Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion.
Pairings: none
Characters: Amrod, Fëanor, Amras, Maedhros (mentions Fingolfin, Nerdanel, the other Finwions or Eru)
Warning: somewhat canon compliant, canon character death, intentional filicide (suspected), self-hatred, dysfunctional family issues
Song: Anthem of Our Dying Day
Words: 1,287
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heavy (adjective): having great weight; hard to bear: grievous, afflictive; of weighty import: serious
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heavy
He wondered if anyone else could see the guilt in those eyes, or if they were all willfully blind.
Brilliant silver, fey and filled with triumph as they looked down over the devastation spread throughout the smoky water below. As the darkness had fallen the night before, lanterns extinguished as sleep spread its blanket over their camp, the swans had settled themselves calmly on the still ocean waters, their necks startling white fading to gray against the starless blackness of the sky. But now there was nothing left.
Charred remains floating innocently across the surface, as though they did not mark death and destruction. Long since, the flames had gone out and the panic caused by the agonized screams had died down into eerie silence. Pityafinwë could remember all the yelling and stumbling in the blackness, the running and the attempts at first to put out the fires that ate away swan feathers voraciously.
And he could remember hands pulling his away. Voices silencing the chaos. Telling them to cease their useless efforts.
"The ships are burning on the orders of the High King."
"Someone is dying out there?" Nelyafinwë, ever the stalwart and righteous, wanting to save the person whose cries had long since cut short. If only he had been successful.
"It is far too late, my prince. Please, let the ships burn."
But it was not to be.
"It was a tragedy, an accident. Had I known that Telufinwë had re-boarded one of the ships, I would never have ordered them burned." Their High King stood before them, his face solemn and his voice filled with magnetic gravitas. "I believe he may have gotten cold feet--may have wanted to... to return back to his mother."
Their father did not know his youngest son. Not at all. But Pityafinwë did.
And yes, Telvo had been frightened. Who wouldn't have been? They had left behind everything they had ever known, had turned their backs on the Valar and sworn an Oath of eternal vengeance. And then they had become murderers in the cold blood. But more so than that, their father had betrayed his family, and Telvo had been disgusted with the actions of their father, the man who they had trusted with their very lives.
"Who does that--to their own brother?" Telvo gasped out. "I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy, let alone to my own half-brother. And for what? Petty revenge over an argument for a crown that doesn't even exist anymore?"
In their tent, his younger twin had wept, had worked himself up into such a rage and terror that he had been sobbing and pulling his soft curls, scratching his scalp until his fingers came away slick with blood. And Pityafinwë had not known what to do to calm the violent frenzy of emotion. He hadn't known what to say to make his brother breathe and think. Because he had the same doubts and suspicions, felt the same horror. Yet his first murder had not traumatized him the way it had his little brother.
And Telufinwë just hadn't been able to pull himself together.
"Please, please just lie down. Have some wine. Sleep for a while. Please, little brother," he begged, wrapping his arms about the hiccupping, shaking form. "Forget all about what father has done. Please, do not do anything foolish."
"But how? How can I just let this lie? How can I respect a king who has done something so heinous to his own family? To Uncle Nolofinwë? To our cousins? To us?"
Watery green eyes looked upwards, and Pityafinwë would never forget the fury and the determination staring back at him. At the moment, he had known that he couldn't convince Telvo to change his mind, to drop the blame and forget the crimes.
"He has made murderers of us all, brother. Taken us away from our homes and our families. Our brothers from their wives. Our nephews from their mothers. And now he has sentenced men who followed him with unthinking loyalty and devotion to death over a trivial spat!"
And hadn't he?
Telufinwë had been something special, a wild creature full of spontaneity and passion without a droplet of fear in his heart. Truly their father's son. A man of his own words and opinions, who would not lay back and say nothing at such a slight.
Pityafinwë knew he should have tried harder to make himself heard. Because then maybe... maybe Telvo wouldn't have...
But, fool that he had been, Pityafinwë had heard his brother creep out in the darkness without a word. And he had done nothing.
Now, his brother was dead. And he knew who was guilty. Could feel the weight of his foolish lack of action resting on one shoulder and the weight of the truth of his brother's murder on the other. Father and son--both were to blame, and both knew it.
"Ai Ilúvatar!" Nelyafinwë's voice trembled with sincere horror and disbelief at the loss of a child he had rocked to sleep at night, a child he had kissed and hugged and loved more than their father ever had done. "Please, Atar... Atto, tell me it's not... not true..."
Distraught, their oldest brother went forth with wet cheeks and widespread arms, searching for comfort that none of them could offer. And in the pit of his belly, hatred burned for their sire as Fëanáro let the eldest sob against his shoulder. But those eyes did not change. Not a bit. Not a shimmer of tears. Not a glimmer of remorse. And for all the disgust Pityafinwë might have felt for himself, it couldn't have compared to what he felt for this man lying to his brothers about the death of his own son.
Yet, in the end, it seemed Pityafinwë was more his father's son than not as well. Because--though his lips parted to snarl out the truth in all its wicked, heinous glory and watch his father's self-righteous façade of an upset, overwrought father dissolve--no words would depart. No confession of his own stupidity, and no admittance of knowledge of their father's undeniable guilt. For Fëanáro had known that his youngest son was aboard one of those ships--he would never had set them afire without warning his followers otherwise.
It seemed that their uncle had been the first victim. Their brother was the second.
And Pityafinwë couldn't help but wonder who would be next.
The knowledge rested heavy upon his shoulders as he watched his older brother mourn. His sightless eyes did not see the pitying faces cast in his direction and his deafened ears did not hear the consolatory comments of shared grief.
They saw only his younger brother's turned back and heard his wild, shouted words between caught gasps. A phantom he couldn't touch no matter how he reached and grasped. A ghost whose ears would never hear his words or pleas no matter how loud he screamed.
And he never told anyone. Not when his father had died. Not after Nelyafinwë was abducted and held at ransom. And certainly not in the dark days that followed.
He would carry the backbreaking weight of that knowledge to his grave. Further, even. And he couldn't help but wonder if his father--his king--felt that weight at all. If any guilt or self-hatred dragged down the ruthless, nonchalant Fëanáro Curufinwë. Or if the flat reflection of arrogant satisfaction he had seen that day in those starlit eyes really was the truth lying beneath the infamous genius's impenetrable outer shell.
But he would never get a chance to ask.
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I don't have much time to talk tonight, so here is the (roughly edited) story. I've been exploring Amrod's personality much more as of late, and he's forming his own personality slowly, which pleases me. It drives me batshit crazy up the wall when the twins are both some stereotypical, generically manufactured pair of troublemakers. Because all identical twins are not mischievous troublemakers, especially not after going through what these brats went through (I hate it when this happens to the Elrondions as well).
Thus, this came about. To the song Anthem of Our Dying Day by Story of the Year. Firstly, their music video caught my attention. But beside that, I just liked the song and the atmosphere, and so I used it even though the lyrics are not all that relevant. Although, I suppose some of the poetic turns of phrase are somewhat applicable.
Now, I'm off. I've got people waiting on me.
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