Drive

Canon compliant AU.  The thoughts of an outsider looking in from a distance.  And still remaining willfully blind to the reality right before his nose.  Quenya names used (Fëanor = Fëanáro).  This could easily be related to "Puzzle" and "Vital", as well as "Muse" and "Engage".  Honestly, it's interrelated with dozens of other stories, but there are so many I'm not going to list them all.  Takes place in the Mansions of Aulë during the Years of the Trees.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: none

Characters: Aulë, Fëanor (mentions Mahtan, Morgoth, Sauron and Míriel)

Warning: canon compliant AU, exploration into obsessive behaviors and character similarities, megalomania, mother complex, slightly religious/pious context

Song: A Tale of Six Trillion Years and a Night

Words: 1,314
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drive (noun): an offensive, aggressive, or expansionist move; a sustained offensive effort; an urgent, basic, or instinctual need: a motivating physiological condition of an organism; an impelling culturally acquired concern, interest, or longing
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drive

It was one of the man's best and worst qualities.  This much, Aulë could admit with startling ease even after a single glance toward the bright new star inhabiting his Mansions.  A mere apprentice was the young elf, working beneath Mahtan the copper-smith for but a handful of years in the long rivers of time, but already the vala knew this particular spirit would go far.  Had the makings of a great and skilled craftsman and as well as a great leader of elves.

That certain rare quality was written into every poised line of the lithe form that slowly grew heavier with the muscle of an experienced smith constantly lifting heavy metal and pounding it into shape.  It was absorbed into every pore of sweaty, gleaming flesh as the young elf grew into his full glory, a prince if ever there had been one.

Let it never said that Fëanáro was lax.  Not even more a moment.

No amount of obstacles could bar the way of this creature.  With admirable defiance and stubbornness that could put many a greater spirit to shame, the prince plowed his way to the top of his field.  Became more and more talented with each passing hour, as though it were absorbed through his skin.

But Aulë knew osmosis had nothing to do with the metamorphosis.  Nothing more than sheer drive kept the new and insatiable student learning his craft.  Absorbing at a ridiculous pace, that mind furiously working hour after hour after hour, processing and retaining and detailing and then computing all of that knowledge into flow and design.  

Working well into the nights.  Refusing to quit until perfection was reached.  Reveling for only mere moments in the glory of completion.  And then beginning the vicious cycle again.

And again.  And again.  And again.  Until it was exhausting to even watch and yet impossible to look away.  Like a river flowed forth the miraculous beauty from those hands, each piece more refined and more dazzling than the one before.  And each smirk of satisfaction upon the maker's face sharper and hungrier than the last.

And the vala remembered seeing it before, this very same glint in the eyes and curve of the lips and dexterity of the mind.  Remembered it well.

Remembered exactly why it had always made him... nervous... wary... even anxious...

Remembered other tireless creatures with white-hot burning coals for eyes and the drive to succeed embedded like a disease into the flesh of their spirits.  And itch they could not scratch.  An open wound that would not cease to bleed.  A greed they could not tame.

The beginning of that same taint was there for all to see, and yet none seemed to recognize its danger.  Fanaticism was burning its toxic incense within Fëanáro, lending to his innate passion and beauty an air of charisma, desperation and sheer force of will, all mixing into a concoction that virtually foreshadowed disaster.  Hidden so well, and yet so blatantly displayed...

A little comment here...

About his mother.  About how he remembered her, both dead and in life, and how terribly he missed her and loved her and resented her.  How he tried to recreate her vibrancy the way his father told him of it in long distant bedtime stories.  How he imagined he could somehow create a container to hold the fire...

To put it back inside her drained and faded spirit, even if he need embed it into her chest...

And a little reminder there...

A flicker of that ambition curling its way inward, slinking into the shadows lining eyes of molten mithril poured into shape.  The glint of obsession played an insidious counterpart, dancing flashes of combined fury, anger and despair weaving in and out of heady senility.

Lust.  Want.  Need too powerful to ignore.  From which one could never turn away once they had cast their eyes upon it.  It was digging its nails deep, poisoning slowly the blood and bone...

Most days, he tried not to let it distract him from his work.  Aulë, after all, was hardly free of mistake or foolishness in his past, and he believed in the power of experience to guide one down the correct path as it had done once for him, one of the greatest of the Valar.  As it had many a young smith passing through his Mansions with cocky arrogance and a thirst for knowledge leaving many a century later more with scars, wariness and wisdom than the trinkets, glory and renown for whence they had come.

He tried to ignore the niggling doubt in the back of his mind.  To be optimistic.  To believe in the light that also lit that spirit from the core and scorched away the darkness.

Tried... But seldom did his efforts succeed, force away the sibilant whispers...

Melkor, standing before their father with that same defiant tilt of his head and that same insane fire taking over every inch of his being until it leaked sickly fumes that choked and churned with the turmoil enfolded inside that nest of sentient power.

Then, Aulë had seen the desire for something greater, the desperation to grasp at filaments of hope and drag past any obstacle for the sake of that single little thought... that single little obsession allowed to grow and grow and grow into something monstrous that took over and drove away any and all thoughts of rationality.

He had seen it, and he had shied away...

That perhaps he was being foolish to dismiss Fëanáro upon the basis of his mortal cage and bodily limitations.  Could ever such a creature truly become such a threat?

As had Mairon, the once-dedicated and talented apprentice trailing after his heels.  Following his every word and direction as though it were law.

And yet, writhing beneath the surface, there had always been the want for more.  The urge to question or to comment or to interrupt.  To break the carefully constructed boundaries of their master-student relationship. To defy for the sake of freedom.

To be free to reach beyond his place in the world.

Always, Mairon had desired to fight against the path laid at his feet.  And fought he had, until no Mairon existed to take the determined route.  Only was there Sauron, who followed no hand of fate, who existed only to defy the will of the Father until he drew his last breath and his spirit burned away into ash and ember in the night.

That, perhaps, something lurked, waiting for the fatal mistake...

Waiting with its maws parted wide, ready to swallow whole the bright star so proud of his accomplishments and so eager to learn more.  With such a bright future ahead of him, the prince of his people, a future ruler and a future master craftsman and a future father.  A fate laid out in preparation for a being of greatness, that wicked greed starving and grumbling defeated, old grievances laid to rest...

Except they weren't laid to rest.  Except they lingered upon the air.  Except they were the fuel that kept turning the cogs and gears of that drive.

That rare and inexplicable talent.  That gift and curse.

Really, Aulë should have paid more attention.  Should have watched more closely.  Should have seen earlier the signs and chosen not to ignore them, but to share them.  To chase them away, even if it meant denying that starving soul its bread and water of vengeance and fulfillment of childish, wistful desire.

Should have.  But even the Valar were prone to mistakes.  Few knew that better than he.

And still, he turned away and left that glowing spirit to spiral out of control.