Chapter Text
“When I tell you that the
voice of the nightingale turns dark
you have to understand what
this love is trying to overcome,
you have to know that if you ever leave,
if you ever disappear,
the sky would rip, and the
stars would lose their way.”
...
The first thing Findis does after leaving Vanyamar is to weep. The tears come rough and hard, and for the first time in two years she allows them to come. She pitches sideways off the horse, crying too hard to control herself, and curls in on her torso. She stays like that for a long time, fingers dug into the dirt, face smearing with wet grass and mud.
Then she drags herself up, and wipes away the dirt as best she can, and gets back on her horse.
Where to? asks Calassë, her sweet, copper-toned horse, in a voice of high song.
Findis would close her eyes if the Trees still shone, but they don’t, so she does not need to force the darkness on herself. Instead, she stares up at Varda’s stars, and she says, Away.
…
When she is born, her mother names her after Veassë, for the strength of her wailing and the bruises she left on Indis’ stomach while in the womb. Her father names her Envinyassë, for the healing he wishes her to bring to his home.
Nobody remembers those names now.
They would not be honest anyhow.
…
Findis, eldest princess of the Noldor, grows swiftly, silver-eyed like Finwë and gold-haired like her mother.
She is a quiet child, content to watch the world rather than reshape it, and it’s that which endears her to her brother; Fëanáro has always liked impressing people, particularly those that are not easily impressed: Findis, as princess and sister both, is good at pricking Fëanáro’s pride into producing ever finer objects.
It’s him that starts calling her Findis.
Her mother flinches when she hears the name, but Fëanáro flinches when he hears her called Envinyassë even deeper, and there are no battles here that Findis can win, from which she can escape as victor. There are only choices, each with their individual sorrows.
(Perhaps Fëanáro had meant it as an insult. He is a wordsmith beyond compare; he would not have had to try hard for that. But among all the insults he could have offered her, the name Findis is not even the least. And if it is not worthy of Fëanáro’s insults, then it is not an insult; then, Findis can see it as a gift.)
Finwë had named her for what he’d wished her to bring to his home: life, and love, and the joy that Míriel Þerinde had taken from him. It had not been a gift so much as a burden. The ataresse had not been a gift to her so much as Findis had represented a gift to him.
It is Findis’ choice to name herself Findis, of the House of Finwë and the House of Ingwë, of both Noldor and Vanyar in equal measure. The first time Fëanáro hears it, he blinks; he does not smile.
His silence is enough to convince Findis to continue.
…
She does not sit idly in the forge; she listens to Fëanáro’s words, and studies his actions. She is his first true apprentice, decades before he is of age to take one; and though he is not a great teacher, he is a good one: Fëanáro has little patience in other matters, but he finds new reserves for Findis, and he does not treat her like she’s too young for the majority of her desires. Only teaches her the rules for safety, and the methods to go about crafting what she wishes, and the hours during which she can work.
“Two hours per day,” he tells her.
“Three,” bargains Findis. “And I don’t tell Father what happened to the steel bookshelves in the library.”
Fëanáro, who had melted down those bookshelves to make a breastplate but lost interest halfway through the project, looks faintly guiltily at the scraps decorating his discard pile. “Two,” he replies, “and you can keep the gemstones you filched from me last week, and I won’t even ask you what you’ll do with them.”
“If you forget and ask me anyways?”
“Then you’ll get a… week, with three hours allowed during that time.”
Findis tilts her head to the side. “Two weeks,” she says, and doesn’t grin at the frustration on Fëanáro’s face.
…
For a long time, Fëanáro thinks she’ll follow him into forge-work.
Findis doesn’t.
…
She doesn’t ask him whether he cares. She doesn’t ask him much of anything, by then; Nolofinwë’s birth has driven a wedge between them that even Findis cannot cross. It does not help that he looks so dearly like their father. Findis’ eyes had been her saving glory, the only parts of her that belonged to Finwë and proved her mother’s faithfulness. Nolofinwë’s saving glory is himself: for he is the healing that Findis ought to have heralded, and he is the son that they have all wanted, and he represents everything that Fëanáro has always feared.
As he grows older, the hatred hardens. Calcifies. Meeting Nerdanel softens Fëanáro a little, and so does his apprenticeship under Mahtan, and so does the distance that accompanies both of them. But nowhere near enough.
Findis cannot stem that bitterness.
She does not bother either; she instead throws herself into finding what she loves. There’s a silence in the dance hall or the sparring courts that is forever absent from Findis’ family, and it’s that silence which she seeks more than anything else.
Findis is young. She is selfish.
She changes over the years. Enough to lose one.
The other?
That selfishness is woven deep into every last one of Finwë’s children.
…
Findis’ true problem is that she is good at everything she puts her mind to. Fishing, swordsmithing, dancing; she can hold a tune with ease, and paint without much thought, and even her hunting skills are not too shabby.
When she takes up weaving, she stays with it for longer than everything else. The colors are beautiful, and her fingers are nimble, and there are images in Findis’ mind that ought to be shared with the world, images that she can weave into being with thread and needle. She rather loves it. It does not come easy to her, but Findis has never feared hard work.
To gain her Mastery, Findis weaves a tapestry of her father telling the elves of Valinor. The stars twinkle out from the darkness like studded gems, and there is no other light, just faint pricks of the people underneath. The Trees, after all, are not present in Middle-Earth. Ingwë’s golden hair, and Finwë’s silver eyes, and Elwë’s pale skin, and the passion on their faces is just visible. It is not the lesson of triumph that Findis has seen depicted time and again, nor the journey into the light that Finwë likes to tell so often. It is just darkness, with the promise of light. The faces of the elves are upturned like flowers to the sun.
“For… inspiration,” says Finwë, when she gains her Mastery, and hands her a wrapped bundle.
It is traditional to give gifts to the student, and so Findis accepts without much hesitance. Later, in the privacy of her rooms, she unwraps the covering to reveal a soft shawl. The colors remain jewel-bright despite the aged softness of the cloth, and the detail of the embroidery is stunning: every last thread is used to purpose.
When she pulls it over her shoulders, the fringes fall back to look like swan-wings, the cloth cut at a clever angle.
And the detail of the shawl shifts as well, so Findis cannot so much as see the beautiful embroidery; she’s too caught up in the delicate, arching curve of the wings, which spreads down her back in a glory of silver and gold and white and grey.
At the very corner, she sees the sign of the weaver. A delicate Þ , curling and curved, in the deepest shade of ochre that Findis has ever seen.
She does not know what her father meant with this gift. Uncomplicated kindness? That Findis reminds him of his first wife? That Findis can never better his first wife in her own craft?
Or this is not a wound meant for me, thinks Findis slowly, and wraps the shawl back into its neat folds. Finwë has never folded a single cloth in his life. Indis has, but she hadn’t been able to come to the event, too heavy with her third child. A shawl of Míriel Þerinde’s own hand does not belong in mine.
It belongs to Fëanáro, who, just two days previous, managed to convince Mahtan not to take Nolofinwë as his apprentice. Nolofinwë’s planning to go to Vanyamar instead, and learn under Ingwë, but Indis had- according to rumor- been furious with Fëanáro. Of course she’d send Míriel Þerinde’s shawl to Findis; it’s a compliment to Findis, and an insult to Fëanáro, and an easy, simple vengeance for herself.
Findis should, by all rights, give it to her brother.
But running her fingers over the cloth, she finds she cannot. Findis is her name, is it not? Findis, named by Fëanáro. She will live up to that name.
…
Everyone always expected the world of Findis. By the time she grew enough to learn that, she’d already disappointed them: too quiet, too Vanya for her father’s family, too Noldo for her mother’s family, too angry for her mother, too kind for her father. Fëanáro had been the only one to offer her a name that belonged to the girl he knew rather than the girl he wanted.
Findis will always be grateful to him for it.
…
In the end, she is also Finwë’s daughter. She is also a princess, and she also has his indomitable will within her fëa. Fëanáro’s spirit is of flame, witnessed and named by his mother at his birth. Nolofinwë’s would be of earth, unforgiving and unchanging and nourishing in equal measure. Lalwen’s is water, chattering and cheerful, vicious and terrible, changing and lovely.
Findis is of air.
The cold air, howling and cutting. The warm air, stifling and deathful. The air remembers what it had been even as it remains unchanged. The air shines in Tirion, gold and silver, like the light of Findis’ gaze.
In the end, Findis is also Finwë’s daughter, and she, too, has pride like blood in her veins.
If she cannot be the finest weaver in the land, then weaving is not her true calling.
…
The day she walks into the Guild of Songs, she knows she is home.
This is her true calling. But it is not just any songs that call to Findis. She is alive, and she is fierce, and there are so many who are not. She is a princess of a people who died, though there are many who have forgotten that.
Tirion is lovely, but Tirion is not all that there ever was.
…
“I see that you’ve chosen another craft,” says Indis.
Findis finishes tying off her braid. She’s woven her mother’s hair with jewels in the Noldorian fashion, but they don’t stand out in her pale hair like they would in Lalwen’s or their father’s hair. It does not suit her mother very much. If Findis ever deigned to dress in such a manner, it would not suit her either.
“Weaving was something I enjoyed,” she replies calmly. “But there was something my heart yearned for, even deeper.”
“Amarië tells me that she met you in the Guild of Songs.”
It is a beautiful day. All the days are beautiful in Aman. Findis imagines the rain turning freezing on her skin. She imagines a heat so strong it could kill her. There are times, briefly, when the wind lashes at her face and steals her words, and she wonders if there are storms in Endamar that are stronger. She imagines that pride and that fear, and the silence of those who came ever after into Aman.
What could be so terrible as that?
“I have chosen singing,” murmurs Findis.
“Singing?” asks Indis. “After everything- you have returned to singing?”
Singing is the first skill taught to children. The first, and the greatest, and the least as well, in its own way. Findis isn’t surprised by her mother’s surprise.
“You thought I’d choose something else?”
“Bird-watching, perhaps,” says Indis wryly, and Findis laughs. “You’ve the patience for it, certainly. And the temperament.”
“Patience!” cries Findis. “Ah, do not insult me again with such accusations, Ama!”
“Ah, my Vanya daughter.” Indis turns, and gathers Findis to her breast, hands warm on the curve of Findis’ throat. “I’d forgotten that you bear half of your father’s temper as well. So. What brought you back to the minyacarme?”
“I remembered that songs need not have a purpose,” says Findis quietly. “That they can shape and reshape the world, yes, but not only that. I’d forgotten their beauty, Ama. How beautiful they can be, even if there is no purpose to them.”
“Findis,” whispers her mother. A mother’s premonitions. Findis had forgotten that, because her mother has never understood her very well all her life, for all that there is love, deep and inescapable, between them. “You did not choose just any mastery, did you?”
“No,” says Findis, soft as a falling feather. Soft as Míriel Þerinde’s shawl. “Not just any mastery. I chose… the old songs. The old histories. To love them, and to remember them, and to mourn them.”
Others sing of Varda’s stars. But it is the darkness of the sky that allows her to shine, and Findis has spent too long searching for the light to forget the beauty of the dark.
“It is not an easy path.”
“I am your daughter,” Findis murmurs, and touches the jewels in Indis’ golden hair, the jewels that will never shine so bright for her or for her daughter, the jewels that Indis nevertheless wears for her husband and her husband’s people. “Never have you chosen an easy path, Mother. I will not have it said that Findis, daughter of Indis, daughter of Intyalë, is any lesser.”
…
For this Mastery, Findis tracks down the elves of Endamar, all of them that she can name. Those left behind, those that passed. It is a weaving of sorts. It is a history of sorts. There are so few now who remember, and even fewer willing to speak of it. Findis’ job is far more difficult than anyone would guess.
She sings them into being, their histories, their families.
The Avari were unwilling, but they were, once, kin. There were others who had desired to see the Trees and perished on the path. There were families sundered by personal choice and accident across the entirety of Aman.
Perhaps it is that which drives Findis on: this proof, undeniable, that Arda was scarred far before Míriel passed and Indis fell in love and Findis was birthed.
The song is high and lovely and echoing. It is the kind of song that she will never again manage to construct. It is the best song that Findis has ever sung, piercing and flawed; perfected in the flaws. The cracks of the singer’s voice must be placed properly, but it is the silence that highlights the grief and heightens it.
She sings it in private, to the guild masters, and there is not a single dry eye in the room.
…
Later, Indis asks her to perform it to the court. Findis demurs: it will take too long, and the festival cannot be dragged on too far, for little Arafinwë is heading to Vanyamar at dawn. But there is a portion she can sing, she offers. A part of it. Of the thousands that she has sung into history, there is one that her mother might care for deeper than the rest.
Standing before the court, she sings to the Noldor of Intyalë, sister of Ingwë and Findis’ own grandmother.
Intyalë the Bright-Eyed, who dreamed of the Trees before ever Orome found the elves, even in the darkness of Endamar. Intyalë the Golden-Tongued, who’d persuaded Ingwë to travel to Valinor and see the Trees, even when his own fëar would have borne him to remain. Intyalë the Loving, who had cherished her twin sister with all her heart and all her mind. Intyalë the Strong-Armed, who had marched into the abode of darkness when her sister and her sister’s daughter were stolen away, and brought them back. Intyalë the Grand-Hearted, who had passed into darkness on the slopes of mountains so high the air grew thin, and in her last moments, pressed her own daughter into Ingwë’s arms. Intyalë, whose daughter was named Indis, whose daughter was named Findis.
When she finishes, her mother’s eyes are filled with tears, and her father is white-faced. The rest of the court stares. Many of those who were there are weeping, and many of those that were not look stunned. Findis does not wait for either applause or criticism.
She sweeps a bow.
Not in the Noldo fashion, and not in the fashion of the Vanyar either. This is a bow she creates, from her own desires, of her own griefs. One hand to her breastbone. The other sweeping down her spine. For the people they have all lost, and the griefs that can never go away, and the memories that will remain.
A bow for remembrance.
With that, she leaves.
…
“Do not let their horror stop you,” says Fëanáro.
Findis tips her head to the side to look at him. The stars are shining, and she feels weighted with her mourning just as she feels freed with it.
“I know you would not,” she murmurs. “But your decisions would not be any other’s decisions. You cannot fault me for my wariness.”
“You are my sister,” says Fëanáro quietly. “And all I can speak of to you is what I know. What I would do.”
“I did not know you’d returned to the castle.”
“Father wanted me there for Arafinwë’s naming.”
“And you obey our father in all things.”
“I do,” says Fëanáro, and laughs, lightly. “‘Tis you who does not heed him, Findis. You, and when the mood takes her, Lalwen. But your mind is as immovable as a Vala’s decree when you decide on something.”
Findis ducks her head, hiding the smile. “Not so much as yours, I think. For I get my own stubbornness from Finwë, but you get it from both lines. It’s a good thing your own love outweighs your pride!”
“What a pair we make,” he sighs.
Findis closes her eyes. What a pair indeed. Fëanáro, whose brilliance of spirit will only ever intimidate his people, and Findis, whose choice of grief and mourning will only ever unnerve her people. Twinned blades, the two of them; those loved by family, but never truly understood.
“Indeed,” murmurs Findis. She rests her palm on his, and takes comfort in the soft, silver light of Telperion. “I wonder, sometimes- if Father ever truly tired of me, what would he do? He does not understand me, and I do not bend to him as you do. It is not in my nature.” Her voice drops, to barely a whisper. “There are tales of elves who do not belong to any single home. Who never find that peace to settle within their souls, and become as ghosts. As wraiths, moving through trees, endlessly, never content, forever searching for- for something.”
“Father would never,” says Fëanáro. He flips his palms over, and grips her own. There are calluses between them: of Findis’ weaving and her quill-sharpening, and Fëanáro’s hammer and forge tools. Indis’ hands are soft as baby skin. That is all that Findis can remember now: the choices she has made, all her life, which mean that there is love between her and Indis but no understanding, and understanding between her and Fëanáro but no love. All these choices, when she has chosen Fëanáro, over and over again, and never expected anything in return. Then she looks up at her brother, the only elder brother she will ever have, and his gaze is a terrible thing: soft, and kind, and warm. “But if he did, there shall always be room within my home for you.”
Findis swallows. It’s a grand thing he’s offering. Defiance, of the father he loves so well, for her, who represents everything he’s lost. A grand thing. Perhaps too grand of a thing. But Findis finds that she is not strong enough to keep her brother loyal to her father first. Not tonight at least.
“Bring me back,” she agrees. “If ever I get too lost… bring me back, Fëanáro.”
They hold hands until golden light starts to fill the sky, and for all the years that pass afterwards- for the grief, for the loss, for the fury- Findis never quite manages to forget that night, or the promises given then. Even in the darkest of times, she remembers that silver night and Fëanáro’s kindness.
…
She likes Nerdanel.
Nerdanel does not like her very much.
No, that is not entirely true; Nerdanel does not see much in common between them, and does not seem overly bothered to go searching for such topics. But during the family’s parties that Finwë prevails upon Fëanáro to attend, Findis most often finds herself besides Nerdanel, sipping wine silently and companionably.
It’s not entirely surprising to Findis: Nerdanel is not lovely in the Noldorian fashion, hair too wild and too bright, strong-boned rather than statuesque. Even her words are not soft and tempered, as Indis tends to be in public, but blunt as the tools she wields. She holds many opinions, and is not shy about speaking them- but she has little of Fëanáro’s all-consuming pride, which can only be a good thing.
It isn’t until she insults Anairë into a frothing temper that Findis thinks she sees the true woman under the generalizations she’d built up before.
“A good choice,” she tells Fëanáro, and hands him the hammer he’s absently searching for. “Nerdanel, I mean. I wasn’t sure if she could handle you.”
“Mmm. Glad she’s proven you wrong.” Then he frowns, working through the implications of her words. “What’s she done?”
“Anairë was talking about how her father wouldn’t let her take up dancing, as she does.” Findis’ lips twitch, and Fëanáro grimaces. Anairë’s lovely, but completely unwilling to let go of the past, and it can get irritating in large doses. “Your lovely wife told her that it doesn’t matter what our parents allow us or enforce. There are choices that must be made by children for living their own life. She also called Anaire a sugar-livered, brittle-boned twit, but I’m fairly certain Anairë was too outraged by the previous sentences to hear it.”
“I’m not apologizing to Nolofinwë.”
“Did I tell you that you should?”
“I can see you working up to suggesting it.”
“Give me some credit,” says Findis wryly. “I’ve already sent Lalwen with Anairë anyhow. I’d suggest not coming to any more… functions for a few years, though. Anaire’s not one to forget quickly.”
“She is well met within our house.”
“As you’ve chosen well,” Findis tells him, “so has your brother.”
“And you?”
“As both of you have chosen,” says Findis, spreading her fingers wide, spearing the wooden block underneath with a knife hewn by Fëanáro in his youth, misshapen and unbalanced, “so have I. But as you have chosen to bond with women of your choice, I have chosen to bond with the air, with the music of my lungs, with the song that sings in Arda. There is no room in me for another love.”
“You do not love your craft deeper than I do mine,” says Fëanáro flatly.
“Then I am not so greedy as you,” retorts Findis, “to wish for more than my heart has room to give.”
There’s a strange light in Fëanáro’s eyes. “There are some who say the heart grows to encompass all that the mind wishes for it to love.”
“Then my heart is a shriveled thing,” says Findis coolly.
She hands Fëanáro the tongs he’ll need in a minute’s time, pockets the silver flute she’s been eyeing for the past few weeks that he forged out of scrap metal, and walks out.
…
This is what they are, beneath their loves, and beneath their understanding: vicious, tearing, devouring beasts.
Findis has never known a grief she did not swallow whole and consume. Fëanáro has never known a metal he did not tear apart to remake in his image. They are cruel to each other and to themselves, these children of Finwë; they are those children born in the aftergasps of the first elves’ migration to Aman, those children born into the shock of Arda marred. Peace has never been in their blood.
Their love has never been a soft thing.
…
And amid all this, there are children.
…
Findis makes sure she spends time with each of them. Honing Maitimo’s tongue, and helping Makalaurë’s songs reach ever greater highs, and running with Tyelkormo until he dropped from exhaustion, and laughing with Carnistir, and pulling Atarinkë from Fëanáro’s forge when he spent too long in it, and dancing with Ambarussa for the full day. Helping Findekáno talk his father into spear training, and teaching Turukáno the history of the elves, and tutoring Írissë in the use of the bow, and persuading Nolofinwë to let Arakáno be fostered in Vanyamar with their mother’s kin. Teaching Findaráto how to weave his hair into proper Noldorian braids, offering a listening ear to Angaráto and Aikanáro, influencing Nerwen to reach for ever greater heights. Even their children, her grand-nephews and grand-nieces: Telperinquar, Itarillë, Artaresto.
She is their aunt- often absent, cheerfully present. Firm-handed and gracious, with a sharp tongue and sharper eyes. Findis loves them all.
She does not use those words lightly.
…
She travels, from Tirion to Alqualondë to Vanyamar to the forests to the plains to the mountains and back again. Findis loves, and is loved, and is free as a bird with wings spread open, as a bird who knows where its home remains. It is a good life. It is the best life that Findis has ever known, and the only life she has ever wanted.