Murmur

Canon compliant AU.  The rift between Fëanor and Indis births a new hatred and envy.  A new tragedy.  Quenya names used (Fëanor = Fëanáro).  Of course, Findis is not an OFC (no matter how stupid her name might be--really Tolkien?  Really?) and the newborn baby is Fingolfin (who is Finwë's third not second child).  Other than that, this is really just background for something that happens in the canon.  Takes place in Tirion during the Years of the Trees.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: Finwë x Indis

Characters: Fëanor, Finwë, Indis, Fingolfin (mentions random other elves, Findis, the Valar and Míriel)

Warning: canon compliant AU, canon pairings, obsessive behavior, mother and father complex, family feuding, irrational behavior

Song: The Slightly Chipped Full Moon

Words: 1,137
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
murmur (noun): a half-suppressed or muttered complaint: grumbling; a low indistinct but often continuous sound; a soft or gentle utterance
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/murmur

News of the birth was all over the city.

New of the birth of a boy.  A prince.

Fëanáro had not much believed it would be a bother to have another younger sibling.  He could easily tolerate little Findis, who at most wanted occasionally to be held and rocked or to play games and have her hair braided.  Now there would be another little one in the palace.  A harmless little child, the son or daughter of his father and his stepmother...

That woman...

But he forced his feelings for her usurpation aside.  His bitter and eternal resentment of that lovely heart-shaped face and those coy blue eyes, they had no place on the day of birth of his second sibling.  Fëanáro might not have been fond of the woman, but he did not want to upset his father, whose experiences in the past with young children were already chipped and scuffed enough without his foul temper further darkening their shadows.

It was a day of joy for his family.  And he wanted Finwë to be happy on the day he became a father for the third time, not wracked with guilt or sorrow over the rift of his beloved wife and son.

And thus it was that, as he made his way through town, Fëanáro had every intention of welcoming his young brother into the world with a genuine smile and a tender kiss upon the brow no matter that the babe had come from the womb of Indis of the Vanyar.

Until he heard it.

The murmur of voices.

From every direction they washed over him in tandem with curious and speculative gazes.  They prickled and prodded at his flesh, and the prince pursed his lips in irritation as he watched the public break into a flurry of words whispered behind raised hands, their combined excitement building into a faint din.

"There he goes... the prince..."

"He is going to see his new brother, I am certain."

"But what do you think he shall do?"

"The King and Queen, they now have a son."

"There is an heir..."

An heir...

It made Fëanáro's blood run cold, burning the walls of his veins with a cruel touch.

Usurpation.

It had not even occurred to his now frenetically calculating mind that there would ever be doubt over his status as the King's eldest son and true heir.  But it should have.  After all, his mother was not the Queen and was not married to the King.  Not anymore.  And she never would be again, thus had decreed the Valar in their cruel courting of perfection.  A phantom of the past, Míriel was but a dance of silvery wisps in the coolness of the evening evaporating with the waxing of Laurelin to full glory.  As though she had never existed.

And Indis was that garish light.  The replacement.  The Queen.  She had overlapped Míriel completely, eclipsing the former beauty with her golden resplendence.  Taking her place as sovereign.  Taking her place as wife.  Taking her place as mother.

And now she had given birth to a son.  The firstborn son of Finwë and Indis.  The King and his new Queen.  His chosen and rightful spouse.

And thus, was their firstborn son the rightful heir?

Was that child meant to replace him?  Erase him altogether?  As she had been erased?

In his belly, Fëanáro felt the twist and stab of something undesirable and filthy, a black coating burning at the edges of his vision.  The sort of envy that screamed for shed blood in payment for her seductive attention and fulfillment.  A tenuous darkness settled in a thin layer of dust over his mind as he entered the home of his father, fleeing the murmur that promised doubts and mazes of ill thoughts.

Only...

Only the faint noise did not cease...

Not when he came upon the birthing chambers where he knew Indis would be resting after her ordeal.  Voices, soft and distant, echoed from inside, but they lilted with a joyous ring that brought a wave of nausea to Fëanáro's stomach and a heavy, leaden ache to his heart.  That was his father's baritone, crooning soothingly, quivering with emotion, and the image settled itself deep into the prince's mind, a poisoned needle sinking and sinking to the blood...

Of Finwë cradling the baby, gaze lovingly enraptured.  Of those eyes glancing up as the door opened, catching upon the eldest son and then sliding away, back to that small, wrinkled little face with the big blue eyes.  Ignoring his presence.  Turning the brilliance of his love upon another and leaving Fëanáro standing alone in the corner.  Hiding alone in the darkness without the ever-present light.

A nightmarish daydream of dismissal.  Of disappearing altogether like a wisp of silver, fleeting and delicate, destroyed...

It went against every sliver of pride he possessed, buried beneath the top layer of thick skin, but part of Fëanáro knew he was fearful.  That his pulse raced, not with anticipation at meeting for the first time his brother, but with the purest form of dread at first sight of the child in his father's arms...

And his muscles quivered with the slimiest form of hatred.

He did not enter the room to see the baby--his younger brother.  His half-brother.  His rival and enemy.

His own personal Indis.  His own personal unforgiving ray of golden light.

But Fëanáro would not allow his tragedy to end in a reprise.  Grinding his teeth, he turned away and silently passed down the halls without bothering to interrupt the atmosphere of those airy chambers.  When Finwë came to seek him out from his hiding in the corners, he would put a smile on his face and spout a shower of congratulations and pretend at affectionate endearment for the babe.  He would put on a good show of being a loving older brother with gentle hands and a coaxing smile.  

Convincing though it might be, though, it would be but a show.  A charade to please and placate.  After all, no politician became a figure of worth without knowing how to speak blatant lies without batting a lash.  And few could claim to best the Crown Prince at his own game of half-truths and white lies.

He would feign at happiness for his father.  And only for his father.

But he did not think he would ever be able to look upon his brother as an elder sibling ought.  As a protector ought.  Not whilst the murmur of doubt rested as dead-weight upon his spirit, embedding itself as a sickness into the back of his mind.  And infected.

There would be no love between them.  And never that of brothers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't even know how this idea came to me, but it did and then it stuck, and so here it is.  The origin of Fëanor's dislike for Fingolfin, which obviously gains its own new levels of badass in the future (and not really for the better).  Stemming, as usual, from the mother and father complexes that might as well be canonical.  Because I know that people don't always like their parents remarrying, but to take it this far...

Yeah... I guess I don't have personal experience.  But this seems extreme to me.

In any case, obviously this is another installment of the "Dim", "Hold" and "Precious" arc thing that has begun forming from "Exception" (which was written ages ago...)  I actually have become rather fond of this arc and enjoy writing more Fëanor.  He's one of my sort of neglected characters proportional to the amount of attention he gets in the Silmarillion, if you get my meaning.

Anyway... The song for today is another from Kuroshituji (actually, it's from Kuroshitsuji II, which I actually rather did not enjoy at all).  Alois' Theme, The Slightly Chipped Full Moon is a lovely song and I love it to death, though this particular one is a cover and not the original.  Let's be honest here, I rather hate Alois as a character because of how he acts, but I really feel sorry for him.  His story, no matter how much of a brat he might be, is a real tragedy.  Because no one cares about him, not even for the sake of devouring his soul.  It's just sad, sadder even than Ciel's story in some ways.  And I think this song definitely personifies that tragedy--and all tragedy in general.  Makes you ache in places you didn't know you had.

That's the reason I write tragedy, I swear.  Call me a masochist, but its the long-drawn ache in your chest at knowing everything will never be okay.  And relishing.