Commit

Canon complaint AU.  Of Finarfin and doubt.  Quenya names used (Finarfin = Arafinwë, Fingolfin = Nolofinwë, Fëanor = Fëanáro).  This turned out much longer than I had originally intended, and I didn't use the Silmarillion as an actual guide for the part with the Doom, so if the dialogue is off I'll just say now that this is fanfiction and I can change it is I feel like it.  Anyway, related mostly to "Waste" and "Honor", but I entirely blame Mira_Jade and her Finarfin-oriented fills for this.  Takes place in Valinor shortly after the Darkening of Valinor.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: none

Characters: Finarfin, Fëanor, Fingolfin, Mandos (mentions the Valar, Manwë in particular, Morgoth, Finwë, Indis, Eärwen, Galadriel, Finrod, the other grandchildren of Finwë and other random elves)

Warning: canon-compliant AU, dysfunctional family, insanity mentioned, canonical character death, semi-explicit death scene, mass murder, revenge and war (in a vision), religious context, coercion of sorts

Song: Sorrow

Words: 2,982

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commit (verb): to put into charge or trust: entrust; to carry into action deliberately: perpetrate; obligate, bind; to pledge or assign to some particular course or use

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/commit

"Can you commit yourself to our mission?  Can you commit yourself--your life, your blood, your family, your very soul--to avenging our fallen kin?"

Well did Arafinwë recall those words, for they were new in their make and in his mind.

He remembered standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Nolofinwë, his full brother in blood, before the eyes of his half-brother and beneath the burning torchlight.  In the dark of a newly tainted Valinórë, Fëanáro had been a demonic creature taken straight from a nightmare and given corporeal form, something to be feared and revered all at once.  A face of beauty one could not deny, for the Crown Prince was the most handsome of men, but beneath that outer layer...

Something about the eldest brother had frightened Arafinwë nearly to death.  Frightened him and given him strength.

It was, he recalled vividly, in those moments of being scorched beneath the white light of that divine gaze that the knot in his throat had unraveled.  It was in those moments that he saw before his eyes a flashing vision, the image of his beloved father spilled down the steps of Formenos in a mangled jumble of broken limbs and glossy eyes staring up into the darkened sky.  Blood dripped, dripped, dripped down the stone, a river of defiled sacred ground that caused the frozen core of the youngest brother's conscience to melt.

To boil.

Rage was not an emotion he oft experienced, for he was tender in disposition.  Arafinwë was softer than stern-faced Nolofinwë and cooler than flame-hearted Fëanáro.  He was not prone to anger or fits of impetuous recklessness, nor was he nonchalant and distant and cold.  Rather, he had always been a mellow creature--fairly faint-hearted, a lover of the arts and of peace and of song.

A true vanya, they called him, his brothers who thought him daft and spineless.  He was a lover of the sky and the stars and the light.  No pleasure did he take in the forging of jewels or the battle of silver tongues.

But in that moment, he felt rage.

It was as though all the hatred captured in the net of Fëanáro's core, released in a volley of devastating glory and spite and scorn, had somehow slipped beneath his skin and sunk down deep.  The flame that fueled this vengeance--this mad quest to return to Endórë, this vendetta against the Valar, this crazed need to reclaim three useless glowing rocks!--was spreading, burning the wood of his stubbornness and pride down to cinders and leaving him ablaze with its ferocious hate.

He recalled the words that followed well.

"I will go with you, brother," Nolofinwë had cried, his voice not wavering, his reaction carrying no hesitation.  And, for once, blue eyes were not cold and did not look upon their eldest brother with disdain.  Rather, they were steam off the water, crackling and spitting as the white fire slicing open the dome of the heavens. "I will see this done."

And the white-hot gaze had turned upon Arafinwë then.

"And you, little brother.  What say you?"

Looking back upon that moment, Arafinwë wished he had said "Nay", that he had stuck up his nose at the ridiculousness of the Crown Prince's farce of a claim against the Valar.  Prisoners, he claimed they kept the Eruhíni, like twittering, brainless birds in their pretty golden cages.  Conspiring, he accused of them, to lord over all the Eldar and keep all the precious creations and knowledge of the Children for their own.  Dangerous, he named them, for they had too much power to wield and were too foolish to wield it without harming those under their “care”.

And those eyes looked upon Arafinwë as a man looks upon a traitorous worm hiding in the soil of lies and half-truths, for he was of the Vanyar.  And the Vanyar were the favored of Manwë the King of Arda.

But the fires burned hot and the passions ran high and Arafinwë had been stricken with madness and grief at the sight of his father's mangled body and the echoing sound of his mother's shattered cries.  The glowing eyes of his children and nephews and brothers had been trained upon his furrowed brow and his wide blue eyes, trapped in expectant silence.

"Aye," he had said. "I will commit myself to seeing your revenge taken."

Hardly more than a whisper had it been.

But he had meant it.  He had.

He just had not known how terrifying that commitment would be.  Not until now.

Not until he watched his wife's people screaming and fleeing before the swords of his kin, their pleas for mercy unheard and their cries for help unanswered.  Not until he saw the blood of men he knew by name--simple people who smiled and laughed and sang as they worked, but always stopped and waved or called in cheer to the strange golden-haired noldo passing by--cast down in blasphemy upon their life's work.  Not until the pearl of Alqualondë bled scarlet and the feathers of her graceful swan-ships were stained with death.

Not until his eldest son had turned toward him with haunted, confused eyes, begging to be told what he should do.  Not until his family emerged from the fray, all torn clothes and bruised flesh and glistening eyes, Nolofinwë's face hardened with stunned grief and Fëanáro's face twisted into a mockery of regret.

"You are late, little brother."

Shuddering, he had not dared to meet those eyes. "Was this... was this necessary?"

"They stood against us," Fëanáro snarled, all feigned remorse lost. "This was but a taste of our rage and our power.  Sworn friendship with us had Olwë, their king, through his daughter's marriage with you, but in our hour of greatest need he turned his back.  And I will not suffer traitors to try and obstruct my path to retribution."

"But they had not... These men had not done anything to us!" It was the first--and the only--time that Arafinwë had spoken out with raised voice against the terrifying specter that was this shadow of a once great if flawed man. "They did not deserve this."

"All who stand in my way deserve suffering."

It was not until then that he had begun to realize what that commitment truly meant.

Not just body.  Not just blood.  Not just family.  Not just wealth.  Not just loyalty.

Heart and soul.  Every last drop of goodness.  Every last scrap of morality.  They were to be burned upon this pyre of madness.

And this time the fear came with no awe and no strength.  No glistening ruby of righteous hatred.  No pearly light of false absolution.  Only the black abyss of damnation.

"Surely, you do not doubt," Fëanáro had purred.  But his eyes, as ever, sought for hesitation and betrayal.  Tried to corner his prey and spill forth its secrets, for the Crown Prince suspected that he held not Arafinwë’s full loyalty and trust.

And rightly so, for Arafinwë doubted.

He stood upon the shore and doubted.  Doubted that he could make this sacrifice.  He was a gentle soul, not made for such brutality, such bellicosity.  Certainly, he mourned his father.  Certainly, he hated the Black Enemy.  Certainly, he wanted to see justice be done.

But at the cost of himself?  At the cost of every ideal he held dear, every teaching that resonated in his heart?  At the cost of everything that made him who he was?

Could he really commit all of himself to this path, this road that led to nowhere but a bloody end and an empty reward?

Could he... truly...?

---

It was later, upon the shores of Alatairë in the shadow of the Pelori, that the darkened figure appeared before them in a wisp upon the winds from the west.  Cast in a veil and blackness and mystery was it, and at first none knew who this stranger might be save that they could not have been amongst the Eruhíni and therefore must have been amongst the Valar or the maiar their servants.  And, at first, Arafinwë feared that it might have been their Enemy appeared from beyond to slaughter them now that they lay vulnerable and shivering upon the beaches, unprotected and naked in their trembling passion.

But the presence did not feel slimy and evil, not as had the presence that overcame their beloved home in the hour of the Darkening.  Rather, it was an ominous presence, filling up all the space of the air without even speaking, drawing forth all eyes without glistening in beauty.

Even Fëanáro looked to that stranger and drew to a halt.

“I carry a message.”

The voice rippled through Arafinwë every bit as potently as ever had his eldest brother’s.  Many faltered in their steps as it reverberated across their skin with power, sent chills washing through their flesh with its faded echo.

From the darkness, the deepest wine-red eyes watched them from a white visage.  And Arafinwë could not have looked away had his very life depended upon it.  Has his very salvation depended upon it.

“What to say have you, prison warden,” the Crown Prince snapped, though for once his smooth words paled in comparison to those that still rang in the ears of his subjects.  For all his power, for all the light that lit up his violent spirit, Fëanáro was still only an Eruhína, no more or less than any other elf, and no equal to a vala or a maia in strength or divinity.

“You have committed a great crime—a great sin—against your kin, Son of Finwë.  This you know, no matter that you might see yourself as justified.  And we, the Valar, have been kind, have tried to forgive you in your mounting confusion and grief.  But no more…”

“But no more.”

The doubt blazed bright.

“To you, I carry this message, and let it rest heavy upon your shoulders and upon your heart,” the stranger spoke. “Let your decision in its wake be wise:

“Tears unnumbered ye shall shed, and the Valar will fence Valinor against you and shut you out, so that not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains…”

Cries and screams and pleas.  Because, truly, what could they do against such horror and such power as that which did wield their foe?  Would not the Black Enemy crush them beneath his heel with ease and laugh at their torment?  Would not they fall, one by one by one, until all hope had been lost?

And he saw them…

“On the House of Fëanáro the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East, and upon all that will follow them it shall be laid also.”

Saw his children, their faces contorted in terror and sorrow.  Saw at his feet the bodies of his sons who had once upon a time smiled up at him and pleaded for bedtime tales tucked safe within his arms.  Saw his daughter lie down and weep for the loss of her innocence and her family and her dreams…

Saw himself standing alone, and his fingers dripped slowly with blood…

“Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue.”

Saw the lights above his head, three of them like stars in the flesh.  But their gaze was cold and merciless.  Their gleam was utterly deaf to the screams of the dying and suffering, to the thousands of lives sacrificed upon their altar.

And Arafinwë knew who spoke and felt a chill steal into his heart like a thief in the night, shattering the windows of his resolve and snatching away the precious breath from within his lungs until no air would pass his parted, dry lips.  Fear—fear unlike any he had felt before, that eclipsed even the strike of Fëanáro’s mighty eyes—took up residence where had before lain his pride and his shame.

Fear that choked him as tangibly as could any hands.  For he came to understand…

“To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well, and by treason of kin unto kin and the fear of treason shall this come to pass.”

Came to understand that this was only the beginning.

Lives lost.  Homes abandoned.  Children crying in fright.  Wives clinging to their husbands.  All eyes desperately fixated upon their ghostly visitor, the Doomsman standing before them in his great glory and fury.

They were the sacrifice on the altar of revenge.

“The Dispossessed they shall be for ever.”

Like the toll of a bell did it strike him.  And Arafinwë slipped down to his knees in the sand, heedless of his robes or of his dignity.

Silence reigned for long minutes.  But Fëanáro would not be cowed for long.

“And why should we believe in the words of a vala?  Are they not the ones who wish to keep us prisoner here?  Are they not the ones who have lied to us, who have stolen our rights, who have kept us imprisoned like slaves against our wills?”  That beautiful face might as well have been a twisted clay sculpture, for its beauty was lost and its light was tarnished, and no longer did Arafinwë hear the overwhelming tidal wave of charisma when it rang hollowly in his ears. “Be gone!  I will hear no more of this nonsense!”

But it was not nonsense.

Perhaps Arafinwë had wanted revenge for his father’s death, but he had never believed in the great “evil” of the Valar, who had ever adored and cared for their people.  He had never doubted the words of their guardians and protectors, the great holy beings who guided them as did parents their beloved children.

He did not doubt Námo now.  In his heart, he knew this Doom to be true.

And perhaps he was a coward, to fear.

The figure was gone like smoke, and they were alone again.  But none would speak or move, and Fëanáro turned upon his brother’s in a flurry of rage. “Do you subscribe to this, Nolofinwë?  Will you take back your words?”

“Of course not.” No hesitation, though the voice was soft. “I would not go back on my words, brother.  I would not forsake you.”

And then those eyes were upon Arafinwë, terrible and great. “And what of you, little brother?”

Those eyes were accusing, doubting, disgusted.

Those eyes were all Arafinwë could see.

“I would turn back,” he whispered. “I would turn back and ask forgiveness.”

Daring had it been, this contradiction.  But Arafinwë could see before his eyes the unfolding future as Námo had shown him in his mind.  Could see the bitterness and the despair and the hopelessness, the utter insanity of this quest.  They would all die.  They would all die!

And when they were dead and forsaken, to where would they go?  Who would take them were they Exiles, banned from their homeland, cast aside by their protectors?

They would be left to the mercies of their Enemy.  And he would not be kind.

It was this that Arafinwë feared.  A life of slaughter, of merciless killing, and so much blood soaked into his flesh that it would forever be stained red with sin.  Everything he loved, he would abandon.  Everything he cared for, he would surrender.  Everything he owned, he would give.

Everything he was, he would cast aside.  And he would commit himself to ruin.

But he could not.  He could not.

Fëanáro knew this, and his lips twisted ghoulishly with revulsion, as though the very sight of Arafinwë turned his stomach. “I see,” he whispered, and his voice was as poison upon a blade that slid between unsuspecting ribs. “So your loyalties are revealed, lover of the Valar.”

And then a smile.  A smile that was too hideous to even be named as one, but could be called nothing else short of sickening. “But then, I always knew the blood of Indis would rot away the little integrity and honor your useless spirit possessed.”

It hurt.  It hurt like a brand to bare skin.  For Arafinwë had only ever desired to love his family, to care for his people.  Even his eldest brother, who had no love for him in return.

Still, in this case, he would do as he saw fit.  As he saw was right.

Damned be Fëanáro.  Damned be Nolofinwë.  Damned be the Silmarilli.

“I will go back,” he spoke in defiance. “And any who desire the forgiveness of the Lords and Ladies of the Valar are free to come with me now with no repercussions.  We shall return to Tirion in safety.”

“And grovel on your knees like slaves,” Fëanáro hissed. “Be gone with you as well!  We need not pathetic, spineless worms in our company, eating out the core of our strength!”

And good luck to you as well, half-brother, my prince.

Sneering, Arafinwë turned away, heart in his throat.

Let them say what they would.  Let them call him a coward.  Let them lay scorn upon his honor and disrespect upon his name and mockery upon his devotion.

Let them run headlong to their destruction.

In the end, their journey would be long and empty of promise.  They would reach their goal and hold in their hands those precious treasures they so coveted, and they would weep for their foolish greed and for the suffering of their kin and the deaths of those they loved.  They would look back upon this day and hate Arafinwë for his wisdom, despise him for his cowardice.

But they would envy his choice nonetheless.  In the end.