Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion
Pairings: none
Characters: Fëanor, Finwë, Fëanorions (mentions Maglor, Amrod and Amras specifically, as well as Morgoth, the Valar, Eru and, in a roundabout fashion, Míriel)
Warning: canon compliant, mass murder, theft, dysfunctional familial relationships, mother and father complexes, debatable insanity, vague mentions of gore and violence, lots of blood
Song: The Prophecy
Words: 1,109
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paint (verb): to apply color, pigment, or paint to; to produce or evoke as if by painting; to apply with a movement resembling that used in painting
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paint
It was one thing to speak a promise in the heat of passion.
It was another thing to mean it with every drop of blood in your veins.
Fëanáro meant his promise. With every last drop of blood in his veins. Unto death or unto glory or unto utter shame, he would keep to his oath. He could never take back his words. Would never take back his words. Did not want to take back his words. Rather, he would hold them close until the moment his spirit ceased to burn in a resplendent inferno. Until the very essence of his being was unmade at the end of time.
He could not forget them or foreswear them.
With crushing vividness, he remembered his father's face painted in the scarlet of their kinship, remembered the half-open, empty gray eyes, and felt the curl of scalding fury in his gut. The overwhelming urge that brought his hands into tightly clenched fists and left gooseflesh breaking out across his itching, burning skin. The unyielding need to rend and tear and assuage the horrible stretching and twisting of his insides into knots.
To uphold his words. No matter to what hell they ultimately led.
Because he had to avenge his father. Had to reclaim the silver butterfly that had escaped her jar.
Had to, had to, had to...
No matter what, Fëanáro pledged that he would not regret his Oath. Would not regret doing whatever it took to reach his goal--to tear apart his father's murderer and recover the Silmarilli. To make sure that his fragile and mangled family could be somehow pieced back together.
These people were just the first casualties.
And he did not regret.
Did not cringe at the feeling of his sword tearing through flesh down the bone, slaughtering in the cold blood. Did not shy from hearing the screams and cries and pleading of his helpless victims as they were hunted down. Did not feel ill watching their blood and innards splattering the ground at his feet. Did not wallow in remorse as he stood watching as they bled out before him--as his father must have bled out, oh so quickly!--whilst they squirmed helplessly in agony and terror.
He had ordered their deaths. Ordered that none be spared. And he did not regret.
They might be kin, but they were mere obstacles in his path. To be removed. Sacrifices on the altar of the Oath to be offered to a higher purpose.
And now the Crown Prince--the High King--was painted with the blood of kin.
And smiling. Reveling in the slickness of hot red liquid soaking down to his bones.
Sinful, the Valar called it, for one elf to kill another elf. An act of evil and betrayal. But the Valar and the One had little leverage over him or the people they had ultimately failed. Fëanáro did not care what they thought, for they were both hypocritical and superficial in their concern, naïve to the realistic need for sacrifice and ruthlessness. Was it not their kin--and their mercy--that had destroyed Valinor in the first place? That had ruined his life and slain his father?
He remembered well the taste of his sire and king's blood upon his lips and tongue. And remembered that enemies could not be left to live. That mercy, in the end, was the road to failure and betrayal.
Now he stood before his ships, looking over their gracefully sweeping necks and intricately carved wings of his prize. About his boots dripped more thick globs of red--red, red, red, everywhere he looked it seemed to follow--collecting into a pool until it began to dribble into the unsullied water and dye its transparency into a sickening hue.
And at his shoulders were his sons--all painted likewise with the blood of kin.
Hair streaked and matted. Clothing torn ragged and splotched with dark patches of burgundy, sticking wetly to the flesh underneath, clinging. Faces streaked with crimson splatters--how it reminded him of his father's face, decorated in blood--brilliant and burning against their pure white skin. Hands drenched completely, blood under the nails and sunken into the ridges of broad palms. And swords gleaming in the light, the unmistakable tint of copper tang in the air and on the roof of the mouth settling over their gathering.
His children, all seven of them, were blooded. Newly minted Kinslayers.
And still, he did not regret.
For they had proven their loyalty to his cause. Were any of them to falter, it would be here, in the midst of the first trial of conflicting morality, hegemonic ideology and sheer determination, that they would give up and turn their backs in fear and faint heart. But not a single one--not even his gentle-hearted second-born or his young twins, barely out of childhood--had backed down from their duty to uphold their Oath.
They had done as he had ordered. They had slain all who stood in their path. And together, his family would be an unstoppable force. Together, he did not doubt that they could make Morgoth tremble in the deepest, filthiest pits of his layer. Could crush the vast armies of the enemy beneath their heels, take their revenge and reclaim what by right was theirs.
Before him they stood, almost the image of their grandsire in his last moments defending his home. Painted in the blood of kinship.
Many would consider the image before him--of innocence destroyed and left in ragged tatters beneath the onslaught of such atrocities--one of wickedness and lost hope. Of sin and betrayal utterly and completely.
But to him, it was a portrait of hope, worthy of pride and rejoicing.
Their family was blooded. Painted with the blood of kin. Painted with supposed wickedness, their hands unclean--the sinful hands of murderers with shadows growing in their hearts and ruthless cruelty branching out into their minds. Irredeemable Kinslayers.
Painted red with their Oath.
Though, when Fëanáro looked to them--and to his own reflection in the dark mirror of still waters below--and saw naught taint or evil or horror. Saw not something at which to cringe. Lifted his hand and pressed the bloodied palm to his bare white cheek, pulling away to watch the crimson dripping downwards. His smirk never faded and his eyes never darkened at the rippling image.
He saw only his family painted with the blood of resolve.
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Crazy Fëanor is crazy. This idea came to me, of course, yesterday and nearly directly quotes from that story, as you may have noticed. That's two days in a row where there's just been blood, blood and more blood. But I've finally started building up Fëanor's personality and characterization! I've been neglecting him for a rather long time.
This also, to be honest, has helped give me insight into why Fëanor does as he does when the Mandos curses the Noldor and names those who refuse to repent Exiles. Honestly, if I blamed the Valar for the death of my remaining parent and the theft of that which I consider to be one of my most valuable possessions, I sure as hell wouldn't be getting down on my knees and begging them for forgiveness. If anything, I'd have the uncontrollable urge to spit in their faces. No matter how crazy Fëanor is, I think most of us can sympathize with this POV, which is, while slightly willfully blind, not completely incorrect.
Anyway, moving on from the bloodshed and motivations. The Prophecy by Tony Anderson is the song I chose for today because it just had something awesomely special about it. I'm not sure... maybe it was the echo-like effects that caught my attention? But whatever it is, something about this piece just connected right away with my idea for today, which is very much filled with echo and reflections. It just pleased me.
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