Burn

Canon compliant AU.  Fits with Mellow Soulmate AU, too.  The thoughts of Nerdanel shortly after the Exile of the Noldor from Aman.  Quenya names used (Fëanor = Fëanáro).  This is, of course, connected to "Vital", "Puzzle", "Tactile", "On My Mind" and several other stories.  I could also be related with the Locked arc, the Blush arc and the Disconsolate arc (if you don't know, you should read the other stories).  Takes place in Valinor near the end of the Years of the Trees.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: Fëanor x Nerdanel

Characters: Nerdanel, Fëanor (mentions the Fëanorions, spontaneous grandchildren, OFC daughters-in-law, Finwë and Míriel)

Warning: canon compliant AU, spontaneous grandchildren, mentions OFCs (established in other stories), heavy sexual undertones, semi-explicit sexual content, kissing and touching, metaphors, insanity

Song: Let It Burn

Words: 874
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burn (verb): to consume fuel and give off heat, light, and gases; to give off light: shine, glow; to produce or undergo discomfort or pain; to undergo alteration or destruction by the action of fire or heat
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/burn

Loving the Spirit of Fire was like loving an open flame with one's bare fingers.

Sometimes the heat of that golden and orange flicker tingled upon her fingertips, a caress that bore shivers down her spine in the dark nights when beside her he lay.  His breath upon her lips as he teased her with airy kisses and breathless laughter.  His hands upon her hips, slowly tracing downwards until they stroked her center and brought her blood to boiling.

It was the gentleness and tenderness that enraptured and ensnared, dragged in the prey.  The pure seduction that reeled with unnamed, inescapable force.  Warm enough to give a subtle warning of the unpredictability and recklessness of temptation, but cool enough to lure further and further beneath its light.

Into its hot core.  Until it was too late to draw away.

But then there was the sting.

The angry flash of eyes that easily glowed brighter than the Trees when in the grips of rage and upset, lined in thick black lashes and doubled by the cruel twist of lips rising over teeth.  Too many times she felt it become too much, the flame leaving her skin flushed and reddened where she had come too close, peeling where his acidic words had melted away her flesh and his sarcastic scoffs had shoved aside her feelings.

Quickly, she learned that one could not have the sweetness and the softness of his love without the bite of his temper.  Such was the intricate dance of touching pure fire and living to tell the tale.

But until this day she had never been burned.

Not the bubbling, blistering of flesh or the charred edges of a bloody twist of muscle.  Her fingers may have been sore and raw, but mostly unharmed from momentary contact with the white-hot center.

Reach not farther.  A lesson not yet learned.

For one did not court such dangerous a mate without risking devastation.  Such, she had forgotten in the wake of his offered warmth and comfort.  Of his low and crooning voice spilling her name upon his tongue, washing over her skin more intimately than any brush of his callused palms and cunning lips.  Of the pure charm that radiated from his handsome, crooked smile and the hungry glow of his resplendent eyes when he pushed her against the wall and caged her against his rippling form.

Always, she had known something lurked beneath that facade.  Known of the hatred.  Known of the resentment.  Known of the obsession.

Known of the inferno waiting to leap to life and swallow her whole.  Burn her to ashes.

She had ignored it too long.  Been blind and deaf to its roaring approach.

And burn her it did.

Burn and burn and burn... until there was nothing left at all.

Nothing.

Her husband was naught but a sin-entrenched, bloodstained murderer with a voice of pure seduction and eyes writhing with senility as he spewed violent words of war and revenge and reclamation in the name of his dead father and prized works.  Her sons were naught but his playthings, pawns to be moved to their proper positions until the moment of their sacrifice for the ultimate gain of his goal.  Her family was left in decimated shambles, grandchildren vanished like morning dew, daughters-in-law left behind in the cold, wounds open and exposed to the vicious poking and prodding of the public eye.

Nerdanel wondered if, in the end, she had been a fool.

A fool to ever believe that the love of Fëanáro for his wife outshone his love for his father and his mother and his craft.  That she could ever take precedence over his greatest passions and fears and overcome the shadow lurking beneath the curtain of his brilliance.

He had scorched her and left her for dead, lying upon the ground in silence, slowly succumbing to her wounds as she waited upon the shore and stared into the distance.  As the flames of her hair reached out toward his distant form wistfully and longingly, pleading for his sanity to return.  His distant form that, in its wildness and fey gleam, not even once glanced back in longing.

Always looking forward.  Always hungering to devour.  Always thirsting to destroy and make anew.  Uncontrollable.  Untamed.  Unconquerable.  Even by the soothing coolness of her devotion.

She had always been taught to be wary of fire, for it could both create the most wondrous of arts and bring about the most horrific of deaths.  Of its power over the world if left in clumsy hands.

To stay away, lest she be harmed.

And maybe she should have heeded the warning.  And turned away from his light.

Maybe then she would not be here, slowly withering in his wake.  Husband-less.  Childless.  Alone upon the estate with her empty artwork and her empty dining room and her empty bed.

With her empty life.  Darkened without his light and frozen solid without his overwhelming heat.

Maybe her future would not have been barren with ash.
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I thought about using this song yesterday.  Truly, I did.  But then I looked at today's prompt and went "No, this song was made for Thursday" and decided against it in the end.  Because this song was made for this prompt.  It worked out perfectly.  Let It Burn describes the tragedy of loving a Fëanorion (of Fëanor himself) so absolutely perfectly that it makes me shudder.  And at the end it turned out to just fit exactly into what I was getting at despite the shortness.

In conclusion, it made me very, very happy.  And, for once, this will be published (finished) on time.

Anyway, I love this song so much for reasons I can't even really explain.  Seriously, it's been on constant repeat for days now and I don't even know why.  The words all just seem to fit so perfectly together!  Of course, the first time I heard it was on a DN AMV, not a Naruto AMV, with the first verse and chorus removed, but still.  Love it.

Sorry for the music rant.  Hope you enjoyed. <3