Honor

Nargothrond AU.  Just as the events after the Darkening of Valinor shaped his brothers and cousins, so to did they shape the King Finrod would become.  Quenya names used (Finrod = Artafindë, Curufin = Curufinwë, Celegorm = Turkafinwë, Fëanor = Fëanáro, Turgon = Turukáno).  This is most closely related to "Accent", "Echo", "Twisted", "Hidden" and "Sacrifice", but is pretty much related to all of the Nargothrond Arc.  For the most part, this piece is characterization.  We all love to idealize Finrod, but he is no more the ideal man than are the sons of Fëanor, and the curse that haunts the line of Finwë has not skipped over him.  Takes place in Nargothrond in the First Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: Finrod x Curufin (mentions Finrod x Amarië)

Characters: Finrod, Curufin (mentions Fingon, Turgon, Aredhel, Orodreth, Angrod, Aegnor, Galadriel, Amarië, Fëanor, Finarfin, Beren, Barahir, Morgoth and Celegorm)

Warning: non-canon compliant, incest, slash, adultery, cheating, affair, kissing, sexual undertones, potential suicide, samurai-like ideology, self-hatred, back-stabbing, family politics, death, etc...

Song: Promise

Words: 1,667

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honor (noun): good name or public esteem: reputation; a keen sense of ethical conduct: integrity; chastity, purity; one's word given as a guarantee of performance

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

Artafindë would never claim to be a perfect person.  Far from it, indeed, he had known himself to be exceptionally selfish at times.  Materialistic.  Heartless.  Even downright cruel.

But he tried his best and always had.  Tried to be a good man.  Tried to be a worthy prince.  Tried to be a brother his cousins and siblings could lean upon.

It was rather like an obsession, every bit as potent as the madness that tainted the blood of his half-uncle.  Every bit as all-consuming, pounding in the back of his mind like a drum, fighting always for his attention, demanding always every scrap of spirit he had to give.

He couldn't have said when it started or why.  Perhaps it was the betrayal.

Yes, perhaps that.

Perhaps it was how his father had turned his back on the quest of their people and left him to guard his brothers and sister alone.  Perhaps it was how he remembered so many faces--hundreds of them--contorted in terror and confusion as they stared across the dark waters at distant burning ships.  And, perhaps, it was the striking realization that their supposed brothers--sworn comrades-in-arms--would not be coming back to rescue them from the biting cold.

That there was nowhere to go but forward.  And the tragedy that followed.

His cousins had grown dark-eyed and bitter with betrayal of family and loss of kin.  His brothers had become resentful, their hearts so full of death and endless tormenting winds.  His sister had seemed lost for once in her life, uncertain what to do or say, how to feel.  All of them floundered, uncertain and shattered and lost.

And they all turned and looked at Artafindë.  Level-headed Artafindë who always knew what to say in any situation, who always smiled no matter what hardship he faced, who could make anyone laugh no matter how heavy their heart might be with despair.

He tried.  Truly, he did.

And, somewhere along the way, it became important to keep his promises.  More important than anything.  More important than his health.  More important than his life.

He would always keep his promises.

Promises that they would get out this icy wasteland alive, together and whole.

Because he remembered how he had felt when suddenly his father had turned back out of fear and cowardice.  He remembered the feeling of abandonment like a knife coated in poison buried deep in the cavity of his chest, slicing him open and dragging back the skin until his bones glistened white with grief and fear and the most horrible sense of betrayal.  

Had not his father always promised to be there?  Did not he love his children more than he loved his safety and his life?

Had they not been enough of a reason to stay?

Promises that things would get better, that they would feel warmth again upon their skin.

Because he remembered the throbbing panic in his throat when he realized that his half-uncle had cast them aside to die, forsaken his sworn brotherhood with Nolofinwë as though it were something worthless and useless.  Something tainted.  And he remembered how hopelessness had overcome his heart, a swift dark shadow across the plain of his spirit, temporarily extinguishing his light in the face of the northern wastes bearing down upon their heads.

He remembered the terrible ache that rocked his body, left his hand clutched to his breast.  And yet he remembered, too, the terrible eyes of his kin, and would not succumb to the rage or the vindictiveness or the hate.

He would not become that fey monster who left them behind to rot like filth.

Promises that sustained their tenuous threads of hope with little silken strings of cobwebs, grasping desperately at fraying edges, trying to hold them all together when everything was falling apart.  And he knew he could not take away the ruination that had come upon his family house like a looming shadow of dread, but he tried nonetheless.

He swore he would see them through to the end of their first perilous journey, and the Artafindë who had emerged on the other side of hundreds of leagues of ice and frigid water was not the Artafindë who had gone into the hold of unmerciful white cruelty.

This new Artafindë was not a perfect man.  But he kept his promises.  Free of the icy wasteland of Helcaraxë--looking back upon the horror that would linger indefinitely in the minds of those who had walked the long paths of dark, chilling nights and starving, dread-filled days--he had sworn to keep his word or die trying.  He had sworn that he would not be like them.

He would not be a traitor.  Like those men who had caused his suffering.

Thus, it was rare that he made promises now.  And never those he did not believe he could keep.  Swearing oaths was like holding a knife to one's throat, praying that it would not be jostled and slice through delicate, vulnerable flesh and spill rivers of blood.

But Artafindë had sworn an oath.

"He saved my life."

"And so you are indebted to his family line forever, this mortal man's line--this vagabond's line?  Doubt I that Barahir saved a great prince of the Noldor out of the kindness of his heart!"

Skeptical was his lover--pessimistic and full of spite--as had always been the way of Curufinwë.  Affection bubbled beneath Artafindë's skin, for he found the argument more endearing than anything else.  How his cousin pretended not to care if he lived or died!  And yet, here he was, fighting and clawing to save the very man he claimed most vehemently to despise.

"I owed him, and I swore that if he called for repayment, I would answer."

"Answer to a mortal man..." Curufinwë scoffed. "This is ridiculous!"

It was not about mortality, he wanted to explain.  It was not because he was a lover of the Aftercomers, nor that he was foolhardy and too kind of heart.  It was not even about friendship, for what king would risk the future of his kingdom upon the whims of gossamer threads of vague brotherhood long spent such as lingered between him and this son of his savior?

No, it was not about Beren or his quest.  It was not about right or wrong or living or dying.

It was about honor.

Dared he not say that to his cousin, his lover, for Curufinwë would have called him worse names than softhearted, reckless fool of a coward's son.  Oaths kept could a son of Fëanáro comprehend, but the Oath that his lover kept to his breast like a treasure was not one kept out of honor nor fueled by ethics and conscience.  Curufinwë did not understand this sort of crazed obsession, so far had he fallen from the young and essentially kind creature he had been in the blossoming of the golden age of Valinor.

"I will answer to whom I will," Artafindë chastised lightly, "And you will not tell me to whom I may or may not answer."

"You have lost your mind," the dark-haired elf cried, but his eyes held no malice.  They were, rather, ever so slightly frightened beneath the mirror-bright gleam of madness in the blood, the briefest glimpse of the father.

The reflection of a demon that even now haunted Artafindë's steps.  The remembrance of white-fire eyes and a charismatic smile and seductive, persuasive words upon a breath of cloying sweetness.  Like a drug had been that voice even when it wove lies.

No.  Intrinsically, Curufinwë was a liar.  He would weave falsehoods just as easily as he could speak truths if they suited his purpose, and he understood not the concept of such honor.  Of keeping one's self clean of betrayal.  Of holding one's purity above their continued existence.  This dark creature was fey and desperate, and his heart had long ago been given away to his inner monster.  Even this darling face, contorted in faint worry, lips pursed slightly in concern, could so easily be a lie.

Curufinwë could never understand.

And Artafindë did not try to explain.  Instead, he smiled and stroked his fingers through long, dark hair--hair unlike hers, unlike his own, so black he thought he could lose himself in its pitch--and he brushed his lips softly against those which had been pressed to whiteness, felt them soften beneath his intimate caress, blooming into delicate petals that longed for his attention.

He pulled away, and silvered eyes looked up at him through equally midnight lashes, hazy with lust but challenging and hot as ember-laced coals. "I will stop you, Artafindë.  I would not loose anyone else whom I care about."

But it is not your choice to make.  I have my promises to keep, and I will keep them.

"I swear to you," he whispered against those plush lips, "you shall not succeed in hindering my path, be it to your liking or not, my dear."

Again and again, they had argued about this journey.  Again and again, Curufinwë had tried to turn his mind away from folly.

Again and again, he had dreamed of his death.

But Artafindë knew his path, and he would break no promises spoken from his lips.  Not this one or any other.  For that was his way, and no more could he turn it aside than could Curufinwë cease his wickedness or Turkafinwë cease his madness or Turukáno cease his bitter rage.  It was, now, as much a part of Artafindë as were his fingers and toes.  Undeniable.  Irrevocable.

And, when the time came, he would go with Beren on a suicidal quest to reclaim a Silmaril from the crown of Morgoth, deep within the bowels of Angband.

And he would die trying to succeed.  With the greatest pleasure.