Intent

Canon compliant, but definitely Mellow Soulmate AU related.  Fëanor upon the inconsistency of correlation between intent and consequence.  Quenya names used (Fëanor = Curufinwë or Fëanáro, Fingolfin = Nolofinwë).  Basically a character study related especially to "Waste", "Remorseful", "Heavy", "Vehement", "Blood" and "Painted", but related to most of the other arcs, too, as daughters-in-law are mentioned here and there.  Takes place in the Halls of the Waiting during the First Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: all background

Characters: Fëanor (mentions Nerdanel, the Fëanorions and their wives and their spontaneous extra children, Finwë, Nolofinwë and Morgoth amongst other random elves)

Warning: canon-compliant, canon character death, possible psychopathy (but not quite, maybe temporary insanity), murder and violence mentioned, apathy, betrayal, slandering, social ostracism, prejudice, hinted child abuse, fantasies of violence

Song: Gradus Vita

Words: 1,287
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intent (noun): the act or fact of intending: purpose; especially: the design or purpose to commit a wrongful or criminal act; the state of mind with which an act is done: volition; a usually clearly formulated or planned intention: aim
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intent

There were not many actions for which Curufinwë Fëanáro felt true guilt.

Most of his people despised and feared everything from his eyes to his face to his name.  Feared his voice's natural charisma.  Feared his hands' talent in the making of wonders.  Feared the smirk of his lips, curving upward in sadistic satisfaction.

Feared.  And hated.

It was not the grudging respect that had once possessed for the firstborn son of the King, the Crown Prince of Tirion.  Handsome and charming, but a predatory and unforgiving creature nonetheless.  After the Darkening and the Exile, there was no respect to be found anymore.  Only the purest form of revulsion and disdain.

Fëanáro was a monster.  Emotionless.  Heartless.  Cold-blooded.  Vicious.  Remorseless.

That was what they said.  And he tried not to care.  Truly.

Because he did not feel sorry.  Not for swearing revenge upon his father's killer--for whom amongst his people could claim for even a moment that they would not do the same?  Not for pledging to recover that which had been taken from his hold--for no man would deny his fury and humiliation at having the work of his heart and soul snatched from between his fingers.

Not for slaughtering the Teleri upon the soil of their homes.  Not for shedding their blood, spilling it upon their white ships and smearing it over their pale docks and staining with it their sparkling bay.  They had placed themselves in his path, denied friendship and kinship with his people and shoved his devotion to his father back in his face, calling him a selfish, greedy and foolish man.  Fëanáro was not ashamed to admit that he had been angry and betrayed and more than a little out of his right senses.

So he had taken from them what they had denied him.  Their greatest works.  Their fathers and brothers and sons.  Made them understand what it was to stand alone, raped and left upon the ground to suffer but, in the darkest part of the heart, yearning to get up and crawl.  To get up and pursue.  To get up and track down the attacker, rip them asunder with all the vicious intent with which they had been torn apart.

He would not deny that he took pleasure in the educating.  Or that he felt hollow afterwards.  But it had changed none of the facts.

Had changed not his lack of regret.

And afterwards, he had abandoned his half-brothers and their people with their insidious sideways glances and their half-stifled whispers of going against his word and his order.  For removing their obstacle, he did not feel remorse either.  It was, he felt, merely a preemptive strike, a precaution against the mutiny he knew was smoldering and bubbling within the ranks.

If they wanted to throw away their kinship with his House, let them!  But Fëanáro would not be scorned twice by his treacherous younger brother.

No, he had not felt even a moment of guilt over abandoning Nolofinwë.  Let the prideful bastard crawl back to Tirion upon his hands and knees!  Let him grovel and beg for forgiveness like dogs to their masters, the Valar!

He had not forced them to traverse the Helcaraxë.  He had not forced them to undertake such suffering and hardship for his sake or the sake of his quest.  He had thrown in their face the chance to turn back when their loyalty and faith in his leadership faltered!

And yet they blamed him and scorned him.  Hated him.  Hated his sons.  Hated his daughters.  Hated his grandchildren.  Hated even those who faithfully served his House and those pitiful few who had turned their backs upon the sin and wickedness in cowardice and betrayal of their oaths of servitude.

They could hate all they wanted.

But Fëanáro did not regret Alqualondë.  He did not regret Losgar.  And he did not regret Dagor-nuin-Giliath, throwing away his life in pursuit of vengeance, drawing one meager step closer to seeing Morgoth rotting in chains, brought lower than the lowest flea.

If there was anything that he regretted--any catastrophe that he had not intended--it was the destruction left in the wake of his vibrancy and vehemence.

Regretted leaving his children to suffer in his stead when it had not truly been their burden to bear.  To face hatred of their blood and unjust violence against their homes and prejudice against their families simply because they shared in his crazed blood and impassioned oath.

His intent had never been to cause his family pain.  Never.

But he knew that he had.  That still he did.  Without trying.  Without living.  Without breathing.  His grandchildren were sullen and spread apart from the shattered glass of family bonds snapped and torn.  His sons were lost in a haze of tragedy and madness with nowhere to turn and no one upon whom they could lean and trust.  His wife sat alone in their empty house and his sons' wives spent their days beneath the heavy hands of silent sneers and poisoned darts of words.

The House of Fëanáro was jagged and broken.  That, he had never wished.  Never desired.  If anything, he had trailed after glory and the satisfaction of sitting upon the throne rightfully his own with his jewels perched upon his brow, confident in his kingship and content with his life's work.  His sons would have been at his one side and his wife at the other, their faces smooth with contentment and joy.

But intentions did not govern the consequences.

It was only that which brought him sorrow, staring at the portrayal of his children floundering in the dark, losing themselves one by one.  The tapestries were so real he thought he might reach out and touch, the tactile surface turning from woven thread to flesh and blood and heat beneath his fingertips.  Maybe he could have reached out to touch them, to let them know that he was there...

That, somewhere, he cared at least a little.  Somehow, he felt for them at least that small bit.

In the Halls, however, he could only watch the world unfold.  And not allow himself to regret anymore that which was past, no matter that his plans had unraveled into a future he had never foreseen and never expected and never desired.

And, one day, he would make sure all who dared use for scapegoats his delicate family would know his fury and his scorn and his hatred a thousand-fold more potent than their weakly concentrated, barely acidic sting.  Those who used and threw away his children as toys, cursed them with suffering and wished upon them ill fortune, would feel his wrath.  Those who spat upon the skirts of his wife and daughters, the true innocents whose hands were untainted by blood, would lose tongues and throats.  And those who dared torment the children of his children--so tiny and weak and helpless looking toward adults for guidance and finding only bitterness and unfair disgust--would burn for sins that made oath-induced murder seem petty.

It was an awful, terrible cycle.  And Fëanáro knew how it would end.  That any crusade of revenge and justification would ultimately lead to disaster and destruction no matter the intent.

Yet, when he smiled and pressed his hands to the woven thread, Fëanáro thought that, perhaps, the intent was all that had really mattered in the end.

And those people with their fear and their hatred...

They knew nothing.
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Once again, it's late and I'm tired.  Hope you enjoyed a glimpse in the madman's psyche though, LOL.

Song is Gradus Vita from the Hellsing OVA I (composed by Matsuo Hayato).  If it's bogus Latin, I wouldn't know.  I just love the way it sounds.

Bed time now.