp
to ground, eh?”
Celegorm turned away before he needed see anymore of the
beasts his brothers had become. Leaving them to their snapping, he stole softly
to the anteroom from which the sounds had come.
For the noises had been those of pups. He was sure of it.
And he had been right.
They had taken refuge behind a table – two tiny, fragile
creatures, dark of hair and bright of eye, slight of build and soft of tongue.
Dior’s. They had their grand-dame’s eyes.
“Void take us.” Celegorm needed to get them out. If his
brothers found them, the boys would be taken hostage. Ransomed for their father’s
follies and their grand-dame’s deeds.
Where were his men, Celegorm needed his captain …
He knelt, some distance away, and cleared his throat,
quietly. “Boys.”
He hadn’t needed to speak softly – to anyone – since Nargothrond.
Since before Tyelpe had forsworn them. “Boys, please. Come here. We need to go.”
Perhaps they couldn’t speak yet? How young were they? It
mattered not. They needed to leave.
“Boys,” he started again, and his heart rose to see them
straighten from their trembling, and even smile, a little.
“Thank you,” he whispered, just as a voice behind him said,
just as soft, “Boys. Close your eyes.”
He felt the blade at his back. He knew who it was – who it
had to be – even as the boys, trusting their father, closed their eyes.
And then Dior ran him through.
He never learned what brought Curufin and Caranthir in just then
– he didn’t think he’d screamed. Perhaps the boys had looked after all. But
when he opened his eyes again, Luthien’s son was still and Caranthir was
stiller and Curufin was choking on his last breaths and here was Seren, what
had taken him so long…
“Please.” He clutched at his captain’s sleeve. “The princes.”
“They don’t matter now, hold tight, my lord, we have a
healer coming…” Seren was scrambling to staunch the wound, but he didn’t
understand, it didn’t matter… “He took you in the back, the craven, oh but I
would make him pay…”
“The princes.” That was all that mattered now: Celegorm had
to make him understand. “Please.”
“My lord,” Seren protested, softly.
“The princes.”
They were all that mattered now. His captain could save
them.
“Please.”
“It will be done,” Seren promised. His fist clenched in the
tunic at Celegorm’s breast.
Raising Cain 2: Electric Boogaloo 